As I was driving back from my sojourn to Pixley to pick up my weekly vittles (only three days worth required, due to the short week ahead), I heard a familiar voice on the radio. NPR was doing the obligatory “there’s a lot of pressure on the cook at Thanksgiving” report (by the way, is there really? I’ve always thought that if people are getting a free meal, then said people should be grateful, shut the fuck up, and eat whatever it is you get), and they interviewed none other than Dan Pashman for a story on how to deal with the pain-in-the-ass vegetarians that show up for your meal (the answer seems to be to just let them eat the side dishes if they don’t want turkey; “Vegetarian? Here, have some mashed potatoes, and I’ll dig out that ancient can of cranberry sauce from the back of the cupboard”). Dan wasn’t as funny as I remembered him.
After that, though, was a delightful (just channeled my inner Dianne Rehm) interview with Willy Nelson, who (among other things) talked about how he quite smoking cigarettes. He said he’d been getting pneumonia and was smoking both pot and 2-3 packs of cigarettes a day, and decided either the pot or the butts had to go, so he emptied out a pack of Chesterfield, rolled up 20 “fat ones” to replace them with and hasn’t smoked a cigarette since.
This is remarkably similar to how I quit smoking many years ago. I rationed out my remaining smokes, and when they were gone, I only smoked dope. And I haven’t smoked a cigarette in longer than I can remember (something like 17-18 years, I think). If only NY would make pot legal, I could work on getting rid of a few other bad habits.
Oh well, guess I’d better go wash three shirts, three pairs of pants, three pairs of socks, and three pairs on underwear so I can get through the week.
Dan Pashman? What is the connection to NPR?
We always do the traditional Tofurkey® and there’s nothing wrong with that addition. Don’t know why folks need to kill that poor ole bird anyway…
There’s a new thing called a Veggieducken: two sweet potatoes inside leeks inside a banana squash, with vegetarian stuffing between each layer.
Apparently it take a couple hours to cook, so it’s as inconvenient as the real thing. Looks pretty good, too.
He’s got a website called “The Sporkful” that’s about food I think. He had a recipe for some kind of veggie main dish for Thanksgiving.
I think that it was just luck that Pashman got do be one of the sidekicks on Morning Sedition as part of the funny.
He does have “The Sporkful“, a blog and a podcsat. He is also on FB as is The Sporkful.
I always got the impression that he was sort of like a mascot on MS.
Tomorrow is yet another trip to Brooklyn. It’s about 100 miles but add in the ferry and it takes at least 3 hours each way. BUT, the folks who will be repairing the heating system are coming, bless their little hearts. I assume repair means replace but more importantly it means a warm house. For some reason I cannot explain it is colder in the house than outside. The electrician has a key and has begun his job. Mike and our son-in-law and a junk hauler cleaned out most of the garbage (once know as the kitchen and dining room). So things are looking up for us.
For poor people things are much worse. They are not able to lay out the thousands of dollars for the kind of repairs needed to get back into their homes. Even if FEMA will reimburse them they still need the money up front and they don’t have it. A new program has been started by FEMA and NYC to get repair people into those houses to make the repairs without that cash outlay. Hopefully it will be a great help.
Red Hook, as I’ve said, has done a super job of organizing to help. On Saturday the Keylime Pie people cooked chicken dinners instead and drove around the neighborhood giving them to people working on flood damage. Mike really appreciated it and said the food was fresh and tasty.