Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Ice Cream Badge #3: Dips on North Main Street in Concord, NH, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Today (July 23, 2013) Frank and I played hookey from both our to-do lists to continue on with our plan of 40 ice cream cones (in honor of our 40th anniversary.)

Once the hookey plan had been formulated, we completely did it in spades. We went out to lunch at the Weathervane over near Concord. We went to a very enjoyable movie (20 Feet From Fame) at an art house theater in Concord. We bought some health foods at the Concord Co-Op in Concord. And finally, we made our way to a new destination called Dips, where you can make your own frozen yogurt dessert from Stonyfield Yogurt and NH dairy products plus really awesome toppings including my favorite, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

I tried three different flavors of frozen yogurt: Original Tart, Salted Caramel, and (sinfully sweet) Cotton Candy. All were super, but I couldn’t finish my cup.

If you are wondering what became of #2, Frank and I had breakfast together last week in Great Neck on Long Island (NY) and our breakfast was (yum) frozen yogurt with granola topping. Sadly, neither of us now remembers the name of the restaurant, but we definitely will go back there.

If you are still reading this .. please, go buy yourself your own ice cream cone!

Christmas cookies about to happen, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Not long ago this rolled-out cookie dough was a blank slate waiting for Christmas inspiration. Soon it became a close-packed array of differing choices — then actual cooked cookies, frosted ones, and small good feelings in tummies.

Not a bad metaphor of the year 2012, or perhaps of 2013, coming so soon.

Cake for a whirlwind wedding?, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Not far from our Copenhagen hotel is an open-air market, where some of the stalls have evolved into covered small food shops, including a bakery, Sweet Valentine.

I love the artfully artless thrown-on looking frosting of this wedding cake. Of course, such insouciantly slapdash visual effects can only be created by someone very skillful. Similarly, the tousled bedhead hair that looks amazing on young Julia Roberts probably took her hairdresser an hour to create — nor would the same look, even crafted by the same hairdresser, look expensively elegant if I were to go downtown wearing it.

"Hairy" nematode (Stilbonematinae), Bocas del Toro, Panama

Originally uploaded by artour_a

Why does peppermint-stick ice cream have to taste so darn good, when everyone knows that calorie restriction is Better? Or at least, calorie restriction makes nematodes live a long time, which surely must mean it could turn every one of us into a sleek superfit suntanned sexy sextillionagenarian.

Now consider this shortcut to glory: a diet of nematodes. Calorie-restricted nematodes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner — with some crunchy nematode cysts for between-meals snacking.

If my nematode diet does not motivate you to eat a lot less than you do, I will be very very very surprised.

Oops, I cut off Van Gogh’s ears!

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Both of them!

Such is the fate of the amateur photographer when confronted by Vincent Van Gogh re-conceived as a giant bearded bunny.

This Van Gogh self portrait reimagined is on the wall at The Duck and Bunny on Wickenden Street in Providence, RI. If you like crepes, cupcakes, champagne, iced tea, and great art with new duck-bunny components, I thoroughly recommend this good new restaurant.

Cupcake nouveau

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

The economics of the cupcake revolution are visible here. Not one, not two, but four or five levels of promise that the cupcake is fancy and loaded with sugar and fat in plentiful abundance.

But this is not a traditional bakery product. The skilled cook who has learned to apply smooth buttercream strokes and ornate decoration is no longer needed. Much lower-waged workers can be hired to apply the poured fondant icing, fat smear of frosting whose imperfections are well concealed by sprinkles, and topped with a candy easily mass-produced.

Perhaps the most cynical thing on the entire cupcake is the retro funk message of its peace symbol. “This cupcake was created by cool people who are just like you!”

One of today’s most emailed New York Times articles urges us all to approach Thanksgiving dinner like CEOs.

I’m sorry… like what???

Do you mean that as CEO of Thanksgiving dinner …

• … I should blow my full budget on superbowl ads for my cooking — and beg for a taxpayer bailout to buy me some turkey?
• …I should take a holiday bonus of half the gravy and cranberry sauce?
• …I should tell people I long ago asked to share dinner with us that times are tough so I have had to “downsize” them?

No thanks, New York Times, but how about telling those high-flying CEOs to be more like … us moms out here making Thanksgivings? Because when tomorrow night comes, we will have given a whole lot of people a whole lot of what they really, really wanted. Can you say the same?

Really, honest to Pete, can you believe that the deep-thinking economists and high-flying MBAs — who just landed our planet in its current pickle — truly imagine that they have good advice for others?

On a kindlier note, here’s a link to one of my alltime favorite posts ever including the national Thanksgiving prayer: “O Lord, you know I don’t know how to cook this ugly bird…”

Smoked salmon with horseradish-flavored whipped cream

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Mmmm graphics!

The FoodPairing website illustrates food inspiration of two different kinds:

1. Food combination: (quoting the site) “A list was made of 250 food products each with their major flavour components. By comparing the flavour of each food product eg strawberry with the rest of the food and their flavours, new combinations like strawberry with peas can be made.”
2. Food swapping:(quoting the site) “A food product has a specific flavour because of a combination of different flavours. Like basil taste like basil because of the combination of linalool, estragol, …. So if I want to reconstruct the basil flavour without using any basil, you have to search for a combination of other food products where one contains linalool (like coriander), one contains estragol (like tarragon),… So I can reconstruct basil by combining coriander, tarragon, cloves, laurel. The way to use it is to take from each branch of the plot one product and make a combination of those food products.”

Thanks to the always-inspiring Tingilinde for the link!

Ljungdalen0579

Originally uploaded by skrubtudse

Turnips. Parsnips. Carrots. Maybe an onion.

When we get home from yet-another-trip, these are the foods that will still be potentially dinner.

The green beans will be black and the spinach leaves will be liquid but the root vegetables will be waiting and looking delicious.

Just the way root vegetables waited in the cellars of my French and Irish peasant ancestors as the long days of winter slowly wore away.

If those ancestors had only had Knorr’s veggie bouillon cubes, plus ICA’s fullkorn rice and canned fish balls in bouillon, they could have had the same winter soup that we ate last night.

Frank says he doubts the Neanderthals had canned fish balls but he’d have to admit that, after way too many meals in too many restaurants including (scary thought, I know) airport restaurants, the winter soup I made last night was simply perfect.

Beautiful soup

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

The beautiful red beet soup with mushroom dumplings is part of traditional Christmas in this part of Poland. In the background, you can see a plate of varied sausages, including kielbasa, which Frank’s Polish grandmother used to make.

Can you see that steam is rising from the hot soup? Mmm, making me hungry!

After the school festivities, Babice’s local hotel and restaurant treated us all to a Christmas dinner augmented by folk songs.

The hotel, whose food is delicious, is Hotel Plowiecki. The "l" in Płowiecki is a special Polish letter that has a slash through it; my keyboard won’t make it but I copied it off the Internet.