I'm a Monty Python fan and a lesbian, so —

That's also not a bad idea! I've found that the still-hot tea hitting the ice makes for a more rapid cool-down, but if that's not a concern (making it for the next day et al.) then by all means continue, especially if it's worked for you!

Heh. Okay, so.

The good thing is, it doesn't need sour cream to be good! And it doesn't have beets. It's a sweet-and-sour kind of tomato-based soup that's really satisfying and warming when it's cold as hell out. I need to make it again this winter.

Jesus, and I thought yesterday at the dentist was bad when he started telling me that healthcare is a privilege and not a right.

Nah, y'all have David's Teas.

I'd highly recommend American Tea Room! They have a wonderful selection of looseleaf teas and their customer service is amazing. Once they called me after I got a shipping notice and said, "we realized we sent you someone else's order, we've gone ahead and sent your actual order out just now, so please go ahead and…

It's honestly amazing to me how many people suck at making iced tea, including so-called tea experts. I learned the best way of making it from my garde manger chef instructor and it's never failed me once, whether I was making a gallon or just enough for myself.

Seriously. I've always steered people away from them, because if you want average tea that isn't as horrendously overpriced, there's always Adagio. But I'm a huge tea snob and only order from American Tea Room out of Los Angeles (their milk oolong is the only one I've found that A) is actual milk oolong and not…

Have you ever had solyanka? It's this Russian meat soup that involves chopped-up dill pickles, which sounds weird but it's amazing.

I still hate his guts.

That sounds about right. I love looking at old menus from the turn of the last century, because they're full of things we think of as fancy but which were totally proletariat at the time. (And also things that are back on fancy restaurants' menus but which most people now think of as gross, like offal.) I bet you'd…

And thank god for that! Can you imagine a world without Old Bay? Horrifying.

They had to make do with margarine. It truly was inhumane.

Yum, more for me.

I used to comment there quite often, actually, and I remember her from there too. It's pleased me to no end to see Mallory doing so well. Thank you for the information!

Everyone knows that the best weird chip of all time is Herr's creamy dill pickle chip, which tastes like sour cream and dill/garlic and is fucking delicious and I'm so fucking mad they're so hard to find here. I live like 45 minutes from Pennsylvania, why aren't these things everywhere?

It's a good thing I'm working from home today, because I just literally screamed with laughter at this.

Aw, this makes me nostalgic for both The Toast and its predecessor, The Hairpin.

I would love to. It seems like a gorgeous place.