In the autumn of 1621, after three days of turkey, fried cornbread, pumpkin pudding and competitive sports, the Massachusetts colonists and Wampanoag Indians relaxed with beer and pizza.
Image (“First Fun Thanksgiving, after J.L.G. Ferris”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
President Barack Obama yesterday “pardoned” the 2009 National Thanksgiving Tofurky® in a ceremony in the Vegetable Garden on the South Lawn of the White House.
The mock-turkey vegetable roast will not be consumed by the First Family but will frolic with arugula, endive, and other surplus items from the presidential holiday meal in the Official White House Compost Heap.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Oh no! Despite reading Turkey Torching Tips for Guys, you have a great big, fully-cooked, deep-fried Thanksgiving turkey on your hands. You examine it minutely and discover there is no little red zip tab to open so you can take out slices. What now?
That’s some big old avian cadaver you got there, buddy. There’s only one manly way to divvy it up. That’s right: chainsaw.
The National Fire Protection Association claims “turkey fryers that use oil, as currently designed, are not suitable for acceptably safe use by even a well-informed and careful consumer.” Wimps! Thursday is Thanksgiving, when we give thanks for college football and a four-day weekend. That’s when Real American Men generate Code Orange air quality by incinerating poultry on the patio.
Any pantywaist metrocurian can cook on those SUV-sized natural gas, propane, electric, or gelignite-powered barbecue grills with all those fancy features (good subwoofers do help spread sauce evenly, though). Nah, let’s get ready to deep-fry some turkey. Here’s how:
1. Put Fire Department on Speed-Dial. Keep your cell phone in your welding apron pocket. It is unwise to enter a flaming residence to use the telephone.
2. Purchase more equipment. You can never have enough Real Guy outdoor cooking gear. Buy some new stuff at Home Depot first. Don’t bother with those electronic gizmos at Leading Edge; you can never read the LCD screens outdoors anyway. Williams-Sonoma? Isn’t that the California wine the wife likes?
3. Don’t forget the turkey. Make sure it is big enough to bother with. Double-check to make sure you are not buying a goat or lamb.
Blogs with Bite is an occasional omnivorous sampling of food blogs and sites we find particularly tasty. Follow the trail of bread crumbs back to earlier editions, starting here.
Here is a fresh serving of Blogs with Bite:
A Brief History of Turkey Research at BARC – The USDA’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center developed the Beltsville Small White Turkey, the genetic foundation of most turkeys sold today.
MeatHenge - Grilled meat, smoked meat, roasted meat and photography. Restaurant and product reviews from across the USA; recipes.
Gastronomer’s Guide - Well-written food blog by New York’s Joseph Erdos.
International Federation of Competitive Eating – IFOCE “supervises and regulates eating contests in their various forms throughout the world” with affiliates in United States, Japan, England, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Thailand and Ukraine.
International School of Pizza – Master Instructor Tony Gemignani offers U.S. students opportunities for Scuola Italiana Pizzaoili certification in Classic Italian Pizza, Roman Style Pizza or Pizza in Teglia (Pan Pizza). There are also courses in Neapolitan, New York, Chicago, California, and New Haven style pizza for professionals and home chefs.
TurkeyFest — Cuero (“rawhide”) Texas was known for cattle drives until a turkey dressing house opened and drovers walked the big birds into town each fall. In 1912 the event became a tourist attraction know as the Turkey Trot. The parade of poultry was replaced by a turkey race in 1972.
Today’s Government Executive Tip: Travel expenses for adulterous trysts are not reimbursable.
San Diego State University Athletic Director Jeff Schemmel resigned yesterday after being cited for ”improper use of state funds.” In January, Mr. Schemmel traveled to the resort city of Point Clear, Alabama for a romantic interlude with Carolyn Lineberger. The two are married, but not to each other.
Mr. Schemmel, who earned $257,000 annually at SDSU, claimed $460 in reimbursements on his university expense account for the adulterous excursion. The university punished the disgraced executive by paying him $116,000 and forgiving a $20,000 home loan payment, apparently drawn on some kind of non-governmental Athletic Department slush fund.
On this day in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a brief speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
If you missed the meeting, the PowerPoint is here.
Slides via Peter Norvig.
FindingDulcinea has an excellent post on the importance of this event.
More on PowerPoint here.
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
The District of Columbia Government is starting an awareness campaign to prepare citizens for January 1st, when the new five-cent shopping bag tax goes into effect. The law is meant to discourage use of disposable bags and reduce the amount of trash that clogs storm drains and the Anacostia River.
Take-out food orders are exempt, but dog owners will need to buy rolls of biodegradable poop bags to clean up after Fido. Hey, stop grumbling about pennies. Everybody knows that children are for people who can’t afford dogs.
Something the law does not take into account: shopping bag antagonism. If you don’t know what that is, carry your limited-edition reusable Whole Foods canvas totes (designed by Cheryl Crow) into Food Lion. People will assume you are a snob who is just slumming. Or carry a pair of nylon Safeway bags into Trader Joe’s. Shoppers and clerks will regard you as an interloper unworthy of the gourmet goodies. The truly cool will use handmade bags or baskets, trumping everyone.
Everybody knows that the inhabitants of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) dissappeared. Where did they go? Disneyworld? Abducted by space aliens? Did the inhabitants de-forest their island and starve themselves out? Maybe after they made those big stone heads (moai) they got creeped out by them and just split.
Or maybe it was the rats. Could rats have eaten the island’s palm trees and starved out the population? Terry L. Hunt proposed this, and German ecologists Andreas Mieth and Hans-Rudolf Bork think this was a contributing factor, along with the “slash-and-burn” agriculture practiced on Rapa Nui, which is too small for this type of practice to be sustainable. Or maybe the effort of constructing the huge stone shrines destroyed the Island’s resources.
Senator John Ensign (R-NV) is leaving his long-time DC digs at 133 C Street SE on Capitol Hill, where a conservative Christian cabal maintains rooms for powerful lawmakers (the building is registered as a church and pays no taxes). Is “the Fellowship” forcing Senator Ensign to leave his below-market bargain pied-à-terre?
No. The senator maintains he left on his own, to spare other house residents further negative publicity — as if he, Chip Pickering, and Mark Sanford had never lived, loved, and prayed at C Street. It is true, though, that Mr. Ensign, an Evangelical, will probably have to face the glare of the Senate Ethics Committee to explain the pay-offs made to his mistress, Cynthia Hampton, by his father, gambling magnate Mike Ensign. There is also talk of a Justice Department inquiry.
