I haven't seen one of these commercials in a while, but this morning while I was getting ready for work the TV shoved Tater Mitts in my face.



That's right, ladies and gentlemen: nubbly gloves are your solution to all your potato-peeling problems. Just scrub the spud under running water and you'll have the skin off in only eight seconds, leaving all the healthy vitamins and minerals with no waste!

Wait a second. Hasn't it been scientifically stated that most of the vitamins in a potato are in its skin? Well, no, that's an old wives' tale. But leaving the skin on helps the potato retain its nutritive value rather than leaching it all out into the cooking water. (At least, according to The Straight Dope.) Besides, the skins just plain taste good. Why take them off?

All right, there are some tubers that need peeling, I'll admit. Sweet potatoes and russets have thick skins that, though edible, are pretty nasty. Still, if you can't use a vegetable peeler to strip one of those in 20 seconds, maybe you need to stick to takeout. And I'm pretty sure most of us can spare that extra minute in our prep schedules. We aren't Rachael Ray, after all, with our huge bobble heads and Joker grins forcibly wedged into a 30-minute time slot.

So maybe you don't have a vegetable peeler. Should you look into buying the Tater Mitts? Well, still no. These things retail for $19.95, plus $7 shipping. If I spent $26 on a vegetable peeler, at least I'd better be able to practice my Spanish with her. You can get a good one at Target for five bucks. If you really want to use the blade-free method, though, a three-pack of green scrubby pads is 75 cents.

"But wait!" you're saying. "If I do that, I won't get the bonus vegetable slicer! It makes perfect fries in a snap!" Well, here's another question: how often are you making fries for people who are picky about their being precisely symmetrical that you need this thing? And as a follow-up, does your pediatrician already have the "obese" stamp inked?

Wear:

• A flannel shirt three sizes too big, untucked from your baggy jeans, and Timbalands.
• A gold chain with an oversized pendant featuring an S with action lines coming out of it.
• A green corduroy cap perched on the very top of your head, bill pointing to the sky, cocked 30 degrees starboard.
• And underneath it all, a black T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Saskatchewan Ruff Ryders."

Dear guy peeing in the stall,

This extra level of seclusion is totally unnecessary. Yes, there are only two urinals, and a mere half-partition between them. But rest assured I'm not planning to check out your junk. And if you're worried about me catching you examining the merchandise, don't be -- for one, I'm totally secure in my masculinity, and secondly, I'm certainly not going to leave the bathroom bragging about some dude eyeing my piece.

Furthermore, if you do need more pee-pee privacy, why did you leave the door hanging open?

Just curious,
Rick

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Dear guy who doesn't flush the urinal,

You're really not saving that much water, man. It's worth the pint to not advertise to the world that you had asparagus for lunch.

Thanks,
Rick

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Dear guy who just got done dropping the kids off at the pool and is now giving his hands a cursory two-second rinse under cold water before drying them on his pants and leaving,

Ew.

Sincerely,
Rick

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Dear Rachael Ray,

When you pee standing up, do people look at you weird?

Love,
Rick

Labels: open letters

I'm driving home from work, lights on for safety in the gloomy weather, sporadically flicking the windshield wipers to clear occasional bursts of rain, as the radio weatherman steadfastly insists that it's a beautiful sunny day with clear skies all across Central Florida.

Windows? We don't need no stinkin' windows!

Ace of Cakes is a fun show, and normally I have no quarrel with it. But a couple weeks ago, I watched Geof recount his anger when a customer cut into his Jeep cake right in front of him.

I have three letters for you, Geof, and I probably don't have to type them out.

If you're upset that someone cut into a cake you spent hours building, then you're in the wrong business. A cake is supposed to be cut. It may look nice, but first and foremost it's food. Hence the show airing on the Food Network. If nobody messes up the cake, how are they supposed to eat it?

I suppose that's why Geof has lately taken to making so much of his "cakes" out of non-edible materials. What the hell is that, anyway? It's Ace of Cakes, not Ace of Styrofoam and Wooden Dowels. Sure, the Food Network is "way more than cooking" (which is a whole other rant), but isn't it still supposed to be about food?

Geof is a prima donna, anyway. In another episode, he intentionally left Duff hanging on camera, with the statement "High five? I don't play that jive." If he worked for me, he'd be so fired on camera. And what's with the name? If you're gonna spell it like that, spell it right. You're missing an F at the end, bunghole.

And once I cross the line into name-calling, that's where you can tell I didn't really think this post all the way through.

Given:

1. I want to get better at photography, and the only way to do that is to take more pictures.
   
2. Getting my food online is good practice for standardizing my recipes, not just in case I finally take a cookbook to a vanity press but so my kids don't love something one time I make it and hate it the next.

Does it not follow that when a Web site comes around that offers me an opportunity for both, I should leap aboard?

So I jumped on the bandwagon of Open Source Food recently. Not only is it sexy and stylish and Web 2.0, it's a functional site for food whores to browse, learn, and share. I've only got two really basic recipes up right now, but the widget in my sidebar will alert you when I post new ones.

Of course, I'm never going to improve my photography by stealing images off the Web. Sorry, kid in a sombrero, but take solace in the knowledge that you're but a placeholder until the next time I make tacos.

Driving home from Panama City, we're passed by a car decked out in "just married" regalia -- crepe paper streamers, shoes tied to the back bumper, painted windows.

Written across the rear windshield: "4 Ever or Bust."

I drive a lot. Not because I particularly like driving -- it just seems to work out that way. Living in spread-out locales isn't even conducive to mass transit, let alone a quick walk to the corner store. So I drive a lot.

And yet, I'd never hit that milestone of all milestones on the odometer, the one where that sixth digit to the left rolls over from zero. Sure, I drove my last car until it died at 116,000, but my stepfather hit the actual mark keeping ol' Dammit warmed up for me while I was living in Japan. (My first girlfriend made me name the car, and "Dammit" was what I called it most often when trying to get up to freeway speeds before the next offramp. The new one I guess I call "Thank God," short for "Thank God this car actually has acceleration, especially living as I do in Florida where retired mobsters apparently put cement shoes on the gas instead of in the river.")



But this weekend, it happened. I registered the final ordinal tick, rolled up five goose eggs preceded by that slender fellow. And it felt good. I wanted to hop out of the car, christen it with a bottle of champagne and spray the rest over my head while dancing frenziedly.

But unfortunately, we were in the middle of a road trip. So I had to settle for a somewhat more sedate celebration.



It's just as well. Thank God is too young to drink.

Dear Pimp My Ride,

A college kid does not need more TVs in his car than I have in my house. When you're taking seats out to put more TVs in, you're slightly past the stage of missing the point.

Sincerely,
Rick

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Dear lady behind me in line at Dunkin' Donuts,

The sign says "Please wait here for next available cashier," not "please climb up the ass of the guy at the counter." They're gonna get to you even if you aren't standing on my feet while I wait for my coffee.

Your friend,
Rick

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Dear ESPN,

It's tourney time, and I appreciate that you have a lot to do on SportsCenter covering all the basketball games. But seeing as there are also some women's games going on, do you think you could put them in the ticker? I have a feeling more people than just me care about those -- and let's face it, Utah-BYU women is way more exciting than Morgan State-South Carolina State men.

Also, would it kill ya to port over the scoreboard functionality to the personalized Web pages? Why can't I see my Lobos or Knights scores unless I dig through your site? You have it -- implement it.

Thanks,
Rick

---

Dear Rachael Ray,

Remember when you didn't shatter my eardrums when you spoke?

Love,
Rick

Labels: open letters

I don't normally click on ads, but when this one appeared over at Dooce, I was sufficiently intrigued to check it out. Basically, Starbucks hired some design guru to turn its ordering strings into T-shirt art, and at this site you can personalize it to your taste.

Oh, no. Having a T-shirt just legitimizes these foul jargon beasts. The longer a string you have to memorize just to order your morning cup, the more space is being taken up in your brain, space that could be used for important things like remembering where you parked, or that it's not OK to park inside the building. They don't even use words you already knew, let alone words that make any kind of sense. Take sizes, for example. Small is "tall" (which means "large"), medium is "grande" (which means "large" in Spanish), and large is "venti" (which is Italian for "twenty," short for "I can't believe I've spent twenty minutes standing here while you explain the sizes").

Plus it makes the lines longer. The person in front of me always asks for some low-fat decaf double-shot room for cream extra syrup easy foam hi-def widescreen panoramic active-matrix multiphonic bullshit. Here's the problem: If I'm standing in line at Starbucks, it probably means I need coffee. This is not the time to make me wait while they fight over who has to mix your frou-frou status beverage, unless you would like me to whip out the garrote and leave room for your head.

Even my normal order looks way too fluffy when I put it through the Starbucks Jargon Generator. I fight the power every time I order; why can't my shirt do the same?



Damn the man, Warren.

Oh, and I'll be back for a refill in ten minutes.

Sed looks up from her quesadilla, which has (as per usual) been liberally dipped in Sadie's salsa, with a more-than-slightly nauseated look on her face. "You know," she says to me, "I think I'm just going to have to learn to deal with the fact that as of week 32, I can't handle spicy food."

Until this moment, I had never even considered the possibility that this baby might not be mine.

So apparently the Oscars were this week. I still don't know what won best picture, and frankly I don't really care. I don't even know what five movies were nominated this year. I probably don't even know what they're about. The sun has long set on me being a film fan, to the degree that I may be the only user of LiveJournal to not have "movies" listed in his interests.

But that's not why I don't care about the Oscars. The whole concept of an industry giving itself an award seems a bit masturbatory for my tastes. Sure, as the people who make the films they're the ones who should know what constitutes a good one, but the entire gala has spiraled out of control. This year a ten-year-old had to borrow a $10,000 necklace just to go to the show.

And then it's overflowed into the rest of the entertainment industry. They hand out stupid statues for TV shows, plays, re-cut and remixed samples songs, even music videos (which, if you're lucky, you might catch between commercial blocks at three in the morning). VH1 has three awards shows all by itself.

Perhaps the most unnecessary so far is the Food Network Awards. Yes. This channel has a stable of like ten talents, and they're gonna give them awards. Honestly, what's the point? You're already paying them and promoting them in your commercials; do they also need a useless piece of plastic?

So to save us all some time, I thought I'd go ahead and give out the Food Network Awards, Moyamedia Edition.

• Best Use of Butter as a Hair Fixative: Paula Deen.
  
• Loudest: Rachael Ray. (Runner-up: Emeril Lagasse.)
  
• Best Dessert Subterfuge: Duff Goldman. His cakes look fantastic, but nobody ever says what they taste like.
  
• The "Token" Award (Given for Extraordinary Achievement in the Field of Being a Minority): Dan Smith and Steve McDonough, homosexuals. (Runner-up: the new Chairman, "Japanese." Dude's from Hawaii, guys, come on. But I guess he's the closest thing Food Network's got to a racial minority anymore. Even Roker got the shaft this season.)
  
• Most Tenacious: Sara Moulton. Seriously, homegirl's hanging on to her time slot by her fingernails.
  
• Most in Need of a Speech Coach: Tyler Florence. (Runner-up: Dave Lieberman.)
  
• Best Mountain Dew Commercial: Guy Fieri.
  
• Best Knockers: Giada DiLaurentiis. (Runner-up: Nigella Lawson. Sandra Lee would have also been up there if anyone believed hers were real. I mean, come on. Three years ago they were hanging around her elbows.)
  
• Most Overshadowed by Amateurs: Bobby Flay.
  
• Highest: Michael Chiarello. (Runner-up: Ina Garten.)
  
• Holy Crap, Someone Still Cooks on This Channel Award: Mario Batali.
  
• Most Severely Frightening Makeover: Tie, Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee.
  
• Best Host Evar Oh Em Gee: Alton Brown. Not for that Iron Chef America shit, though.