Warm Gooey Cheese Fondue 4 Cold Nights

From Denny: The Olympics food and recipes are still posting and this one is divine! There are three secrets to great cheese fondue.

1 - Prepare in a saucepan on the stove. Leave the official showy fondue pot for when the dish is ready to be served. You will be doing a lot of stirring as the cheese melts and it's just easier to control the heat temperature on the stove.

2 - Rub the inside of the saucepan with raw garlic to flavor the final dish. Then you pour in the wine and other ingredients.

3 - Place some cornstarch water in the saucepan after the garlic rub. What this does is prevent the cheese from separating into ugly unappetizing lumps. This simple little trick is a winner for keeping the cheese properly bound and smooth in the final product.

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Pierre's fondue recipe

From: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, chef and owner Market Restaurant: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Serves: 4

INGREDIENTS

• 3 1/3 c Gruyere cheese, grated
• 3 1/3 c Fribourg Vacherin cheese, grated (or Comte if not available)
• 3 1/3 c dry white wine
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 3 Tbsp kirsch
• 1 pc crushed garlic
• 1 each baguette, cut into 1" cubes with crust
• 1 each Gala apple, cut into 1" cubes
• 1 1/2 c red grapes, washed
• 4 oz Bresaola, thinly sliced
• Cornichons
• Pickled onions

DIRECTIONS

Rub inside of a heatproof casserole with the garlic. Add the wine and cornstarch and heat until liquid is steaming but not boiling. Slowly add the cheese and bring just under the boiling point, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Once the mixture is completely melted and velvety in texture, mix in the kirsch and continue stirring until it comes back together. Remove from the heat, season with fresh ground pepper and nutmeg. Serve tableside on a burner. Arrange all the garnish on a plate and serve.


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Funny Quirky Video: The Busy Desk of the Animator

From Denny: If you have ever wondered exactly how the animators do it this tutorial is for you! :) Entertaining and delightful while it explains the world of illusion.

From the creators of this video:

A neat making-of video to explain the trickery behind the interactive video exhibit, DanseDance.

Each day, we are surrounded by seemingly insignificant objects, taking them from one place to the other, or leaving them on a table for weeks, without paying any attention to them. We ignore or forget them, using things only when we need to, making sure they don’t interfere or inhabit our space. But what if they were not so stable and subservient? What if they could swivel, bounce or even fly. And what if they did so all at the same time?

This experiment is about re-discovering our daily surroundings.

DanseDance from Julien Vallée on Vimeo.

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Technorati claim

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7 Funny Little Sillies 4 a Grin

From Denny: Found these quick little grinners and they are a perfect pick-me-up for the weekend!




A man in Orange County Municipal Court had been ticketed for driving alone in the carpool lane.

He claimed that the four frozen cadavers in the mortuary van he was driving should be counted.

The judge ruled that passengers must be alive to qualify.





A co-worker tells me about his son and his son's new under-wear with superheroes on it:

One morning the child comes running into the bedroom, grabs the front of his pants and announces proudly, "Ive got Superman in my pants, Daddy. What have you got in yours?"

Before checking, I turned to my wife, "Well, how should I answer him?" She was too busy laughing.





Tech Support: "OK Bob, let's press the control and escape
keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the
middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up
the Program Manager."

Customer: "I don't have a 'P'."

Tech Support: "On your keyboard, Bob."

Customer: "What do you mean?"

Tech Support: "'P' on your keyboard, Bob."

Customer: "I'm not going to do that!"





Uh, oh... arriving blonde joke...

Harlan says there's a Judi who works at his place. Our receptionist, (yes, she is a blonde), often takes orders to call out for pizza on nights we work late.

One night, after placing an order for two pizza's from around the corner, we asked her how long it would be before they arrived.

She said she was told 40 minutes. When we commented to her that we thought that was a long time, she responded "That seems about right. It takes 20 minutes to cook
a pizza and we ordered 2 of them."





England: A German "tourist," supposedly on a golf holiday, shows up at customs with his golf bag.

While making idle chatter about golf, the customs official realizes that the tourist does not know what a "handicap" is.

The customs official asks the tourist to demonstrate his swing, which he does, only he did it backwards!

Turns out a substantial amount of narcotics was found in the golf bag.





Total groaner:

Did you hear about the disaster at a major U.S. University?

The scientists were cloning monkeys and one of them blew up.
The scientist are trying to determine what went wrong by sifting
through the Rhesus' pieces.

(For anyone outside America: they are referencing the American candy peanut butter and chocolate Reece's Pieces)





Back in the old days my Uncle Bucky bought a new Model A Ford.The next morning he was on his way to work and crashed into a car pulling out from a side street.

Being the witty person that he is, he wrote a letter to the Ford Motor Company..

"I blew my horn, it did no good. And now I have a busted hood". Two days later a delivery truck arrived at his residence with a brand new hood.





*** For more fun, check out the Saturday cartoons:

Cartoonists Cajun Whoop A$$ on Everyone - 40 Funny Political Cartoons - 13 Mar 2010


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Best Time Waster, Funny Video: Procrastination

From Denny: This wildly funny little video has great fun as they explore all the things we humans do when we are procrastinating, trying to avoid the inevitable.

From the creators of all this fun, here is their write-up:

An investigative and exploratory hands-on gloves-off study into the practice of putting things ‘off”. Sometimes the only way to get something done is to do two dozen other things first.

Procrastination refers to the deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting and/or completing any task or decision. There are three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.

Story, Animation, Direction: Johnny Kelly

Graduation film from the Royal College of Art, 2007.





*** Special thanks to Best On Tube for posting it!

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