December 17th

DUCK

EXTREME MAKEOVER-HOME EDITION

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but while I'm sure that this show started out with good intentions-helping people who through no fault of their own were living in unsafe or unhealthy homes and were unselfish in giving to others themselves-most of the families lately seem to me to be sort of phony. “Let me make up a really pitiful story and see if I can get ABC to build me a really nice house.” The women who do the phony weeping while telling their poor-poor-pitiful-me stories really get under my skin. “We bought this fixer upper house knowing that it had problems and now it's making my kid sick and you need to help us.” Give me a break!

Maybe I could tell ABC a story about how miserable my life is because I was a loyal mortgage worker for 30 years and now I'm unemployed and my roof leaks and my dog is sick and get a fancy new house too. With a luxury dog condo for the pupsters. Oh yeah, and my butt is sore because, well, see the next paragraph.

I SHOULD HAVE STAYED ON THE FLOOR

I went into Big Lots to see if they had any CD cases-when they have them they're about half the price of the ones at Frye's. They didn't, and I resisted the urge to buy cheap Christmas decorations and half price scented candles and was on my way out when I slipped on something spilled on the floor. Fell down, went boom! I'm such a dork! I could have been hurt and sued Big Lots and not had to worry about getting a job or cared whether Congress does something to help out the workers who weren't the cause of the problem with the loan business but are the ones suffering. But, I got up, said I was fine and left.

I'm just kidding. I would never claim to be hurt if I wasn't. But, it would be nice to be worry free for a while. And, my butt is a little sore.

NUTMEG

Quickly! Go check your spice cupboard. Do you have nutmeg from Schilling that's either in the square metal container or the bottle and the label identifies it as coming from Baltimore, MD? If you do that stuff is AT LEAST 15 years old! (This is true of any Schilling spices, but our topic today is nutmeg.) Do you know WHY you have 15-year-old nutmeg in your cupboard? Because ground, stale nutmeg doesn't taste like anything. You can sprinkle it all you want to on top of your eggnog, but all it's going to do is make little nutmeg colored specks. My kitchen hero Rachael Ray keeps talking about whole nutmeg, and she uses a little hand held grater that only has fine holes to grate just the amount she needs. I have one of those. They were once only available at the high-end stores that cater to cooking snobs, but now you can find them at the 99¢ store sometimes. I think I got mine at Big Lots. As far as I'm concerned, you cannot have too many cooking utensils. Anyway, I decided to toss the ancient, tasteless ground stuff in the bottle and found some whole nutmegs in the Hispanic spice section of the store. (Schilling still only makes the ground stuff.) You know what? Freshly grated nutmeg actually has a flavor! And, it goes really well sprinkled on some brandy and eggnog.