Mondrianyone

With all due respect, the post that said he "lacked charisma" was yours. I didn't say anything negative about him--quite the contrary--but I've certainly read the unflattering and cruel remarks in the past. If anyone should be picked on regarding Hunter's meteoric rise, it's Guy. You don't do your kid any favors by subjecting him to the nasty things people on the internet are going to say when you elevate him beyond his level of competence--judging chefs of long training and professional experience, for example. It's not Hunter's fault. It's Guy's, for not making sure he earns his stripes before he wears them.

I've read that one of the main reasons for no seat belts on school buses is so the driver doesn't have to waste time unbuckling 25 kids to evacuate them in case of, say, a fire, which makes a lot of sense to me. I haven't read the link, so maybe this aspect of things is in there.

This is the show we're talking about, so Hunter is the person under discussion. And if someone called me "a nice, smart, funny, laid-back kid," I wouldn't mind being picked on like that.

To me Hunter seems like a nice, smart, funny, laid-back kid whose father keeps throwing him into the deep end of the pool. Even though the sharks in the pool don't devour him, because it's in their own best interests not to, that's still a real disservice to the kid, since he'll never find out what he's truly good at. Has Hunter really replaced Wendy permanently?

So did we. We went to a drive-in once when I was in college, and the younger sister of one of our friends pleaded to come along. But we didn't want to pay for her, so we made her get in the spare-tire compartment in my mother's car while we went through the box office. And then we couldn't get her out. We all felt very guilty for laughing hysterically for the whole time it took to finally free her.

Glad you found something you like, @Scatterbrained. I have a set of glass Lock&Lock containers, which sound similar. Also two sets in plastic, for non-fridge storage, although my husband keeps using the glass ones in the pantry, which continues to irk me. I posted something a few years ago about cleaning the lid gaskets when they get mildewed, but I can't find it. Anyway, after ruining one by using a knife, I found a YT video that showed how to use a credit card to slide out the gasket, and that works perfectly. So, should you ever need to do that . . .

My mother was Jewish, and she wouldn't marry my Irish Catholic father unless he converted. Not because she was so religious, but her mother had been widowed young, and my mother felt it would kill her (typical dramatic exaggeration) if she married someone out of the religion. So my father, who as the youngest son of about a hundred children (I can exaggerate, too) was the designated priest, instead became a reluctant Jew. He didn't have to, as their children would've been Jewish anyway, since the religion travels through the mother, but he did. It was a pretty big sacrifice for him, in ways I won't specify, but since none of us stuck with our religion, he could've skipped the formalities. I look Irish, though I have a smart Jewish mouth.

I bought the tube mainly for doing things like cheese, which is cold smoke, so the temperature isn't an issue. But we do have one of those little oven thermometers, which I will use when I move on to smoking meat. (Why do I always picture myself lighting up a sausage and puffing on it when I say that?) But thanks for the tip!

We have a charcoal grill (which a friend says can be converted into a smoker, but he's always very vague about how exactly that happens), so no official smoker as of now. But you can buy one of these gizmos to put inside your grill, either gas or charcoal, and get the same effect with wood pellets. Much cheaper than buying a whole smoker, if you want to experiment.

I suspect the secret may be some sugar in the tomato sauce, to take the acid down. I know where you can get heroin.

Oh, yes. And prosciutto and then some arugula thrown on at the end. I have that bookmarked. It's very good. But when I went looking for it, I found this, which looks very easy and quick, thanks to the fig jam, which I have. All I'm missing is the goat cheese: 1 pizza crust, uncooked 2/3 cup fig jam 1 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese 3-4 strips prosciutto torn into bite-size pieces 2 ounces goat cheese crumbled Preheat oven to 500 degrees (preferably with a pizza stone inside). Roll out the pizza dough as thinly as you can into a rectangle or oval on a silicone mat or piece of parchment paper. Spread the fig jam all over it, leaving about 1/2 inch around the edge. Sprinkle with the mozzarella cheese, scatter the prosciutto across the top and finish with the crumbled goat cheese. Place the pizza on the pizza stone and cook for 7-9 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and browning on top. This place is a bad influence.

Tomato sauce on pizza (or most other things) isn't my jam either. My most favorite pizza sauce is pesto. I can sit and eat pesto with a spoon. And do. I think this discussion has inspired me to go make some pizza dough.

Wish I could help. When I steam eggs, I just use a steamer insert that nests in a saucepan, like a double boiler but with holes in the bottom. Did your gadget come with a user manual? If not, you can often find one by Googling or going back to the place where you bought it. Or ask the community on Amazon, if that's where you got it.

At least he was spared having to listen to that song.

I called, and apparently that's what they're doing now. It was the first time I'd ever seen a call labeled in any way at all. Very modern stuff for here in the country.

Cell reception at our house isn't reliable at all, so we have to have landlines. If I saw that kind of notification on my cell, I'd assume it was some upgrade, but it's so weird to see on the landline. I may call the phone company and ask if they're doing something new. They did just get taken over by a big corporate entity, so I guess it's possible. I wonder if the caller knows he's being tagged. And I wonder if I call somebody and their caller ID says "ANNOYING WOMAN."

The weirdest thing just happened. My landline phone rang, and I picked up the handset to check caller ID--which said "PROBABLY FRAUD," with the number underneath. I've never seen anything like that before. Is there some kind of program now that tags the numbers of shady people on caller ID? I Googled the number, and it comes up as an actual person, which is rare, but no real info except address. Maybe my phone is trying to protect me from scammers. 🤷‍♀️

Would somebody please open up the door already??? Okay, his vocal performance tonight was probably the best of the ones we've heard so far, but this song was so awful. According to the article linked earlier, he and the producers fell in love with this writer's songs. For the life of me I don't know why. (And I love jazz.)

Last week I binge-watched a bunch of episodes that I had missed from a few seasons ago, and it reminded me that there's a very definite pattern to this show: two actual patients and one what I call the "clown patient." The first two get the surgery and the clown gets the bum's rush. The clown might not even really want the procedure at all, just the TV exposure.

Uh-oh. This can't mean anything good for Chicken of the Sea tuna, can it?

I hear that salaries are through the roof in another industry. But seriously, Dr. Lee was very tolerant with him. I imagine having a patient like that could be a real pain in the ass. Not sure I would have the forbearance she showed.

Fortunately, filling the generator with gas isn't my chore. But he whose chore it is curses those gas cans to high heaven. @Browncoat, can't you give yourself a break, at least till you can get the mower fixed, and hire somebody to finish the grass this time? High-school kids still do that, don't they?

I'm in this range. But I've never seen anything that size here that wasn't a lobster. Yikes.

What part of the country do these hand-size spiders live in?

That's apparently his pickup line, too. He was telling those ladies at the bar that he went to medical school for three and a half years. I wonder when that'll start to get old for him. And I really wish we'd been told what he actually went on to do for a living.