These doors swing out to the deck at Snoopy’s on the bay in Corpus Christie, Texas. It was a heavily textured day.
A Cautionary Tale
Gallery
I always thought the advice to wear rubber gloves when cooking with jalapeno peppers was for wimps. I mean, really — how bad could a pepper seed be? The truth of the matter is I have never made anything requiring … Continue reading
How they roll
Change. It drives me nuts. It weighs me down. It’s way too high maintenance. And to top it off, it costs 10% of the total to convert it to paper if you use one of the Coins to Cash machines that have popped up in grocery stores.
I’ve tried pretending that coin sorting was a fun thing to do while watching mindless TV. But I wasn’t fooled. I tried bribing myself by promising to spend all of money in my Hippopotamus bank on a new Coach bag. But I wasn’t tempted. I’ve put it on a To Do list and starred it several times. No matter.
Then finally I got it. The perfect solution.
I ordered a $30 motorized coin sorter. It takes 2 C batteries for it to rev up so that it can go to work sizing up each coin and putting it in the proper chute. It comes with assorted paper coin wrappers and you can order more. I can hardly wait for the Big Brown delivery truck and the gift-wrapped package for Sig.
Half a Head
I didn’t have one thing to do with this joke. It’s all over the place, but I can’t find the person who wrote it. So, laugh anonymously. I did. Or maybe it was en
ormously?
A man walked into the produce section of his local supermarket and asked to buy a half head of lettuce. The boy working in that department told him that they only sold whole heads of lettuce.
The man was insistent that the boy ask his manager about the matter.
Walking into the back room, the boy said to the manager, “Some ass-hole wants to buy a half head of lettuce.” As he finished his sentence, he turned to find the man standing right behind him, so he added, “And this gentleman kindly offered to buy the other half.”
The manager approved the deal and the man went on his way. Later the manager said to the boy, “I was impressed with the way you got yourself out of that situation earlier. We like people who think on their feet here. Where are you from, son?”
“Texas , sir.” the boy replied.
“Well, why did you leave Texas ?” the manager asked.
The boy said, “Sir, there’s nothing but whores and football players there.
“Really?” said the manager “My wife is from Texas ..”
“Get outta here!” the boy said. “Who’d she play for?”
Labor Day
This is a holiday with one shaky past. 
In 1894 the country was in a recession. The owner of the Pullman Palace Car Co. decided to up his bottom line by cutting wages without cutting hours or cutting prices he charged workers for rent and goods.
The 3000 workers in Pullman, Illinois said enough was enough and started a wildcat strike. That pulled in the American Railway Union. They began a nation-wide boycott; union members refused to run trains with Pullman cars. There were 250,000 railroad workers in 7 states, in days, half of them quit rather than handle Pullman cars.
The workers’ solidarity forced factory shutdowns and lockouts well beyond Pullman.
Management hired replacement workers and conflicts escalated. President Cleveland ordered federal officials to intervene citing strikers for anti-trust violations. When it was over, 13 workers were dead, 57 wounded and damages totaled over 8 million in today’s dollars.
So what did Congress do? Hugely concerned of a backlash, they scurried around and in 6 days came up with Labor Day, a national holiday to honor workers. “Communities will host street parades to show the strength and esprit de corps of labor followed by a festival for workers and their families.”
Hmmm, is it just me? Or do you think Debt Ceiling Day will be next?
Source: Wikipedia including image of striking workers, 1894
Labor Day Sunday
Labor Day Sunday is when you knock yourself out cooking so that you can rest and relax on Labor Day Monday. So here’s a thought. Try my mother’s potato salad, it’s best if you make it the day before you plan to eat it, anyway.
I know, I know — you like the potato salad your mother makes, just like you like the custard pumpkin pie she makes for Thanksgiving rather than the more solid version, which is far superior. Or the meatloaf. Or the spaghetti sauce.
As I was starting to say, this is the world’s best potato salad in case that’s important.
My Mother’s Potato Salad
(Serves 6 so double it if you need more.)
6 potatoes, 1 medium onion chopped, 3 TB oil, 3 TB vinegar, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp celery seed, mayonnaise, (Start with a cup and add as you like.) 4 hard-cooked eggs, 4 sweet pickles
Cook potatoes. Mix oil, vinegar, salt and celery seed with chopped onion. Drain potatoes and when cool enough to touch, peel and cut in points. (It is hard to explain cut in points but if you are cubing, slicing or mashing — you are probably not cutting in points.)
Pour oil/vinegar/onion mixture over potatoes and marinate overnight in the refrigerator. Chop eggs except for one. Cut up pickle. Add both to potatoes. Mix in mayonnaise. Slice reserved egg and put on top, sprinkle with paprika.
Check in next year for a recipe for strawberry shortcake from my mother in law. I know, I know — you like the strawberry short-cake your mother makes…
Sighted
Here is something that you may well recognize. It comes in all kinds of colors, shapes, sizes and price ranges. It is the Impulse Buy. 
This is a salt and pepper shaker in case you can’t make out the function of the egg-shaped orbs sticking out of this little guy’s pockets.
Somehow I thought it would be fun to take this on a picnic, a casual affair where I’d eat hard-boiled eggs and thick ham sandwiches on sourdough bread on a red and white checked tablecloth.
Not gonna happen.
Baconbaconbaconbacon
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OMG. What do I see? Why it’s not Maple Chocolate Pudding with Bacon Spear Spoons in sweet little shot glasses, is it? Why yes, it is. I figured on 1 pound of bacon and I’m guessing that the recipe makes … Continue reading
Rune the day
Wait ’til M.S. gets a load of these. She’ll be marching all over her place, directing her minions to plug in the generators for a holiday party nestled in the meadow.
The photographer is 34-year-old Rune Guneriussen, a native of Norway. I can imagine while he was growing up, he drove his parents nuts by dragging everything he owned outside to see how it looks in the backyard. Along the way he honed an imaginative way of looking at nature through the most ordinary of lenses. Extraordinary.
You gawkin’ at me?
If your favorite cookbooks are the ones with great food photographs, you will love Foodgawker. It’s a photo food gallery from food bloggers in all parts of the world.
Like what you see? Simply click on it and bam, whoosh, you’ll end up on the originating blog. Once there, you’ll find the recipe and maybe, discover a site to add to your favorites. You can view the gallery by latest additions or by most popular.
If you register, you can save favorites, make notes and share stuff.
Foodgawker regularly adds new photos to keep things rolling. Submission guidelines are included in case you want to send in something you’ve seen or something from your own foodie blog.
After you’ve spent a couple of hours looking at food, you can switch over to Craftgawker and check out their photo gallery of handmade arts/crafts or go to Dwellinggawker, photos from design and architecture bloggers with ideas for your home.
By then, it’s probably time to go to bed.