– In which Dorn demonstrates the power of the post.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Modesty prevents me from claiming it must have been my mention of coconut aminos in a post less than a month ago that brought it such instant acclaim, but the facts speak for themselves. In today’s Washington Post, food columnist Ellie Krieger wrote that “Two formerly fringe ingredients go mainstream: Nutritional yeast and coconut aminos” (Washington Post Food Section, 7/18/19).
Her story concentrates on coconut aminos’s composition, flavor, and uses, mainly casting it as a substitute for soy sauce when the latter’s saltiness, gluten content or lack of Paleo-credentials disqualify it from the menu (you blog readers knew of these qualities of aminos already!). While generally positive about its place in the kitchen, Ms Krieger is skeptical about the health claims made by some coconut-aminophiles:
People are also buying into coconut aminos because they believe the many false and misleading claims they read about the ingredient online… though fresh coconut sap contains vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants, scant — if any — are retained in the processing of the sap into coconut aminos, and there are no studies to back up any disease prevention benefits.
In other news (specifically, other news on the same Washington Post online page), food and culture reporter Maura Judkis reports that “KFC’s Cheetos chicken sandwich looks toxic and tastes like a missed opportunity” . (Washington Post online, 7/17/19). She allows that eating the sandwich did not kill her, and in fact it actually tastes better than it looks (which recall from the article title is “toxic”), and she reminisces about the food she enjoyed when she was young: “In the early part of this decade, stunt food used to be stuntier.”
To be fair, Cheetos is a notoriously difficult ingredient to work into a recipe, compared to, say, Twinkies. My grandson K— showed me Good Mythical Morning, a YouTube show that subjected several ingredients to the same culinary test: each ingredient was substituted, one at a time, for almonds in the process used to make almond milk (basically, soaking in water). Twinkies made a passable twinkie-milk beverage; so did fried chicken. But cheetos-milk just didn’t cut it (“too greasy”).
I’ll bet two successful Cheetos substitutions are: (1) for Rice Krispies in rice krispy treats, and (2) for cornmeal in corn dogs. I haven’t tried either of these, but if I do, I’ll let you know.
I had the pleasure of having four grandkids over last week,
however, I couldn’t help but notice that they were all glued to their devices
(as shown below).
I thought they were here to have quality time with ME!!!
This led me to invent the point system, where a kid could earn points by doing
non screen time activities. Points were easy to earn it just had to be by doing
something active. Going down the zip line earns points!!! They loved it. They
actually got really greedy for points. GD #1 helped me hang a door but when I
dropped a screw I heard, “I’ll pick it up for an extra point.” I agreed to
everything because for me ‘points’ are a fiat currency. At one point when they
were tallying up their points GD #4 started crying because she did not have as
many points as GD #2, her sister. “Well, I made the pancakes and you didn’t!”,
exclaimed GD #2. But Gamma is a magnanimous ruler, so I said to GD # 4, “You
get five points because you are making such a big fuss!” You may wonder what
the points are good for. You trade them in for minutes you can stay up past
your bedtime. Perhaps this is a deterrent to an actual parent in implementing
the system, but it works for me!
Thanks to the point system I had a lot of takers when I
wanted help walking the dogs down by the river and I was able to catch GD #1 in
a Gaugin – like pose for my most recent painting.
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This post is called part 1, not because I have more to say on the subject that I’m saving for later–it’s debatable whether I’ve got anything worth saying now on the subject–but because it seems like a topic that could lend itself well to revisiting. It’s my short list of words or phrases that seem like they would contribute more to the English language if they were used as expletives or epithets. My rule for eligibility is that they have to be real words or phrases that I actually heard said or saw written recently.
My list is pretty short, but hey, this is only part 1!
1. “Horseradish mayonnaise“. Stuff and nonsense.(source: Deb Naylor, reporting on her lunch at a Netherlands restaurant, April 2019)
Used in a sentence: “Your argument for global warming is just so much horseradish mayonnaise.”
This phrase has the same meaning, and falls in the same class of food-based epithets, as “gammon and spinach”, which found its way into the chorus of the nursery rhyme, “A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go”. I found this 1885 drawing of Froggie, Mr. Rat and Miss Mousie from the rhyme, where they actually seem to be dining on roly-poly, gammon (ham) and spinach, so I’m not sure if the phrase was actually being used epithetically in that poem.
(I grew up with a different version of the rhyme, Frog went a-courtin’ on an old Burl Ives record of folk songs and nursery rhymes. I used to love that record, but that song didn’t have “gammon and spinach” in it.)
My first acquaintance with “gammon and spinach” clearly used as an epithet (decrying the basing of work choices on anything other than gain) was probably in the 1951 B&W Christmas Carol movie starring Alister Sim. When I was growing up, this was the scariest, and I thought the best, Christmas Carol version available on TV.
“Gammon and spinach” has pretty much fallen out of the English lexicon, as food epithets have evolved over the years. I’m sure it’s a direct antecedent of the theme song of the 1990s show Frazier, “Tossed salad and scrambled eggs”.
In “horseradish mayonnaise”, the next generation can now carry on the noble tradition of food epithets. And because when my good friend Deb Naylor reported this phrase, she helpfully provided the Dutch translation (mierikswortelmayonaise), it is ready-made to be used as a bilingual epithet when needed.
2. “Epithetic”. Worthy of being described by a (derogatory) epithet. (source: the dictionary, looking up the definition of “epithet”, the other day)
Used in a sentence: “Our state representative is so epithetic!”
The official meaning of epithetic is just the adjective form of the word “epithet”, but it sounds so much like a fusion of epithet, pathetic, and apathetic that I think it deserves to be an epithet in itself.
The antonym of epithetic, meaning being so blameless as to be hard to apply a derogatory epithet to, would be “hypo-epithetical”.
When trying to thing of a sentence to use for an example of this epithet, I found that all the subjects that came to mind were from the Federal government. This may say something negative about my own feelings. Or it may simply be that our current governing officials are all just epithetic.
3. “Honey nut cluster crunch”. A disastrously mishandled situation or undertaking. (source: a store brand breakfast cereal box, June 2019)
Used in a sentence: “The initiative at work quickly degenerated into a total honey nut cluster crunch.”
Military types will recognize “cluster crunch” as a G-rated version of the term for an operation in which multiple things have gone horribly wrong. The military term, as I understand it, is sometimes abbreviated “Charlie-Foxtrot”, with a more serious disaster termed a “Royal” (charlie-foxtrot).
In the 20 years I spent working for the Navy, I learned to respect the military’s mastery of epithets, especially their way with acronym-epithets. Many of these, such as SNAFU, FUBAR and BOHICA, have worked their way into mainstream language.
4. “St. Lucy’s eyeballs“. I’m shocked!(source: Kathleen describing a piece of jewelry, April 2019)
Used in a sentence: “St. Lucy’s eyeballs! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
This expletive falls in the category containing saint evocations, which includes “Great Caesar’s ghost!” (from the 1950s Superman TV show), “St. Dan in a pan!” (from Serafina, a very good YA book about a girl trying to negotiate a peace between humans and dragons), and the doubly-euphemized “Jiminy Christmas!” (heard in the 1937 movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and again in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz). It is also related in some way to the expletive “My eyes! my eyes!” (as heard on Friends, and a million other places).
St. Lucy is a legitimate saint in the Catholic canon. Her name can mean “light” or “lucid”, and she is the patron saint of the blind. Icons often portrayed St. Lucy with her identifying attribute, her disembodied eyes. Her eyeballs are a motif represented in jewelry, and even in recipes. If “St. Lucy’s eyeballs!” hasn’t been used as an expletive before now, it really should have been!
In my brother’s most recent post he takes stock of what it means to be ‘three dog years’ into retirement. This inspired me to think about my own six weeks in (since I don’t think in dog years). I’ve tried to sum it up in the graphic below.
It has now been 157 days, or three dog years, since I retired, so I thought I’d take stock. How has my life been upended? How has it stabilized? How is my bucket list doing?
Food. I have always loved to cook, especially to bake, and especially to bake bread. One time during my working days I decided I was going to master the perfect rustic loaf: crusty and crunchy outside, chewy and feisty on the inside. I had gotten pretty close too, but then I got busy, and the skills were eventually lost. I could still bake bread, just not the bread.
But since I retired, I’ve started my quest up again. This time, I was armed with a luscious stinky sourdough starter and tips from my good friend S.C— T— (also an adept of the Doughy Arts), and a great recipe for bread in a Dutch Oven. Equipped as I was with ingredients, tools, arcane know-how, and most of all time, I quickly started making progress.
Then one day I stepped on the bathroom scale and realized that I was paying a heavy (get it?) price for my knowledge, that I was not willing to pay. Since then I have scaled back, and am content to make incremental progress toward bread perfection, at a rate governed approximately by the rate at which my friends and neighbors are willing to take the loaves off my hands. Stay tuned!
Clothing. Once freed from the tyranny of “dress codes” and “business casual”, I’ve been able to discharge a Debt of Honor to my sister Tara.
When Tara’s daughters were a bit younger, they started to experiment with hair dye. These were hues completely outside of the crayon box that mother nature provided her children: neon pinks, blues, purples, greens. At that time, I told my sister that she should dye her hair like that too, and to sweeten the deal, I said that if she would, then I would. But Tara called my bluff and took the neon plunge! And so did my other sister Lona! And my other sister Innes!
Kirk Van Houten (the Simpsons)
I was still working then, and I confess that I was worried how a not-of-this-earth hair statement might be viewed at my workplace. They weren’t prudes there, but there were certain unspoken lines that it took more courage than I had to cross. But now I’m retired and can do as I please, so I got my hair dyed an electric cyan-blue that would do Milhouse’s dad Kirk proud.
Shelter. Kathleen and I have been looking into perhaps a small house trailer, inspired by a dream to travel the world in a way that allows us to bring our dog Archie everywhere, and partly spurred on by Lona’s recent post-retirement purchase of a cool retro-looking Scamp trailer. We’ve only made a little progress on our own mobile home dreams, but we almost closed a deal on a new (to us) pickup truck that I think could pull a nice Teardrop, if we get one. Baby steps!
Wherewithal. The government was shut down right before I retired, so some of the tasks for which I was responsible had to go un-transitioned. I told them at work that if they arranged a contract, I would help with some transitioning later on. They did, and I’ve done just a little bit. It gives me an excuse to see some old friends, and it doesn’t seem like it will have too great an impact on my time (or my income).
CAC Card
But one wrinkle I had forgotten about was that as part of this contract, I will need a Common Access Card (CAC), which is a government-issued photo ID. If I had planned it better, I might have gotten this card before I honored my hair-promise to my sister. We’ll see how that goes.
