“we’re in a tight spot!”

I was in Houston recently and went to Hugo Ortega’s restaurant Xochi, which has a mole sampler — fresh made flour tortillas and 4 types of mole. Over the course of two visits I was able to try  eight of the moles on the menu, including almendrado, which I had never had. I also had the mole chicatana — ant mole, made…

Several years ago my then teen age daughter got a gourmet marshmallow cook book for her birthday. One afternoon we decided to make chocolate mint marshmallows. They came out great, but the whole process was terrifying, with constant admonitions in the recipe to beware of scalding, spattering corn syrup —including…

Vodka/Aquavit cross-over observation.

I actually saw Dick Shawn do his one man show, and absolutely believe that the audience would think it was part of the performance. During intermission he would lay down on the stage and close his eyes while the lights came up, almost as if he was sleeping, then get up when the lights came down again. A terrific and…

So many great, cheesy moments. Back in the day my friends and I tried to perfect Stephen Boyd’s frozen faced stiff hand clapping at the very end.

Along similar lines from Hot Shots:

The Oscar — a movie so terrible, it’s great. The over the top performances are perfectly sent up by SCTV:

I love eggplant, and now know what I will be cooking this weekend —this looks great!

This was very good, but hard to read from an emotional standpoint. My daughter was in and out of residential treatment centers for almost three years in her mid-teens, including involuntary treatment for almost nine months at an isolated, out of state facility with family visits allowed only every two months. It had a…

Best take on Guy Fieri hate:

I actually heard a pretty funny podcast on this subject a couple of weeks ago:http://theseunitedstatesstories.libsyn.com/tuss-ep-97-fry-guy

As someone who has represented law enforcement officers and their employers for decades, this is absolutely right. Law enforcement agencies that have settlements and judgments paid out of their budgets, are much more proactive in avoiding future lawsuits than agencies that get to spread the loss over the general…

Back in the ancient days of my youth in the 70's, I was a tour guide at Universal Studios. The tour featured a re-creation of the living room set from the Bionic Woman TV series. Guides would always start out this portion by asking, “Does anyone know what set this is”, and invariably a bunch of folks would yell out…

Yup —- I grew up with a 2 acre avocado orchard in our backyard, so we had them almost every day when in season (which is almost year round, if you have enough different varieties). Nobody I knew tried to take the pit out with a knife. You just pop them out with your finger, or use a small spoon. Heck, if you don’t…

Had Cherries Jubilee at Antoine’s in New Orleans and their spin (or at least my waiter’s spin) was not simply to flame the cherries table side, but to intentionally spoon some of the warm brandy from the pan onto the table and light up the table cloth. Freaked me out —I don’t need a flaming table, I just want dessert.

A good list, but no love for Zatoichi? I was surprised to find that most of the early (and i think best) of the blind masseur films are on YouTube.

As someone who does not handle VR well, I had the same thought —Puke Park.

The recipe looks delicious, but the bright color of the tomato hollandaise reminds me of a dish my Dad made all the time that grossed out me and my sister when we were kids. He would add Campbell’s condensed Tomato Soup to scrambled eggs. We called it Tomato Barf.

Realistic wax figures you say? I know how to do that.