Labor-saving device
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 52
FOOD FRIDAY DEP'T.
Dinner Just Means More Dishes
THE NEW DISHWASHER delivery came Thursday, a week and a day after the dishwasher went out. First there'd been a whining noise and then when I tested my fears about the whining noise by smearing a streak of almond butter onto a rinsed-off dirty plate before putting it in, the streak was still on the plate at the end of a cycle. Also, in less subtle detective work, the detergent capsule was just crusted at the foot of the door, partly dissolved and nothing more, certainly not even close to having been consumed by anything resembling a successful washing.
Eating food requires dishes. Dishes require washing. With the dishwasher out, the whole meal process starts coming undone in reverse, working backward from the sinkful of dirty dishes it would produce. What if the three-part meal got trimmed back to two? What if we just got takeout? What if we just kept the takeout in its grim black plastic clamshells? What if I heated the leftovers in foil and just ate them off the foil? What if the half of the household that likes a little condensed milk in their tea got by without, rather than having to open a new can and decanting it into a jar and having to do that extra amount of washing? Every spoon counts.
The new dishwasher has controls on the front instead of tucked out of sight on the top rim. The racks are set a tiny bit lower than the ones in the old dishwasher were, enough to confound muscle memory. Because we live in Manhattan, the fees for delivery and for installation and for removal of the old dishwasher, plus the optional extended warranty, added up to a number greater than the list price of the dishwasher itself. After the dishwasher was installed, I got out the Jerusalem artichokes that had been sitting in the fridge drawer for a week, trimmed them, and put them in the oven to roast. They could be a side dish now.
FOOD FRIDAY DEP'T
Contributed
Food News from All Over
• The Staccato cherry, developed in Summerland, British Columbia, had its United States patent restored after a federal court, in an ongoing fruit-infringement case, ruled that the American defendants had falsified a spreadsheet to make it look as if sales of "Sonata, an entirely different cherry" had been sales of Staccato cherries pre-dating the patent. (Castanet)
• "U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show there have been significantly more egg products seized at U.S. borders than the number of seizures of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl so far in fiscal year 2025." (CBS News)
• "Hundreds of people lined up Friday morning at three sites in New York City, some arriving more than an hour early, for the opportunity to snag one of the nation’s hottest commodities: a dozen free eggs." (Associated Press)
SIDE PIECES DEP'T.
The Editors
For Flaming Hydra, I wrote about "Cannonball" by the Breeders and the mystery of the Top 40:
But hit music didn’t know what hit music was, then, either. Nirvana had happened, and the sort of genre called “postpunk” and the programming category called “college rock” had been reified into a thing called “alternative,” as the music that had been unpopular had suddenly attained a kind of popularity—or, as it turned out over the next few years, popular music started trying to sound like the unpopular music. The upshot was that eventually I would yank the analog FM preset button in my Honda Civic to erase the now-unlistenable formerly misfit station and would punch in hip hop instead.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 20, 2025
★★ The morning was gray and damp and enervating, and the middle of the day was more of the same. Just when the whole thing seemed like a loss, though, the clouds loosened and a cheery yellow afternoon light came through. There were shadows, even. Daffodils were up, and forsythia was getting started, but the delivery bike riders stayed bundled up. After sunset and dinner, a loud rain arrived, backed by the roar of what was now officially springtime thunder.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
CLICK ON THIS box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from For Luncheon And Supper Guests; Ten Menus, More Than One Hundred Recipes, Suitable For Company Luncheons, Sunday Night Suppers, Afternoon Parties, Automobile Picnics, Evening Spreads, And For Tea Rooms, Lunch Rooms, Coffee Shops, And Motor Inns, by Alice Bradley, Principal of Miss Farmer's School of Cookery, author of The Candy Cook Book and Cooking For Profit, published in 1922, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
STUFFED CELERY SANDWICH
Mix
1 cream cheese with
2 tablespoons celery chopped fine
1 tablespoon chopped, stuffed olives
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon paprika and
Enough milk to make it the right consistency to spread. Cut
Bread in circles 1/4 inch thick. Cut centers from one-half the pieces of bread. Spread bread with
Creamed butter and with sandwich filling. Place a ring of bread on a whole circle of bread. Garnish each sandwich with a
Slice of stuffed olive in the center.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
