Ads in comments

Occasionally we get advertisements posted in comments as if they are legitimate comments and it's a combination of heartbreaking and satisfying to make them disappear as if they never existed. Heartbreaking because they start out so complimentary, written as if they read the post, "This is excellent, so glad I found this place," then a link to some goofy-ass hedge trimming company in Taiwan. Or something.

Grrrr. What a way to run a business. What a way to use modern media for free advertisement. Who do these people think they are, Trump?

I can make the advertisements go away, and I can click a little box and make them go away as if they never appeared. So you never see "deleted by administrator" and the comment is never counted. You can do that too when you delete your own comment.

Having said all that I dropped a comment at the Treehouse in the manner of an advertisement.

But there are no advertisements on the linked site, no revenue stream, no business, so it's not really the same thing.

The food-related site gets few visitors. It's a vanity project actually, just a hobby, a place to learn photography and record patterns of diet and the food-related things that were done, a place where I can link to show things talked about elsewhere. Statistics are very low. Except sometimes they spike.

Day before yesterday the Treehouse asked readers for Christmas recipes. I have nothing like that in my background. My family treated Christmas dinner the same as Thanksgiving. The two holiday meals were identical. Both big deals, both formal, both massive pains in the butt for my mother.
Eventually, she burned out.

Later, in my own life apart from my family those two things fizzled out. They became dinners elsewhere, restaurants, pot lucks, other people's families. That's why the gift turkey this year along with a box of accompanying items chosen to replicate such a feast meal was so stunning. Even though I wouldn't have bought a single one of the items in the box, including the turkey, if I had chosen to make such a meal. But I purposefully chose not to do anything like that. So I didn't buy anything. BANG! There it all is, in alternate forms. Still, there is nothing unique to Christmas that I can think of.

Oh! I just remembered those bland cookies. Sets of cookie cutters that rely on colored sugar decorations. The things my dad dipped into his coffee.

Eh. Those were basically an activity for kids who don't know the cookies really aren't that great.

We reach the point where we draw tits and penises on them and game over. No more Christmas cookies. The innocence of them, the Norman Rockwell purity of them is broken. And they're hardly a special recipe. Sometimes they're used for tree decorations but that invites rodents.

I wrote in comments at the Treehouse, "I have a Christmas recipe for disaster." With a link to a post on chestnuts.

I never had roasted chestnuts and I wondered what the romantic song is about. So I bought a bag of chestnuts and put them in the oven. I did not know their shells must be punctured to let out air inside that expands as they heat.

Very late at night, possibly early morning, the chestnuts exploded in the oven, but not all at once like popcorn, each one exploded a minute or so apart. They sounded like gunshots. Very loud. Turning off the oven didn't help they continued to build up pressure and explode and I couldn't open the oven door and risk them exploding on me. I had to wait it out. I was afraid a neighbor would call the cops. Finally they stopped exploding. ALL of them exploded. Chestnut guts stuck to all sides of  of the oven. It was difficult cleaning up the mess the next day.

My housekeeper thought it was hilarious. She told her young teenage son who then wanted to buy a bag of chestnuts and explode them their own oven.

Want to see something funny?

Then yesterday I wondered if anyone over at the Treehouse bothered to follow the link to my post. It's not a holiday recipe. I suspect zero interest. Is it possible anyone cared to see the disaster?

Apparently some did care to see the disaster. 

The photographs aren't very good. I can do better now. If you care to see the oven disaster, here. 

Water chestnuts are different.

Water chestnuts are used in some Asian dishes. They're an Asian thing.

Fresh water chestnuts are to tinned water chestnuts what fresh pineapple is to tinned pineapple. In both cases fresh is 10x better. In both cases peeling them is a major pain in the butt and the waste produced is equal to the amount of inner stuff that you're after. It's discouraging. But worth it. Fresh water chestnuts are crispy like a fresh apple, but more dense, like a jicama. They are brighter, more alive. Tinned water chestnuts are dead, flat, and bland by comparison. I use water chestnuts for their refreshing crunch in rumaki and fresh water chestnuts make all the difference in the world. I haven't made rumaki in ten years because they're so much mess and trouble. I'm amazed I had the energy back then to bother. Fresh water chestnuts if you want to compare them. I should have shown how small they are after they're peeled. They often break when you slice them. And you only get three slices each, sometimes four. 

Deena wanted these for one of her parties. I told her fine, but send me some help. Eventually ten or so people showed up. The place was packed with helpers. Here is one who made the rumaki, shown making something else. It looks like little sandwiches on homemade sourdough bread, Philadelphia cream cheese, cucumber and lox. But I'm not sure. She cheerfully followed my instructions to the letter.

This woman was a wonderful help, by the way. Turned out, everyone who showed up for however long was eager to participate, to be directed and to learn new things. It was fun. We made trays and trays and trays of various food for her party. The young people were especially fun. They're all a bit silly at being serious. We all fit very well.