Festive Food

A Holiday Dinner

If you are a bachelor, or your wife is away visiting relatives and has left you to your own devices, you might try this easy-to-fix holiday meal:

1 can beans
several thick slices of bacon
a handful of candy canes

Fry the bacon in a large cast iron skillet. When bacon is fried, add beans and cook until the beans are hot. Pour into a bowl. Stick candy canes in the bowl. Serve.

If you have a block of cheese, you can make a fancier version. Chop the cheese into small chunks. Stick a candy cane into each chunk. Serve with the beans and bacon. Use the candy canes to dunk the cheese into the beans.

Your guests, if you have any, will be impressed.

copyright ©2010 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.

More on Frugality

My wife is very frugal and now insists that I keep a notebook and write down everything I purchase, in the belief that I will reduce my spending. It hasn’t quite worked out as she had hoped, however. Now I only buy things that I can spell.

We have a lot of beer, beef, and beans, but we are very short on flower.





Copyright © 2010 Laurie J. Anderson. All rights reserved.

Beaversharks and Rope Serpents

I must warn strangers to the Southern Appalachians about some of the native wildlife here. Many of you know to beware of bears and angry groundhogs, but there are other dangers not as well known.

Beaversharks, for instance, inhabit the mountain lakes and the larger rivers. They resemble small sharks, with very sharp teeth and powerful jaws, but possess large, flat tails. They only hunt at night, in packs, lying in wait in quiet pools of water for unsuspecting skinny-dippers. The would-be swimmers hear the loud slap of the beavershark tails and assume that a harmless beaver dam is nearby. They are mistaken, however. Those who jump into water inhabited by a pack of ravenous beaversharks will leave little for their relatives to bury.

Far more insidious is the rope serpent. The rope serpent, as its name implies, resembles a plain piece of rope. It is most often found lying near a body of deep water. When an unsuspecting hiker tries to pick up the “rope”, the rope snake wraps itself around the hiker and pulls him into the water. The hiker drowns and then the serpent, like a python, eats him whole.

The best way to protect yourself from beaversharks is to avoid skinnydipping at night. The next best thing to do is to toss a few cans of pork and beans into the water before you go swimming. If the cans disappear, you know that beaversharks are nearby. If you toss enough pork and beans into the water, the beaversharks will eventually develop gas and float to the surface, where you can pick them off with a rifle.

Do this from a distance, though, and only if the moon is full. I knew a man who tried this method but used a shotgun while hunting by torchlight from his rowboat. He got within ten feet of a large pack of beaversharks and began shooting. The creatures he hit sprang leaks and were propelled upward by the escaping gas. They reached their zenith at about 30 feet up and started falling back -- into the boat. The remaining gas ignited as the fish successively fell past the torches. Folks on shore said it reminded them of Gettysburg. The hunter survived, but will not admit to any error in judgement and blames his missing ear on General Sherman.

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Mrs. Doc reminds any children preparing reports for school that Doc gets all his facts from The Barnum Book of Natural History & Electrical Engineering.

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Nutritional Advice

Lots of folks who are vegetarians don’t realize that it is okay to eat meat. Meat is just processed vegetables. Cows have a diet of grass, grain, or corn, and then process them for you, which saves your body the strain of digesting a raw product.

Likewise, when you drink beer, you are getting concentrated grain. Beer for breakfast is perfectly acceptable and a quick way to get your daily dose of grain if you are in a hurry. Whiskey is even better for you because it takes the essence of corn and distills it down to its basics in a super-concentrated form. Alcohol does kill brain cells like you’ve been told, but it only kills the weaker ones, leaving the stronger cells to flourish. So a bottle of whiskey not only nourishes and strengthens you, it makes you smarter as well.

Donuts, cake and cookies are also all made from grain, and they contain sugar, which is known to give you energy. Some physicians advise against other stimulants such as chocolate and coffee, but bear in mind that chocolate and coffee are both made from beans. Beans, as anyone knows, are the chief component of our army’s diet, and if beans can keep a soldier strong, they can keep you strong, too.

So my advice is that you have a breakfast consisting of the following: coffee, bacon, whiskey, sausages, beer, donuts and chocolate chip cookies. You will probably live longer, or at least in a considerably happier state.

copyright ©2009 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.

Doc’s Advice on What Not to Give a Woman on Valentine’s Day

1. Poultry (dead or alive).
2. Fancy mail-order face cream “that gets rid of blemishes.”
3. A sturdy shoulder yoke to help her carry water buckets.
4. A mechanical corn-shucker.
5. Chocolate-covered novelty foods, such as green beans.
6. Any perfume named after a city, such as “Eau de New York.”
7. Large new cast-iron frying pan.
8. Extra-large cast-iron cooking pot.
9. Cast-iron anything.
10. A fur sunbonnet.

Also, do not cook dinner for her if the only thing you know how to fix is beans and mashed potatoes.

Most importantly, do not try to save money by giving the one you love a slightly used bouquet of flowers (or if you do, first make sure the sympathy card is removed).

copyright ©2011 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.

Doc’s New Year’s Resolutions

1. Don't excercise, as it leads to fatigue.

2. Hand over the day-to-day work reins to assistant in order to concentrate on product development.

3. Teach assistant Bleb accounting and how to play banjo.

4. Develop a hair restorative that doesn’t explode or eat through the bottle.

5. Develop more games of chance that aren’t.

6. Invent a cure for which there is no disease, and market the hell out of it.

7. Hide money where “Mrs. Doc” won’t find it.

8. Don’t hide paper money in the hay bin that the mule eats out of.

9. Convince printer to pay for labels in exchange for free advertising.

10. Convince mother-in-law that she should visit Tierra del Fuego.

11. Never warm the label glue near the stove when the wife is preparing gravy.

12. Eat fewer beans, at least before a show.

copyright ©2008 Laurie J. Anderson, all rights reserved.