First Annual Thanksgiving Cook-Off Throw Down!

Thanksgiving is stressful enough as it is but must magazines feature impossibly complicated recipes accompanied by gorgeous pictures? Take Gourmet Magazine's "Pumpkin Stuffed with Vegetable Stew." Beautiful! Sounds like a great alternative to turkey for the tofu huggers! But all it takes is two recipes, 33 ingredients, seven hours preparation (by the recipe's own estimate), a food stylist and an advance on your Home Equity Line of Credit at Whole Foods. Fennel bulb with fronds? One pound seitan? SEITAN? Eight black peppercorns? What if you only have seven? Will your vegetarian friends be forever angry at you for short-corning them and ruining Thanksgiving?

My version uses 13 ingredients, 90 minutes, a six pack and a re-purposed Halloween pumpkin. The only food styling done here involved placing the finished product on a white plate. Gourmet Magazine you are going DOWN!

Herb of DC’s “Drunken Roasted Fall Vegetables Pumpkin O’ Plenty Stew.”

Ingredients

One bag of stewing vegetables from Giant (parsnips, leeks, carrots, turnip, celery, various limp herbs) (LIMP HERBS!!!)
2 cartons of reduced sodium chicken stock (like a little chicken juice is going to kill a vegetarian)
1 medium onion
2 cloves of garlic
Salt and Pepper
Olive oil
Half and Half
Pam cooking spray
Medium sized pumpkin (somewhere between a basketball and soccer ball)
6 pack of beer

Pumpkin

Open first beer. Carve off top (of pumpkin not of beer) and place aside. Scoop out the pumpkin entrails and toss into trash. You could clean off the seeds and toast them but isn’t it easier to buy them at the Whitelaw market (undergoing a long needed renovation by the way)? Spread some olive oil around the inside of the pumpkin along with some salt and pepper. Use Pam for those hard to get at pumpkin g-spots. Giggle. Place top on pumpkin and spray with Pam for a nice orangey shiny glow like Jessica Simpson. Giggle again. Place in roaster pan in oven at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Open beer #2. Call ex and ask when you can drop the dog’s ashes off.

Soup

While pumpkin is cooking open beer #3. Cut parsnips, carrots, turnips into finger sized pieces. Toss with olive oil and place on cookie sheet. Oh wait, Pam that cookie sheet first. Pull out the pumpkin when done, raise temp to 400 degrees and roast veggies for 20 minutes. Put Amy Winestock on the CD player. Hold on. You don’t have a working CD player. You know who took it along with your youthful innocence and hairline. Put on iPod headphones. Should have recharged the battery. "Hardball" it instead while cooking. Yes Chris I can HEAR you.

Meanwhile put the “vegetarian stock” in large pot and heat to boiling. Reduce to simmer. Chop limp herbs (LIMP HERBS!!!) and stir into stock.

Time for beer #4. Wow. Five freakin' years at that humanitarian non-profit and no promotion. Chop onions, clove of garlic, leeks and celery into little pieces. Really little pieces. Yeah I'm sure you are concerned about my Personal Development. What about my Personal Financial Development? Don’t forget to Pam that cutting board first. It keeps it from retaining the oniony/garlicy flavors. Five years? Really just Pam everything including the dogs and your updated resume. Pam a skillet and brown the veggies. Dump into soup pot and add roasted vegetables.

Allow soup to cook another 20 minutes. Add Half and Half (don’t ask me for exact measurements—I’m in the bag by now). Allow soup to cool and place in blender that your ex’s evil mother gave you the year you gave her a bottle of Shalimar. How could you possibly know she would develop a violent allergic reaction to it? What was her name again? Oh yeah, Pam. Well they do wonders with laser skin treatments these days. It could be worse. Think of the think of gifts her child gave you. Like Identity Theft.

Pop open beer #5. God I hate Caller ID. It really takes the fun out of drunk dialing. Is it *68 or *69 to hide my number? Remove soup from heat and let cool. In small batches run through that cheap ass blender before it breaks down. Return to soup pot and heat. Carefully pour into pumpkin and return pumpkin to oven at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.

Pull out pumpkin and take pictures. Ladle soup into Pammed bowls and garnish with any remaining limp herbs (LIMP HERBS!!! God I never get tired of that!!!!). Take pictures. Yikes! Get the beer cans out of the picture. Retake pictures. Call sister and discuss the shortcomings of various family members

Drink beer #6. Sniff the remaining Pam. Make a list of everything you are thankful for like easy access to another six pack. And my complete and total victory over Gourmet Magazine.

Go Mama Go!

R.I.P. Noi Chudnoff Mayor of 14th St

I Heart Mayor McSpeedy!

Mayor McSpeedy to our rescue! Wherever you look Mayor Adrian Fenty is there and in a hurry whether it is fixing DC schools, running the Marine Corp Marathon or mentoring young leather entrepreneurs at the annual Dupont High Heel Halloween race.

It is an old saying that people get the government that they deserve. In this case I think DC finally got it right.

You go Mayor McSpeedy!

Update: Nov. 8, 2007

Uh-oh! DC Tax Office employees have stolen over $16 million dollars...

Still No Candy!

November 2, 2007

Thanks for the love today DCBLOGS! And welcome visitors!

On the Second Day of Halloween...

Nov 1, 2007 6:15 PM
13th St NW Washington, DC

I'm sitting down to eat and the doorbell rings. Opening the door I see two young girls dressed neatly in jeans and sweatshirts.

"Do you have any Halloween candy left?"

"No" I said rather stunned.

"Okay" they said and they started down the sidewalk. No apology for disturbing my dinner. No explanation why they were a day late and a costume short.

Finally realizing that DC uncostumed candyscams had reached new heights in chutzpah I yelled "And I won't have any tomorrow night either!"

Maryland SUV Drivers --You Know Who You Are!

MARYLAND: A THINKING MAN'S DELAWARE

After almost getting hit twice Friday October 26 5:00-5:07 PM 13th and U and 14th and U NW, Washington DC

Dearest State of Maryland SUV drivers:

1. I can understand your eagerness each day to leave as quickly as possible the squalid commuter tax-less confines of DC! I mean DC isn't even a STATE yet here is where the job is located that allows you to afford the lease on your big ass Chesapeake Bay polluting vehicle so SLOW THE F**K DOWN when leaving here until you see the Gladys Noon Spellman Parkway sign!!!! Repeat: I said SLOW DOWN and don't be so babe ruthless behind the wheel! Stop and smell the Black-Eyed Susans!!!

2. When attempting to turn left at a busy DC intersection, one waits until oncoming traffic has cleared before safely turning left. You do not spring forward like a filly in heat at Preakness the second the light turns green daring those in wimpy paid-for hybrids to hit your rolling over-sized Star Spangled Crab Trap while you are illegally turning left.

3. When pedestrians are in the crosswalk, you do not drive your Panhandle Wal Mart-on-Wheels into the crosswalk weaving your merry Old Bay between DC weenies who are wussy enough to walk or use Metro.

4. I am sure that parallel parking your big carbon footprint Yeti is challenging and you have have few opportunities to practice in your souless suburban Eastern Bore Maryland apartment complex. However, your solution of parking next to a perfectly good parking spot while blocking a lane of traffic AND said parking spot is not only illegal but stupid and a Terrapin idea, hon! At least make an attempt to to parallel park that Ocean Pity Monster and if you Oriole a few bumpers of nearby parked DC cars, why that's their fault by not being a Demolition Derby visionary like you!

5. Putting your blinker signals on while doing the old "College Park Dine and Dash" into Starbucks when parked in a "No Parking from 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM" traffic lane does not make your Old Line trashy double-wide skipjack invisible or allow other cars to magically pass through it.

6. Get off your cellphone! It is against DC law and despite your clear disdain for anything or anyone DC, this law does apply to you even though you live in the great Free State of Maryland! I know! And DC isn't even a STATE! And you OWN lease a big expensive SUV!!! I realize your commute is edgar allan poe boring and you really need to update your big haired girlfriend on everything your raven b*tch boss said to you at the copier today but you are the one who chose to make a daily 60 minute steaming calvert contribution to global warming. Some day your Prince will come and his name will NOT be Georges! So channel your inner harbor, own it and GET the HELL off the phone, pay attention and drive a little more carefully so I don't have to personally...


Love,

Herb of DC

Roll Out the Brown Carpet for "Dirty Jobs"

Discovery Channel's hit "Dirty Jobs", the show that put
Smell-O-Vision back into TV, celebrates its 150th episode with a special filth-vaganza Tuesday, October 23 from 9-11 PM. Dirty star Mike Rowe, cable television's favorite Prince of Poo will be joined by ten of the his most memorable co-workers (as determined by an online vote) and some of their biggest fans for a two hour salute to the hardworking men and women who quietly overcome fear, danger, smells and overall yuckiness to accomplish their daily tasks while the rest of us kick back at our cushy desk jobs and read blogs.

All fans of the show should watch since Mike will take the stage for a “Dirty Ditty” concert performance that highlights the former Baltimore opera singer’s talent!