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Who is Melba that she should have a toast?

melbatoast

When I was in art school, my best friend and I spraypainted the Oscar Wilde aphorism, “who is art that he should have a sake?” in bright yellow on the outside wall of our dormitory. That’s it. My one and only act of vandalism.

Uncle B is feeling a little poorly today, and so his fancies turned inevitably to toast. Melba toast. I did not know there was an actual Melba for whom there was a toast, and it worries me that he did.

She was Aussie opera singer Dame Nellie Melba (1861 – 1931), born Helen Porter Mitchell and a Very Big Deal in her day. In 1897, she fell ill and twice-toasted toast became a staple of her diet, invented especially for her by chef Auguste Escoffier. He also came up with peach Melba. He was, I think, awfully lucky her name wasn’t Snotrag McShitbucket.

I found a recipe for homemade Melba toast (which sounds very nice, actually). Also, I discovered Wikipedia has a whole page on toast, which includes a useful side-by-side split-screen photographic comparison of toasted and untoasted white bread that should enable the alert student to discriminate between the two easily.

It is wholesome when we learn together.

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 17, 2009, 7:48 pm

I just got an email from the charmingly named Lurlene Ladawn. She is offering me a special price on: Hydrocodone, Vicodin, Codeine, Phentermin, Valiun, Ambiem, Xanas Buy Online Safely – FedEx/UPS, NoPrescriptionNeeded – We accept MASTERCARD/VISA – BUY.

I think Lurlene may be my favorite person in the whole world.


Comment from Dawn
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:09 pm

Feel better Badger – and if you can’t there’s always Lurlene.


Comment from EZnSF
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:15 pm

Hot damn and thanks. I love the British Food Trust website! Who’da thunk? But is Streaky Bacon much different from Hormel’s? And I’m fairly certain suet is now illegal in North America.

Hare Pie here I come.

Cherry hard candies for Badger will bring him round.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:20 pm

Yes, streaky bacon is a lot different. Much thicker. Sometimes we can get genu-wine Oscar Mayer here, and then I’m a happy weasel. Not that streaky bacon is bad, mind you — there is no bad bacon — just that it’s thick and chewy like Canadian bacon. But not round.

Suet? Illegal? Huh.


Comment from Lipstick
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:26 pm

Hope Uncle B feels better soon.

My mom used to give my little sister Melba Toast when she (the sister) was teething.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:41 pm

w00t! Walter Fucking “Blood On His Hands” Cronkite dead at 92.

w00t! And I say again, w00t!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:49 pm

Jiiiiiiimyyyyyyyyy! Jimmy Caaaaaaarrrrrterrrrrr!

Wha…? Oh. Sorry. Just waiting for other treasonous old fucks who’ve lived beyond all reasonable expectation to die.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:52 pm

Naw, I want George Soros to go first.

Maybe the Rooskies will do us a flavor and spike his drink…..


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:53 pm

Teeeeedyyyyyy. Teddy Kennnnnnnnedyyyyyyyy!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:54 pm

Okay, George Soros is good. Mighty good. But he seems to enjoy excellent health (and really splendid hair).


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: July 17, 2009, 8:57 pm

JAAANEEEE!!! JANE FOOOONDAAAAAAA!!!!!

TEDDDDDD!!!! TED TUUUURNERRRRRRR!!!!!

I’d add nancy Pelosi, but then the Clowngress would loose about 60% of it’s comic potential (as long as I’m not the one who has to change her Depends Undergarments…..)


Comment from JeffS
Time: July 17, 2009, 9:00 pm

Jimmy Carter can’t die soon enough.

Melba toast is good — it’s almost like hardtack, but a lot easier to eat. I used to carry Melba toast on camping trips in lieu of crumbling crackers or smashed bread.

Get well, Uncle Badger!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 17, 2009, 9:05 pm

Honk if you like Matzo.


Comment from EZnSF
Time: July 17, 2009, 9:06 pm

Soros Good? One weasel that’s got into a bad batch of pea wine. I also won’t shed a tear when Teddy’s bacon goes rancid.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 17, 2009, 9:07 pm

No, no…not that kind of good. A good pick for a swift demise.

Painful would be nice, but not absolutely necessary.


Comment from EZnSF
Time: July 17, 2009, 9:34 pm

“No, no…not that kind of good.”

Oops, speed reading the Weasel. Tend to do that past the fourth bottle of India Pale Ale. I’m in Pelosi’s district. Would love to see her mole get whacked.

Are we forming a conga-line on our way to the government store? Count me in.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: July 17, 2009, 10:06 pm

Dude, I think it would be better to soak her Depends in Absorbine Jr right before a major televised appearance…..

😉


Comment from iamfelix
Time: July 18, 2009, 5:37 am

My mom used Melba toasts for teethers, too. She was also a fan of the peach variety – the peach/raspberry combo is the bomb.

On the other matter, Teddy the secretary-drowner is No.1 on my list of people that need to shuffle off this mortal coil PRONTO, but all the rest are good, too (and I’d add Bill Ayers to the list).

Feel better, dear Uncle B!


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: July 18, 2009, 5:58 am

Get well soon B. Eat a few Valiuns and maybe a Xanas or two. Dr. Lurlene will have you feeling better in no time.

‘There is no bad bacon.’ I’m getting that put on a t-shirt.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 18, 2009, 9:20 am

Oscar Mayer weinermobile crashes into Wisconsin home.

Great. Just great. I’m going to have that stupid song stuck in my head all day.


Comment from porknbean
Time: July 18, 2009, 1:21 pm

If Soros konks, there is a good chance his flying monkeys house of cards will collapse. Hopefully his spawn will be more interested in hacking up his empire to keep for themselves.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: July 18, 2009, 7:16 pm

I don’t see Robert Byrd on the list. Or, from the British side of the pond, Wedgie Benn, Arthur Scargill, Eric Hobsbawm and Shirley Williams.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: July 18, 2009, 7:19 pm

P.S. I luuurved Melba toast when I was a kid. With lots of melted butter oozing all over the place.

Tonight I am making another UK favourite: Slumpie (and you thought it was made up by Terry Pratchett).


Comment from Войска ПВО
Time: July 19, 2009, 2:02 am

Something compelled me to click on this post to read the replies and never – NEVER — N-E-V-E — oh, well, you get the idea — have I been so rickly rewarded by such a bevy of replies by apparently like-minded souls. The delicious thought of an Eastwood-esque “Dead Pool” of my faves is is too precious for words.

From the botttom of my heart to all: thank you! (Except for the person who mentioned changing the Botox Bitch’s De-Pends.)

As for hardtack, JeffS, I was stationed at Offutt AFB during the Viet Nam war (guarding the rice paddies of Nebraska from communist and NVA incursion) and I attended a computer class in an old WWII hangar. Each day, I would penetrate its musty interior on the way to the class room through a tunnel whose walls were lined with 8 feet of crates and boxes of “survival, foodstuffs, crackers”. Once I purloined one, took it back to my room in the BOQ and opened it to find it was nothing but tins of hard tack left over from WWI..and earlier! (Needless to say, it was not as delish as reading Teddy Kennedy’s obit.)

I was told that these were intended for the dwellers of Omaha, Bellevue, and Council Bluffs in the event of a nuclear conflict..

..duck and cover!

(Why, oh why, do I go on like this?)


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 19, 2009, 10:19 am

Help yourself, Войска ПВО. Electrons are cheap and I really enjoy it.

Say, we ought to start a dead pool!


Comment from gnus
Time: July 19, 2009, 5:44 pm

Last one in is a rotten egg?


Comment from Войска ПВО
Time: July 19, 2009, 10:44 pm

Weez.l,

Here is an “offocial” set of dead pool rules — what, Wikipedia not official?

In any event, if you and other members would like to adopt these and/or other variants, we could start here on 1 October 2009, the significance being that it is a “new year” of sorts. It is the start of the U.S. Federal Government’s fiscal year and when our clowns’ “Race to a Trillion” clock starts ticking anew.

Of course, this proposes yet another pool: how quickly will — or the exact date that — The Boy King and his entourage of accomplices in our congress cross that line. I’m thinking some time in March 2010 what with tax revenues shriveling up like an old man’s dingus after the Viagra tablets have given out.

(I am sorry. I know I am in mixed company here, but my disgust for our “Alleged Hawaiian” and the miscreants in DC occasion the use of such images.)

I think Teddy Kennedy will be the first on the list to depart. Pelosi will go soon thereafter, but only after a tragic accident occurs. Her lips will explode like an over-inflated Goodyear G800 when too much collagen is injected. It will probably take out the surgeon, the the gas passer, and the chief operating room nurse as well. Tragic, I know, but this is war not a surgical strike (sorry) and we must accept some collateral damage.

Soon thereafter, Chimpy the Kenyan will be assassinated by a disillusioned fan or member of the MSM, much in the way Hinckley laid in wait for Lennon outside of the Dakota in New York.

After that, who knows?

(Oh dear, I have done it again. I have hijacked this thread like some Somali Pirate.)


Comment from armybrat
Time: July 20, 2009, 7:01 am

I knew I loved ya’ll! I see fat teddy as the next to get measured for his coffin. I’m just dreading the week of adulation that I’ll be treated to here in his home state. But the result will all be worth it in the end.

/mary jo kopechne was not available to comment


Comment from Deborah
Time: July 20, 2009, 11:35 pm

I agree with Badger—when you are feeling punk, Melba toast is just the ticket (with potato soup or tender poached eggs). Husband sometimes makes me toast for breakfast, which I don’t always eat (because I am still in bed sleeping). But at 10 o’clock in the morning, twice-toasted Mrs. Baird’s is especially delicious.

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