I forgot I had an 11:30 call, and was already starving, so I ran out and got a stupid Subway sandwich, and missed the call anyway. She'll call back. But annoying!

I had a deep fried artichoke as an appetizer for lunch one day last week. No batter, nothing, just the bad boy deep fried so each of its little petals fanned out and were delicate and crispy. With good olive oil and a little grated parmesan?

Ooh, that sounds lovely.

My brother is in Tunisia right now I think - I'll have to quiz him on his food encounters when he gets back.

I had ejja when I went to a Tunisian restaurant here in Chicago (Carthage Cafe and Hookah Bar--highly recommended!!), and I'd love to try and make it at home, because it was a delicious dish.

when will you invite me to your parents to eat it and the other frikasse thing?

Um, when my mom makes it? Which I have no idea when it'll be? Or even if that last sentence had anything to do with English grammar?

My brother is in Tunisia right now I think - I'll have to quiz him on his food encounters when he gets back

I have no idea how much similarity there is between the local (Muslim) foods and the Jewish previously-local traditional foods which immigrated with my mother. That'll be interesting to find out. I mean, the ingredients must be the same, obviously, but the Jewish communities were pretty closed-off among themselves for quite some time, and what with the kosher rules and all, things must have evolved differently, at least in some aspects. Hmm.

[Edit: brenda, if your brother gets to visit the island of Jerba - there's still some remains there from a very grand past Jewish community. That's where my father was born, as well as my grandmother on my mother's side.]

Wow, that looks gorgeous. I've got to get back in travel mindset.

I have no idea where he's going. I was bitching the other day that he wasn't returning my phone calls.

My dad was all "wait, I think I got a text message." t checks "In Tunisia for the next week or so." Full stop. Communication - we haz it! Sort of.

On Sunday, my family and I were comparing regional natural disasters, with my brother contending that California is made up of nothing but potential catastrophes, but my stepmom saying it'd be worth it if she could live there (my stepsister lives near LA).

Here in Arkansas we get frequent tornados, flash floods, 90+mph straight line winds through the middle of the state, occasional forest fires in dry summers, and minor earthquakes that keep the threat of another big one from the New Madrid fault hovering overhead (particularly fun for the Russelville natives near the nuclear power plant).

Why the hell did my family choose to live here again?

I feel kinda' bad for all the folks who moved to the South West. It turns out that the 20th century was an unusually wet one for that part of the US, and now things are back to the normal, very dry situation. So there's gonna be some big water shortages there.

We're lucky here, in that we have this nice big freshwater lake a few miles away.

In the Kansas City area we get tornadoes, high winds, hail, and isolated flooding. All in all, not a lot of natural disaster risk.

Has Godzilla or any other monster ever attacked a city in the Midwest? I mean, if you're a lazy monster who's non-native to the US, cities on the coasts are much easier to destroy....

I don't think the Midwest is subject to giant monster attacks. Maybe there has been a giant insect or two, but I'm not sure. I guess I could consult the reference

[link]

I bet you can't even get giant monster insurance in New York.