This was while Donna was clearing the table, setting the dishes in the sink to wash later on, and Armand was waiting the forty-five minutes it took for another chick pie to heat. They'd had one each for supper and he was still hungry. Richie was in the living room watching TV. Donna moved on from Elvis and his apostles to Elvis' greatest hits to how she had tried one time to get a job in corrections down there to be near Elvis's home. The West Tennessee Reception Center was her first choice because it was right in Memphis. When they turned her down she waited a year and tried again, requesting Brushy Mountain, DeBerry Correctional, Fort Pillow, any one of those, even the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville would have been better than nothing. "And you don't think there wasn't some kind of conspiracy to keep me out?"
Armand never said there was. He was waiting for that Swanson's chicken pie to hurry up and get done.
28 comments:
No clue about the author.
Hey! Our favorite pizza joint, Killer Pizza From Mars, is reopening after a long hiatus due to a death in the family. We're going there later on today. I'm so hungry! I can't wait.
It's a family-owned place (not famiglia like they have in New York City) but they make everything from scratch. I know some of youse are extra fussy and you'd probably scoff at their pizza because they don't use the regulation wood-fired oven or cook the pizza the regulation distance from the charcoal pile but whatever. It brings us all together and we love it--family, friends and neighbors. Plus they serve good tap beer which I like so what's not to like?
Nothing.
Pizza is what you like. There are many different types and the pizza I grew up with and love is not the one that most people like today.
So enjoy!
But if you and the family ever make it to Brooklyn we are going on a pizza tour. Just sayn'
Thanks Troop. It might happen next year.
And my sarcasm was aimed at Spinelli.
Armand never said there was. He was waiting for that Swanson's chicken pie to hurry up and get done.
Was it Armand or Donna who bought the funky headboard and ran the garage sales looking for cheap tapes of their favorites?
My money's on the quiet Armand, then again, given Donna's love name for the little guy, it could have been her.
When I was first on my own and didn't have any cooking skills I actually downed quite a few Swanson's chicken pot pies. The bits of chicken and the peas, carrots and potatoes had some nutritional value and though not tasty weren't awful either. But they all were suspended in a mucousy gluey greyish whitish neither liquid nor solid, er...medium. Well, goes to show you can survive anything. When you're young anyway.
They were how I survived in the early years. Them and Shake'n Bake pork chops, along with burger patties and Worcestershire. The MSG in the pies did me in. I wasn't allergic to it until I had a lower GI done. Following that cleanse, it was curtains for the quick and comforting pot pies. I make my own now, but as nutritious and wonderful and wholesome and MSG-less as they are, they aren't the same as Swanson's
The trend toward MSG-less chicken and beef stock hadn't happened yet. The first attempt to offer something without MSG was Campbell's Healthy Request in the 80's, which lead to a variety in soup stock unheard of 30 years ago.
MSG is known for it's ability "to make a little taste like a lot", which made it a good companion to whatever else went into those pies.
I <3 U mami.
LOL, interesting and powerful stuff!
Call me crazy, but the physical reaction it triggers is intense, with a migraine like headache, flushing, and almost immediate gastrointestinal upset. I can taste and smell it in foods now, and have after 30 years a bit more tolerance, but no Doritos for me.
I have a chemosensitivity for the benzyl moiety. Benzyl is anything X-CH2-C6H5 where X is Cl or Br, etc. Benzyl chloride and benzyl bromide are common benzylating reagents. It's not in any foods, thankfully. There is a benzyl moiety in phenylalanine, a natural amino acid, but the other moieties present, the amine, and the acid, mask it.
I can sense benzyl chloride on my tongue when exposed to the vapor. It lingers for hours. It's not pleasant either.
I get contact dermatitis when turning freshly cut black walnut - black walnut is renowned for containing many strong chemicals - natural insecticides as it were.
Another wood, which is very aromatic also causes the same problem for me - Atlantic White Cypress. Beautiful, but strong.
Eastern red cedar is a wood I work a lot with - so far I have not reacted to it.
So, which chemicals do these trees produce which makes them aromatic and causes some who come in contact with them to break out?
So far I have avoided working with even the largest diameter poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) vines for products - why mess around with urushiol when I know that the results will be terrible. Would be an interesting conversation piece - say what kind of wood is this? Then, when I tell them "poison ivy" see how quickly they drop it.
I like this plan...
Sixty: terpenes were the basis for the chemical industry before the coal tar and later petroleum era.
Terpenes are tree pheromones. I once read a fascinating study about the analysis of the air above a forest canopy--filled with small organic volatiles.
Simple ethylene, C2H4 (my favorite organic molecule) is another important plant hormone. It triggers senescence in fruit. The German used to call ethylene Bananengas (banana gas) because they'd use it to ripen green bananas.
Maybe a little surprised but still having fun, enjoying himself. Armand decided to push him. He said, "See if you can keep your mouth shut for a while," and the fun was over. He watched Richie's eyes become serious and then dull, sleepy, covering what he was feeling, no longer chewing his gum. Wanting to hit me with that bottle, Armand thought. Smash it across my face. Now he gave Richie a frown, curious, not a bad look, and said, "What's the matter?"
Richie said, "You ever talk to me like that again ..." Armand said, "Yeah, what?" because he wanted to hear how this punk would say it.
"It'll be the last time you do."
Nothing original about that, the guy remained a punk.
chickelit. I learned a long time ago the "best" pizza is, for the most part, what you grew up eating. I was simply fortunate to grow up eating w/o question, the best pizza. Our trip to the Naples/Sorrento area confirmed that. However, to each their own is always my philosophy.
I don't know what the chemical are in brussels spouts and cauliflower are but both taste like acetone or nail polish remover. But surprisingly, I can eat raw cauliflower without the taste effect.
I wonder if Titus has any allergic reactions to various types of wood?
Titus is bigoted against Southern wood species. We know that.
Trooper, I too would welcome the Brooklyn pizza tour....
Lots of yellow pine in the South, sometimes called Nickajack pine. Very soft wood.
A pissed off Ojibway, especially from north of the border, is someone not to mess with. I grew up too close to that country.
Southern yellow pine is anything but soft. It has a density and toughness closer to oak than any other pine.
Long leaf pines were cut almost to extinction due to its great properties - I have some reclaimed heart pine that was cut in the 1800s and it is remarkable stuff.
Maybe the Nickajack is different from the yellow pine. It's the first thing to come tumbling down in a storm. I defer to your expertise; you know a hell of a lot more than I do about it.
The yellow pines I am familiar with are tough - I watched some very large ones bending almost all the way over in hurricane Fran.
Ice, on the other hand, wrecks pines and any other type of tree it sticks to. The top of the largest SYP in my yard was ripped down in the ice storm of 2002. Hated to see that big tree go. Large trees of all sorts were blown over in Fran - usually the ground got saturated and the wind load blew the whole tree over - the root ball doesn't have a chance if the soil gives up.
Around here SYP is used for framing timber, and when it is pressure treated, decks.
I turn bowls out of it, make big pieces of furniture out of it, and then use my best sales pitch to move those products - the grain is very bold, especially compared to something like cherry or even walnut. But I like working with it, and if I talk fast enough and the customer buys, then we are happy all around.
Sixty is our local expert on wood.
So, which chemicals do these trees produce which makes them aromatic and causes some who come in contact with them to break out?
@Sixty: Some of the name links I put here to various aromatic compounds hint at their arboreal origins. Many are ancient and familiar.
Thanks, I think. Or, HEY!!!
I used to design computer chips which were fabbed on site. The fab used arsine, which was said to be lethal and to smell like garlic. What I wanted to know is who determined that, and how.
When I saw pieces of heart pine which are over 100 years old the whole shop smells like turpentine. It is amazing that wood that old can still be so aromatic.
I gave some to my brother to use for guitar bodies - he found the resins in the wood hadn't set and he had to put them in a kiln and get every piece up to at least 140 degrees to set the sap. I have read that 170 degrees was needed, but we will see if 140 does the trick.
At the risk of causing pinus ennui amongst the others, I direct you to the Wiki entry on oil of terpene. It's all I said it was and more.
Trees are like arboreality, man.
trees
That's the spirit!
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