I’m a re- person. I like to reread books, rewatch movies, TV shows, all of that. I don’t wallow in the past, but when the pickings are slim, sometimes I’ll decide to rewatch “Mad Men,” and out of guilt for the indulgence I look for something different to pay attention to, critically.
This time? Food.
I often reflect on the difference in American meals over the course of my lifetime, how much richer, more varied, larger they was when I was a kid. I don’t need to tell you that, in my part of the Midwest, a salad used to be iceberg lettuce and a tomato the approximate flavor of cardboard. Dressing was made by Kraft. Vinaigrette was unheard of; if you were that kind of weirdo, a waitress would bring you twin cruets of salad oil and mystery vinegar.
You were there. You remember. Needless to say, it’s different now. In fact, food has emerged as the new religion, given outsize importance in American life. But “Mad Men,” with its famous attention to detail, is pretty close to how I remember ’60s food. It’s interesting to take note of.
First of all, the show takes place in New York, and as New York has always been, it was ahead of Columbus, Ohio. So, early on, when Don and Betty are in a hotel room, and she’s ordering room service, she asks for “crab meat in an avocado.” Crab meat was fancy food, but I don’t think I even knew what an avocado was until I was in college. The Drapers throw a fancy dinner party, and Betty is enormously proud of her trip-around-the-world menu, including “rumaki from Japan” (remember that) and gazpacho (nope). They go out to dinner, and the appetizer is a glass of tomato juice, served in a small glass in a small dish. Definitely remember that; it was standard in steakhouses into my college years.
There’s more. You want to know about the obesity problem? Look at the sandwiches dispensed from the coffee cart – they’re two pieces of standard grocery bread, and barely a filling. (Although everyone eats donuts and “buttered rolls” for breakfast in the office, and that doesn’t seem to show on anyone.) Don walks in the door on a summer night and Betty asks, “Hot or cold?” The choices: Swedish meatballs or chicken salad. Either one will serve for dinner, with Ritz crackers.
People just didn’t pay that much attention to what they ate, compared to today. But the classics then are classics today. Roger asks a waiter for “iceberg wedges with bleu cheese and bacon,” aka the wedge salad. Joy the lotus-eater tells Don about the Mexican food on his plate: “It’s a pepper, stuffed with cheese.” Chile rellano. Don drinks like a fish, but doesn’t eat very much, which made his choice of a late-night snack, corned beef hash with an egg, a little puzzling, but maybe that’s how he endures – fatty midnight meals to coat the stomach for all that drinking during the day.
The late-decade pivot to fast food comes when the firm guns for the Burger Chef account, a place I remember well – not exactly a regional chain, but it never caught on too widely. Didn’t they flame-broil their burgers? I liked them, although now I know the flavor probably came from a test tube. My mother worked full-time, unusual for our neighborhood, but fast food was a rare treat, saved for when my father was out of town on business. We preferred Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips.
Anyway, we’re in season three now, and I think I’m going to slow the pace a bit. I want to leave for France (fingers still crossed; pass sanitaire still hanging in the balance) with an empty stomach.
I leave you with what got me thinking of all this: A page from one of my mother’s most-used cookbooks (although we never had this). “The American Woman’s Cookbook” is a real time capsule, and I’ve enjoyed paging through it, if not actually cooking from it. It’s a reminder that grocery stores weren’t always lavish cathedrals of food, and sometimes you had to make a meal out of what you could get your hands on:
Happy Wednesday. May all work weeks be four days.
Kristen said on September 8, 2021 at 10:14 am
“Remove head and tail IF DESIRED” !
35 chars
Julie Robinson said on September 8, 2021 at 11:32 am
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. Yet my grandma’s family might have been this desperate more than once. Even my own parents ate tongue and organ meats, and the saying on the farm was that you used everything from the pig except the squeal. Still, ick.
Remember when the “diet plate” was cottage cheese on a leaf of iceburg lettuce, with half a canned peach plopped on top? Now we have all kinds of exotic greens available in our own garden, and with cooler weather ahead, are getting ready to plant some new ones. There will be a fight between my mom and my daughter about the dandelion seeds, with one seeing them as weeds and one seeing them as an interesting new source of nutrition. Oy veh.
710 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 8, 2021 at 11:32 am
Dressings by Kraft make me think of Ed Herlihy and I smile.
The theme song for “Mad Men” was made by a Columbus, Ohio group, but I’m not recalling their name.
Update: Columbus’s RJD2 with Aceyalone – https://www.mic.com/articles/87589/the-strange-origins-of-the-mad-men-theme-song
282 chars
Suzanne said on September 8, 2021 at 11:50 am
I read a book a few years ago titled A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression by Jane Ziegelman, Andrew Coe which quite interesting regarding US culinary habits.
My mom & MIL were very much products of their era: iceberg lettuce always, minimal spices, and why make anything from scratch when you can use a box mix or a can? Our daughter hosted some sort of reception once and I helped her bake several kinds of cake. The MIL was mystified. “Why don’t you just get a mix?”
I got my mom some prepackaged soup thing that included all the dried beans and spices to which she only needed to add a few tomatoes and carrots. She complained it took too long to cook.
688 chars
Julie Robinson said on September 8, 2021 at 12:00 pm
For women who started their fried chicken by killing and plucking it, convenience foods must have seemed like the Holy Grail. Depending on my phase in life, I’ve spent all day in the kitchen making everything from scratch/depended heavily on the frozen food aisle. My cooking interest waned 100% when I started having foot pain and it became a zero sum game. These days I’m helped considerably by living in a household that includes a retired guy who discovered a love of cooking late in life. So I don’t judge.
Okay, I do judge a little. Using canned soup in a casserole when it takes five minutes to whip up a white sauce is a crime against taste.
652 chars
ninja3000 said on September 8, 2021 at 12:12 pm
Back in the ’60s, my dad was an actual “Mad Men” man. But my mother was a French chef!
86 chars
Dave said on September 8, 2021 at 12:26 pm
My mother was born in 1927 and a very good baker. She looked down her nose at what she always called “box” cakes. Everything she made was made from scratch and she claimed she could tell the difference. “Oooh, that’s a box cake”.
Bringing up “Mad Men” makes me remember I read an interview with Jon Hamm and he said he was always surprised when people would tell him they wanted to be like Don Draper. He’d ask them why, he was a thoroughly awful person.
461 chars
Icarus said on September 8, 2021 at 1:06 pm
Julie Robinson @ 5: Using canned soup in a casserole when it takes five minutes to whip up a white sauce is a crime against taste.
I assume you mean using a can of cream of mushroom soup instead of making a white sauce of your own with mushrooms? To me, I figure the 5 minutes saved is more time spent on something else.
speaking of food, I always found it weird that we classify our diets. If you don’t eat meat you are a vegetarian. But let’s say you only eat it on occasion. 365 X 3 squares and snacks…let’s round up to 1200. If you only eat meat 10% of the time, what does that make you?”
614 chars
David C said on September 8, 2021 at 1:08 pm
I’ve eaten groundhog or woodchuck, whatever it’s called in your neighborhood. My now ex-uncle was testing out his new .22 ga. rifle on my grandparent’s farm. He popped a groundhog and asked grandpa what to do with it. Grandpa said to dress it out so he did. Then grandma felt obligated to cook it. It’s like doubly fattier than the fattiest chuck roast you’ve ever had. I don’t recommend it except maybe in emergencies.
419 chars
Scout said on September 8, 2021 at 1:30 pm
That possum recipe made me gag, but pretty much anything to do with animal products does, so ymmv.
Mad Men always reminds me of my parents when I was growing up in the 60’s, not because my Dad was a playboy philanderer who often didn’t come home, but because he and mom were very hip in dress, decor, art, food, the cocktail culture and the music in our home. There was always Brubeck, Simone, Alpert and bossa nova playing. Their furniture was genuine Knoll and Bertoia. The music and style from that show make me sentimental for that time. I’ve been thinking it about it a lot lately since my Dad died in July. My thoughts and memories have been especially centered around that era and hardly anything from the recent past when he was sick, for which I am grateful.
770 chars
Sherri said on September 8, 2021 at 1:32 pm
I listened to more people protesting the hotel purchase for housing the homeless at last night’s city council meeting. They seem to have gotten a little sensitive to the fact that they came across as so anti-homeless, so last night I heard how they want to help the “good behavior” homeless, and when the “bad behavior” homeless “get help”, they can move in, too.
(Much of the energy behind the protest is coming from the Chinese-American community, which is *very* anti-drug, as I learned during hearings about retail marijuana. When I say Chinese-American, I mean mainland China, not Taiwan, and the propaganda around drugs in mainland China is evidently intense.)
684 chars
FDChief said on September 8, 2021 at 1:45 pm
Growing up my mother (Home Ec., Cornell, Class of ’51) had a third edition Joy of Cooking that had recipes for every kind of critter you can imagine – possum, squirrel, beaver (beaver?), muskrat along with all the “usual” kinds of game like venison. The ‘possum recipe says very specifically that the best way to make the beast edible is to “trap ‘possum and feed it on milk and cereals for 10 days before killing.” which presents the gruesome picture of the hissing marsupial waiting in the cage near the back door for the fatal blow.
The best part, though, is the instructions for things like skinning squirrels (word to the wise, “gray squirrels are preferred to red squirrels, which are quite gamy in flavor.”) and butchering large animals – the “beef” section includes a diagram of cuts from a side of beef, which presumes you’d HAVE a side of beef hanging – that give you a peek into the kitchen of the pre-mid-century America.
Pretty awesome.
958 chars
Dave said on September 8, 2021 at 2:21 pm
Now I’m thinking of Granny Clampett’s possum gizzards.
54 chars
Deborah said on September 8, 2021 at 2:40 pm
My mother who died in 1964 was the worst cook, and my ex MIL wasn’t any better. My husband says the same thing about his mother. The 50s and 60s were the worst era for food. Everything canned or frozen, no fresh anything and lots more processed stuff came along soon after. My mother wasn’t interested in cooking, it was a daily chore for her and she read while cooking. My main memories of her are of her stirring a pot of some glop while she had her nose in a book. Burnt offerings were normal. As a result I didn’t eat much as a kid and I tend to still be that way today at 70. While I like a good meal, food isn’t a focus for me.
I knew about avocados early on because we had a tree in our yard. But the Florida avocados aren’t as tasty as the California ones, so I learned that.
796 chars
LAMary said on September 8, 2021 at 3:40 pm
My father was nostalgic about depression food so we often had very cheap, fatty cuts of meat (he’d drink the pan fat from a juice glass) served with boiled potatoes and if we could find it, kale. Otherwise cabbage.Boiled potatoes every night. Not mashed or baked or fried. Fried potatoes were for breakfast.
307 chars
Mark P said on September 8, 2021 at 3:46 pm
We never ate weird food when I was growing up. Maybe that’s because my mother grew up in the big city, Akron. Her mother, who grew up in South Georgia might well have eaten things like possum. We lived a mile from my father’s mother. I remember seeing a skinned rabbit in their sink once, but we didn’t eat there that day. They didn’t have to eat small game. I think my father’s step-father just liked to hunt.
A friend from work said her father made her and her brother eat scrambled squirrel brains at Christmas. An old Alabama dish, I guess.
555 chars
David C said on September 8, 2021 at 3:59 pm
My mom was good at baking. She made great bread and pies. With meat and veg her mission was to make sure it was well and truly dead. Meat was always overdone and the vegetables were boiled to mush. There were so many thing I swore I didn’t like until someone but Mom made them. I never knew I liked Brussels sprouts until someone roasted them in olive oil. They weren’t mush. Who knew?
385 chars
Sherri said on September 8, 2021 at 4:34 pm
No possum or squirrel, though my mom would cook pig brains sometimes. My grandparents used to slaughter a hog, and no, nothing went to waste, but that was well before my time. My mom would tell the story of her introduction to the realities of farm life when the goat she thought of as a pet ended up on the dinner table.
Mostly meals consisted of meat and homegrown and preserved (either frozen or canned) vegetables, but boxed dinners like Chef Boyardee and Hamburger Helper were special occasions when Dad was not around for dinner. Casseroles with canned soup, a staple of Southern church lady cuisine, were for holidays and church potlucks.
649 chars
Sherri said on September 8, 2021 at 5:03 pm
I always enjoying laughing at libertarians.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading
157 chars
Deborah said on September 8, 2021 at 5:30 pm
I finished our condo building yard project at about noon today. The last couple of days I was on my own to do the work because LB has been under the weather with her throat and cough issues. She’s better today, never had a fever and as I said we gave her a home Covid test yesterday which registered negative. I worked in the mornings when the area was mostly in shade and it looks so much better, so that is satisfying.
We are deep into legal matters with our A-hole condo owner. Lots to consider but it doesn’t look like she has a prayer of a chance to come out of this unscathed.
587 chars
alex said on September 8, 2021 at 6:18 pm
My parents did a lot of foreign travel and were exposed to exotic foods that they then tried to recreate at home. So I had gazpacho as a child and paella too and ratatouille and vichyssoise and those were so good that they went into regular rotation. My parents also had foodie friends who formed a gourmet cooking club and they’d all get together once a month for a dinner party, and so I think my mom learned a lot of new things there as well. We always had good food. Sure, we had some crappy weeknight meals too with stuff that came out of boxes and cans, but we were definitely more adventurous than most in our midwestern neighborhood.
One thing we didn’t have a lot of was seafood because the pickings were so poor in this part of the country until relatively recently.
780 chars
ROGirl said on September 8, 2021 at 6:24 pm
There were very few fast food places around when I was growing up, and going to a McDonalds seemed like a big deal. But I didn’t like the burger. It was thin, dried out and they put ketchup and mustard on it even though I hadn’t asked for it.
My mother was a good cook, and my father enjoyed things that were pretty exotic for the Midwest back then: rare meat, artichokes, leafy green salad with vinaigrette, a glass or 2 of wine. Check on the Knoll furniture, Alpert and Tom Lehrer.
487 chars
Dexter Friend said on September 8, 2021 at 6:44 pm
My friend Joe’s dad worked for the B&O Railroad from Garrett to Chicago. He was a trapper of small animals, selling mink and muskrat fur for supplemental income. He also would trap and shoot opossums for the carcasses. He’d fill a huge cooler with carcasses and ice and head out towards Chicago. Trains switch a lot in Chicago, and he had a clientele who knew when he was going to be there. People bought those opossums from a queue. He always sold all, told us he could have sold a thousand. Good money. Now Joe says he is ashamed he was brought up as a trapper of small animals, and of all the opossums that were sent to the people of Chicago.
I was 8 years old and coerced into trying to trap muskrats. I think I trapped one and the whole process of skinning it and stretching out the hide was way too much. I abandoned. Thank God.
Burger Chef was best: thin burger loaded up with sprouts and tomatoes and onions and even sunflower seeds and much more, lemonade, entire bill was 57 cents. Lunch in my early days at Dana-Auburn.
1047 chars
Colleen said on September 8, 2021 at 6:52 pm
My grandmother was an excellent old world Hungarian cook….they did use every part of the pig but the squeak. Everything from scratch. My grandfather raised chickens in the yard of his home in the middle of Lorain.
My dad always put avocado in his salad…when we moved to Fort Wayne in 1972 he had a hard time finding them. Never mind the first time he wanted to make something that called for prosciutto….
413 chars
Dorothy said on September 8, 2021 at 7:40 pm
I’ve been hanging out here with most of you for a long, long time. Today is the fastest I have ever skimmed through the comments and even skipped over many of them because ….. well, you all know. I started reading this entry today while on my lunch break at work and there were just 6 comments then. Yoy but that was a big regret almost immediately!
And now I’ll look forward to the next post Nancy does in a few days! XOXO to all of you – but Imma gonna pass on reading all of these comments in their entireity! (did I spell that right?!)
545 chars
LAMary said on September 8, 2021 at 7:55 pm
Dorothy my mind initially read the title and thought of Sterling Moss, not Don Draper’s ad agency. Sterling Moss speeding through a drive through for an English breakfast McGriddle? Black pudding and bangers eaten from a paper bag while traveling at 155 mph in a formula 1 car?
277 chars
Deborah said on September 8, 2021 at 8:21 pm
Dorothy not sure what you’re referring to but will look at the end of the previous thread.
Meanwhile, we have had a lovely day in Santa Fe, a little on the warm side, but with the low humidity not too bad, tomorrow will be warmer unfortunately.
Many women in the 50s and 60s were so dazzled by the lifting of the previous oppression of daily dinners that they bought into the canned/frozen options to the detriment of good food. It’s too bad that they felt that burden, and too bad that we accuse them of being remiss. I need to quit blaming my mother for being a lousy cook, she was doing the best she could given the circumstances. She kept a 3×5 index card box in a closet that listed household chores that she went through daily, which listed a chore a day to be accomplished.
786 chars
LAMary said on September 8, 2021 at 9:57 pm
In my father’s defense, we ate very well in the summer. Our house at the end of the north fork of Long Island was situated near farms and salt water. We were friendly with the Sledjeski family whose farm was over 1000 acres of land much of it Long Island Sound beachfront. Meals usually included some of their produce, literally just picked and seafood from our communal lobster traps our from our efforts to gather clams, oysters, mussels, scallops or whatever fish we caught. Mostly striped bass, bluefish, mackerel in the spring, bkackfish from the Sound. Everything was prepared simply, sometimes accompanied by red horseradish or pickled vegetables.
654 chars
Charlotte said on September 8, 2021 at 11:42 pm
Went to a funeral in Lake Forest right before the 1st Covid shutdown — and we all went to lunch beforehand because the thing-after-the-Mass was at the country club that’s famous for the strength of the drinks and the tiny appetizers.
234 chars
Gretchen said on September 9, 2021 at 1:05 am
Deborah: my mom was a child of the depression, and grandchild of the Irish Famine, so there was some history of a non-varied diet and generally not getting enough to eat. I think they got plenty of potatoes and cabbage. Mom’s mother kept chickens and a vegetable garden until she died when mom was 13. I don’t know what happened after that, but I don’t think it involved good meals. We had potatoes every dinner, either Bird’s Eye corn, peas, green beans, or limas, and meat. My parents were thrilled to get good servings of meat, because that wasn’t the usual in their childhoods. My mother hated cooking because she didn’t know where to start, but she disdained French dressing, cream of mushroom soup, or anything involving white sauce, which she scorned as “flour paste”. Why would you want to put flour paste on perfectly fine food. They frowned on talking about food – it wasn’t creamy, crunchy, tasty. Be glad you have some and be quiet about it.
981 chars
Deborah said on September 9, 2021 at 10:28 am
I like potatoes almost any way you can fix them, except plain old boiled. We had boiled potatoes every single evening when I was a kid, with margarine on them, yuck.
Today the high in Santa Fe will be 90, a year ago on this day, it snowed.
242 chars
Deborah said on September 9, 2021 at 3:23 pm
About a mile from our condo a mama bear was struck by a car and after walking for a mile further out the bear died. They’re still looking for her cubs. The bear was struck, for those who know Santa Fe, near the federal cemetery on the north edge of town. She was probably looking for high protein garbage, to make it through the winter hibernation. Sometimes drought exacerbates bears coming into the city from the mountains. I hope they find the cubs.
452 chars
Julie Robinson said on September 9, 2021 at 3:36 pm
We just spent three hours in IKEA and the one thing we really wanted was gone by the time we got to self service. They’re having huge supply chain issues.
OTOH we found a close out deal on a medicine cabinet for the main bathroom that matches the vanity. Or sink cabinet in IKEA speak.
You see a lot of ugliness between couples and I get it. D wanted to buy a cabinet that was $1100 and I wanted one that was $149. It didn’t matter since they were both out of stock.
473 chars
Sherri said on September 9, 2021 at 3:46 pm
Deborah, we’ve had a bear wandering our neighborhood all summer. It’s become a regular occurrence around here. One time, one of the local schools had to go on lockdown and couldn’t dismiss at the normal time because a bear was wandering campus at dismissal time.
And in South Lake Tahoe, where residents had to evacuate for wildfire, bears have been looting the houses.
379 chars
Deborah said on September 9, 2021 at 4:28 pm
A few years ago a bear was found a few blocks from us. Animal control shot her with a sedative and hauled her back up in the mountains. She was in the Santa Fe riverbed which is down the lane from us. Other people in town that same time reported bear sightings near their homes when they were out walking their dogs in the early mornings. When I was a kid on a family trip to the smokey mountains we saw a small black bear on the side of the road, and when I took that building class in upstate NY at Beaver Brook we saw a bear helping itself to garbage from the bins nearby, those are the only wild bears I’ve ever seen.
621 chars
David C said on September 9, 2021 at 5:10 pm
My dad is in the hospital, waiting for an ICU bed to open in another hospital so he can have bypass surgery. Fortunately, he felt funny and had minor chest pain and decided he needed to get it checked out. He didn’t have a heart attack before they found the blockages and his heart is good and strong going in.
At the same time we have an event at work where we work with the Feeding America to take 100,000 lbs of beans and rice in big bulk pallets and repackage it in l lb bags for distribution to food pantries all over Eastern Wisconsin. We decided we were going to have to requite a vaccination or negative Covid test 72 hours before the event to participate. We have live music during the event, which I’ve been organizing and we had one musician back out. If he would have just said “Sorry, I can’t do it” and left it at the I’d be cool. Instead, he sent along a freshman philosophy major screed on freedumb. If I hadn’t been representing the company I would have let him have it. With dad not being able to get a hospital bed because selfish Covidiots, his timing was really bad. So instead of letting him have it, I’ve been stewing all day. I really didn’t need that.
1179 chars
LAMary said on September 9, 2021 at 5:31 pm
David C, that sucks. If I lived closer I’d go full New Jersey on him for you. I will keep the good thoughts for strength and health for your father.I am so tired of the chicken shit reasons to not get a vaccination I can hardly speak about it without getting uncharacteristically loud. Find out where the guy who backed out parks. I’ll key his car.
Unrelated: bear appearances are not rare here. Not exactly in my neighborhood but just to the north, the east and in Griffith Park to the west. Bears like to climb fences and take as swim in a pool. Here on Mt. Washington we just have many coyotes, bobcats, skunks, raccoons, possums. No culinary grade possums.
664 chars
Little Bird said on September 9, 2021 at 5:46 pm
What criteria would designate culinary grade opossum?
53 chars
Julie Robinson said on September 9, 2021 at 5:53 pm
David, I’m so sorry, both about your dad and the covidiot. Please rent your dad a lift chair for a month or two when he gets home. That was the best advice I got when helping my sister after bypass surgery.
As for the covidiot, I would like everyone to read Amanda Kloot’s book about her husband dying from Covid; in the hospital for four months while his body was subjected to every indignity possible including amputation of his leg, and racking up Lord knows how much in medical bills. His family lived a roller coaster through his horrific journey, and his baby son will never know his father. I’m only a third through but I want to push it in the face of the anti-vaxxers.
Although my opinion of the lady went down when I saw she’s going to be on Dancing with the Stars. But she’s gotta bring in the bread I guess.
825 chars
beb said on September 9, 2021 at 6:36 pm
We never had streaming service all this talk about Mad Men is greek to me.
Sherri@11 Mainland China must still be fighting the Opium Wars.
FDChief@12 – Knowing where each cut of beef comes from gives you some idea of the taste and texture of that cut. Though I am a tad confused by the popularity in different generations for T-bone, Sirloin, Porterhouse and Rib steak.
Weird foods? Dad liked to hunt so we had rabbit. He also raised them for food. So we had rabbit with and without buckshot. My brother was into squirrel hunting so I think we had squirrel once. Much later he switched to deer so I’ve had venison (the key is field dressing the kill. As a kid, when money was tight, we had pigs brains (don’t go there), beef tongue (gross to look at and a weird texture) and beef heart, which I kind of liked.
On the subject of Covidiots, I was reading this morning that the Portland, OR police department objects to the city’s mandate that they get vaccinated. On threat of being fired. At the moment the idea of firing cops on whatever grounds sounds like a good idea. However the city apparently is backing down. Maybe if they raised the price of health insurance by $100 a month then offered a $100 a month discount for anyone vaccinated…..
1259 chars
David C said on September 9, 2021 at 7:39 pm
My parents put in a chair lift about six months ago so that was prescient. My brother, sister, and I are going to do everything in our power to get them to sell the house and move into a retirement community with tiered services though. Once dad recovers, they’ll be fine in an independent living situation. They’re 84 and 83 now so that’s not going to last long. Their house is just too big for them. It has an acre lawn and Dad has a bad back that he shouldn’t be bouncing around on a garden tractor. We tried to have the parent talk last time I was home but it didn’t take. I’ll probably be going home soon to help out so we’ll see how it goes this time. Their investment guy tells them they have enough money to afford that sort of thing until they’re in their mid 90s but they still flinch at the cost. That was before their fraud losses so who knows now.
President Uncle Joe seems plenty pissed at the Covidiots. If I was Portland I’d fire the cops for sure. From all I’ve seen they’re pretty damned useless unless you’re a Proud Boy.
1041 chars
Deborah said on September 9, 2021 at 8:28 pm
Has there ever been a time in history where one party is sooooo wrong? I mean really, when one party is fighting vaccines and insurrection investigations etc, has it ever been this bad? I lived through civil rights and Vietnam, which were both important issues that were not supported by large segments of the population and those were hard times. But this recent skirmish has resulted in so many deaths, more so than war even. What is wrong with these people?
460 chars
LAMary said on September 9, 2021 at 9:21 pm
Having never seen culinary grade possum or opossum I’m not sure. Maybe organic feed? In this case organic grubs and ticks.
122 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 10, 2021 at 7:07 am
I think in Portland it’s the FOP head, not the police chief, who’s been shouting at TV cameras about vaccinations; I’ve worked with good and not-so-good police chiefs, but FOP heads tend to mix the worst qualities of union presidents with knucklehead cop-ism distilled to 101 proof.
Put me down for having eaten and learned to prepare both calf and pig brains, beef tongue, and beef heart. All through my childhood the parents split a beef with a neighbor family so each got a side, and Mom always thought they got the better of the deal because the folks across the street never wanted the tongue or heart, so she felt like we got fair and square 55% of the even-steven deal. We had a big freezer purchased when the whole deal began, but the tongue always went straight into the pressure cooker and then the fridge until it was gone. I grossed out more than a few other kids tricking them into opening the fridge when that sucker was still mostly intact and on a big cake plate atop the main shelf.
Brains were always breaded and fried, and frankly were cauliflower with a faintly more meaty taste. Not horrible, not good, not something I’ve ever craved since. As I recall, they were seasonal, I presume when the calving had just passed and veal was being processed, early summer.
1287 chars