Why do we do this other stuff? Why not. If nothing else, football gives us a chance to relax from the deeper issues we post here at TAP. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to a third blog to post (one way or the other) about my opinions on the latest Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Either that, or jump over to our sister site. Bask in the high quality website design. Pay no attention whatsoever to the actual written content. Either way.
Unrelated photograph of insane man.
We had to pick a dish to bring for the work potluck. I chose potato salad, because it was easier than telling work I don’t like them and refusing to play. So we decided to spice things up and make a potato salad that nobody on the planet had ever had before.
stupid work potato salad
8 strips bacon, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 lbs mixed potatoes, cubed
1/8 cup white wine vinegar
6 garlic cloves, mined
1 lemon, juiced
salt & pepper
1 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp olive oil
4 eggs
2 Tbsp mustard
1 cup mayo
2 Tbsp sriracha
1/4 cup capers
1/2 cup parmesan
cook the bacon over medium-high heat in a saute pan until it’s nicely done, remove bacon and set aside; discard all but about 1 Tbsp of the bacon fat from the pan; add the onion and cook until browned, add the brown sugar, lower the heat, and slowly caramelize the onions
preheat the oven to 375 degrees; wash the cubed potatoes in a colander, add them to a bowl and toss with the vinegar, garlic, 1/2 of the lemon juice, salt & pepper, paprika, and olive oil; dump the potato mixture on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil and roast, stirring once, for about a half-hour until the potatoes are crispy but not overly brown
meanwhile, hard boil the eggs, cool them in the fridge, then peel and dice them
in a large bowl, add the potatoes, then add the mustard, mayo, sriracha, capers, remaining lemon juice, onion, bacon, eggs, and cheese, mix them all up until it’s a nice salad; serve immediately hot, or later on cold
Let’s begin!
Cube the potatoes to a size you like and then wash them in a colander to get the starch off. In a large mixing bowl douse the potatoes with the vinegar, garlic, juice of half the lemon, salt, pepper, paprika, and olive oil.
Cut the garlic to a size you like. I minced it because you never know how much folks do or do not like garlic. But, if I’d been cooking for myself I’d probably just leave the garlic cloves whole and roast them as is.
Make sure you mix up the bowl really well. You want the paprika, vinegar, and olive oil to really coat all the potatoes. After that, aluminum foil on a baking sheet and bake them.
Do not pre-grease the aluminum foil. As you stir them yes, they may tend to stick to the foil so don’t make the mistake of not stirring them at all during the roasting. You want the potatoes to be brown but not overly done, just slightly still firm. It’s potato salad and not true fully roasted browned potatoes.
You’ve got regular old bacon and hard boiled eggs which are staples of many potato salads. I add caramelized onions because I love them and want to share that love with all humanity.
When you’re done making the bacon, eggs, onions, and potatoes, it’s time to mix it all together with the remaining ingredients.
Use whatever mustard and mayo you prefer. The sriracha is flexible with another hot sauce if you want. Go with what you like. But please put some kind of sauce in there because it’s money and not boring.
The capers add a nice extra touch for my taste. If you don’t like capers, you can skip this part.
As with before, make sure you really get a good mix in the bowl so all the sauces coat the potatoes all over.
You can serve this immediately while it’s hot, or chill it and serve later cold.
Be advised, this will not really keep in the fridge for more than about two or three days. After that time, the moisture starts to separate from the potato mixture and the salad becomes dry and tough.
This is easily tackled by reheating the mixture in the microwave for about a minute to loosen it up again. But, generally speaking, I’d eat it all within two days for max tastiness.
Enjoy life!
Well, it’s been two months since my employer (dressed as an evil smiling clown) black bagged me in the middle of the night and sent me abroad. And my precious, precious doggies are doing well with my host family, but I miss them. I also miss my kitchen. A lot.
This has ended up being a far bigger issue than I would have expected. If you cook regularly, we all have our kitchens. We know them. It’s downright transparent. You might make an alteration here and there, but it’s essentially static. The dynamic factor is the food.
We also have what I guess you can call guest kitchens. For example I cook at my Ma’s for me Ma all the time. I know that kitchen like the back of my hand. It means nothing for me to cook over there as if it was my own.
So I guess I just kind of assumed since work wasn’t sending me to the middle of Vlad’s Siberia wonderland or a tiger filled jungle that I’d have a real kitchen, figure it out, and it would be fine. Right? Nope. But, why?
1) Bare Basics
Because I’m abroad for a limited time I didn’t get to bring my stuff. Work has a local contract (which wouldn’t pass most Western anti-corruption standards) to provide me the very bare bones basics at my apartment. This means I’ve got some plates, a few bowls, and six sad water glasses. I’ve also got some D grade pots and pans manufactured in Yugoslavia Circa 1989.
You can forget the most benign of kitchen items are important to you, until they don’t exist. Out here I have bowls, but they’re of a shallow nature, and hold only enough liquid for a six year old’s soup I made curry and the broth was a rather light consistency. Given the small bowl size I had hardly any food in there.
In frustration, I ended up using a pot as my eating bowl instead. I’m there eating straight out of the pot and I look over and there’s this Viking ghost sitting next to me doing the same. He hoists his drinking horn in a toast, I hoist my cheap ass local beer can made of cadmium. Cheers my Viking brother, I’ve gone back in time. It burns. The spicy curry, not the cadmium, not yet anyways.
How about spices? How about starting from zero, nothing. At home I might have 50 spices of a variety that would make a 16th Century Portuguese smuggler angry and pull his cutlass. Out here I had a bare cupboard. I’ve methodically replenished jar by jar for weeks.
At first I didn’t get new measuring cups because I didn’t want to buy new ones. I eyed everything. Then I realized you really can’t write proper recipes without them. So I had to go buy new measuring cups I didn’t want to purchase.
Remember grating cheese or vegetables? This is a pretty standard task, right? But what happens when you don’t have a grater? You have to make a tactical decision on whether it’s important enough to buy a new grater. Countless, countless decisions need to be made on how important things and tools are to you.
So you’re probably like, well, whatever man, just go buy all this stuff. It’ll be fun, right? But, …
2) Waste
I already have a grater, and spices, and bowls, and whatever back home. So I’m going to buy new items to satisfy my kitchen needs out here, for what, one year and some change? I had to buy a new colander because you essentially can’t cook without one.
But I’ve got like five or six different sized colander’s back home. So this was an unnecessary purchase. I felt really bad buying it even though I knew I absolutely needed it. So what do I do with it after I’m done here? Ship it home? I need a seventh colander less than a mercenary elf assassin.
So I guess I’ll ship the new one home, and donate one of my older colanders to charity? I guess?
It’s not that big a deal for these minor tools I suppose. A colander or a peeler or a wooden spoon are small, relatively cheap, and just not that big of an impact to anything. But, …
3) Gear
For the first few years of my cooking journey I didn’t really employ gear. You need good knives, good pans, a large steel mixing bowl, etc. For a long while I never used things like a food processor, blender, spice grinder, any of that. But once I did, and learned how to use them well. They became essential tools.
This is even truer for me because I like to cook and experiment with various cuisines from around the globe. Now without this gear I feel my powers are reduced. There’s less magic to be made. Buying a new colander I don’t need is minor waste. Buying a new food processor that costs north of three figures? I haven’t done that. I won’t do that.
And so in the meantime: I’m in a dark cave, behind me are a bunch of kidnapped urchin children I’m rescuing. The cursed bear is up on his hind legs, roaring, foaming with delight, urchins are screaming in terror. “I’ll deal with him,” I firmly state. I reach for my sorcerer wand, and nothing is there. Then the urchins are running and screaming as the bear rips me in half. But, …
4) The Past
I don’t know how my Grandparents did it. It’s weird to think about. The number one thing I typically wonder is how they cooked all that delicious food with so little counter space. The answer is I think they did a ton of prep actually at the kitchen table. In those days the table was actually right in the kitchen.
My Grandmother had a double stack oven, the kind where you have two whole elements you could set to different temperatures. So that capability was awesome, and actually in excess of what most kitchens have today. But they didn’t have fancy tools like food processors or spice grinders. They probably didn’t let a of lack spice jars bother them as much as it does me.
So it’s tough to know how much of my current kitchen is real legitimate frustration on my part, and how much of it is I’m an amateur cook who’s a spoiled brat. I’m still cooking and cooking well out here, it’s just a slog at times with these various limitations. It sucks when you plan a meal, you’re in the zone, and you reach for (x) and you’ve entirely forgotten you don’t have it.
So you flex, and get it done, and the food tastes great. But it was much harder to do, and so there’s a commensurate lapse in enjoyment.
Not sure how I feel about all this. But that’s about it. I miss my dogs. I really miss my family and friends. I’ll get the kitchen back too, and that’ll be nice.
In the meantime, it’s been a good long while since I put a recipe up here. More on that, and soon. After all, work made me.
A few weeks ago we wrote morbidly about how formerly respectable news organizations had sacked their own credibility in order to get one guy at any cost. So apparently it’s now perfectly normal to have an interview with a porn star posted everywhere like it’s real news. But man, things got even more out of hand afterwards.
Next they drug out the widely known Psilon smuggler, scoundrel, slave labor proprietor, jai-alai extraordinaire, and amateur bridge player Erga Uticus for the backstory of his past interactions with Trump. If you missed this segment, not to worry, below’s a snippet. For the complete transcript, just write to us, and please make sure to include your credit card info, because producing publications isn’t cheap:
The Arcturus Project – Erga Uticus Interview Transcript
C/O Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
1794 Aguiyi Ironsi Street
Abuja 900001, Nigeria
…
60 Minutes: So what you’re saying it is was difficult to work with him?
Erga Uticus: Oh, you have no idea. I’ve dealt with some weird creatures before. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fence goods via a Silicoid arms dealer? But Trump, he was the worst.
60M: You were burdened?
EU: I was burdened.
60M: Do you regret working with him?
EU: Well, that’s difficult to explain. I mean, I got paid, man did I get fucking paid, but I just don’t know if it was worth the effort. The guy bleeds you, he makes you scrape every dollar out of him. Don’t get me wrong, I respect, gotta respect a man who knows how to gut the guy at the other end of the table, but by The Emperor’s blessing it’s just too much work.
60M: What did you think when you heard he was elected our president?
EU: You gotta understand, where I come from the rules are different. I figured (in my own mindset) he’d liquidate all his enemies overnight. He’d have a pile of skulls dumped on the White House lawn by morning. But, then I remembered you all have different rules out here.
60M: I see.
EU: Then I thought he would rig the game to funnel cash to his own business interests at the expense of the little guy. But then I realized that every businessman already does that anyway, so it was kind of a mute point.
60M: That’s very true.
…
Everyone is welcome to think one way or the other about America’s guns. But with every shooting, I’m on the side of jaded apathy and cynicism. There may be a solution, a compromise between sides that can be found on guns. It’s not going to happen. Those who marched are pushing with all they’ve got for gun control. That’s also not going to happen.
1) Those who marched seem to be under the impression that politicians work for them. That’s supposed to be how it works. But it doesn’t. Congress works for the following people:
a) Major campaign donors
b) The extreme fringe 5% of their party that rules their lives during the primary of their heavily gerrymandered district
c) Themselves
d) Ordinary average voter
In that order. I’m sure there might be a handful of folks in Congress who are decent people who are there primarily to do good. But I’ve come to believe they’re in the minority.
Ask yourself, what normal person would subject themselves to the vicious cage fight that is modern politics? The answer is, a normal person wouldn’t. Congress is not populated with problem solvers looking to compromise or make progress.
It’s why they can’t even conduct basic tasks like pass a budget on time. They’re on an unhinged two year cycle where their goal is not to do work, but to satisfy the cravings of (a) and (b). Rinse and repeat.
Anybody expecting that these people are going to be the ones to solve problems is asking too much a system that is (sadly) essentially broken at this point.
2) Think what you will about the NRA’s beliefs, but one cannot deny it is the most successful lobby in American history. There are two people on the planet who I believe possess the powers of the ancient Aztec demon god Itzpapalotltotec. They are Bill Belichick and Wayne LaPierre. These guys are absolute masters of their craft. Nobody can compete with them.
At this point, if you hired LaPierre and told him to get Congress to pass a law saying all ketchup bottles must be colored pink, he could probably get it done. The NRA has five million card carrying members. This is by far one of the largest and most dedicated interest groups in the country.
Unless the people who marched this weekend establish their own singular lobby group, get millions of people to join it, and fund it with a dump truck full of money they’re not going to compete effectively with the NRA.
As an example, after the Vegas shooting I think most people could get onboard with the most basic of gun control arguments, that bump stocks that converted a weapon to fully automatic under the table was not a good thing. They couldn’t even get that passed into law, they had to do it on the side later.
3) I’m just going to go ahead and say this. Most Americans simply do not care. I read an article yesterday that said since 2000 over 600K Americans have died in car crashes. Go ahead and try and wrap your brain around that number. In the last 15 years we’ve had more Americans die behind the wheel than in all our 20th Century wars combined.
Throughout my life I’ve known several people who’ve died in car crashes. I also know a handful of people who’ve died in gun violence. But, selfishly, or cynically, there just isn’t much I can do about it.
We Americans have a shocking tolerance for mayhem, death, and destruction. I think it’s in our primal colonial blood. It’s built into our national psyche.
I’m not going stop driving, or go out and demand that every car come equipped with that goo that saves Stallone from dying in a horrible crash in Demolition Man. I have personally accepted the risk to myself and to society associated with cars.
I think (whether they admit it or not) the vast majority of Americans have accepted the risk to themselves and to society associated with guns. Folks might not like it, but it’s the way it is.
Those who marched today think that this mindset is beginning to change, and the march shows it. I don’t agree. I’m sure more people have died to gunfire in Chicago since this last shooting than those who died in the Florida school. People intellectually know this, but essentially don’t care. They move on with their lives.
Like all this, or hate this, either way, I just don’t believe it’s going to change.
Democracy is a mess, and mostly doesn’t work, but it’s still a beautiful thing. Agree or disagree with those who marched, it’s still part of our freedom that they believe in a cause and are out there fighting for what they believe in. But, I do believe, all of these people have wasted their time.
gun control march in Washington DC, Circa 2029
It’s perfectly normal to have a live listening device inside the privacy of your home, say trendy tech savvy people.
Why do we do this other stuff? Why not. If nothing else, football gives us a chance to relax from the deeper issues we post here at TAP. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to a third blog to post (one way or the other) about my opinions on the latest FBI firing.
Either that, or jump over to our sister site. Bask in the high quality website design. Pay no attention whatsoever to the actual written content. Either way.
Learning how other people live is one of the great joys of travel. It enriches your life and generally makes you understand humanity and appreciate home more. But it can also get weird, the kind of experience that makes you think deeply. Or write about it on a garbage blog penned by a closet lunatic.
In America when you get fruits or vegetables at the grocery, the checkout cashier is the one who enters the appropriate code, weighs / counts the produce, and determines the price you pay. Where I currently live, there is a separate and distinct produce counter that performs this function.
I learned this the hard way when I first showed up at the till and they got mad at me. I actually kind of like this process a lot better. Though America will never change to it because we prefer the brute force method.
In America, depending on what caliber of cashier you get, you can spend a long time just sitting there while they confusingly look up the appropriate four digit produce code. I buy a heroic amount of fruits and vegetables so this is a big deal for me. When you have a tailored produce cashier, it’s all they do, and so they fly. They know the codes cold, and it’s nice and quick.
Anyways, yesterday I get in line at the produce checkout. I’ve got fifteen or so items. I’m behind a middle-aged housewife who has more than me. The checkout lady is doing her thing. I lay out my items behind the housewife and wait my turn. Then a guy steps up next to me and puts his one bag on the counter in front of mine.
So essentially this guy has cut in line without saying a word to me. A foreigner like me, he looks like a bald Jeremy Corbyn (which probably explains his behavior). Without saying a word, I give this guy the death eyes. This causes him to mumble something and pick up his bag. Then a series of thoughts occurred in my simpleton brain in quick succession:
– Why are you making an issue of this? It really doesn’t matter. We humans are all just shadows and dust. Your bleached skeleton status awaits.
– Is there some local custom where since I have like fifteen things, and he has just one, that he can cut in line and it’s just cool, he doesn’t have to say anything?
– Or, even if he’s just a jerk, who cares? Be the better man.
So after I got two of my produce scanned, I stopped the checkout lady, and motioned to Jeremy to get his one item scanned. He nodded thank you and moved on. And I’m left to ponder my thoughts about culture and morality and whatever.
BUT, then I turn around and see there are six people in line behind me. Some of them have only one or two items too. And, some of them are elderly. So it’s not culture, it’s just this guy was a jerk. He was just probably a guy who takes candy from street urchins on the 1835 Paris streets.
Dude should have gotten in line like everyone else.
That’s it! My Guests and I shall summon our good old friend Enforcement Drone Version 2.09 (ED209) as our assistant in resolving this matter. We’ll enforce the customs of this foreign land on our own!
1) Guilt
Jeremy wrongly cuts in produce checkout line. ED209 saunters up and wryly comments to the individual in his stale robot voice.
ED209: ATTENTION SIR, THERE IS A LINE. CAN YOU NOT SEE THE ELDERLY INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE PATIENTLY WAITING WHILE YOU ARE NOT? WHY DO YOU HATE THE ELDERLY? HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT?
2) Shame
ED209 walks up, observes Jeremy has cut in line. ED209 then activates his video streaming device.
ED209: ATTENTION SIR, THIS INCIDENT HAS BEEN RECORDED ON VIDEO, WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION PAID TO THE FACES OF THE ELDERLY THAT YOU CUT AHEAD OF. COPIES OF THIS INCIDENT WILL BE PROVIDED TO ALL RELEVANT MEMBERS OF YOUR EXTENDED FAMILY. REPEAT COPIES WILL BE MAILED TO THEM ON ALL YOUR FUTURE BIRTHDAYS.
3) Fear
ED209 walks up and shoots the individual in the kneecap.
ED209: YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF OUR ESTABLISHMENT’S PRODUCE SANITARY STANDARDS. WE WILL INSIST YOU PAY FULL PRICE FOR YOUR BLOOD SPATTERED FRUIT. WE WILL DENY ENTRY TO YOUR PERSON IN THE FUTURE TO AVOID FURTHER COMPLICATIONS.
4) Punishment
Jeremy cuts in line. When he gets back to his car he finds ED209 has combusted it in an orgy of fire and flames.
ED209: YOU WILL NOW BE ASSESSED THE VARIOUS FEES ASSOCIATED WITH THE FORTHCOMING FIRE DEPARTMENT RESPONSE, THE SCRAP STEEL REMOVAL FEES, AND VARIOUS GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL FINES.
5) Morality
ED209 forces him to sit down for a five hour chat on the various moral considerations involved with cutting in line, making a clear case for the values of a balanced ethical society.
6) Apathy
ED209 observes Jeremy, offers no comment or correction, hoping over time the individual in question establishes some type of internal corrective action guided by conscience.
Which ones of these will work? I’ll let you decide.
“Great work at the produce checkout today. Fist bump, my brother!” [ED209 shatters every bone in my hand; my screams are heard in the grocery parking lot]
Does anybody remember Geoffrey the Giraffe? To be honest, until this morning I’d completely forgotten he existed. Even reading the articles about how Toys R Us is finished didn’t prompt me to remember. Only when I started to write this post did I recall.
Here’s the backstory. In 1948 following service in The War, Charles P. Lazarus descended into the African jungle in search of nothing but the highest quality products he could sell to the people, namely bicycles. He employed the finest in German explorers (unemployed since May 1945), coolies, and technology. After getting lost in the bush, soon only Lazarus remained alive. Soon to expire, he awoke from his pre-death slumber held in the firm embrace of one Geoffrey the Giraffe.
As he was slowly nursed back to health over many months, Geoffrey explained to Lazarus that the real money was in selling toys and baby products to the Boomer generation. Lazarus agreed to implement Geoffrey’s plan, but only on the condition that Geoffrey ended his self-imposed three-thousand year isolation and rejoin the known world. And so for near seven decades Toys R Us existed and Geoffrey delighted millions with his special powers.
Well, that was fun, but now the ride is over. Geoffrey is said to have tried to make a break for it. He’d procured tickets on a tramp steamer bound from Brooklyn to Kinshasa. But assassins in the pay of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Bain Capital (who own Toys R Us) got him on the quay at 3am as he was trying to sneak up the mooring line. Rather than rejoin the jungle to wait for three-thousand years again, Geoffrey’s getting taken to the woodshed. At KKR Bain’s exclusive Adirondack retreat. But KKR Bain’s Masters are merciful, the deed will be done quickly.
It’ll be hard for future generations to understand just how central Toys R Us once was to the American experience. Now, gone. Any coincidence that it’s end came as a result of a private equity firm mismanaging it and filling it up with endless debt? I think not. I’m sure KKR made billions in profit off Toys R Us’ demise. But it still doesn’t change the long term dive in retail.
Six months ago after a personal experience with bad stores, I predicted the doom of retail. I thought this would take decades. But perhaps the rout has already begun.
Maybe in less than a decade there will only be the following physical stores left:
– Ultra Cheap Retail (Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, etc)
– Cheap Retail (Walmart, Target, etc)
– Niche Rich (Starbucks, Small Bookstore, Craft (of any variety), etc)
– Groceries
– Restaurants
– Pharmacies
– Home Improvement
And in the end, maybe it won’t be that bad after all. I took a look at the top 50 retailers in America. Of all those 50, here are the ones that don’t fit into my list:
Best Buy
Macy’s
TJX
Sears
Kohl’s
Nordstrom
Ross
JC Penny
Gap
L Brands
Bed, Bath, and Beyond
Toys R Us was #62. So that’s roughly 15-20% of all stores are doomed. That’s a lot, but it’s not like it’s 50%. So I guess the rout / realignment has already started.
Poor Geoffrey, RIP.
Why do we do this other stuff? Why not. If nothing else, football gives us a chance to relax from the deeper issues we post here at TAP. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to a third blog to post (one way or the other) about my opinions on NFL players kneeling or standing during the national anthem.
Either that, or jump over to our sister site. Bask in the high quality website design. Pay no attention whatsoever to the actual written content. Either way.
The Arcturus Project 