Bastet

"You killed Jill." I don't like kids, but that one was great. And I can't stand Signy Coleman, but this was the one performance of hers I liked. That guy was so realistically evil, it was hard to watch. Nice job of showing a "DV Underground Railroad," how many abusers are regarded as pillars of the community, the lack of rights stepmoms have when wanting to save their stepchild alongside themselves, etc. And I love the neighbor who, upon being asked what he thinks happened to the first wife, says something like, "I just assumed he killed her." By knocking over a cane - her weapon - that a stagehand clearly puts in place. Takes me right out of an otherwise-compelling courtroom scene, as that "it's the Gorgon" kid is pretty good.

I had to consult an episode guide, and it looks like I stopped watching regularly in season six, but had already lost interest in season five. I've seen bits and pieces of later seasons in syndication when nothing else is on, but the only episodes I'll really plop down and watch are from the early yeras. It was amazing I ever got into the show, really, as I hated - with the heat of a nova - Mariska Hargitay on ER, and I never came to regard her as anything more than decent, but the ensemble made it work for me ... for a while. "Liv and El" had terrific chemistry as partners, but they both became so annoying as individuals, they were no longer worth suffering through the thin (or absurd) plots. It used to be one of them would act a fool under certain circumstances - as humans do - and someone else would call them on it or they'd rein each other in, but after awhile they just ran amok on a weekly basis while being narratively hailed as heroes.

As someone who despises "regular" yogurt, and can only handle Greek yogurt as an ingredient masked by many other things, I give a thumbs-up to Fage. I'm never going to just eat it out of the carton or with some fruit mixed in, but as part of a base for other flavorings, it works. For dips, I use a half sour cream/half mayo base. Here is where it gets interesting - I hate sour cream, too. So I use fat-free Knudsen as the sour cream half (I tried Daisy once and it was particularly disgusting, even with full fat) - because if I don't like it anyway and am cutting it with the good stuff, I might as well eliminate the fat, and this brand of fat-free sour cream tastes equally disgusting, but not moreso, than its full-fat counterpart - and good ol' regular* Best Foods as the mayo half. The mayo plus the flavors of my dip counteract the sour cream. *I used to love the canola version of Best Foods mayo - it tasted very close to the real thing, but they did away with that, and all their remaining lower-fat options now rely heavily on vinegar, which I hate, and makes it taste like mayo mixed with mustard, which I also hate. I tried the olive oil version, because I love olive oil, but that tasted like crap, too. So mayo is on my list of "just go with it" foods - I'd rather look for ways to use less but enjoy what I'm using than substitute with something I don't like. Same with cheese - low-fat cheese can miss me; I'll just eat less.

All sweet cream butter I'd tried tasted pretty much the same to me, so I was using Kirkland because it was cheapest. Then I saw the ATK segment where Land o' Lakes was the only sweet cream butter the testing panel and audience really liked (they were cultured cream fans like me), and decided to give it a whirl. With that one, I can tell a difference. The rest, not so much. Or the manufacturer discontinues them, which has happened to me several times. Oh, Snapple peach lemonade, how I still miss you so. Remember those commercials where the Snapple Lady would respond to customers' letters by sending a truck full of the stuff to their house? When they first took peach lemonade (which tasted like a Fuzzy Navel, minus the booze) off the market, I gave more than a moment's thought to writing a letter asking that all remaining bottles be sent to me. Sugar content be damned - that stuff was good! Yeah, yeah - I can make my own. It's not the same.

I always want to put different clothes on Cooper, but I like him. I like any kid who says "Sir" in a non-Eddie Haskell way. Obviously none of these kids work for their school newspaper given their performance in the Journalism category. I would have expected at least one of the three to know - or figure out - that graf stands for paragraph, but the First Amendment TS is what truly shocked me.

Yeah, he is the appliance in these ads -- with the one in question, the pitch is that whatever food is left on the plates when you put it in, the Maytag dishwasher will "chew up for you." (Which, so will any good dishwasher, which is why seeing my friend with a new, high-quality dishwasher waste water by essentially washing her dishes before putting them in the dishwasher makes me cringe, but I digress). To illustrate this, he - tucked in the cabinet where the dishwasher would be - licks something off a whisk.

Yes, I loved Bertolli's response ad! Unfortunately, I don't like their pasta (at least not their whole wheat pasta, which is what I eat). I was not a fan of Ronzoni, either, but it has been quite some time since I tried it (once I discovered Barilla, I stuck with that since on sale it's only $1!) so I'll have to try that again. I've been eating Del Allo mostly.

My mom and I used to have waffles for dinner when my dad was out of town; he's not a big fan of them for breakfast, let alone dinner. I still do that every once in awhile -- there's something about eating them at night that makes them taste even better.

I'm mostly going to go off the things you've mentioned, but I'm sure I'll think of more later: Land o' Lakes is the only sweet cream butter I like (I prefer cultured cream). It was the America's Test Kitchen recommendation for sweet cream butter, and I concur. It's what I cook with, because cultured cream butter is expensive, so I save that for buttering toast, a bagel, etc. -- if butter is a star, I use cultured cream, but if it's just an ingredient, I use sweet cream. Barilla was my go-to for dried whole wheat pasta, and not just because it's cheaper than the boutique brands - I like it better, too. But then the CEO made sexist and homophobic statements, and I opted to stop buying it. I miss it, and will be really happy if he - or someone else in the family - makes an actual apology rather than the half-assed one he eventually eked out. Best Foods (Hellman's) mayo is the only commercial mayo I like (I don't like Kraft at all, and don't get me started on the abomination that is Miracle Whip), and I love it - in fact, better than homemade. For canned artichoke hearts, I used to buy Maria's, but then I tried the Ralphs' (Kroger) store brand and was just as happy. I also love Ralphs' brand of organic milk - Simple Truth. Horizon I like, too, but it usually goes off before I can drink the whole thing. For hot dogs, Nathan's is my favorite, but I also like Vienna and Hebrew National. Tillamook cheddar, yes, especially with Gallo Italian dry salame on a Milton's "everything" cracker. When I'm not getting all local and artisanal, that's what I snack on. When I make my dad peanut butter cookies from his mom's recipe each Christmas, I use Skippy (chunky) because that turns out to make much better cookies than the "good" peanut butter I have. And I freakin' love Kraft macaroni & cheese. It's a box of chemicals, so I don't eat it often, but it's my favorite processed food splurge. Kirkland (Costco's brand) extra virgin olive oil - delicious, affordable and, as discussed before, per UC Davis researchers it's actually olive oil (rather than being adulterated with cheaper, refined oils).

And you've found them to be accurate? When America's Test Kitchen tested measuring spoons, they were horrified to discover how many were inaccurate. Unfortunately, they didn't give information (on the show; I haven't checked further) on which ones fell into that category and instead went right to ranking the functionality of those that passed the accuracy test. So now I've been a little paranoid about using anything other than the ones I know they confirmed as accurate. That set you have looks great, and if no one in your circle has noticed their baking coming out funny since they started using them, I'm guessing they're accurate. I may have to pick up a set.

I only eat a proper breakfast on the weekends; during the week it's a glass of milk and a bowl of fruit in spring/summer or steel cut oatmeal in fall winter. And at my desk, because I am not hungry until I've been up for awhile (and I do not get up any earlier than I absolutely have to -- I loathe mornings). On weekends, it's a Bloody Mary or two, bacon or sausage and then usually some sort of egg white dish (not for health reasons, as you can see from the bacon or sausage, but because I have a lifelong hatred for egg yolks) or sometimes pancakes or French toast. That's usually during football season, when I intend to spend the day sitting down. Tonight, I'll probably just make a stir fry to use up some of these veggies -- vegetable medley, chicken or shrimp, some sesame oil and freshly-grated ginger. Oh, and garlic. Because everything is better with garlic.

Something like "genre" makes me think, "Oh, Alex." But most of the time I'm pretty impressed with his pronunciation of foreign words. (His impressions of foreign accents saying English words, however, not so much.)

Ha! Well, now I have a new fantasy to engage in when looking around a room full of people who apparently fear they will die if they put down their phone.

Man, he has quite a memory! And a very good sense of humor about himself and his career. He looks good, too. Go ahead, Ian.

I, too, like my immersion blender. Also, my mandolin slicer. I just use a knife for routine cooking (which is for one), but when I'm having a dinner party I pull that thing out for fast slicing. I'm not big on one-purpose tools, but I make an exception for my garlic press. If I'm mincing more than a couple of cloves, I calculate that I'll spend less time cleaning the press than I would chopping the garlic, and go for the press. I have the Kuhn Rikon recommended by America's Test Kitchen, but my mom and best friend both have the Pampered Chef press and I really like that one, too.

I think Alex's bad imitations are a whole 'nother category -- where he pronounces English words in the (alleged) accent of the person speaking them -- from his pronunciation of foreign words. He doesn't do a bad job with much of the latter (while he certainly does with the former), it's just that he over-does it. Peeayebee, I commented on the compilation video in Alex's thread, and "genre" was the word I singled out, too. That one is classic.

So is everyone on television; the AC is cranked up to counteract the heat from the lights. It evens out to something pretty "normal." But even if actors have to be draped with a jacket or robe as soon as cut is called, they can be outfitted in clothing appropriate to the climate in which their characters are said to be living.

An all-male final. Gee, funny how Alex didn't remark on that gender make-up, when you can bet your bottom dollar he'd have done so had three girls been set to compete for the big prize. I was proud of running the Math category, since some of the clues dealt with things I probably haven't seen since I was their age (many, many moons ago).

I'm making these shrimp tacos with mango slaw that I could eat weekly and not get sick of. Right now I'm enjoying a pre-dinner margarita. I don't use a bagged slaw mix, so if I happen to only have cabbage when I get the urge to make this and thus can't make a proper slaw, I do it with just cabbage and it's plenty tasty. I also use real corn tortillas, because those pre-made things freak me out. And I cut the recipe down quite a bit. But, still - the basic idea = YUM.

I love Deborah Madison's Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating From America's Farmers' Markets. It's important to me to eat seasonally, either from my backyard garden or local family farms. But some of the things I pick up at the farmers' market because it just looked, smelled and/or tasted so good, I have no earthly idea what to do with. This book is my go-to for such situations: look up the ingredient in the index, and find simple, tasty recipes using it alongside other seasonal ingredients. Michael Pollan called this book "indispensable" for those trying to eat locally and seasonally, and I must agree. Also, I must give a shout-out to Cheryl Sedaker's 365 Ways to Cook Chicken. There isn't much particularly innovative or exotic in there (Thai chicken with papaya and lime gets labeled "au courant"), but it's good food. There are chapters for appetizers, soups, salads, fried, roasted (one for whole chicken recipes and one for cut-up roasters), casseroles, chicken with pasta, skillet meals, a whole chapter on chicken breasts, quick meals, low-calorie ... it goes on.

That's fantastic! I think "genre" is my favorite.

Yep, I took one look at the screen cap in the post and thought, "No way in hell am I watching that commercial again." As I said when I complained about that commercial a little while ago, I got hauled around in a powder blue boat of a Chevy. It beat walking. And no one with that hair has the right to comment on anyone else's coolness factor.

I came in nearly 20 minutes late and then only saw bits and pieces, so I didn't even bother paying attention to the case. I'm all for Angela spending some time without a man, since she went from a long marriage to another relationship fairly quickly, but a fortune cookie as her impetus? And if one has the means to quit a job without having another one lined up, more power to them; I've done that, and the time off in between was invaluable. But wasn't she pretty much scouring couch cushions for spare change recently? And they needed to either tone down Jane and Maura's reaction to Angela's outfit or put her in something hideous enough to justify them gasping as if she has donned the most unflattering clothing and makeup in the history of fashion. Why did Jane have her hands in front of her stomach pretty much the entire episode? I know she rests her hands there a fair bit - because it always stands out to me like Angie Harmon can't figure out what to do with her hands when she's at rest - but it was almost constant. It's not like she has a baby bump to rest them on. It was distracting.

People also need to be honest with themselves about what they do and do not know -- they're hiring a decorator because that person has skills they do not. It's not my profession, but I'm good at it, so friends and family have asked me to help them. My mom was a pain because she just wanted to pick out what she liked without any thought of whether everything coordinated (or she'd go to the other extreme and match too many things) and would get mad when I'd veto something for being inappropriate to the room. My dad would yell, "That's why we asked her to do this! We don't know how to pull it all together and she does." So while there have certainly been some questionable decorators and designers foisted on HHs by the show, I've also nodded vigorously along with some as they caution HHs freaking out over one element or another to just wait and see it all come together.

I use a lot of "men's" toiletries - razors, shaving cream, antiperspirant, etc. - because they're actually just toiletries without the gender surcharge. I have yet to develop a Y chromosome.