The average age of menarche has decreased from 17 to 12 over the last 150 years in the West.

I am not sure what this explains but I suspect it's tied in somehow.

I am sure growth hormones in cows, transmitted via their milk and meat, have affected that, too. I think that started in about 1969. Girls' feet are bigger now, too. I never used to have problems finding size 9 or 10 shoes, and now, forget it.

That, and the fact that girls here are increasingly overweight. And also earlier exposure to the concept of fashion. I don't remember exactly when it happened, but advertisers created what is called a "tween", a preteen between 7/8-12.

It's not just that I see girls dressing in women's clothes, they are wearing sexy women's clothes.

Sitting in the waiting room at the Honda dealership, watching the Dow plummet on MSNBC. A quick update noted that the Dow was already down 125 this morning; then I watched as it dropped another 75 pts. in less than 30 seconds.

Actually the drop has been pretty much linear, going from 17 to 14.6 between 1860 & 1920, & the rest of the way after that. Steady long term trend. You wonder where it's going to end.

At a pharmacy check-out, a small urn by the cash register, casually labelled "Remains of ex-husband."

well shit, my stock portfolio had returned significant gains this year for the first time in about 6 years. one step forward, two steps back.

Dr. Ruth is a trained sniper.

Time to look into annuities?

UNILEVER has murdered Hellmann's/Best Foods mayonnaise.

Food personality actually said, "At so and so place, the food is made by Mexicans, it's not the real thing". Well, dipshit know your audience and your venue. You are in LA at a professional culinary school. Hey asshole, a lot of the food here at any kind of restaurant is made by Mexicans. Here, Mexicans are engaged in practically every socio-economic activity.

You were rude and unprofessional. You were treated extremely well because you were invited by someone who is influential at the school, not because you are famous, because you are not famous. Even if you were famous, your attitude would still be shit. Your childish behavior was surreal. You show up late and immediately make excuses instead of simply apologizing. Then worse yet, you try to put a little blame on me. Bullshit, you were supposed to call and you did not.

Grow up. I know of two extremely well known writers who were kept off of a food board that would have added significantly to their careers because they were known to be difficult to be around and work with. So, even if you are famous acting like a prima donna can hurt your career. Who do you think are? Be polite, be courteous, be professional, don't let your petty ego spill out at inappropriate times. And be gracious, that goes a long way with people who bent over backover backwards to help you out.

Not only that, when did 'Mexicans' become the umbrella term for all Latin Americans?

Maybe if we Americans weren't such useless navel-gazers we would make a frigging effort to understand the cultural differences among the many countries/peoples south of our border.

Notice how on Mouthfuls we don't call it South of the Border.

Yes, the peoples/cultures "south of the border" are heterogeneous and a culinary school in LA will reflect that very much. They also come from economically diverse backgrounds. Some are working class, quite a few come from affluent backgrounds. Not a good place to focus on "the illiterate mountain person from El Salvador" as the primary image for a Hispanic professional cook. Although, no one here is afraid to discuss that either.

I could have sworn I heard someone use that term when discussing Shakira's attire.

Stuck in Secaucus today running tests at our disaster recovery site. I run out at lunchtime for a quick bite at a sports bar in the mall. A wall of TVs are running various programs in easy view. I have my choice from MSNBC, ESPN, and Fox news.

ESPN is running a story on whether Randy Moss will be traded.

MSNBC is covering McCain's presidential announcement.

Fox news has a blaring headline with pictures -

TRAVOLTA SAYS SCIENTOLOGY COULD HAVE SAVED ANNA NICOLE



The Philly cheese steak was surprisingly good.

Actually the whole incident spawned a very interesting discussion between myself and a staff member. The school has a really international student base, so the idea is to have a series of food conferences, workshops, events, etc... that focus on food and culture, LA's particular mix, how foreign foods and ingredients become "internationalized" with French technique and adapted for the general homecook who has an international pantry.

The first three I have in mind are Latin American cuisines, Asian cuisines and Mediterranean cuisines. From there I want to play around with different food connections, for example South Asian, Persian and Arab foodways.

Something about one man's cure being another's poison???

...which he made on David Latterman's show. Since when is late-night goofball TV the preferred venue for presidential campaign launches?

Scream needs a hug. Consider yourself hugged.

My favorite Korean restaurant has guys in the kitchen who look like they might be Mexicans. So does my favorite Mexican-American luncheonette. So did every place I ever worked, and I never worked at a "Mexican" restaurant. The guy is an idiot, and not worth any more of your time.

Maybe it can save his disappearing career.


He needs a decent movie.

Trying for a cooler demographic. Also, wants folks to know he's not so old that he can't stay up late. Arnold made his announcement for guv on Leno.

Didn't help him from losing his hair. What was that wig????

I can only infer that, but for Scientology, John would have met an early death as a drug and booze-addled public embarrassment with a child or children by mother or mothers unknown.

In which case, well done El Ron!

Thank you. I needed it.

That school is not the place to bring in stereotypes, "mainstream" cultural categories don't apply to a large chunk of the student body.

Spanish first name or last name or both
Emilio Kim (Korean born in Argentina)
Rosario Gonzalez (Filipina)
Chinese-Cuban
Millionaire carreer changer in her mid-50's of Mexican descent

"African" looking
Martiniquian
West African born in London
Dark North African born in Europe
Wealthy African-American Muslim
West Indian
Princess from Somalia


You are right this foodie personality person is definately not worth anymore of my time.

It's more a reason to be cheerful, but the Munchkin's school had a "We Are The World Day" (don't think about the song) yesterday to celebrate diversity. To my shame, I've been too busy to supply the sausage rolls and policeman's helmet my daughter might have used to demonstrate her English heritage - but she is the only (part) English child in the school. Dominicans, of course, are ten a penny. I have explained to her that it is her Englishness which lends distinction, but she just curses me in Spanish and carries on watching "Full House" re-runs.

Reminds of the "Colors of the Rainbow" art project at my daughter's school. Imagine an International school with students of all kinds of mixed backgrounds trying to figure out where the family members fit into the color scheme.

My girl told her classmates, "my papa is African" and they all said, "No he's not we've seen him!". The yellow people thing really confused her as well.

ETA: Just thought of the time my son pointed at the fairly dark African-American pastor at my parents' church and said, "that man look like papa". We all burst out laughing because a toddler made the very salient point that categorizing people or Africans by skin color is culturally learned behaviour.

Since the networks did away with any difference between entertainment programming and news programming, and since presidential campaigns became about as serious as stupid pet tricks.

Yet another thread where I can confuse "Travolta" for "Tavolata".

I believe that's true onlly west of the Rockies. Or maybe west of the Mississippi. Or just west of the Delaware?

It's definitely complicated in LA. Aside from derogatory terms, descriptions for both native born and immigrants include: legal, illegal, documented, undocumented, Latin American, Central American, South American, Latino/a, Hispanic, Spanish, Spanish-speaking, Mexican, Mexican-American, etc., etc. Chicano/a seems to have fallen out of common usuage. And, of course, some people have parents from different countries or cultures. A somewhat similar situation exists with regard to persons of Asian ancestry. Maybe there's some easy, correct nomenclature, but nobody really seems to have figured it out and educated us about it.

One of the funniest thing I heard a Filipino student say, "Yeah, like Filipinos are kind of like Mexicans. You get a Chinese person, a native and a Spaniard and mix it all up and you get a Filipino. The short cut method is to mix someone Chinese with a Mexican. Basically the same look. You ever notice how some Mexicans look kind of Asian. Like the hair, shape of the head and body type?"

Sometimes it's just easiest to talk to/about a person using their name.

That made me smile.

That's the whole idea behind those food things I will have my hand in organizing. It's such an obvious concept in Los Angeles.

You're too good for L.A. Come to NYC.


















Oh, wait, then you'd have to leave the husband and kids. Never mind.

This isn't so much surreal as it is disturbing but I'm posting it here anyway:

Last Thursday evening, I arrived home from the gallery around 7:00 after a particularly stressful day. I decided to lay down for a few minutes before dinner so I took off my shoes and got into bed. After a time I opened my eyes and looked at my nightstand clock. OMG, I had slept all night, through my alarm, and now I had only fifteen minutes to get to work. I was frantic.

I raced into the bathroom and washed up, touched up my make-up and decided to run and get a taxi just as I was because major things were scheduled for the day and I just couldn't be late to the gallery on this particular day.

My bedroom and bathroom are ensuite and my bedroom door had been shut. The darkening shade in the bedroom was also drawn as it usually is and the bathroom had no window.

I grabbed my bag and briefcase and bolted out of the bedroom after about fifteen minutes of trying to make myself presentable and ran into the hallway making a beeline for my coat. I turned and looked out the window to my left and thought for a second....the weather must be really bad....it's so dark out....where's my coat?....do I have cash for the taxi?.................. Wha????FUCK! It's night? It's still Thursday! Holy shit.

I had something similar happen to me once. I was in the 6th grade and apparently had a dream in which my alarm clock went off, because I woke up, showered, and got myself ready for school. It was winter, so usually it would be dark when I'd awaken, and the sun would be rising by the time I'd finished breakfast. Strangely, the sun hadn't appeared and nobody else in the house had joined me at the breakfast table. And then I looked at the oven clock to see it was 3:15 a.m.

Really, this sort of thing only happens to the best of us.

I must have told the one about when I lived above a Monday to Saturday street market. I went to bed, probably well refreshed, on a Saturday night, and awoke to the sound of the market in full swing. I stuck my head out of the window. Somehow, I had slept from Saturday right through to Monday morning.

Then someone shouted "Cut!"

Effing film set.

According to legend (and 95% of anthropologists), the Chinese walked across the ice in Alaska and down to the tip of Chile. And scattered seeds of all types, some with extra y chromosomes. Ergo: American native "Indians." Not so suprising my Mexican friends talk about the "Chinaman" in their history. As for hollywood's comment that "Chicano" has fallen out of common useage, this word is heavily tinged with the politics of Marxism. One must be careful to know of whom one is talking.

My wife and I once were in a restaurant where the smoking section was separated from the other half of the restaurant by a wall of what appeared to be mirrored glass. We were seated next to it. I became very uneasy during the early part of the meal but couldn't figure out why until I realized that I couldn't see my reflection . It's a very strange feeling. I glanced down to make sure I could see my body, then checked the mirror again.

No Chad.

I scanned the other half of the room behind me. There it was, reflected perfectly in the mirror. I just wasn't in it. I started to panic a little and began waving my hand in front of the mirror to see if I could get myself to show up. My wife asked who I was waving at, and I had to explain.

I have to give her credit for at least trying not to laugh as she pointed out the other diners now being seated on the other side of the perfectly clear glass. The other half of the room was simply a duplicate of ours.

Chad

The LA Times has a slide show of casting choices to play serial killers. Despite the morbid topic, it was actually kinda hilarious.

The most inspired matchup: Ryan Seacrest as Jeffrey Dahmer.

Maybe it's just a wacky kind of day:



Full story

Those wily Swiss are at it again. I'm kind of surprised we haven't declared Operation LichtenFreedom, occupied the country and then attacked Belgium.

Chad

Space Station Suffers Wasabi Spill

Chad

The thing is that part of the world wasn't a part of China when that happened. I prefer paleo-northeast Asians.

I'm familiar with this a bit. We have totem poles in Korea... shamans, etc..

They probably were Mongolians before they were called Mongolians. Maybe Tibetans. So 'splain why paleo-northeast Asians don't include paleo- northeast Russians? The ethno-anthro word "Asians" is now more widely accepted I suppose.

Includes the Russians too. You know there are people who look like me in Russia too. And not just the ones that came in from China, Manchuria or North Korea.

Generally Koreans trace their origins and historic cultural/linguisitc connections through the Northeast of Asia, Siberia, Mongolia, Central Asia (Turkic peoples), etc..

I know people who read in cookbooks to look for tropical Asian ingredients at an "Asian" store and they go into a Korean one looking for banana leaves.

Swiss accidentally invade Liechtenstein

John Travolta plays Edna Turnblad in the new movie musical of "Hairspray". So it's Travolta doing Harvey Fierstein doing Divine in a fat suit and wig. Absolutely horrific.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2...-turnblad_x.htm
And that faux-butch motorcycle movie he did is doing him no good as well.

On my entirely surreal note, one of our fabulously crazy locals, a black woman who covers her face and arms in white greasepaint and trails around in long flouncy dresses wandered into the cafe, picked up a vase with filled with flowers, took the flowers out, drank the water, put the flowers back in the vase and then walked out the door...