Yes, the Macy’s ad is a good example of what a product placement might look like - pre-filmed (giving them more time to negotiate the placement and get it approved), includes a prominent display of the logo and can’t be viewed as truly disparaging to the brand. But just because these things are happening doesn’t mean…

I didn’t say that the brand of the hotel was a punchline to a joke or anything. Naming it is just a shorthand, so everyone instantly knows it’s a mid-market/so-so hotel. It’s faster and less distracting than using a fake brand.

I would think any brand doing a product placement would demand advance review and approval of a sketch and there’s no way that Safelite ad would have ever passed muster. Indeed, Safelite said on Twitter they were not involved in the creation of that sketch: https://time.com/4974558/snl-safelite-skit/

I find your insistence that every brand mentioned on SNL must be paying for the placement bizarre. I can see the Macy’s ad potentially qualifying (it’s highly branded and doesn’t criticize the brand) but the hot tub sketch is another matter. What hotel chain in the world would find it worth paying for a brief mention…

That sounds like another spin on the “international” recipes you’d see in the 50s-70s - like Indian recipes that involved putting a tablespoon of curry powder in cream of celery soup and then dumping it over poached chicken. 

This is why it is SO annoying when people say “Just grow your own!” I live in NYC where many people I know have neither the room nor any sunny spot to put plants. I actually have a terrace that gets decent sun and spent WAY more trying to grow tomatoes than it would ever cost to buy them between plants, dirt, fertilize…

I can imagine adequate artificial light will really spike power bills too. .  .

The romaine lettuce recall included whole lettuce as well. And speaking as someone who has tried, it is far from easy to grow lettuce on a windowsill and in most climates it is completely not feasible year round. The plants need a lot of sun and a fair amount of soil and space (a small window box likely won’t work)…

It’s not like he explictly said she didn’t want or ask for the Pelton. I think it’s really the terrified looks on the “wife’s” face that made it go viral and doubt the ad seemed all that bad when they were filming it. Who knows what the original script/scenario was that they shot pre-editing. . . 

Never wait an hour to get a bill! I would give 20-30 minutes and a couple of requests tops, then leisurely put on coats and start heading for the door. This was my late brother in law’s policy and as he noted, no restaurant ever failed to provide him with a check before he hit the street.

My family didn’t even like getting lumps of liver in their gravy, but pureed up it works for them! Even just part of the liver makes a nice difference.

Eeek! My mother stopped doing it at some point too, but by then I was old enough to clean out my own ears with Q-tips. And now that I think of it no one ever cleaned out her ears. . .

A few years ago I figured out my best gravy tip. I usually boil the gizzard, liver, neck, etc. to make stock for the gravy, and every year would try to get the cat to eat the things I didn’t slice/shred or put in the gravy. One year I decided to see if I could use the liver in the gravy. If you use a food…

It doesn’t really “have” to be scooped out regularly but it’s very common that people do it. When I was little I would lay on my mother’s lap and she’d use a bamboo tool to scrape it out (unfortunately sometimes she’d drop some in the ear canal which was always kind of weird) and this is a service you also used to be…

Can you please qualify that by saying “win the nomination” at least? Because why I know there are many different views on Team Blue, I would hope all of us would agree that a person who has actually read something beside a Mcdonald’s menu in the last ten years and has not bankrupted any companies, tried to extort any…

There’s another way of thinking about this, which is that a consuming class is an underlying engine for an entire economy in a broken capitalist system. Think of the scenes in Downton Abbey where cousin Matthew wants to just put on his own clothes but quickly realizes he will be putting an anxious servant out of work…

I will say that the lentils came out very nicely, but I was making an Indian dal where some of them were mashed and it was more of a thick porridge than say a soup where the lentils were still whole.

Looking into this a little bit more, apparently large amounts of liquid will cause preheating to take longer and I had that both times (regular tap water so roughly room temperature). But still I’m being charitable when I say 15-20 minutes, I think it was at least 25 for the lentils and possibly longer. Then for the…

Honestly, I think the Instant Pot is best for people who are novice cooks and a little afraid of burning things, etc. on the stove top. I have a friend who fits that exact description who LOVES the Instant Pot. I tried it myself and just didn’t get it. I see the value for beans, soups and stews but people are using it…

Just curious, how long does it actually take to boil eggs in the Instant Pot, complete lid-down cooking time? Is it really any faster than the 10-12 minutes to cook eggs on the stove top or do you just prefer the result?