How would you mess with a welder if you were so inclined?
When he orders a chicken salad with no fries you make him a steak hoagie with red onions and banana peppers.
There’s no symbolism to it or anything. Just a terrible mistake.
If that doesn’t work, hook him up with a beautiful millionaire nymphomaniac. Oh what a wicked maneuver that would be.
Real answer: perfume in the welding hood, spray starter fluid at the arc, cchange settings when he puts the hood down, there are millions of ways.
Start beating on him like he’s on fire. Tell him a golf club was the only thing handy to put him out.
Grease gun into the finger tips of the gloves…
Gong!!!
Does attempted murder count as messing with someone in the welding world? Tough crowd.
Pretty much. As long as tou don’t have to stop mid way, its all good.
OMG, this sounds like so much fun! Not with a weapon, I’d just (bravely) do it with my bare hands.
My husband did some welding in the driveway recently. I wish I’d known about this! Although he’s COOL in a crisis. The time my son hit him in the head with an ax, the time he chainsawed his leg, the time he fell into the fire pit, the time I thought the giant tractor was going to tip, so jumped out while it was running…just cucumber cool. So it could be a big letdown.
He’d love carb cleaner in the arc then.
No matter how cool somebody is, that one gets 'em every time.
Also, I can see why you love him.
!
Unfortunately I don’t know where we keep the carb cleaner (I’m certain we have some, because I know we have a lot of carbs in our many machines) and I also don’t know where we keep the arc. lol
The kids and I joke that if anything ever happens that’s bad enough to flap him, we’ll just need to lay down on the ground and give up. Although the conversation came up in the context of the APPALLING tick year we had. They were all over the place, and he/we are in the woods a lot. He announced reaching “heebie-jeebies” status with it (“check my back!”) and we all marveled that this is what brought him down. Not the ax that slipped out of my teenager’s hands and flew into the husband’s temple.
It’s a first in our 12 years. He’s a really cool guy. Just a really good one.
Good! I had lymes a few years ago (about a week before the heart attack
), and it absolutely sucked. An ax to the noggin can suck too, but it also might not.
I exploded every rest stop between mid Maryland and here.
Funny thing was that I got the tick here, cutting the grass before I left for the weekend. Right in the back yard. Where the deer bed down.
I’m a lot more mindful of them now too.
Oh, he’s not mindful of them now. No bug spray. Doesn’t bother to wear the permethrin clothes he bought for a canoeing trip to Alaska. He just picks them off and goes on his way.
He and Louie have in common a certain blockheadedness.
My dad did that once. Just cleaned it and threw on some butterfly bandages. ![]()
I failed epically in my duties. I blame grief and 2 1/2 hours of being parked on the interstate making my drive even longer for my slacking. It seemed to be ok though. They still ran completely out of cookies, so obviously someone found them. Lol. Plus side, the bridal dance was outstanding. My nephew’s brother and several of his friends are all bodybuilding giants. He had quite the fight to get through. ![]()
I enjoy reading cookbooks and making stuff, but actual restaurant experience stopped during college when other things supervened. Today I was casually skimming a couple of random cookbooks attractively priced at the local bookstore: My Master Recipes (Patricia Wells) and Mezcla (Ixta Belfrage).
Both books referred to the “powerful secret ingredient” of mushroom powder made from a few ounces of quality dried porcini mushrooms (cèpes) in soup or ragú (respectively, and The New York Times recently printed a mushroom pasta recipe based on this).
I think most chefs have “trade secret” additions they love, like for awhile when Bobby Flay added gochujang to everything or generally trendy things like chili crisp or ‘nduja that fall in and out of favour.
I would be curious to know, @Brant_Drake what are a few of your quick fixes and signature “go to”ingredients, when you want to elevate a generic dish (without using your small scale farms and access to select herds). ![]()
Of course, anyone who likes food is also welcome to list stuff they add during or after cooking to a variety of dishes to make them memorable or more delicious.
Oh boy, that would be pretty special.
My sister won multiple years in a row in both votes and dollars raised at her churches soup & chili cook off making a cream of mushroom soup using chanterelle.
I haven’t run into them in a few years, but my omelet with black trumpet chanterelle were pretty good.
Here is the recipe, including this:
To prepare cèpe powder, coarsely chop or cut with a scissors about 2 ounces (30 g) of best-quality dried cèpe [porcini] mushrooms. Working in batches, grind them to a fine powder in an electric spice mill. This should yield about 8 tablespoons of powder. Store the powder in a small jar, tightly sealed, in a cool, dry place, for up to 6 months.
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream
2 tablespoons cèpe powder (see Note)
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 cups (750 ml) chicken or vegetable stock
Chopped fresh chives, for garnish
Extra virgin olive oil, or chive oil for garnish
I always put a bit of soy sauce and oyster sauce into any dish with ground beef.
adds colour and a more complex flavour than just using salt
I think techniques make a bigger difference than ingredients, kind of like lifting.
For instance, I can just pop some carrots in the air fryer and get a tasty side dish, or I can take the same carrots and make a salad with roasted glazed carrots, pickled carrot coins, carrot puree, candied carrot ribbons, carrot green pistu, fried carrot falafels, carrot spuma, and carrot vadouvan dust. It’s over the top ridiculous, but there’s no magic ingredient that takes air fryer food to that level. One is a good workout, the other is a bodybuilding show.
I view the trendy stuff like supplements in that regard - nice to have, but overhyped.
The easiest way to elevate food is to season as you go. Scrambled eggs are a great example. If I crack my eggs in the pan, add some raw mushrooms, then add salt and pepper on my plate, I’ve got Motel 6 eggs with watery mushrooms and salt every other bite. If I season the eggs before I put them in the pan, sauté my mushrooms before hand and season them also, then it tastes much better, and I can drip on some truffle oil to feel bougee, but it won’t do shit on the first batch of eggs.
On a practical note, a little bit of lemon juice is an underrated hack for almost everything, and if the dish doesn’t have something crunchy, add something crunchy.
Big
.
I really love this. Very simple, but it brings a lot.
I have 2 lemon juice bottles. One at 50/50, the other full strength.
Using regular SPG on burgers, then cheese 'em & a healthy squeeze of the 50/50 followed by a lid gives it a great lemon pepper flavor and awesome cheese melt.
For steamed broccoli a splash of the full strength stuff on the florets really brings them to life.
Acid is highly underrated
Yeah. I’ve gotten a lot more into different types of vinegars since cutting sodium. Balsamic, prosecco & malt are my go to’s.

