Today's featured meal

Vanilla Ensure and chocolate chips mixed with peanut butter chips out of the little baggie sitting in front of me.

Rough day at the Prickly.

Disappointment

I suppose it's only right.

I can't find any free file hosting for the copyrighted music I was trying to share with you. So, no longer.

Alas.

It was worth a try.

What's playing

We're excited to have figured out how to share with you what's playing at the Prickly Pineapple. Click on the little console on the right. You need QuickTime to be able to play it though, and some patience to allow it to load. If you're having trouble, let me know and I'll change that. With the console, not with patience. I can't help you there.

Oh, and we don't take credit for writing or performing any of the music.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Holiday muzak

We could ask you what your favorite Christmas song is. That question usually makes people get all mushy as they start going on and on about the fuzzy memories associated with certain songs.

But no. It would be much more entertaining if you'd tell us...

What's your least favorite Christmas song? Why?

This is not limited to songs that are actually about Christmas— generic winter songs that only get played around Christmas time are also acceptable.

Camodidi and I had a good laugh the other night bashing Peggy Lee's recording of "Jingle Bells"— the one with kids in the background screaming "I LIKE A SLEIGH RIDE!" You know the one.

Other songs on the Prickly Pineapple's stink list are

• "Deck the Halls" as rendered by Mannheim Steamroller (it's that blasted whole step that makes it disturbing).
• "Santa Baby." The fake squeaky voice act makes me want to throttle a singer whenever I hear it.
• Bruce Springsteen's version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."
• "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree,"
• and today's curse, whose chorus is playing over and over on our loudspeakers today, with a skip sending us back to the most annoying part: "Hey Santaaaaaaaaaa, Hey Santa! Santa..."

We're not being grinchy; the holiday season can be great. It's just that the music can be so bad. So let us know. It's worth a laugh.

Update: Wow, this post has really backfired on me. Now I keep singing the few lines of "Santa Baby" that I know interspersed with some choruses of "Hey Santaaaaaaaa". Here's hoping you've avoided this awful side effect.

Follow-up question

Oh, and more importantly...

Sweet or savory?

My answer: savory, most definitely.

Survey: What's your favorite?

Okay. NOW it's time. Since Thanksgiving is actually in this week I feel as though I can talk about it. So help me out, and take this survey. Because I want to know!

What's your favorite Thanksgiving food?

Mine is probably stuffing. I'm not sure why. This would be the perfect time and place to wax eloquent on the subject, and I wish I could, but I'm not quite in the mood right now. I think it's because there's nothing else that tastes like it, and there's no other time of year that I eat it. Bready and lightly spiced, moist but still fluffy, with a mixed texture. I really like it when there's a nutty taste to it. The runner-up is defnitely pumpkin pie, with a big blob-glob of chilled whipped topping.

I think Camodidi's fav is candied yams. We never had candied yams at Thanksgiving dinners when we were kids, so this must be a new thing. I know why, too: because it's sweet with brown sugar AND marshmallows. Camodidi always did have excellent taste.

Public service announcement

I saw gasoline for $1.919 a gallon today.

Get your gasoline now folks, while the prices are hot and fresh. You know they'll jack them up before Wednesday.

Baggage

Welcome to the Prickly Pineapple.
Come in and seat yourself.
Please leave any oversized egos at the door.

Craving

Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh...
It's STEAK O'CLOCK!

Today I am feeling...

...blue

The onion is a dominant life form

Yeah, so I made that recipe. I bought the ingredients. I toasted the pine nuts. I plumped the raisins in chardonnay. I sauteed the spinach to a subtle wilt. Then it came time for the onion. I've never used small onions before. Mince? Out came the food processor. But I had to peel the outer layer off first. I sliced off the top and bottom. Milky white onion juice dripped out. Aw, man. Now my hands will smell like onion for days. I threw the sucker in the food processor and minced it. I stirred it around in the olive oil. Like I said, I made the dish. It looked nice, green and gold and purple and white. Before I wrapped it up to go, I took one bite just to know exactly what to expect.

Onion. The whole dish tastes like onion. I mean, ON-I-ON. My hands smell like onion. My kitchen smells like onion. My whole house smells like onion. I don't even want to know about my breath.

Everyone ate it politely at dinner. No one shunned it nor took any less of it than any of the other dishes. So I have no feedback. My personal opinion of the recipe? It's a good recipe if you like onion. It's also quite good if you get past the onion to the subtlety of the pine nuts and the sweetness of the raisins balancing the spinach.

The lesson for today: cook with a more submissive type of onion. Small yellow onions will dominate you.

So here I am, alone in my apartment, essence of onion pervading my entire existence. Yeah, and pineapple and onion? Not a good combo.

No wonder I can't get a date. :)

What's cookin'

It's potluck time again. Again, I was at a loss as to what I shall make. The main course is pasta with meat in it.

Dude, I don't know.

I usually default to dessert, as I adore making desserts. The creation of a dessert with a beautiful presentation is reward in itself. If it actually tastes good, that's even better. And if you get to eat some yourself, that's the cherry on top.

But today I think it will be vegetables. Why? I don't know. Because I don't know how to make cannoli. Because it's raining which makes me not feel like making cream puffs or eclairs. And it's too late and too cold to start a sorbet or to try my recipe for Guinness ice cream.

There was a certain appeal to the recipe I found for sweet and sour radicchio. I guess the idea of making something with radicchio was kind of sexy. But I decided to go with green leafies instead, because everyone can use more green leafies in their lives. So here's what's cookin' at the Prickly Pineapple this afternoon.

SPINACH WITH PINE NUTS AND RAISINS
(Spinaci con Pinoli e Passerine)

Spinach with pine nuts and raisins is a classic Sephardic dish that appears on tables in Greece, Spain, Turkey, and Italy, where it is a staple on Venetian and Genoese menus. It is a perfect accompaniment to delicate fish or poultry dishes and is often served at room temperature.

2 1/2 pounds spinach
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
2 small yellow onions or 6 green onions, minced
4 tablespoons raisins, plumped in hot water and drained
4 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Rinse the spinach well and remove the stems. Place in a large sauté pan with only the rinsing water clinging to the leaves. Cook over medium heat, turning as needed until wilted, just a few minutes. Drain well and set aside. Add the olive oil to the now-empty pan and place over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until tender, about 8 minutes. Add the spinach, raisins, and pine nuts and sauté briefly to warm through. Season with salt and pepper and serve warm or at room temperature. Makes 6 servings.

Epicurious.com © CondéNet, Inc. All rights reserved.

Today I am feeling...

... aglow.

Because I'm feeling the love. Thanks, everybody.

Quotation

"To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them!"

—Louis-Ferdinand-Céline

Well-wishes

Good luck, CamoDidi! Call me when you're done.

Commandment

There are old wives' tales, and there are urban legends. Then there are proverbs of all kinds. Everyone loves to quote old sayings, regardless of their validity.

Pediatricians are no different. There is a particular saying that has endured the test of time, a bit of wisdom handed down from generation to generation of children's health care providers. Recent researchers have unearthed an ancient rendition of this lasting truth, etched painstakingly in fragments of stone:

Listen closely, O youth, and heed my words. Thou shalt insert no thing into thine ear that is smaller than thine elbow, lest it fall into thine ear canal and therein become lodged to dwell for all eternity.

You may be skeptical, but experts are certain that it was engraved by a physician, for the handwriting was very difficult to read.

Another text has been found that references the above. The authenticity of this text remains in question, and many refuse to include it with the original.

Shouldst there be true repentance in thine heart, however, and thou confesseth thy deed to thy mother or father, and as a result art cast away forthwith to journey to the parched land of iniquity, the emergency room, despair not. For whosoever telleth the truth, and with great patience and longsuffering endureth the wait of the waiting room to reach the examining room, he shall be rewarded, for from thence the cleansing of the ear canal and the removal of the foreign object therefrom may commence without hesitation.

Presentation

Any member of the food and beverage industry should know that presentation is key. My old roommate, "the Virus", may remember that there are certain bottled beverages of whose packaging I was somewhat fond. AriZona iced tea, for example, made a ginger tea in a cobalt blue glass bottle. Once the label was removed, the bottle made a nice decorative piece. It was especially nice with bright yellow alstromeria. (They later put hand grips on the bottle, ruining this one for me.) Clearly Canadian's old bottle also had a nice shape and color. I knew the Virus understood the day that she produced several pale green bottles that had once contained Carver's ginger ale, saying her father (an accomplished architect) had saved them because they looked quite nice.

Now you may understand why I am disappointed to have discovered this recent change in packaging for Hornsby's hard apple cider. Puffintoad and I were able to appreciate this older bottle way back in the day. It was squat and green, and cool.

I can't tell you how disappointing it is to see the new bottle.

It looks cheap and crappy. The product itself may or may not be cheap and crappy (can you tell I'm not endorsing this product?), but now it looks the part regardless.

That's all I have to say about that.

Lackluster

Despite the cooling of the weather, my mood has improved. Despite (perhaps due to?) the improvement of my mood, my writing has become lackluster. Hence the lack of posts.

I'm the most prolific blogger I know, but right now, something is not right. I don't know if it's broken or if it's just gone. Give us time. We'll see. You can always go to CamoBunny's Corner or Wurmwood & Gaul if you're desperate for something to read.

In the meantime, I must give credit to Andre Klemmer, as he published something like the above image first.

Closed

We remain closed due to illness. Do come again.

Closed

We're sorry. The Prickly Pineapple is closed for now. I'm tired, and having trouble talking.Go on home; drive safely. Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again soon.

Day two is over...

... and from the pediatricians of America there burst forth much rejoicing.