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Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread… 
So below is what my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob & I have been looking at so far this week. Been a “foodie” news week so far, in large part, so pardons in advance for the emphasis on food related articles…
• Los Angeles‘ Pink’s Hot Dogs to open at LAX:
Whatever concerns the Pink family has about franchising Pink’s Hot Dogs, an outpost of the iconic hot dog shack will open in LAX before year’s end. If you’re not flying out of the country, you’re out of luck: It will be in the Tom Bradley International Terminal.The airport Pink’s will serve 11 of its 21 varieties of hot dogs and no hamburgers (though that’s subject to change before the opening). Various accounts have it opening anywhere from late fall to late December.
Oh, yum. I haven’t had a Pink’s hot dog in sooooo long.
More wiener news…
• San Francisco Chronicle‘s Caspers Famous Hot Dogs celebrates 75 years:
Lafayette resident Carol Rustigian knows many of the secrets of making good hot dogs, including the fact that steaming, not boiling or grilling, is the best way to unlock their flavor.“Hot dogs are already cooked at the plant and steaming really plumps them up,” said Rustigian, a second-generation member of the family-owned company that runs Caspers Famous Hot Dogs in the East Bay…
I’m going to try steaming. I tend to like a grilled dog myself, but trying new ways to live life seems a must for me.
• San Francisco Chronicle‘s Fame makes Poland’s cooking nun uneasy:
Emerging from the quiet of her convent, Sister Anastazja Pustelnik was confronted by a jarring image – her smiling face on posters plastered around town to hawk the cookbooks that have made the 59-year-old nun one of Poland’s best-selling authors.It’s fame Sister Anastazja never bargained for when she left the material world as a young woman, expecting to toil in obscurity for God. But her ability to create easy-to-follow recipes for delectable cakes and traditional home cooking has resulted in five cookbooks since 2001 that have sold a combined 1.1 million copies in this country of 38 million.
Today, her cookbooks are found in shops and online, their glossy covers showing Pustelnik with an apron over her black nun’s habit and a mixing bowl or serving platter in hand, generating the unwelcome fame thrust upon her…
Life is hard, and then we all wine…I mean whine! 
• MSNBC‘s Pass The Salt: Denny’s being sued:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
• And speaking of food, Today Show‘s Crickets, bugs, worms: It’s what’s for dinner!; Some adventurous foodies are turning to insects for a taste of the exotic:
Chef David George Gordon spends many of his days on the road, donning his apron and sautéing, frying and roasting fare for cooking demonstrations around the country.His specialties? They include scorpion kabobs and orzo with cricket nymphs.
“You’d be surprised – people try it and come back for seconds and thirds,” said Gordon, the Seattle-based author of the “Eat-A-Bug Cookbook” and “The Compleat Cockroach.” “I once even had a kid who came back for fifths and said it was better than anything his mother ever cooked.” …
Alright. There has to be somewhere online where I can order some delicious domestic bark scorpions to kabob up — I’m already well aware that my taste for other exotic meats can be satisfied at exoticmeatsandmore.com, but they don’t cover bugs. Help here anyone on the edible bugs? 
• More about the outfit — and the politics — of the story that we covered in last weekend’s This & That diary. From NBC Phildelphia‘s Transgender Mayor’s Short Skirt Raises Ire:
So anywho…It’s an open thread! What are you reading or thinking about today? (I hope it’s about food or drink! 
)
25 Comments
At first I thought Mayor Stu was somewhere around Philly, and I got all excited!I’m sure folks have shown up to business meetings in Ally McBeal teeny tiny shirts, and no one had a problem. I call bullshit.
It was eighty five farenheit todayin our offices; as a court official I kept my jacket on over my cami, it is de riguer.
Sorry, no go on the outfit.
It is unprofessional, he is deliberately being unprofessional in his presentation
Odd that…..…….I live in the Hollywood Hills and yet I found out about Pink’s via the Blend……you guys are great!
What!That outfit was so inappropriate that this ultra-kinky bitch was embarrassed for her.
Today I wore a tank like this http://www.harley-davidson.com…
to work under a sweatshirt and at lunch my partner looked and me and she said, “You wore THAT to work!!!!”
Would i wear that outfit? HELL YES!
To business meeting? Not if my life depended on it.
Sorry, but great legs or not, learn how to dress for christ’s sake.
Pinks hot dogs are the BESTThey are on La Brea, just north of Melrose (I went to Melrose Avenue Elementary School right around the corner until 5th grade). They make the best chili dogs anywhere on the planet, but everything on the menu is really good.
[I swear, the two things I miss most about living in LA are Pink's Hotdogs and In-n-Out Burger.]
Cream cheese!
I don’t think that the outfit was appropriate given the contextIf I had a body that good, I would want to show it off too, but IMHO, it is not exactly a good example of “business attire”. That said,
A) the place had no air conditioning. Bad choice of outfit, but typical of Stu Rasmussen’ style. That is how Rasmussen almost always dresses and the group that invited him has got to have known that (I do, and I live in Washington).
B) The guy that was interviewed from the group filed that the complaint ran against him for Mayor, and lost. Consider the source.
Okay I’m blogwhoring …and I hope I don’t get slapped for doing so as I did a week or so ago.
On my blog FOCUS (which I posted very, very early Tuesday morning) is a lengthy article/commentary regarding a “call to action” from Change.org against the Crowne Plaza O’Hare Hotel and it’s booking of an event from Illinois Family Institute.
http://lgbtrainbowlinksfocus.b…
Fortunately…The best fast food chili burger chain in the world has made it down to San Diego from L.A. — The Original Tommy’s! ZOMG, pastiest chili ever!
But yeah, is there anyone who used to live in L.A. that has had a Pink’s Hot Dog that doesn’t miss Pink’s Hot Dogs? I doubt it.
Thinking about jumping into this thread over at KSL.com“SLC one of many cities signing on for national kiss-in”
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?n…
KSL.com is LDS church property.
And they let the haters run wild on it.
Here’s what comment moderation looks like at KSL:
Kudos to the folks organizing The Great Nationwide Kiss-In Apparently, the sight of y’all smoochin’ drives ‘em bonkers. Who knew?
RidiculousThe mayor looks ridiculous in that dress regardless of where he’s going, or what he’s doing.
Come on, Chino, you’re not holding up your honorary ‘mo statusif you’re not willing to advise them that it’s “dyke,” not “dike” (understandably, they assumed it was spelled the same as “kike”). And at a kiss-in, we would be expected to be “groping” each other, not “grouping.” You could leave the lesson about verb conjugation for someone else (present simple “wants,” not “want’s,” for instance).
Pollyana, sadly, you continue to underestimate me …I don’t have time to correct comments that I intend to get removed altogether …
When I first mentioned this KSL thread, the number of comments stood at 385 … they’re now down to 364 as the biggest stinkers are getting deleted …
Bonneville (KSL’s Mormon holding company) apparently has bots running regular Twitter searches for terms like “KSL” …
If anyone wanted to help keep the Bonneville bots busy, pls RT (ReTweet) this:
Mormon-owned KSL condones hate at KSL.com http://bit.ly/ilpwZ #KSL #Mormon #Gay
So, can I keep my honorary ‘mo status? Pretty please? ;-)
I just can’t keep up with all this new-fangled technologyYou are clearly being guided by a great power.
, writes the gal with the wicked photoshop skilz.
Yummm! Casper’s hot dogsI saw that story in yesterday’s SF Comicle and got an immediate craving for a Casper hot dog.
On the mayor, I do agree the outfit is unprofessional for a mayor. But why is a mayor in Oregon of any interest to the good people of Philadelphia?
Edible bugs?Oh, you mean like shrimps, crabs, crawdads, lobstahs?
OMGI saw just the end of Mayor Stu on Larry King Live last week and I can not express how cool he* seems to be. I’d love to kick back and have a beer with him.
This said, the outfit was unprofessional and Stu was speaking in the capacity of Mayor. I’m sure there was some casual and comfortable outfit that would have been more appropriate.
* I was a little confused by the use of the male personal pronoun for Stu (by Stu as well as the other guests). Is he a “cross-dresser” and not TG?
Crossdresser is a TG identityThe term transgender is an umbrella term that is used to describe a broad variety of gender variant people, to include (but not be limited to) transsexuals, crossdressers, and genderqueers.
Transgender is a self identification term though. Many of those who identify as transsexual or crossdresser, for example, don’t also identify as transgender.
I personally identify as a male-to-female transsexual, and as transgender.
No.
…but I love edible bugs like you describe too! Yum!
speaking of hot dogs,i saw a sign today emblematic of (greater) seattle culture. the sign at the exit to the bothell home depot said “hot dogs and espresso”.
what odd combos are emblematic of other regions?
i can’t listento the video since i’m in a library (a ‘cooling zone’ – it’s 100 degrees in seattle today, and we’re just not used to such heat!)
my question would be, did stu dress similarly while campaigning and if so, nobody can say they weren’t warned of his style.
my other observation is yes great legs, but he shaves them. why is leg shaving a hallmark of femininity for so many people? it drives me crazy that presence of natural body hair that grows in the same place on all sexes get must be artificially removed by one sex to “qualify” as the related gender.
stupid QWhen presented with a situation in which it would be appropriate to use a personal pronoun in reference to someone who is TG, do I have to worry about accidentally offending someone by using the pronoun that matches the outward appearance they present if they still use the pronoun that matches their natal gender (as Stu did)? I’m pretty sure I’ll never have to face the situation but, with my luck, I could and I don’t really want to ruin someone’s day. Years ago, when presenting how to document sex, etc. when collecting data, I actually provided instructions on proper documentation for people who were post reassignment surgery and people thought it was odd for me to do so – now they think I was very forward thinking as people are occasionally coming across it.
sigh, Autumn, this is actually really complicated and confusing for someone who doesn’t face it themselves. Is it as confusing for those who do or is it easier to understand because it’s who you are (caveat: I’m asking this with the understanding that your uphill battle is getting everyone to just understand and accept that it’s who you are)?
speaking of the term kikeas a little girl, I wondered why a few of the boys kept calling me a “kite”. . .it took my older brother a while to stop laughing and explain it was “kike” and it was a nasty term for jews like us. for the life of me, the word has never managed to offend me because every time I hear or see it I get fixated on wonder what the etymology of the slur is. if anybody knows, please clue me in.
In a word……I wouldn’t call it confusing for me, but even I’d acknowledge trans related terminology is pretty complicated.
Believe it or not, most trans people would prefer that you asked them how they would like to be addressed rather than addressing them by the wrong pronoun.
As for referring to trans people by gender, for the most part just go by how a trans person is dressed. Most male-to-female crossdressers, when crossdressed, prefer female pronouns. Mayor Stu is an exception, even though the mayor has publicly self-identified as a crossdresser, but has stated he doesn’t mind being called either he or she.
As for those you can’t tell which gender pronoun they prefer to be referred to by, well — just ask.
For me, well, you can just call me “she.”