sissilolotte asked: your favorite food ?

Tornados.

The Tangential Guide to Entertaining: Light vs. Heavy Appetizers

Invitations often refer to “light” or “heavy” appetizers. But what, exactly, does that mean? There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but here are a few examples to give you an idea of what people might expect if you promise “light” or “heavy” hors d’oeuvres.

Light Appetizer: A few handfuls of popcorn consumed on the couch before a “movie watching” party (for two, or more) turns into a sex party.

Heavy Appetizer: The frozen pizza you put in the oven later and scarf down in taco shape because you’ve already had sex, so who cares how gross you look.

Light Appetizer: Bruschetta at a wedding reception.

Heavy Appetizer: Teriyaki chicken at a wedding reception after the best man broke his neck in a church-aisle stunt while trying to replicate a wedding procession he saw on YouTube.

Light Appetizer: Biscuits served alongside tea with your grandmother while you chat about family news.

Heavy Appetizer: Butter-soaked crumpets served alongside tea with your grandmother while she reveals to you that she’s always felt like a man trapped inside a woman’s body, and she intends to spend your inheritance on a sex-change operation.

Light Appetizer: A fruit and cheese plate set out before a sales meeting.

Heavy Appetizer: “PUT THAT COFFEE DOWN. Coffee’s for closers only. You think I’m fucking with you?”

Light Appetizer: Cookies and juice in the parish center after Mass.

Heavy Appetizer: Glazed doughnuts in the community center after a secular humanist meeting where the topic of discussion was preparing for death in a world where there is no God.

- Jay Gabler

(Source: thetangential.com)

Passive-Aggressive Meals with Mom: The Most Authentic Family Cooking Show

Welcome to Passive-Aggressive Meals with Mom. You’re here on time, and that’s great. A lot of people think that food just puts itself on the table and stays warm forever, so they can just show up whenever they want. That’s fine. If that works for them, that’s just fine. I’m sure they’ll do just wonderfully in life.

Today we’re making applesauce-butterscotch cookies. They’re actually pretty delicious, which I happen to know because I actually went to Aunt Jeannie’s cookie bake last year. Other people had other priorities, but I went, and I e-mailed her and asked for the recipe, because it’s personally important to me to have delicious food to serve my family whenever they happen to decide to grace this kitchen with their presence. I’m such a lucky woman.

Now, I’ve asked Bob to begin greasing the pans. I see he’s using Crisco and a paper towel, which is one way to do it. That’s a choice. That will work. We have a can of vegetable oil spray right there in the cupboard, Bob, just so you know. For future reference, in case you didn’t want to waste any more paper towels like that.

Okay. I see Traci’s already put the applesauce into the bowl, even though the recipe said to wait on that until she’d already mixed the eggs and the shortening. Fine. She’s a teenager now, and she needs to do things her way. I understand that, because I was a teenager once. I always followed the recipe, but then, that was a different time. We didn’t have those…yep, there goes her phone again. Do you want to go answer that text, Traci? Because we can totally all wait for you. I’m sure Beth has something very important to say to you, and I wouldn’t want to keep you from it. You’ll check it later? You’re sure? Okay, as long as you’re sure.

I’ve mixed the dry ingredients over here. We’re a little short on the butterscotch chips, because Lindsay put about half the bag on her bowl of ice cream this morning. I guess she just didn’t think we’d need that many chips for our recipe. Totally understandable mistake. She also must think I have all the time in the world to go refill her lactose pill supply before she goes off to college. Obviously that’s true…I mean, it’s not like I have a cooking show to host or anything! Ha. Ha. Ha.

The recipe calls for the oven to be set at 325 degrees, but our dial reads 500 degrees because it’s set at the wrong angle. I’m sure Bob will get around to fixing that just as soon as the Olympics are over…oh, wait. They already are. But that’s fine. I know I ask him to do so much around here, like greasing those two pans.

Traci’s now spooning the batter onto the pans. Those cookies are a lot closer than I’d put them together on the pan, but let’s just see how this turns out. Traci knows a lot about cooking, since she’s in the kitchen helping me here every night. Ha ha, that was a joke. But seriously, she’s very creative. It’s too bad her teachers don’t appreciate how creative she gets with her school deadlines. It’s just really too bad.

Well, it looks like it’s already time for the commercial break! My, my, how time does fly when you’re having family fun together. Stick around, and we’ll just see how these cookies turned out. Yep. We will just. See.

- Jay Gabler, with thanks to Beth Decker, Lindsay DeLand, Dana Hanson, Jeannie Rogalsky, and Traci Zellman

(Source: thetangential.com)

The Inevitable Appeal of Bud Light Platinum

It was last month when we first saw a billboard. “What’s Bud Light Platinum?” asked one of my friends.

I guessed correctly. “Bud Light with more alcohol.”

Yep, now the world has what it may or may not have known it wanted: a light beer with more alcohol than a Smirnoff Ice. It’s “triple filtered for that top shelf taste,” proclaims Bud Light Platinum’s website, though the word “rail” rather than “shelf” comes to mind when you drink it. By depleting the brew’s beer-ish qualities (via making it “Light”) while enhancing its alcohol content (via making it “Platinum”), Bud has created the world’s most conceptual “beer.” Essentially, it’s a cheap vodka tonic.

But hey, vodka tonic—gets the job done! I’ve talked with several different people about the new brew, and it’s appreciated best by the mainstream bros and bro-ettes who want to hit it hard and get a buzz while maintaining the pretension of unpretension—that they’re drinking “beer” rather than a mixed drink or girly drink. My sister, on the other hand, was skeptical: she likes Bud Light precisely because she can drink it at after-work happy hour without ending up under the table and skipping the gym.

The brand’s secret weapon, it turns out, is its solid-blue bottle, which everyone I talked to loved. Drinking-vessel gimmicks are to mainstream beers as screen prints are to microbrews: totally part of the appeal, even though everyone says they just like the taste. Recently breweries have presented us with the vented beer can (Food & Beverage Packaging blog: “The point of the channel is to allow drinkers to swig more easily”) and the laughable “vortex” bottle; given that this is a Platinum brew, Bud supplies no provision for shooting, typhooning, or whirling the beer into your mouth. You just hang out feeling like a baller with your solid blue bottle, sipping it like The Game sips Hennessey.

Here’s another guess I’ll hazard: Bud Light Platinum is going to be the beer fad of the summer. Better scrub your bathroom floor, because someone’s going to be lying on it before Labor Day.

- Jay Gabler

(Source: thetangential.com)