Monday, July 9, 2018

Good morning crew,

When I was a kid I remember my dad telling me stories about when HE was a kid in the old country. At that time butter was a luxury, so his mother (my grandmother) used to keep a jar of bacon fat in the house.

I can remember the relish with which Dad used to describe spreading the congealed lard over toasted bread and sinking his teeth into it.

Unfortunately my wife never got to meet my father, but I have told her that same story from his youth and she was properly scandalized. How nauseating, she had commented, to imagine spreading pure animal lard on bread and eating it! Thank God we live in a time and place where little luxuries like butter are commonplace.

So over the weekend she wanted to introduce me to this new, authentic Polish restaurant she had found a couple towns over from where we live. Believe it or not, living in the greater Chicagoland area like we are, it is hard to find a good pierogi in our neighborhood.

And authentic it was. Hardly anyone in the place was a native English-speaker and most of the menu was written in Polish. Plus, it took forever to get service. You know you're in an authentic European restaurant when the staff pretty much ignores you.

Like they did at this place.

But eventually we got a couple drinks and ordered some food and the server brought over a little appetizer plate. Most restaurants provide this little treat in one form or another. In Italian places they will bring you Italian bread and olive oil with a shaker of parmesan. In American places you will get a few rolls and some butter.

In this place the server set down a little tray with some toast points, a few of those petite cocktail pickles, and a scoop of some kind of spread.

"Oooh, you're gonna love this stuff," the wife exclaimed when she saw it.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," she said as she spread a thick layer on a piece of bread, "it's some kind of creamy, bacon mousse or pate or something. It's delicious whatever it is."

She punctuated her comment by popping the entire slice into her mouth and munching enthusiastically.

I don't think I'd ever had bacon mousse before, so I spread some on a toast point and took a bite.

It was pure bacon lard.

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie are rolling out a new payment program which allows online shoppers to pay in installments later rather than in full, called Afterpay. Not to be confused with the program they have at Taco Bell, where you always pay for it later." -Seth Meyers

***
"A group of shareholders at Facebook might be plotting to get rid of Mark Zuckerberg. And their plan would be way more likely to work if Mark wasn't spying on them using Facebook." -Jimmy Fallon

***
"Researchers at the Center for Tobacco Control at Scotland University are working on an invention: Talking packs of cigarettes that warn smokers about the side effects of tobacco. I don't know; that actually might make me START smoking." -Jimmy Kimmel

***
A co-worker was telling us about her sister who was coming to visit her for the holidays. Someone asked how old her sister was, at which she paused, thought for a bit, and then answered, "She's half as old as I am, that's how I always remember."

So someone else (okay, it was me) said, "That's neat... So every year that you age, she only ages half a year?" My co-worker thought about that, and then said, "Oh, yeah, I guess it only works on even years."




*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
Two guys who worked together were both laid off, so off they went to the unemployment office. When asked his occupation, the first guy said, "Panty stitcher...I sew the elastic onto women's panties."

The clerk looked up panty stitcher in her table. Finding it classed as unskilled labor, she gave him $300 a week unemployment pay.

The second guy was asked his occupation. "Diesel fitter," he replied.

Diesel fitter is listed as a skilled job, so the clerk gave the second guy $600 a week. When the first guy found out he was furious. He stormed into the office to find out why his friend and co-worker was collecting double his pay.

The clerk explained, "Panty stitchers are unskilled, and diesel fitters are skilled labor."

"What skill?!" yelled the panty stitcher. "I sew the elastic, and he pulls on it and says, "Yep, dese'll fit 'er."