Tonight, I’ll be hosting a little party for the staff of the Granville Island Veterinary Hospital. With two hours to go before festivities get underway, I’m doing a final check:
Dinner = Check! Japadog will be setting up shop in my backyard to serve up their Japanese-inspired hot dogs.
Dessert = Check! I picked up two enormous cakes, a carrot cake and a pistachio-vanilla cream.
Booze = In addition to my replete liquor cabinet, I’ve picked up some wine and, of course, the accompanying mixers.
Blog = I’m on it!
How did they not see this coming? http://www.cracked.com/article_20566_the-6-most-humiliating-public-failures-by-celebrity-psychics.html
Stroke victim cannot stop helping others after developing ‘pathological generosity’…
24 mind-blowing scenes of science in action: http://www.buzzfeed.com/h2/shfk/generalelectric/24-mind-blowing-vines-of-science-in-action
Get in the car, kids! We’re going to Boring! http://www.buzzfeed.com/miniusanotnormal/13-cities-with-the-strangest-names
Just in time for the Fantasy Football season: http://postgradproblems.com/the-worst-people-in-your-fantasy-football-league/ I pointed out the similarities of these “types” to some of the guys in my fantasy league – to which Lawren replied: “Huh you seemed to have left out #8 Joe…. why’s that?, referring to #8 “The loser who won’t stop talking about how he won the championship in 1998”. FYI – I won the championship in 2011.
Mmmmm. Ramen-burger: http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/5-insane-fast-foods-people-are-just-making-to-screw-with-us/
And the #1 drunkest city in America is…http://eater.com/archives/2013/01/04/here-are-the-drunkest-cities-in-america-1.php
Japanese banana art! http://kotaku.com/japanese-banana-art-is-so-damn-appealing-1170517664
Poochinski! Now that’s a show in desperate need of a reboot! The Funniest, Weirdest and Most Ridiculous TV Pilots Ever Produced
Whoa, whoa, WHOA! I thought that banana art was yet another cell phone pic of Anthony Weiner’s… ya know… weiner. 😛 (Next time I must read the captions faster and look at pictures slower!)
In other news of note, I made a most excellent gluten-free peach crisp tonight!
Peach Crisp (Gluten Free)
Serves 4-6 people
Baking time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
6-8 fresh peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced
A splash or three of Drambuie (My idea 😉 )
1 cup Bob’s Red Mill pancake and biscuit mix (recipe called for gluten-free all-purpose flour, which I didn’t have)
3/4 cup organic cane sugar (I used a mix of white and raw sugar)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice (recipe called for just cinnamon)
A dash of Ceylon [true] cinnamon (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt (optional – I did not use)
3/4 cup butter (recipe called for 1/2 cup but the mix seemed too dry)
Directions
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Place the peaches in a greased 8-in square baking dish, sprinkle with Drambuie.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar, spices, and salt. Using a pastry cutter, mix the butter into the flour mixture until it forms pea-sized crumbles. Sprinkle the mixture in an even layer over the top of the peaches.
4. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes, until the peaches are bubbling and the top is browned. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
It was delish!
For whatever reason, my tummy trouble is making me very hungry. Maybe I’m pregnant. 😛
JUST kidding!!
I hope…
das
That pilot thing reminds me… I’m sure somebody has already suggested Riverworld as a property to produce, but did you know there was a pilot? It was actually good in my definition of good, YMMV. Mark Twain’s gang fighting Nero’s gang from a riverboat…what’s not great about that?
I was so mad there wasn’t anything past that. And I can’t believe no studio has taken up the opportunity to have an all-25 year old cast. They use every other excuse, why not a setting that requires it?
Post-Lost, Post-Walking Dead sounds like a good time to bring that back. It was too other-worldly Pre-Lost, too “pre-existing property” Pre-WalkingDead/Dexter.
@das – The GF flour I’ve found that really does crisp up is the one made by King Arthur Flour (they use a different facility from their wheat flour). It’s too expensive for me to buy, but my mother-in-law bought some. I’ll have to try that crisp. I bet it’s easier to cut butter into flour when you don’t have to worry about over-working the gluten.
RE; 5 insane fast foods
i’d eat a pop-tart ice cream sandwich. creamed corn nuggets sound gross, especially since i hate creamed corn.
RE; drunkest cities
i’m surprised pittsburgh didn’t make the list. i always heard it was a football town with a drinking problem. or was that a drinking town with a football problem. i forget.
@ DP I was afraid that the pancake/biscuit mix would rise since it has baking powder in it, but since it was a dry mix it turned out just fine. It browned and crisped perfectly!
I was also afraid of the flavor, since it contained garbanzo bean flour. I’ve heard that can give food a funny taste. And when tasting the dry flour it did taste a bit ‘beany’. But with rice flour as the main ingredient it was a better option than another flour I had in which garbanzo bean flour was the main ingredient. In the end it didn’t taste beany at all! It just tasted wonderful!
I checked and was assured on-line that Drambuie was gluten-free (as the gluten in the malt doesn’t survive the distillation process), but it may be something to skip if you’re concerned about a reaction.
I thought the butter wasn’t cutting in the way it should so I actually kneaded it in by hand, then chopped it (I couldn’t find my pastry cutter – it’s buried in the cabinet – so used a food chopper (that old timey thing called a Kwik Kut).
In the end everything was fine…except my waistline since I went back for seconds! AND thirds!! 😀
das
Love the banana art, how neat. Hope the party was a smashing success! Pictures please. The pups probably loved all the people at the house. Just read where Tokyo is hosting the 2020 Olympics. Have a great day!
@Das: Thanks for the recipe! Looks yummy.
@Deni: I hope you feel better today. Colds are the worst.
@gforce: I’ll keep your step mom in my prayers.
@Mr. M.: I’m sure the party was a blast and all was appreciated!
I pray everyone is doing well out there!
I have an atheist skeptic friend who once worked as a phone psychic. Tarot cards were the hook. He was very good, but ultimately quit because he felt so wrong about fleecing the gullible.
So… how was the party?
Adopt any dogs?! 🙂
Hope your party was everything you planned it to be. Japadog, from what I tasted, are good summer time treats. Today, and for the near future, is BLT day. Yes, sun ripened fresh garden tomatoes are on the menu.
So what does one do when finished carving the banana? (The snake was really unsettling.) I know the “Prince Kay of the Milkyway” gets to keep her butter sculpture after the Minnesota State fair.
@Das: That recipe sounds good. My mother just made a peach pie from her first picking of her new peach tree. Those peaches were fantastic. Not so much as a surprise unless the tree is in Minnesota, not your typical local for peach trees. Next up are the fresh apples like Zestar and Honeycrisp.
Oh Joe, I have a suggestion for unsettling comic movie sequel. They just finished shooting scenes for the soon to be released Transforms 4 here in Chicago, a popular local for movie making. I am sure Cookie Monster will be saving his crumbs for that cinematic treat.
Hope all ran smoothly and that you got to enjoy yourself dear Joe! ps: feel free to throw us a party anytime, you and Akemi! and of course Lulu, J, etc 🙂
How was the party, ol’ man?? Hope all went well! 🙂
das
Having lived in Oregon most of my life, it still never ceases to amaze/amuse me that there’s a town called Boring. And based on where it’s located, I’m pretty sure it really is. (I also find it weird that California has a town called Weed. I feel like these kinds of towns were named by people who hated getting stuck in these middle-of-nowhere little nothing towns.)
The Guyver is the next movie, huh? I vaguely remember seeing that at one point. It… wasn’t very good.
Sounds wonderful. I’ll read the next blog to see how it all turned out.
Here are some weird names of Texas towns:
Alabama, Texas
Alligator School House, Texas
Two towns called Amherst, Texas so you better have the right zip code (and that is not the only example)
Baby Head, Texas
Balmorhea, Texas (sounds like some kind of medical ailment)
Ben Hur, Texas
Boys Ranch, Texas
Burning Bush, Texas
Bug Tussle, Texas
Coffeeville and Coffee City Texas (they really love their coffee here)
Climax, Texas (again 2 cities with the same name)
Cut and Shoot, Texas (which is not too far from me)
Dad’s Corner, Texas
Democrat, Texas (which is an oxymoron in this state of heavy Republicans voters)
Diddy Wa Diddy, Texas (sounds like a song, doesn’t it)
Ding Dong, Texas
Erick Oklahoma, Texas
Fate, Texas
Fly Gap, Texas
Frog, Texas
Frognot, Texas (perhaps the one without frogs?)
Gay Hill, Texas (again 2 cities with this name) which is only funny because they are a lot of people who are homophobic here.
Gun Barrel City, Texas
Guy Town, Texas (I guess maybe the boy habitants of Boys Ranch go when they grow up?)
Ireland, Texas (I guess state-naming towns weren’t enough; they branched out to international names as they have an Italy, Texas too)
Jot ‘Em Down, Texas
Liberty, Texas (not just 2 but 3 of these)
Loco, Texas
Mecca, Texas (and if you knew how much they hated people of Muslim faith here, you’d find this ironic, too)
Nada, Texas (I wonder if anything is even here?)
Nameless, Texas
Oasis Gas Station, Texas
Oatmeal, Texas
Okay, Texas
Pancake, Texas
Paul’s Store, Texas
Quicksand, Texas
Rambo, Texas
Rich Coffey, Texas
Swiss Alp, Texas
The Ditch, Texas
The Colony, Texas
The Woodlands, Texas (this is a uppity, yuppy town–my town)
Universe, Texas
Utopia, Texas (I bet that is not the ideal place to live either)
Valley View (4 cities with the same name)
Weeping Mary, Texas
Welcome, Texas
Welfare, Texas
Whitehouse, Texas
Who’d Thought It, Texas
Zigzag, Texas