A friend and I were standing in line at a fast-food restaurant, waiting to place our order.
There was a big sign posted. “No bills larger than $20 will be accepted.”
The woman in front of us, pointing to the sign, remarked, “Believe me, if I HAD a bill larger than $20, I wouldn’t be eating here.”
Canada’s Ottawa Citizen newspaper recently printed a recipe for Chanterelle Lemon Pasta in its food section, calling for one cup of Chanterelle mushrooms. They even provided a helpful photograph so amateur mushroom hounds could find their own growing in the wild. Unfortunately, the photograph instead showed Destroying Angels, which are deadly when eaten.
This weekend, I discovered a cooking tip I haven’t seen listed in any cookbooks.
While you are preparing the food, and after the guests have arrived, you contrive to fill the house up with smoke, preferably enough to get at least two smoke detectors going.
Then you go rushing about the house, opening all the windows, setting up fans, and generally doing everything short of calling the fire department.
Let the guests sit for about 1/2 hour at 50 degrees (as a result of opening the windows) and serve the food.
By this point, you have established expectations in your guests’ minds that you can’t fail to exceed!
A friend and I were standing in line at a fast-food restaurant, waiting to place our order.
There was a big sign posted. “No bills larger than $20 will be accepted.”
The woman in front of us, pointing to the sign, remarked, “Believe me, if I HAD a bill larger than $20, I wouldn’t be eating here.”
Food quotes, quips, and thoughts . . .
“Artichokes … are just plain annoying … After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual ‘food’ out of eating an artichoke as you would rom licking thirty or forty postage stamps. Have the shrimp cocktail instead.” — Miss Piggy
“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for 30 years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.” –Sam Levinson
“This recipe is certainly silly. It says to separate two eggs, but it doesn’t say how far to separate them.” — Gracie Allen
“I’ve been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.” — Erma Bombeck
“I told my doctor I get very tired when I go on a diet, so he gave me pep pills. Know what happened? I ate faster.” — Joe E. Lewis
“I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead — not sick, not wounded — dead.” — Woody Allen
“Food is an important part of a balanced diet.” — Fran Lebowitz
“Health food makes me sick.” — Calvin Trillin
“Watermelon — it’s a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face.” — Enrico Caruso
“Old people shouldn’t eat health foods. They need all the preservatives they can get.” — Robert Orben
A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store, but couldn’t find one big enough for her family.
She asked a stock boy, “Do these turkeys get any bigger?”
The stock boy replied, “No ma’am, they’re dead.”
From Harper’s Magazine:
Amount of pizza eaten each day in U.S. (acres): 75
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Found on the seal of a bag of bagels:
NEW
IMPROVED
Made the old
fashioned way
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Sign in a restaurant:
“We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone.”
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Heard on a radio station.
What did the female mushroom say about the male mushroom?
“He’s a real fun guy [fungi].”
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Q: Ever wonder about people who pay $2 for a bottle of Evian water?
A: Just spell “Evian” backwards!
The Eight Worst Convenience Foods
And I thought nothing could top Hormel’s pickled eggs …
8. Meeter’s Kraut Juice (Stokely USA): Yes, that’s sauerkraut juice, which is even worse than it sounds. The taste and smell can be a bit, well, harsh, but KJ is reputed by its fans to have medicinal benefits (as a source of vitamin C, cure for intestinal bugs, etc.), which adds up to a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease.
7. Guycan Corned Mutton with Juices Added (Bedessee Imports): The best thing about this Uruguayan canned good is the very pouty-looking sheep on the package label — he seems to be saying, “Go on, eat me already.” The second-best thing is the presence of both “cooked mutton” and “mutton” in the ingredients listing, which would seem to have all the mutton bases covered.
6. Armour Pork Brains in Milk Gravy (Dial Corp.): If you’re really looking to clog up those arteries in a hurry, you’ll be pleased to learn that a single serving of pork brains has 1,170 percent of our recommended daily cholesterol intake. All the more ingenious, then, that the label on this product helpfully features a recipe for brains and scrambled eggs.
5. Sweet Sue Canned Whole Chicken (Sweet Sue Kitchens, Inc.): From its size (think growth-impaired Cornish hen) to its overall appearance (it’s stewed in a quivering mass of aspic goop), this product may change forever your idea of what constitutes a chicken. Gives new meaning to the old line about meat “falling off the bone.”
4. Musk Life Savers (Nestle Confectionery): You may think musk is a scent, but over in Australia, they think it’s a candy flavor. A candy flavor that tastes disturbingly like raw meat, to be precise. But what did you expect from a country where everyone happily consumes Vegemite?
3. Blind Robins Smoked Ocean Herring (recently discontinued by Bar Food Products): Possibly the world’s most bizarre prepackaged tavern snack. Interestingly, the product’s titular robin isn’t actually blind, he’s blindfolded — the better, presumably, to avoid looking at these heavily salted herring strips, which look like giant slugs.
2. Kylmaenen Reindeer Pate` (Kylmaenen Oy): This Finnish canned good may not be particulary tasty, but at least it answers the age-old question of why Rudolph was so eager for that safe, steady job on Santa’s sleigh team — he didn’t want to end up as a cracker spread.
1. Tengu Clam Jerky (Tengu Co.): Nothing you’ve ever consumed can prepare you for the horror that is clam jerky. Still, this product does score a sort of conceptual coup: If you’re the sort who’s always found raw clams too slimy and gelatinous for your taste, these dried, shriveled mollusks will help you dislike clams on a whole new level.
M&M’s: The Theory of Evolution
Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species.
To this end, I hold M&M duels.
Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger,I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.
I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.
Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.
When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to: M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc. Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3×5 card reading, “Please use this M&M for breeding purposes.”
Caffeine Addict’s Quiz:
Do you want to know if you suffer from “Alertness Deficit Disorder” (ADD)? Then just take this simple quiz. These questions will help us to determine whether or not you suffer from this terrible affliction; the only known cure for which is caffeine. ADD takes the lives of millions of Americans, hundreds of Canadians, and a handful of Ugandans every year. If that doesn’t scare you, let’s just say that you are more susceptible than anyone else. YES, YOU! If you suffer from this disease, missing just one trip to Starbucks could be FATAL. The following series of Yes/No questions will allow us to determine your Addiction Factor(TM). Keep track of the number of Yes and No answers you get and chart yourself at the end. Remember: Prevention is the best medicine. Or was it laughter? Either way, read on.
1. Do you use coffee to escape from your problems?
2. Do you eat spoonfuls of instant coffee because it’s easier?
3. Have you ever woken up in a puddle of your own coffee?
4. Do you find that it’s easier to drink more coffee than go to sleep?
5.
a) Have you ever drunk cold coffee?
b) Right out of the pot?
6. Do you spend more than 20% of your income on coffee and/or coffee related products?
7. Does your coffee cup resemble a beer stein?
8. Has anyone ever told you that you “have a problem”?
9. Do you need coffee:
a) …to get up in the morning?
b) …to get out of bed?
c) …to be injected intravenously to stimulate blood-flow?
10. Do you own a “Coffee Helmet”? (For the culturally ignorant, a coffee- helmet is a hat with coffee-cups attached to it and a straw coming out of each cup leading to the mouth, used for hands-free drinking.)
11. Do Native North American Aboriginal Indian Peoples call you “Ona mac towanda” (Smells-like- coffee)?
12. Does your doctor measure your heartbeat on the Richter scale as well as by its frequency?
13. Have you ever sold personal or other people’s possessions just to get your fix for the day?
14. Does the phrase “swiss water decaffienated” strike terror into your heart?
15.
a) Do you have a coffee maker in more than one room of your house?
b) …in more than five?
c) …in your bathroom?
16.
a) Do the people at Second Cup refuse do give you free coffee cards anymore?
b) …because you’re wearing out their hole-punch?
c) …and it’s bad for the environment?
17. Do you grind your own coffee?
18. Do you grow your own coffee?
19. Have you ever been fired from a job because you’re “drinking their profits”?
20.
a) Do you know Juan Valdez?
b) …and his donkey?
c) …intimately?
21. Do you salivate uncontrollably whenever you hear dripping water?
22.
a) Is sleep a hobby of yours?
b) …that you don’t like?
c) …because it’s too frustrating?
sahil
30 Jul, 2007