Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to play Warcraft

It has now been a WHOLE WEEK since Foodgoat declared himself done with playing Warcraft and quit cold turkey.

Thus far, withdrawal effects have been minimal (he has checked himself into the methodone program known as XBox 360). And if his rehab sticks, he may be one day be the fully functional Foodgoat again. Meaning, cooking adventures may start up again in earnest. One can't fully inhabit the kitchen if one is playing five days a week.

Perhaps he could also use more inspiration. And today I stumbled upon someone who might be a man after Foodgoat's own heart: Anthony Bourdain.
Although he's a giant among foodies, I thought he was just some snobby French chef, so I never saw his show, nor did I ever read "Kitchen Confidential". Alas, little did I know that his philosophy of food fit so closely to our own. Eat for pleasure. Try everything. Relationships are built over shared meals. Rachael Ray is the devil.

His talk with the Commonwealth Club of California that he completely won me over (listen to it here), talking about stuff from favorite meals, the Food Network, immigration policy, foie gras, and Mario Battali.

Now excuse while I run out to get a copy of ">Kitchen Confidential so I can read it out loud to Foodgoat.

Maybe this is why I've been cooking less

In the course of my work, I come across a lot of strange scientific articles and odd study findings. The one about how spinning a baby in a chair may make them smarter, how animals - shocking! - might have feelings, etc.

The latest one to make me laugh out loud is in the British Journal of Psychology and titled "Does hunger influence judgments of female physical attractiveness?". (thanks to Dienekes for the heads up)

What were they trying to find out? Why male preferences for female body weight follows a consistent socio-economic pattern.

And what did they find? That 30 hungry men preferred female figures with a higher body weight and rated as more attractive heavier figures than 31 not so hungry males.

You know all those things you should do to keep your knives in top notch shape? Yes well, I don't do any of them. I mean to, but I don't. I use them on plates and countertops instead of the cutting board. I put them away without drying them. I use them to open bags of chips. I keep them piled up in a drawer.

And those long pointy things you're supposed to slide the knife up and down against before using? Yeah, it didn't do anything for me.

I figured that Lazy Ladygoat was destined to a life of being squirted in the eye by tomatoes and/or buying new knives every year.

And then ... I discovered the Professional Knife Sharpener.

Not too far from my house is man who sharpens knives out of his house for a living. It's at the top of two flights of creaking wooden stairs on a hill, darkened by many tall and imposing trees. When I first went to get a set of knives sharpened, I had to leave them on his porch, because was not to be at home. Thus the house was dark and especially spooky, and it occurred to me that this could all be a sinister ruse to trick the young and innocent into a chamber of horrors, unknowingly bearing the tools of their own tortuous murder with them.

No one jumped out from the shadows.

Nevertheless, I admit to being a little nervous when I went back the next day to pick the knives up. (Perhaps psychotic killers prefer to use sharp knives just as much as the home chef).

But no: he was really just a knife sharpener. And an excellent knife sharpener at that. It only cost me $20 to get four knives done, and the difference was amazing. They were like entirely new knives. Even the one with had had a sizeable dent in it from being smacked with a hammer (don't ask) was remarkably sharp and was now was one of the preferred knives in the kitchen and made chopping tomatoes amazingly easy.

So what is the lesson here? Get your kitchen knives professionally sharpened, of course.

An unstable pack leader

Having fortified himself with generous amounts of garlic salami and San Miguel beer, Foodgoat got down on the floor, eye to eye, nose to snout, with Sienna.

And from the quivering depths of his gut came a belch of such length and loudness as to register on the Richter scale.

Sienna jerked back, pawed frantically at her nose, and the normally calm and quiet dog barked irritatedly at him for a full fifteen minutes.

Will Work for Biscuits

Mature dog seeks position in Cleveland area as therapy dog. Recently certified as a Canine Good Citizen by the AKC. Skills include Homeland defense and Kong cookie extraction and shaking hands. Extensive experience in retrieving Frisbees and sleeping and kitchen cleanup duty. Will work for snacks and belly rubs. No storm chasers need respond.