An Assortment of Thoughts

-----I don't remember if I have ever shouted at a TV before. Well, last night I did.

What caused it? None other than Sandra Lee of 'Semi-Homemade' (Semi-Ho) fame on Food Network. Her Thanksgiving special is in a word, icky. I don't want packaged, pre-shredded cheese in my dressing. I don't want tacky plastic flowers/leaves tied around my wine glass, bitch. You go to the trouble of buying fresh herbs to cram into a turkey (into which you've stuffed two(TWO!)sticks of butter), but don't hesitate to use packets of dried crap in everything else. As for a 'nice presentation', honey, after those wadded herbs get all dessicated after baking for God only knows how long, they're going to look like dead seaweed drooping out the back of that bird. Shall I mention the cheap-ass pop-up timer she decides to use? And making sure you bake the turkey until it's 175???! No wonder you think you need all that butter, because that meat is going to be like an old rope. And who the hell can't chop up a simple onion or clove of garlic? Especially on a holiday that has become all but centered around food (hopefully GOOD food). She pulls out a store-bought plastic bag of prechopped onion, and uses jarred mince garlic (*gack!*). But it was the 'Pretty good for a girl!' comment after she takes the bird out of the oven that made me scream 'OH MY GOD, STOP IT!!'

I did another frantic channel surf and found 'The Terminator'. Thank you, Jesus.

-----Speaking of obnoxious Food Network personalities, my sweet neighbor gave me a Rachel Ray magazine on Friday morning. I kindly accepted it, and took it to work with me to read while (if!) there were quiet times, so I could laugh at it. And happily, there were. You know, there are some pretty good recipes in there. Quite a few tasty things, I have to admit. But the magazine is just as obnoxious as her shows. That damned EVOO thing of hers yanked both Tim's and my chain. When you write out 'extra virgin olive oil' in a recipe, but then follow it with '(EVOO)', isn't that not only backwards, but deliberately asinine as well?

-----My least favorite holiday madness TV commercial so far is courtesy of Walmart. Their 'Christmas Costs Less At Walmart' reeks of smugness. And basically tells us straight up that Christmas is nothing but a consumer-based pagan winter festival.

-----I did something last night at work I've been meaning to do for about 3 years. I CLEANED OUT MY LOCKER. Yes, I finally did it. Now it's nothing like a real locker, like in a gym. It's like one of those little mall lockers. Still, by the time I was done, I had basically filled a wastebasket with crap, there was that much stuff in there. 3-year old Pottery Barn catalogs. Old memos regarding instruments/procedures we don't even have any more. Copies of alcohol QC results attached to patient results I'd run that could possibly have resulted in future subpoenas (I found 4 or 5 of those). Now I can actually fit my purse in there without leaning against it to stuff it in. If I do nothing else the rest of the day, I can say I did THAT.

-----U.S. senators didn't like the Big Three automaker CEOs arriving in Washington D.C. via private jet to plead their case for needing $25 billion in bail-out money. Now I never took one single economics class, and I truly don't know what to think of this whole auto industry bail-out (however, my inner Right Wing Diva does scream 'You are not taking one more dollar in taxes out of my hard-earned paycheck to wipe your wasteful asses!') Every day in the paper, I read another convincing sounding article backing 'yes' or 'no' to a government rescue. But ummmm.... isn't their ire a bit of pot calling the kettle black?

-----Most of you probably know I look at recipes more as guidelines. The crockpot Beef Rouladen recipe we are working on this morning calls for 1.5 pounds of beef round steak. Hmmm... 4.5 pounds in the package that we actually used...that sounds like it may barely squeak by, according to my standards.