Fight Club

So, the big news around here is we bought a car. Oh wait, who cares? It's a car. The really big news is we got Maddie a little brother! A final determination as to the name, has not yet been made. My excellent suggestion is facing resistance, and it seems to have resulted in additional directives that I am to follow until the end of recorded civilization where Bosch is concerned. For those of you who have never seen the movie Fight Club, there is an iconic sequence of rules that Ed Norton goes over before each gathering. To make her wishes perfectly clear, SWMBO has instituted a similar regimen where my interaction with her new puppy, who is absolutely, positively ... not going to be named Bosch. It goes like this:

I do not talk to the new puppy named Bosch
I do not feed treats to the new puppy named Bosch
I do not use my masculine wiles to make new puppy named Bosch love me more
I do not take the new puppy named Bosch out of the kennel when it cries
I most certainly do not take the new puppy named Bosch into my bed at night whispering that he is the bestest dog in whole the whole wide world while he falls asleep in my arms, therefore bonding him to me for all time (like I did with the last three dogs). I am confident that additional rules will be formulated and communicated to me with blistering regularity. SWMBO is insanely happy. She blubbered, so it was worth it. I must admit though, I am going to miss that kidney. Y.O.L.O.

Our Optimum Week

I tried three of those Flavour Explosion pastas. During a four four-minute simmer, we had spaghetti sauce in the microwave and garlic bread in the toaster oven. You get a reasonable dinner for two ... in five minutes ... for five bucks. Get the Italian Sausage or the Four Cheese variety? One of the store staff told me the spinach variety was great, but I do not don't dare serve anything green 🤮 to SWMBO that doesn't have croutons and bacon in it. I also made the Cacio e Pepe. You fry these, so they are bit more work. I tasted one just before serving it and had to completely switch up dinner plans. They are not suicide or anything, but PC is being pretty liberal with the term medium. 🥵 (I learned a new Ghost trick). Great flyer at Zehr's, but this week is all about redemption and closing those long-term offers.

I included Cavendish hash browns in case you are entertaining over Christmas and are cooking breakfast for guests. Put a little peanut oil in the pan and fry these on low, turning once. They can get up there into McDonald's territory from a crunch perspective. Having said that, we lean towards using the air fryer. It's not quite as good, but the last thing you need is a smouldering hash brown beside the over-easy eggs that are going to be over-hard in about twenty seconds!

There is ...
A redemption event at Zehr's on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday!
A huge Holiday Redemption Event at Shoppers starting on Friday!
10% continuity at Zehr's for a $400 spend
Black Friday deals on small electronics and appliances at both stores.
4000 points on a $40 spend at Esso or Mobil gas stations
40,000 points on a $250 spend with your Insiders Mastercard
6% back in points on Disney gift cards
Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!

BTW, I see that Zehr's has a Black Friday deal on the $180 base model Ninja air fryer. You can get one for $100! This is the one that we own. I am tired of appliances with an IP address, artificial intelligence, bells, whistles and a special button for poaching quail eggs. Two years later, some nine dollar Chinese circuit board fails, and you are toast (see how I did that?). Base model Ninjas are dead simple and dead effective in providing an extra platform for preparing meals. I use ours nearly every day. Toaster ovens that say they also do air frying ... suck. I have one.

... and finally

With the discovery of the fish and chip batter mix from Bulk Barn, we have been really enjoying Fish Fridays for the last couple of years. For those of you who might not know, a mythical carpenter had a bad day on a Friday, and people remember the cross he had to bear ... by fasting. Eating absolutely nothing got old in a hurry, so they compromised by not eating meat on Fridays? Years later, the great mystic Kurt Cobain told us it's OK to eat fish cause they don't have any feelings (MG). So now we have Fish Fridays. We also have Takeaway Saturdays. Sunday Roast. Meatless Monday. Taco Tuesday. Spaghetti Wednesday and Thursday Chicken Dinner. I was skeptical about that last one, so Maddie and I looked it up. Apparently, it's a thing? The prevailing theory is that in the eighties, the lowest Vegas casino bet you could place was two dollars. The cheapest meal an itinerant gambler could buy (when forced away from the tables for food), was the $1.99 chicken dinner which was on every menu. Since a win doubled your money ... Winner Winner Chicken Dinner was heard around Vegas in that era. That just happens to be when Guy Fieri went to university in Nevada. He would later make the phrase global by saying it on his weekly show. How folks got that onto Thursday nights is still unclear to us.

OK, you have waited long enough. This is Bosch ten seconds after we got him, complete with his blubbering Mommy and a very indignant Maddie. She spent the drive home with her head on my shoulder, looking out the driver's side window so as to not make eye contact.

Mitch & (a very pissed off) Maddie