Well, our Feckless Fart-Filled Fascist President had a no good, very bad, terrible, squeaky parade last Saturday. Then he made a complete ass of himself at the G7 Summit. So, naturally, to make himself feel strong and powerful again, he’s going to start World War 3.
MAGA has gone full Real Housewives lately. I mean, what the hell, Pus Twat Tucker Carlson was having none of Creepy Psycho Face Ted Cruz in a recent interview. It’s like, the children are screaming, the children are screaming, and Farter Fuhrer is figuring maybe he’s just going to do all the work himself.
It’s not like the ass hat listens to anyone who disagrees with him, anyway.
So, in celebration of Donald Asshole Trump being an enormous fat chicken (and because it was next on our list) we made Chicken Tikka Masala.
We’d like to think that our CTM is the same as what they served at the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival which we avoided by making all of these things at home. But who knows?
I have to say, I didn’t think I was going to like this. I chose it not realizing it qualified as a “curry.” I’m not sure anybody really knows what a curry is. It seems like it’s any dish that has a few spices that someone has deemed “curry-ish.” Nowhere in the name “tikka masala” is curry hinted at.
The point being that I have tasted a curry dish at some food festival or other and I did not like it.
But, if chicken tikka masala is curry, then call me a curry lover. This dish was our best yet. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that garam masala was easy to find in the spice section of Publix.
The only things we did differently from the recipe were that we used regular old rice, not basmati. And we only had smoked paprika, so despite the recipe saying not to use that in the curry sauce, we did.
Is that why it tasted so good? Maybe.
And the naan bread was yummy–also readily available at Publix. I love that our local stores are so diverse, don’t you?
Do you remember that episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Andy ended up at several people’s houses for dinner because of Goober’s mistake and they all served spaghetti? Remember how they talked about oregano as if it were some strange foreign spice?
That’s what I was like looking for garam masala and naan.
So, would I eat this again? Well…sure. If I happen to find myself in a restaurant and chicken tikka masala sounds like the best option, I’ll go for it. But it was complicated to make so the chances of me going through all of that trouble again are slim.
But don’t let that stop you. Give it a try. It’ll take your mind of the downfall of our democracy for a while.
Well, this week the United States hit the downward slope towards fascism. And I’d like to explain something to people who think that Trump supporters, the Fox News bimbos, the Mar-a-Lago Stepford Wives, etc. want fascism. It’s not that they want fascism. They don’t know what fascism is. What they want is to feel powerful and important. And they’re sick people who feel powerful and important when they can hurt other people.
MAGAts get off on chaos and violence.
Let me make this perfectly clear: ALL people of good conscience and empathy, kindness and courage, and of strong moral fabric have already turned away from Trump and this new American Fascist Party.
Anyone who still stands with what is happening here is vile and beyond reach. So stop trying to explain fascism to them. They don’t care. They’re giddy right now.
Sure, when this is all over, they’ll pretend they were never part of it, never supported it, or more likely, they’ll just crawl back under their rocks and not say anything.
This Saturday our country will suffer through Trump’s Ego Parade. Our humiliation will be complete. I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know what’s going to happen or how we’ll get out of this, or when.
But I do know this: Donald Trump, at his core, is nothing but a Strawberry Pouffe.
This week, our pick from the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival offerings was, as you’ve guessed, the Strawberry Pouffe. I’m going to say right up front that we didn’t actually have anything like what Sea World was offering.
Here’s a picture of what they had:
So, that looks like a biscuit with some strawberries and blackberries in it, drizzled with something creamy, and with a dollop of whipped cream on top.
That’s not what we made. This is what we made:
The only recipe I could find that sounded good was on Tik Tok and it went something like this:
Frozen puff pastry, sliced into rectangles Brush egg wash on top: 1 egg mixed with 1 tsp milk Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes (hah!) Let cool slightly (whatever that means) Slice in half lengthwise
1 cup whipping cream Add 1/4 cup powdered sugar Whisk to stiff peaks
Spread strawberry jam on one side of puff pastry Pipe whipped cream on top Layer with slices of fresh strawberry Put top of pastry on and sprinkle with powdered sugar
Clearly we added another layer of whipped topping. We did it because we only made two pouffes and had a LOT of whipped cream. And it took a good 15-20 minutes to cook the puff pastry.
So, the strawberry pouffe was mildly sweet, messy to eat, and not worth all the trouble. I’m not saying I’d never eat it again. I mean, if I had a freshly cooked puff pastry, some already sliced up strawberries and some of that whipped topping you spray from a can, sure I might slap one together for breakfast or brunch. …maybe.
Well, that was the strawberry pouffe. All fluff, no substance, very little taste, and it poops itself when under pressure. Just like that piece of shit Donald Trump.
You know that flag with the coiled snake that says “Don’t Tread on Me,” right? Well, that’s called the Gadsden Flag. Christopher Gadsden, a member of the Continental Congress, designed the flag in 1775 during the American Revolution. The flag, at that time, represented true freedom. Freedom from tyranny. Specifically the tyranny of Great Britain. The flag flew on the masts of some of our ships during the war. And for many years, the Gadsden Flag was a symbol of the Revolution.
But, did you know that all of that changed when the Southern States started using the flag during our Civil War? The Union felt that the South had “tainted” the flag. In response, they created their own banners showing snakes being stomped on or torn apart by eagles. And, being the whiny, titty babies they were, the Confederate States of America decided to adopt a different flag so they wouldn’t get their feelings hurt anymore.
Thus, the Southern Cross.
The flag that says “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
So, how do you suppose the South “tainted” the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag? Simple. For them, and for everyone who flies that stupid flag now, it means: Don’t Tread on Me, But Let Me Tread on Anyone I Want.
And, speaking of the Revolutionary War…Boston Cream Pie!
First of all, Boston Cream Pie is a cake. Not a pie. Apparently, back in the day, the words were used interchangeably because cakes and pies were baked in the same tins or some-such. Anyway, as you may know, it’s a cake with a layer of custard in the middle and topped with chocolate.
Most people say it was created by a chef in the Parker House Hotel in Boston. And I’ve read that the Boston Cream Doughnut was the official doughnut of Massachusetts* and that it came before the pie/cake. But I think Wikipedia says the pie/cake came first.
I prefer the doughnut, honestly.
But, enter the Boston Cream Cheesecake! The next item on our Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival list.
I have no recollection of making a cheesecake ever in my life. But I had a spring-form pan and I think maybe I have made one. But as far as I can remember, this was my first. And it was definitely my first time piping ganache! It was going really well, at first, and hubs was trying to turn the cake for me, when all of the sudden, a huge glop of ganache pooped out the top of the bag and landed all over my hand. Some of it oozed off, slid down the cabinets, and hit the floor.
Told you it was fun.
Anyway, here it is:
And here’s the slice I managed to get:
Okay, so, this was the best thing we’ve made yet. It was sweet and cheesy and a bit chocolate-y and so filling! I couldn’t finish my piece.
It has only one layer of cake and it was a bit wet. We did the aluminum foil around the pan thing for the water bath, but I think water still got in. And after a day or so, the cake texture was off from being in the fridge. I could have done without it.
Still, I’m proud of us. We made custard from scratch and ganache and the chocolate filling stuff. And it was soooo tasty!
I’m definitely going to make cheesecake again.
*You have no idea how many times I had to spell that to get it right.
So, there’s this old woman who lives in my neighborhood on the main road. People use this road as a thru-way from one big road to another, sometimes. Anyway, from the time the Orange Turd rode down the elevator in 2015…16, whenever…she was all in with the cult. Her yard had a huge Trump flag with the American flag. And she also had a Catholic flag on the pole for a while. She had a string of pennant flags that, though they were small, appeared to be Trump related, hanging from her eaves, Trump, Trump, Trump. And signs in her yard: Trump/Pence and then Trump/Vance.
The woman is nuts.
One time during Trump’s first term, I drove by her house and, as I often noticed, her flags were a disgrace. Hubs slowed the car so I could snap a picture.
She must have noticed because the next day, new flags were up. She must have had them ready to go but was too lazy to change them out until she saw someone noticed. But this picture, for me, epitomizes our country under the Trump regime. A complete disaster.
Well, he got elected again because of stupid, racist, cretins like her. But after about a month in office this year, things in her yard started to change.
First, the Trump flag came down and a new one never went back up. Then the yard signs disappeared. And now the flag banners are gone.
What happened old lady? Did Trump do something to make you change your mind? All the shit he’d done up to that point was okay with you? But now, suddenly, he’s hurt something or someone YOU love.
Fuck you, lady.
So, this week we made Lobster Roll from the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival list. I figured I would really like this one. I’ve had lobster roll before and after tasting this one, I think some of them were actually made with real lobster.
We looked in our local grocery stores for lobster and didn’t find any so we googled and found this fresh seafood market uptown. We drove through a huge rainstorm into some sunshine to find ourselves in an unfamiliar part of town. It was a bit…industrial.
But we found the shop and almost went in the wrong door. One of the employees called out to us to go around front. If we went in that door, he said, they’d put us to work. So, we managed to find the entrance and walked in to a crowded, fishy-smelling (in a good way) shop and wandered toward the back where there seemed to be a counter. We had no idea what to do.
A guy asked me what I wanted and I told him: a pound of lobster meat. He asked if I wanted tail included and I, the princess, said yes, knowing full well that would make it more expensive. Because why else would he have asked, right?
He took my name and we were left to explore all the cool stuff they had for sale. Sauces, dips, seasonings, and drinks. They had an enormous white board on one wall with every kind of fish possible on it. At one point they apparently ran out of hogfish and a dude had to run out and erase the hogfish or something. I didn’t notice exactly what he did because my name was called.
We paid $51 for a pound of frozen lobster meat! Well, they did give us a lemon, too.
It was so expensive that we decided to thaw only half of it and make two sandwiches instead of four. So this weekend, I’m going to thaw the rest and pour garlic-y melted butter on it and just eat it!
We used this recipe for our lobster rolls. We halved everything, of course. And we used regular hot dog buns that we buttered and broiled first. We made a mistake because of the way steps 2 and 3 were written. I had read the entire recipe the day before so I have no excuse, but instead of adding the ingredients into a bowl and mixing before putting in the lobster, we started dumping them right onto the lobster.
Luckily we figured it out and did our best to take the lobster out and continue the right way. When we’d finished mixing it all together, though, it just looked dry. So added a bit more mayo.
In the end, it was delicious.
Lobster is really rich, though. It made me just a touch sick to my stomach. That half pound probably could have made four sandwiches. That, and the cost of the lobster, make this something I wouldn’t make often…or maybe ever again. But this one was a winner.
It’s been a long while since I posted on this blog. There are a couple of reasons for that.
Fascism.
People really don’t read blogs anymore, do they?
If you want to get right to the food, scroll down a bit. Otherwise, let’s get into it.
The first time the Orange Shitler won the Presidency I fell into a really deep depression. It got worse and worse until I sought help. And the help really did help. I remember posting on Facebook before the election that if this country elected that narcissistic buffoon, I would never forgive it. And I haven’t. It was disgusting finding out how many people I knew turned out to be horrible and/or stupid. Those relationships are over. Done. And no, I didn’t end relationships over politics. I ended them over moral values. They lack them. I have them.
To be honest, the depression wasn’t just about Mushroom Dick. I have a whole lifetime of reasons for therapy. (See: As My Mother Lay Dying and I am Not a Monster)
But you might think I’m going to say that this last time Cheeto Mussolini was elected I got so depressed I stopped blogging. But that’s not the way it happened. I stopped blogging mostly because of #2. Why bother?
I was going to blog last November after we went to the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. I took pictures of all the food and noted our thoughts about each sample. I mean, there was one booth where we got a lobster tail that was so dry and tough I thought they should have been ashamed to serve it. But I just didn’t feel like blogging.
And when that Trump Turd won again, you know what I did? I laughed. I just laughed and laughed. It was kind of a “are you fucking kidding me?” laugh. And I’m still laughing.
I hope every idiot who voted for that creep suffers. I hope they lose their health care, their jobs, their homes. I hope they lose everything. Fuck them.
But other than that, I’ve been doing just fine. I stopped writing for a while, though. I’m just tired of putting stuff out there to crickets. I got into reselling with a booth at an antiques mall. It’s a lot of fun. I get to shop all week and sell stuff.
But mostly, I’ve been making junk journals. Here’s a video of one of my latest:
I sell these journals at my booth.
Anyway, this spring, we would have gone to Sea World for the Seven Seas Food Festival. But we just don’t feel like spending all the money to force feed ourselves for a day. So, we decided to go to the website, choose all the samples we would have liked to try, and then make them here at home! Great idea, right? So, each Sunday, we make something we’ve never had before.
And just like I would have done if we went, I’m going to blog about what we ate. Except that, it won’t be in one big blog. Today, I’m going to show you the first seven things we made.
Here we go…
First, Garlic Toast Chicken Parmesan
We looked at a couple of recipes for this. One would have us hollow out a few wide slices of Italian bread and stuff chicken parmesan into it or something ridiculous like that. We decided to just make chicken parmesan sandwiches on garlic toasted rolls.
Looks fabulous, doesn’t it?
I’m pretty sure we used this recipe for the chicken, but substituted Italian style bread crumbs.
Well, it was bland. Seriously. All that spice in the bread crumbs and the sauce. And the garlic-y toasted roll. Bland. Well, actually, the roll was pretty good.
Next up…Pork Pincho. This is a Puerto Rican recipe for pork chunks on a stick. It was quite involved. We made a marinade and soaked the pork in it overnight. Then stuck the chunks on a stick and grilled them, brushing them with bbq sauce.
I had to find stuff like sofrito and sazon and adobo seasoning. I searched all over the place for the sofrito. Once I found it in the freezer section of Walmart I now see it in every store. Once you know where to look…
It smelled good. But alas, it was as bland as the chicken. And we weren’t sure why we had to stick a piece of bread on the stick, but we did. And again, the bread was the best part.
It’s not the Puerto Rican’s fault. Pork is just not that flavorful.
Anyway, then we chose Cardamom Chocolate Torte Cake.
I have to say, I don’t know why people want to ruin chocolate by adding stuff like coffee…or cardamom.
Looks a lot better this way. So…the texture was like dense pudding. It was chocolatey. But it was also cardamommy. And again…why? Also, a lot of work when a pan of brownies would do much better. And you know what? You can pour ganache on brownies, too.
Then we made some Jamaican Jerk Chicken. Once again, using this recipe, we were hunting odd ingredients and creating a marinade. We found Scotch Bonnet Peppers at a little independent grocery nearby.
Here’s our chicken:
And here’s my plate. We added peas and mashed potatoes.
The peas and mashed potatoes were great! The chicken was spicy hot. It was more heat than flavor. We really don’t get it. Where is the flavor? How do we get flavor in chicken parmesan, pork pincho, and Jamaican Jerk chicken? What are we doing wrong?
But we persevere…
Next up, Palermo Fontina Cheese Meatball.
Oh. My. God. Look at this meatball!
We used this recipe. They’re huge! Here it is cut open…
Now, I don’t mean to harp on a message, but this was basically a big hunk of meat. It had some flavor, yes. But again, I thought the garlic bread was the best part. And I definitely couldn’t eat the whole thing. Who could? Who would?
Next we tried something we thought couldn’t lose. The Bleu Cheese Potato Twisters! I mean, it’s potatoes, right? You can’t ruin potatoes.
Well…
We decided to use bleu cheese salad dressing instead of fresh bleu cheese. We thought it would add more flavor. And we couldn’t really find a good recipe. So we just read a few different ones. Learned how to cut the potato on the skewer. And then just went with it.
This is how it ended:
It was…okay. But so much trouble for so little benefit. I would so much rather have a baked potato!
And last (for this episode) we made Rum Cake! We used this recipe which claims to be the best rum cake recipe. I got to go to the liquor store! I haven’t had rum in forever. I got some Bacardi Gold, as I couldn’t find the recommended brand.
The cake was easy enough to make. It tastes sweet and cinnamon-y with a glow of alcohol to it. I could really taste the rum in the glaze.
But, here’s the thing. It’s not chocolate. It’s a sweet cake. It’s for people who like sweet stuff more than they like chocolate. But, even if I wanted a different kind of cake, I’d go for my great grandfather’s “Pa’s Pound Cake” recipe. Or Bill Sherrill’s “Vanilla Wafer Cake” recipe. I wouldn’t make this again.
I know what you’re thinking. Don’t I like anything? And if I’m so particular, why do I try stuff?
Because it’s fun, that’s why. And it’s good for you to try stuff, even if you don’t like it in the end.
We’ve got plenty more to make on our list. And when we’re done with the Sea World Seven Seas stuff, we’re going to do the same with the Epcot Food & Wine Festival this year. I’ll blog all about it, even if nobody cares.
And in the meantime, let’s do our best to get through America’s Stupid Fascism Era with our empathy (as much as we had, anyway), morals, and joy intact.
I was skimming Jeff Tiedrich’s latest email, about Trump and his Bible sale, when I came across this quote from Christianity Today:
And therein lies the most alarming concern we share about this “American Bible.” It promotes the myth of an American exceptionalism that is founded on God blessing this nation in a way that God has not or does not blessed other nations.
There are two auxiliary verbs in there, not separated by commas, and that’s okay, except that what follows is totally screwed up. The auxiliary verbs in question are “has not” and “does not.” But they’re separated by the word “or.”
What the authors are trying to say is “…God has blessed other nations” and “…God does not bless” other nations.
“Has blessed” is past tense. “Does not bless” is present tense. You can’t just shove those two together and then use the past-tense “blessed” for the verb.
If you look around the internet, you’ll find that most people just use the verb form that relates to the subject, or in this case the auxiliary verb, that is closest to it. So, they’d say “Martha or her parents don’t want the pie, but I’m not sure which.” This could be grammatically correct. I’m still trying to figure it out. If you put that sentence into Pro Writing Aid, it says that’s just fine.
Or, they’d say, “Martha has not or does not eat spinach.” And everyone assumes this is just fine. Pro Writing Aid says it’s just fine.
But it’s just wrong. Wrong, I tell you!
And when you try that with our little wowzer of a sentence: “God has not or does not bless other nations”–Pro Writing Aid tells you to put a comma before and after “or does not” and then tells you “bless” is wrong.
So, it’s just wrong.
You can’t put two different tenses of an auxiliary verb together and then use only one tense of the verb. You can’t say “…God has not or does not bless other nations.” And you can’t say “…God has not or does not blessed other nations.”
You could separate the offending auxiliary verb with dashes: “…God has not–or does not–blessed other nations.” At least, Pro Writing Aid doesn’t flag it. But if you ask me, it’s still wrong.
The only way to fix it is to say: “It promotes the myth of an American exceptionalism that is founded on God blessing this nation in a way that God has not blessed, or does not bless, other nations.”
There! I fixed it for them.
I am not going to read all of their article. Based on this sample, I don’t think I could handle it.
Last weekend, we visited Sea World for their Seven Seas Food Festival. We do the Epcot Food & Wine Festival every year, but this is only the second time we’ve done Sea World’s. Hubs, after our first time, dubbed Sea World’s festival the winner. I wasn’t so enamored with it. And this second visit has me declaring Sea World a definite second-place effort.
Let’s start with parking to get into the park: $34.08! $32 + tax!
We were shocked! You can tell by all the exclamation points. But, as it turns out, parking at Disney is $30. So it’s close. But still. Sea World is not Disney. Who do they think they are? It’s almost like they don’t want us to go to the park.
Then we found that the prices of their samples were all $10.99 or 11.99! Even the dang doughnut! It was ridiculous. Unfortunately, I don’t have the exact price for each item, like I do with Epcot. We purchased a 10-sample lanyard for $70. So, each of our samples cost only $7. You MUST get the lanyard if you plan to go. Of course, then you’re forced to try ten things.
If you think the samples are expensive, take a look at the prices in their restaurants.
And this isn’t some fancy, sit-down, get waited on restaurant. It’s your typical fast-food, counter-ordering, hope there’s a seat available restaurant.
Okay, enough complaining about this stuff. Let’s complain about the food!
Shrimp & Grits!
Our fist stop was the Gulf Coast Market for “Cajun Shrimp and Grits.” The description says “Cheddar Stone Grits, Royal Red Shrimp, Andouille Sausage, Roasted Tomatoes, Green Peas”
Well, I’ve had shrimp & grits before and I have to say, this dish was very mild by comparison. And they put the word “Cajun” in the title! You see “Cajun” and you expect flavor. Lots of flavor. But here, the grits were bland. I don’t know what the dollop of sauce is on top in the picture, nor what the reddish brown sauce is, but they were bland. The shrimp was tender and tasted like shrimp. The sausage was flavorful, if mild.
Overall, it was okay, but I’d be disappointed if I ordered shrimp & grits in a restaurant and got this.
Next stop Mexico for a “Taco al Pastor.”
Described as “Chipotle Ancho Adobo Chicken, Pineapple, Cabbage, Onion, Cilantro”
What it tasted like was BBQ and onion. It was okay, but needed more flavor.
Brazil was next for the Galinhada.
“Marinated Chicken Thigh, Saffron Rice”
The chicken was…chicken. You know, not much flavor. It should have been spiced and/or marinated. Anything for some flavor! And the rice had no flavor at all. But the chicken was moist and the taste of chicken by itself is actually pretty good. And the dish was warm. So, it was okay.
Then we went to Cafe de Mar for a much anticipated Whiskey Bacon Cinnamon Roll.
I was ready for it, anyway. Hubs isn’t a fan of bacon.
Alas, it was awful.
The description reads, “Topped with Whiskey Maple Glaze.” (Sea World really needs to do better with the descriptions.)
As it turns out, I am not a fan of “whiskey bacon.” I thought I’d love whiskey. Maybe I would, just not on bacon. And I LOVE bacon. But the whiskey, in this case, ruined it. I actually shuddered from the horror of tasting it. And when I took a bite of just cinnamon bun, I was shocked at how little sugar was in it. Was there any sugar in it? This was a BIG no.
Let’s talk duck. Ever since I had a turducken one Thanksgiving, I’ve been chasing that wonderful duck flavor. I guess duck only has flavor if it’s wrapped around a chicken and stuck inside a turkey. Because this duck could have been chicken for all its lack of flavor.
Described as “Duck Confit–Served with Tabais Beans.”
I don’t know what Tabais beans are, but they have no flavor, at least in the way they were prepared in the “France” booth.
There was, I will admit, something crunchy in the beans that had some flavor. I’m pretty sure it was celery.
Off to the All American Market for some fried pickles.
Oh my. Not what we were expecting at all. Very pickle-y. Too pickle-y. Hubs described it as “McDonald’s burger and fries all in one bite.” Yeah, that was pretty much it.
I don’t recall what the sauce was, but it was offered as an option and we chose to have it on the side. It’s not mentioned in the description. In fact, this dish had no description at all, besides: “New!”
I wouldn’t eat it again.
Next up, Sweet Sips for the Choco Loco Cupcake.
There’s no way for anyone to screw up “Chocolate Cupcake, Chocolate Fudge Icing, Chocolate Whipped Topping, Dipped in Chocolate” right?
Dear god they managed to do it!
And how did they screw this up? By keeping it in a refrigerator. All that moisture you see in the picture…that’s condensation.
Everything on top was amazing! But the cupcake itself was hard, dry, dense, and flavorless. It’s possible if we’d let it thaw a bit, it might have been better, but I’m thinking once you dry out a cupcake into bits of cardboard, it’s game over.
Shame. But we ate all of it.
And as we ate our cupcake, we were visited by a mama blue-winged teal and her ducklings!
Then we were off to get some non-sweet food because we were on a raging sugar high. We got the Walking Gyros at the Mediterranean Market.
Described as “Pita Chips, Tomatoes, Red Onion, Tzatziki Sauce.”
Well, I was confused. What is walking about this dish? I didn’t eat many of the chips. They were pretty thick. The tzatziki sauce was way too mild. Not the tzatziki I’m familiar with. But the meat was very tasty, so, overall, I enjoyed the whole thing. Unfortunately, in the end, all I could taste was salt.
And what do you crave after a salty snack…if you’re me? Sweets! So we were off to the Irish Market for the “Jameson Donut–Chocolate Jameson Mousse, Chocolate Icing, Candy Orange.”
There was no “candy orange” so far as we could tell. But it tasted like a donut, even though it–like the cupcake–was refrigerated and therefore dense and tough. The Jameson Mousse in the middle was really tasty, and really sparse.
I liked it, despite the texture, which says a lot more about me than it does about the donut.
Last but not least, and the dish we attempted to eat first shortly after 11:00 when the food festival was supposed to begin only to find that the whole thing just sort of stumbled along to an opening sometime between 11:00 and 11:20:
Once again, flavor was hard to find. Alone, the dumplings were very dry. Much better with the bits of grass and peppers on top. The sauce tasted okay, but was, as you expected no doubt, lacking in flavor.
So, we ate a lot of flavorless dishes and a couple of tasty desserts.
My total takeaway is “large portions of bland foods.” I think Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival is much better. Hubs, on the other hand, still feels like Epcot’s is phoning it in. I guess the battle of the food festivals will continue…
The title of this post is definitely a question. But today, as I was reading about the so-called royal across the pond and her cancer diagnosis, I came across a misplaced question mark. And this happens all the time. I find it maddening.
The question of what happened to Catherine, Princess of Wales turned out to be, in the end, a question of what you think you are owed by the British royals?
Let’s leave aside the lack of a necessary comma after the clause “Princess of Wales” and the repetition of the word “question” and look at the question mark at the end. This is not a question. It’s a statement about a question. Just because you’re talking about a question doesn’t mean you put a question mark at the end.
So, an otherwise lovely article defending the privacy of a public figure has turned into a nightmare. In my opinion, anyway. And seeing this mistake made me pay more attention to the rest of the article, in a bad way.
The author continued to refuse to put a comma after Catherine’s title, “Princess of Wales,” which was unnerving. And as for major goofs, the article didn’t disappoint. The final paragraph contained this monstrosity:
And anyway, when I watched Catherine, Princess of Wales — a woman who had to interrupt her cancer treatments and her family tending to get her hair done and put on makeup and prove to the world that she was not dead, not a body double, not leaving her husband, not growing out a bad haircut, just sick — when I watched her give us her bad news, what I thought wasn’t that she should have told us sooner.
Family-tending should have been hyphenated there, of course, for clarity. But that’s not the only problem.
When you use two dashes to insert a clause, what comes before and after those dashes has to be a complete and sensical sentence. In this case, the sentence interrupted by the clause is this:
And anyway, when I watched Catherine, Princess of Wales when I watched her give us her bad news, what I thought wasn’t that she should have told us sooner.
And look! Still no comma after “Princess of Wales!”
Central Florida couldn’t decide if it wanted to be hot or chilly, sunny or rainy, on the Friday we visited EPCOT for their annual food & wine festival. Luckily for us, the brief rain happened while we were in a very long line indoors.
This year, many of the booths boasted some new offerings, which was nice. But, we can usually only fit in ten to thirteen items before we stagger to the car (from too much food, not wine or beer) and head home, so we couldn’t taste them all. We only go for things that sound like we might actually enjoy them. It’s not cheap, after all.
So, what did we eat? Was it any good? Let’s dig in.
First stop: Mexico!
All three of Mexico’s offerings were new this year. We tried the Taco de Costilla: slow braised beef short rib on a corn tortilla with salsa de chile Morita, avocado mousse, and spring onions. I was really looking forward to the avocado mousse. Unfortunately, there was very little of it. But what I could find was lovely. The entire dish was tasty, if a bit on the salty side.
Stop number two: China!
New at China this year was the crispy duck bao bun with hoisin sauce. It looks like a mouth with its tongue hanging out!
We’re not super fans of the bao buns but this one was pretty good. The duck was not crispy at all, however, and was, in fact, a thick slab of tastelessness. Very disappointing. Duck is a pretty tasty meat, so I don’t know what the problem was except that, perhaps, it wasn’t really duck. The sauce was really sweet and not terrible. Hubs found it all too salty, but I thought the sweetness of the sauce counteracted the saltiness for a nice balance.
On to number three: Italy!
We were excited about Italy. We’ve skipped it in years’ past because we’d tasted it all before and it tasted like Chef Boyardee. This year, all three offerings were new. We skipped the sausage ragout because Hubs doesn’t like sausage. I’d have gone for it but I had so much left on the list, I didn’t mind skipping it. So, what did we get?
I thought the sauce was a step above Chef Boyardee, but Hubs words were along the lines of: “Well, I guess it’s good to know that Chef Boyardee really is authentic Italian food.”
And for a bit of dessert…
Lemon ricotta cheesecake with vanilla cream and strawberry compote. Yummy! This was fabulous.
Number four: Japan!
We chose one of their new offerings here: the beef Wagyu don (don means bowl). So, a rice bowl with American Wagyu beef (hint: that means it’s not really Wagyu) over steamed (sticky) white rice. It was topped with what we think were pickled carrots which were super strong in flavor; a tough piece of pickled okra that tasted nothing like okra ought; a slice of tough boiled egg; and some bits of (maybe fake*) saffron. We decided this dish could be dubbed Japanese Shepherds Pie…in a bowl. A very tiny bowl.
*I say fake saffron because…come on. Saffron is really expensive. I tasted a bit of it by itself because I wanted to know what saffron tastes like. I still don’t know what saffron tastes like because it had no flavor.
Overall, though, a pretty tasty dish.
On to number five: Flavors of the Medina!
Wait, what?
Some of the offerings were at permanent locations in EPCOT, as opposed to the booths. This one was in the Tangierine Café in Morocco.
Here we had the pistachio cake with cinnamon pastry cream and candied walnuts. Heaven on a plate! The cinnamon overwhelmed the flavor of the pistachio cake, but if you got a bite without it, the pistachio came through wonderfully. There was a decorative piece of white chocolate on top. Very nice!
Next up: Ireland!
Our sixth stop was Ireland for the obligatory warm chocolate pudding cake with Irish Cream Liqueur custard. Hubs was going to let me eat this all by myself but I insisted he help. It’s huge! Honestly, I didn’t find it as chocolatey as it looks. I might consider skipping it next year.
Stop seven: Flavors from Fire!
Yeah, they have these booths that aren’t linked to countries at all. It seemed wrong when they first started, but we’re okay with it now. So here we got their two new offerings.
Chimichurri marinated skirt steak taco with crushed avocado, grilled corn salsa, pickled red onions (more like a wide slice), queso fresco and cilantro-lime cream. This was pretty good. Loved the avocado.
Spiced chocolate tart with BBQ potato chip crust, salted whiskey caramel, and smoked sea salt.
So, picture me, carrying this plate with a huge chunk of chocolate on it, beaming, salivating! I was in heaven. I was going to eat this whole thing. Hubs would be lucky to get one bite. Alas.
Nope. Just no.
My god when will people stop ruining chocolate? It was way too spicy. To the point of being disgusting. And that chip on top? Oh, my god, I tasted it and nearly spit it out. Bitter and gross.
Now, stop eight was technically at the Connections Café for a Remy Liege waffle. A cream cheese Liege waffle with cream cheese icing, graham cracker crumbs and a Remy chocolate garnish.
The Belgian waffle, as we know it in the US, is actually an americanized [sic] version of the Brussels waffle, a batter based waffle. Pearl sugar waffles, aka Liège waffles, are quite different and are made with a yeast based brioche dough studded with special pearl nibs of sugar that caramelize on the waffle iron as it cooks.
The Connections Café is basically a Starbucks. It was the longest line we waited in (the second longest was for Japan). And as we got closer to the counter, we realized two things.
One: Remy chocolate is not some kind of fancy European chocolate. It’s a piece of white chocolate with a picture of Remy on it. Oh, that’s right. We finally realized that Remy is the name of the rat in Ratatouille.
And two, the waffle wouldn’t be served on a plate, but in a little plastic pouch. So we decided to take the waffle home and try it there. One less thing to fill us up, right? So, we’ll get back to the waffle at the end.
While we were in line, we passed a refrigerated case and I grabbed a bottle of Diet Coke. When we purchased our Remy waffle and very expensive Diet Coke, I asked for a cup of ice. The cashier asked for my name, wrote it on the side of a cup, and passed it to someone. There we were, standing in a group of wired coffee fanatics, waiting through the shouts of “Carla! Iced, Ristretto, 10 shot, venti, with breve, 5 pump vanilla, 7 pump caramel, 4 Splenda, poured, not shaken!”* for my little: “Donna! Cup of ice!” That’s right. They got my name wrong.
*I got that from the Internet.
Stop nine: Greece!
We got the spanakopita (basically a spinach/cheese pie) because I always think I’m going to love it. And it was cheesy and comforting. But it was also too greasy. I might try to make some myself sometime and see how it turns out.
Next stop: Flavors of America!
Everything was new this year at the America booth, except for the carrot cake. We chose the Chilaquiles: corn tortilla chips tossed in a salsa verde with ranchero chicken, queso fresco, cilantro-lime crema and a soft poached egg.
Well…we expected this to be like nachos, but the tortilla chips were very soggy and had to be eaten with a fork, which wasn’t an easy thing to do. We found an egg shell in it! Chef Ramsay would be appalled. While this was very tasty, the soft poached egg was pretty close to raw. It was pretty gross so we avoided it.
Stop eleven: Germany!
We decided to indulge in the usual apple strudel with vanilla sauce. It’s always a pleasure. Mild in flavor, not super sweet like American apple pie. And it’s got grapes in it. We think they’re cute.
And that was it! We couldn’t eat another thing, so we went home. And I found my Remy waffle pretty smashed up in my purse. After a few hours of digesting, I gave it a try.
Fresh out of the bag at EPCOT, you would have seen distinct lines of drizzled cream cheese icing across the top.
My reaction was to ask Hubs if it was possible for something to be too sugary sweet and yet, not very sweet at the same time. The cream cheesy parts were lovely, and the crust parts were sugary. The white chocolate was delicious. All in all, it was much too sweet to eat the whole thing.
Many of the prices were a bit higher this year. Some seemed very high. The Wagyu beef don, for example, was $9.75. The Bao bun with duck slab was $8.25 and Italy’s mini meatball sub was $9.00 with its cheesecake $8.00.
The other selections we tried were priced from $4.19 for the Remy waffle to $7.51 for the taco de costilla (rib) at Mexico.
Still, we had fun and enjoyed sampling some weird and wonderful foods. We’re going to try to do the Sea World food festival next spring. I’ll blog about it, if we do.
So…did you do the festival? If so, what did you like best?
I’m typically very late to the game when it comes to television, or film for that matter. I don’t go to the theater anymore and even when a movie is available for streaming, I’m more likely than not to wait until it’s free to watch before I see it.
I didn’t start watching The Big Bang Theory until I happened to catch a few episodes while staying in a hotel at a writer’s conference. When I got home, I started watching them all as reruns.
And it’s the same with The King of Queens and Mike & Molly.
The thing is, I spend a bit of time each day on the sofa with my iPad, scrolling social media or doing word and jigsaw puzzles. I like to have some sound going on around me when I do that. And it’s not like I don’t look up and actually watch a little bit.
So, at some point, I started watching The King of Queens. It might have been after seeing Leah Remini doing something about Scientology that led me to it. I enjoyed the show. It was funny enough. It has that typical dynamic of snotty, bossy woman married to doofus slob of a man, with a narcissistic parent thrown in.
I never really thought much deeper about The King of Queens until I happened upon Mike & Molly. I’d seen a little bit of one episode a long time ago, but I guess it wasn’t on at a time when I would find myself watching it so never saw any more. It was a scene of Molly at the kitchen table with her novel, fretting over how awful it was.
But TV line-ups change and I recently found that M&M was on regularly when I happened to have my butt on the sofa. So, I’ve seen it all now. And I have to say, I love it.
Mike & Molly is basically The King of Queens with nice people.
The King of Queens is about Doug and Carrie, two awful people surrounded by fairly decent people, pestered constantly by an irredeemable narcissist—Carrie’s father played by Jerry Stiller.
Mike & Molly is about two decent, loving people surrounded by sweet quirky characters and one, often redeemed, narcissist, Mike’s mom.
The narcissist is always an in-law, it seems, in family shows. But, of course. It’s the age-old mother-in-law gag which TKoQ thought they were turning on its head by making it a man. I suppose we should thank them for that.
I can’t say I care much at all for Jerry Stiller, who plays Carrie’s father. He doesn’t seem to have had much acting range, but I haven’t seen him in anything beyond Seinfeld, TKoQ, and Zoolander. If I’ve seen him in anything else, I’ve completely forgotten it.
The things Carrie’s father does in TKoQ are horrible and unforgivable. He sabotages Carrie’s college plans. He changes her name as a child by losing it in a poker game and kept it hidden from her. Just really awful, dumb stuff that we’re supposed to laugh at. And he never quite comes around to seeing what an awful person he is. In fact, he is forgiven over and over again, because Carrie loves him.
That’s the thing about narcissists on television. Their children love them, despite them being truly awful, cruel people. I can’t even watch Mom. The mother is a terrible, unapologetic narcissist and it’s played for laughs. It’s not funny. But her daughter sticks with her because…why? Because it’s a show! And it’s supposed to be funny.
But in Mike & Molly, Peggy, played by Rondi Reed, has so many moments of redemption that viewers can come to like her, if not love her. And both Mike and Molly show their anger with her honestly and openly. This is so much more refreshing than what happens on those other shows.
Abusive parenting isn’t funny. Imperfect parenting can be. But a lot of writers are apparently too lazy to write complex characters and instead just go for overused tropes.
There is one major flaw in Mike & Molly, though, and that’s all of the fat jokes made at Mike’s expense. From his friends and from Molly’s family–some even from Molly herself, though hers are not as harsh as the others. The fat jokes aren’t funny and even if they were, it’s just cheap shots for laughs. The show could have redeemed itself had Mike, at some point, said “enough is enough.”
But I can get past the fat jokes simply because, overall, all of the characters are good people. Funny how the writers managed to make great comedy out of that, isn’t it?
