You can have your flaming rubber cheese, but now I want some deep-fried zucchini slices. More like crack than french fries...

Mmmmmmm....flaming rubber cheese....

It was the New York Times that set me off on a Greek food fetish today, with the recipe for a coffee frappe in the Dining section.

I bet I can get smelt at the Greek seafood place around the corner from my apartment, which I've never been to.

Can anyone give me recommendations about where to stay in Seattle other than downtown? The damn hotel lost my reservations and everything else seems booked or prohibitively expensive.

OK, never mind. I found a room at the Sixth Avenue Inn that's only a little overpriced.

Someone in a cubicle near me is scanning backup tapes with a barcode reader.

I hope the engineer who designed to barcode reader to make a beeping noise that can't be turned off gets to hear that noise forever in Hell.

A fellow classmate at my elementary school ate Fluffernutters every single day, from first grade through sixth. I lost track of his lunch menu, after we went to junior high. He was skinny and one of the most athletic kids in our class, fwiw.

What do you people do with Fluff, if you don't put it on a peanut butter sandwich? Fluff poutine? (Flouftine?)

You can also put it in hot cocoa. The others don't have Fluff though, Jon. They have pale imitations. Fluff is fluffier than their marshmallow creme.

Cindy, is the no peanut butter rule in your kids school because of all of the kids with peanut allergies?

Yes, it's that way in our whole town. In our little school--let's see, in Ben's class of 24(ish) kids, two are peanut allergic. In Julia's class of 22, one is allergic. I don't know of any kids in Chris's class that are, nor do I know about the other grades. There are something like 150-200 kids in the school.

We used to have peanut-free tables in the cafeteria, and the kids couldn't have peanut based products for snack (which is eaten in the classroom). Next, they changed the caf rules, such that there was one table for peanut butter consumption, and all the rest were peanut free. The kids who ate at the peanut-butter table had to bring boxes of baby wipes to school with them, and wipe their faces and hands, before lunch was over.

It worked well. Then one day, a teacher (at another school in our town) was correcting papers during her lunch (peanut butter). She must have had residual oils on her finger tips, because when she handed the paper back to a peanut allergic kid, he had a reaction. Now, the children aren't allowed peanut butter, at all.

I understand, and don't actually mind, except for field trip days. The teachers are all very big on bringing disposable bags on field trips. As a mother, I'm not so big on letting a kid bring turkey or tuna that's going to sit on a hot school bus for four hours, before it gets eaten.

Every turkey is called Oscar.

Also, fish is barely tolerable until it's smoked, and then it's heaven on earth.

Seafood is the food of the gods. Neptune especially.