These Veggies Bite Back

It has been a while since we’ve heard from him, but yesterday’s discussion about vegetables led to this response from the produce manager at Genway, the supermarket for genetically engineered foods.

Hello!

I’m delighted with the conversations I read on your blog! I find I am able to pick up wonderful ideas that turn into fantastic new developments in our food laboratory.

Just yesterday a person named Jacque called Kohlrabi a “crustaceous” vegetable. Then she back tracked and said she had mistakenly called the plant a lobster. But I don’t believe in “mistakes”! In my world, “mistakes” are scientific advances that happen while your back is turned and you’re thinking of something else. And believe me, I’m ALWAYS thinking of something else.

I got right to work trying to make Jacque’s dream come true! I already have a full library of GIANT aquatic arthropod DNA, so that wasn’t a problem, but finding kohlrabi was a bit tougher. I’m not a big fan of vegetables, which is odd for a supermarket produce manager, but if you spent all day around them you’d feel that way too, believe me.
Carrots are smug!

My research expedition to the Farmer’s Market was an eye opener. There are plenty of weird creations over there, almost as strange as the stuff in our store. Like eggplant! I believe eggplant is a spore from outer space, but that’s a different product and another story.

I located the kohlrabi and was immediately impressed with the vegetable’s wild attitude and tough outside cover, which does have a lobster-like stubbornness. I purchased a sample and brought it back to the lab. As night fell, everything was in readiness. Our projects draw a lot of electricity from the grid, so timing is crucial. Once North Dakota went to bed at 9pm, I was able to throw the switch and within minutes, Genway had a new product – Crayfish Kohlrabi!

It’s a vegetable with “SNAP”!

With Genway’s Crayfish Kohrabi, nobody can say vegetables are for wimps. They’re delicious when properly prepared, but be careful when you put your arm in the tank to take one out. These babies will fight back, and if they get a hold of you, they’ll hang on!

The story Jacque told about stealing some kohlrabi from the garden and running off into the cornfield to eat it raw with a little salt might also a good technique for dining on Genway’s Crayfish Kohlrabi … if you’re writing a scene from a horror movie!

Because these VegAnimals are genetically engineered, we don’t have a clear idea of the full range of their enhanced capabilities. In the secluded area between the rows of corn, their animated pincers might find the energy and the inspiration to make a tossed salad out of you! So be sure to take a buddy! And pictures! I can’t wait to find out what this new product can do!

Giant Crayfish Kohlrabi – new from Genway, the supermarket for genetically engineered foods!

Are you an adventurous eater?

116 thoughts on “These Veggies Bite Back”

  1. Rise and Shine Babooners:

    Well, I must start doing my entry when I am fully awake, but still I feel oddly, um …honored, mocked, both? I wonder about this critter though. Would it chase those children trying to filch the veggies? Would it bite or even eat them? What would happen if you salted this crustaceous kohlrabi? And most important — what would Grandma say? Her garden always grew just so. If she found this Giant Crayfish kohlrabi (referred to henceforth as GCK) there it would just go to the compost pile. Then what?

    I am a somewhat adventurous eater, but I have my list of won’t eats, too. I think the GCK will be on that. It just looks dangerous!

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    1. Don’t feel mocked, Jacque!
      Dr. Kyle rarely identifies the victims of his compulsive idea theft. Feel honored.
      And afraid. Unanswered questions – that’s what he REALLY creates.

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  2. Good morning and eat your veggies, but don’t let them eat you,

    I am willing to try all kinds of food. However, I might draw the line at eating a vegetable that could eat me. Do you think that Dr. Kyle has gone too far and has made a food that is a little too dangerous?. Of course some people think that all of the geneticly engineered foods are dangerous, but a vegetable with claws might be more dangerous than some of the other geneticly engineered creations. I think the most unusual food I have had is Bos Constrictor that was served to me when doing volonteer work in Bolivia. It was deep fried and and was good. I hope Dr. Kyle doesn’t decided to cross a vegetable with a Boa.

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  3. my rule for vegetarian boundries is that if it has a mother i don’t eat it. i think doctor kyle qualifies as a mother in this instance. my general feeling is that if the food will get you if you are not looking you should leave it alone. now if he developed a kohlrabi that was crossed with a blanket so i could snack while taking a nap in front of the tv i would consider that.

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    1. I think we do need to give Dr. Kyle some better suggestions for new foods, Tim. Your suggestion is good. I have one. How about vegetables crossed with octopus so that the vegetables could use their many octopus styled arms to do their own weeding. Well, I guess this wouldn’t work for a vegetarian. It might work for people who like both sea food and vegetables and don’t like weeding.

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      1. Well, maybe kolhrabi crossed with crayfish would be a good combination for making gumbo if combined with okra, onions, peppers, and tomatoes.

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    2. ideally it should be able to make its own gumbo and hop in after the task portion is completed. now if you could cross breed it so a peanut butter and jelly sandwich could make it self or how about a tomato that could follow instructions to make a lasagna dish and then hop in at the end.

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  4. Greetings! Glad to see Dr. Kyle is still messing about in his lab — even if I don’t care for the results! But two favorite foods combined — my that’s tempting, if not a bit dangerous. But that’s part of the appeal, yes? That roguish, bad boy, dangerous appeal of exotic foodstuffs.

    To answer the question, yes I’m a fairly adventurous eater, but I draw the line at most of Genway’s foods or GMOs. The few foods I don’t like include liver, cream of tomato soup and blue cheeses. Eat well today, Babooners!

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      1. Clyde – thanks for asking — more or less. We’ve got the furniture and the basics set up, but there’s still lots of boxes, chaos and smaller things/closets/organizers to organize, some minor decorating and other stuff to set up. Plus, there’s still a bunch of stuff at old house to pack, move and then CLEAN! Aargghh! I’ve been tired for 2 weeks straight, eating lots of fast food and no end in sight. I recommend you start planning now for your move, get lots of young, studly helpers and bite the bullet to pay someone to move as much as possible for you. I was in denial too long. Start purging stuff now if you have a lot of possessions in your house.

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    1. got your lasagna recipe listed late yesterday. do up those noodles and you will be underway in the new digs. enjoy forced air. did you get a gas stove? i really like gas stoves.

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      1. Thanks, Tim — I saw it when I refreshed the page early this morning. Looks really good — but that’s like a whole day of cooking. Maybe once I’ve settled in and have a quiet Sunday I’ll give it a try.

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      2. No gas stove or dryer — those are electric. Considering it’s a newer house, the appliances, carpeting and cabinets are rather low grade. Ah well …

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    2. Good advice. I am trying to quite denying. There will be no choice. I will have to hire help. Should start throwing/selling right now, I know.

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  5. Yikes. When I only had the sound of Dr. Kyle’s voice on the radio and my imagination, it was eerie enough, but the visual aid of the GCK is TRULY creepy. Will I ever be able to pick up kohlrabi again without seeing this picture in my mind? And I’m with Tim — with Dr. Kyle as it’s father, I’m thinking the GCK is outside my dietary realm!

    Morning all!

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    1. My sister and I used to “steal” turnips from the garden, wash them at the pump in our back yard, peel them with our teeth, salt them, and eat them.

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  6. [Gurrgle] I ate at [Gurrgle] Good Earth yesterday. [Gurrgle] We had the Mideastern [Gurrgle] Medley and the onion, apple, [Gurrgle] gorgonzolla, spinach [Gurrgle] pizza. ‘Bout as adventuresome as I get while drowning. [Gurrgle] [Gurrgle]

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  7. All I can say while looking at the Crayfish Kohlrabi is “Ia Cthulhu!” The first non-vegan, treyf vegetable; I wave my tentacles at Genway in awe!

    I was vegetarian for 15 years and have been vegan for another 7 or so, but within those parameters I’m fairly adventurous, especially considering my traditional Midwestern background. I have yet to try durian, but I’ve eaten natto sushi (natto is fermented soybeans, clumped together with okra-like slime and NOT to be confused with tempeh, which is meaty and delicious in reubens. Natto is, not surprisingly, consumed mainly by dieters and health nuts in Japan). Once, just to say I had. And once was plenty.

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    1. LOVE reubens made w/ tempeh! My daughter and I always make sure we order at least one serving whenever we go to French Meadow Bakery. Usually we order something else and then split both!

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    2. crow woman you are adventerous. i have found few things that take as much getting used to as those fermented foods form the east. pheww. it sure clears your sinus’
      welcome back.
      whats the story with the crow moniker?

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    3. Welcome! Enjoy the vegan chili. It’s a staple of my winter diet. I will share Curried Butternut-Apple soup recipe soon.

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  8. I’ll eat almost anything, but there must be something in my DNA that mistrusts shellfish and many kinds of seafood. Straightforward fish is fine, but you can keep the shrimp and scallops and calamari and all that stuff. My strategy if someone takes me to a sushi restaurant is to order the vegetable tempura.

    There is a market near Dale Street where they have a lot of fresh seafood, and there is a bin of live crayfish that I find particularly unsettling. They are just piled in there, wriggling, probably wondering, where’s PETA when you need them? Point me to the produce aisle.

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    1. stone crab is the only meat i eat because it is not from a dead animal . they harvest the claws and then let them grow back. i love my stone crab. months with an r are back again

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    2. As much as I love crab, lobster, scallops, etc., they are bottom feeders after all and are not really “clean” sources of food. So being suspicious of crustaceans is probably a wise move after all.

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  9. “Twas thinking of the bad doctor couple days ago. We had a frozen vegetable dish from Lean Cuisine or the like. Had little round pale orage things in it, med me think of little had grenades. We decided they were carrots; but tasted sort of like solid nitrogen-rich air. Okay doc, whatcha do? Were they little choesterol bombs?

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  10. I wouldn’t call myself adventurous, but I do eat a wide variety of foods. I saw a recipe in a ND hunting guide last weekend for stew made with the breast of 12 crows. Yuck!! Many people out here consider eating lamb exotic, yet they will eat antelope and venison without a shudder. We love lamb, and found a local (well, she’s 140 miles east) lamb producer who raises really nice lamb. The lamb producer, Kate, was visiting ND from her native New Zealand about 10 years ago, met a and fell in love with a local farmer, and now raises sheep on the other side of Bismarck. We bought a lamb last week, and she even included the kidneys and liver, neither of which I will eat. The cats have been giving me hints about putting succulent poached kidneys in their bowl, but I ‘ll have to see.

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  11. I am literally drowning, but in my owm mucous, fall allergies and cold. Yuck.
    Too bad we do not have Lisa in St. Peter anymore. She could give us a better report. But St. Peter is an island. We drove by the edge of it to the east yesterday. Amazed to see how far out the water is from the river in that direction. Mankato has all of these wonderful flood controls built into the highway system. So we just go on living our lives ignoring those who are innundated. In our association, at the highest point in Manakto, are 8 homes with basements, not anyone of which is mine, but we almost bought one. I see that four of them have sopping wet carpet piled on their lawns. Saw a few other places like that riding in ths a.m.
    Go to higher ground tim.

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    1. st peters is where you are moving to right? are you buying or moving into a group deal? any concern about the buoyancy of the new digs?

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      1. We are thinking about St. Peter. Almost all of the housing in St. Peter is well above the river. Not sure if the downtown businesses are under water at all.

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  12. Morning–

    Wow Dr. Kyle… can we still find crawfish in creeks? I haven’t seen one in years. Probably haven’t looked in years…

    I’m trying to be a more adventurous eater… Yes tim, I know I passed up my chance at tofu the other day but we have to work up to these things. I just learned about asparagus done on the grill this spring!
    One of my best friends loves to eat and will eat anything. I’ve traveled with him enough that he’s helped me not be afraid to try things. But remember, I’m from Minnesota and Ketchup is spicy to me so I have to be careful…
    My wife and I went out for supper one night; had some sort of pizza burger appetizer something or other that had just a bit of a bite to them. When I commented on that to the waitress she said ‘You think those are spicy?! Boy, you are a wuss.’ Yep– although I prefer to think I have a ‘Sensitive palate’….

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  13. Ben, tofu is the zucchini of the Far East. It tastes only like what it is in. Makes great pies as a matter of fact.

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  14. Right you are, Sherrilee. That photo of the good doctor is terrifying. That is a face I wouldn’t want to run into in some dark laboratory. I can sum this up in two “words”: Ed Gein. That mad glint in the eye. Looks like the sort of creep who would chew pieces out of his steering wheel if traffic got bad.

    (extended shiver!)

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    1. Okay, so I told a dumb joke that sailed past my audience without recognition. The fellow in the Dr. Kyle photo is Dale’s old partner in crime on the Morning Show. His one foray into acting, according to my memory, had him eating his steering wheel. I’ll bet he has a story about that.

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      1. Of course we know that’s a picture of Jim Ed Poole — silly guy! We just wanted to see you hung by your own petard (I like that phrase — just not sure if it really fits this situation).

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  15. Yesterday MIG mentioned Crescent Dragonwagon, a famous cook from the Ozarks who wrote the cookbook that I’ve used for years to make soups. The fresh basil is critical in this one. Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t enjoy drinking at the table.

    Crescent’s Chicken and Corn Soup
    2 1/2 quarts chicken stock
    3 c dry white wine
    1 tbsp tomato paste
    1 1/2 tsp Pickapeppa Sauce (Tiger Sauce works too)
    3 c corn kernels (frozen is fine)
    1 tbsp butter
    1 tbsp vegetable oil
    2 large onions, diced
    3 tomatoes, roughly chopped (can be canned)
    2 small zucchini cut in half rounds
    1 c lightly packed fresh basil leaves
    2 tbsp cornstarch (optional)
    2 c cooked chicken bits (like from grocery store rotisserie chicken)

    In heavy pot, combine stock and wine; bring to a boil. Turn heat down to medium-low and simmer. Whisk in tomato paste and Pickapeppa. Drop the corn in; cover and cook 15 minutes.

    Meanwhile, in 8- or 9-inch saucepan, heat butter and oil over medium heat; sauté onion until it is translucent, 3-4 minutes. Add tomatoes and stir them around for about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes and onion to soup; deglaze pan. Blanch zucchini pieces by putting them in a colander and drenching them with a kettle of boiling water; plunge in cool water. Stack 8 to 10 fresh basil leaves and slice them in thin ribbons with scissors. Add salt and pepper and basil to soup. Fool around with the seasonings. (Optional: you can at this point add a little paste of cornstarch and wine). Put in the zucchini and chicken; heat through and serve.

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    1. I also have a cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon that I use alot: The Passionate Vegetarian. I particularly love all the bean recipes. And I’ve paged through another cookbook of hers that is dedicated solely to cornbread… looked excellent as well.

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    2. This looks great. I have to wait before I make it though, since my husband makes soup often and we have large quantities of soup in the freezer and I am determinted to get all the frozen soup eaten before we make any more.

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  16. Jim — love the octopus’s garden idea with the weeding!
    Crow Girl — care to translate “Ia Cthulhu!”? Looks Welsh…
    Clyde – Glad you’re staying dry (except for the allergies), and
    Krista – aren’t you glad Rock Bend happened before all this water!

    RE: the GCK, George Carlin (in that Fussy Eater sketch tim cited once) said something like “anything moving sideways toward me with pincers doesn’t make me hungry.”

    I love new things in general, and my byline is I’ll try anything once, unless it smells dead or it’s “way too” hot. Have found some wonderful things that way, and some stuff I’ll stay away from.

    Nice to have the new recipes and cookbook suggestions to check out, people.

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  17. I am an adventurous eater, but married to a man for whom, like Ben, ketchup is as spicy as he goes. He can’t tolerate anything in the onion or pepper families (including leeks, green onions, chives…), so I have had to re-teach myself how to cook without those necessities.

    I went to Korea with my sister-in-law to meet and bring home my youngest niece. Had about a week in Seoul, with all that wonderful smelling Korean food calling to me. I only managed to get s-i-l into a “traditional” restaurant once that whole week – and it was in a touristy section of the city, so it served traditional/local foods but not the way the locals might eat ’em I’m guessing. We went for one of the sampling menus that had something like 20 courses (as opposed to the 30 or 40 item sampler) – it was a lot of food. There was a really yummy, spicy soup that had something with tentacles in it. Many dishes with vegetables that I could not recognize or name. The one that really gave s-i-l pause, that she would not eat, and she was pretty convinced was going to kill me (she woke up several times that night to make sure I was still breathing), was the raw ground beef served with raw egg – it was a little spicy and served with a healthy dollop of fresh ginger. Man was that good. And, for the record, did not make me sick.

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    1. Anna – you’ve just reminded me of a great memory! I traveled to Malaysia and Singapore many years ago and one my first night (before the client arrived) my guide and driver, who had been showing me all over the place on my first day asked me where I wanted to eat dinner. I told them I would love to eat at a place where tourists didn’t go — where the locals liked to go. They took me to just such a place… down a back street… nothing in English and it was clear that a white person in the restaurant was a big novelty. The first thing the driver did was pull out his big white handkerchief and plop it next to his plate. My guide explained to me (driver did not speak English) that the food there was “a little hot”. It was wonderful, especially a dish made w/ okra and onions, but I’m telling you, calling that meal “a little hot” was like saying “Minnesota winters get a little chilly”!

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  18. Turns out Bubby’s problem is statewide. On our way to soccer last night, the s&h was complaining that while this year, snack is supplied by school (so as to force them all to escew cheetos, I guess), what they have been mostly getting is celery. He has nothing against celery, but if the idea is to tide you over until lunchtime, it is not working with the 6th grade boys.

    I decided not to inform him that allegedly, celery is the one food that takes more calories for your body to process than it gives you (maybe just an urban legend, but I can see it). He also pointed out (rightly) that we eat a lot of veggies at home.

    Normally, I would question the idea of a snack at all, but they start serving lunch at 10:45 and finish about 1:30.

    He’s grown 3″ over the summer and is plenty thin (anybody need a stack of kid’s size 12 jeans, let me know)-I made him french toast for breakfast.

    Maybe Dr. Kyle could design a line of veggies that can self-adjust calorically based on the BMI of the eater?

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    1. The whole kids and eating thing, as per the blog I missed yesterday, is one topic on which I am clearly an idiot. I have seen parents tie their kids in knots over healthful food. I have no idea at all how to deal with kids, like my grandson, who refuses to eat any vegetable at 5 years old. I passed on the Wetter fat gene to both of my kids and now he has it too. Sigh. But my partner’s idiot-caustic-know-itall-about-everything-superior-conservative-superior-Iowa wife has turned 2 0f her three kids into anorexic waifs who panic at the sight of any food that would be fun to eat.

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      1. That is just sad.

        Food is (or should be) just a joy. I recently introduced my son to cheddar cheese from Wisconsin that is about as old as he is (pure heaven and to be savored in small bits-given the time and effort that goes into its making, it would be wrong to gobble it).

        For the record, I think the s&h is too thin, but it is not for lack of eating. Good thing I work in a bakery and have ready access to bread to fill up those hollow legs.

        I guess we are pretty adventurous eaters. We like sushi and like scanning the produce section for something new and weird.

        Love to try new ethnic stuff, and since we shy away from eating animals we are fond of, there is a lot of left-of-center food (like tvp and tempeh) that are part of our lives. Fried plantains are also a treat.

        In a pinch, we will hit fast food, but consider that more as emergency fuelling than actual eating.

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      2. I find my daughter will eat lots of things as long as someone besides her parents cooked it. She gobbles broccoli and brussels sprouts at the neighbors and won’t look at them at home.

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      3. I hear ya, Clyde. I think going to war with kids at the dinner table, forcing them to eat something they consider disgusting, is a losing game for everyone. And yet I don’t know how to encourage healthier eating habits other than by example. My daughter’s first boyfriend was a kid with narrowly defined taste. The first three movies he took her to see were Star Wars. And he ate pizza every night, seven days out of seven. Wouldn’t touch anything else. This is not the easiest part of parenting, at least for some.

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    2. i remember at that time in my life i ate 3 pb &j and 3 scoops ovf vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and peanuts every day after school watching i love lucy at 330 before i went out to screw around with my buddies for a couple hours before dinner at 6. metabolism what a marvelous thing

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      1. This was not, by chance the young man who also spent time in NICU, was he? My boy was born with next to no fat on him (thanks to mom’s high bp), so I doubt it will ever be an issue for him.

        I’ve never really had trouble getting him to eat something unless he found it morally reprehensible (pigs and ducks) or if I get too heavy handed with the salt shaker. Have a fond memory of a big family party at Buca when he was about 3 and he was pretty sleepy, but just kept eating the calamari.

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      2. It is indeed, and, I must admit, he has become somewhat pudgy since he went to college and got married. He hasn’t figured out that he can’t keep eating like he did when he was 16, and he probably could lose 50 lbs.

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  19. Lovely morning all!

    I enjoyed both pictures, Dale. The one of Dr. Kyle made me smile… 🙂

    I guess I’m not really an adventurous eater. Looking at the meat counter in a store grosses me out. I’ve been known to stand in front of the aquarium in a grocery store looking at the lobsters piled up on one another and cry. I don’t consider myself a vegetarian but I don’t eat meat very often. When I do, I prefer fish or chicken but it’s a rare occasion. Kidneys, crayfish, raw fish, bugs, natto – not for me.

    Ben, I see crayfish all the time in Waterville, but I wouldn’t eat one. They’re pretty cute. I walk on the pond dike roads around the fish rearing ponds at Waterville State Fish Hatchery and the little guys are all over in August. When you approach, they stand right up on their tails and wave their claws at you. It’s really cute.

    The lakes are still rising here. Homes that weren’t flooded last week are flooded now. There are lots of fields with drain tiles in them. It takes awhile for the water to leave the land and hit the drain tile to the ditch to the stream to the lakes. The lakes around Waterville drain to the Cannon River, not the Minnesota. Watch out Red Wing! Clyde, hope you are dry. Do you know if the Co-0p is open?

    Carry on Babooners!

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    1. I guess you can get into SP from the west, but the water was all the way to the road down from Ottawa, in other words close to the base of the hill that climbs the highway towards Cleveland. Do no think that is clear. That must put the cooop right there, I think.

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    2. Krista: you probably should eat the crayfish. Minnesota is being rapidly invaded by a nasty new crayfish, the rusty crayfish, that is a rude citizen in our lakes. Unless you are talking about the far western lakes, any crayfish in a MN lake has a good chance of being this alien species. Eat that sucker. You’ll be doing a favor for our lakes.

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      1. No, they’re the native ones. I work in the State Fish Hatchery where I see them all the time. Even if they were the rusty ones, I wouldn’t eat them.

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    3. Thanks Krista– maybe this weekend the family and I can go crawfish hunting! …course it’s dear season for bow… better wear our orange vests and make lots of noise as we walk. The hunters won’t mind that, right?

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      1. watch out, they may just shoot you out of pure annoyance.

        My dad is a deer hunter (shotgun, not bow) and told us the story of seeing something moving and a flash of white. Swung the gun around and realized it was a guy in camo hunting gear. Dad wanted to know what on earth he was thinking dressing like that during deer season.

        The guy assured him this was no problem, as he was hunting pheasant. Dad somehow convinced him of the error of his ways and led him out of the field and back to his car.

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      2. A hunter once shot one of our Holstein cows (black and white, if you do not know) for a deer. Hw was wondering he could gut it out and take the meat.

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      3. As a kid I read about a guy in NY State who nearly got shot while wearing a red coat by someone who thought he was a deer. So his wife sewed a coat with alternating white and black stripes. Of course, he was shot the first time he wore it. The judge asked the guilty hunter how he could confuse a white and black critter for a deer. The answer (and this is from a newspaper article, true) was: “I didn’t think he was a deer. I thought he was a zebra.”

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  20. I can think of only one “adventurous” thing I’ve eaten. That was this year. I bought some turkey pieces and procrastinated about preparing them. One day I gave them the sniff test, and they failed. I was so miffed at myself for my sloth that I cooked them anyway. Meat that has “gone past” is not really toxic, just repulsive. It took a bunch of soy sauce and resolve to get that meal down. My mother would be proud of me. Even without her here to inflame my sense of guilt, I did it to myself.

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    1. Steve, I find that surprising. “Meat that has ‘gone past’ is not really toxic, just repulsive.”? I thought for sure that eating a bad smelling piece of meat would make me sick. No?
      Of course I have the same strange notion about italics, which is why I went through and used my editing powers to remove all references to the earlier italics infection that swept through the blog. Am I being over sensitive?

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      1. Go eat, thos italics, Dale. Was awondering how the count dropped.
        The native peoples of Alaska eat raw rotten meat, caribou/reindeer. Their bodies are built to digest it; but they cannot eat corn and a few other things. you will see a quarter of caribou hanging outside a house in the summer in the North Slope allo of the time. BTW Barrow has snow; looks like full winter; wish I were there.

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      2. Dale: thanks for the italics enema. We’re all feeling better now. You seem to like things neat and orderly. I have a vision of what your basement is like, and it is nothing like mine.

        If meat is just rotten but not infected, I think we can eat it without dire results. Actual infestations from insects are over the line. Not that I have tried them. The Brits (and French, I think) like to nail a pheasant to a barn wall. When the meat is “high” enough that the bird drops, it is ready to be cooked.

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      3. I have a Canadian coworker who hangs his own deer up for a few days and then processes the deer himself. He says it’s best to do it when it’s cooler (40 – 50 degrees) but he’s done it when it’s warmer than that. He cuts the deer up and wraps the meat, then freezes it. He seems okay.

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  21. I decided to login.
    OT–we took our son and d-i-l back to the airport yesterday and snuck in a visit to the Museum of Russian Art. A first class world museum for 7 bucks here in MN!! Truly is world class. Has three exhibits right now. 1) laquered art. Amazing work with detailed brushes. 2) Textiles in the basement. I think one or two people who can walk to it would find that exhibit to their taste. 3) And then 56 paintings by one of the premier Russian artists of this century. tim, he does amazing stuff with tone/color/form.

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    1. i’ll try to get their and see what you’re talking about. laquer and textiles were there last time but the paintings are my true love anyway. glad you got to see it.

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    1. interesting. i would let it go and leave the decision making to the customers. shall we not allow growth hormones on turkeys? chickens? beef? selective breeding?

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  22. Hi, I’m back for 15 minutes (break time at work). Barbara, I was referencing the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, and quick-checking to see if there were any other SF/F fans on the blog. Too briefly, Lovecraft was a mainstay of Weird Tales magazine in the middle of the last century, and had a, let us say, distinctive writing style! Tim, I have a large tattoo of a pair of corvid wings across my upper back, so that’s the main reason for my handle, though it’s also a nod to the fantasy novels of Charles DeLint. He has a number of Native spirit characters, including a pair of Crow Girls who really are crows. Time’s up, see you all tomorrow!

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  23. It is clear to me that if you want to jazz up this group, food is the topic.

    Fun day! Jim gets the daily banana award for the octopus/veggie self-weeding organism.

    night.

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