TampaYankee

l'll search the family archives. Who knows what might turn up.

This sounds pretty tasty. I wonder how it compares to the old 'pound of butter, pound of sugar, pound of flour, pound eggs...' old fashion recipe? I love the classic fruit cakes if made right -- with glace cherries, pineapple and pecans. No citron or raisins (well maybe a few golden) or walnuts. It must have brandy or bourbon by the purveyors hand or mine. A good fruitcake is very expensive. I've made a few in my day -- very hard prep with hours of cooking (7) and weeks of aging in your liquor of choice. I have some good ones made for me -- few and far between. Every year I go online to find the perfect fruitcake, throwing my Scotch purse to the wind, or threatening to. Money is no object I say. It takes much searching to find a cake to my specs and then it is just close. First disappointment. Then I read the reviews: dry, too crumbly, too this, not enough that, etc. I rethink sending fifty dollars for that gamble. I end up with a tried and true but unfortunately adulterated Claxton Fruitcake. Not the one of the Days of Old -- walnuts instead of pecans, raisins and citron too. However the cherries and pineapple remain. It always comes a bit dry but that suits my need as I always serve a slice doused in good brandy. The cakes may not be as good as in the old day but the brandy is far better. And the combination focuses my recollection of the fine cakes of the past.

It seems to me there are two... I hope you are feeling better tomorrow. Maybe this will melt into to this.

The only mention of choosing the Speaker of the House in the Constitution resides in the statement: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. Thus there is no requirement that he be a member of Congress or anything else other than the choice of the House. So why haven't these ideological House stalwarts of the new GOP not pressed to install as Speaker a national Conservative voice imbued with the real truths of ideological conservatism? It would not lessen the number of votes in the House, just that the new Speaker would not be able to vote. (The Speaker often doesn't vote now as a matter of custom.) Many Conservative names leap to mind that are ardently supported by the RWWs (right wing wackos). With all the crazy ideas they have come up with, one wonders why these Tea Partiers haven't thought of this. Having the House organized and led by a true believer would seem a page right out of their book, marching them right down the path they wish to travel. This certainly would be less cataclysmic than forcing the nation to default on its Full Faith and Credit. Um... maybe not on second thought as both roads may end at the same terminus. File this under idle rant due to too much time on hand or... idle fantasizing about making mischief.

There are some things that democracy just doesn't do well. One of those is delivering bad news to one's constituents or in this case nuclear waste. No one wants it in their back yard. What's new? Ask any prospective neighborhood if $38 billion is too much to waste to avoid it being dumped in their back yard. We piss and moan about waste and with good reason but we also piss and moan about other things too. In the end it usually comes down to trades and, all else being equal, the scales usually tilt towards those with skin in the game as opposed those without it.

Some escorts just like the business. I have met some. Sure it is easy money mostly but some guys like to travel and meet people and have their time be their own. Some of the very best IMO are those for which the business transcends a job to be an ongoing life experience. I think that is the way the really good ones last in the business. I suggest a present day example is Steven Draker.

Oh no,say it ain't so, Joe!! They changed the Crisco formula. Now even transfats are being adulterated, even the most iconic example. Please tell me what did they do to our Crisco? As an aside, I would think butter would upset the recipe, not that I don't like butter, as it contains substantial water and the Crisco I knew was totally dry in that sense.

Appreciate your concern and do not fault you for expressing it. Sometimes our site is more than just its content. Sometimes it is the energy of its participants in repartee on subjects deep or shallow, sarcastic or empathetic. Every topic need not have catholic appeal.

Everybody, give it a rest.

No doubt you do but they are a very small minority -- for either SS or Medicare. Most people who remember or know of FDR revere him and most of their parents revered him. He didn't get elected four times by the vast number of complainers. Medicare isn't perfect. Very few things in this universe are, especially if man made. And like our democracy, we shouldn't throw it out because it isn't perfect, just the best we've managed to do so far. I like Medicare. It works fine for me. Yeah, on occasion I have grumbled about something that was not covered or about the bureaucracy getting screwed up. I also experienced both with Blue Cross/Blue Shield when I dealt with them. It is what happens when you have complicated policies and bureaucracies, be they public or private. Medicare is not perfect but it beats the hell out of old folks going without health care and that is what the alternative would be for most without Medicare. We actually lived without Medicare. We have history. We were NOT better off as a country, society or elder class. Period!!!!! All the ineffectual sputtering ideology to the contrary. There are improvements that need to be made for sure. The Doctor Fix needs to be fixed permanently. The problem is that the GOP wants to improve Medicare away. Not much room for improvement with such a divergent path. Some insurance companies may not like it because they cannot take Medicare for the same ride anymore, siphoning off profits that they weren't entitled too, or were unnecessary from the perspective of delivering health care. My insurance company has no issue with Medicare -- none that they complain to me about -- and I have good coverage. I pay for it. Also, from the number of insurance companies that market me during open sign up over and over and over, they seem not put off by the current medicare/medigap market. The fixes are obvious to me. Take the cap off the Medicare tax. Index copays and deductibles with income. Institute a realistic permanent doc fix and come to some compromise on tort reform to reign in nuisance suits and damage awards for legit claims. What is not a solution is 'voucherizing' medicare to get it off entitlement status with an inadequate stipend that inflation will make totally inconsequential down the road, all the while leaving seniors to the benevolence of insurance companies. Truly a Health Care Nirvana in the making.

Hope everyone's holiday was filled with turkey and trimmings with an Alka Seltzer chaser or some such. Speaking of such, on TG morning I glimpsed out of my kitchen window a lone wild turkey sprinting through my back woods and over into a neighbors lawn and from there I know not where. Odd that happened on Thanksgiving morning and odd it was a lone turkey. When I see them they are usually in a group of six to ten and casually strolling about looking for food. They must have known something was up that day.

You guys do rise to the occasion. Some pretty funny reads. Truly inspired -- all sides. lol

I believe they missed the boat, or rather the point, with Robert Todd Lincoln. By my reading he wasn't the unlucky one. The Presidents he knew were the unlucky ones. How could the magazine writers not see this. Misplaced sense of sympathy.

To each his own. You heard it here first. I share Lucky's distaste for the potty theme (as opposed to the poopy which I find to crass to throw about ). So, I step over it, around it and sometimes I even back up when I stumble on it approaching from up-wind. On the other hand, I wouldn't dream of cramping the literary expositions of those purveyors of potty poetry and prose -- as long as no pictures punctuate the discussion. Let creativity flourish in every hill-and-dale and barnyard too.

DOJ has already neutered this dog when they first accused journalist James Rosen (FNC) of being a co-conspirator in a classified leak case. http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/06/feds-publicly-id-fox-newss-james-rosen-as-leak-recipient-165556.html Something they were forced by public opinion to do, IMO. It just took them this long to convince themselves that they couldn't find another way to get Assange. Or... maybe it is disinformation designed to lure Assange into the open. One thing for sure, if I were Assange I'd believe nothing has changed for the better. Paranoia can keep one alive or free or at least not in forced captivity. The price for mistake is high indeed.

What is your preferred approach to Iran?

We do share a lot of common heritage it seems. My dad was a lover of black walnuts so of course I got early exposure, mostly through ice cream. Growing up in Florida I'd never seen a tree with ripened fruit. We always visited my grandparents in Tennessee before the harvest season. So when I was in my mid twenties living in MD I discovered the trees grew wild along highways. Soon I was out harvesting bags of fallen fruit not knowing the task that lay ahead. LOL The fruiting body is spherical with a diameter about the size of the largest US silver dollar ever minted. It is leathery on the outside and has tough flesh surrounding the nut. So tough that to remove it I drove my car back and forth over the fruit to soften and tear the flesh. Once the flesh was ripped away you let the nut dry for some days. After that the only way in was a hammer or vice. Goggles recommended. Then the laborious picking of the meat out of very tight quarters in the shell which lay in bits after the hammer or vice. (Hickory nuts are equally hard to assault and pick but with less tasty nut meats.) The most surprising aspect of the episode for this novice -- the nice walnut stain that you see on wood cabinets... one source of that is those black walnut fruits. Tearing off that fruit stains your skin brown -- dark brown. The bad news, it doesn't wash off. You have to wear it off. At least I never found a solvent that worked satisfactorily. On the plus side, I used it to stain a couple book cases. They looked beautiful.

My god, that violates the laws of nature.!!

The most overlooked step in frying a turkey -- having the fire department on speed dial.

I think I'd like your mother. My family has a strong pecan history although my mother made few pecan pies. We always bought several pounds in the shell and cracked away during the season. When I was preschool my grandparents had a wild pecan in their yard. My grandfather would shell a good size box -- two or three pounds -- for us for the holidays. They were very special, shorter and narrower than the cultivated kind and a bitch to shell but they were sweeter and juicier than their bigger cousins. It was a sad year when a disease overtook the tree. I always had an affinity for pecans and pecan pie. I particularly enjoyed a piece of pie with a good beer like Schlitz when it actually was drinkable (good in that era) -- before it was sold off to the highest bidder. I was totally unaware that people consider the combination peculiar at best and much worse than that mostly. Still love the combo of sweet and bitter. Unfortunately, my physician says ixnay to both. (As you might conclude, my pigeon english sucks. One of the first things to go in the senior years. )

MsGuy, try as I have I've been unable to put any light between your statements and my views on this topic. I know that this damages your reputation for being a thoughtful, clear-minded pundit and for that I apologize. Hopefully you will be able to live down this unfortunate association.

This might better have been reported the the mainstream media as 'Pope Brings Christ Back Into the Christian Church to Walk the Walk.' I do like this Pope and that says something for me. I'm sure the Church's Inner Sanctum is busy hatching a conspiracy worthy of Ludlum to speed his call home, to be at the side of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost, as they view him to be more godly than earthly, thus not made for this Earth. I'm wondering how Paul Ryan is rationalizing the mistaken Pope?

What's next?

Classic too.

Justin Timberlake dick.