Fuchsia Dunlop
Tennis balls are writing books now, too?
You're right, that song sucks.
(I take that back. There's not enough going on there for it to actually suck. It'll make great background music when you open your '90s-themed coffee house, though.)
Albuquerque: A lot of nice things and I would certainly have like to have lived there, but the totally classist, racist, Sierra Club-esque side of me could not help but shed a tear over the course of changes in the 30+ years over which I would occasionally head NW out of town on US 550 (which I think would have been your standard route).
I took that route many times, though it wasn't our standard route, but I'm not actually sure I understand your comment.
It'll make great background music when you open your '90s-themed coffee house, though.
Josh is basically right. I actually like the song, it's pretty, but don't have a strong emotional response positive or negative. It's just there.
It's been way way too long since I've been to New Mexico.
which means that it's roughly 7% sodium by weight.It looks like Chlorine is about 50% heavier than sodium, so that means it's about 18% salt by weight!
4: When I started driving it in the late '70s, beyond Bernalillo there was nothing but the stark, beautiful landscape--and Bernalillo itself was almost nothing. One of the places where the advance of the sprawl is extremely evident.
I skimmed the cooking article and read something I didn't know (China: not for raw-foods fadists). So, learning.
4,10: Basically my heart sinks when I have driven that stretch in recent years. Despite my recognition of some of the politically dodgy roots of that sentiment--and other roots not so dodgy!
I bet Dunlop wrote the recipe thinking you'd be working with the stuff you started with. She's all tuned into the tradeoffs between authenticity and what you can actually buy at middlingly-decent shops in London or Albequerque or wherever.
Albuquerque, too! I should have known better than to believe I'd spell it correctly on my first try.
Stormcrow's version of Desert Solitaire has more equivocation and more highway driving.
Three things I like: Pieta Brown, Fuchsia Dunlop, and New Mexico. So, apparently this is my post!
read something I didn't know (China: not for raw-foods fadists)
I'm sure I've mentioned this in the archives somewhere. My former pseudo-boss in Pr/nc/ton thought salads were incredibly revolting and liked to call Americans who were eating them "barbarians". My girlfriend is only slightly more polite about it.
Fresh fruit seems to be okay, though. I haven't really understood why it's viewed differently than vegetables.
How does he feel about eating raw fish?
Oh and that piece about taking the Chinese chefs to the French Laundry is one of my faves of all time! I'm happy to be prompted to read it again.
Any form of raw meat is just obviously barbarian. In fact, anything cooked less than well-done.
radfixtrailscrub, looks like you're right.
my heart sinks when I have driven that stretch
What about napalming Rio Rancho? That's still ok, right?
Actually, that guy was very fond of claiming that he couldn't distinguish McDonald's from any fancy American restaurant.
So, no raw food or trademark recognition.
So, the Chinese are also not big fans of SE Asian food or Korean or Japanese? And the boss was apparently an obnoxious idiot.
Faintly apropos of the FL thing, reading this review was really striking, as it's the most like reading someone else writing about one of my review dinners I've ever experienced. That is, nearly every element was so familiar from about a half dozen meals I've had (including 2 in the last 6 weeks, hence the strikingness), and yet there it was in the NYT. I should have AB read it for comparison.
The song is pleasant enough, but 3.last is basically right. Although, thinking about it, the '90s version of that song would have forced some dynamics into it, whether ill-considered screaming or an out-of-place "rocking'" bridge. So kudos for sticking to your quiet ethos.
Hey, that's my neighborhood, and I don't know the place. I should take Buck there.
Dunlop is from Oxford, and I really want to comment on her blog and ask for restaurant recommendations in the area. However, I'm way too chicken; I get this 'oh my god she's famous' sort of reaction and can't imagine actually corresponding. I don't think I really get how blogs work?
Next time I go home I expect I'll be visiting New Mexico. My dad has moved to Truth or Consequences, which I can't tell people here in the UK without peals of laughter ensuing. I only know the northern part of the state well, so I'm looking forward to seeing a different part.
Dammit, I thought I closed that tag.
I also didn't include my final thought on that review, which is that, when I've eaten that meal, I've been more annoyed by the bits that clearly didn't work. To wit:
Other entrees are less distinct, like a steak with a smear of béarnaise and a whole red snapper that needs a more compelling accompaniment than seemingly unseasoned eggplant purée. A half chicken comes with sweet potatoes under giant "meringues" of emulsified and aerated maple syrup, a play on candied yams that may be better appreciated if executed on a smaller scale.Before and after that para are 2 other not-quite dishes, yet the review is so positive:
"This is exciting," she said. She was right.I'm more excited by food that's really good than by food that's ambitious but doesn't quite work.
But I suppose we've covered this. I seem to recall that the bien pensant position was that no one would ever praise dishes that don't work merely because they're "interesting." I guess the NYT didn't get the memo.
I have a recipe for more or less those potatoes.
I just noticed the gorgeous terra cotta of the building the restaurant is in. Nice.
My dad has moved to Truth or Consequences, which I can't tell people here in the UK without peals of laughter ensuing.
To be fair to British people, I laughed also.
21.2: What about napalming Rio Rancho? That's still ok, right?
Yeah, well that's what is all along the south side of the road there. Grown from nothing in before 1960 to ~10K when I first was there to 100K today. And sure, per Tweety my inner Edward Abbey says go for it.
A college friend (a physician who did a fair number of locums) lived nearby in a nice semi-rural enclave of Corrales.
My dad has moved to Truth or Consequences, which I can't tell people here in the UK without peals of laughter ensuing
Fair enough.
31: Clearly. I realised that I could, instead, just read The Guardian article linked, as it includes an Oxford restaurant.
32: Me too. Most of my father's housing situations inspire laughter in some way. Truth or Consequences might be the best, although I enjoyed it when he was renting a room in an old bordello in a mining town in Colorado.
28.last: And the laughter is earned:
Originally named Hot Springs, the city changed its name to Truth or Consequences, the title of a popular NBC radio program. In 1950, Ralph Edwards, the host of the radio quiz show Truth or Consequences, announced that he would air the program from the first town that renamed itself after the show. Hot Springs won the honorIt neighbors the town of Elephant Butte so perhaps they felt the need to compete.
I do tell them that bit, too. It amuses me to no end.
To me, it's not a lot weirder than villages like Bishops Itchington and other fantastical such places here.
That got me thinking there really ought to be a town named The Price is Right. Does it exist yet?
Welcome to Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader, Arizona.
I can't tell people here in the UK without peals of laughter ensuing
Nobody who would name a place "Cholmondeley" and then pronounce if "Chum-lee" has any right to laugh
The mapo tofu was the first thing I made from the Dunlop book and it was *entirely too much* -- with non Pixian Lee Kum Kee chili bean paste. I find that I have to heavily modify her recipes not just for heat, but also oil (no, I won't pour oil into the water I'm blanching greens in and you can't make me) and salt (holy shit, so salty). Anyway, I totally love that cookbook now that I am attuned to where I need to make changes.
Corrales
We did a fair bit of driving around and fantasizing about buying a place in Corrales, but we're not horse people, and it seemed like a pretty isolating place for a little kid otherwise.
To me, it's not a lot weirder than villages like Bishops Itchington and other fantastical such places here
And has the additional advantage that you know how to pronounce it.
When a recipe like that is so, so salty I usually suspect that it's meant to be eaten with enormous piles of unseasoned starch - probably rice, here.
but we're not horse people, and it seemed like a pretty isolating place for a little kid otherwise.
"Hey human head! Hey human head! Try and whinnie again! Ahahahaha loser!"
I should probably moderate my salt intake better. It's hard to find things too salty for me.
It's true, Oudemia, that I've modified it quite a bit. The recipe calls for soy sauce. Why? I can't remember if it also says salt to taste. Why? I also use about a quarter of the meat it calls for. And it calls for something like half a cup of oil, no? I use a couple of tablespoons. On that latter, we're clearly departing from the original Chinese dish, which I think is supposed to be a shimmering mass of spicy oil with tofu floating in it.
I've only made the vegetarian one from Every Grain of Rice; I didn't cut the oil down as a lot of the other meat dishes aren't too terribly oily (or meaty, for that matter) and that was a definite mistake.
This talk of food reminds me that I've promised lunch tomorrow will be at one of those really authentic Japanese restaurants. The kind where they cook the food on the table in front of you after making an mini-torch from an onion and oil.
The recipe calls for soy sauce. Why? I can't remember if it also says salt to taste. Why?
All this and more in ogged's sensational follow-up to his bestselling diet book Try Not Eating, Fatty, Cook Like You're Three.
That last comma should be a colon, maybe. SHIT.
If I had a ton of money and had to live in Albuquerque, I'd get one of those old houses on a few acres on one of the quiet roads in the North Valley, not as far north as Corrales. It's so pretty and peaceful there, and the NIMBYism is strong enough to keep most development away.
If you had to live in Albuquerque, you'd live as far from Albuquerque as possible?
I've never been to Albuquerque. Is it as nice as Roswell?
"Whenever I'm in East Lansing to eat a meal, I like to leave East Lansing and go to Holland, Michigan." -- Todd Blackledge
I should probably moderate my salt intake better. It's hard to find things too salty for me.
I actually had to teach myself to cook with more salt. When I first taught myself to cook, I tended to leave it out (laziness), found I didn't miss it, and basically used little or no salt. But I finally accepted that, while you simply grow accustomed to whatever level of salt you encounter*, at least some salt makes almost everything better. At this point I use a pretty typical amount (I don't have to modify recipes, frex).
That said, pro chefs have convinced themselves that lots of salt makes everything better (they talk about this all the time), and don't seem to understand that they're caught in an upward spiral in which they don't even taste amounts of salt that are savorful to many/most people.
I've had 10X (mate 20X) more oversalted dishes at restaurants than under-.
*that is, given just a couple months, pretty much anyone can transition from one level of salt intake to another, but it requires a varied enough diet that you're not changing a given dish overnight - your hash browns have a tablespoon of salt at New Years, 2 tsp. at the end of January, and a teaspoon by March. Roughly speaking. Actually, you're probably better off cutting it almost all out to reset your palate, and then gradually adding it back in to a moderate level.
don't seem to understand that they're caught in an upward spiral
I think they probably understand that you get used to saltiness even over the course of one dish, so they're much better off oversalting than undersalting.
I'm over the salt on the caramel thing. I'm going back to chocolate on the caramel.
I actually had to teach myself to cook with more salt. When I first taught myself to cook, I tended to leave it out (laziness), found I didn't miss it, and basically used little or no salt.
I am JRoth. It's not intentional, I just forget salt. I'm a fair cook, generally, but there are a reasonable number of meals where I realize something is massively undersalted when I get it to the table.
Between the cream of mushroom soup and the crumpled potato chips on top, I hardly ever need add salt to my dishes.
I had been forgetting to put salt on my toast, which was really a mistake, because with the salt on there that salt was some schizophrenia-curing artisanal hipster shit.
I seem to recall that the bien pensant position was that no one would ever praise dishes that don't work merely because they're "interesting."
Dishes can in fact be evaluated by standards other than "Is this super-yummy?". Those include whether such dishes are interesting, not "interesting". And when dishes of that sort are praised it is on the basis that they do indeed work.
Yggles has his valedictory Slate post up. Complete with typo ('retied' instead of 'retired').
I use this recipe for the Japanese version--very kid-friendly, incidentally--and Youki brand tobanjan/doubanjiang. VERY TASTY WOULD EAT AGAIN A+++
Every Grain of Rice
Oh hey, that book is staring at me from across the dining room. Though I'm not sure I'll ever actually cook from it. I get very anxious about cooking, so I stick to laughably basic non-dishes. (Trader Joe's makes this easy.) My mother got me not one but two cookbooks-for-athletes, and I feel a bit bad about how I'm incredibly unlikely to ever use them.
I've been grinding salt directly onto my avocado-plus-cheese-on-rolls thing, which is great. Avocados need salt, I think.
24 And the boss was apparently an obnoxious idiot.
More good-natured than that, really, but also kidding on the square.
I find a lot of undersalted food in restaurants, at banquets, etc. Without my wife's tutelage I might not recognize it for what it was, but now I do. Probably done for low-sodium needs with the understanding there's salt on the table and you can put it in or on if you like.
I wonder how my taste might have evolved with a different companion. As it is, she's always been more attuned to the quality of food than I have, even though as she's gotten ever more sophisticated and knowledgeable about it so have I, a few paces to the rear. So by myself I'm much more sophisticated and aware of food and its preparation than the average person, in fact than most everybody we know outside foodies--and than some of them.
I actually had to teach myself to cook with more salt.
True of me as well. The turning point was (I think) making a tomato and veggie pasta sauce with a variety of fresh vegetables from the farmer's market. I tasted everything as I was chopping and they was all tasty raw, but the sauce was kind of bland an unexciting. I was very disappointed.
Sometime afterwards I realized that it just needed salt.
Avocados need salt, I think.
Yes. (incidentally avocado + salt + pepper on bread is very tasty, even without cheese).
avocado-plus-cheese-on-rolls thing,
As an openfaced sandwich on an English muffin and run under the broiler (or in a toaster oven), this is one of my favorite things. And definitely needs salt -- avocados are one of those things that are almost unpleasantly tasteless without it, and really good with.
The ever-growing spiral of saltiness is a scourge upon our land. People can add their own salt if they want it; there's no reason to inflict it on those of us who like things plain.
That principle applies to almost all the deranged gloop people put on their food, but especially especially mayonnaise.
58: It's surrounded by Albuquerque. That is quite enough Albuquerque on a sustained basis, probably way too much in fact. (I was on Team Shithole growing up there and can't bring myself to switch entirely to Team Hidden Gem.)
Since this is sort-of food thread: have I introduced my biggest food blog crush? Love. She's one of the best recipe writers ever. I found her when I needed to learn how to make pad Thai, and she has a series of five long posts on it; treat them as holy writ, and you will make pad Thai as good as any you will find wherever you happen to live, possibly including even Bangkok.
See, I find plain avocado to be one of life's delights, especially spread out on a piece of bread with cheese and tomato. Textbook example of something that doesn't need salt.
For those of you who find most restaurant soups to be so salt-laden you can barely taste anything else, I learned a really cool trick recently: you can instantly improve them by just dumping water into them! And since you're at a restaurant, you can just use the water in your glass.
I don't know why that link didn't work. Anyway, it's shesimmers.com.
Deranged is too kind a word for mayonnaise. I would go so far as to call it straight-up evil.
You have definitely linked to her in the past, Jesus, as I remember adding her to my favourites afterward. She has great recipes.
Avocado with a bit of salt and lemon or lime.
Dz apparently has never had proper fresh made mayo. It's awesome. Best thing ever on fish terrines or canned tuna or asparagus and pretty damn good on many other things as well.
Salt in cooking - put in a bit less than you think you want and then carefully add to taste once it's done, not rocket science. If you forgot to put any in at all then for many foods it's time to throw it out and start over, e.g. pasta or bread or braises.
adding her to my favourites
Gone native, have we?
57, 77: I'd get one of those old houses on a few acres on one of the quiet roads in the North Valley, not as far north as Corrales
In fact I think that is pretty much exactly where my friend lived--or at least it was the southern part of Corrales because you went north to the more townish part of the place. It was quit nice. Then she got married and moved up to Santa Fe (one of the newer fancyish developments west of town).
People can add their own salt if they want it; there's no reason to inflict it on those of us who like things plain.
This is so wrong. Salt needs to be added early in the cooking process so it has time to do its business bringing out flavors and shit. If you put it on afterward, the salt isn't doing any work, its just there to mask the taste of bland.
85: Completely and totally. I decided I'd rather get made fun of by Americans than the English. They're merciless, you know.
I love salt, but I find that unmodified Dunlop-levels of sodium make my cheeks suck in involuntarily like when Tweety Bird feeds Sylvester alum.
87 is malicious pseudoscience spread by Big Sodium, by whom Spike is no doubt employed.
shesimmers
She says to julienne two cups of fresh ginger, and the total prep time is supposed to be twenty minutes. Maybe I'll try to wrangle a dinner invite instead.
Neighbor, please. You could totally julienne two lightly packed cups of fresh ginger in ten minutes, and the rest of the prep is easy. Damn, that dish looks good.
31: Clearly. I realised that I could, instead, just read The Guardian article linked, as it includes an Oxford restaurant.
You do realise there are several current and former Oxford(shire) residents here, don't you?
Big Sodium, by whom Spike is no doubt employed.
You are close. I'm actually employed by Big Chloride.
1) Breathily lesbian!
2) I made yu xiang eggplant (maybe capitalize? is maybe place name?) once at home and yeah it was like quarts of oil.
3) Phoenix, oddly, was the first place I was ever able to find a store with berebere. Now of course there are dozens here. Also this was before I lived in NYC and I'm certain Kalustyan's has it but at the time I felt like I had looked everywhere. This is my twinsical story of ingredients in the west. I don't know.
(I just took this exam in my training and did it in like ten minutes and everyone else still has it so probably I misread something. PLEASE FIRE ME.)
Speaking of malicious pseudoscience, I finally got the paper one friend suggested I re-title as "Dinosaurs!" approved for publication.
92: that dish is good! Kind of salty.
berebere
I thought that was a deficiency in one of the B vitamins.
Re 95.3
You can get berebere in most UK supermarkets. And zatar, and ras el hanout, etc. There's one of the major spice brands that most stock and those are in their range. Smaller local branches might not stock the full range but any biggish one would.
Yu xiang means "fish fragrance". Something is lost in the translation, one presumes.
http://www.bart-ingredients.co.uk/ingredient/berbere
91 Get a mandoline or a v slicer and you'll be able to julienne two cups of ginger very quickly. The latter costs something like twenty bucks, the former quite a bit more but you get to finely calibrate the dimensions of your julienne or slices or whatever. Plus take pieces off your fingers.
103: and those fools at the Radio Shack called you mad!
Is a preprint anywhere?
No. I guess I'll post the draft to arxiv soon, after getting the okay from my boss senior colleague. We were waiting to get it past referees so we could be reasonably sure we weren't being complete crackpots.
93: Of course I do! It's the 'expert in Chinese food' bit that a) leads me to want to question her and b) provides the reason I get weirdly nervous about it. But I'm quite happy to take advice from the commenters currently and formerly residing in Oxfordshire. I have my favourites here in Northern Oxfordshire so I can offer recommendations in trade should anyone ever find themselves (unlikely) in my neck of the woods.
and ras el hanout, etc
Since I've started using the tagine someone gave me ages ago, this has become one of my hugest pet peeves: recipes that call for ras el hanout. It's not a specific thing, cookbook writer!
107: Maybe a front-pager could just paste it in as a guest post, so we could all read it.
73.1: Yeah, I think in mass-food conditions, kitchens err on the side of under-. But at proper restaurants*, I almost never encounter underseasoned. Although I guess the evidence is that I would rarely be bothered by too little salt. But when I do get something undersalted, I'm kind of shocked. Not that I don't ever get bland dishes, but they typically need more than just a sprinkle of salt.
*I'm not exactly sure what I mean by this. The line is somewhere in the vast gulf between buffet and fine dining
109: Isn't that Madhur Jaffrey's rant about "curry powder"?
1) Breathily lesbian!
Ogged prefers his lesbians breathless--because he's a feminist.
91: I have a pork version of that recipe; lord is it delicious. In fact, it's overdue, and there's no pork on the upcoming week's menu; added!
Dishes can in fact be evaluated by standards other than "Is this super-yummy?". Those include whether such dishes are interesting, not "interesting". And when dishes of that sort are praised it is on the basis that they do indeed work.
Well sure, but that wasn't the claim I was rejecting. My whole argument was that "interesting" ≠ "delicious", or rather that the two are unrelated, like "tall" and "red-haired". The counterargument was that only a cretin would reject food that was interesting but not delicious, or perhaps that the set of food that was interesting but not delicious was null. Which, again, is decisively rejected by the pro-interesting NYT reviewer.
Since it's perfectly possible - even easy - to make food that is both interesting and delicious, I have no idea what the supposed merit is of food that is interesting but unpleasant to eat. Note that the above-referenced reviewer was readily able to identify what would have made the interesting dishes more delicious - the chef was right in the neighborhood of delicious, but decided to prize novelty over tastiness (or perhaps simply failed). To which I say feh.
It's been nice having snow, but now it's officially too much. (That's not out in the wilderness, but pretty much right in town).
I have no idea what the supposed merit is of food that is interesting but unpleasant to eat.
"Not delicious" != "unpleasant to eat". I would not describe the meal I had at Alinea as the most delicious meal of its kind I've ever had, but it was definitely the most interesting. Nonetheless, none of the dishes I had there were unpleasant to eat.
||
This video with Steve Nash talking about his ongoing efforts to work his way back from injury and into NBA shape is remarkable. It's unusual to see an athlete being that honest about struggling with their own body, and with the game.
|>
Also, it struck me that there's an interesting rhyme (echo?) between the lines "It's coming up crimson" and "It's coming on Christmas."
The tunes are different, but I was trying to figure out why the phrase seemed familiar -- or, as it happens, reminiscent.
I like the lyrics and arrangement way more than the song. Have some other lesbians sing it.
95.2: and yeah it was like quarts of oil.
Probably the singlemost reason I disfavor a lot of asian cooking.
CONFIDENTIAL TO OGGED "the guy" in that French Laundry piece is yr fave lady cookbook writer Fuschia Dunlop.
121: I thought about telling him that but thought he seemed so happy with things as they were.
||
That was unexpected. Newt just wandered in and complained about a friend being annoying, and trying to be supportive, I said something like "Well, everyone sees things differently."
To which he replied, "Qualia, right?"
Apparently he's been reading about philosophy on the internet. I was sort of expecting porn, more.
|>
A google search for "qualia porn" was not transformative, sadly.
Anyhow tell him qualia are horseshit from me.
To which he replied, "Qualia, right?"
Impressive but, judging by the wikipedia entry on Qualia, not actually what you were talking about.
qualia are horseshit from me.
Sifu is a centaur! I wondered why he only showed his face on the meetup cam!
You know, I don't think centaurs are biologically all that tenable. They don't have the dentition for a horse diet and their tiny little mouths aren't right for a huge-ass animal.
You'll never know what it's really like to be a centaur.
131: Shit, shit, masturbate, shit.
You know, I never had thought about the mechanics of centaur masturbation before.
... an image search for "masturbating centaur" was not informative, but I'm not going to claim it wasn't woerthwhile.
I think they'd use one of those long back-scratchers? Or maybe a watergun. Super-soaker and big bath should do it.
I think "yuxiang" would be a better spelling - it's one word, as far as I can tell.
136: Are you envisioning grotesquely long arms?
136: even horse dicks are only just so long, Halford: the arms are wayyy up front!
Yoga Centaurs: Cinemax Originals.
It's not a matter of hands. It's a matter of torso length and posture. With the proviso that all I know about horse endowment comes from watching Jackass Number Two, it's hard for me to picture how the centaur could really do much but bat ineffectively at the tip unless he really bent the human part of his torso nearly double, and then... that just seems like it'd be hard to get comfy enough to think about lady centaurs or Cate Blanchett or whatever they're into?
Yes, I was pwned. But that's just because I am really taking this seriously.
Well, I tried to get an answer from horse anatomy, but boy was that ever probably not the best google search to run at work.
There's a trend of pictures of horses licking pregnant womens' bellies though, I'll tell you that.
|| Further to 115, they dug out the 8 year old boy, an hour later a retired U prof, and then an hour after that his wife. All alive, all taken to the hospital. |>
Woo, Albuquerque thread! Also centaur masturbation thread!
I mean I can find plenty of pictures of people masturbating horses, or at least doing something that seems like it would be effective as a way to masturbate a horse, but the centaur seems to be in a non-optimal position to do that to himself. Maybe they can use one of those horse semen collector doohickeys as like a fleshlight?
Anyway, JP is totally right about Rio Rancho, and Sifu is totally right about centaur masturbation.
|| And, naturally, a bunch of folks in my FB feed know the adults. |>
Not really clear on why a dog can lick its own balls but a horse cannot, but I gave up in fear after 2 seconds on google images.
Somewhere on the internet, there must be Harry Potter fanfic that explores this issue in detail.
On Albuquerque, I'm generally on Team Hidden Gem, and it was an okay place to grow up. I wouldn't really want to live there again, though.
The fact that people appear to be assuming that it takes hands to masturbate points to a lack of erotic imagination that staggers belief.
150: well I guess it depends what you mean:
Your horse will spend hours trying to lick and grab these swinging balls. It's a time-consuming and fun distraction from stall boredom, weaving, cribbing, and "just plain chewing the barn down." Horses absolutely love them and they last a long time ... from a week to up to a month depending on the horse and, pardon the pun, how they're hung!
I guess lady centaurs would be much like mermaids, with breasts and torsos of women. Not thought through for sure.
So you're more or less snowed in, Charley, but you've got what you need?
153: no I mean I was trying to google up images of horses masturbating themselves against trees or termite mounds or huns or whatever but... what? Stop looking at me.
or huns or whatever but... what? Stop looking at me.
Seems if you're going to involve bugs, wouldn't you go the stinging route?
I guess most dogs don't really have necks, or do they? Doesn't a greyhound have a super long neck? Can a greyhound lick its own balls? Can't a horse just kind of swing that big head and neck down and under and lick itself dog style, implying that a centaur could get a hand grip? What am I missing?
The Huns, being a nomadic people used to horses, are more willing than most to be the object of horse frottage.
I mean, dogs bend their backs a lot, right? I don't think dogs can lick their own balls while standing, and horses are generally standing. Also, the base of a centaur's neck is, like, the iliac crest of the human part of a centaur; that doesn't seem like it's going to bend the same way, really. Also isn't there a hand-size mismatch? It'd be like a monkey jerking off a barber pole, in the best case scenario.
I don't think dogs can lick their own balls while standing
They can while sitting, sort of bending their head around and tucking it under their back legs. Do horses sit?
I just think that if horses did lick their balls an image search for "horse licking its balls" would turn up exactly that instead of, as turns out to be the case, a lot of pictures of Miley Cyrus.
Isn't the legend that the Conquistadors seemed to be one animal, horse and rider, apropos? Also armored, like tortoises? To the natives, how these creatures fed and reproduced themselves were not salient, compared with the shock of their impact.
Centaurs are creatures of wonder. Thinking about their mundane needs is the sign their impact has worn off, or become absurd, as with us. And of course eventually the riders were observed dismounted, with their armor off.
Also armored, like tortoises?
Unless you're ready to tell us about how tortoises masturbate, not helpful.
Unless you're ready to tell us about how tortoises masturbate, not helpful.
Never mind, figured that one out.
We're fine. I dug my car out this afternoon, and the stores are open.
Latest speculation is that maybe snowboarders on the hillside above the houses might have triggered the avalanche. That entire mountain is off limits this time of year -- it's winter elk range.
And, really, everyone in town ought to be real careful for a while about violating any laws. The prosecutor just got back from vacation in Hawaii to find he has a lot fewer friends than he thought he did: he tried to play some hardball with Eric Holder, and is finding that the AG is a bit harder to intimidate than some small time meth dealers. (This is over the rape thing. You've all seen the stories). Anyway, Fred is going to be throwing books at anything that moves.
Maybe the elk triggered the avalanche.
Well, good luck with the rest of winter there.
it's hard for me to picture how the centaur could really do much but bat ineffectively at the tip
Now that's informative. So the human hands would be free! They could play castanets as an auto-accompaniment.
177: or wave 'em like they just don't care?
A short compendium cloaked in popular science trappings.
Varieties of variousness covers a wide range of activities.
180:
Autoeroticism in both male and female horses is common. While males like to slide their penises against their underbellies, females are known to rub up against posts or other objects -- and they have even been observed secreting a type of female ejaculate mucus.
Well, I guess that answers the centaur question.
I'm quite sure there are Greek vase paintings that address just about any centaur sex question that could arise probably even from urple, but I don't know what to google to find them and don't know if I really want to know.
lady centaurs
I think you mean centeuses. Like Edith Piaf.
This is my favorite thread in a while.
This is my favorite thread in a while.
Mine too.
The dog masturbation video was funny and informative. The tortoise masturbation video was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. Tortoises=not supposed to do that.
The tortoise masturbation video also has a great classic YouTube comment thread:
that is actually not a turtle masterbating, that sulcata had a prolapse of his penis and if he cant tug it back in that could be extremely dangerous.
that is so gross but that is normal and no that is not he's nuts its he's inside that coming out of he's butt
wtf he took a shit in the process ewwww
some people are so fucking stupid ._. and by people, I mean YOU -.-
Damn you people are stupid.
I seen my turtle masturbate, his piece was as half as long as himself. They got big ones.
Reading YouTube comments so we don't have to shows real devotion to the blog, Halford. I salute you.
My turtle (not tortoise) had a prolapse when he was young, but it looked nothing at all like a penis, though possibly I'm biased because of course I wouldn't expect a turtle to have a penis. I haven't seen him masturbate, but he does occasionally try to seduce adults, swimming up to the closest point to them and doing a weird shaking thing with his claws that would involve stroking their faces if they were actually another turtle in the water with him, which they isn't. He very strongly prefers men or more masculine-presenting women and has never done it with a child in the room, all of which is kind of weird in itself.
I'm quite sure there are Greek vase paintings that address just about any centaur sex question that could arise probably even from urple, but I don't know what to google to find them and don't know if I really want to know.
I have an old grad school friend/acquaintance who would definitely know the answer to this. We're still FB friends, but I'm not sure how she'd take it if I messaged her out of the blue to ask. She might be delighted.
This whole thread is making me question the evolutionary stability of a centaur. Just look at that spine - it makes a right angle backwards. Is it hinged, or what? I have all sorts of concerns about how arthritic and prematurely elderly they must be destined to be.
Probably two spines joined at a really strange pelvis/shoulder (poulder or shelvis).
Why not just put the penis there, then?
I suppose it'd be a lot more human and less horsey, which probably defeats the whole purpose.
The purpose being, guy hung like a horse?
This is the kind of critical thinking we need, people--trust no one. Keep pushing and we might be able to blow this thing wide open. We can't let Big Centaur keep pulling the foreskin over our eyes!
I think that turtle does have a prolapse. It doesn't seem to be making any thrusting motions.
How fast do turtles move when they mate? I know they're turtles, but... they have to move a little bit.
The purpose being, guy hung like a horse?
I assumed so. Maybe it's guy who can self-dressage?
ABQ! I have the same experience of the sun - I love the sun! Jesus, won't it ever stop? Why doesn't anything green grow in this wasteland? My FiL retired to Corrales from Chicago, and I've found it really bleak & lonely, but that's mostly about his life.
Never lived west of the Mississippi so I've never had to adapt to the desert.
I'm quite sure there are Greek vase paintings that address just about any centaur sex question that could arise probably even from urple, but I don't know what to google to find them and don't know if I really want to know.
You can look things up by subject matter in catalogs like the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum.
(But really I feel like on pots one is much more likely to see centaurs fighting, or getting killed by Heracles, or educating Achilles.)
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I know there isn't a politics thread at the moment, but can we have one so that somebody I trust more that the media talking heads can tell me what Obama is likely to do now that Putin has actually invaded Ukraine?
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Like this: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/3/1/1393687089642/45d0299d-b0ce-40f0-ae40-b772851899ea-460x276.png
The federal council has now asked Putin to withdraw the Russian ambassador to the United States while other government figures use calmer rhetoric, stating the proposal to use Russian troops may not be used immediately.Presumably this calmness doesn't extend to the Crimea, where they already are.
Fuck if I know, but that won't stop me from speculating: If it's just Crimea, not that much. A few more travel bans (we already have some in place related to a well connected Russian businessman being murdered in prison) and possibly symbolic economic measures. If it extends into Eastern Ukraine then my guess is that you could see real economic sanctions coming from both the US and EU. The EU is actually more important here since the Russian economy is much more closely linked to Europe than the US and the RUssian elites, as much as they like Manhattan, are even more fond of nice European cities and resorts.
I'm sure I'm overreacting, but what's happening in Russia is freaking me the fuck out. Francis Fukuyama is such a complete douchebag. He and the Dow 36,000 guy should be publicly flayed.
207: me, too. Also did when Georgia got invaded--though less than now.
A Centaur has a man-stomach and a horse-stomach. And of course both want breakfast. So first of all he has porridge and pavenders and kidneys and bacon and omlette and cold ham and toast and marmalade and coffee and beer. And after that he tends to the horse part of himself by grazing for an hour or so and finishing up with a hot mash, some oats, and a bag of sugar. That's why it's such a serious thing to ask a Centaur to stay for the weeekend. A very serious thing indeed.
210: I noticed that. None of the rest is nearly as funny as our threads on the topic.
Or more charitably, she was able to reproduce my research findings.
This thread took a much more interesting turn, but just to reply to Josh at 116: I take your point that there's a broad range between delicious and unpleasant, and that interestingness can make up for dishes that are less than delicious. But what struck me in that review was that interesting - or "exciting" - seemed to be a sort of trump card for dishes that were flawed in execution. It just seems like maybe there needed to be more editing/revision in the kitchen, but instead the chef was willing to serve flawed dishes and rely on the excitement to cover for his failings - and the reviewer went along with it.
I'm certainly willing - happy, even - to give latitude to kitchens that are exploring. But it's not that hard to get these things right - in the more detailed examples, the reviewer knows exactly how the dishes could have been interesting and delicious. And being exciting isn't an excuse not to get the dish right, no more than being healthy is an excuse for shitty food (chewy brown rice and unseasoned tofu, anyone?).
Is this the Ukraine thread now?
Kerry is being appropriately and reassuringly conciliatory .
The Post ran a hilariously awful opinion column today that sounds like a political version of those 'hot sports takes' columns on Grantland where they spoof terrible sportswriting. First graf:
When President Obama declared Friday that "there will be costs" for any Russian intervention in Ukraine, you could hear the laughter emanating from the Kremlin -- followed by the sound of Russian military vehicles roaring into Crimea and seizing control of the peninsula."Costs?" Vladimir Putin must have thought. Just like the "costs" Obama imposed on the Assad regime in Syria?
Then goes on to describe Syria as:
one of the most embarrassing and emasculating episodes in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
Just what we need from foreign policy -- preserving our masculinity!
Can't resist another quote from that Post editorial:
KGB thugs like Putin are not deterred by pieces of parchment. They are deterred when the United States projects strength and resolve.Today, America is projecting weakness. Obama's failure to enforce his red line in Syria projected weakness. His constant talk of withdrawal and ending wars so we can focus on "nation-building here at home" projects weakness. His decision to gut the U.S. defense budget and reduced the Army to pre-World War II levels projects weakness.
When your adversaries believe you are weak, they are emboldened to act -- and prone to miscalculate. Putin believes there will be no real costs for his intervention in Ukraine because there were no costs in Syria. He knows the Obama Doctrine is to do just enough "not to get mocked." If he is proved right, it will have consequences far beyond the Crimean Peninsula. A failure to impose costs on Russia will further embolden adversaries from Beijng to Pyongyang to Tehran -- all of whom are measuring Obama's resolve in Ukraine, just as Putin measured Obama's resolve in Syria and found it lacking.
The lesson of history is clear: Weakness is provocative.
Emasculation! Projecting weakness! Measuring resolve! A real president would just fly over to Moscow and kick Putin's ass personally!
214, 215: It's Marc Thiessen by the way. A neocon's neocon. Former Bush and Rumsfeld speechwriter. Not his positions differ in any significant way from Fred Hiatt.
