Five Worst Holiday Foods

Five Worst Holiday Foods

It’s truly amazing how it works. The internet knows what you’re thinking and when you’re thinking it. There are all kinds of great Christmas and holiday foods that are special for this time of year and just when you need them, the internet shows you what they are every time you turn it on. It somehow knew not to show me great recipes for Easter which is truly incredible because everything just says “holiday” now and there’s nothing to tell the internet which holiday it is. However, even though there are so many recipes on the internet and some of them are for the unbelievably good dishes available now-a-days, you still have to be careful that you don’t get a hold of a clunker. The internet knows that and also shows you the worst holiday foods to avoid. You won’t find the traditional joke food fruitcake on this list, because I am one of the few people who actually like fruitcake. I’ve been both busy and tired lately and didn’t have time write a regular article so I hope you don’t mind if I just copied some of these off of the internet to share with you.

Turducken- This was the rage this Thanksgiving, but the true version is pretty disgusting and yet considered a delicacy in some foreign lands. You first find some pellets that rabbits leave lying around, to fulfill the first four letters of the dish’s name. Then you hide these inside a chicken put inside a duck, which is then inserted into a turkey. Watch your guests eyes fill with horror when they ask what they have been served and they realize why there is “uck” is the middle syllable of the dish.

Sweet Potato and Peanut Butter Baklava topped with garlic stuffed green olives- The Baklava and olives are definitely Mediterranean foods and the sweet potato and peanut are native to South America. It just shows that if you carry diversity and cross culture synthesis too far you can get indigestion.

Cranberry Licorice Jalapeno Caramel Mint Popcorn- Has more different tastes than calories.

Chocolate and Pumpkin Rhubarb Truffles with Raspberry Jam and Capers- Normally used in a test by doctors to see if you have a cast iron stomach.

Lightweight Ginger Bread House with Gumdrops made out of Rice Krispies with Marshmallow Glue and Sauerkraut added for strength- In the fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel broke a piece to eat off of the full-sized Ginger Bread house that used sauerkraut instead of rebar for strength and gagged on the Rice Krispies.

©2010 Eric Stamets

Let’s Keep the “Mas” In Christmas

Let’s Keep the “Mas” In Christmas

Every year there are groups and individuals that unsuccessfully fight to get the word “Christ” removed from the word ”Christmas” so that the holiday might be more widely shared with people that don’t believe in Christmas and are counteracted by people who want to keep the “Christ” in Christmas. Since they have been unsuccessful working from that end, this year a local coalition of Christians, Jews and other religions, atheists and Spanish speakers have banded together to require that the December holiday celebrations in Julian remove the word “mas” from Christmas, because even atheists and Jews can recognize that historically a man named Jesus Christ existed. To them he just wasn’t the messiah he claimed to be. Quite obviously the word “Christmas” is a shortening of Christ’s Mass and Mass is a Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran ritual and therefore seems to exclude even other Christians. Shoppers of all faiths and atheists of no faith all gripe about the masses of people shopping at mass marketers and have joined to give the other meaning of “mass” as another reason for removal of “mas”. Spanish speakers want it removed because it causes them to eat mas and gain mass, buy mas, charge mas on their credit cards and owe mas which can get them into a mas of a mess financially.

©2010 Eric Stamets

Julian Like Disneyland?

I read with interest the article in the Julian News on October 6, 2010 about someone’s love of carousels and their interest in bringing one to Julian. Since this is Julian, expect some howls of indignation, 50 % will love it and 50% will hate it and of course it’s not historical. Presumably it would be a carousel with riding figures reflective of Julian such as a mountain lion, coyote, raccoon, wild pigs and turkeys. Don’t forget the flattened road-kill possum for the little ones. For horses we could have some bucking broncos to represent our cowboy heritage and few old nags like many people keep today. When I was a small boy there was a merry-go-round near where I lived and I made sure my mother stopped whenever we took that road. It was actually a very fine old carousel but you don’t call it that until you are at least a teenager. It was placed a ways off of Highway 14, next to some woods, out of town like somehow it had accidentally fallen from the sky and killed a wicked witch. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t go on it in the winter when it was covered in canvas tarps. It shows that not all carousels are in cities or amusement parks, but Julian would be really random. Of course this was way before we had “theme parks”, in fact it was before we even had themes. In my older years I have made a point of riding carousels with my children since I loved them so much, such as Seaport Village, Balboa Park and of course Disneyland but never the imposters that they brought to the Del Mar Fair. I am fearful now of taking any children on the really old carousels in California because they have to have the Prop. 65 warning of illness or reproductive harm due to remnants of old lead paint. When gift stores first appeared in Julian in the late 70’s and tourists started coming in numbers year round, the local curmudgeons complained that “Julian was turning into Disneyland.” Well, even today Julian hasn’t turned into Disneyland. As well as Disneyland is done (much better than Julian), it is fake. Julian is still the real thing even with all the gift stores and problems. Let’s just see Disneyland come up with a devastating forest fire and Julian’s Main St. is not 5/8 scale. If you go down Banner Grade at the same speed as Space Mountain you can really get a thrill and the ride is longer if you make it. Remarkably coincidental is that a Julian resident vacationing in Arkansas this summer got an unbelievable deal on a ride similar to Disneyland’s teacups at an amusement park that had gone bankrupt. It just needs a place to go, perhaps with the carousel. Before everyone again howls with indignation, read on. Instead of teacups it was a ride with giant jugs. The sides were cut out for passengers, the jugs were painted with XXXX markings and it was called the “Moonshine Special” ride. It specialized in making you feel like you had just drunk a lot of moonshine. All it takes is some non-lead paint to turn them into some cider jugs and voila- you have the “Julian Cider Spin” (only not as regurgitant as the Moonshine Special). Even if both of these projects come to pass, Julian still won’t be like Disneyland. The town is still real and the people are real.

©2010 Eric Stamets

New Daylight Savings Time Changes

New Daylight Savings Time Changes

With all the problems facing our new incoming governor, he has released his highest priority goal to be accomplished in his first week in office because it affect s him too. As you remember, last spring Julian’s mayor announced that he unanimously decided to have Julian withdraw from using daylight savings time. He evidently has this enormous cast iron biological clock that strenuously resists change and it made him late all week after the change and he also resented having to get up, in reality, an hour earlier each day. If that wasn’t enough, he certainly didn’t like to deal with several people in town that were grouchy as a result of the time change. He garnered support from the schools because children have to ride the bus to school in the dark and slept through the first hour of classes. Upon getting wind of the mutiny against daylight savings time, Governor Schwarzenegger decided to create an essential state service that allowed any individual in the State of California to not go on daylight savings time if they paid a fee at the Department of Daylight Savings Time that was created to handle the onslaught of applicants. The Department of Daylight Savings Time is overseen by the Commission on Daylight Savings Time which meets twice a year and is made up of former state legislators who are paid $130,000 per year and cannot run again because of term limits. To make things more convenient for Californians, he set up local locations for the department that are near to DMV offices and so he could staff them with employees that were laid off and furloughed from the DMV to help balance the state budget. Governor-elect Brown has decided that the system that was set-up was too cumbersome and confusing with some people on Daylight Savings and some not. To streamline government and make it more efficient and less costly, everyone now will have to go on Daylight Savings Time and the Department of Daylight Savings Time will be disbanded. He is very understanding about the terrible jolt we all receive to our biological clocks at the twice a year change and will make the transition a lot easier. Instead of abruptly setting our clocks ahead one hour and then setting them back one hour just when we got used to it, we will now set our clocks ahead one minute per day for two months in the spring and then set them back one minute per day for two months in the fall. The Commission on Daylight Savings Time will not be disbanded because Governor-elect Brown has friends and supporters on it.

©2010 Eric Stamets