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49 As a 1930s wife, I am Average Take the test!

I make a barely adequate 1930s wife, and I'll tell you why:
- fails to wash the top of the milk bottle before opening it? Yes.
- gives [The Fella] shampoos and manicures? No.
- slows up card game with chatter and gossip? Yes.
- tells risque or vulgar stories? Oh, hell yes --- this one time, I told a risque or vulgar story in a burlesque club, when we were between acts, and I ... Oh.

I fare much better as a husband.

126 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

I'm perturbed over the fact that I asked JM to upgrade Movable Type based solely on the new user pic feature AND IT DOESN'T WORK. I'm so sorry, Bu, I'll never ask you to upgrade MT again. Instead, next time, we'll switch to WordPress. I promise I'm not doing this in order to find more grey hairs. (I swear that man has no grey on his head except in his beard. Dude, you're 38 (almost). Meanwhile, all the dyes in Australia cannot keep these little hairs brown.)

*The directory for macbebekin has changed -- please change your bookmark to avoid redirection to this page.*

Hip hip! macbebekin has moved and upgraded all thanks to the resident tech geek and love of my life. Yay, JM! Okay, I did do my share learning how the MT templates and widgets work and tweaking them until my eyes dried out and could blink no more. I'm using my new Apple iBalls that allow me to read email with one eye while watching podcasts with the other.

Notice anything about the design? One thing Elsa and I hoped to press upon you (oh so many of you) is that there are two of us; two people writing at this site (sometimes with long breaks in between, but still commenting during that break) and not just one person with two personalities each living in a different country half the world away. Surely there will be those of you who still question, but I won't hold it against you as long as you bake me cookies. That's me, Elli, the one in Australia. Chocolate chip.

I'm finally out of the land of dial-up and frolicking in the land of slow-speed broadband. How I missed you all. We've moved from the camel farm and are now house sitting in the old east side of Alice Springs. There is, of course, a lot more to the story than that such as getting a new Nikon D300 (love, love, love) and joining a volunteer organization to work in indigenous communities, but right now I just want to hit publish and pat myself on the back for not completely breaking the blog.

For most of the evening, I've had this page open in the background somewhere. I cannot vouch for the recipe, though it looks fairly foolproof. The real joy to take from this: when I have more than four tabs open at once (i.e., always), the tab title truncates from "MOM'S BUTTERY TOFFEE RECIPE -Land o'Lakes Recipes" to "MOM'S BUTT."

Heh.

And of course that's not my mom, because, hey, dude, no mothers*. Nu-uh. That's your mom**.

*The "no mothers" rule only applies to my mother.
**See?

notice of time trickery: this entry was originally posted at 9:27 a.m., December 7th, and updated throughout the weekend.

Thanks to everyone who came to the sandwich party! I had a blast! And some sandwiches!

With the time-zone advantage, Simon has already leapt into the breach with his entry for the party. (Which party? Sandwich party!) Excerpt:

Step one: the ingredients. The bread has to be white, sliced, preferably cheap and twappy.

Man, it's like some internet ventriloquist's act, but without the creepy dummy*: I say "chip butty" here, and Simon makes a chip butty there. That staggers me and is awesome.

Sgazzetti follows that with the summer of BLTs:

The BLT is a model of synergy, a perfect example of 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'.

Whether sgazzetti knows it or not, this sandwich rings with significance for our family this time of year. Yesterday was two years to the day since our father died peacefully at home after months of home hospice care. I don't have the emotional wherewithal today to tell the story of Dad's last BLT, and how it restored the will to live, but maybe someday.

NotMyAndrea forced her sister to eat a hamandmacandcheese on wheat toast with lettuce:

It was conceived of one day when my sister was making a leftover ham sandwich and we also had some leftover baked mac and cheese and I coerced her into adding it to her sandwich to satisfy some kind of vicarious meat sandwich curiosity.

She followed that up with a classic PB&J, constructed with attention to detail:

I don't believe in skimping on the PB. A nice thick layer, and then not toooo much jam, because it will soak through your bread if said bread is correctly twappy, and you don't want any soaking to occur. Also, if you use too much jam it might blop out the bottom of the sandwich and into your lap when you take a bite.

Jagosaurus opted for tuna salad and Utz chips:

(or crisps if you're not from around here) and ginger ale. Tasty.

Hampered by a bare fridge, I played pantry roulette, ending up with an open-faced sandwich of sun-dried tomato neufchatel with onion-garlic jam, shaved parmesan, and shredded apple:

It is better than I thought, and though each component loses some individuality, they meld together surprisingly well. It's sweet and tart, silky and creamy, warm and cold, and altogether surprising.

Em K's sandwich post was so tasty, her computer ate it:

Bah. I need a drink.

Jim rings in the morning with French Toast Sandwiches with Apparently Candied Pears:

Because I hate how my heart beats so regularly, and also, how little sugar I ingest in a single sitting. Two birds, one stone, I say.

Macbebekin's own Elli flitted over to Flickr to show us a sad selection of toasties and to tell us about the bread & honey treat

just like I used to eat at my granny's when I was a little girl. Back then I would also have a Flintstone's chewable vitamin which would leave colored bits around the bite marks.

Bill D. ruminates on the grilled cheese sandwich:

In French cuisine, they have this concept of "mother sauces." These are 4 basic sauces that can be added upon and tweaked to make a practically infinite number of other sauces... the primary colors of the food world, in a way. Well, if the concept carries over to the sandwich side of things, you have to figure that the grilled cheese would be one of the mother sandwiches.

Erik brings us the savor of Spain with his bocadillo de tortilla de patata:

It's really nothing more than a typical Spanish omelet that you place between two pieces of bread, and it's an item that you'll find at almost any tapas bar in Spain.

Frédérique escaped the twin spectres of accidental death and research work long enough to make Monday Morning Brioche French Toast and Fresh Strawberries With Balsamic Marinade Sandwich. Monday morning, you say? But surely the sandwich party is a weekend affair?

I had a very busy weekend, what with narrowly escaping death-by-falling-giant-tree-branch, cycling in perpetual head winds, catching up on research and gardening hours and getting lost on my way to a friend's house, and missed the official 'Sunday night' deadline. So once more, I thank my good star for being on the other side of the date-change line and submit late, yet on time. ;)

Leslie enjoyed a Hungry Hillbilly Sub:

This is a Hungry Hillbilly. Made with care by Charley so I could take the perfect photo, this stately sandwich is comprised of turkey, ham, American cheese (of course),bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise.

Diehard sandwich partygoers that we are, Frédérique and I each took a second bash at our sandwiches! Frédérique presents a glorious dessert sandwich of meringues, sorbet, and fruit, a gorgeous pile of sweet and vibrant colors that will dazzle you.

Me, I piled together the same old same old: sun-dried tomato neufchatel, onion jam (a fresh batch, still warm!), and a slice of cheddar this time, shown here with more russet oven chips and the half-apple waiting to be sliced thin and laid atop the sandwich.

Marigoldie's site is password protected, but she's sharing a recipe with us, as well as a very astute serving suggestion.

I shredded up some Follow Your Heart fake cheddar, chopped up a huuuuge pimiento, a few tablespoons of fake mayo, some chopped green onion, a sprinkle of cayenne and that was that. I followed Jag's recipe to the T, except for using vegan alternatives. Then I grilled my sandwich on Ezekiel sprouted sunflower bread with light Earth Balance. It was goooood. I had it with some salt & pepper Kettle chips and a salad. And then I carried it over to the couch and watched the Simpsons with it.

Now I realize that I left out a perhaps crucial component of my sandwich party: my first sandwich (see above) and I sat together and watched "The Simpsons" with writers' commentary. Mmm, delicious.

Check out the comments on this very entry for gaoo's empty-fridge special: the refrito & herb quesadilla, a south-of-the border sandwich on corn tortillas:

the authentic small tough ones with limey mineral taste. We always have these because they keep in the fridge for months.

AMGS makes a sweet and simple breakfasty treat, the berry break sandie:

INGREDIENTS: a blueberry bagel and strawberry cream cheese.

Toast the blueberry bagel. Spread moderate amount of strawberry cream cheese on it. Put the pieces together and enjoy.

It's even better than it sounds. Try it!

I'll be updating this entry through the day weekend as I can, so check back to see what's for lunch, dinner, breakfast, elevenses, tea, or midnight snack.

*I'm assuming.

Eek.

I'm having drinks with a bunch of strangers from the internet* tonight, and I suddenly realized I have a number of things to do before I head off to the brewery to meet them, so this will be quick and poorly proofread.

*They're fellow members of a forum I frequent. I think of them as "the tiny people who live inside my computer," or more succinctly as "the internerds."

The prospect of meeting strangers in a bar is giving me a slight case of the wig, not in the vein of "oh noes, abducted by preverts!" but in the foot-shuffling, pavement-gazing, first-day-of-school way. Bars are not my favorite thing: for medical reasons, I oughtn't to drink right now, and a bad ear means I can't hear where it's noisy.

And then there's the shyness. It's not that I'm shy, but that I suffer from the illusion that I'm shy. "What if they don't like me? What if I can't talk to them?" I mewed jokingly to The Fella last night. He gave me the eyebrow and pointed out that I talk to everybody. And everybody talks back.

I am participating in NaBloPoMo.

For some reason, MT keeps updating my links with odd punctuation, so a link can work for a while, then switch to a 404 error. Sorry about any misdirects, but there's nothing I can do about it, except keep poking around to see what works and correct what doesn't.

And swearing. I can do that.

Spell with Flickr! by Erik Kastner:

via How about Orange?

update: After seeing the lovely nameplate Jagosaurus made today with this tool, I revisited, planning to tinker until I found a better mix.... but this one came up first. Too handsome to discard!

I am participating in NaBloPoMo.

Knowing that I'd missed at least one Can I eat this? question posed to AskMe, I scoured the archives... and found even more than before:

meat
- Freezer fiasco
- "Sell-Before" Sauerbraten
- highly suspect pork
- lots of suspect pork!
- Another crockpot/chicken question
- Spam from the trunk of a car

starches
- five-day-old pizza dough
- refreezing thawed hash browns and fries
- overnight rice

a nice puttanesca, perhaps?
- pasta, canned sauce, and canned fish, all past their "Best Before" dates

miscellaneous
- backpack Velveeta and cupboard Colby
- The positively Biblical-sounding honey from a fallen hive
- 13-year-old triple bock
- Why must I cook Patak's curry paste?

really miscellaneous
- I can't stop eating sand.

fizzy
- fizzy tomato sauce
- fizzy salad dressing
- fermented applesauce

explosive?
- Kulfi: explosive, poisonous, both, or neither?

putatively healthful
- Is this health drink harmful?

a splash of color
- Why has my garlic gone blue?
- Wait --- why has my garlic turned blue?
- Okay, then, why has my garlic turned fluorescent green?
- Why is my coconut milk blue?

I am participating in NaBloPoMo.

The hive mind at Ask Metafilter draws on a pool of 60,000 members to answer questions on any topic: romantic, technical, medical, cultural. But perhaps the most entertaining discourse, second only to Steve, Don't Eat It!, occurs in the wake of the question "Is this safe to eat?" Here I present a compilation of food safety questions from AskMe. Goggle in amazement as people take chances with:

eggs
- "How long will scrambled eggs keep?"
- "I hard-boiled a dozen eggs this morning. They've been sitting in the same water they boiled in which is now at room temperature (about 20C/70F) for approximately six to eight hours."
- "The ice cream made with this maybe-undercooked custard is in the mixer right now."

poultry
- "... today I learned that you're very much not supposed to store raw veg & raw chicken together in the fridge overnight, and now I know better than to do it again. But..."
- " XMAS DINNER: Is it safe to eat these leftovers?" [I would totally eat these, and very recently did eat turkey & stuffing similarly mistreated.]
- "Pizza [topped with chicken] purchased hot on Wednesday night and kept in the fridge till Friday....Good to eat?"
- "Should I eat this cooked chicken in my fridge? 6-7 days old, and in a zip-loc."
- "I left a [chicken patty with mayo] sandwich in my car this morning, unfortunately on the back deck (sedan)."

fish and shellfish!
- "I made a tuna sandwich for lunch and left it at home [on the counter]. Will it still be edible?"
- "How long is it safe to keep cooked shrimp in a refrigerator before eating?"
- "Erm, I just ate raw swordfish... Am I gonna die?"
- "I just found some frozen scallops in the back of my refrigerator, and I imagine they have been there for about two years."

preserved pork
- "Is it OK to eat raw pancetta? It tasted good, but it was very, very chewy, so chewy that I ended up having an unchewable lump of fat in my mouth that I had to spit out."

the savory course
- " How long does Chevre keep?"
- "I left my cheese out overnight. Is it still okay to eat?"
- "Mmm, walnuts. Hey, what's that cobweb stuff?"
- "This wine's cork has gritty brown crystal and organic matter on the bottom. What is that? Is it bad?"

taters and tomaters
- "If I remove the sprouts, are these potatoes safe to eat?"
- " 'Refrigerate after opening,' says the tomato sauce. Unfortunately, it wasn't."

potential botulinum carriers
- "Would homemade mango chutney which was placed in a strawberry jam jar as soon as it was made and hasn't been opened since (as far as I know) still be OK to eat after one year in a pantry cupboard at room temperature?"
- "Why did my hummus explode?" After being advised that exploding hummus may well indicate botulism, which produces no off smell or taste and can easily be deadly or debilitating, the original poster adds "It totally smells fine. I have yet to decide about eating it."

And finally, my two favorites. One, a simple question seeking an inventive answer:
- "Can I eat a live wasp? If so, what would the safest method of eating it?"

Second, a long dramatic arc detailing the struggle between financial prudence and every other kind of prudence:
- "But hey, this is expensive crab meat."

I am participating in NaBloPoMo.