How many times have you wandered repeatedly from the cupboard to the refrigerator trying to figure out what you could possibly make that at least resembled food? How many times have you gotten past that, only to realize that you're missing 2 key ingredients for whatever dish it is that you just got your hopes up about?

I just found (what appears to be) a great website - RecipeMatcher.com.

It's simple, just enter in all the miscellaneous food items that you find lying around your kitchen, and Recipe Matcher will return a list of foods that you can make. It even shows a "status bar"-like indicator next to the recipes that shows how many of the ingredients you have - so you don't get all excited only to find that you're missing half of the things the recipe calls for.

If you're drawing a blank and need some meal ideas, Recipe Matcher is definitely a useful website.

Someone just needs to remake this thing and include nutritional information, and approximate cost per serving. I would love to be able to sort by both of those and come up with a list of the cheapest and healthiest meals that I could make. Or.. maybe I should just make that. It also wouldn't hurt to list the time it takes to make a recipe. Combine all those and I think I've just described a killer web-app.

It's been a rough week for me.. but Thanksgiving generally cheers me up.

Also, the "Pilgrims" did NOT wear buckles on their hats. Some artisty people decided to portray them as wearing all black and white with funny hats and belt buckles all over themselves because it looked old fashioned. There's you history lesson for the day.

Peace!

Yesterday there was some summer sausage being cut up, and I got to wondering - why is it called summer sausage? I've never seen or heard of winter, fall, or spring sausage, so being named after the season seemed like an easy but wrong conclusion. I started to wonder if the "official" name for this type of sausage was something that sounded like "summer" and the sausage makers just decided to go easy on our poor american tongues rather than make us pronounce (or mispronounce) another german word.

I was going to ask you guys what you thought, hoping for some creative responses - and I still will.. creative the hell out of it….. if you can. But fortunately (un?), wikipedia actually answered my question:

Summer sausage is the general term for any sausage that can be kept without the need of refrigeration. Summer sausage is usually a mixture of pork and other meat such as beef and venison. Summer sausage can be either dried or smoked, and curing ingredients can vary significantly, although some sort of curing salt is almost always used. Seasonings may include mustard seeds, black pepper, garlic salt, or sugar.

In spite of its name, summer sausage actually tends to be made in the autumn, during traditional hunting seasons in North America and Europe. Summer sausage, like all sausages, makes use of leftover scrap meat and organ meat that would otherwise be wasted.

A particular kind of summer sausage is popular in North Dakota, occasionally containing cheese in addition to meat. This type of summer sausage is smoked rather than dried and is generally best kept and eaten cold, though it can be cooked.

I want cheesy North Dakotan summer sausage!

(If you can come up with an explanation of "summer sausage" involving Martians (Marsians!), you win!)

I've lost family members before, but they've always been the "second aunt twice removed that I met once when I was 6" kind. I've never really lost anyone that I *KNEW* much less that I was close to or cared about.

Yesterday my grandma passed away. The gravity of that is hitting me off and on.

Me, my sister, my cousin, my grandpa, and my dad had gone to lunch with her, we went to the menswear store next door that's having a going out of business sale after almost 150 years (where she tried to get me to let her buy me a corduroy sports coat), we went to the coffee shop, and then she wanted to go see how much further we had come on the house that my dad is building.

What was a really good day ended with us watching her faint on my dad and not get back up. The rest of the day was filled with phone calls, emergency crews, sitting in the hospital, and getting kind of annoyed but still appreciating all the staff saying "I'm sorry for your loss".

I'm glad I was there to try to help and was able to spend the day with her before she went, but as I found out last night, these images and memories are fuel for horrible dreams.

She was an incredible person, and an amazing grandma.

sparx: i totally got gas at $1.95 yesterday

spudart: whoa

sparx: that makes it sound like i bought cheap beans
i mean.. i bought gasoline at $1.95 yesterday
or expensive beans i guess. $1.95 is very expensive for a can of beans.. i think?
Sent at 9:37 AM on Thursday

spudart: i'm not a fan of cars or gas
i wouldn't mind gas costing $10/gallon
just so gov't gets off their butts and starts building more public transit
Sent at 9:38 AM on Thursday

sparx: i'm lazy. i think this conversation is today's post
Sent at 9:41 AM on Thursday

spudart: haha

sparx: quick, say something to the HUNDREDS of sparxmind.com readers!

spudart: How many days in your entire life have you spent outside your state in the United States of America?

sparx: you should make that one of your question posts and i'll link to it.. unless you already have?

spudart: i will be a pots

sparx: alright, i'll post this whole thing and update the link later

spudart: You can have a year to do whatever it is that you want to do. Don't worry about money. What'll it be?"
http://www.spudart.org/blogs/randomthoughts_comments/4377_0_3_0_C/
"Who am I" versus "What am I"
http://www.spudart.org/blogs/randomthoughts_comments/3976_0_3_0_C/
that question has ZERO responses
Do you know what you like
or
like what you know?

http://www.spudart.org/blogs/randomthoughts_comments/3272_0_3_0_C/

Stupporn
stup⋅porn [stuhp-ern]
-adjective
1. Acting stubborn and sticking to an idea or argument even after realizing that one is completely wrong. A combination of "stubborn" and "stupid".

I was checking my traffic logs.. and found a visitor from a town named Chilliwack in British Columbia, Canada.

Yay Chilliwack!