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Anybody Can Roast Beef...
Oct. 29th, 2017 10:16 pmDoes anyone know if the French are allowed to pee in their national parks? The reason I ask is that I'm having a late dinner from the bountiful shelves of my neighborhood Wegman's market and, for whatever reason, right in the middle of it, decided to start reading labels.
Now, I know what's in the salad, I think. It's just a chef's salad, slathered with probably half a bottle of Newman's Own organic Italian dressing. Nothing to arouse curiosity, much less raise alarm, in that.
Same with the Tuscan Garlic bread, toasted to crispy perfection and slathered (There's that word again; sounds so decadent, doesn't it?) in gobs of lactose-free, organic butter.
Enough lovely, yellow butter pooled in the crevices of the toasted bread to send the totally oblivious and uncaring diner into cardiac arrest. Or to at least induce a moderate-to-severe arrythmia.
Toasted and slathered and topped, I should add, with the lightest, most delicate dusting of organic garlic salt. Yum!
Finally, accompanying the salad and bread, I had heated about half a bottle of gourmet, Provencal-style soup, imported from France, where the dollar has apparently taken a precipitous plunge in comparison to the Franc. Based, at least, on what I paid for the soup. And owing, no doubt, to the French being pissed at our ill-considered exit from their global climate accords. (In which case, my thanks to the orange-coiffed nightmare now residing in the White House.)
But let's take a break, for just a moment, from all the pooling and slathering and dusting, and consider an arguably related story from the life and times of "The Greatest Generation."
Just, you know, work with me on this. William Shakespeare, considered by Republican scholars to be the Donald Trump of his time, is well known for his use of the story-within-a-story. With this device alone, he often distracted the rabble well into the next news cycle, as defined by the town crier on his nightly rounds. See where I'm going with this?
Anyway, according to one of my father's tales about his time in France during WWII, the French had a custom, when serving a large, multi-course dinner, to take a break between courses for something they called an "Interlude."
My father learned about this when a buddy of his married a Parisian girl and the parents put on a 12-course wedding dinner which lasted, literally, half the night. And during these breaks, the guests would be entertained, by family members or friends, with a play, a story, a song, whatever.
So in this Interlude, which I'm now taking in the middle of my admittedly more modest feast, I've decided to tell a joke which will also segue into the final part of my story. And I promise that you'll see, very shortly, how it fits.
The joke, it turns out, is one that I heard a number of years ago when my grandson and I were watching ICarly on Nickelodeon. Which means it's undoubtedly OK for general audiences, workplace safe, etc. Besides which, it was told by Carly's goofy big brother Spencer. Uh-oh.
So Spencer says to Carly and Sam and Freddy, "What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?"
(Puzzled silence follows. Spencer does not usually tell jokes, so no one knows what to expect. Besides, it IS a kids' show, for cryin' out loud and so tasteless or off-color is totally off the table, right?)
So now, having baffled his young friends, and having wrung the last possible bit of suspense, drama, whatever, out of the pause, he blurts out,
"Anyone can roast beef, but... [wait for it...wait for it...]
"Nobody can pee soup!"
[Stunned silence, as I watched, horrified, with my young grandson. Followed by the accusatory thought, "Spencer, Nickelodeon, how could you?" And concluding with howling, demonic laughter because I am, after all, the family's acknowledged connoisseur of tasteless humor.]
With that, our Interlude abruptly ends and we're back to the main course. Which also returns us to my original question as to whether the French are allowed to pee in their national parks. Because, proudly proclaimed on the classy little tag hanging from the neck of my gourmet soup bottle, following all the blah-blah organic this and blah-blah organic that, is the declaration that this soup was brewed with 100% pure, unfiltered spring water from an unnamed French national park.
Now, I don't know how anyone else may have chosen to behave in our American national parks, and I hope it's not a federal offense to admit this, but I HAVE, in fact, peed in at least one, and possibly more, of our national parks.
Which leads me to suspect that the traditionally less-inhibited French may do so, as well, in theirs. In which case, this lovely, expensive gourmet soup is brewed with not only "pure, unfiltered spring water," but with--how shall I phrase this delicately enough that I won't be induced to ruin yet another keyboard with fragments of half-digested Tuscan garlic bread slathered in gobs of lactose-free, organic butter--the, er, inevitable run-off from this act of bodily relief.
Which, in turn, leads me to a second, perhaps even more disturbing, question.
Are there BEARS in the g*dd*mn French woods? Because, if there are, you can be g*dd*mn sure that THEY pee in them...
LPK
Dreamwidth
10.30.2017
Now, I know what's in the salad, I think. It's just a chef's salad, slathered with probably half a bottle of Newman's Own organic Italian dressing. Nothing to arouse curiosity, much less raise alarm, in that.
Same with the Tuscan Garlic bread, toasted to crispy perfection and slathered (There's that word again; sounds so decadent, doesn't it?) in gobs of lactose-free, organic butter.
Enough lovely, yellow butter pooled in the crevices of the toasted bread to send the totally oblivious and uncaring diner into cardiac arrest. Or to at least induce a moderate-to-severe arrythmia.
Toasted and slathered and topped, I should add, with the lightest, most delicate dusting of organic garlic salt. Yum!
Finally, accompanying the salad and bread, I had heated about half a bottle of gourmet, Provencal-style soup, imported from France, where the dollar has apparently taken a precipitous plunge in comparison to the Franc. Based, at least, on what I paid for the soup. And owing, no doubt, to the French being pissed at our ill-considered exit from their global climate accords. (In which case, my thanks to the orange-coiffed nightmare now residing in the White House.)
But let's take a break, for just a moment, from all the pooling and slathering and dusting, and consider an arguably related story from the life and times of "The Greatest Generation."
Just, you know, work with me on this. William Shakespeare, considered by Republican scholars to be the Donald Trump of his time, is well known for his use of the story-within-a-story. With this device alone, he often distracted the rabble well into the next news cycle, as defined by the town crier on his nightly rounds. See where I'm going with this?
Anyway, according to one of my father's tales about his time in France during WWII, the French had a custom, when serving a large, multi-course dinner, to take a break between courses for something they called an "Interlude."
My father learned about this when a buddy of his married a Parisian girl and the parents put on a 12-course wedding dinner which lasted, literally, half the night. And during these breaks, the guests would be entertained, by family members or friends, with a play, a story, a song, whatever.
So in this Interlude, which I'm now taking in the middle of my admittedly more modest feast, I've decided to tell a joke which will also segue into the final part of my story. And I promise that you'll see, very shortly, how it fits.
The joke, it turns out, is one that I heard a number of years ago when my grandson and I were watching ICarly on Nickelodeon. Which means it's undoubtedly OK for general audiences, workplace safe, etc. Besides which, it was told by Carly's goofy big brother Spencer. Uh-oh.
So Spencer says to Carly and Sam and Freddy, "What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?"
(Puzzled silence follows. Spencer does not usually tell jokes, so no one knows what to expect. Besides, it IS a kids' show, for cryin' out loud and so tasteless or off-color is totally off the table, right?)
So now, having baffled his young friends, and having wrung the last possible bit of suspense, drama, whatever, out of the pause, he blurts out,
"Anyone can roast beef, but... [wait for it...wait for it...]
"Nobody can pee soup!"
[Stunned silence, as I watched, horrified, with my young grandson. Followed by the accusatory thought, "Spencer, Nickelodeon, how could you?" And concluding with howling, demonic laughter because I am, after all, the family's acknowledged connoisseur of tasteless humor.]
With that, our Interlude abruptly ends and we're back to the main course. Which also returns us to my original question as to whether the French are allowed to pee in their national parks. Because, proudly proclaimed on the classy little tag hanging from the neck of my gourmet soup bottle, following all the blah-blah organic this and blah-blah organic that, is the declaration that this soup was brewed with 100% pure, unfiltered spring water from an unnamed French national park.
Now, I don't know how anyone else may have chosen to behave in our American national parks, and I hope it's not a federal offense to admit this, but I HAVE, in fact, peed in at least one, and possibly more, of our national parks.
Which leads me to suspect that the traditionally less-inhibited French may do so, as well, in theirs. In which case, this lovely, expensive gourmet soup is brewed with not only "pure, unfiltered spring water," but with--how shall I phrase this delicately enough that I won't be induced to ruin yet another keyboard with fragments of half-digested Tuscan garlic bread slathered in gobs of lactose-free, organic butter--the, er, inevitable run-off from this act of bodily relief.
Which, in turn, leads me to a second, perhaps even more disturbing, question.
Are there BEARS in the g*dd*mn French woods? Because, if there are, you can be g*dd*mn sure that THEY pee in them...
LPK
Dreamwidth
10.30.2017
