Chickens got fingers?

George W. Bush's birthday party?

The first Thanksgiving? I'm pretty sure Twinkies were around back then...

The Spears- Federline wedding.

Sam's 231st Birthday bash in Maryland. And most of his others for that matter since 1950. Tomorrow's number 232; bring on the Waldorf salad!

The Bill Clinton Library dedication.

My wedding?

America's bicentennial -- what's more American than Twinkies and cheeseburgers?

Chickens may not have fingers yet, but as you can see my genetically re-engineered poultry pony Nicknack now has toes.

Bill Clinton is close, but think of someone more important to the average American and someone who has never argued the meaning is what is is, y'all.

Ooops, didn't see your entry Sarah. You are correct! It is the menu for the short-lived but spectacularly trashy Spears-Federline union. Sadly no photos seem to be available, which is odd for someone whose personal habits were so .well documented

The Owl Meat Research Institute, headed by Dr. Francesca Puttanesca, has found a restaurant in some tri-state area that delivers the goods and by that I mean Jell-O Salad! Some of the other choices, like "Sun Sticks" are a bit mysterious, so Chino and Snickers are riding out to test the grub at this down home vittlery.

Bonus item: Creamed Dried Beef Baked Potato. God does exist.

MYSTERY MENU #2

Sweet & Sour Ham Balls
Roast Turkey
Mom's Meat Loaf
Ham Loaf
Old Fashioned Pot Roast
Pork & Sauerkraut
Smoked Sausage
Ham Steak
Salisbury Steak
Liver & Onions
Shepherd's Pie
Chicken & Waffle
Chicken Pot Pie
Spaghetti & Meat Balls
Chicken Croquettes
Macaroni & Cheese & Stewed Tomato Bakers
Creamed Dried Beef Baked Potato
Fried Haddock
Fried Shrimp

SIDES:
Spicy Curly Fries
Real Mashed Potatoes
Baked Beans
Jell-O Salad
Pepper Cabbage
Corn Nuggets
Cole Slaw
Apple Sauce
Fruit Cup
Stewed Tomatoes
Sun Sticks
Pickled Eggs & Beets
Fresh Tossed Lettuce with Hot Bacon Dressing

It all makes sense...but the crabcakes! Were they really Krab cakes or crabby patties? Or maybe Phillips deep frozen and re-fried for the big event?

Mystery Menu 2:

Elvis Presley's lunch on any given Tuesday in 1976?

No crabby patties or krab kakes. "Lousiana" crab cake. Admittedly that could mean almost anything, but since this was professionally catered in Hollywood, it's probably a crab cake. Catering by Field has handled such diverse events as a Frank Gehry event and a Reebok Shoe store opening. Not to open an old wound here, but you will notice that crab cakes are on the ultimate Southern trailer trash wedding menu. I know, let the slings and arrows of your crabbiness fly. I didn't plan the menu, y'all.

On a TOTALLY unrelated note, I saw someone pull a bottle of "lo-fat" Italian salad dressing from her purse at a restaurant last night. For her salad you might ask? Not really. For a 300 million calorie antipasto for two. You haven't lived until you've seen someone pour purse dressing on salami and cheese. My brain just can't connect with that.

Oh Joyce, nobody knows the secret ingredients of Krabby Patties! You need to watch more Sponge Bob.

I guess I could go along with that Tim, but I'd expect to see some fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches and would have to limit it to any given 31 Tuesdays in 1976.

Still curious about "Macaroni & Cheese & Stewed Tomato Bakers". Will have to see if Chino and Snickers survive. I do like to see apple sauce as a side dish with my Jell-O salad.

Why I remember when I was a youngster, you could get a good restaurant meal with no color brighter than tan on your plate. Roast turkey with white gravy, white bread and butter, creamed corn, apple sauce and milk. And French fries or mashed potatoes. Or tots.

#2 sounds like the dinner menu at Cracker Barrel.

OMG - just caught the " Dr. Francesca Puttanesca" too funny!, and lyrical also!
Terrier Mom - the 16 y.o. told me the same thing! So out the loop!

WOOOO HOOOO that souds like the last cheap southern wedding i went to back home in Memphis. All you need now is my cousin playing the marvin gaye album and some cold bush beer. Tell Me where to sign up.

MYSTERY MENU #2 is from

Oregon Dairy Country Restaurant Buffet
Lititz, Lancaster County PA

http://www.oregondairy.com/

I wanted an homage to the Pennsylvania Dutch-ish foods that were served in real restaurants, okay, we probably called them taverns, in some of my mispent youth in Eastern Pennsylvania.

That's a current menu by the way, not something from 1973.

Not just corn - corn nuggets!

One last menu before I have my El Camino detailed. (It works better at night.). This one is a genuine menu from a historical event that I was not invited to.

MYSTERY MENU #3

Hors d’Oeuvre
Four Treasures of Duck
Fried Giblets
Roast Duck
Mushrooms and Sprouts
Duck Bone Soup
Lotus Seeds Sweet Porridge
Fruits

Happy 4th of July to everyone. I have to board up my windows and doors, because fireworks give me flashbacks. Why would anyone want to experience something that sounds and feels like artillery shelling? I got a special Xanax Jell-O salad from the new CVS in Little Harbor East.

Remember Srebrenica!

Mystery Menu #3 -- sound like the bill of fare at The Walt Disney Company HQ for the post-funeral reception after a monorail crash claimed the lives of Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Uncle Scrooge, and Ludwig von Drake.

Chef Joshau, everything tastes better with Marvin Gaye in the background, doesn't it? But what the heck is "bush beer"?

Dahlink -- I think the intended reference was to Busch beer (not bush beer) -- remember that the comment came from Chef Joshau (not Chef Joshua).

Wow hmpstd that's a winning answer even though it is incorrect. I heard that Dick Cheney shot them in the monorail while on a hunting trip at Disney world. You know one of those "hunting" trips where they herd farm-raised wild animals into confined spaces and then you blast their brains out with machine guns. I will save you some Jell-O salad. It's got grapes, marshmallows and peanut M&Ms. I don't think Cheney would make a tasty multi-course meal out of them though. I think he would hunker down in his glass dome of snarliness and cackle while his trained teams of badgers tear away at the cartoon flesh (which would really be minimum wage high school students from Orlando who thought they were trying out for a new boy band called On Da Run). Then his trained wolverines brigade would fight the badgers for food and finally they just all get shot because someone just delivered a truckload of P'zones.

Hmpstd's post is the first bright moment of my day. I woke up having dreamed of having a bad haircut and not being able to get a good breakfast AND being insulted because I didn't know what kind of trendy retro bar stools were at the diner counter. My taunter's put down: "I guess the L-DOPA people are separated from the oatmeal people now.". Why is my brain creating insults that I don't even understand? My interpretation: medicate with food today.

Okay, a little reflection helps. I saw The Happening yesterday, a movie that is SO deliciously bad that it is good. There is a stupid subplot about neurotransmitters and I think L-DOPA might be one. I went to bed hungry and was thinking about oatmeal done in this way where you leave the moist oats out over night to lacto-ferment and break down some of the more complex proteins and turn some sugars into lactic acid a la yogurt. Now I know there probably aren't a lot of drug addicts who hate oatmeal who will be stalking me today. Maybe.

Chef Joshau, another great post. I like that you said your cousin was playing "the" Marvin Gaye album.

I think I will load a backpack full of non-oatmeal neuro-pleasuring food from the CVS and have an illicit feast in the air-conditional movie pleasure palaces today. As for those of your having outdoor festivities today, well, you clearly haven't seen The Happening. Just stay in small groups.

Since its Independence Day, perhaps it was the meal they had when George Washington was inaugurated?

Happy Fourth, y'all!

Owl Meat -- I'd have to keep picking the buckshot out of the Jell-O salad if Cheney made it, so I'd better pass.

As for The Happening, I'm old enough to remember when it was the title of a bad movie from the 1960s, wiuth an insipid theme song by the Supremes, rather than a bad 2008 movie from M. Night Shyamalan.

Speaking of Motown, what exactly is "the" Marvin Gaye album? Back when audio CDs were being rolled out in the 1980s, Motown released What's Going On AND Let's Get It On on a single CD. That combo is hard to beat, at least to my ears.

hmpstd, dear, I carefully wrote "Joshau," not Joshua, even though my fingers resisted mightily. Have another look!

When did Funtastic Thursdays turn into do-it-yourself pyschoanalysis Thursday? Oatmeal and L-DOPA? Sounds like an ordinary Thursday at the nursing home. Not that I'm complaining. I did have a comical dream last night about a giant bird trying to steal my wife from an outdoor Tupperware party in the woods/Wiccan wedding. Then a fight broke out among the Wiccans about VHS versus Beta. I got on my alligator and flew the hell out of there.

It's food on a stick day Owlie! Take some kebab skewers to the movies and put everything on a stick. I don't think there's a prohibition against eating their food in a novel manner.

Dahlink -- sorry if you thought I was making a dig at you. I only intended to suggest that Chef Joshau might have used a creative spelling for Busch beer, given the creative spelling of his name.

Aha--thanks for the clarification, hmpstd. Makes sense!

Hey what is that crazy happy banana looking thing in the photo above? (and the one last thursday too, i think)

I'm guessing that THE Marvin Gaye album is the ONE that his cousin has.

I imagined that bush beer was some crazy bayou brew made from possum innards and Kool Aid. One can always dream.

Isn't the 60s Happening movie one of the most interesting messed up druggie movies of all time? I've seen it on TV.

Bourbon Girl wrote Hey what is that crazy happy banana looking thing in the photo above? My dear, that is OMG taunting us with the mystery logo he won't reveal. I thought it was some sort of banana fish flambe.

"Crazy happy banana thing"? I don't see anything. Just a man riding his chicken pony. Oh that guy? You've got to pay closer attention:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/reviews/blog/2008/06/post_91.html
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/reviews/blog/2008/06/mystery_game_thursday.html
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/reviews/blog/2008/06/funtastic_thursday_mystery_men.html

MYSTERY MENU #3 ANSWER

This was the banquet for President Nixon on his historic trip to hang with Mao as recorded in his archives. It is possible that they told him everything was duck, you never know.

Menu from the banquet given by Prime Minister Chou in honor of President Nixon
Date: Febuary 21, 1972
Topic: Diplomatic trip to China
Library: Richard Nixon Library
Collection: White House Staff Member and Office Files
Series: President's Personal Files
Folder Title: February 25, 1972, Peking, China-Reciprocal Dinner
Creator: Chou En-lai; People’s Repubic of China
Location: Beijing, China
Person: Richard Nixon
Place: China
Rights Status: Unrestricted
http://www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/record.php?id=297

That menu seemed to be awfully monotonous for a Chinese state banquet, even if it occurred at the height of the Gang of Four era. But they left one thing off the menu -- the Maotai liquor that was used for the zillions of toasts between the hosts and the guests. The stuff was allegedly too lethal to down like a shot -- as I recall from the news coverage back then, you were just supposed to touch your tongue to the glass of Maotai (somewhat akin to licking a postage stamp).

The Gang of Four could be a little monotonous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z49cmltJJeA&feature=related

Thanks for the musical poke Chicklet. I thought Go4 was tedious, but that song is atypical and catchy and ironic I guess.

This is weird beyond belief and a little disturbing. Take note LJ especially, if you want surreal.

When I went to YouTube this morning the top recommended video was called "Owls". Well, when the Owl in the Gravy tear Simon Cowell's legs off, I gasped. Someone stole my deal. And it's a catchy song:

Owl Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8el_P4yvfc

Today's word of the day is "turpitude".

Today's YouTube video of the day is "Owls". Coincidence? You decide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8el_P4yvfc

Rock Chiclet is like a history jukebox. Now do the the Crimean War.

No fortune cookie? Wouldn't it be funny if they gave Nixon a fortune cookie with the message "Confucius says: We will destroy you".

Actually it was the other way around, JG. During one of Nixon's presidential campaigns (I think it was in '68) one of Nixon's operatives snuck onto the opponent's campaign train and substituted the fortune cookies for a chinese meal with ones that said "Nixon will win."

Holy Tenderloin! VDP almost scooped me on the Owl song.

Speaking kind of sort of of Nixon, I saw the Hunter Thompson documentary Gonzo on Friday and loved it. I especially enjoyed seeing how he tortured Muskee in 1972. I had NO idea.

These Funtastic Thursdays seem to descend into a kind of Jell-O idea salad, a colloidal suspension of dis/beliefiness and chaotic crankery. good times.

I would definitely like to hear Chicklet's post-punk Crimean mix tape.

I don't know much about the Crimean War except that it was exceptionally smurfy and that Istanbul was once Constatinople.

What? No dancing in he street at Starbucks' recent gut punch? I would have thought you schadenfreude jackals (said with love) would be dancing in the streets.

I believe Deuteronomy 21:18 as illustrated by the Lego Bible is tangentially on point here.
Let the stoning begin.