For years, I thought I wasn’t a casserole man, myself. I thought they were all gloppy and tasted alike. Then, as I began to get into food and cooking, I came to realize it was cream of mushroom soup I wasn’t crazy about. If I sometimes seem to confuse my own thoughts with the words that come out of Arlo’s mouth, or Janis’, I hope you won’t read too much into it. After all, everything they say and do does come from me, but I am not them. Really. Well, not literally anyway.
On another subject, I’ve talked a lot here about space exploration, because as a boy I was mesmerized by the Mercury program, and I’ve never quite lost the fascination it held for me. We’ve talked about the feats of the Mars rover Curiosity and the incredible journeys of Voyager I and Voyager II, among other things. Over the years, these marvels have been, by definition, American ventures. I didn’t want anyone to think I’m being a sorehead, because I haven’t mentioned the European comet expedition. Others have talked about it here, but I haven’t given “Philae” its due. I mean, like, WOW! What else can I say? I just hope it comes out from the shadow of that cliff and comes back to life in coming months. What a tough break: send a spacecraft on a 10-year mission, land it on a comet, and it winds up in the shadow of a cliff, leaving its life-giving solar panels next to useless. We’ll be rooting for you, Philae!
Cartoonist’s note: I admit it. I went to today’s A&J on the GoComics Web site, and I didn’t get it. Then, I remembered, “Oh, yeah! Big pot, as in big tummy!” I remembered further that I had intended to go back and put the words “big pot” in parentheses, to draw attention, but I got in a hurry and failed to do so. One thing cartoonists learn (some faster than others) is, You can’t be too obvious. Obviously.
75 responses to “On a Casserole”
They are hopeful that as the comet nears the sun, Philae will see some sunlight–if it doesn’t burn up first.
Couldn’t miss being first. Casseroles are something I seldom cook, which may be why I am having trouble with crock pot cooking.
I liked today’s real time A and J, the season of the big pot, because I do just what Arlo does, cook way too much! We FINALLY finished off the chili last night and you know how long ago we began talking about chili here.
Mike says my problem is I still think I am cooking for the field hands and the deer hunters, a group that will literally eat anything with relish.
Love, Jackie
Rufus beat me! Rufus is a common family name in my biological Dad’s family, his middle name, which goes back about 200 years apparently in NC.
Is it your real name? Welcome, Rufus.
I have to agree with J.J. about the cream of mushroom soup. I have found over the years that the fastest way to ruin a perfectly good dish is to use cream of mushroom soup. When I was a kid my mom made this really yummy, inexpensive hot dish, our name for a casserole, with cream of chicken soup, corn, and ground beef. My husband didn’t like mixing cream of chicken soup with ground beef so I tried cream of mushroom soup, his go to soup, instead. He thought it was great and I thought it was terrible. Since we can’t agree on the soup to use I no longer make that dish.
Will you be able to finish the Janis and Vince-from-work series from a few days ago? (“Over Coffee” and “Character Flaw”) I wanted to see how that ended. Thanks!
Jimmy, if space is in your blood you need to visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston. They offer a superb behind the scenes tour, $90 a person, limit 14 per tour, and no one below age 14. You can check it out at the JSC website and purchase a reservation. Insider hint; call and make sure you get on a Monday or Friday tour that is guided by David Cisco. David has a history around NASA that goes back to Apollo. He was a LEM Tech who had as much or more simulator time as those who landed on the moon.
Eight years at the Holy Hell school has left me with a deep dislike of: casseroles, goulash, and many other forms of one dish meals. Though soup and pot pies are things I enjoy preparing. And yes, I have been big pot cooking already this season. .
Still no OF predictions, but the webcam is focused close-up on the geyser mound. emb
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
Hello, the Village. I’ve been away a bit longer than usual, but you know, life and all… Everything is fine this morning, though, if a bit on the nippy side.
Jackie, perhaps it’s just as well we never met and dated in the past. I might have turned out to be an axe murderer. 🙂
Blinky, welcome back. I do remember the lizard-up-the-pants incident, which left Janis standing outside in her sweater, socks and, as Jackie said, “high cut” panties. But I thought there was a fireplace incident as well, also leading to an impromptu striptease. Perhaps wishful thinking on my part. 😉
Happy Belated Birthday, David.
Debbe 😉 Sorry, hon; I’ve never made rum balls. Lady Mindy probably has not either, as her soap opera life would probably lead to her cutting out the middle man and just drinking the rum. 🙂
Jean dear 🙂
***POTENTIAL SPOILERS***
My recollection of the Vince series was the equivalent of a movie scene in which the pilot is heading straight for the side of a mountain, but pulls up and at the very last moment clears the crest of the mountain by mere inches. In this case, the pilot wisely never took that route again.
To the extent that my negative-sounding commentary on Vince may have prompted Our Bard to take a different direction in the cartoons he is posting, my apologies to bjnord and anyone else looking to see more of Vince. At the time this series ran, I was not enjoying it at all, but the denouement left me far more charitably inclined to the storyline and its author. As the series developed, I had thought that A&J was taking a turn down the road as a number of strips have, such as “Funky Winkerbean,” which morphed from a clever “gag-a-day” strip about high school students to a whateveritisyouwouldcallit “topical” and “vital issues” strip full of “poignancy,” rife with “realism” such as substance abuse, etc. by its characters. Let us just say that such like that are not my cup of tea. And as I said before, I will say again: JJ did not take that road, and I am very, very grateful. Indeed, A&J has gone from strength to strength and runs strong to this very day. I cannot name its superior among any other comic strip written today.
Probably have mentioned this before. Do a search / ‘Garrison Keillor tuna casserole’. Sadly, it includes ‘mushroom soup, celery, and peas’, but is a scream.
Parody of a well known ‘hymn’ [wife insisted it was not a real hymn, maybe ’cause it was the kind of pious song she detested]
And just to clarify my above post: the “pilot” in my analogy would be Janis.
Ghost, et al: Husband has been insisting for years that he would like to see a list of everyone I went out with prior to meeting him.
He thinks I probably dated more than 3 murderers.
Strange thing is while looking for records, newspaper accounts I put in “murders, suicide” and the parish and state. You would be AMAZED at the number of people who fit that description. Had no idea north Louisiana was such a hot bed of double-triple-murders and suicides!
I have a very vague recollection of names but if I see one it will pop into memory bank. So, I am looking at violent crime reports from north Louisiana and here is one about socially prominent husband kidnapping/holding hostage his ex-wife and a police standoff in upscale neighborhood. Yup! Another one of my ex-dates!
My theory is that I tended to date some unstable Faulknerian types who drank and partied and were already unbalanced, as we say in the South!
However, I found one who was mayor of reputable town in Texas and another who was on board of 16 national corporations!
Do the good ones offset the bad?
Love, Jackie
I am not a fan of Thanksgiving. One year all I had was Turkey and mashed potatoes. I am a finicky eater. So the next year I volunteered to bring a dish. Since I love the Food Network, I saw a recipe for Green Bean Casserole by scratch, skipping the canned soup.
That was 4 years ago. Every Thanksgiving and Easter, I HAVE to make the dish. I agree, Jimmy, it is the can that I don’t care for.
Steve, that is what my youngest one did, the from scratch green bean casserole. We hate the canned mushroom soup one, which I think is repulsive. Her inlaws wanted the canned one back!
Ruth: Have you tried substituting cream of celery soup? My mom used to make a baked fish dish with frozen squares of something, maybe cod, covered with celery soup (undiluted) and sprinkled with cheddar cheese – much tastier than it sounds. I recently bought some mushroom soup to use with dried beef for a version of SOS, enhanced by the addition of cheese and a little sherry.
What the hey? I just tried to access gocomics.com and got some “server unavailable” message. Then, without my permission, something purporting to be a Flash Player update began to download, and my security program took violent exception to that. I stopped the download, and Norton deleted what had been downloaded. It was tagged as “Suspicious.Cloud.7.EP”.
Has gocomics been hacked?
One time my mom substituted cream of mushroom for tomato soup in a recipe, and I was amazed at how much better it tasted.
I’m not sure why anyone would cook green beans with any kind of soup! The “proper” way to eat green beans is from a pot with bacon, onion, potatoes, bacon grease, salt and pepper. Simmer very slowly for 4-6 hours until the beans are tender (no chewy green beans!). Soak the juice (pot ‘likker’) into cornbread for additional deliciousness.
Checked the Old Faithful webcam a few minutes ago. Geysers seem to be upset… they are certainly all steamed up about something! (rimshot)
GR6, at first, it merely would not display today’s comic at GoComics. When I went to the prior day, there was a canned error message with the GoComics stable of characters saying something to the effect that there was an error and “we have been notified and are working on it.” I had no dramatics such as you report, but I can attest that some comics pages have indeed been hacked in the past, one of them unloading a Festive Malware Payload on me that required a bit of killing. I surely hope GoComics has not been hacked–I do not appear to have suffered any attack. *crosses fingers*
Evan, same message I got under the same circumstances a bit ago. NIS and MalwareBytes both say I have a clean machine. But these days, who knows?
I believe I have heard something about something that spoofs Flash Player and then downloads nasties instead of an update. What I got may have just been coincidental but it happened within a second or two of the apparent gocomics message.
David, mmmm, mmmm good eating. Thanks gor the memory. 🙂
Gocomics lost their mind for me too. I read A&Japanese and 9CL from other sources.
And I made tuna casserole the other day. I was alway taught to use cheddar cheese soup – my mother hated mushrooms.
I believe Alton Brown once did an episode or two on his improved versions of the dreaded “church social/potluck” dishes we’ve all encountered at one time or another, including casseroles. Yes, casseroles can be quite good when made with good quality ingredients.
In today’s cartoon, does it appear to anyone else that Arlo has pulled out three different pots from under the counter and the pantry…a stock pot; a chili pot-sized pot*; and a handle-less pot that looks more like a canister or a crock of some kind than a pot? (Or did Jimmy just forget the handles as he did the quotation marks?) 🙂
I have just about every pot/pan/skillet/kitchen appliance/kitchen gadget known to modern man, plus a couple probably used by Neanderthals, with one notable exception…a heavy-duty stand-type mixer. As I’ve mentioned, I do very little baking, and when I do, I can make do just fine with a good hand mixer. I can’t justify buying an appliance that costs about what one could get a decent used car for not too many years ago and have it just gather dust in the pantry.
* Yes, I have a dedicated chili pot; doesn’t everyone? And a separate soup pot and a two stock pots. Among others.
Try one of the cream of chicken varieties instead of mushroom. Much better tasting!
My thoughts on the “socks-to-shoes” continuity question in yesterday’s (11-18-14) cartoon: We can’t assume that only a moment passed between panel 1 and panel 2. For all we know, enough time elapsed to allow Arlo to stand up, put on his shoes, go to the kitchen, feed Ludwig, pat Janis on the butt, go to the bathroom, and then return to his place in front of the fireplace before the ember popped out and landed on him.
I’m more puzzled by the fact Arlo seems to find it comfortable to lean back against the edge of the coffee table like that. I’d have a painful dent in my spine in about 10 seconds.
Re the missing “Vince” episodes, for some reason not having seen that arc, I couldn’t help but wonder if toward its dénouement Alro might have shown up and beaten the bejeezus out of Vince, an action which in the present day would likely be deemed by editors as non-PC and too “twentieth century”, as it involved the quaint notion of defending one’s wife from creeps.