Twill be the season to be cooking, secret shame edition

The holidays are ripe with cultural associations -- special songs, clothing, decorations, greetings, colors, other customs -- and of course, seasonal foods. We've talked about "good ... affordable, tasty and nutritious foods /meals": but this time of year also comes with culinary catastrophes we can't bear to do without.

So, it's time to bring out the Halloween candy corn, the Thanksgiving green bean casserole, the Christmas pudding, the New Year's pickled herring: what appalling dish is both a necessity and a secret shame?"

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[cjmr]

Thanksgiving dishes:

The 'cream of mushroom soup/canned green beans/some people use 'fried onions' but we use buttered bread crumbs' casserole is my first nominee.

For second nominee, the meat pie made by cjmr's husband's paternal grandmother (and thus, also, by cjmr as dutiful daughter-in-law) that features sausage, mashed potatoes, celery, onions, and sage mixed together all in a pie crust.

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For Christmas we get takeout Chinese for dinner.

The traditional Christmas breakfast at my maternal grandmother's house was oatmeal with the sugar sprinkles that fell off the sugar cookies in it. And sausage. We don't do that, because we usually don't make sugar sprinkle cookies.

[Becca Stareyes]

Apple pie. For Christmas morning breakfast and day-after-Thanksgiving breakfast especially. And after the day-after lunch of turkey soup with enough saltines in the broth to make it more like turkey mush (my mother and I both do this and it drives everyone else to distraction).

Our traditional Christmas cookie are Italian anise cookies, sans anise. Instead they're frosted with sugar glaze and colored sprinkles. Mom only makes them around Christmas, but I can't imagine a Christmas without them.

[sarah]

My grandma always used to make mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows. I think that might count as a secret shame.

[Kit Whitfield]

Ginger cookies with little caramelised bits of ginger in them, dipped in hot chocolate.

[cjmr]

Those, aren't shameful, Kit, they're delicious.

[gleomstapa]

Cabbage pie (kaalipiirakka) on Christmas Eve, which contains incredible quantities of butter. However, I am not willing to be ashamed or secretive about something that is so delicious.

[Ampersand]

Woah, woah, woah, hold up a second. What's appalling about candy corn?

[muteKi]

Ironically, for me the most regrettable parts of the thanksgiving dinner is the turkey itself. Turkey, unless I'm having it as part of a cold cut sandwich, is always the driest of the meats I eat with any sort of frequency. The justification for it always seemed rather tenuous, given that at the sort of location a "first thanksgiving feast" as we tend to consider it would occur, there would be an abundance of seafood compared to any other sort of meats. I think I've had stuffing (dressing, technically, since we don't actually stuff the turkey) with clams in it, and it's quite tasty (certainly, I've had enough stuffed clams to know a tasty clam stuffing would be quite workable and delicious).

However, take the leftover bits and add bacon and cranberry sauce (note our cranberry sauce tends to be made fresh rather than canned, and usually includes orange zest as well), and you've got a great lunch for a few days after.

Ideally I would rather have prime rib (and have been to a Thanksgiving buffet dinner where that was the case) if I'm going to have something that's not poultry, although Cornish game hens are tasty, and I do have a soft spot for duck as well (although turkey's price point is a clear advantage over it).

[Sixwing]

Pickled herring, oh my goodness. The sour cream kind. I love the stuff. Not sure what's shameful about it, but the smell clearing the room may have something to do with it... I have little to no sense of smell on any given day, so it doesn't bother me.

Those "mellowcreme pumpkins" - actually some horrible amalgam of high fructose corn syrup, blaze orange food coloring and, oh, I don't know, glue? - love those, too. (Mostly when they're fresh. When they're stale, they turn into little pumpkin-shaped rocks and are practically inedible.)

[Ross]

My family did the green bean casserole thing starting when my sister was a teenager. I think it must have been something they taught her in home ec, because she basically came home right before christmas all hell-bent to make it out of nowhere, and it's been tradition ever since (I was living at college by then so I didn't have as much day-to-day insite).

This pickled herring thing mentioned in the body text of the article: My wife does that. I'd never heard of such a tradition before, and while I don't begrudge it, once I quit smoking, I got her to agree in return to postpone the imbibing until after the tradtional midnight kiss.

Back in the days before my carbohydrate intake was restricted, I had a great love of stuffing, and one year, I decided to make four different kinds to take home to family dinner on thanksgiving. I did one with wild rice (Possibly not a great match with a thanksgiving dinner since it doesn't hold together), one with cornbread, one with sausage and fennel (too much fennel. Exercise caution.), and a "Miles Standish" stuffing, which has pepperoni and mozarella, and makes you wonder what those ingredients have to do with the Pilgrim's hired gun.

[Kellandros]

muteKi- there are a few ways to try to avoid cooking a dry turkey. The most basic problem is over-cooking; the dark meat in the legs and the white meat in the breast require different amounts of time to cook. And don't rely on the little plastic pop-up thermometers they stick into turkeys for you; they aren't very precise.

I've also seen it suggested to remove the legs before cooking and put them in a separate roasting pan.

Deep frying is a possibility, but requires a bit of investment in outdoor cooking equipment, oil, and a good fire extinguisher.

The cheapest method is probably the disposable plastic roasting bags that show up in grocery stores this time of year; the idea is to have a moisture barrier around your turkey so the juices don't all escape.

My parents instead would use 2-3 sheets of aluminum foil, with the edges folded together, to encapsulate the turkey like a giant baked potato.

The downside is it seems to concentrate some of that turkey flavor; I find I prefer smoked turkey more nowadays.

[Kit Whitfield]

Hot buttered toast with Marmite. You people who say Marmite is appalling are all weird.

[Coleslaw]

I've never understood the appeal of candy corn.

[Rowen]

I once had toast with just Marmite. A friend from England showed me the error of my ways.

I second the green bean casserole thing. Also, my grandmother's dressing. She uses the boxed kind, but then mixes it with celery, hard boiled egg, random bits of the turkey, throws in some stock and bakes it. I could eat the whole pan.

[Amaryllis]

Marmite is unspeakably revolting. That's all there is to say about it.

As for no-longer-secret shame, some version of chocolate wafer and whipped cream icebox cake is usually served for the winter birthdays at our house.

Sometimes we make it with horizontally stacked cookies, although not necessarily as neatly pretty as in those pictures, and sometimes with the cookies standing on end to make an ersatz cream-covered log.

It's far too sweet and too rich, but we gobble it up anyway.

[Mike Timonin]

Mmmmm. I adore Marmite. On toast, with scrambled eggs. Or on a bagel. I've never put it on buttered toast, though. Waste of butter, surely?

Dry turkey - I've had good success with brineing the turkey. The night before, put the turkey into one of those big food containers that you can get at a restaurant supply store - one of the plastic ones. Cover it with water and a bunch of salt, and some spices. Stick it outside (November - it's cold outside, right?) or in the fridge. Makes the meat lovely and moist all the way through. Alton Brown's recipe is pretty good (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe/index.html) although I do like my stuffing actually stuffed into the turkey. Salmonella be damned.

Also, you can cook the turkey with bacon on top - 1 pound of bacon will cover a good sized turkey - and the bacon drippings will keep the turkey moist.

[Julie paradox]

Marmite goes well with boiled eggs - either (soft) on the dippy toast or (hard) to bind the mashed egg in order to avoid using butter.

I've never had green bean casserole.

Christmas pudding is delicious and not at all shameful - but should be eaten on Christmas Eve rather than after a huge dinner. I have a spicy ice cream recipe which works much better.

[RP]

We've learned to sidestep the turkey roasting issues by buying a smoked turkey breast - already juicy, just have to warm it slightly to eat.

And my secret shame is a love of commercial stuffing. Homemade stuff? Stuff with vegetables? Or sausage? Feh - I want the Pepperidge Farms stuff made just like it says on the back, and lots of it!

[Froborr]

My method to avoid dry turkey: First, cook the turkey "upside down"--breast on the bottom, legs on the top. That way the juices of the dark meat drip *through* the white meat. Second, regularly baste the turkey in a high-sugar liquid (I use ginger ale and stuff the turkey with orange slices). This extends the cooking time and makes the skin almost inedible and a weird maroon color, but it helps seal the juices into the meat.

My secret shames:

(1) Stuffing. It starts with a large loaf each of pumpernickel and cornbread, toasted and crumbled, then sauteed with onions, celery, and herbs in TWO STICKS of butter, then you stir in turkey broth and fluff it up. Now that my fiancee has converted to the pro-mushroom side, I may add mushrooms this year.

(2) Cornbread souffle. It involves corn, creamed corn, cornbread batter, ANOTHER two sticks of butter, and sour cream.

Yes, that is a POUND of butter between the two, and we haven't even started on desserts or potatoes...

*sigh* And now I'm sad. Thanksgiving is one of my three warm-fuzzy big-family-gathering holidays, and the last couple of years it's been just me and my fiancee. My mom invited us to visit this year, but increasingly it looks like she will not be able to get enough time off work (there is difficulty getting an answer).

[Froth]

To solve dry turkey: eat something more interesting.

I jest - those who like turkey are of course welcome to have it. But you can have my share, too. I've never encountered any part of a turkey that wasn't dry, tough and flavourless. The flavour is really the point. I have no incentive to try ways of making the turkey not dry, because even at its best, I don't like it.

[Julie paradox]

Froth: you obviously haven't tried the turkey I get.

For the last few years we have ordered a Kelly Bronze which always makes me gasp when I pay but tastes delicious.

[cjmr]

I'm going to get a fresh turkey from a local farmer this year--it should be interesting to see how much different it tastes to processed injected supermarket ones.

[Dash]

I was about to suggest locally grown turkey rather than the factory-farmed ones, but I see cjmr beat me to it. Of course, seeing two of the turkeys hanging out at the farmers' market the other day was a bit strange.

I tend to have as little turkey as possible (a bit is needed to justify the stuffing and cranberry sauce, of course), and go straight for the sweet potato casserole and spoonbread. (It's spinach spoonbread, so that makes it healthy, right? Right?)

And yes on the candy corn and mellowcreme pumpkins and especially the ones with chocolate or caramel flavor, which I'm quite sure have nothing whatever to do with real chocolate or caramel.

[storiteller]

For the Thanksgiving feast, we actually left out the turkey completely last year and went with something closer to what the Pilgrims might have eaten - lobster. It was just my parents and husband, and with my mom not eating meat and me only eating a little, it seemed absurd to get a turkey. I actually reflected on it here: http://willbikeforchange.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/ My mom is vegan now, so I'm not sure what we're going to do this year. Probably a little turkey to make my husband happy and a million "side" dishes.

As for secret shames, it's out of this season, but I really enjoy Peeps at Easter. Storitellerspouse thinks they're disgusting and they're nothing resembling actual food, but I enjoy them. At Thanksgiving, it's jello mold, with cranberry sauce from a can and raspberry jello. I think I might try concocting a vegan version this year.

[Coleslaw]

My family had odd Thanksgiving traditions. We always had lasagna for a first course, which was much better than the turkey. Or it may have been the second course; I remember escarole soup with tiny meatballs but that may have been for Christmas. My mom didn't like turkey, but usually she cooked it anyway. We also had fennel, cut in sticks like celery sticks, and served along with the salad. We never had green bean casserole; the first time I ever tasted that was at my ex-MIL's house.

At Christmas we also had a cheesecake baked in a 9x13" pan, made with ricotta cheese and flavored with anisette. It's very rich and a serving is about 1.5 inches square. I tried making it a few times but my son and husband don't like the licorice taste. I finally gave up making special cakes and cookies and just make a pie for dessert and yeast raised pancakes for Christmas breakfast.

Christmas Eve we always had a big family dinner (usually at my uncle's house) with seafood. The main feature was stuffed calamari with linguine, but there were other seafood dishes, too. When we go to my SIL's house at Christmas my niece makes Tourtière for Christmas Eve and I always feel like lightning will strike me for eating meat on that night. So far it hasn't.

Does anyone else have ambrosia at Christmas? I don't like the marshmallows, but otherwise it's a nice fruit and nut salad. (I don't like marshmallows at all except in s'mores.)

[Nenya]

I love both that green bean casserole and the marshmallow-sweet potato dish. I actually never knew I was supposed to be ashamed of them. :P Though I will admit to liking some of those jello dishes that are roundly derided by all good-thinking folk. (It depends on the dish. Some are quite entertaining, and even taste good.)

Thanksgiving confuses me these days: I have close family in both Canada and the US, which means we in Canada just had Thanksgiving the other week, but my parents still are gearing up for it. I thought it was Christmas that was meant to last six weeks, not Thanksgiving! :P

[storiteller]

Oh and on the subject of the green bean cassarole, I actually made a really good one yesterday that's nothing like the regular recipe. I used fresh green beans, a bechemel instead of the sour cream stuff, cheddar on top, and whole wheat breadcrumbs instead of crackers on top. It was a pain to make and not very healthy at all, but all-natural.

[Ursula L]

Storiteller, for your vegan jello mold, you might try looking in Indian groceries, as they sometimes carry jello-like desert packets that are thickened with seaweed instead of gelatin. It should be a simple thing to switch out.

[Brin]

Coleslaw: (I don't like marshmallows at all except in s'mores.)

Me too. Even then it's only because I need something to glue the graham crackers and chocolate bar together. I'd rather not have the taste of it, but s'mores are crumbly enough with the marshmallow.

Nenya: I have close family in both Canada and the US, which means we in Canada just had Thanksgiving the other week, but my parents still are gearing up for it.

There's Thanksgiving, and then there's Pilgrim Thanksgiving*. Double the cranberry jelly and chocolate cream pie.
Mom made both the pumpkin pies at once and put one in the freezer for next month.

Hmm...for a couple years when I was little we had chocolates shaped like Maccabees. Does that count?

I've never had homemade cranberry jelly. Do you make it in a corrugated cylindrical mould? It just wouldn't be the same without that lovely can shape.

*That's what Mom calls it. She gives some excuse for celebrating it about being related to Miles Standish. Like I need an excuse for cranberry jelly and pie. (Turkey I can take or leave.)

[Ross]

Incidentally, the take-home lesson about green bean casserole for me is this: if all the food you have ready-to-hand seems boring, it will usually do no harm, flavorwise, and will make it something new and different if you dump a can of cream-of-mushroom soup on it, top it with something crunchy (I like cashews) and heat it up.

My wife won't touch it of course, but a can of green beans, drained, topped with a can of cream of mushroom soup and a handful of cashews is a pretty easy way for me to get past "Oh god, this again?" on the nights when we're fending for ourselves (Even pre-pregnancy, we had a lot of nights when she'd decide that she wanted seafood or chinese or lots-and-lots-of-starch, or even the very rare "Screw it, I'm an adult and I want candy for dinner, and NO ONE CAN STOP ME" -- which is one of the BEST PARTS of being a grown-up).

[gleomstapa]

We make our cranberry sauce in a star mould inherited from my great-grandmother. (It even appears in the family recipe binder: "Pour into star mould and chill." No other shape will do.) This is from my mother's side of the family; my father apparently pines now and then for corrugated cranberries, but not so much that we've ever had any.

Stuffing involves wild rice and shredded wheat biscuits, and we usually eat more of it than turkey.

[Mike Timonin]

mmmmm, homemade cranberry sauce. ours involves apples and lots of sugar. And cranberries, of course.

I like artificial banana flavour. Much much more than actual bananas, which I really don't like at all.

[Sixwing]

Ross, re: candy for dinner: YES. See also the occasional dinner consisting of corn chips and salsa.

One of my favorite "shame, shame!" foods is cheese and crackers. That would be saltines, and cheddar sharp enough to put the knife to shame, eaten for dinner when I crave salt and don't want to cook.

[cjmr]

You mean corn chips/salsa and crackers/cheese are supposed to be shameful?

[The Board Administration Team]

Kit is physically sidelined (possible fracture) and therefore, due to the fact that typing is painful/borderline impossible, may drop out of conversations past, present and future. If people want to pass on good wishes they can post them on the board but should not expect responses.

[Rowen]

My mother used to make this thing, usually around holidays cause that's when we'd go to parties. Basically, it was a slab of cream cheese, covered in salsa, and spread on triskets. Once I grew up enough to not think of salsa as "gross tasting ketchup" I started liking it.

She also made cheese balls.

[Mike Timonin]

Kit is physically sidelined (possible fracture)
Oh no! I hope it's not a fracture, especially if it's a hand injury.

[Mmy]

@Mike Timonin: The ?ironic? thing is that sometimes a fracture is preferable to the alternative.

The last time I was in a cast (and got congratulated for my good bone density [1]) after falling down TWO steps -- I was told that the speed and ease of healing would have been faster had it been a fracture rather than a tear.

Also, it can be difficult to tell if it is a fracture or not (modern myth of x-rays - no they don't ALWAYS tell you whether there is a fracture). Sometimes one has to wait on other symptoms.

I suspect that right now Kit is swelling, in shock and in pain and it will take a while for them to determine exactly how bad/good it is.

[1] Which I find ironic since I hate milk, and am a vegetarian.

[hapax]

storiteller, Peeps are *always* in season; I just sent hapaxdaughter a Halloween "care package" of candy corn, pumpkin seeds, raspberry tootsie pops (covered with white scrap fabric with ghost faces drawn on) and Ghostly Peeps. They're *adorable* -- although daughter informs me if she's not sure if she should eat them, blow them up in the microwave, or stick them on the bathroom mirror to freak others out first thing in the morning.

Candy corn is definitely reserved for October; I cannot resist it then, even though it tastes exactly like canned frosting. They do sell a pastel version around Easter, which is Just Wrong. (But those latter made excellent fangs when I made hapaxson Monster Cupcakes for his birthday)

I'm not so fond of turkey for dinner -- I mostly concentrated on the stuffing and the orange-cranberry sauce and the sweet potatoes (roasted with whiskey sauce, mmm). Leftover turkey sandwiches are a delight, though, especially when made with Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish (Typepad wouldn't let the link to the recipe go through yesterday, but it's easy enough to find on the NPR site)

[Gyrofrog]

Another vote for the fresh vs. frozen turkey.

I guess candy corn is "shameful" in the sense that we've purged our house of corn syrup products and largely eliminated it from our diets. I don't usually buy candy corn but will sure as shinola take a handful if it's available. I can recommend mixing candy corn with some peanuts. I think the result's essentially the same as a Payday bar (except perhaps for the coloring).

Get well soon, Kit!

[Gyrofrog]

Helpful website:
http://www.supercook.com/
You enter whatever ingredients you have on hand, and it will suggest recipes.

This might have been better suited for Monday's post, in which at least one person commented about throwing together whatever ingredients are available. But I figured it would more likely be seen if I put it with the more recent post.

[Gyrofrog]

@Coleslaw, "Does anyone else have ambrosia at Christmas?"

My grandfather, bless him, traditionally makes this for Christmas. In more recent years, he'll sit down with the oranges, and then complain he's too tied to peel and slice them (probably true).

As for green beans, skip the casserole and for that matter the beans from a can. For the past few years, I've been using a recipe for green beans with caramelized onions.

[Sixwing]

cmjr: It's at least the kind of dinner I don't tell my mother I am eating.

She is in Weight Watchers, and has (thankfully) quit trying to suck me into it, too, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be the one to initiate a round of "Tell Six What To Eat (not cheese and crackers)."

[cjmr]

The green beans with caramelized onions looks yummy! Green bean casserole is one of the side dishes we can no longer do because of the soy allergy. I hope I can find some good green beans next month.

*which reminds me, I need to start baking loaves of herb bread everyone can eat and freezing them so I'll have enough for stuffing in four weeks*

[Froborr]

For Christmas we get takeout Chinese for dinner.

For YEARS, my (Jewish) family's Christmas Day tradition was to go to the movies and get Chinese. We stopped for about a decade after my dad died on Christmas, but we were just starting to do it again...

...when that bastard Mel Gibson released Passion of the Christ, and suddenly it became socially acceptable for Christians to go to a movie on Christmas. As a result of which, Christmas Day went from being the one day off you were guaranteed a good seat at the movies, to one of the busiest days.

[cjmr]

I must admit that I stole that tradition from the family of my first college boyfriend. Yes, they were Jewish, and yes, they went to the movies, too. My dad's family tradition for Christmas was lasagna and bowling in the afternoon. (Bowling alleys were something else that tended to be empty on Christmas when I was a kid.)

[kisekileia]

I'm not a huge fan of unnecessarily patronizing businesses like movie theatres and bowling alleys on Christmas Day, just because the fact that there's a demand for those businesses on Christmas Day means that not all the employees can be home with their families.

[cjmr]

Not all families celebrate Christmas.

[Mike Timonin]

Mmy: Ech. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Whichever the case, I hope that Kit is feeling better as quickly as possible.

Traditions: We have a Boxing Day tradition (that's the day after Christmas for those not from a British background) of Pizza, Puzzles and (since we're in a hockey town) Pucks.

[MercuryBlue]

Best wishes, Kit.

[kisekileia]

True, cjmr, but I'm not sure a typical movie theatre or bowling alley is going to have enough non-Christmas-celebrating employees to keep from having anyone miss Christmas celebrations.

[cjmr]

Modern movie theaters are way bigger than the ones when I was a kid--but don't you only need a ticket counter person, one or two snack bar people, a couple people to sweep up, and one projectionist per screen?

I remember four employees, max at the bowling alley--one at the shoe rental, one minding the pin-setters, and two in the snack bar.

[cjmr]

*wishes she could sent Phthalo a Yuletide box of non-perishable food*

[MercuryBlue]

haul it up five flights of stairs

Does your building not have an elevator? If not: I seem to recall you're European--what's your country's equivalent to the Americans with Disabilities Act and related, and do you know or can you find out who to complain to about the elevator's absence? Because the ADA (or some related law--hi ability privilege) mandates apartment buildings have elevators for the benefit of wheelchair users who might live there, and for anyone else who doesn't feel capable of walking a bunch of stairs, and I can't imagine Europe's got no equivalent.

[Coleslaw]

I hope kit feels better soon. Fractures suck.

[Rowen]

I live in NYC, and we're the same with the 5 floors and under usually not having an elevator. It was a real pain two weeks ago when I was on crutches after knee surgery. Even more so since most of the subway stations aren't ADA equipped either.

[Froborr]

I'm so sorry! I totally missed the comment about Kit being injured. =( Get well soon, Kit!

[J. Enigma (the Transhumanist!)]

Get well soon, Kit! :(

Not even tangentially related to this conversation, but I just wanted to wing by and wish everyone a Happy Rapture! According to Harold Camping, today is judgement day and God will proceed to take his flock home and unleash all manner of horrible punishments upon the unbelievers. It'll be fun. There will be cake.

I think I missed the opening salvo of a war between Israel and Russia (and Ethiopia) over a modified form of Miracle-Gro. Was it buried under the news about Qaddafi's death?

[Ross]

@MercuryBlue: Those rules have lots of exemptions in order that old buildings don't need to be torn down, and owners of old buildings arent' forced to just cash out and let the next owner deal with it.

I imagine that it's even worse in europe what with the number of buildings that predate the invention of the elevator.

[cjmr]

Even in the US, individual dwellings such as condominiums and apartments, as long as they have SOME handicap accessible units don't have to have ALL the units accessible. Except for married student housing, where we managed to get a ground floor unit, we lived in a second or third story walk-up for 11.5 of the first 13 years we were married. (First or second story, in European terms, if I remember correctly.)

I'm not sure how the one apartment complex got away with not having any accessible laundry rooms, though.

[Ross]

@cmjr: According to my reading of ADA Title 3, if all the floors of a building are under 3000 sq. feet, they are exempt from all elevator requirements. And, counterproductively, you can't have an elevator *just* to the laundry room; if you ignore the exemption and install an elevator anyway, it must serve all floors unless it's an express elevator from the garage to the penthouse.

[Froborr]

According to Harold Camping, today is judgement day

Sweet, and we already had a Terrible Movie Night planned! Maybe I should try to get ahold of some awesomely bad end-of-the-world movie...

[cjmr]

Based on the size of the apartments in those buildings, they VERY carefully kept each floor just under 3000 sq. ft. (1, 1200 sq. ft 2-bedroom apt., 1, 800 sq. ft 1-bedroom apt. and 600-ish sq. ft. of stairwell/landing space per floor.) The laundry room was in the ground level, replacing the 800 sq. ft. apartment.

I think the condo got away with no elevators because all the units had exterior doors, so it wasn't considered a contiguous building? Because the 4 ground floor units and 4 first floor units definitely added up to over 4000 sq. ft. for each of those levels.

[Ellen Brand]

My family really doesn't do "secret shames," thank goodness, but my uncle and I DO wind up fighting over the mashed potatos every year, which embarasses my aunt a bit...

Christmas is always a gigantic ham, ever since I started a job that gives all the employees one for Christmas. (I think they substitute turkey on request for anybody that's Jewish or Muslim, but given the areas, there aren't many people who request it.)

[MercuryBlue]

if you ignore the exemption and install an elevator anyway, it must serve all floors unless it's an express elevator from the garage to the penthouse.

WTF

[Dash]

J. Enigma: According to Harold Camping, today is judgement day and God will proceed to take his flock home and unleash all manner of horrible punishments upon the unbelievers. It'll be fun. There will be cake.

Who gets the cake, the Rapturees or the rest of us?

Of course, the other way to look at it is that God will proceed to take his flock home and the rest of us in the U.S. will need to get a lot of rest this weekend, so we can get started on Monday morning repealing the Defense of Marriage Act ("defending the institution," as Roy Zimmerman so aptly puts it "against people who want to get married"), replacing the more regrettable members of the military chaplain corps, passing a stronger health care law with the newly unterrorized Republican moderates, saving some women's lives, and so on.

[Dash]

Ross: if you ignore the exemption and install an elevator anyway, it must serve all floors unless it's an express elevator from the garage to the penthouse.

MercuryBlue: WTF

WTF, indeed, and with a large serving of marshmallows on top. (They have to go there; I won't have them near the sweet potato casserole.) An act designed to help those with disabilities ends up with an automatic exemption so we don't infringe the convenience of the 1%. I wish I could say I was surprised.

[J. Enigma (the Transhumanist!)]

@ Dash:

The cake is a lie.

Somewhat ironic given that this thread is about food...

[Ross]

I think the elevator thing is a weird interlocking exemption thing. Elevators normally have to serve all floors, and there is an exception for penthouse elevators. If you are exempt from needing to meet an ADA Title 3 requirement, but you decide to do the thing anyway, you have to follow the ADA requirements. The thing I read mentioned as an example that even if you're not required to have wheelchair access to the second floor, the second floor restrooms have to be wheelchair accessable (Which makes a bit more sense than the elevator thing; as the thing I read points out, there are people who can manage a flight of stairs on crutches who are still disabled enough to need a wheelchair once they make it to the top.)

[Indiana Joe]

The only truly regrettable dish at my family's Thanksgiving dinner is my sister's sweet potato and brown sugar dish. It's sickly sweet to the point of (IMHO) inedibility. This year I'm going to make my bourbon-glazed sweet potatoes, and to heck with anyone that doesn't like them.

[Ross]

Re Sweet Potatoes: First Thanksgivign after I was diagnosed with Diabetes: "Hey, you can still have sweet potatoes, right?"

"Yes. Sweet Potatoes surprisingly are different enough from regular potatoes that they are not terrible for my blood sugar."

"Here then you can have these."

"Hey, what's that syrup they're in?"

"Oh, just LOTS AND LOTS OF PURE SUGAR"

[Brin]

"Oh, just LOTS AND LOTS OF PURE SUGAR"

*headdesk*

That--in a slightly tangential way--brought to mind someone I used to know. He was my brother's Boy Scout leader, he had diabetes, and he didn't do the slightest bit of dieting. Even if you define dieting as "only having two helpings of dessert instead of three". He just took extra insulin at dessert-time.
I knew him for three years. I was there during the amplified sugar highs. I heard of the meetings Mom and Brother and the rest of the people waited for him to show up, only to hear the sound of ambulances rushing to save him from his coma (again). A couple months after Brother quit the troop, he died. He was 38.
I didn't know him well enough to grieve much*, but I will always remember him as an example of why you should not fuck with diabetes.

*Perhaps I would have if I hadn't heard it third-hand months after the fact. It doesn't quite seem real finding out that way.

[Inquisitiveravn]

"Oh, just LOTS AND LOTS OF PURE SUGAR"

Echoing Brin's *headdesk*. I have never understood why people seem to feel the need to add more sweetness to sweet potatoes, and that was before I was diagnosed with diabetes.

My mom isn't quite that clueless. She's an MD; she better not be, but she does seem somewhat confuzzled by my carefully scrutinizing the nutrition information panel on every prepackaged food item we get in the supermarket. I've also had to explain to her that having orange juice and a banana at the same meal is not a good idea for me. Either one is fine, but not both.

[Mmy]

@Inquisitiveravn: She's an MD; she better not be, but she does seem somewhat confuzzled by my carefully scrutinizing the nutrition information panel on every prepackaged food item we get in the supermarket. I've also had to explain to her that having orange juice and a banana at the same meal is not a good idea for me.

My aunt has a very long, very angry speech about people who try to explain to her that orange juice doesn't "count" as a sugar "because it is natural." There are an amazing number of otherwise educated people who don't seem to be able to get that "natural" doesn't mean "won't kill me."

My aunt has among her children and grandchildren not only diabetics AND celiacs but seven who are BOTH diabetic and celiac. And manages to make very good meals that are healthy for both.

My personal experience is that doctors were among the worst for thinking that they know "better" what diabetics and celiacs can eat. And hospital cafeterias seem to be particularly difficult places to find food labeled properly and prepared safely.

Just saying.....

[MercuryBlue]

I have never understood why people seem to feel the need to add more sweetness to sweet potatoes

People package fruit in syrup, too; I've got a can of pears I've been meaning to eat but haven't been able to bring myself to open because they're canned in heavy syrup and my taste buds hit sugar overload fairly easily. Fruit being sweet without added sugar, I dungeddit.

Then again, I do add brown sugar to sweet potatoes. Also margarine and cinnamon. Only way to eat 'em, far's I'm concerned.

"We're sorry, we cannot accept this data". Hmph. *refresh* Hey wait what happened to the links? Oh. Duh. Happy early Halloween, y'all.

[Cissa]

Pickled herring is not a shame! Pickled herring is YUMMY!

[Rebecca]

I make sweet potatoes with sugar and orange juice and top them with marshmallows, so they are not diabetes-friendly at all.

@Ross: I don't understand. How would you have an elevator just to the laundry room that does not serve the other floors? People that would use it live on each floor, surely?

[cjmr]

You can't have an elevator that just goes from the entry-level floor (on which, in the apartments Ross and I were discussing, no one actually lived) to the laundry room. It would have to service all the lived-on floors and the laundry room.