Laughter
Did you notice on that Dave Barry Substack article I discussed yesterday that on the map of Florida he likens to the male reproductive system, he had labeled the body of water below it the “Gulf of Canada,” and also put a note underneath the map that said, “Source: Harvard University School of Medicine and Geography.” So funny. I hadn’t noticed the labels on my first go-round.
Also, for those interested in Barry’s history, please see this. Apparently, Barry has been writing these Substack pieces since January. I read quite a few of them last night and laughed and laughed.
Also, that piece I just linked starts like this:
When people hear that I’m starting a Substack, the question they always ask is: “Dave Barry? Isn’t he dead?”
I’m delighted to report that the answer is: Not yet! I’m still alive, and along with an estimated 85 percent of the Earth’s population, I have a Substack, which I invite you to subscribe to.
This other piece of Barry’s tapped into something that has long bothered me – secretly, because I thought it was just me. But I”m happy to see I’m not the only one who has the difficulty he describes, although I may be an extreme case. As a nightowl, many times when I’ve been in a hotel, I’ve gone to take a shower in the wee hours of the morning and spent at least an hour trying to figure the thing out before I’ve either given up or reluctantly woken my sleeping companion to help crack the code. My husband used to be very very good at that, but perhaps it’s a facility that declines with age. Barry writes:
Hotel shower controls are so complex that they could represent a serious threat to America’s national security, and yet untrained civilians who — we repeat — maybe had a couple of vodkas the night before are expected to somehow know how to operate them. …
Anyway, the good news is that I finally did figure out how to operate that particular hotel shower. Unfortunately, I’ll probably never be in that hotel again, and whatever future hotel showers I encounter will be completely different, thanks to the strict Hotel Shower Manufacturers Official Code of Ethics, which states: “No two hotel showers, even in the same hotel, shall have the same controls.” They’re working on a new wrinkle where the shower controls in your room will actually control the shower in another guest’s room, and vice versa.
Yes, it’s an exciting time for the hotel-shower industry.
I didn’t realize I’d missed Dave Barry, but apparently I did. I’m glad he’s back. We need humor these days, perhaps more than ever.
Speaking of humor, the other day I was describing to a friend the time Gerard and I ate at this restaurant near the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. The restaurant is now defunct, so I won’t be sued for libel (I don’t think) for what I’m about to write, but despite glowing reviews I can say it was probably the worst meal I’ve ever been served in a restaurant. Both Gerard and I ordered the specialty and we had high hopes:
The general rule is the smart diner never went wrong ordering the specialty of the house. And the rule holds true here, with the original chicken ‘n dumplins ($14.50). Enough food to feed two (or one, today and tomorrow), the meal starts with your choice of soup or salad and includes chicken, dumplings and green beans. The vegetables are forgettable, but the chicken is a feast of skinless dark and white meat stewed until fork-tender; the two enormous dumplings, each larger than our fist, are shot through with rich chicken flavor; and the chicken gravy, thanks to its secret ingredient, is pure umami.
It was ghastly, and it was big. Really really big, the dumplings much bigger than my fist and even considerably bigger than Gerard’s fist, and swimming in the most tasteless and gluggy gravy imaginable. The dumplings were dense as neutron stars and even more tasteless than the gravy. The whole thing was so awful I could not eat it and neither could he, and we were not picky eaters ordinarily.
All around us, people were happily chowing down with gusto, and the restaurant was full. We couldn’t understand it at all, but the upshot was that we started to laugh and became nearly helpless with laughter. When a waiter came over and asked how we liked the food, I had to pretend to be having a coughing fit. We paid and left without eating, and got into the car and laughed for about fifteen minutes before we could drive away.
After that, all it ever took for both of us to erupt into gales of laughter was to mention that restaurant.
“There’s an old joke. Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of them says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’”
“Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life — full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.”
–Woody Allen, “Annie Hall” (1977)
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neo:
Well, at least you got big portions. 🙂
Those dumplings do seem disturbing something that would go in lileks catalog of forgetable foods
Chicken & dumplings is a name given to a wide variety of dishes. I often make an East Texas version I like, which is nothing like I’ve ever seen in a can or restaurant. The soup is broth, not gravy. The chicken is all dark meat if possible. The dumplings are a simple flour/salt/oil/water dough rolled out very thin like a pie crust, then cut into squares and boiled in the broth until no longer gummy. Instead of oil and water, if I can, I use the schmaltz skimmed from homemade broth, which ends up being about half fat and half water, just right for the dumplings. Obviously the dumplings must be seasoned. Vegetables are nice but optional.
Maybe this is really just a simple homemade chicken noodle recipe, if dumplings are supposed to be more like matzoh balls.
I wasn’t raised in the South, and to some extent I’m a failure as a Southerner. I despise sweet tea, and I don’t like pimento cheese. At church potluck one time someone brought a pale, very unappetizing-looking dish in a slow cooker. “What is it?” I asked. Chicken and dumplings. I passed.
But those moments of shared laughter are precious memories. I still remember my mother laughing hysterically with my aunt, something to do with a secretary bird. They laughed until their ribs hurt.
huxley:
Yes indeed. Those dumplings were the size of a large grapefruit, not a small one.
I once thought of what I think would be a good idea for a scene from a Woody Allen type movie. It goes as follows: A group of people in a restaurant are sitting around griping about how bad their meals are. The waiter comes by and asks how it’s going and they all smile and say, “Wonderful, very good!”
Shower controls in Europe are sometimes “interesting”. Used to be in England, you had to turn on the heating element to get hot water.
I hate showers that don’t have a decent curtain or door, and those that are at floor level are a real treat.
Went to my grandfather’s home town and we stopped in at a local restaurant for lunch. I ordered a soup / stew of that sort and it had a taste I had not experienced since I was about ten. I did not finish it. The proprietor was quite pleasant and tells me in the course of the conversation that the restaurant is a retirement job. His previous job had been supervising the school cafeteria.
Wow! I have actually been to Tad’s.
We used to go to the Gorge pretty regularly (Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Wa is very nice) and I can’t remember how we heard about Tad’s but we went there one time and I’m not a big chicken n dumplings person but I thought they were OK.
Too bad they are gone we haven’t been back since the lockdowns don’t know if that killed them or what. It was very busy the night we were there.
Griffin:
I figured someone in the comments would have actually been there.
I’ll say this: the setting was beautiful. It’s such a lovely area.
Neo,
Yes it was on the old scenic highway and it was a beautiful summer evening when we there. Since I saw your post I’ve been thinking how I remember nothing about the meal good or bad but I can picture the place perfectly in my mind.
Places like the Gorge remind me why I won’t leave this part of the country despite the horrific governance. So amazing.
Griffin:
Maybe you have PTSD for the food itself, and protective amnesia.
Re: Cathead biscuit
For a long time I was curious about a Southern staple, the cathead biscuit. Called such because each was the size of a … cathead … as opposed to the size of Gerard’s fist or larger.
I finally got to try one in a Southern restaurant which opened in San Francisco. The cathead is not a flaky biscuit. The outside is crisp, the inside is fluffy and good for sopping whatever juices/gravy are available.
I wish there were more Southern restaurants in the West.
Well, we’ll always have Waffle House.
neo:
Thank you for the humor. I had forgotton Dave Barry.
It has been a grim five years, hasn’t it?
In spite of all the liberal (and judicial) spitefulness President Trump has made me laugh quite often lately.
Art Deco
Hilarious!
A lot of restaurants have a slogan such as “just like Mom used to make,” which they figure will attract some business. After all, most people like the food their Moms prepared for them. I don’t think “just like your school cafeteria food” would attract much business. 🙂
One time my parents had a dinner guest from India. My mother prepared chicken and dumplings. A special treat, perhaps, as we didn’t have it a lot. I liked it. Suffice it to say that, no matter how he tried to hide it, is was apparent our Indian guest decided chicken and dumplings was not on his list of favorite foods.
Guess she should have prepared her fried chicken, which she learned to cook growing up in Oklahoma. Not many of my peers in my New England childhood had fried chicken prepared at home.
Re: School cafeteria rolls
We were in Dallas for just a year when I was 11, but the school cafeteria rolls were amazing. Kids fought to get to the front of the line when the rolls were hot, fresh out of the oven.
They only cost a nickel, but with a couple pats of butter — ambrosia!
@ Wendy – your description sounds like the dumplings my mother made, which she learned from her mother, and I suspect that the recipe went back several generations. It was one of her better dishes, along with the cherry cobbler learned ditto.
We never had vegetables in our dumpling soup, however.
The secret to the cobbler, I learned after I was married, was that Grandma
put 2 cans of cherries (or fresh cherries if we had them, but NOT cherry pie filling) in a sauce pot with a full stick of butter and a cup of sugar and boiled the mixture before putting it in the deep-dish and covering it with standard pie crust.
Another aspect, which I’ve never seen elsewhere, was to take any dough not needed for the pie-crust topping, roll it into small balls the size of walnuts, and cook them in the boiling cherries to make (ta-dah!) dumplings.