From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jan  4 21:06:08 2009
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:06:08 -0000
Subject: Geese (was Holiday Greetings)
Message-ID: <gjr8c0+c45o@...>

La Gatta Macfarlane wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5212>:

<< Those honkers at the University of Washington were certainly no
fifteen-pounders! More like the USS Nimitz coming ashore with blood in
its eye! There's something about the S-curve of the neck and the
downward slant of the wings that makes a sensible person want to get
out of the vicinity real fast. >> 

Kneasy replied in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5213>:

<< Yeah, impressive, isn't it? Fluffing up like that. Strip off the
feathers, though and they shrink to an amazing degree. >>

So do most cats when washed.

<< They make damn good watch-dogs, and unlike Rottweilers it's
acceptable to eat them. Perfect. >>

My late mother raised me on anecdotes of the flock of geese at the
Temple of Juno Moneta fighting off the invading Gauls who had
conquered all the rest of Rome.




From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jan  8 03:15:32 2009
From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane)
Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:15:32 -0800
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Holiday Greetings! (Getting More OT All the
 Time)
In-Reply-To: <gjfjlr+srdd@...>
References: <gjfjlr+srdd@...>
Message-ID: <49656FD4.1030309@...>

Hey, doesn't goose grease make a fine tonic for beards? Make them all 
shiny and soft and oleaginous? And smelling sort of...goosy? Know any 
women who are turned on by goose? <VEG>

I wouldn't know about the healthy qualities of goose grease, since I'm 
not likely to come near it any time soon. I just don't think my 
itsy-bitsy toaster oven is up to cooking a goose (anybody's, even mine), 
especially if it sloughs off a quart and a half of grease! I'm more or 
less constrained to cook what can be cooked meatwise in a large frying 
pan or a Dutch oven.... So I think I'll stick to olive oil and peanut oil.

I never got close enough to the Lake Washington honkers to strip off the 
feathers (not that I remember that they fluffed up that much; low and 
sleek and evil). Must have had something to do with the S-curve of the 
neck and the downward slant of the wings. But I did have one bash me 
with his wing, and I can tell you there was no 15-pound weakling behind 
it. I think I'll leave Canada geese alone.

I have absolutely no desire to eat Rottweilers. Properly raised, they 
are very nice people. I just wish they wouldn't express their enthusiasm 
for me by drooling on my suede and velvet shoes.  :-P  I am not really a 
Big Dog person. (Hey, I'm a /cat/, O.K.)

You don't like curry? You don't like chili? You don't like *Szechuan? 
You don't like Thai? What do you transplanted Brits /eat/ besides geese? 
Bubble and Squeak? Black pudding? Spotty dick? Haven't you people heard 
about Globalization? (Sorry, I live on Planet Santa Cruz, which has 
every kind of restaurant in the world. My theory is that as people 
arrived in America, they started walking west, and if they didn't stop 
somewhere else, they eventually arrived at the Pacific Rim, stopped, and 
opened a restaurant.)

I also think you are somehow missing something here. Even in Britain 
(!), people are beginning to eat more adventurously. I am all in favor 
of a /moderate/ use of the fats you so glory in, and I do agree that I 
don't want to arrive at the rest home as a healthy soon-to-be imbecile. 
I have a bottle of pills which I will swallow on the night before they 
come to warehouse me. You eat what tastes good to you, I'll eat what 
tastes good to me (which will contain a reasonable dose of cholesterol), 
and we'll both be happy! I grew up in the Wild West, so enjoy a healthy 
whallop of chili peppers. (Did you know that capsiasin stimulates the 
flow of endorphins, so that after the initial burn,  you just feel 
better and /better/ and /BETTER/**?) Ask any chili-head, isn't the bum 
burn worth it? (Never had one myself, and I've been eating 
capsiasin-rich foods for years, but you never know....) I'm sure it's 
only a matter of time before the FDA decides that people are driving 
with capsiasin in their bloodstreams, **stopping at traffic lights, 
hugging their children, and generally acting like happy people, **and 
That Isn't Allowed!

I am All In Favor of Chocolate!!! Try those cookies 
<http://www.katnmac.com/chocchocchip.htm>, and I'll bet they'll fit 
right into one of your major food groups.

Purrs,

--Gatta
*
Barry Arrowsmith wrote:
>
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com 
> <mailto:the_old_crowd%40yahoogroups.com>, Kat Macfarlane <katmac at ...> 
> wrote:
> >
> > What on /earth/ does one do with a quart and a half of goose grease?
> > In-depth facials for the next twelve months? Alternative auto fuel?
> >
>
> Wouldn't know about facials, much of mine is obscured by beard, though
> IIRC goose-grease used to be slapped on children's chests as a winter
> protective. However, culinary uses:
>
> http://www.goosefat.co.uk/gfis_03.html 
> <http://www.goosefat.co.uk/gfis_03.html>
>
> It also happens to be one of the healthier fats, low in saturates.
> Keeps, too. A year when refrigerated.
>
> > Those honkers at the University of Washington were certainly no
> > fifteen-pounders! More like the USS Nimitz coming ashore with blood in
> > its eye! There's something about the S-curve of the neck and the
> > downward slant of the wings that makes a sensible person want to get 
> out
> > of the vicinity real fast.
> >
>
> Yeah, impressive, isn't it? Fluffing up like that. Strip off the 
> feathers, though
> and they shrink to an amazing degree.
> They make damn good watch-dogs, and unlike Rottweilers it's acceptable
> to eat them. Perfect.
>
> > No, I'm not a country girl; city- and academia-bred all my life, though
> > the academic side of things at least does have its Culinary Moments
> > (there was the tongue with fur on in chromium-yellow caper sauce at
> > Columbia, and the aptly named Cheesy Garden Casserole at UW). I had the
> > good fortune to be a medical brat, and my father discovered cholesterol
> > in the early 1960s;
>
> Interesting. Does that make you the Kolesterol Kid?
>
> > since my mother was a middle-western farm girl and
> > thought Crisco was a food group all by itself, it fell to me to develop
> > recipes that didn't involve saturated fat. I got pretty good at it if I
> > do say so <http://www.katnmac.com/VirtualCookbook.htm 
> <http://www.katnmac.com/VirtualCookbook.htm>>, though I've gone
> > back to using butter instead of margarine in my old age to avoid trans
> > fats (it tastes better too), at least in baking. Everywhere else I use
> > olive oil (Mediterranean) or peanut oil (Oriental). (So that you won't
> > lie awake all night wondering: The peanut started out in Peru, and got
> > to China and India the same way hot peppers did, by way of enterprising
> > Spanish traders who carried the good stuff from their New World 
> colonies
> > to interested connoisseurs everywhere else in the world. Think of them
> > kindly the next time you enjoy a good curry.
>
> Oh, yes. The exquisite delectation of a first-class Bombay bum-burner.
> Lovely.
>
> > The chocolate, of course,
> > they took back to Spain, not wanting to waste the /really/ good 
> stuff on
> > ignorant heathens.)
> >
>
> Chocolate. Good stuff. One of the main food groups, along with alcohol,
> caffeine, nicotine and (according to Pratchett - knighted today in 
> Honours
> List) - burned crispy bits.
>
> > There now. Don't you feel better for having had a little history lesson
> > before goose?
> >
>
> Always interested in this sort of stuff. If I can remember it it may 
> give the
> impression of Kneasy knowledgeability on some future occasion.
>
> Not that I take much notice of healthy lifestyle propaganda. it's part 
> of the
> belief that some types have that someone out there is enjoying themselves,
> and we must stop them immediately. See no merit in becoming a trophy
> survivor in the Old Folk's Home with others deciding what I do, what I 
> eat, etc.
>
> I have no intention of finishing up as a perfectly healthy corpse.
> What a waste. Hopefully, I'll arrive at the end with a bacon sandwich 
> in one
> hand, a large gin in the other, a grin on the face and "Whee! What a 
> ride!"
> And frankly, the 65 years clocked up so far have been pretty good, despite
> constant appeals for me to behave myself.
> Where's the fun in that?
>
>  



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jan  8 07:44:25 2009
From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane)
Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:44:25 -0800
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Geese (was Holiday Greetings)
In-Reply-To: <gjr8c0+c45o@...>
References: <gjr8c0+c45o@...>
Message-ID: <4965AED9.4080202@...>

The trouble with defluffing both geese and cats is that you have to 
watch out for the collateral armaments. I have a part-bobcat boy named 
Tommy <http://www.katnmac.com/tommy.htm> that I wouldn't dream of 
washing; fortunately, he does a reputable job of washing himself, for 
which I am profoundly grateful. He weighs close to twenty pounds, is too 
big to fit in any sink I've got, and is solid muscle all the way down, 
with collateral teeth and claws that he has no reservations about using.

As for the geese of Juno Moneta 
<http://www.thaliatook.com/OGOD/moneta.html>, the story is really that 
the Gauls tried to scale the Capitoline, in order to come down on Rome, 
but the row raised by Juno's geese aroused the citizens and gave them 
time enough to drive the Gauls off. The Gauls never tried that one 
again, and around 400 years later, Julius Caesar and his legions 
civilized the Gauls and started them on the way to becoming French, 
which is not an unmixed blessing but good enough.

Historical (hysterical) purrs,

--Gatta

Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:
>
> La Gatta Macfarlane wrote in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5212 
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5212>>:
>
> << Those honkers at the University of Washington were certainly no
> fifteen-pounders! More like the USS Nimitz coming ashore with blood in
> its eye! There's something about the S-curve of the neck and the
> downward slant of the wings that makes a sensible person want to get
> out of the vicinity real fast. >>
>
> Kneasy replied in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5213 
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5213>>:
>
> << Yeah, impressive, isn't it? Fluffing up like that. Strip off the
> feathers, though and they shrink to an amazing degree. >>
>
> So do most cats when washed.
>
> << They make damn good watch-dogs, and unlike Rottweilers it's
> acceptable to eat them. Perfect. >>
>
> My late mother raised me on anecdotes of the flock of geese at the
> Temple of Juno Moneta fighting off the invading Gauls who had
> conquered all the rest of Rome.
>
>  



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jan  9 11:49:55 2009
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:49:55 -0000
Subject: Holiday Greetings! (Getting More OT All the Time)
In-Reply-To: <49656FD4.1030309@...>
Message-ID: <gk7dl3+9fb7@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Kat Macfarlane <katmac at ...> wrote:
>
> Hey, doesn't goose grease make a fine tonic for beards? Make them all 
> shiny and soft and oleaginous? And smelling sort of...goosy? Know any 
> women who are turned on by goose? <VEG>
> 

I thought goosing women was frowned upon these days?
Not much point in plastering stuff on my beard, I keep it quite short,
usually 1 - 1.5 inches. It's  there because I hate shaving every day;
electric razors gave me a rash and gazing bleary-eyed into the
mirror every morning, cold steel in hand,  seems a terrible waste of
time, effort and blood. So, let it grow  and a 5 min scissor trim every 
3-4 weeks allows extra precious minutes in bed. Adding it up over the 
past 40+ years must have given me months more wallowing in my pit. 
Idleness rules, OK.

> 
> You don't like curry? You don't like chili? You don't like *Szechuan? 
> You don't like Thai? What do you transplanted Brits /eat/ besides geese? 
> Bubble and Squeak? Black pudding? Spotty dick? Haven't you people heard 
> about Globalization? (Sorry, I live on Planet Santa Cruz, which has 
> every kind of restaurant in the world. My theory is that as people 
> arrived in America, they started walking west, and if they didn't stop 
> somewhere else, they eventually arrived at the Pacific Rim, stopped, and 
> opened a restaurant.)
> 

?
Dunno how you got the impression I don't like curries, just the opposite.
Born and bred near Birmingham, it's more or less obligatory, they wean the
kids on it there.
Back when I was much younger and probably even more foolish, competitive
curry consumption was the culmination of a lad's night out in the pub.
Go for the hottest, and see how much you could get down your neck.
UK curries bear little relationship to traditional Indian cuisine, and absolutely
nothing like classical Moghul cuisine (worth searching out, IMO) generally 
being more brutal. Some of the UK curries are unknown in India, but perfect 
for competition, like phal - which is described as stupidly, pointlessly hot, 
and in the guide to curries thus: 
"This particular dish is a UK invention and not found in India (Phall actually
means fruit). This dish is effectively a hotter version of the Vindaloo and 
has been known to be a favourite of inebriated diners." 

Chinese - all right, but I draw the line at chicken's feet.
And I've eaten dog in a Korean rest. and cat in a Chinese, whale in an
Icelandic, bear in a Finnish and horse in a Belgian. 
How much more adventurous do you want me to be?

Wandering the world I've eaten strange stuff in odd places, or sometimes
not eaten it. One time in Ghana the plate had what looked very much
like a slab of human skin plus fat layer and underlying meat as centrepiece
on the plate. I wouldn't have minded, but a tattoo was visible. Never did 
get a straight answer as to what it actually was - a translation difficulty, 
no doubt.

Kneasy






From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jan 10 02:35:02 2009
From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:35:02 -0800
Subject: Happy Birthday, Professor Severus Snape!
Message-ID: <49680956.8080107@...>

A birthday card <http://www.katnmac.com/HappyBirthdaySnape.htm> for our 
favorite Professor!

Purrs,

--Gatta


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jan 10 04:07:10 2009
From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:07:10 -0800
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Holiday Greetings! (Getting More OT All the
 Time)
In-Reply-To: <gk7dl3+9fb7@...>
References: <gk7dl3+9fb7@...>
Message-ID: <49681EEE.6010800@...>

Re: Goosing: Depends on who she is, and who he is. ;D

Re: Beard: But don't you want to keep it shiny and soft and oleaginous 
and...goosy? Like, give her something good to taste while you're kissing 
her?

Re: Idleness: I'm in favor.

Re: Curry: Instead of perpetuating those British Bum Burners, hie 
yourself to the nearest bookstore and, if you're a beginner like me, 
acquire a copy of anything by Madhur Jaffrey, but for preference her 
/Quick & Easy Indian Cooking 
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_adv_b/?search-alias=stripbooks&unfiltered=1&field-keywords=&field-author=Madhur+Jaffrey&field-title=Quick+%26+Easy+Indian+Cooking&field-isbn=&field-publisher=&node=&url=&field-feature_browse-bin=&field-binding_browse-bin=&field-subject=&field-language=&field-dateop=&field-datemod=&field-dateyear=&sort=relevancerank&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=27&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=11>/. 
Even if you aren't a beginner like me, it's a handy cookbook for those 
evenings when you crave Indian food but don't have the reserves to throw 
yourself into an Authentic Indian Dinner. I can vouch for her Red 
Lentils Tarka; it's one of my bottom line recipes. (I'm not a beginner 
at cooking by any means, but having grown up in the Wild West, my focus 
has mainly been on Mexican and Italian cuisines, with successful 
divagations into French and continental generally; I am creeping up 
cautiously on things further east, though skipping the Middle East for 
the time being because in my experience it is No Wine and Let's See What 
We Can Do Weird With Yogurt.)

Re Chinese: Chicken /feet/? Where are you /getting/ your Chinese food? 
/Cat/?!!! Oh, /nooooooo/.  :'( I almost don't like you! (I once caused 
quite a kerfluffle in a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong by retrieving 
the two kittens the owner had caged out front, confining them in a cat 
case under the table, and when asked what I wanted for dinner if I 
didn't want the kittens, pointing to the owner's son, who was disporting 
himself in a highchair alongside the cash register. Instant hysteria 
from the cashier, who was also the owner's wife. I think I requested 
Baby in Hot Orange Sauce. By that time the kid was bawling his head off. 
Eventually we compromised on chicken in something, and the cashier 
escaped, clutching her son. I hope the brute learned a well deserved 
lesson, but I'm inclined to doubt it.)

Re Ghana: I can think of a couple of explanations. Either it really was 
human, and they were waiting to see if you'd eat it before they 'fessed 
up and you threw up, or it was pork or something that someone had 
cleverly tattooed, and they waiting to see if you'd eat it before they 
took it out back and ate it themselves.

Culinary purrs,

--Gatta

Barry Arrowsmith wrote:
>
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com 
> <mailto:the_old_crowd%40yahoogroups.com>, Kat Macfarlane <katmac at ...> 
> wrote:
> >
> > Hey, doesn't goose grease make a fine tonic for beards? Make them all
> > shiny and soft and oleaginous? And smelling sort of...goosy? Know any
> > women who are turned on by goose? <VEG>
> >
>
> I thought goosing women was frowned upon these days?
> Not much point in plastering stuff on my beard, I keep it quite short,
> usually 1 - 1.5 inches. It's there because I hate shaving every day;
> electric razors gave me a rash and gazing bleary-eyed into the
> mirror every morning, cold steel in hand, seems a terrible waste of
> time, effort and blood. So, let it grow and a 5 min scissor trim every
> 3-4 weeks allows extra precious minutes in bed. Adding it up over the
> past 40+ years must have given me months more wallowing in my pit.
> Idleness rules, OK.
>
> >
> > You don't like curry? You don't like chili? You don't like *Szechuan?
> > You don't like Thai? What do you transplanted Brits /eat/ besides 
> geese?
> > Bubble and Squeak? Black pudding? Spotty dick? Haven't you people heard
> > about Globalization? (Sorry, I live on Planet Santa Cruz, which has
> > every kind of restaurant in the world. My theory is that as people
> > arrived in America, they started walking west, and if they didn't stop
> > somewhere else, they eventually arrived at the Pacific Rim, stopped, 
> and
> > opened a restaurant.)
> >
>
> ?
> Dunno how you got the impression I don't like curries, just the opposite.
> Born and bred near Birmingham, it's more or less obligatory, they wean the
> kids on it there.
> Back when I was much younger and probably even more foolish, competitive
> curry consumption was the culmination of a lad's night out in the pub.
> Go for the hottest, and see how much you could get down your neck.
> UK curries bear little relationship to traditional Indian cuisine, and 
> absolutely
> nothing like classical Moghul cuisine (worth searching out, IMO) 
> generally
> being more brutal. Some of the UK curries are unknown in India, but 
> perfect
> for competition, like phal - which is described as stupidly, 
> pointlessly hot,
> and in the guide to curries thus:
> "This particular dish is a UK invention and not found in India (Phall 
> actually
> means fruit). This dish is effectively a hotter version of the 
> Vindaloo and
> has been known to be a favourite of inebriated diners."
>
> Chinese - all right, but I draw the line at chicken's feet.
> And I've eaten dog in a Korean rest. and cat in a Chinese, whale in an
> Icelandic, bear in a Finnish and horse in a Belgian.
> How much more adventurous do you want me to be?
>
> Wandering the world I've eaten strange stuff in odd places, or sometimes
> not eaten it. One time in Ghana the plate had what looked very much
> like a slab of human skin plus fat layer and underlying meat as 
> centrepiece
> on the plate. I wouldn't have minded, but a tattoo was visible. Never did
> get a straight answer as to what it actually was - a translation 
> difficulty,
> no doubt.
>
> Kneasy
>
>  



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jan 11 20:19:45 2009
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:19:45 -0000
Subject: Happy Birthday, Professor Severus Snape!
In-Reply-To: <49680956.8080107@...>
Message-ID: <gkdk91+bcpd@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Kat Macfarlane <katmac at ...> wrote:
>
> A birthday card <http://www.katnmac.com/HappyBirthdaySnape.htm> for
> our favorite Professor!

Shouldn't the flowers be monkshood/wolfbane/aconite, and maybe belladonna?





From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jan 11 20:31:25 2009
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:31:25 -0000
Subject: Chicken Feet (was Holiday Greetings! (Getting More OT All the Time)
In-Reply-To: <gk7dl3+9fb7@...>
Message-ID: <gkdkut+bk34@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" Kneasy wrote
in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5217>:
>
> Chinese - all right, but I draw the line at chicken's feet.

My friend Lee (that's Lee after her grandmother Leonora, who was named
after General Robert E. Lee, not what you were thinking) always gets
chicken feet when we have dim sum. If no little carts with chicken
feet come around, she begs the servers to send some. I've never felt
inclined to try them, but they're much less gross than the other foods
you mentioned. I mean, I eat chicken wings...




From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jan 11 20:54:08 2009
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:54:08 -0000
Subject: food (was: Holiday Greetings! (Getting More OT All the Time)
In-Reply-To: <49681EEE.6010800@...>
Message-ID: <gkdm9g+rrr8@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Kat Macfarlane wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5219>:
>
> has mainly been on Mexican and Italian cuisines, with successful 
> divagations into French and continental generally; I am creeping up 
> cautiously on things further east, though skipping the Middle East
> for the time being because in my experience it is No Wine and
> Let's See What We Can Do Weird With Yogurt.)

Oh, don't skip Moroccan. Bastilla is paradise. And all the sauces
(honey, garlic, lemon, etc) are so good that when the last bit of food
is gone, I go after every last bit of sauce with pieces of bread. In
recent years, we go to Babouch restaurant in Long Beach even tho' Long
Beach is a longer drive than Dar Maghreb or Moun of Tunis in
Hollywood, and I keep meaning to find out what is the red wine we
drink there, because I like it so much that I drink twice as much as
normal.

> Re Chinese: Chicken /feet/? Where are you /getting/ your Chinese
> food? 

At any decent dim sum restaurant. 

<< /Cat/?!!! Oh, /nooooooo/.  :'( I almost don't like you! (I once
caused quite a kerfluffle in a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong >>

Hong Kong but no dim sum????

<< by retrieving the two kittens the owner had caged out front,
confining them in a cat case under the table, and when asked what I
wanted for dinner if I didn't want the kittens, pointing to the
owner's son, who was disporting himself in a highchair alongside the
cash register. Instant hysteria from the cashier, who was also the
owner's wife. I think I requested Baby in Hot Orange Sauce. By that
time the kid was bawling his head off. Eventually we compromised on
chicken in something, and the cashier escaped, clutching her son. I
hope the brute learned a well deserved lesson, but I'm inclined to
doubt it.) >>

Wow!





From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jan 12 03:23:37 2009
From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:23:37 -0800
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Happy Birthday, Professor Severus Snape!
In-Reply-To: <gkdk91+bcpd@...>
References: <gkdk91+bcpd@...>
Message-ID: <496AB7B9.3080904@...>

Maybe they are! ;D I tried to find something that was potion-y and 
slightly sinister looking, in a format (GIF or JPEG) that I could work 
with. The flowers in question weren't identified. (I considered doing 
mushrooms instead, but it's hard to find a garland of mushrooms.)

Potionish purrs,

--Gatta

Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:
>
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com 
> <mailto:the_old_crowd%40yahoogroups.com>, Kat Macfarlane <katmac at ...> 
> wrote:
> >
> > A birthday card <http://www.katnmac.com/HappyBirthdaySnape.htm 
> <http://www.katnmac.com/HappyBirthdaySnape.htm>> for
> > our favorite Professor!
>
> Shouldn't the flowers be monkshood/wolfbane/aconite, and maybe belladonna?
>
>  



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jan 12 03:34:14 2009
From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:34:14 -0800
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Chicken Feet (was Holiday Greetings! (Getting
 More OT All the Time)
In-Reply-To: <gkdkut+bk34@...>
References: <gkdkut+bk34@...>
Message-ID: <496ABA36.9080704@...>

I don't eat chicken wings (or necks) much, not because I think they're 
gross but because they're hardly worth the trouble. You just gnaw and 
gnaw and gnaw, and all you end up with is a little skin and some odd 
assorted bones, and hardly enough meat to bother with. I'm sure chicken 
feet would come under the same heading. If they're in a really divine 
sauce, I suppose they would be worth sucking on, though that sounds like 
a rather deranged sort of pacifier.

Slightly puckered purrs,

--Gatta

Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:
>
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com 
> <mailto:the_old_crowd%40yahoogroups.com>, "Barry Arrowsmith" Kneasy wrote
> in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5217 
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5217>>:
> >
> > Chinese - all right, but I draw the line at chicken's feet.
>
> My friend Lee (that's Lee after her grandmother Leonora, who was named
> after General Robert E. Lee, not what you were thinking) always gets
> chicken feet when we have dim sum. If no little carts with chicken
> feet come around, she begs the servers to send some. I've never felt
> inclined to try them, but they're much less gross than the other foods
> you mentioned. I mean, I eat chicken wings...
>
>  



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From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jan 12 04:41:33 2009
From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:41:33 -0800
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: food
In-Reply-To: <gkdm9g+rrr8@...>
References: <gkdm9g+rrr8@...>
Message-ID: <496AC9FD.7070800@...>

Long Beach? Hollywood? Weren't you living in North Dakota the last time 
I looked?

I tell myself that I am saving Middle Eastern, like the Patrick O'Brian 
novels, for some future time when I really need moral support. Right now 
I'm happily working my way through the Far East. (Of course, I may have 
a divine Middle Eastern dinner and decide to jump the gun, as I did with 
the Father Brown mysteries.) Alas, I've had to give up on Indian, unless 
I cook it at home for myself. I love it, but restaurant Indian doesn't 
love me. I think it's the ghee. It goes through me like Drano. I 
generally go straight from the main course to the ladies' room. Very fast.

I /love/ dim sum. But you have to remember it took me awhile to Discover 
them. I grew up in Utah for my sins in a previous life, and back then, 
Chinese in Utah was (and for all I know still is) Chow Mein. With lots 
and lots of soy sauce, canned pineapple, and occasionally catsup. Utah 
is an alternate universe.

Wow indeed! The cousin I was visiting in Hong Kong, who grew up in 
Idaho, still approaches me with a certain degree of caution. Back in 
those days the young were keen on civil disobedience, and loved 
precipitating public confrontations. I could not, alas, take the kittens 
back to the States with me, and the cousin was soon to leave for home 
too, so they went to live with an English friend of his who was almost 
as potty about cats as I am. I'm sure they enjoyed a long, happy, and 
extremely well fed life.

Felicitous purrs,

--Gatta

Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:
>
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com 
> <mailto:the_old_crowd%40yahoogroups.com>, Kat Macfarlane wrote in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5219 
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/5219>>:
> >
> > has mainly been on Mexican and Italian cuisines, with successful
> > divagations into French and continental generally; I am creeping up
> > cautiously on things further east, though skipping the Middle East
> > for the time being because in my experience it is No Wine and
> > Let's See What We Can Do Weird With Yogurt.)
>
> Oh, don't skip Moroccan. Bastilla is paradise. And all the sauces
> (honey, garlic, lemon, etc) are so good that when the last bit of food
> is gone, I go after every last bit of sauce with pieces of bread. In
> recent years, we go to Babouch restaurant in Long Beach even tho' Long
> Beach is a longer drive than Dar Maghreb or Moun of Tunis in
> Hollywood, and I keep meaning to find out what is the red wine we
> drink there, because I like it so much that I drink twice as much as
> normal.
>
> > Re Chinese: Chicken /feet/? Where are you /getting/ your Chinese
> > food?
>
> At any decent dim sum restaurant.
>
> << /Cat/?!!! Oh, /nooooooo/. :'( I almost don't like you! (I once
> caused quite a kerfluffle in a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong >>
>
> Hong Kong but no dim sum????
>
> << by retrieving the two kittens the owner had caged out front,
> confining them in a cat case under the table, and when asked what I
> wanted for dinner if I didn't want the kittens, pointing to the
> owner's son, who was disporting himself in a highchair alongside the
> cash register. Instant hysteria from the cashier, who was also the
> owner's wife. I think I requested Baby in Hot Orange Sauce. By that
> time the kid was bawling his head off. Eventually we compromised on
> chicken in something, and the cashier escaped, clutching her son. I
> hope the brute learned a well deserved lesson, but I'm inclined to
> doubt it.) >>
>
> Wow!
>
>  



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