Writer, Professor, and Everything Else
I have come across several pieces of such food news lately:
From BBC News comes “Coffee ‘no boost in the morning.'” From the article:
Those who swear by their morning caffeine fix say it wakes them up, and if they missed out they would feel sluggish and unable to get on with their day.
But the Bristol researchers, who carried out a review of previous studies into the effects of caffeine, say all the drink does is counteract the mild caffeine withdrawal symptoms people are experiencing because they have gone without the stimulant overnight.
First off, I don’t think I buy this. But second, who the hell cares? If coffee is my morning methadone, so be it.
Hmm… coffee….
Here’s a handy four step and simple follow set of illustrated instructions for how to properly move your bowels. Ah, the things you find on the internets….
And who knew you need a foot rest?
We had a lovely Mardi Gras party last night over here. This is a new thing for us, but I can see it becoming a regular thing for us. Mardi Gras has all the elements that both Annette and I enjoy: cheap jewelry, bright colors, masks, quasi-pagan/religious rituals, great music, and fine food and drinks.
There’s a set of photos on my Flickr account; a few highlights:
In the left behind category of things: we discovered this morning that one party goer left behind the bag of leftover muffaletta sandwiches on the bench by the front door. Imagine the disappointment! Also, someone left behind a scarf that looks like this:
And now, it’s time to engage in some lent-like behavior. Back on the diet….
Through various readings, I stumbled across this “guest blogging” entry by Tony Bourdain about the Food Network. Generally, the Food Network is one of my favorite “hey, let’s veg out and watch TV” kind of channels, but I also agree that the Food Network has relatively recently been in decline. Anyway, what Bourdain says here in his oh so gruff way strikes me as pretty much on the money. If you are a Food TV fan, read and enjoy.
I’ve had a cold for the last couple of days– not one of those “agh, pass me the puke bucket” kind if sicknesses (I think I’ve managed to dodge that bullet this year, and that’s saying something since this was going around at work big-time in December), but just one of those “I feel just miserable enough to complain about it, but not quite miserable enough to just stay away from work” colds.
In the words of Lewis Black, this is just the sort of event that allows me to indulge in my favorite drug, NyQuil. Or at least it was my favorite drug– see below. Every time I’ve gone to the doctor with something like what I have right now, they either seem to suggest NyQuil or to at least say that there’s nothing wrong with it.
I went out and bought me a double-pack of NyQuil and settled down to have my dose before bed. Of course, I chose the original flavor, but this did beg the question last night as I was pouring out my shot: what flavor is the original flavor?
I asked Annette. Her response was “What’s wrong with you?!”
So, naturally, I turned to the Internets for an answer. Oddly, even with this fine wikipedia entry, I could not find a satisfying answer to my question. Apparently, Denis Leary once described the flavor as “Green Death,” but to me, that would be more ashy-flavored.
Anyway, last night, I think I actually had a bit of a reaction to the NyQuil. I ended waking up at about 1 am with a dry hack and a hard time breathing. I ended getting up and drinking about six glasses of water, and then this morning, I went out and bought a humidifier. Hopefully, that will help.
Oh, and I think I know what the flavor of NyQuil “original” is: Jägermeister. Which makes a certain amount of sense because because Jäger is kind of a medicinal liquor. And it’ll mess you up bad.
Maybe I’ll try to use the left of my NyQuil to make a flaming moe or something….
I was talking with my friend Mary T. today and she mentioned that I must be pretty busy with that pesky teaching/job thing because I haven’t been posting here much lately. You’re darn tootin’ I’ve been busy! You can read about some of it at the official blog and also at EMUtalk.org, which is the community blog that I started this year because of the faculty strike. But the short version is this has probably been one of the busiest semesters in my academic life, simultaneously and at different times horrible and wonderful.
Actually, the whole year– official and unofficial– has been like that for us around here.
Anyway, to get to some things in the order they appear in the subject line here:
Finally, I just wanted to mention that I cooked up a batch of Grandma Krause’s famous “pepper nuts,” an annual Christmas cookie of sorts for the Krauses. I’ve written about this a couple of times in the recent past; here’s the recipe I followed this time. But because I have described these in the past described them as looking like dog food and/or little nut-like pellets, I thought I’d include a picture:
They are tasty though….
I came across this via my friend Chris, who sent it around in an email. I have no idea how he got it. In any event, apparently it’s possible to buy Tuscan Milk from the gourmet food section of amazon.com. Now, while we’re kind of picky about our milk around here (I avoid milk products with bovine growth hormone), It’s never even occurred to me to mail-order milk.
It seems like a lot of people commenting on amazon.com about Tuscan Milk feel pretty much the same way, and, as a result, there are many over-the-top funny reviews here on this amazon.com page for the milk. I agree with my friend Chris; the second one is especially funny.
After doing a Google search on this, I realize that this Tuscan Milk thing has sort of spun out of control. See, for example:
Ah, that crazy internets….
I already posted about the first part of this year’s Thanksgiving gala; here are some pictures and more about the second part:
That was about it. Now it’s just the mad dash to Christmas and beyond.
Thanksgiving is actually one of my favorite holidays, largely because it revolves around one of my favorite activities, which is eating. Oh yeah– there’s some family stuff, too. Anyway, in no particular order, the T-Day holiday so far:
Second, I inevitably get lost when I come back to my hometown because a few years after I moved away (I actually haven’t lived here full-time since I was about 19, and I am pretty sure that I passed the point where I have lived more outside of Iowa than in Iowa a few years ago), they did a major road reconstruction project, totally changing the traffic patterns and right way to go. It took me more than an hour to pick up the pies.
But I will leave you with this amusing item about bunnies cooking turkeys:
