2020 US Election (Part Two)

[aelf]

Poor French. Not even mentioned.

French can be good, but I couldn't eat that every day.

 

[Sommerswerd]

...if I do, active memory is failing me.

But yar. I'm from non-metro Midwest. Our traditional spices are salt, black pepper, butter, and cheese. Easy on the first two. If I'm masking flavors, I want Chinese spicing, I think. They're probably at least as good as anyone at making you able to pretend you aren't eating something semi-likely to roto-root you. Hispanic would do, too.

Its a riddle. There are many versions but they all follow the same basic story. A man walks into a restaurant and orders albatross soup. But as soon as he tastes it he becomes inconsolable and kills himself. Why?

Spoiler Answer :

The man was a sailor on a ship with his wife and some fellow sailors, when they were shipwrecked with only three survivors including the man and his wife, who wash up onto a deserted island with some of the debris from the ship, there is no food available as far as anyone can tell except albatross flying around the island, but they can't seem to catch them. The man is injured and can't walk but the others go off to find food, the one who returns tells him that his wife fell down a cliff and died but he did mange to catch some albatross and made a soup with it. They survive for months eating albatross soup as the shipmate nurses the man back to health. Eventually the shipmate get sick and dies but the man survives and is finally rescued. When he arrives back home he goes to a restaurant and orders the albatross soup in honor of his friend who nursed him back to health. But as soon as he tastes it, he realizes that he has never had albatross and that his friend was actually feeding him his dead wife. The man is distraught with guilt and disgust and commits suicide.

Yep, my midwestern family (Ohio) won't have anything to do with Indian food. I used to have a roommate from Ohio and anytime we would invite him out to go eat Indian or Thai or anything other than Americana, he'd say "Guys I'm from Ohio man... I like meat and potatoes, just plain meat and potatoes, that's it."

 

[aelf]

Thai is sooo different from Indian. There are some similarities in spices, but the flavour profiles are very distinct from each other. If they don't like Indian, it certainly doesn't mean they don't like Thai - can't write the latter off having just tried the former.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yep, my midwestern family (Ohio) won't have anything to do with Indian food. I used to have a roommate from Ohio and anytime we would invite him out to go eat Indian or Thai or anything other than Americana, he'd say "Guys I'm from Ohio man... I like meat and potatoes, just plain meat and potatoes, that's it."

If I didn't have access to Asian food, I think I would just curl up on the floor and lay there in a dissociative fugue state. I've seriously considered taking a plane to Los Angeles just to get some good Persian and Korean. I once went to a restaurant in Indiana. The menu was steak and burgers, fries and mashed. I think they had chicken on the menu, if you wanted to be a weirdo. I'm not sure there were any vegetables in the whole town.

Thai is sooo different from Indian. There are some similarities in spices, but the flavour profiles are very distinct from each other. If they don't like Indian, it certainly doesn't mean they don't like Thai - can't write the latter off having just tried the former.

I would kill for some Thai food right now. There used to be a place downtown that I swear put opium in their red curry, but they closed several years ago.

 

[Zkribbler]

Back to the US election.

Ex-Republican George Will is opining Biden might get in excess of 400 electoral votes.
Coincidentally, yesterday I was on the 538 website playing with their interactive predictor. If Biden can close the 2% gap he faces in Texas, I too believe he can get in excess of 400 electoral votes.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-map/?cid=abcnews

 

[AmazonQueen]

Back to the US election.

Ex-Republican George Will is opining Biden might get in excess of 400 electoral votes.
Coincidentally, yesterday I was on the 538 website playing with their interactive predictor. If Biden can close the 2% gap he faces in Texas, I too believe he can get in excess of 400 electoral votes.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-map/?cid=abcnews

According to the Independent its a dead heat between Biden and Trump in Texas now so fingers crossed.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/worl...attacks-are-working/ar-BB1affHw?ocid=msedgdhphttps://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/worl...attacks-are-working/ar-BB1affHw?ocid=msedgdhp

 

[Farm Boy]

Back to the US election.

No. That's everywhere. I want to talk about food and gently mock our oldest ally.

I'm not sure there were any vegetables in the whole town.

That's a pretty normal thing. Dollar General has them in cans. If you can find a tiny small town grocer left, they're gems. But they generally can't get things onto their shelves for the price that you can take them off of shelves at a suburban mega grocer. Much less anything fresh that will need cycling.

French can be good, but I couldn't eat that every day.

Me neither. Though if anything is going to make that cut, I suppose bread'n'cheese isn't the worst.

 

[H4run]

Thai is sooo different from Indian. There are some similarities in spices, but the flavour profiles are very distinct from each other. If they don't like Indian, it certainly doesn't mean they don't like Thai - can't write the latter off having just tried the former.

Thai food got a feel of sour, hot (chilly) and fresh feel in it, the ingredient and the used of spices are not as mixed as Indian cuisine. While Indian food is full of spices, I like both of them, no actually I like all kind of main heavy food in general, some I eat more than other. But I can imagine for someone who born to Turkish, Italian, Japanese or other similar cuisine, who usually eat clean (un-mixed) and not oily food, they probably would think Indian and Paskitani cuisine would be the worst.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Thai is sooo different from Indian. There are some similarities in spices, but the flavour profiles are very distinct from each other. If they don't like Indian, it certainly doesn't mean they don't like Thai - can't write the latter off having just tried the former.

Of course they're different, but also similar... same for Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. Its cool how the flavors all over the world slowly blend into each other as you move from region to region, and lots of places have overlap, depending on geographic proximity...

But all that misses my point... which is dude was a Midwesterner to the bone... he ate Americana... period. Steak, potatoes, corn, green beans, fried chicken, pork chops, turkey, stuffing, gravy. Thats it... It didn't matter what kind of non-Murican food it was... dude wanted no part of it.

 

[Farm Boy]

... that spread does make it reasonably difficult to complain.

 

[aelf]

Thai food got a feel of sour, hot (chilly) and fresh feel in it, the ingredient and the used of spices are not as mixed as Indian cuisine. While Indian food is full of spices, I like both of them, no actually I like all kind of main heavy food in general, some I eat more than other. But I can imagine for someone who born to Turkish, Italian, Japanese or other similar cuisine, who usually eat clean (un-mixed) and not oily food, they probably would think Indian and Paskitani cuisine would be the worst.

Actually, I find plenty of Italian food oily. But it's often olive oil, so it's kind of different from the lard and vegetable oil that are commonly used in East and Southeast Asian cooking.

I guess you're thinking about how Turkish, Italian and Japanese food are not so reliant on rich gravies, but I can think of counterexamples among them too. Is it about taste, then? Thai food has very strong flavours. So do Indian and some kinds of Chinese cuisine, but Thai does take the cake, I feel.

Of course they're different, but also similar... same for Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. Its cool how the flavors all over the world slowly blend into each other as you move from region to region, and lots of places have overlap, depending on geographic proximity...

But all that misses my point... which is dude was a Midwesterner to the bone... he ate Americana... period. Steak, potatoes, corn, green beans, fried chicken, pork chops, turkey, stuffing, gravy. Thats it... It didn't matter what kind of non-Murican food it was... dude wanted no part of it.

Ah, I thought maybe it was the combination of rich flavours and milky gravy that might present a problem. I know I didn't like that about Indian food when I was much younger.

But I have to say that Thai food is a special thing. It's in many ways so different from neighbouring Vietnam and Malaysia's food, as well as from Southern Chinese food. They all share common spices, but somehow it's just not the same.

 

[H4run]

I guess you're thinking about how Turkish, Italian and Japanese food are not so reliant on rich gravies, but I can think of counterexamples among them too.

It seems to me there are two kind of food, don't know it's just me (as someone who devour everything) maybe I'm entirely wrong here, first is the food that rely entirely on the ingredient like Italian, Turkish or Japanese food. It's as you said they are mostly less gravies, and the use of spices also limited, and if the ingridient is not good or fresh enough you cannot cover up the taste.

While Chinese, Indian and generally SEA food, are rich of gravies, lots use of spices, you can even camouflage a bad material and ingredient with all of those gravies. Like once I get a horrible food poisoning eating Indonesian food, when I eat it everything seems great, nothing seems odd, however not that long after I finish my food, my stomach is so hurt, it's that hurt that I told my wife "I think I'm gonna die" which she laugh at me and calm me (gives me some yoghurt and other things that she thought is good to counter food poisoning), that's because of how rich the use spices and gravies in the cuisine, it's not entirely depend on the ingredient, they can even process a spoiled food to taste great.

Am I right or make any sense here?

edit: And usually the one who not really get used eating a very mixed spices food, like perhaps a Turk, an Italian or a Japanese, might feel perplexed eating Indian food. Because the amount of spices use in that food is brutal.

 

[Phrossack]

Back to the US election.

Ex-Republican George Will is opining Biden might get in excess of 400 electoral votes.
Coincidentally, yesterday I was on the 538 website playing with their interactive predictor. If Biden can close the 2% gap he faces in Texas, I too believe he can get in excess of 400 electoral votes.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-map/?cid=abcnews

Does that factor in the fact that Democrats usually need a significant lead just to get close to a tie?

I wouldn't say a Dem has a fair shot at winning unless they were several points ahead. A dead heat equals a Republican advantage.

 

[IglooDame]

Does that factor in the fact that Democrats usually need a significant lead just to get close to a tie?

I wouldn't say a Dem has a fair shot at winning unless they were several points ahead. A dead heat equals a Republican advantage.

It's maybe +2-3pts in nationwide polls, for a Dem to break even in the EC, yes.

 

[Sommerswerd]

... that spread does make it reasonably difficult to complain.

I love all that stuff too... But I also like sushi, Thai, Indian, Turkish, Greek... I just like food.

Can we ally with China or Iran/Syria instead? I don't wanna eat Russian food the rest of my life.

Forgot to mention... Pierogis are pretty damn good tho...

 

[Farm Boy]

Indian veg is really good. I had Ethiopian once, it was stupid good too. I always come back to the bread, myself.

I don't know if there's a type of food I don't like. Haven't had Scandanavian exotics yet, I suppose. But I usually like strong flavors in moderation.

 

[H4run]

strong flavors

This is the word I seek all the time when I write my previous post. Ufff my vocab playing hide and seek with me.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Can we ally with China or Iran/Syria instead? I don't wanna eat Russian food the rest of my life.

Forgot to mention... Pierogies are pretty damn good tho...

Actually, I find plenty of Italian food oily. But it's often olive oil, so it's kind of different from the lard and vegetable oil that are commonly used in East and Southeast Asian cooking.I guess you're thinking about how Turkish, Italian and Japanese food are not so reliant on rich gravies, but I can think of counterexamples among them too. Is it about taste, then? Thai food has very strong flavours. So do Indian and some kinds of Chinese cuisine, but Thai does take the cake, I feel.Ah, I thought maybe it was the combination of rich flavours and milky gravy that might present a problem. I know I didn't like that about Indian food when I was much younger. But I have to say that Thai food is a special thing. It's in many ways so different from neighbouring Vietnam and Malaysia's food, as well as from Southern Chinese food. They all share common spices, but somehow it's just not the same.

Thai food is really special when its done well... I guess you could say that for any type of food, but I find its much more rare for me to encounter a Thai restaurant that doesn't have spectacular food.

I've had a Thai version of soup similar to Pho, which I believe is called kuetiao or kuh teow. Delicious.

Does that factor in the fact that Democrats usually need a significant lead just to get close to a tie?

I wouldn't say a Dem has a fair shot at winning unless they were several points ahead. A dead heat equals a Republican advantage.

That's true for the national polls. If the national polls are showing only a 1-3% Democratic lead, Biden is probably toast. At 4%, its going to be a long night. If he holds the current 8-12% leads he is posting... then it makes sense to start dreaming of a wins in Texas and 400 electoral college points and so on.

But if we're looking at the state-by-state polls, Biden doesn't have to have a 2% lead in Texas, if he's in a dead heat there's hope. He just needs to win by a few tens of thousands of votes to make a recount unnecessary. It can be close, but we just want it to be recount-close, cause you know the Republicans are going to be howling for a recount if they somehow lost Texas.

TBH, the polling on RCP seems to be tightening... I don't if the current blowout numbers can last 2 weeks. We may be in for that long night afterall.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I don't know if there's a type of food I don't like.

English, Irish, Scottish... oof… they certainly don't make it easy on you with all the boiling and deep frying. I mean like anything, if its cooked to perfection, its going to be nice anyway... but its an uphill battle with that cuisine.

 

[Farm Boy]

A full English breakfast is wonderful. They have excellent traditional breads as well. Though the Germans beat them on the strong and heavy breads.

I think the Irish do steak and crab alright. It probably rolls into my mental of "Midwestern" given the proximity to Chicago. I don't know enough about the Scots' food to defend them.