Rest in peace, Diego Betta

Diego Betta, 3, of Houston, Texas, went to be with the Lord on Sunday night after a short but courageous battle with dropsy.

Left to defend himself as a young fish by a neglectful owner, Diego was adopted by his beloved keeper Olivia. Diego enjoyed fish food, dried worms, getting his bowl cleaned, watching the cat watch him and swimming in circles. His travels include a time spent in Austin where he lived in several different apartments and a coop. His last days were spent in Beaumont, Texas.

He will be remembered for his beautiful red color and willingness to fight. He is survived by his owner Olivia and dear cat friend Moxie. Private funeral services were held Sunday outside at the Eagles Landing apartment community in Beaumont.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Tootsie Roll

A concoction from Dennis of Hole in the Wall.

The Wuttup guide to home food preservation

In the days of hardtack and horse drawn plows pickling was an economical way to preserve seasonal foods for year round eating. Today it is a hobby enjoyed by hippies and hillbillies with encumbrances of cucumbers or cabbage.

Chow chow relish is a North American pickled relish made from tomatoes, cabbage, onions, sugar, peppers, vinegar and whatever else you want to add. I used some celery and pears because that’s what I like, and it’s January so it isn’t possible to be choosy about organic produce.

It is common to use green tomatoes and green cabbage as in the store bought variety I sampled. I used red cabbage and red tomatoes, because that’s what I like. I also doubled the spices and increased the sugar suggested by Texas Bob.

Ingredients (fills eight pint-size canning jars):

• a cabbage
• four tomatoes
• a pear
• two lemons
• three jalapenos
• three bell peppers
• four onions
• some canning salt
• half a pint of vinegar
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp. dry mustard
• 1 tsp. turmeric
• 1 tsp. allspice
• a cat (optional)

I used the Ninja food processor. It’s awesome. Peeled the pear and tomatoes. Seeded the peppers. Chopped all that shit up. Put a bunch of salt and some, but not all, of the sugar on it and let it sit there for a while to get crunchy.

Boiled the spices and vinegar for a minute or so and then added the rest of everything and simmered it until it was acceptably hot and soft.

I prepped the pint jars with hot water and soap, then filled them with chow chow. I boiled the jars in a stock pot for 15 minutes, then turned the heat off and let them sit an additional five minutes.

Then I took the jars out of the pot and let them sit overnight on the counter. The little lids start popping and sealing in the first half hour, so the next day it was OK to take the rings off and check the seal by lifting the jars by the lid.

Next time: habanero-watermelon Four LOKO jam!

Butterbeer is the new FourLOKO

Four Loko might never be the same, but America’s children have a new questionably healthy party trend to fear. And I mean wizard-themed slumber parties, not LOKO quarters at your friend’s place in North Campus. The Associated Press just did a fine piece (that I read on Foxnews, fair and balanced) about the Universal Studios runaway success with their Just-Kidding-Rowling-approved $3 frothy cups of atherosclerosis-inducing Butterbeer.

The AP recipe is light on real beer, but heavy on the butter. Each serving has about 600 calories and 30 grams of fat. Oh, and 90 grams of sugar. Who the fuck gives this to a child? I worked as a lifeguard for a summer and a child will have trouble staying under a full-out sprint at 90 grams of sugar. Sitting through a movie marathon wearing a cape and hugging a stuffed owl would probably be out of question.

Is this a liquid Kwanzaa cake? Are we supposed to take a recipe seriously when it asks us to boil a cup of sugar in a stick of butter, and then mix in cream soda?

Analyze your own recipes with this free webapp from some Socialist Canadian Dietitians.

Korea Garden

Chatroulette: For all you creepsters out there

Chatroulette is the best communication medium for creepsters since the internet’s inception. It allows them to engage people in awkward conversation or expose their genitals to unknowing strangers without even leaving their houses.

This was a really cool dude who asked "asl?"

Last night, Frankie and I passed the time during a study session by conversing with some of the people lurking online. He positioned my web camera facing the only girl in the room, and we signed on.

The first person we encountered was a fellow we nicknamed “Cool dude.” Cool dude was lounging on a couch, coasting through the sea of men for that small chance of seeing someone attractive enough to talk to. He stopped on our camera and Frankie started typing.

He didn’t seem interested in anyone not willing to take off their clothes. And anyone who asks “asl?” in chat deserves to be ignored.

After we skipped past a guy who looked exactly like Al Franken, we came across two guys in a row who were showing off their neat skills at smoking “the ganja,” including one fellow bro’ing on a couch with a friend and another lurking in the darkness of his room, alone with a lame orange pipe.

We nexted past those guys pretty quickly and stumbled across a dude who likened himself to Barry White. He offered to sing for us after Frankie mentioned it.

He sang a Barry White song, some Prince and wrapped it up with some Elton John. As you can see, he was quite a charmer:

This dude loved to sing.

He also loved leaning back awkwardly like this.

After we finished talking with Barry, we nexted through a few wack dudes until we reached Frankie’s new enemy. The guy was a Greek-Canadian who didn’t have his web cam microphone on because he was watching the Simpsons. This is how the convo went down:

In short, what I’m trying to say is stay off Chatroulette. Like in life, there are a thousand wack dudes for every Barry White impersonator. You’re really better off with Facebook chat, safe from all those penises.

A recipe for mannish water/ goathead soup

MANNISH WATER/ GOATHEAD SOUP

source: jamaicamix

Ingredients:
4 lbs cut up goat’s head
3 gallons of water
10 – 12 green bananas
1 lb flour for dumpling
1 lb coco
1 lb yam
1 lb carrot
1 lb cho cho
1 lb irish potato
1 lb yam
1/2 lb scallion
3 medium sized scotch bonnet peppers
4 sprig. Thyme
salt to taste

Directions:

• Clean and cutup goat’s head, tripe and or goat’s feet. Put 5 gallons of water to boiling temperature. Place meat in pot.
• Let simmer for about 3 hours or until meat is tender. Add vegetables and seasoning.
• Peel and add green bananas to pot and cook for another hour.
• Make dumplings and add to pot. Let cook for another hour. Remove hot peppers! Adjust seasoning and amount of water if needed.