Eat your way through...

When making plans to visit a new location in which you wish to sightsee, it is a good idea to garner some suggestions from natives of the area, or someone who has lived there, or someone who has at least visited there in the past century, or someone who could, when shown the location on a map and a picture of Kim Jong-un, correctly identify which one you wish to visit.

Accordingly, anticipating a trip to San Francisco, we consulted some friends who used to live there as to what we should do when we --

"Go to Tony's Pizza," the husband said. 

Tony's Pizza , we learned, is THE most wonderful pizza place in San Francisco, nay, in the whole world, and if we don't go there while we are in the area, we might as well just not go on the trip at all.

"Great," we said. "Tony's Pizza it is. What else?"

"There's an Italian restaurant, Scoma's...and you also have to go to Sodini's...oh, and Tommaso..."

"Napa," his wife said firmly. "You HAVE to go to wine country. More than once."

"And then there's Delfina," the husband continued. 

His wife objected. "If they do all that, all they'll be doing on their trip is eating."

"And the problem with that is...?" he said.

So, based on their very helpful recommendations, we have devised a tentative itinerary:

1. Little Tony's
2. Trolley
3. Italian restaurant
4. Nap
5. Wine country
6. Italian restaurant
7. Repeat 1-6 daily, #4 as many times as necessary

Now, we know that it will not be enough to merely say that yes, we ate at Tony's Pizza while we were in San Francisco. We must bring PROOF that we did so. A photo, perhaps, and not just a photo of ourselves standing underneath the restaurant sign. A photo of ourselves with Tony's pizza hanging out of our mouths, a photo with the waiter, who will, it is to be hoped, be wearing some sort of Tony's Pizza identification on him or her, and -- ideally -- with Tony himself, showing us around his magical kitchen and teaching us how to make his wonderful pizza.

We heard vaguely of other sights in the area, such as Alcatraz, some big trees, a bridge called Golden something-or-other. Maybe we'll fit them in if we have time.

Chicken encounters

Starting when my mother was 10, she would be handed some money and given instructions to go to the store and buy a chicken for the family's dinner. These were not chickens in nice little cellophane packages. These were living and breathing and squawking chickens, with all body parts intact, and the customer could choose whichever one she wanted.

But as my mother says, "What does a 10-year-old know about picking out a chicken?" 

So the butcher would take pity on her, and choose one of the squawking chickens for her. He assured her that "your family will like this one very much." And they did, so much so that she continued to get sent to the store whenever chicken was on the menu.

Before handing over the chicken, the butcher would also -- this is crucial -- perform certain maneuvers until the chicken was rendered no longer living. Whereas in my father's family such assistance was considered unnecessary, with my grandmother preferring instead to assign this task to someone in the family, although she herself would also cheerily take it on.

My mother's butcher did not, however -- and this would have been a deal breaker for me personally -- remove any feathers. That task was left to the customer, and if that customer was a 10-year-old girl, well, she would dig right into the task and yell, "EWWWWW!"

At least that is what I would have done at 10. Or even 30. I have yelled "EWWWWW!" when faced with much less ick factor than that presented by a recently deceased fowl with limp feathers flapping. Such as a not-so-recently deceased fowl with no head and no eyes and wet stuff oozing all over and a body opening stuffed with little slimy chicken parts that EWWWWW! 

This is why I do not, in general, deal with whole chickens. I prefer my chickens -- and other formerly living meat sources -- to show the least resemblance possible to what they looked like when they were alive. And not to need an entire roll of paper towel to pat dry. Sign me up for whitewashing outhouses or something. Anything. Just not this.

But such a chicken was my cooking class homework recently, and even though it didn't have a head, and therefore no eyes, it still managed to look dolefully at me. It was not "trained," and leaked all over everything, but once that was under control I confidently proceeded to the next step, which was to retrieve the "unmentionables" that are stuffed into the body cavity. 

This proves something, although I'm not sure what. Things that should be in the body cavity, that have always been there since the chicken hatched, are removed, and things that were not put there by nature are thrust in their place. It is a wonder that we are not all vegetarians.

I bravely stuck my hand inside to retrieve the excess parts, and immediately yanked it back out again. "Nooooo! They're supposed to come in a little BAG!" I wailed to the Hero, flinging neck, gizzards, and who knows what else in the general direction of the sink.

Really, if meat packagers are not going to minimize the blood and gore involved in prepping a whole chicken, they should at least be required to clearly note this on the packaging: 

"WARNING: Contains loose body parts. Unprotected hand inside body cavity of chicken will result in EWWWWW!"

After this trauma, handling the rest of the steps was really fairly easy. When it came time to stuff the cavity -- again, with things nature never intended to be stuffed in there -- I stood at some distance and tossed them inside, lest I again come in contact with...with...whatever was in there. 

Following the suggestions given in the course video, I tossed in some salt, pepper, paprika, fresh rosemary sprigs, whole unpeeled garlic, lemon halves, blackberries, asparagus spears, corn cobs, whole wheat tortillas, solid white albacore tuna, Chex cereal, dish towels (100% natural cotton), etc. 

These added some extra flavor, fiber, indigestion, etc. to our chicken, which was also liberally basted with the juices that escaped during cooking...is this whole thing starting to sound somewhat cannibalish to anyone else?

It is no coincidence, surely, that the next cooking course after the one I'm currently enrolled in is titled..."Plant-Based Cooking."

Married filing jointly... and as late as possible

Clearly we are late with this tax-related post, but then we are usually almost late filing our taxes too, so at least we are consistent. The Hero and I are firm believers in stressing out about doing our taxes at the last possible moment, resulting in occasional missteps on our return such as "filing for self and spouses."

This year was extra stressful, as we were audited last year, and no doubt we are on the IRS's watch list for life now. Along with the audit details and a polite request to hand over the money we had supposedly cheated them of, we received a little pamphlet entitled "Why Was I Audited?" This is in a multiple-choice format, with answers to that question ranging from a) you are incapable of performing basic math functions, to k) the government will go broke if you do not hand over the $137 you neglected to pay, to z) you may have been picked entirely at random for an audit, but you MUST be hiding something, and the IRS will find it and you will go to jail. Even if it is for $137.

In view of this possible extra scrutiny, we made the difficult decision to not include the following on this year's tax return:

-- 1500 exemptions, which is our estimate of the population of stink bugs freeloading in our home last year

-- Deduction for donation of stink bug carcasses to scientists for study 

-- Depreciation and amortization of the Princess's right elbow joint

-- Business expenses for part of home used as office, i.e., the bathroom

Maybe next year.


At tax time people often have questions about filling out their forms. Here are some typical tax questions.

Q: How do you recommend I fill out my forms?

A: On plenty of coffee.

Q: How long does the average person take to fill out their tax return?

A: Roughly 9.7 hours. This includes .2 hours of actual effort and 9.5 hours of procrastination and hand-wringing and additional coffee-procuring. 

Q: What part of the process generally takes the longest?

A: The time between filing your return and waiting for the IRS to come and haul you away for tax fraud.

Q: Ha ha ha! Seriously.

A: We ARE serious.

Q: Yikes.

Q: I need some extra deductions. What do you suggest? 

A: Pet moving expenses are popular this year. And deductible.

Q: But we're not moving.

A: So move your pet somewhere and then move it back. You'll get TWICE the deduction.

Q: I am taking an online cooking course. Can I deduct the cost of the classes if I burn my homework?

A: Yes, but we would not try this more than once. The cooking classes, we mean. Clearly cooking is not your thing.

We hope this belated tax information has been helpful. And we hope that next year we will not be writing this from jail.

President, sir, we have a situation

It's not easy being the French Defence Minister. Among his recent job duties, as we understand them, are these:

1. Manage French pull-out from Afghanistan
2. Manage war in Mali
3. Inform the President that his camel is dead

According to news sources, the French President received a camel as a gift* from officials in the country of Mali, who believed it would be helpful for getting the President around Paris traffic jams. No, actually it was to thank the President for his assistance in driving out rebels who, depending on which source you follow, either a) were moving from their base in the north to the south to cause mayhem, or b) were moving from their base in the north to the south in an effort to get rid of Mali's extra camels.

No doubt the Mali Cabinet discussed a variety of gifts to give the President for his country's services, and finally settled on a camel with a t-shirt reading "I helped drive out the Mali rebels and all I got was this lousy camel."

Although by all accounts the President was flattered by the gift (referred to here as the First Camel), ultimately he chose to leave it with a family in Mali, mainly because the Lady of the House expressed concern over the safety of the First Couch Cushions in close proximity to a camel. So off to his adoptive family the camel went, destined for a life of ease.

Or not.

Here is where the Defence Minister came in, as he was charged with giving the President regular updates on the camel's welfare:

DM: Sir, the First Camel seems to have adjusted to its new home and is happily eating the couch cushions.

Pres: Eating the...couch cushions, Jean-Yves?

DM: I understand they are a delicacy to camels, sir.

Pres: Ah.

Lady of the House: I knew camels were bad for cushions!

DM: Uh, I can tell you more about the First Camel's digestive system if you like, sir --

Pres: Thank you, Jean-Yves, I think that will suffice for news of the camel today.

DM: Yes, sir.

At some point things took a very wrong turn for the First Camel, who was, sources, say, "eaten by his host family." This was in clear violation of the camel's diplomatic immunity, and Mali officials moved quickly to avert any international incident over the event. They proclaimed themselves ashamed, and promised that a replacement camel would immediately be provided, and that it would be "bigger and better looking."

Once this information was relayed to the Defence Minister, an emergency meeting of the French Council of Bad News was probably called, and search made in the presidential records for any precedence for handling this situation. Finding none, the Council worked furiously to craft a statement for the Defence Minister to relay to the President.

DM: We regret to inform you, sir, that the dromedarial bestowal made by you upon certain Mali personages  is now moribund and has been subsumed into the trustees' personages.

Pres: My what is where, now?

DM: Your camel's been eaten, sir.

Lady of the House: Thank goodness! At least I won't have to worry about the cushions.

DM: They're going to replace it, of course, sir.

Pres: Yes, of course...I don't suppose we'll want to send it to the same family, though...

DM: Actually, they're sending it here for safekeeping.

Lady of the House: Noooooooooo...

Strike one task off the busy Defence Minister's list, and add another:

3. Defend the First Couch Cushions from the First Camel

*Exotic gifts are apparently not uncommon in bestowal upon heads of state, although few, perhaps, meet with the fate of this particular gift. In the US, heads of state are prohibited by law from accepting gifts over a certain monetary value, and also from anything that "might be destructive to the White House cushions." 

We recently welcomed a new member of the household. It is not a pet, although every now and then the Hero thinks it might be nice to get one of those, until we observe various neighbors shivering out in the predawn blackness waiting for their pet to please just hurry up and go already, and using their bare hand to -- yes, I have seen this -- wipe the pet's business end after the, er, business has been concluded.

Our new member is not furry, and it is definitely not cuddly. But it does require far less upkeep than a pet, and has already proven itself a valuable contribution. It is a new chef's knife. 

I already own one chef's knife, but this is a small, sleek Japanese one, and will (according to manufacturer claims) enable me to dispatch kitchen chores, such as cutting up chicken, with as much ease as a samurai dispatches...well, let's leave that particular analogy right there.


In fact the maker of this brand has been fashioning samurai swords for centuries. With the current job outlook for samurais rather dim, however, it seems smart of the company to focus on products, like knives, that have a wider, more practical appeal, such as being used to slice vegetables and, occasionally, one's fingers.

According to the company, the knives are created to balance perfectly in the hand, just as the swords were. And the brochure promises that as the swords did for the samurai, the knives will "bring distinction to the chef." And this is true, if we take "distinction" to mean "bankruptcy." Purchasing a single knife requires the remortgaging of one's house, forgoing extra niceties for a while such as eating, etc.

The brochure gives a hint of why this is so: The individual who initially designed the knives was given a "virtually unlimited budget" to create them. 

"Can I have a virtually unlimited budget to buy more knives?" I asked the Hero.

He may have just been grumpy from having to forgo the nicety of eating for a while.

The new knife and I soon came to an understanding about who is boss in the kitchen. And it isn't me.

There is no mistaking that the company was in the sword business all those years and not, say, the garden hose business. The knife is samurai-sword-sharp. I have already cut myself once, and hopefully there is no more need for the knife to assert its authority.

Yet the metal of the knife is very thin, and I read one of the cautions from the brochure to the Hero.

"I can't whack through bones with this knife," I said.

"That's a relief," he said.

It's probably just as well that our budget has a limit. Monetary restraint may just save some fingernails.

Gracious domesticity

The blog has been on a little vacation lately, although the Princess has not, unless you count a family holiday get-together during which far too much food was consumed and the adult members were beset by Little Persons selling homemade wares and asking for real money for them. In that case, yes, the Princess HAS been on a little vacation recently, and has for the most part made a full recovery.

During this family get-together, we had a chance to view the Relatives' new kitchen, with its gleaming countertops, deep sink, and new overhang islands waiting to be outfitted with tall stools, which the Little Persons have been assured will bring much enjoyment.

We admired the new refrigerator, which, as a Female Relative excitedly pointed out, has lights on every shelf in the back and along the door as well. This is because the refrigerator is actually a gigantic black cave, and without lights one would need a highly complex system to find what one is looking for, such as a treasure map marked with a big X indicating where the jelly may be found.

Not all are pleased with the new kitchen, however. One Little Person -- despite the allure of the promised tall stools -- remains unaccepting of the changes, calling the new kitchen "not kid friendly."

And the central feature capturing the Male Head of the Household's (MHH) feelings toward the new kitchen is, as he declared, "We are no longer allowed to have the garbage can out."

Apparently the Female in Charge of Domesticity had decided that with a new look must come new, gracious ways of living. And there is no room in a gracious kitchen for exposed, potentially aromatic garbage cans. It has therefore been banished to an inglorious place under the sink.

This somewhat rankles the MHH, who often doubles as the Chef, and in this capacity he feels very strongly that a garbage can should be accessible when cooking, particularly when one is  so used to the garbage can being located in a certain place that one might, amidst the deep concentration of preparing a meal, thoughtlessly toss a lid or an onion skin or a whole chicken carcass in the direction the can has always lived. You can see the difficulties that might arise when the can is not where one expects it to be.

So as he commenced  that evening's dinner preparations, the MHH asked the Female in Charge, "Can we bring out the garbage can now, dear?"

She acquiesced, and the can was allowed a brief respite from the confines of the cupboard. "It has to go back when you're done," she said.

He sighed and looked around at the gleaming countertops, the deep sink, the overhang islands, the larger-than-life refrigerator, and the liberated -- albeit temporarily -- garbage can.

"All I really wanted," he sighed again, "was to get a new front door."