Re: Jalapenos used to be spicy?

1

I don't like spicy Mexican food. I just like mole.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:08 AM
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Aha! I make this "asian pesto" type stuff that I put on summer rolls and normally two or three jalapeños make it quite spicy (they're blended raw), but lately that has not been the case. I'd been attributing it to normal variation.

(Confidential to Moby: MOLE.)


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:18 AM
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3

Cock it.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:19 AM
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4

Seriously, salsa sucks. MOLE is great.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:19 AM
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Huh. It's like vanity sizing, sort of. I used to sort of enjoy hot food, but be cautious ordering because it wasn't that hard to exceed my tolerance. The last decade or so, I've gotten casual about it because I don't ever actually run into something too spicy for me in the restaurants I go to. I had thoughtlessly assumed I was toughening up as I aged, but it's probably just that everything in the world is blander.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:20 AM
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This just opens up a market for artisanal jalapeno farmers selling overprices pretentious fiery peppers to the likes of us.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:21 AM
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7

Seriously, salsa sucks.

You are dead to me.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:23 AM
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8

It wouldn't be a problem if they'd just label the peppers appropriately at the grocery store or wherever. I have no problem with the existence of lame jalapenos, but they should be in a separate bin from the real ones.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:24 AM
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9

"Just use serranos" seems like good advice to me. What's the problem?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:24 AM
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10

Or Fresno chiles, or whatever. There are options. Jalapenos suck anyway.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:24 AM
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11

9: That they're in the process of de-fanging serranos as well?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:25 AM
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12

This doesn't really have anything to do with the subject of the article, but I feel like if you're going to write a post that's snobbish about Middle America you should manage a higher level of grammaticality than that.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:25 AM
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11: is that TRUE?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:26 AM
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7: Necrotizing Hickitis.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:27 AM
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And boy was that an unpleasant picture when I went to wikipedia to check my spelling of necrotizing.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:27 AM
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16

According to the link:

He has also developed a Serrano Chile with 25% less heat, so that people can make Pico de Gallo without the "pico."

Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:30 AM
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17

There are so many things that can be arrayed under the term "salsa" that to say "salsa sucks" bespeaks a serious mental condition.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:30 AM
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Well, the DSM is on the way out, so there's no way to categorize the condition.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:32 AM
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19

I was going to leave that implicit.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:32 AM
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20

As a general rule, anything made with raw tomatoes isn't good and salsa, in the areas in which I have been, is most commonly made with raw tomatoes as the primary ingredient by volume.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:33 AM
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21

scotch bonnets, innocuous sounding name.

seeking the red onions marinated in lava vinegar. They exist in Mexico, and at a handful of taco trucks.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:34 AM
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22

I did always wonder how jalapeno poppers worked -- I figured there was some step in the cooking that took the heat out of them, because when I've had them in restaurants they aren't hot at all.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:35 AM
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We grew jalepenos in the garden last year, along with some very nice Thai Dragons and Santa Fe Grandes, which were by far the hottest pepper (even over the Scotch Bonnets). The Santa Fe's were super-greasy and just short of murder-hot.
This year, I got my hands on a small packet of ghost pepper seeds. I'm looking forward to dying.
But, to the OP, the only peppers I buy at the store are the habeneros. Otherwise, during the off-season, I go through an insane amount of Sriracha.


Posted by: Mentioner | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:36 AM
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22: I was always told that if you took the seeds and the interior walls out, most of the heat was gone from a jalapeno.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:38 AM
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I have gotten weirdly, uselessly mild Habaneros at the store. It was very annoying.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:40 AM
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26

Spiciness snobs are the absolute worst kind of food snobs. Actively dedicated to not tasting food.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:45 AM
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25
I've gotten those, too. And I've also gotten blow-your-face-off ones that are way hotter than they should have been. Nature's fight against standardization, FTW.


Posted by: Mentioner | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:47 AM
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Spiciness snobs are the absolute worst kind of food snobs. Actively dedicated to not tasting food.

Neither jalapeños or serranos are remotely spicy enough for that to be a sound criticism.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:48 AM
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26
Guilty. Although, in really good Thai food, the spiciness is somehow distinct from the general flavor--so you can sweat away your sins and still taste the food.


Posted by: Mentioner | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:48 AM
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30

I still fondly remember a Thai place near the firm I worked with Idealist at, that had a green curry precisely calibrated to the point where I'd whine and complain throughout eating it about it being too hot, but I couldn't make myself stop ordering it. It was really good.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:49 AM
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31

I certainly know/know-of chilli-snobs who are basically just into mouth-burning one-up-manship, but as per 29, there are very spicy foods/cuisines where the chillies really do impart interesting/nice flavours.

My own taste is sort of middle-ground. I've had some thai food, and some food made with scotch bonnets that exceeded what I'd personally find pleasant.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:51 AM
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32

Last summer I had 18 successful tomato plants in the garden, plus peppers and some cilantro. I ate a pint of fresh raw tomato salsa every day on into October. It was great.

That's not a humble brag. That's just a brag.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:51 AM
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33

I used to have a flatmate who was a chef at a fish restaurant, and one time I went there for and had a thai fish curry which he cooked specifically for me (as he saw me ordering it). I think he thought he was being nice to me [we ate a fair bit of spicy food at home] but I found it almost inedible, but didn't have the heart to tell him.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:53 AM
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34

NYC has strikingly bland food. I'm very happy to have moved somewhere that I can order the medium and have it be spicy enough instead of ordering extra hot and it being barely acceptable.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:54 AM
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35

I think that's happened over the last couple of decades, as I said above. In high school, I watched for warnings that something would be too hot, because it wasn't unlikely that I would in, and now I never run into anything outside my tolerance.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:57 AM
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36

Jalapenos suck anyway.

I eat really obscure peppers. You probably haven't heard of them.


Posted by: Opinionated Pepper Hipster | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:00 AM
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37

When I was an undergrad a decade and change ago (...) the one restaurant-like rather than food-court-like foodservice outlet on campus had jalepeño poppers that they advertised as "Wildly Mild!", and I never understood why that was supposed to be appealing (The advertising, and presumably also the product, were very much from Sodexo-Mariott-Aramark Central Catering).

That said, I'm kind of a hot-spice wimp most of the time, and don't really mind having to use other peppers if I actually want more heat. (I have yet to figure out what to do with the homemade ghost pepper sauce I got for Christmas last year, labeled "The Ogre")


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:01 AM
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38

There's a place not far from me that does a lamb vindaloo which is right at the edge of tolerable in terms of heat but tastes absolutely great. The hotness is more or less orthogonal to the flavor. Slightly hotter and the flavor would get shunted aside in favor of screaming and wailing while gulping down vast quantities of water.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:01 AM
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39

Has sourdough really gotten less tangy, per the link? The few times I've had really great sourdough it's made me so happy. I assumed that it was just a non-SF thing that sourdough means basically white crusty bread.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:02 AM
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40

I used to read Chowhound some and Sripraphai is ground zero of spiciness-oneupsmanship. I like spicy food but this was ridic. Everyone claiming that "Thai hot" wasn't hot enough for them. Argh.

34 is true. Good salsa here is really rare.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:03 AM
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41

36 is funny.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:04 AM
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42

Has sourdough really gotten less tangy, per the link?

Surely the answer to this is "Depends where you get it".


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:05 AM
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43

37
1. Drink the Ogre
2. Post the video to YouTube
3. ?????
4. Profit!


Posted by: Mentioner | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:05 AM
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44

a green curry precisely calibrated to the point where I'd whine and complain throughout eating it about it being too hot, but I couldn't make myself stop ordering it. It was really good.

One of my all-time favorite pizzas was scotch-bonnet, bacon & onion (made at home by a friend). I sweated and cried and savoured every bite.

Going to south asian restaurants with desi co-worker was an intense experience. She would insist on ACTUALLY hot food - too hot for me, really.

But here in Italy I've sat at a big table in an Indian restaurant where all the brits gathered at one end to say "we're not Italian we'd like actually hot food".


Posted by: simulated annealing | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:06 AM
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45

"Just use serranos" seems like good advice to me. What's the problem?

Jalapeños are sweeter and have a more heavily vegetal flavor. (You can substitute serranos for bird chiles in Thai dishes, for example, but jalapeños would taste strange.)


Posted by: lambchop | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:11 AM
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Lazy OT suggestion for a front page post: here's someone I really admire praising McCardle for some strange thing called "good journalism"* and "an excellent article"*. Might provoke amusing outrage, or maybe even informed statistical debate. Prob not, though.

http://andrewgelman.com/2013/05/03/setting-aside-the-politics-the-debate-over-the-new-health-care-study-reveals-that-were-moving-to-a-new-high-standard-of-statistical-journalism/#more-18896

*yes, I know I put quotes around these things and he didn't say them precisely. But it's what he meant. So stick it in yer eye.


Posted by: simulated annealing | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:11 AM
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47

42: are there people who've purchased tangy sourdough over the past 20 years and have observed a decline?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:19 AM
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48

Peppers? You give a damn about peppers when people are suffering from (insert name of suffering) in (insert location)? Bunch of damned elitists! Up against the wall!


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:20 AM
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Incidentally, per 26, the problem with the Habaneros wasn't that the food I was cooking didn't turn out sear-your-face-off spicy, it's that it didn't turn out spicy at all and as it turns out the recipe was really quite dependent on the spiciness to be interesting.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:27 AM
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Jalapeños are sweeter and have a more heavily vegetal flavor.

Like I said, just use serranos. Unless you're pickling them.

42: are there people who've purchased tangy sourdough over the past 20 years and have observed a decline?

Maybe, but what I meant was that "sourdough" is a variable thing, and how yer loaf tastes will depend on the bakery you got it from. It's also not really the name of a kind of bread anyway. The dark, chewy rye bread I get from the russian bakery in the sunset is a sourdough, but so is the not dark, not rye, not chewy bread I get from the hipster bakery on Divis.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:29 AM
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51

Goddammit, why is it always Aunt Martha's fault? Aunt Martha thinks you're an asshole, Keith930.


Posted by: mcmc | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:32 AM
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46: I find Gelman's take on McArdle "sensible."


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:38 AM
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Goddammit, why is it always Aunt Martha's fault?

Quite. At least as much guilt should attach to Aunt Abby.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_and_Old_Lace_%28play%29


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:41 AM
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This is what drives people to the farmers' markets & seed exchanges. (None of my farmers' markets' farmers have been principally white or Anglophone since Ferry Plaza.)


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:03 AM
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Goddammit, why is it always Aunt Martha's fault?

From South Bend, Indiana, no less. This is some high-quality coastal elitism, right here.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:05 AM
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56

Probably just somebody whose team lost to Notre Dame.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:07 AM
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Yep. It's an impressively self-cancelling bit of elitism, especially since he's too busy frothing over perfidious Middle America to do the second part of his coastal elite journalistic duty, which is to figure out where spicy jalapeños can be found and direct our business there.

||
Everyone in SoCal ok? Are your artisanal peppers safe, etc.?
|>


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:28 AM
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Meanwhile, there in currently a wider variety of peppers and salsa styles available than at any time in human history. Some like it weak, some like it hot. How about a little respect for diversity?


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:34 AM
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57: No fires or smoke visible in WeHo yet.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:41 AM
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60

I overheard some dude on the train who was talking about how he didn't like NBA and only liked the college game. Something something teamwork.


Posted by: lemmy caution | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 10:36 AM
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That's what happened! The jalapenos I grew from starts last year were entirely sweet. I thought I had confused them with the Fresnos on the way home or something. We keep adding more, hoping for heat, which is a hassle because I don't know if I'm on the verge of overdoing it or if it is still mild.

My boyfriend has planted a bunch of superhot varieties and I'm sure he'll enjoy making hot sauce. But I'd be happy for a reliable jalapeno.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 10:45 AM
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Megan!


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 10:49 AM
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Hi.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 10:52 AM
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64

Hi.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 10:53 AM
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65

Hey, should I (pay someone else to) paint my house red or purple?

Also, check out how bright the historical color palettes were. That catalog was 1916; my house was built in 1915.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:12 AM
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Red.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:13 AM
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Purple.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:13 AM
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68

I'm with Hick. And I like the trim color on the linked red picture as well.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:14 AM
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69

Compromise! Red and purple stripes!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:15 AM
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Inorganic pigments offer much better UV resistance than organic ones. Purple is usually a quinacridone, chemically interesting but not that great with respect to UV. The red looks like red iron oxide, boring color but very stable.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:18 AM
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Stripes aren't out of the question.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:18 AM
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72

lw, does that influence how much hotter the house might get if it is no longer white and reflecting as much?


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:19 AM
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Red. The red in that linked catalogue seems to be richer than the shade on the house. Which would be a good thing if so, and if you could get/afford it.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:20 AM
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74

I like both the red and the purple!


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:21 AM
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75

I too like them both. In general, I love tri-color house color choices.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:29 AM
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76

Purple.

Incidentally, I recently had somebody recommend Farrow & Ball as an excellent high-end house paint. I am just amused to now know of a SWPL paint option.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:30 AM
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77

The red is more like the color you'd see on a hot pepper.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:31 AM
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78

76.2: "Dead Salmon" is an interesting name for a paint color.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:32 AM
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78: I had the same thought.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:32 AM
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80

Don't think so, basically the lighter the better for that, both materials would be UV opaque, but for the most part so is titanium dioxide. Sunlight's energy is mostly in visible wavelengths.

Consider reflective mastic for the roof for optimal reflection. It goes on thick and is slow to dry, so you could plausibly do feathering or similar cappucino froth or pastry style decorations if plain silver seems ugly to you. Embed a coat hanger in a broomstick for the hook.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:33 AM
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81

Oh man. Our dog loves dead salmon so much. It isn't a good association.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:35 AM
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76. F&B is lovely if somebody else is doing the work, but it's a bastard to apply. We have a place that does totally accurate knockoffs of any F&B colour, so we don't feel too SWPL about it.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:35 AM
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78: There is an Elizabethan-era color I read about somewhere called "Dead Spaniard."


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:36 AM
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84

81: I really love dead salmon also.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:38 AM
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Do you estatically roll in it? Really dig your shoulders in? Get good and covered by clingly slime? If you don't, I bet my dog loves dead salmon even more than you do.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:41 AM
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O.K. I'm not that enthused, but now I want some smoked salmon.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:46 AM
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84: "Doncaster Kerfuffle" and "Verger's Egret" are more to my taste.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:48 AM
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88

Why are US buildings so drab? Puritan self-denial? Fascination with bleached out Roman ruins? Red is the clear choice, Megan. Hick is right, despite his fish proclivities.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:50 AM
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Hick lives in a house where every interior wall is painted in a shade of off-white called "Dover." My father and I did it. We both refused to use more than one color.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:54 AM
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90

Father-in-law, not father.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 11:54 AM
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91

Other good paint names:

Churlish Green (not very attractive)
Borrowed Light
Off Black (not sure why that amuses me, but I hadn't heard that before. "More flattering to other adjacent paint colours than jet black.")


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 12:34 PM
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Borrowed Light

This one's practically a band name, too.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 12:43 PM
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Valspar 6005-6a is Jalapeno Jelly
Signature ar1328, a pointless grey, is named blind date.
signature cl1110 is moist flesh.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 1:08 PM
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So which of the following are just me:

1. Jalapenos are less spicy
2. Sourdough is less tangy
3. Comedies are less funny.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 1:12 PM
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4: Kids are on my lawn.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 1:15 PM
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96

MOLE are under my lawn.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 1:18 PM
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97

5: Soda pop is less carbonated.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 2:16 PM
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6. Sun is more hot. (...in CA than in WI, I suspect)

Houses are less spicy
A size 2 job fits more like a 6
Young people wear out faster
Sun is more expensive
Jalapeños have been stagnant for decades
T-shirts are hotter
Dresses are worse about thank-you notes


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 2:50 PM
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99

Skin is taggier.
Stockings are saggier.
Tails are waggier.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 2:58 PM
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100

Used to be you could shit on somebody's face for a nickel in this town.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 2:59 PM
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101

That worked better when the jalepeños were spicier.


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 3:19 PM
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99: Thorns are snaggier, the Internet is laggier, Baba Yaga is haggier, and baggies are baggier. (Frodo is bagginsier.)


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 3:21 PM
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103

Politicians' lapels are flaggier.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 3:27 PM
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OT: This afternoon I had to have a filling replaced for the second time and the general ache in my torqued and tormented jaw is driving me almost to the brink of using crude language on the Internet.

OOT: I know somebody who will be on stage in the string section during this concert tonight.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 3:46 PM
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105

Bros are staggier.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 4:40 PM
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106

Just diced 3 jalapenos for Yum Tofu and there is no heat whatsoever. I guess I move to serranos.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 4:55 PM
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107

I was inspired by this thread to order Mexican food for dinner, and it was bland.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 6:21 PM
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108

My son, newly back from college, just told me that on the ISS, astronauts used packets of hot sauce as currency. The food is so bland, and they weren't allowed to bring much sauce.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 6:27 PM
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109

108: Your son went to college in space?


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:07 PM
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110
He has also developed a Serrano Chile with 25% less heat, so that people can make Pico de Gallo without the "pico."

Oh, that's silly. The "pico" doesn't mean "hot". It's to do with the chopping/pecking at/mincing of the tomatoes in the preparation.

Maybe someone's already mentioned that.

Do I understand from the OP's linked article that one can still get non-mild jalapeno seeds? I feel as though the jalapenos my household grew from seed a few years ago were still hot enough to please. The plants didn't produce dildo-sized peppers.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:16 PM
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111

On the OP, I agree with neb. There are plenty of other peppers, and jalapeños aren't that great anyway.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:19 PM
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It's to do with the chopping/pecking at/mincing of the tomatoes in the preparation.

That seems like a labored interpretation.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:26 PM
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"Pico" means, among other things, "beak". Without the beak = without the bite.

That's how I read it.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:29 PM
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114

I understood "beak" (rooster's beak according to wikipedia, but I'd read chicken or hen's beak in some cookbook) to indicate the pecking motion chickens make at feed on the ground. Which is similar to what you do when you're chopping the tomatoes.

So the cookbook said, but I'm afraid I have no idea which book it was now.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:34 PM
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Picante sauce is hot, and pico sounds like picante.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:35 PM
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And when you're mincing the onions and the peppers! The whole project is one big pecking extravaganza!


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:36 PM
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109 -- No, but they're apparently teaching him all the important things.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:36 PM
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115: Hm. Like piquant. I am now uncertain, but I really like the pecking interpretation, so I'm gonna stick with it unless it seems really important.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:38 PM
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Thunderbird could be called Pico del Ernest and Julio Gallo.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:39 PM
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How does the "beak" sense relate to "el sombrero de tres picos"? I had somehow thought "corner" or "cusp" or something.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:44 PM
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"Pico" also means "point".


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:46 PM
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Ah. Thanks.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:51 PM
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Oh, and it can also mean "penis", so cuidado.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:55 PM
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So "pico de gallo" is "penis of the cock". Gotcha.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 7:58 PM
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I've just read that the Spanish verb picar means to chop or mince or peck. But also to sting. So we have a draw.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:06 PM
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57: The Glendale fire was more or less in my part of town, but no risk to me or anyone I know.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 8:48 PM
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I think it was explained to me at Middlebury that picar is one of those words that means a trillion different things. Actually this one time, at Spanish camp (i.e. Middlebury) me pico una abeja on the bottom of my foot. That means "a bee stung me." I got very good at saying it to explain my Von Waferian limping. You aren't allowed to speak anything but your target language at Middlebury but I briefly shouted some words of English after me pico una abeja and I think really anyone would have forgiven me.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:00 PM
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Isn't "A Bee Stung Me" the name of an album or something?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:03 PM
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Maybe not, but it's part of the name of a George Saunders collection.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:03 PM
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Now that I have Joel McCrea and Sterling Hayden all straightened out, I will go back to confusing George Saunders and George Sanders.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:12 PM
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|| We sold a $700 book! I think I actually did that, through my own specific, recent, efforts. |>

I found these amusing ponderings on pico de gallo earlier.

Fighting Cocks are calmed by their handlers by placing the rooster's head in the mouth. Darkness causes birds to immediately begin the sleep cycle. It was explained to me (by a great Restaurant ower in Acuna, Mex.)that often as soon as the handler put the bird's head in his mouth he would often be pecked on the tongue.

Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 9:12 PM
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We sold a $700 book! I think I actually did that, through my own specific, recent, efforts.

Woo! Congrats.

In other happy news, I discovered today that my local liquor store has started carrying six-packs of Fat Tire. They've had it and some other New Belgium beers in 22 oz. bottles for a couple weeks now, so it's not that surprising, but still a welcome development.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05- 3-13 10:46 PM
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OT
(and OTT)
I got to spend the night in a single four poster bed on Thursday. I didn't know these things existed. It was the Fellows' guest rooms at mag\dalen college. I sent myself to sleep reading the obituaries from WW2, which sample contained a surprising amount of non-combat deaths - two suicides, two flight training accidents and the one massively decorated hero died in a road accident as the war was ending. In the morning I photographed the gargoyle outside my window.

Something tells me that not all academic life is like this.
||>


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 12:34 AM
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re: 133

It's exactly like that, all the time. High table dinner, too?


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 1:57 AM
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Yes. HIgh table dinner and junior fellow taking the snuff round afterwards. I do think that snuff is the high point of Oxford colleges. Once every couple of years I get to take it and remember just what a wonder drug nicotine can be.

(I was seated next to an ancient but still dapper philosopher who I suspect seduced a friend of mine when he was his tutor (it may have been another tutor). That was rather Oxonian too)


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 3:05 AM
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To the OP, I understand the point of breeding the capsaicin out of Jalapenos for people who don't like them, but why all of them? Wouldn't you widen your market by selling both defanged chillies (labelled 'mild') and ones that taste of jalapeno (labelled 'traditional')? Consumer choice and yadda yadda...


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 3:21 AM
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And now I am trying to work out who the ancient dapper philosopher might be.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 3:36 AM
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Aren't we all? It sounds like a Bowra story, but he was a historian and is long dead. The only ancient and dapper philosopher I can think of of at that college is R/a/l/p/h W/a/l/k/er, but I know nothing of his sexual history.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 3:46 AM
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Belatedly quibbling with neb's assertion that sourdough is "not really the name of a kind of bread anyway." Sure it is, in (e.g.) a family of kinds that includes unleavened, beaten, saleratus, poolish, levain. Another family would name chemicals and/or yeasts and/or bacilli explicitly, in which case sourdough is several kinds of bread, since there are several lacto- and aceto-bacters including Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.

What bakeries do with their signs, I wot not of. I got into a thanksgiving-dinner type argument with someone who insisted that heirloom tomatoes must be a genetic strain because Whole Foods labeled them that way.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 8:39 AM
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C\h\r\i\s \y\ has it right. It is not a Bowra story. But I may - as I say - be talking about the wrong man. An excellent and scrupulous debater, in any case.


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 8:41 AM
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What distinguishes levain from sourdough from poolish from the aforementioned dark rye? "Sourdough starter is likely the oldest, being reliant on organisms present in the grain and local environment. In general, these starters have fairly complex microbiological makeups, the most notable including wild yeasts, lactobacillus, and acetobacteria.[10][11] They are often maintained over long periods of time. … A roughly synonymous term in French baking is levain."


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 8:46 AM
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The first family is distinguished by what the baker does.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 8:59 AM
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Faintly related; does anyone else remember a not-very-sour sourdough starter that went around the country in, oh, the late 80s, maybe called 'friendship bread', but the actual recipe was as sweet and unsubtle as bad zucchini bread? Beijerink's bane.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:00 AM
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What's "first family"? The family that includes "unleavened, beaten, saleratus, poolish, levain"? Sourdough bread is in the same family of bread as matzoh? What does the baker do in common when making matzoh and making sourdough? Aren't all breads distinguished by what the baker does?

Given that there are such things as "sourdough rye" and "sourdough waffles", I don't see why I should accept that "sourdough" names a kind of bread. Maybe I also shouldn't accept that rye bread is a kind of bread. I dunno.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:19 AM
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The first family is the one that categorizes breads among unleavened, beaten, saleratus, poolish, levain, etc; in this categorization sourdough is an alternative to matzoh, not identical to it. ('Family' like 'genus' grouping 'kinds'. Genus would have been better, since these kinds crossbreed.)

Rye is what you make it of, waffles what you cook it on. Orthogonal to the leavening technique.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:28 AM
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I thought there was something special and regeneratingly yeasty about sourdough starter.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:28 AM
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It's a bacillus (not a yeast) that makes a tasty acid that is easy to keep alive in pure-enough culture in the kitchen. May or may not be good for the people eating it or around it -- IIRC many of the sourdough lactobacilli are endemic to human breastmilk. The sour bread probably has good keeping (definitely better for humans than eating bad molds are).


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:33 AM
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Oh, and come to think of it, it seems to live well with the yeasts that are good rising agents, which is very useful if you don't want to eat a tasty damp brick.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:34 AM
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"Rye is what you make of it" is entirely too gnomic for me to follow; and I still don't see why the leavening technique is the kind of bread. Here is a range of leavening & fermentation techniques you can employ to, as far as I can tell, make a further range of actual breads.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:34 AM
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Rye is what you make it of, sorry.

Ingredients, process, baking; breads have each, and we use each and all to categorize breads. The list you link is a fine & finer categorization.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:47 AM
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Wouldn't you widen your market by selling both defanged chillies (labelled 'mild') and ones that taste of jalapeno (labelled 'traditional')?

Or New Jalapenos and Jalapenos Classic?


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:48 AM
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143: quite so. I like to think that was really the alien/government conspiracy seeding the credulous population with mind-control bacteria.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 9:50 AM
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"Rye is what you make of it" is entirely too gnomic for me to follow;

Now you know how we feel.


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 10:03 AM
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143: Yep; still circulating now (well, at least I've heard of it recently in the UK) -- in my part of the US, it was known as "Amish Friendship Bread," despite being from the Mennonite community.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 10:33 AM
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To the OP, I understand the point of breeding the capsaicin out of Jalapenos for people who don't like them, but why all of them? Wouldn't you widen your market by selling both defanged chillies (labelled 'mild') and ones that taste of jalapeno (labelled 'traditional')?

I think the idea is that both do continue to exist (the breeding is just to create a non-hot strain), but in most areas where there isn't much demand for actually hot peppers the non-hot version would be the only one that ends up widely available.

That is, the upshot of all this seems to be that in areas outside the Southwest actually hot peppers would become somewhat rare and require some effort to find. Which... has pretty much always been the case.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05- 4-13 2:25 PM
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That is, the upshot of all this seems to be that in areas outside the Southwest actually hot peppers would become somewhat rare and require some effort to find.

All Desi Americans live in the southwest?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:18 AM
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re: 156

I'd guess Desi Americans and Thai Americans (and North African Americans, and Nigerian Americans, etc etc) have probably always had their own sources. Much like the UK, I suppose, where there are lots of ingredients that you can now get in supermarkets, but not that long ago you'd have had to go to 'ethnic' food shops.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:10 AM
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One of the amusing things about the Polish influx into the UK, is how easy it is to get things like sauerkraut in corner shops these days.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:11 AM
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And, my wife has been able to buy Kefir [like a buttermilky/yoghurty thing] which Eastern/Central Europeans use, but Brits don't.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:14 AM
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Kefir is excellent. Hippie Americans use it, too. (Or at least, we grew up drinking it as a special treat.)

The corner Polish shops are amazing; the one down the street from me sells fantastic home-made pierogi, which I love to eat but probably don't have the patience to make. Also -- good deals on cured meat. We always ate a number of Polish things (kielbasa, etc) growing up (despite absolutely no Polish or other Eastern European heritage), but I never thought of them as particularly ethnic until I moved here and realised that you can't pick them up at the regular supermarket.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:40 AM
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158: You can always find sauerkraut and kielbasa and stuff around here. And the MPLS Polish-American community, while not non-existant, was never really huge or dominant. But we have lots and lots of Germans, of course.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:47 AM
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Query: Do you all have dreams wherein you specifically recall past dreams?* For example, a few nights ago, I found myself in a relatively boring, quotidian sort of dream -- I was thinking about going into London and wondering if I should try to organize an Unfogged meet-up, while doubting that anyone would really care to meet up specifically with me. Then! Dream self recalled that no, last year I had met up with members of the Boston and NYC crew when ttaM and his wife visited the East Coast (supposedly, I'd been at a conference in upstate NY and dropped in), and we'd all gotten along swimmingly, so of course a meet up was in order again. This dream occurred at least a year ago, and I hadn't thought about it since, although it was part of an unusually long and complex dream for me.

Such a layered dream structure isn't uncommon for me, and I'm curious if others experience it. I find it strange to think that there is a specific dream reality in my head that corresponds with past dreams as though they were true experiences.

*Caveat: I understand that talking about other people's dreams is considered boring, but hey. I like it.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:54 AM
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158: Fermented foods have gotten hipster here, too. So now we have artisanally hand-stretched sauerkraut and kimchi etc. at places like Whole Foods. And I can think of at least two other Mineshafterians besides myself with a pickling crock.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 7:00 AM
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The woman who gave me my kombucha starter had just recently started making kefir, and was finding it a lot more difficult than other fermented things she'd made.

Does anyone have any tips for Korean-style lightly pickled broccoli? All the internet recipes I've found just call for blanching in your regular vinegar-water-sugar brine and then storing in that. Easy enough, but I'm having a hard time believing that something so easy is going to turn plain broccoli, which I'm not wild about, into that stuff I can't stop munching on at the restaurant.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 7:37 AM
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162: I'm pretty sure I've had dreams structured like that. Often more in the sense of realizing that I'm in a recurring pattern dream, but also more the way you are describing it. My dreams last night were very vivid and science fictional, with many cool special effects.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 8:09 AM
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This seems appropriate for a question about dreams about dreams: after having watched about eight and a half hours of The Clock yesterday, when I woke up during the night occasionally last night (as I do almost every night), I found myself wondering what the people in The Clock were doing right then.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 8:23 AM
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I have recurring dreams set during periods of my life *that never happened*. It often takes me a few minutes after waking up to work out conclusively that in fact that period of my life is not real. I have one set of dreams which are the events of the summer after my senior year but happening in the location I spent my other college summers. I have another set of dreams where I think the setting is that I broke up with my wife early on in our dating but then I want to get back together and she doesn't, but then eventually we do. Neither of these are real, but I've had enough dreams in each setting that when I have such a dream it feels like one about my life rather than an obviously fictional dream.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 8:25 AM
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after having watched about eight and a half hours of The Clock yesterday

Rad.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 8:28 AM
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167

... Neither of these are real, but I've had enough dreams in each setting that when I have such a dream it feels like one about my life rather than an obviously fictional dream.

Which is a bit disconcerting considering people are in prison largely based on testimony by one person about things that may (or may not) have happened long ago.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 9:11 AM
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This seems like a good place to ask:

A friend is letting me use some space in his yard for a little vegetable garden. I'm definitely going to have hot peppers and okra, but am still flexible on the rest. It's a shorter growing season this year because of the late spring ice, but we should be frost-free into October. What would be fun to plant?


Posted by: AWB | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 9:29 AM
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Tomatoes are good to plant, because they'll taste so much better than what you buy in the store. Also zucchini, so you can have zucchini blossoms.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 9:39 AM
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Sugar snap peas because you can sit on the ground and just eat them all right there in the garden.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 9:40 AM
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I just ordered a bunch of seeds from Seed Savers exchange, so it's all heirloom varietals. Probably should have gotten some lettuce; fresh lettuce is so nice.


Posted by: AWB | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 9:46 AM
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I got opal basil, cilantro, wormwood, Chinese leek, painted lady runner beans, blue collards, burgundy okra, Martin's carrot peppers, watermelon radish, and Paul Robeson tomatoes.


Posted by: AWB | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 9:52 AM
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In other happy news, I discovered today that my local liquor store has started carrying six-packs of Fat Tire.

Our local liquor store has just started to carry six-packs of Rodenbach, which I love and have never seen in the states in six-pack form. Advantages of the lower 48!

Query: Do you all have dreams wherein you specifically recall past dreams?*

I don't remember enough of my dreams after waking, but I think most of my dreams organize into themes with lots of inter-relationships to past versions. E.g. the being-chased-by-mysterious-killers dreams make references back to previous being-chased dreams, the anxiety dreams to previous ones, and the discovering-a-vast-undiscovered-mountain-range/desert dreams (a genre I have not heard of other people having, but I have often) may also do so. At least, I do remember the feeling of familiarity in the dreams even if I can't completely recall details of them once I wake up.

Fermented foods have gotten hipster here, too.

food is fine, including fermented foods, but I find it very dispiriting that it is actually considered part of avant-garde or hip culture. There used to be art and philosophy and stuff in that cultural space.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 9:55 AM
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There used to be art and philosophy and stuff in that cultural space.

I don't think food and microbrewing have replaced those; they're still there. But the current crop of uberhipsters need everything in their lives to be fashionable, where once it was only clothes and culture and they could relax and eat steaks and fries drink heap blended Scotch if they wanted to.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:02 AM
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I had a dream in college that my brother had died. It took two days of serious mourning for me to figure out that I'd been wrong.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:07 AM
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Paul Robeson tomatoes

?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:08 AM
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But the current crop of uberhipsters need everything in their lives to be fashionable

And that shit takes time, so I think it's hard to avoid displacement.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:10 AM
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164: I'm surprised that you would blanch the broccoli to begin with--it seems like it would kill the lactobacillus you want as part of the pickling process. But I've just started making my own fermented stuff (mostly sauerkraut to date) and have no real understanding of the Korean tradition, so.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:12 AM
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But the current crop of uberhipsters need everything in their lives to be fashionable

since the stereotype of contemporary hipsters is that they dress like slobs, not sure how true this is.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:17 AM
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I thought the up-to-date stereotype of contemporary hipsters is that they dress in expensive japanese denim and expensive recreations of what used to be work clothes.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:18 AM
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Also, PGD, fashion is not absolute; what's fashionable in one milieu might look slobbish to a member of another. Also, crop tops are cute.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:19 AM
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173: It is way too late for tomatoes from seed.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:31 AM
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Fashionable food isn't a hipster invention. Business wives and military wives attempted a sort of faint imitation of Delmonico's until, oh, the late 1960s, and then there was the Sunset magazine/slightly hippie/Alice Waters style in the 1970s, and then nearly everyone in the middle class had to commute and (hypothesis) *that's* when cooking styles died.

Perhaps hipster foodie habits are conspicuous consumption of time as well as substance. Adam Smith said there was a limit to the damage capital accumulation could do, as there a limit to what one man can eat, however rich; but human invention springs anew.



Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:47 AM
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Also: Pickles are yummy.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:52 AM
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Neb misquoted me in his last rye quibble! Neb, are you well?

Hilarious that the bland starter is still going around. I wondered if it had died at some point and been replaced -- perhaps unknowingly -- by a plain flour paste. Which would, of course, eventually pick up something else. And some of the starters might be preferred, so it could be an interesting natural experiment, if the associated recipe didn't overwhelm anything in the starter.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 10:57 AM
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If you quibble with a philosopher about rye, you can get ergo poisoning.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 11:10 AM
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189: bravo


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 11:12 AM
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186: True. I don't think interest in food and cooking needs explanation because (a) yummy and (b) complicated, but which foods, and how people feeeeel about it, that's odd.

Have beaten biscuits come back? Leatherbritches beans? It's getting hard to stay ahead. Behind. Whichever.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 11:28 AM
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188: WOW.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 12:05 PM
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re: 181

Current UK hipster wouldn't be slobbish looking. Tight fitting clothes, fairly sharp and slightly old fashioned.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 12:33 PM
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157: Right, I was including "going to an ethnic food market" as part of the "some effort" required.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 1:47 PM
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You don't have to talk any ethnic person, except to hear the total at the register, if you find that effortful.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 2:47 PM
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||
Speaking of hipsters, I just took a test ride on a singlespeed bicycle (after not having ridden in 10+ years) and it was sufficiently terrifying I'm rethinking the whole "buy a bike" thing.
|>


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:05 PM
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So not just like riding a bicycle, then?


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:19 PM
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Oh no, I totally remembered how to ride. It was the "holy shit I'm high up here and I'm not wearing any armor" thing that freaked me out.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:22 PM
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Speaking of freaking out, for a class project my son just drew a whatever it is you call a swastika with the arms going the other way. It is contextually appropriate and I double checked that it was not an actual swastika. Should I email his teacher to point out that it is not a swastika?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:31 PM
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||
This whole argument about where the older Tsarnaev brother will be allowed to be buried makes me suspect that people really do think he's some kind of a supervillain.
|>


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:32 PM
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re: 198

It is a swastika. You get left and right facing versions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:43 PM
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200: the left-facing version is for Liberal Fascists


Posted by: knecht ruprecht | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:47 PM
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Swastikas as design elements crop up more or less everywhere. Just another thing the Nazis ruined.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 3:54 PM
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Paul Robeson tomatoes are a Siberian varietal made for short growing seasons. I'll chance it!


Posted by: AWB | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 4:07 PM
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202: They don't appear to be very common, either kind, in elementary schools.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:00 PM
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195: probably you should give it a few more tries before you decide one way or the other. I imagine that's not a feeling that'll last.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:13 PM
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After all your head is quite often several feet above the ground and you don't wear armor on a day-to-day basis.

Unless you do, in which 1. awesome and 2. rock that plate mail on the bike, dude.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:14 PM
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Plate mail is what you get when you join the Bradford Exchange.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:23 PM
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Hey, you know what kind of a bike would significantly lower the distance your head is from the ground? A recumbent!


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:27 PM
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Plait Male is where Willie Nelson gets his hair done.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:28 PM
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Platte Mail is a letter to Grand Island.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:31 PM
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208: or!


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:32 PM
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Plate Male is a steer usually.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:40 PM
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Platemale is pronounced like guacamole.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 6:58 PM
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Guac a MOLE is what you do if cocking it doesn't work.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 7:03 PM
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Cock-a-mole is an old-timey carney game.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 7:31 PM
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Caulk-a-mole is animal cruelty.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 7:47 PM
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Clock-a-mole is a boring old-timey carnival game.
Glock-a-mole is Wayne la pierre's version.
Glaucoma-ole is only legal in states that permit medical marijuana.
Guadalacamole is worth remembering to any marines you know


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 7:57 PM
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217 was me-a-mole.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 05- 5-13 8:05 PM
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Just by way of a data point. We had a pizza last night with jalapenos on it. They were pretty spicy.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05- 6-13 8:50 AM
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We went with purple. There are too many other red bungalows around town and red would be a little too matchy with my interior colors.

The house painter is substantially cooler than us and now we want to be friends with him.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 6-13 9:34 AM
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The Mauve Decade returns. Our Seattle house is purple -- lavender with white and indigo and caterpillar-green trim. Pricy, and horrified one of our neighbors, but I love it.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 6-13 9:40 AM
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220.1: If that's what you really want, I guess I'll allow it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 6-13 10:24 AM
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Woo, Team Purple! (I don't actually have a purple house, but I aspire to one day.)


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 6-13 10:56 AM
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I never had a purple house,
I never hope to have one,
Bot I an tell you anyhows,
You can't make the last line rhyme in English.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 6-13 11:04 AM
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205, 206: It's more that I'm used to motorcycle gear. (Also, the last time I was on a bike I had a mountain bike; road tires and wheels feel flimsy.) But yeah, I'm gonna take a few more test rides before I make any decisions.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05- 6-13 11:22 AM
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Thanks, Moby!

I like the purple up front and suspect I'll like it even more over time.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 6-13 11:44 AM
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I have lost my nerve and am scared about the purple. I don't have any other option I like better, but now I see why people go with bland options.

I am sticking with it, out of trusting the picture of that other bungalow. But feeling yucky about it.

(I do think we matched the colors pretty well. I'm not scared because the colors aren't what they should be; I'm scared by the prospect of having a bright exterior paint job.)


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:50 PM
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If it looks like that other pic you put up, the purple is great. Om shanti.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:52 PM
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That purple's not an unreasonable choice, if it's like the one in the picture and is period, not bright purple. I don't think I've seen a whole Bungalow in that color but a neighborhood house has a similar purple as a trim and it looks great.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:54 PM
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Ommmm?


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:54 PM
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I've heard passersby mocking my house, but I still like it.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:55 PM
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The purple is amazingly like that picture (I even held the screen up to the sample on the siding). It isn't veering off toward violet or lavender or anything. A nice dusky purple.

But I'm still nervous. Thanks for reassurance.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:55 PM
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The house or the mockery?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:56 PM
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Oh, you know what, there is a house in my neighborhood in that color. It looks great, let me see if I can find a picture. No worries.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:57 PM
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I have lost my nerve and am scared about the purple.

It will look good -- there's a purple house in my neighborhood which I like.

How close to the street is your house, and do you have any trees on the lot? Either a little bit of distance or plants offer a little bit of a buffer for bright colors -- making them less pushy, but I think it will be fine either way.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:57 PM
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Lots and lots of foliage. I'd say it is the standard setback. Five feet from the sidewalk on the side, perhaps a dozen feet back on the front.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 1:59 PM
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Lots and lots of foliage.

I think you're fine*. But post pictures when it's done.

* Obligatory disclaimer, my opinion about visual presentation shouldn't be given much weight.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 2:02 PM
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I agree with everyone that the purple will be great. It comes off more as a rich color than a bright color.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 2:04 PM
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Thanks, all.

You know, I've never cared what the neighborhood thought before. It is much harder to (potentially) defy public opinion if you actually care first.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 2:12 PM
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I think you should plant more sulfur -yellow flowers & stems, with little jolts of magenta and some sky-blue for surprise.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 2:35 PM
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And hot peppers!


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 2:36 PM
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I've got Mexican marigold in the front; that'll add yellow.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05- 7-13 3:05 PM
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Flowers I planted two rentals ago have got their feet in and are multiplying very nicely. The aged rose I did two -- three? -- winters of rescue pruning on is having a spectacular season, but I think it's being neglected again, so that will tail off. In a decade or so.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 12:27 AM
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We do purple-and-yellow flower combos in our front porch planters, so I'm another vote for that.

I'm excited right now because the irises from our old house I transplanted when we moved July two years ago have taken over the ugly patch between the back fence and the alley and are actually blooming like crazy this year, which is absolutely as beautiful as I'd hoped. I also drove by our old house to see that the hundreds of irises I'd planted along the side are thriving. The new owner has taken great care of the garden, but doesn't seem to have added any plants, which makes me proud!

We're going to be part of a garden tour the weekend after DC and I'm slightly terrified, especially now that I've realized the cicadas will be out. We're the garden that's noteworthy for being brand new and we'll be on again next year to show how we've improved it, so I keep telling myself that everyone else is supposed to have a better garden and I shouldn't worry, but I need to get everything planted and chill out.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 3:32 AM
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We do purple-and-yellow flower combos in our front porch planters, so I'm another vote for that.

Oh. My. God. UKIP party colours!


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 3:58 AM
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Also Assyrian colours*, Thorn, you anti-Semite.

*at least if Byron is to be relied on.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 4:09 AM
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I was thinking Mardi Gras, if you toss in the green from the surrounding natural Springtime-ness.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 5:06 AM
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It's not EXCLUSIVELY purple and yellow, and in fact there's some blue and orange too and I don't even remember what color coleus was in there last year, but Mara chose the yellow-and-purple container contents and that was the best-looking one.

246: I'm waiting to see whether Stanley mentioned Mardi Gras to be able to make Cajun/Akkadian jokes. I'd put $5 on it.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 5:24 AM
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248.last: I don't know enough about the Acadian people or Mesopotamia to make that joke. (Not that ignorance has stopped me from trying before, but I'm feeling reserved today)


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 5:59 AM
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in fact there's some blue and orange too

By 2018, everyone's flowerbeds will be entirely teal and orange.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 6:01 AM
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UKIP colors are purple and gold? Are they also the absolute-monarchist party?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 6:38 AM
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In a few years, the monarchist party should starting rallies using the theme song from "Charles in Charge."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 6:42 AM
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252: he's going to be George VII, I believe, rather than Charles III. The first two Charleses were not great acts to follow.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:18 AM
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253: It would be way more awesome if he picked Arthur.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:21 AM
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Not all bad. Charles II had a great big bunch of mistresses.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:22 AM
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Charles II had a great big bunch of mistresses.

So did most kings in the 17th century. They were more or less expected to.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:26 AM
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I'm hoping for "Francis".


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:26 AM
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256: I looked through the pictures on Wikipedia. He seemed to have more than was usual for the British.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:28 AM
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For the British, yes. But bear in mind that his father was a small-"p" puritan who wore a hair shirt and his grandfather was bisexual and concentrated his extra-marital energies on George Villiers. So the British situation was a bit untypical.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:36 AM
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The British situation is typical for the British.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:39 AM
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Shouldn't they skip to the boy? He's the future of the franchise.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:44 AM
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I think they should skip to the drunk, Nazi-dressing boy as he seems more entertaining.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:46 AM
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I happened upon this Landseer painting of the young Victoria and Albert. My one wish is for William and Kate to stage an exact recreation of this scene, complete with 1-year-old baby holding a dead kingfisher.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:49 AM
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253: It would be way more awesome if he picked Arthur.

Or Crimson.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:51 AM
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My one wish is for world peace. If I had two wishes, that would be my second.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:51 AM
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263: I WONDER IF THEY STILL HAVE THAT CARPET


Posted by: OPINIONATED GRANDMA | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 7:56 AM
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264: or Creole.

Calling Charles I a puritan, small P or not, is a bit misleading unless "puritan" is just the word we are using for "masochistic religious fanatic" which isn't a very good description of Charles I and isn't very fair to the Puritans either. I wasn't aware that he wore a hair shirt. Henry VI did.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:17 AM
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Charles II had a great big bunch of mistresses.

But no legitimate son and heir, which is a massive #KINGFAIL. That's why he had to hand the crown over to his syphilitic, insane, crypto-catholic French puppet of a brother instead.

Charles II was not a Good Thing, but James VII and II was Even Worse.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:19 AM
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You define success your way and I'll define it my way.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:23 AM
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Moby is objectively pro-syphilis.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:25 AM
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Charles II and James VII/II had their issues, but so those before and after them were far worse from the point of view of my ancestors.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:31 AM
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If you define success as having your near-absolute monarch be a paid agent of a foreign superpower, I guess I do not think it means what you think it means.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:32 AM
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It would be great if the weird celebrity baby name thing extended to the British royals. King Apple the First!


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:43 AM
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Charles II and James VII/II had their issues, but so those before and after them were far worse from the point of view of my ancestors.

Charles II: not that good for the Irish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Explanation_1665

James II: also not very good for the Irish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Derry



Posted by: | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:46 AM
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It would be great if the weird celebrity baby name thing extended to the British royals

They could always re-use some of the names of older British royals. Indulf. Aedwig. Sweyn Forkbeard. Harthacnut.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:51 AM
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Rollo should be big now, with the VIKINGS tv show such a success.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:52 AM
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274: If you're going to count Protestants, sure.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:53 AM
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Which is why I like to judge British monarchs on universally acceptable standards, like mistresses.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:56 AM
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275. The next one after F/Lt Cambridge is likely to be female, so I'm hoping for Alfgifu, or possibly Æthelflæd.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 8:59 AM
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If you're going to count Protestants, sure

If you're not counting Protestants, good luck with a narrative that excludes Henry Grattan, Theobald Wolfe Tone, James Napper Tandy, Edward Fitzgerald, Robert Emmet, Charles Stewart Parnell...


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:04 AM
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Or Gruoch!

(You know her as Lady Macbeth.)


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:05 AM
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280: Those guys were a generation or more down the road, after Catholicism was a near total barrier to political and economic power (which had not occurred until William).

Grattan and Emmet had places named after them in my area.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:11 AM
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281 Nest


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:14 AM
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Also, William III wasn't just the paid agent of a foreign superpower, he was the king* of one. I mean don't get me wrong the glorious revolution was officially a Good Thing but it did involve invasion by a foreign power.

*sort of. 17th century Dutch politics, thy name is complexity.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:16 AM
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284. I wasn't thinking about William III, I was thinking about James VII and II, who was totally paid for by Louis XIV, to the extent that on one occasion he felt obliged to apologise to the king of France for convening the English parliament without his permission.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:25 AM
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It's all comparative anyway. William III brought in the Bill of Rights, which had stuff in it like "no cruel and unusual punishment" and "no taxation without Parliamentary assent" and "right to petition for a redress of grievances" and "separation of powers" that was objectively absolutely terrific for all his subjects, Protestant, Catholic or whatever. (Yes, yes, it also barred Catholics from the throne; but, realistically, how many Catholics did that actually inconvenience? Maybe two or three?)

But the point is that the Bill of Rights didn't help the Catholics at the Protestants' expense and therefore he was Bad For Catholics. Meanwhile you can butcher your subjects by the townful, and as long as you butcher slightly more Protestants than you do Catholics they will anoint you the Martyr King.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:26 AM
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Right but if the standard of monarchic success is "don't be controlled by a foreign superpower" it seems weird that the goat is the guy who was paid by France and the hero is the guy who was actually* king of the Netherlands.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:27 AM
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286: Catholics in Ireland were broadly banned from public office, the legal profession, buying land, serving in the armed forces, teaching, etc. Much of this also applied to Presbyterians, which I just learned.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:34 AM
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What does "no taxation without Parliamentary assent" benefit people who are forbidden from voting?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:36 AM
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guy who was actually* king of the Netherlands

But was also the grandson of Charles I and the son in law of James VII and II, which was why he was picked to do the honours of invading. Arguably, William's reign covered the period in which the Dutch Republic (he was Stadholder, not King, though that's perhaps a quibble) began to decline and England really got going. He didn't do anything to prevent that.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:37 AM
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As near as I can tell the Bill of Rights didn't apply outside of England at the points. The applicable laws are the Penal Laws. Those got much worse with William.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:50 AM
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"at that point"


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:50 AM
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Anyhow, I broadly subscribe to the (now unfashionable) view that English liberties et al were directly tied to Protestantism, so I think that Britain as a whole was well served by a Protestant king and William III turned out to be a pretty good one. It's a tough sell, though, that he was a net improvement over his predecessors if you were a Catholic in Ireland.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:50 AM
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And 291 was me.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:51 AM
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288. This was also the case in England and Scotland. Conversely, protestants were barred from most of these things if not all in France and Spain and all of Italy. Established churches meant something in the years after the Peace of Westphalia. The people who included the establishment clause in your constitution weren't just writing in a high sounding principle. They knew whereof they spoke


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:51 AM
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295 -- right. By the time of the Glorious Revolution, most Protestants had been kicked out of France.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:55 AM
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You know who was, especially for his time period, remarkably uninfluenced by notions of established churches and in favor of relative religious liberty. Charles II.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:55 AM
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297 - also true.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 9:58 AM
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In fact, William was installed specifically to prevent religious tolerance.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 10:03 AM
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Yes, but there was a tradeoff at the time (in England) between relative religious tolerance and absolutist government. So, as I say, on the whole net benefit from Protestant rule for Britain, but net suckage for Catholics in Ireland.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 10:10 AM
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Maybe William should have had more than one mistress.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 10:15 AM
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Thought I suppose that is much harder when you are co-reigning with your wife.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 10:20 AM
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Rollo should be big now, with the VIKINGS tv show such a success

I doubt it, given that the actual King Rollo TV programme didn't inspire any royals.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 05- 8-13 10:32 AM
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