Because it was there

Whoopee. Yawn. I guess I'm glad he finally made it around the world, but can he please go away now and spend gobs of money in some way that's a little less wasteful? Like... I don't know, just something less newsworthy, depending on your definition of newsworthy. I wouldn't think a 'round the world balloon trip would garner so much media attention, but since they found Chandra Levy's body and there's been nothing juicy in the Elizabeth Smart case for a while, there's available news time. Ordinarily I would expect Fosset to get some kind of Discovery Channel show, or maybe something on the National Geographic channel. But of course, they didn't ask me.

I'm only going to snark this once: *eyeroll* middle-aged white guys.

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The house is clean again, and that makes things so much nicer. I'm still not satisfied with the overall quality of the work--which basically means that I know the grout in the upstairs bathroom has been sadly neglected, and the floors aren't really scrubbed to my satisfaction, but it's so much better than what I can do, so I can't really complain. (Speaking of white people with too much time on their hands.)

I made a second recipe from Cook's Illustrated, which is still my absolute favorite magazine ever. This time I made a killer French potato salad with radishes, capers and cornichons. I served it with a spicy shrimp and a cucumber and dill salad, which made for pretty good eating. The potato salad was just lovely with its mustard vinagrette. There's a recipe for cole slaw in the same issue that I also want to try. What can I say, I like side dishes.

If you like food--like to cook--and don't already subscribe to Cook's Illustrated, I highly recommend it. Their web site is subscription only, but like the magazine it carries no advertising. I can get behind that.

before - after