msb-0291 There has to be an easier way...

msb-0291 There has to be an easier way...

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intro

Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

MSBPodcast is "not" any kind of a medical podcast.

It is by and for MSers.

Its purpose is to keep us entertained, to explain our symptoms, to remark on our discoveries, and to raise the general consciousness about our disease.

The path to illness is shadowy, murky and rough strewn.

The path to wellness is lit by the lamp of knowledge.

----

Feedback comes first, so...

I actually choked on my cup of coffee when I read Shauna's bit for today.

And then I found the YouTube video at the front of this post because it just seemed appropriate, eh?

I have a treat coming up on Friday's show. Joel Goldman is a wonderful interviewee. Me ... I suck. I turned into a babbling, bumbling fan boy.

I'm trying something new to generate a transcript of the conversation. If it doesn't work, the interview will be audio only so if you want to hear him, you'll need working ears (sorry to my hearing challenged audience) and you'll need to pick up the audio at "MSBPodcast.com" [ http://www.MSBPodcast.com ].

I was late this week-end with the French-language podcast because I was very, very busy.

One of the things I was busy with was the aforementioned interview with Mr. Goldman.

Another one was going to my friend the chef's apartment with four other people to help her out with her doctoral project. (They give doctorates in cookery. Who knew?! :-)

She had cooked three delicious chickens, paired them with three wines and we had to "test".

I won't, uh, spoil the results (poor choice of words, I'm sure) except to say that it was absolutely the tastiest meal (well three of them really) that I have eaten. (My wife is a great cook, and I love everything she puts on a plate, but this was "beyond the pale," [which is a strange way of putting it since "beyond the pale" actually refers to the border between England and "Cymru" {"Wales" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales ]}])

---- "Biscuits n Molasses" by: "Big George Jackson Blues Band" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "The Biscuit Blues" by: "Derek Sonderfan" http://www.esoderek.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Tea & Biscuits -Terrus LP-" by: "Marc Reeves" http://www.myspace.com/mjronline

"Thesis:"

This episode seems to be all about food.

I had a friend in Montréal who once cooked a meal for the woman he was about to make his wife, after consulting on the recipe with his mother of course.

He made a very basic error of turning his brain off at the kitchen door and trying to eat the results.

He lived and he even got married to his girlfriend at the time ... but it was a near thing. :-)

---- "Randy Newman's Theme from Seabiscuit" by: "Paul and Storm" http://www.paulandstorm.com/

"Synthesis:"

There has to be an easier way to make biscuits....

My parents are a source of on air material for me. They are very funny people and some of their experiences are amusing to relate here as well.

About 13 or so years ago, my father, an electrical engineer for all his working life, decided he needed to learn how to cook. And bake. And generally be able to look after himself when my mother was away. At the beginning of this new phase in his life he asked my mother to teach him how to make biscuits.

He had a pen and paper and wrote down the ingredients as she was making the biscuits.

A few weeks later he was ready to try them on his own. Mom was out, so he asked if I wanted to help. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and maybe I should have helped, but my father is also like a bull in a china shop, so I declined. After much banging around, Dad came out to the family room with a wide band of flour across the waist of his pants. He asked me what he was supposed to do with the waxed paper.

"The what?"

"The waxed paper. Your mother said something about waxed paper."

Dead silence, then, "I really don't know, Dad."

So off he went into the kitchen again....more banging around...until finally he came back and said, "The biscuits are in the oven, but I couldn't get the waxed paper out of them".

This truly intrigued me so I had to go check them out. Sure enough he had a pan of great looking biscuits baking in the oven with bits and pieces of waxed paper sticking out of them.

My father is of a rational and scientific mind. He is a very logical and linear thinker. My mother and I are both a little bit like that, but with a more creative way of thinking, so when Dad told us that "There has to be an easier way of making biscuits", she and I were truly confused. I mean, really, how difficult is it to make biscuits?

"Dad, where's your recipe?"

"On the fridge."

I take it down and try to read his chicken scratch. I want to go through the steps with him from the very beginning. "Dad, you read to me what you did."

"Well, I got three cups of flour, then I added-"

"Wait. you got a bowl, right? For the flour?"

"Bowl?"

Aha......

"How did you mix everything?"

"I had the waxed paper on the counter, put the flour on it, made a well- what are you laughing
at?"

My mother and I are in hysterics at this point. You should probably know that my mother values easy clean up above almost anything else, so when she's baking or making pies she uses sheets of waxed paper , FLOURED first, to roll the dough. When she's done, the paper is rolled up and tossed. Easy.

My mother and I are both crying from laughing so hard, imagining my father mixing ingredients on a sheet of waxed paper without the benefit of a bowl. A hat tip to Dad for managing this feat, but it also explains that, as the ingredients mixed, the dough stuck to the waxed paper and it started to tear off in little pieces.

We had the biscuits with dinner that night, and while tasty, we did have to take little bits of waxed paper out of them.

"There has to be a better way to make biscuits" has become a catchphrase for our family ever since.

Last week I came across a website called Cooking for Engineers. It has easy to follow recipes with pictures to demonstrate the process. Curious, I looked up biscuits. And sure enough, in their recipe pictures for basic biscuits, a BOWL is front and centre.

S.

---- "Expand a Biscuit" by: "The Dave Morford Hostage Crisis" http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=ab15dddd3472871c4177b4580a79bf66

"Conclusion:"

My friend had read the instructions from his mother but she had a shaky hand, what he thought was 4-5 (four to five) minutes was actually forty-five minutes.

Needless to say, diner was served on his best "Chinette" (give the boy a break, at least he'd cleaned the place up, [well, he'd shoveled the debris into the closets, at least, :-]) at his little round kitchen table for two, and it consisted of two perfectly done potatoes, lightly steamed carrots, warm bread, a bottle of wine (okay, it was "Matteus Rosé, but it had "some" alcoholic content) ... and almost raw chicken.

His wife-to-be was incensed, and definitely smart enough to stick the quivering pink thing back in the oven, (the chicken, not the boyfriend.)

I'm hoping to convince my friend the Chef that "Cooking for Nerds" a.k.a. "How to put supper on the table, even if you are a rocket scientist." a.k.a. "Step by step instructions to keep your propeller-headed self alive in a kitchen." is a book that is crying out to be written.

Seriously, unlike this next song...

---- "king biscuit time" by: "Tremolo55" http://www.tremolo55.com/

Outro