Yay Thanksgiving! A holiday filled with turkey and alcohol and simmering bitterness (and also hand turkeys that I drew on my iPad). In honor of the hallowed day off of work, I compiled some fun Turkey Factz*! These are best enjoyed after approximately 6 mimosas:

-Cranberry sauce was originally made with grapes, but the pilgrims eventually switched to cranberries, because, obviously, ew.

-Interestingly, turkey is not named for the country Turkey, but for a Wampanoag slang term for “shaved ballsack.”

-Did you know that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began as a tribute to the victims of the Hindenburg disaster?

-Not only did Squanto teach the pilgrims how to live off the land, he also taught them a native dance that is very similar to our modern Macarena!

-In Australia, all of the McDonalds’s across the country celebrate Thanksgiving with a special turkey McFlurry!

-The average American eats more than 15 pounds of turkey a year, mostly in the form of that pepperoni-flavored turkey product that comes in pepperoni pizza Lunchables.

-Did you know that the tradition of eating pie on Thanksgiving was brought over by the GIs after World War II? They got the idea after watching a newsreel of Winston Churchill eating 17 pies in one sitting!

-Sarah Josepha Hale, an American magazine editor, persuaded Abraham Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. The announcement appeared in the October 1863 issue of her magazine, right after the article, “37 Ways to Pleasure Your Man With a Whale Bone!”

-Contrary to popular belief, the first Thanksgiving turkey was actually stuffed with an aromatic mixture of dirt, Durkee’s french-fried onions, and pipe tobacco.

-Interestingly, the pilgrims didn’t use forks at the first Thanksgiving! They actually used up all those sporks that they stole from Taco Bell.

-The most popular way to serve leftover turkey in the U.S. is “Tina’s Turkey Tacos,” a recipe that was first published in Southern Living in 1972!

-We can now estimate that the first Thanksgiving celebration lasted for approximately 6 years!

-Did you know that the British celebrate Thanksgiving with marmalade pie?

-Did you know, the easiest way to de-feather a turkey is to show it a bunch of turkey porn filled with freshly plucked young hens.

*As with most things I say, these factz are not real.

-Eat macaroni salad made by a really obese old white lady in rural Georgia.

-Listen to a Nickelback-themed Spotify station for an entire workday.

-Watch Homeland.

-Tell Donald Rumsfeld that he didn’t even do that bad of a job, he was just doing the best he could with what he had, you know?

-Hold a really mature dred in my upper lip like a mustache for at least 20 seconds.

-Ask Anthony Bourdain how he feels about Guy Fieri hosting “Minute To Win It.”

-Hang out with Wayne Brady on the set of the Dr. Phil show for 35 minutes.

-Make a comment on Reddit about how I’m a girl who isn’t into getting raped so much.

-Tell someone who works in a record store that I think Chris Brown’s latest album is a work of quiet genius.

-Listen to some guy I took an economics class with in college do his Sean Connery impression for one merciless evening.

-Ask Seth MacFarlane what his creative process is like.

-Tell Bruce Banner that no one even knows when “Community” is coming back, probably on Hulu next summer or something.

-Eat at P.F. Chang’s with a bunch of girlfriends who suggested it because, like, they have soy sauce and chili oil on the table instead of salt and pepper, and it’s such authentic Chinese, you know? Because Melody went on that mission trip to Beijing for a week in 2002, and she totally knows the real thing.

Just kidding. I fucking hate Klondike bars. PUT THAT SHIT ON A STICK.

Uuuuuggghhhhhhhh tiny asparagus. I have suffered in silence for far too long, with a grill full of overpriced stems that have fallen through the grate, and sad piles of green threads next to a steak, and I cannot abide! I say nay to our country’s sick obsession with skinny (asparagus)! But seriously, enough of this outrageous tiny asparagus madness; it’s like eating vaguely pee-flavored straw, and I’m tired of my vegetables looking like Old Gregg’s hair. 

I’m not sure which asshole TV chef put the idea that thinner is better when it comes to asparagus into the American consciousness, but that seems to be the only explanation I can come up with for the chokehold that the pencil-dick asparagus lobby has on the entire fucking grocery industry. I’m not entirely sure, but I’m putting my money on that douche cat Chris Kimball. He seems like he’d think it was a positively captivating schoolboy lark to make people think it’s a good idea, right after verbally abusing that chef lady on national TV. 

Look, I get that thinner asparagus cooks quicker and is more tender, but this is why we snap the woody ends off of the regular-sized asparagus. So we don’t have to deal with sad, flaccid shoots slapping us in the chin like green, buttery porn star dicks while we’re trying to enjoy our gotdamn meal. 

If I were one of those jerkoffs who writes for Slate or something, I would probably ask if the growing popularity of tiny asparagus is indicative of our country’s sick obsession with youth, but I’m not Katie Roiphe, so we’ll all just have to make do with my non-add-supported, semi-coherent ramblings. 

But seriously, fuck tiny asparagus. 

[via designboom]

Oh shit! It’s Julie Klausner! If you don’t know who she is, you obviously don’t care about Real Housewives or drag queens or amazing podcasts or jokes. I was first acquainted with Julie’s work when I started reading her absatively brilliant Real Housewives re-caps on New York Magazine’s Vulture site. Then I started following her on Twitter and happened across her awesome podcast, and apparently she also has a book that’s going to be turned into a TV show maybe and is friends with Ted Leo and has amazing hair and writes for UCB, and…shit. I gotta get my mess together. And also get a podcast?

ANYHOW. She’s one of those people that’s so awesome that you might want to shove her in a closet and assume her identity (you wouldn’t hurt her or anything. Just get rid of her for a little while so you can know what it’s like to be loved. I mean, you’d totally giver her some food and a bucket and stuff. Whatever), and I am so so so glad that she took 6 minutes out of her (probably) awesome day to answer my dinky little blog questionnaire. It is below. Please enjoy. Yay!

What do you do?

Betty Crocker mix can seriously go S a D. Compared to Duncan Hines? Forget it. That means you too, Pillsbury.

Follow Miss Klausner on Twitter, and listen to her podcast please and thank you.

I recently discovered this really cool website called The Selby, which is pretty much where some dude that probably has a neck tattoo goes into cool people’s houses and takes pictures of their piles of screenprinting supplies and their velvet couches and shit.

The other day, I was strolling through the inevitable food-themed offshoot, Edible Selby, where ironic knuckle tattoo straps on the chef’s jacket his mom bought him from Pampered Chef that year for Christmas because she felt pressured to buy more than just the pizza stone because her friend was the one throwing the party and goes in the kitchens of some awesome restaurants. Spoiler alert: Brooklyn chefs are pretty into having rooftop herb gardens. ANYHOW, I happened across this:

It’s a goddamn Louis Vuitton suitcase that holds knives. It’s Eric Ripert’s custom-made Louis Vuitton Epi leather suitcase that holds knives, to be exact. There’s even a New Yorker article about it. I feel like only a French person could get away with this, mostly only Eric Ripert, who is massively talented, and talks shit about Gordon Ramsey on Twitter all the time, so I’ll let it slide. Also, guaranteed: If anyone but Eric Ripert had a handmade suede designer truffle slicer tray, Anthony Bourdain would write an entire collection of essays just to mock him and how few pig kidneys he cooks. Uuuuuuggghhhhh.

Welcome back, me!

STORY TIME: At my old job, they had a giant box of these, which were dutifully bought from Costco every 3 months by moi (as the only girl in the office, it quickly became my job to do the shopping, obvs). Since I was too poor to afford breakfast, I would eat one of these every morning. After a few weeks, I made the mistake of looking under my desk, and it was like a fucking oat field. A delicious, corn syrup-coated oat field.

These bitches just don’t know nothin bout coffee.

This post has been two months in the making! Again, not because I had to do any sort of wrangling to get the answers from my interviewee, but mostly because I’m a lazy asshole who interviews people and then forgets about it for 2 months. It occurred to me the other day that Caissie probably mostly did the interview because she was thinking that I would be a responsible blogger and post it right away and she could talk about her book and then people would read how funny she is and buy it and oh god what if my laziness kept her from selling all of her books and now she’ll never make it onto the bestseller list and she’ll be forced to write jokes about Real Housewives forever! So to make up for it, I was going to go out and buy 5 copies of her book to make myself feel better, but they didn’t have it at Barnes and Noble, and, well, we all know what happened to Borders, and I ended up paying $15 for a French Vogue instead and pretending I knew enough French to know what the heck was going on. So, I’m sorry Caissie!!! I hope I can make it up to you with this picture of a fancy lobster dinner.

But onto more serious things. this series is mostly about having the chance to delve into the food-related psyches of my favorite Twitter people, and, I have to admit, I was super excited about interviewing Caissie. For those of you who don’t know her, she is not only an amazing writer and hilarious jokester, but also ridiculously sweet and nice and I may be obsessed with her in a perfectly healthy, non-stiletto-in-the-eye kinda way. When I ever get enough money move to New York, she will probably be nice and be like, yeah, sure, we can totally hang out once, and then I will try to call her and hang out all the time, and she might invite me to her house to be nice, and I will probably stay too long and she’ll be all, oh man, it’s getting late, and I’ll be like, yay let’s be BFFs! Interview time!

Who are you?

Most recently, I wrote a Young Adult novel, Jane Jones: Worst. Vampire. Ever. I also work in television. I’ve worked for lots of shows. Currently, I work on a late-night offering by Bravo called Watch What Happens Live! hosted by Andy Cohen.

This is pretty much all there is.

If you don’t already, follow Caissie on Twitter, read her blog, and buy her book. DO IT.

Everyone’s got a list of favorite sandwiches. These five moments, between two slices, are mine.

(1) BLT

My dad makes ours with burnt-to-a-crisp bacon, crunchy iceberg lettuce, heaving slices of beef tomatoes, hunks of Wisconsin Cheddar and a fat dollop of Ranch dressing, between two toasted slices of whatever bread is in the fridge. Claussen pickle to serve.

Over the years, my dad has totally slacked off on cooking. This is something many of my friends have experienced with their own fathers. What we’ve gathered is that our dads are, in fact, pretty decent chefs. But for some reason, they rely on meals made by others, and when faced with the absence of another party’s food-fixing skills, our dads have honed their snack-making abilities to near professional standards. My dad can smoke a mean Thanksgiving turkey, and he runs the BBQ like a Weber King, but Mike seriously excels at making snacks: Eggs with random leftovers and plenty of butter in a pan are fried into a dish that is both terrifying-looking and tastes terrifyingly delicious. When my brother and I were younger, our mom would go on a rare but deserved vacation to California to visit her sister. We knew that for a week, our homemade cuisine would consist of cold cereal, Bagel Bites and professional-grade, homemade snacks. Mostly, though, we looked forward to our one special dinner venture to the combination Kentucky Fried Chicken-Taco Bell-Pizza Hut. KenTacoHut, as we lovingly called the fastfood trifecta, was a haven of choice. And since Mom only went out of town once every 200 years, our dad figured it’d take more than a singular visit to KTH for childhood obesity to settle in. We ate fried chicken, on cheese pizzas, complete with intermittent bites of nachos. We slid through what seemed like miles of germy, colorful plastic kid-tunnels and ball pits until we thought our stomachs would explode. So you can probably guess my disappointment when, after experiencing the rare but unforgettable food of KenTacoHut, my dad resolved to use the week my mom went on vacation to make legitimate dinners. We complained until he blew our fastfood kid minds with a BLT: Lettuce that was both water-logged and crisp. Smoky bacon. Hefty slices of cheddar that became part of the bread, which was toasted to golden perfection and buttered on the underside. We even ate our tomatoes. In no time at all, Mike Handelman made his kids more adventurous eaters by taking them out of the combinatorial fastfood ballpit. I’m eternally grateful.

(2) The Club

Ingredients: Start with two slices of buttered and mustard-ed toast, with Swiss and Applewood cheese, one seriously thick stack of turkey and tissue-thin prosciutto, as many tomatoes as you like, enough lettuce to yield loud crunches, thin strips of roasted red peppers, red onions, pickles, avocado. Top off with a toothpick and a pimento-stuffed olive.

Optional ingredients: One rasher of smoked bacon and an extra slice of bread

Those closest to me know that everything I eat makes me hurt. Partaking in the consumption of a deliciously handcrafted sandwich is not always a pleasure. Many times the glutinous bread, cheese and condiments keep me from enjoying a legitimately wonderful handheld meal. Sandwiches are a part of our lives — they’re easy to make, portable and fulfill one of life’s small commuter pleasures: You can eat them while driving. Despite a passion for the PB&J (unfortunately, stomach issues forced me into quitting PB&Js cold-turkey), my own appreciation for thoughtful sandwich-making and eating came late in life. Yes, sandwiches can be quick hunger fixes, but I believe that with enough foresight and creativity, a sandwich can yield a dinner as complex and rewarding as multiple courses. The Club is my attempt to push my own sandwich-eating and appreciating boundaries. It has never been a sandwich I’ve particularly craved or ordered in restaurants. But in the past few months, I’ve realized that my Club was inspired by the need to create a venue where all of my dream ingredients could conspire. It’s a sandwich that requires a certain level of strategic planning, but nothing life-altering. Two slices of bread — one wheat, one rye — are toasted while I cut tomatoes, tear lettuce, slice onions and prepare a variety of smoked Applewood and Swiss cheeses. The deli turkey shreds away from itself in satisfying hunks. And the prosciutto — a muscle-y rainbow of pinks — tears like perforated paper along its fat, white streaks. Every ingredient is out on the counter. Juices splatter and smear across my once-clean chopping board. The pale meat of an avocado easily spreads along the base of the sandwich. The garlicky pickles are never sliced thin enough, and the olive oily, roasted red pepper is like greasy gold. I layer slowly, never worrying about the final height of the sandwich, but always carefully keeping it together. Each ingredient is a favorite acquired throughout my life as an eater. Now though, I’ve curated every slice, chunk and scrap to make something more. It’s a strange thing to put into words, but I’m tremendously proud of my Club. It’s a sandwich I don’t mind using half a paper towel roll to clean up off my face, while chowing down in front of and with those I love. The Club is the sum of its parts.

(3) Grilled Cheese

Ingredients: A couple slices of cheap wheat bread, liquid butter, one slice of American Cheese and wax paper for wrapping.

It’s a sandwich near and dear — a staple to which I’ve devoted many musing hours. While jam-topped grilled cheeses really are the bees knees, nothing compares to the Winstead’s grilled cheese on wheat. A Kansas City fixture, Winstead’s prides itself on grilling the thinnest, most perfect steakburgers. Throughout decades of business, the restaurant has maintained a timelessly dated palette of salmon and seafoam green vinyl booth cushions and carpets. No kid can resist popping a coin in the jukebox and ordering the two-foot tall skyscraper milkshake (any flavor you like) to split among the carpool group. But I don’t like carrying change (weighs too much), nor do I enjoy suffering through ice cream-induced stomachaches. For me, Winstead’s will forever be about the fabulously greasy grilled cheese sandwich wrapped in wax paper so well-oiled it’s like looking at your food through a handheld window. Dipped in Heinz 57 Ketchup and punctuated by the occasional bite of a thick, fried onion ring, this sandwich nourishes like no other kind of fastfood. Despite being slightly undersized and severely spatula-flattened, the grilled cheese sates. Every shiny fingertip gets licked. And I unashamedly bask in the smell — bread and cheese, together, in a well buttered griddle — that taints my hair and senses till the day’s end.

(4) Peanut Butter and Jelly

Ingredients: Two slices of doughy, sliced, wheatberry bread, lots of Peter Pan Honey Roasted Crunchy Peanut Butter, gobs of Polaner All Fruit Black Cherry Jelly and a handful of Fritos.

The problem was I wanted to go to the sophomore Homecoming dance with Brad, not Ben. And there was another problem: Caleb had told Ben that making this sandwich was the way to win my heart — or at least a prom date. This sandwich — gooey with tart cherry jelly and roof-of-mouth-sticky peanut butter —was the perfect sandwich, and not because of the classic ingredients, which over the years I had customized to palatable perfection. No, this sandwich, constructed between two layers of the meltingest, doughiest, seediest bread, was a total gamewinner because of the Fritos. Canonically, the corn chip is, hands-down, a proven crispy champ at dip-scooping, but Fritos are at their best after being smooshed, in the early morning, between jelly, peanut butter and two slices of bread and ziplocked up, only to be reawakened — at least five hours later — by the lunchtime bell. Ben thought he had me figured out, but he totally didn’t because through a very complex grapevine, I knew he was going to ask me to Homecoming, and I also knew how he was going to do it. Ben, though, was unaware that I wanted to go with Brad. As luck would have it, Brad did indeed ask. I accepted, and unfortunately, Ben didn’t learn the news until that day at lunchtime, when he stood in front of me, brown paper bag in hand, and asked if I’d be his date. Girls love getting what they want, but we also don’t like breaking hearts, so I gently turned Ben down. I wasn’t, however, prepared for his odd but endearing chivalry: “I made you this,” he said, holding out the paper bag. “I’d love to at least have lunch with you and hear what you think of the sandwich.” Sure! I said. Of course! (He wanted to watch me eat this sandwich?) I couldn’t pretend — the sandwich was perfect. And despite the recent rejection, I wanted to enjoy the PB&J. Because that’s what you do when someone who cares about you makes you something. And because homemade (even brown-bagged) pressies are fun (and breaking hearts isn’t), I promised Ben a dance or three at Homecoming.

(5) The Salami Sandwich

Ingredients: Two or three circles of salami, Mature English Cheddar, a few slices of red onion, tomato, Gem Lettuce leaves, wholegrain mustard, butter, and gherkin to serve.

My stomach was going to implode. Evening had long settled into night, and another two hours would pass before I’d climb the five floors up to my crummy, but glamorously located, Kensington flat. We had worked late. And now we were both hungry. Pushed by January’s fierce, biting chomp, we walked, half-frozen, from the office to the supermarket. Inside the Waitrose glow, he grabbed a basket and cavalierly picked his ingredients: tossing around a red onion, testing a tomato’s faint bruise, choosing a type of mature white cheddar without looking, ordering eight wafer-thin slices of salami at the deli counter, paying, and finally swinging his bag of Vogel’s Soya and Linseed bread (a splurge) all the way to his top-floor flat on Colebrooke Road. Inside and warmed by the generous glow of the space heater, I watched intently as he wiped thick spreads of salty Lurpack butter along the insides of each piece of bread. Torn by the teeth of his serrated knife, the juicy tomato surrendered into hairline slices with seeds intact. Bits of red onion (I can still taste them) fell into hollow, purple O’s. Salami, cheddar (and all the rest) were contained by the bread whose insides boasted large dollops of spicy, wholegrain mustard. After we’ve eaten some dinner, I’ll walk you to your train, he said. I washed my bites of buttery cheese, lettuce and crushed tomatoes down with steady sips of water. Before that delicious sandwich had made its way to my stomach, I felt full. Happy. I resolved to take my time. I resolved to chew slowly. I’d fallen in love.

~~~

Sarah Handelman is author of the awesome blog Not French Cooking, which is also a zine. She is officially 900% cooler than I am.

Illustrations by Tom Loughlin.

As I was trawling YouTube earlier for sandwich-related ephemera, I came across this little video, a DVD extra from the movie Spanglish. Despite the fact that Spanglish is possibly the worst date movie ever, and continuing proof that no one wants to see Adam Sandler be sincere ever, this video completely enchanted me.

In the movie, Adam Sandler’s character is an award-winning chef, so apparently they hauled Thomas Keller in to consult and make the dude who played Billy Madison not look like a total idiot in the kitchen. The French Laundry Cookbook kind of changed my life (always be straining!), so it was kind of amazing to see a master in action in a really fun, informal way, all showing his personal salt box to Adam Sandler and showing him how to stack bacon on a piece of bread in the most anal-retentive way possible, but world’s best sandwich? I’m not buyin it. SPOILER ALERT: the sandwich is basically a BLT with a fried egg on it. And melted cheese, I guess? Also, I’m pretty sure he’s using Kraft mayonnaise, which, while fairly delicious, tinges everything it touches with the distinct flavor of plastic.

So no, Thomas Keller, I see your “world’s greatest sandwich,” and I raise you the actual world’s greatest sandwich: Soft-ish white bread (sourdough, Italian, whatevs), basil mayo, swiss, bacon, thinly sliced turkey, avocado, alfalfa sprouts (not German sprouts, though). No joke, it’s perfect in every way. The sprouts add a crunchy greenness that totally balances out the fattiness of the bacon and mayo, and the avocado is the perfect middle-man: creamy and rich, strikingly green and fresh. Also, basil mayonnaise is good on everything. I’m pretty sure I’d eat Newt Gingrich’s dick if he dipped it in basil mayonnaise.

But I dunno, Thomas Keller could be onto something, just doing his regular thing: Taking deceptively simple ingredients, prepared perfectly and paired impeccably and making some of the greatest food in the world. WHAT THE HELL DO I KNOW.

P.S. Also, if you watch carefully, you get to watch how gingerly and proper Adam Sandler tries to slice the bread in front of one of the world’s greatest chefs. It’s kinda cute.

Alas! Sandwich Month is officially underway. As I decreed on my Facebook page recently, June is officially Sandwich Month that I made up! It’s summer. I don’t want to turn on the stove or the oven or any major or minor appliance, so I’ve decided that I will make and eat and talk about one of my most favorites of food: Sandwiches!

Sound the sandwich alarm people, because June is officially a time to meditate and be still and focus all of the myriad glories of the sandwich world — grilled cheese, gyros, ham sandwiches, open-faced sandwiches, panini, falafel, cheesesteaks, dagwoods, wraps, grinders, heroes, sliders — while we shove them into our mouths. I will try to explore as many of them as possible, with some help from my friend Sarah over at Not French Cooking, and we are gonna be talkin ’bout sandwiches up and down this month. I will end this little announcement with a rendition of the lord’s prayer that my friend Nick and I came up with on Twitter:

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, Hallowed be thy name..
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. On bread as it is in heaven…
Give us this day our daily mayonnaise, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us…
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Miracle Whip)…
For thine is the bacon, and the lettuce, and the tomato, forever and ever. Amen.

Amen.

Welcome to another “Thoughts on Food,” this time featuring one of my most favorite Twitter people, @arjunbasu. I came across him back when I was following a gaggle of literary agents in hopes that I could strike up an internet friendship with one of them who would find me so charming and hilarious and, in turn, agree to shop my book proposal around.

But alas! They were well onto me at that point, and refused to engage me in any way, shape or form. Also, all they did was complain about how stupid their clients were, which kind of made me uncomfortable. Also alas! One of them suggested Arjun as a Follow Friday, and what a fortuitous follow it was! He writes these little 140-character stories that are complete and touching, and sometimes heartbreaking. He’s an awesome writer, and, according to his Twitter bio, also a foodie!

So I hit him up for an interview. It also turns out that he is very sarcastic and funny and so awesome that he will take a picture of himself on his phone and e-mail it to people so they use it on their blogs. Take a look into his soul, y’all.

Who are you?

I do the internets on a website (www.arjunbasu.com) and you can follow me on Twitter @arjunbasu. And you can always buy my book. And remember: lemon cake.

I’ve been trying to overcome my picky eating for a long time. Some aversions I’ve held since I can remember; some were, in the grand scheme of my pickiness, fairly recent acquisitions. In all cases, I’ve found that the key to overcoming certain loathings is to try to pinpoint why, precisely, I hate said food, whether it’s because of a certain awful event, or a build-up of bad experiences over time.

Luckily, it’s very easy to pinpoint the exact moment when I truly committed to hating eggs: The moment I saw this fucking video. Despite my undying love of Jackass and all of the ill-advised movie careers it’s launched, I am a TOTAL pussy about puking. I don’t puke very often, and, when I do, it is usually accompanied by tears. So many tear-stained, drunken apologies (at least I’m a contrite drunk). Not that puking is really anyone’s bag, I guess, but I am especially unrefined about it. I also cannot stand to see, hear or think about someone puking without retching violently, and, possibly, drunkenly crying. Needless to say, there are many Jackass moments at which I have to turn away.

So imagine my 13-year-old horror upon landing on this clip while blithely flipping through channels one day. The sudden arrival of Johnny Knoxville’s smarmy mug upon my television screen was enough for me to give pause and ready myself for a juvenile laff, but alas! The laffs were not to be had on that dark day. Instead I was greeted with the sight of a neon yellow stream of vomit landing with an empty, sickening thud in the bottom of a five-gallon bucket.

Oh god, the sound. I’ll never forget that sound. Like the whisper of helicopters sweeping over the forests of Vietnam, that sound haunted my dreams for months. The sulfuric smell of boiled eggs filled me with a sense of dread, and Easter made my stomach turn. Soon, this primal disgust crept into my consciousness when I thought of any other egg preparations.

Fried eggs, poached eggs, scrambled eggs — it didn’t matter. I couldn’t eat it. Every time I was faced with the jiggly solidified protein of white, or the bright yellow ooze of yolk, my thoughts immediately flashed to that neon-yellow stream, and I could feel the bile rising in my throat.

To this day, I just can’t deal with eggs, and I blame it all on MTV. Fuck you, Johnny Knoxville.

I made my first ragetoon, suckers. Reddit is ruining my life.

[Fucking avocados...]

This kitchen is from The Stirling House in Sydney, Australia. Can you imagine being so rich that your house has, like, a name? I’m officially naming my house “The Oehring shit-condo” and submitting pictures of the oil barrel in the middle of my living room that acts as fireplace to architecture blogs STAT. Maybe that’s post modern or whatever. I DON’T KNOW. Anyhow, the whole house is gorgeous, but the kitchen is especially intriguing. Hit the jump for more pictures:

BRUNCH PORCH oh god. The other side of the dining room table is the porch and you put cushions on it and sit on them and have awesome picnics in your house. Then you enjoy the nice Sydney weather (the weather’s always nice in Australia, yeah?) and drink mimosas and eat vegemite and koala meat (that’s what Australians eat, right?) in the sun. Awesome.

Best thing about this kitchen: The skull just fuckin hangin out like it ain’t totally gross to have bleached human bones where your children eat. Maybe it’s a keepsake from their awesome shark-hunting uncle who died in a freak poisonous-spider-hiding-in-his-shoe-accident.

FACT: If I lived in Australia, every time I chopped something, I’d whip out my chef’s knife and be like, “THIS is a knife!” Then I could stab myself with said knife because I’m an idiot who quotes movies from the 80s THAT I HAVEN’T EVEN SEEN.

Second best thing about this kitchen: The neon yellow wall. I think neon colors are most underused in the modern home. Australia is definitely at least 15 hours ahead of us on this one.

[Via Contemporist]

[Via LikeCool]

FACT: I effing hate jellybeans, but I love this print.

“Candy Girl” by flickr user pashandy

[Via Yay! Everyday]

Behold. In case you couldn’t figure it out, here’s a wonderful recipe for that most staple-y of St. Patrick’s Day staples: green beer! Which also happens, magically, to be brought to you by that old redneck drunk couple that you see stocking up on Bud Light and Marlboros and smacking each other’s asses at Wal-Mart too early on a Saturday morning.

I estimate that it’s about 11:00 in the morning, their time, but they don’t care. They are fuckin ready to party. I also have a sneaking suspicion that they own a motorcycle that she enjoys riding on the back of, dressed in a leather vest and one of those awful leather ponytail wraps, and they definitely hang out at Hooters on Sunday afternoons watching football and getting drunk off of tequila shots and awkwardly hitting on the waitresses. I’m pretty sure my dad aspires to be this guy. Ugh.

Anyhow, watch this video! It’s totally amazing in its awfulness. As for me, I’m going to go drink some red wine and fall asleep on the couch and pinch myself on the ass for not wearing green, cuz no one else is gonna touch it.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, you guys!

Photo via Food GPS

Step 1: Buy green beans from store. For best results get those little haricots verts that are all over the place. They’re way expensive, but totally fucking worth it. I got mine from Trader Joe’s, and they were approximately $60 for a 1-pound bag instead of the usual $70.

Step 2: Forget about them in the fridge for about a week, until you look into the fridge one day and realize that the sell-by date was 2 days ago.

Step 3: If they’re not pre-trimmed, remove the little tough, planty end.

Step 4: Spread them out in an even, thin layer in a microwave-safe dish (I used a large-ish pie dish).

Step 5: Add a thin layer of water to the bottom of the dish, and cover with plastic wrap.

Step 6: Microwave green beans for 4 minutes. Then forget about the dish in the microwave for about 2 hours while you drink mimosas and pet your dog.

Step 7: Remember about green beans in the microwave when the microwave beeps at you, 2 hours later. Wonder why you didn’t hear microwave beeping periodically for the last 2 hours. Pour self another drink.

Step 8: Eat the damn green beans already! They’ll be perfectly cooked, somehow. A little crunchy, super sweet, not too undercooked or overcooked. Proceed to thoughtlessly eat the whole bowl while drinking, and count that the same as exercise, right?

If you only thoughtlessly eat half the bowl:

-Mix green beans with a splash of red wine vinegar and a good glug of olive oil. Add salt and freshly cracked pepper. Add some chopped garlic if you’re feeling saucy. Mix together. BAM awesome green-bean salad. Be a hipster and put it in one of those Chinese-food containers and take it on a picnic in the park with your dog (or toddler) and a bottle of red wine or whatever. Play frisbee with your dog (or toddler).

-Melt some butter in a pan, add some sliced shallot and gently sautee lightly until softened. Add green beans and sautee for a few minutes til they’re heated through. Add salt and pepper, and then at the last minute, add a squeeze of lemon juice to finish and some toasted slivered almonds on top. BAM green beans almondine. Serve with some lightly-floured tilapia/sole sauteed in butter with lemon juice on top. SEX FOOD.

-Sautee some crushed garlic and ginger in some oil in a pan. Add green beans and heat through. Finish off with sesame oil and a splash of soy sauce. Add a sprinkle of sugar if you so choose. BAM Asian green beans. Tell China Wok down the street to suck it.

-Put them on a grilled cheese! Why? CUZ I SAID SO.

-Sautee some mushrooms in butter and garlic with some thyme and white wine. Add green beans and sautee a little bit more. BAM green bean casserole? MAYBE. Serve braised beef on top of this mushroom/green bean mixture instead of rice or potatoes or whatever. WHY NOT? Next thing you know, you’re an earthy French-y food goddess (not the Charlie Sheen kind).

-Make light cornstarch batter. Dip green beans in the batter. Fry that shit already. BAM green bean fries. Dip in ranch dressing, crack open a beer, have an orgasm.

I may be drunk, so I’m gonna stop. EAT SOME GREEN BEANS.