Strollerderby : Seinfeld

Interview with Marlee Matlin

editors — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:25:00 GMT

Today on Babble:

"Marlee Matlin"

by Tammy La Gorce

Oscar winning actress and mother of four Marlee Matlin has been far from typecast into the onscreen role of mom, but, she'd "love to do the story of Octomom!"

Read it here.

XBox Writes Santa Letter for Your Kids

JeanneSager — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:06:00 GMT

Vista may not be Microsoft's biggest flub of the year. Hard to believe, I know, but a form letter generator for kids begging for their XBox this holiday might just beat the blue screen of death bombing operating system for the Worst Attempt At Being Useful Award.

To help convince doubting Thomases and Thomasinas that life without an XBox is a fate worse than having Mom pick them up from school in her PJs and curlers, Microsoft is letting kids choose their words from multiple choice drop-down menus. The XBox site lets them pick a recipient, a holiday (Festivus is on there for you Seinfeld fans), a means of celebration and list of four Microsoft products (talk about a monopoly). It even lets them clue you in on why they really deserve your major cash investment - ie. they've been "oder-free" all year long.

Ralphie's ode to his Red Rider BB gun this isn't. The results of my husband taking a spin to convince me he really needs an XBox (sadly, he's only half joking!) were amusing in that Mad Libs kind of way. But if one of these came from a kid, I'd be tempted to send them back to the drawing board to write a proper Santa letter one hundred times. Sorry kiddo, if you can't summon the passion to write your own letter, Mommy can't summon the $200-something it would take to bring home one of those babies.

On second thought, let 'em "write" it. A half-assed attempt on their part should earn them a half-assed attempt at holiday shopping, right? Coal it is.

Image: XBox (the husband's attempt at humor)

Kid Arrested for Farting

Moose With Loose Poops: Most Disgusting Book Title Ever?

What Makes a Yuppie Parent?

Tub Toys As Climate Change Fighting Tool?

The bra for your butt

Brett Singer — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Remember the manzier aka "The Bro" from Seinfeld? That was a joke. But the Brum, a bra for the female heiny, is real.

Yahoo! Shine covers (no pun intended) this latest trend in undergarments. As Jennifer Romolini puts it, "Butt is the new boobs. In fact, the hottest look in lingerie is actually something let's call butt cleavage and the best way to show off your butt cleavage is with a Brum."

BlackBook magazine offers further insight: "Anal cleavage has gained popularity this century with the rise of low-cut jeans (or should I say descent), the emergence of the whale tale, and most recently, posterior-revealing lingerie."

One of the two times I've been lucky enough to fly first class (frequent flier miles people – save them) I shared the flight with Victoria's Secret uber-model Adriana Lima. When we arrived in New York, Lima stood up and pulled her jeans down so that they revealed a little bit of what, on a fat guy, would be called Plumber Butt. On her, it was, well, something else. As far as I can recall she wasn't wearing ass-enhancing undies, but this was a few years ago so who knows. (And before someone says, "why were you looking at her butt?" it was first class, it was a small cabin, and she looked at me first! OK, no she didn't.) The point of the story is that there are indeed women who like to show off a little of what they've got going on back there (especially in New York, I guess), but is there a need for a specific piece of clothing to help them do it? I always thought that the thong was the preferred garment for showing your nether-cheeks. In fact, the Brum seems to cover more rear acreage than the traditional thong, although that could be in order to push out certain areas.

One commenter on Shine says that this is no different from the Miracle Bra, but to my male eyes it seems a little different. This also isn't the first product to act as a tush-pusher; Shine also covered Booty Pop panties, which are designed to make your booty POP(!).

So. IS this any different from a Miracle Bra? And would you wear a Brum?

image: BlackBook via Shine

Ohh, Baby - Orgasmic Birth Video

The Bro from Seinfeld (Daddytips.com)

Attack of the Strippers

Mrs. And Mrs. DeGeneres, and a male perspective on the name game

They Say: Incest Is Best?

Childfree and B*tchy. Why Yes You Are

Kitchenista: Good Enough For a Potluck in Mumbai

Madeline Holler — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:32:00 GMT

For the tastiest curries, I'm all for grinding and mixing your own spices, and pounding crisp aromatics into thick pastes using a mortar, pestle and all the seething anger that built up over the weekend. But sometimes, you just need to make dinner. For that, we go to whatever's in one of the jars that we have on hand.

But that doesn't mean soup or spaghetti and sauce again. You can still have curry -- which, incidentally, I think are the most forgiving and easiest vegetable hiders, take that Ms. Seinfeld! -- and it's very easy. Like, 15 minutes from thought bubble to table.

Just stock up on these (especially the stuff in the jars): Patak's Taste of India.

No need to venture into your cities Little India (though, by all means, go!), because these are available in the most meat 'n' potatoes suburban supermarkets -- look in the international aisle. There a lots of variations and please, try them all.

My favorite, though, is Patak's Original Mild Curry Paste, cilantro and cumin. You can do anything with it, but here's the best. (Don't worry, "mild" still has a little heat, which I think is good to get even little kids used to. Just blob on some plain yogurt if the kid starts wailing.)

Dice and saute an onion, if you have one, no big deal if you don't. Throw in some chicken, diced or hard vegetables like carrots or parsnips or potatoes or whatever. Any, all, none of it, doesn't matter. Just wait with the delicate leafy stuff for the final step. Throw in a can of garbanzos, any size can, but the more you make the more leftovers you have and you'll want leftovers of this for sure.

When the garbanzos seem heated and the optional onions are soft and, even better, kind of browned, scoop out some of the curry paste, one heaping spoonful at a time. Stir after each spoonful. You're trying to make sure you have enough to coat all the garbanzos and/or optional chicken. Keep dumping. You can't overdo it and you can always add more later, so don't sweat this step.

Now, dump in a can of diced tomatoes -- any size. Stir. Add some water or chicken broth to make the amount of curry that you want. Taste. Add more paste if you want. Here you can throw in bell peppers or spinach or fresh tomatoes -- any other kind of vegetable that wilts quickly or should be done, at most, al dente. Let the whole thing simmer until the rice is done.

Serve in big bowls over rice. Dollop some yogurt on top for extra richness/coolness. You'll love it so much, you'll want to bring it to your next potluck in Mumbai. But don't.

The Dark Side of Seinfeld’s Sneaky Veggies

Madeline Holler — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:52:00 GMT

While Jessica Seinfeld single-handedly ups the Vitamin A and antioxidants intake of our nations’ children with her stealth veggie offerings, some damn celery-crunchers are exposing a darker side to the chocolate-zucchini muffin.

By tucking peas in here, spinach in there and watching her children unwittingly lap it up, experts warn that the wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld is betraying her picky kids' trust.

To both the experts and Seinfeld, I say: Oh, come on!

Our kids are fine when we lie to them about harmless things -- Santa, the tooth fairy, "grown-up naked wrestling." I don’t think Seinfeld's kids are going to grow up doubting their mother when they find out she's been stirring spinach into cake batter. On the other hand, so what if kids don't eat many vegetables now? All this blender-work is just delaying their inevitable encounters with anything green and inadvertently raising what will be very picky adults. Who, by the way, are nothing but trouble.

Here’s how I think her sneaky approach goes wrong:

First, she’s stirring squash in to macaroni and cheese and adding cauliflower and broccoli to chicken nuggets. I haven’t read her book, but I’m seeing a lot of “kid-palate” pandering. When does she propose they make the transition to a main course and two sides kinds of meals? When will they take the plunge and eat a stir fry? Do she and Jerry eat the nuggets or separate, grown-up meals? I think regular meals that are different from the parents' keep kids from sucking it up and choking down a green bean even more than odd textures and grassy taste.

Most importantly, I think parents have to learn to prepare vegetables in a tasty way. Very few vegetables are super-nummy raw. In-season tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, red or yellow peppers … am I missing anything? … all good fresh off the truck. Most others, though, you’ve got to do something to them – at the very least salt and more often than not, a little cooking and herbs.

Another thing: why all this emphasis squash? Unless nicely adulterated with salt, garlic, herbs and cooking, squash is bland, bland, mealy and bland. Of course Seinfeld has to boil it, puree it and stir it into something before her kids will eat it! A sophisticated palate wouldn’t enjoy a pile of squash, cooked or otherwise, that didn’t have anything added for flavor.

With veggies like broccoli and cauliflower, sure, you can eat them raw. But they carry that faint taste of garbage. A little blanching and they’re so much mellower (and, hey, give a little with the ranch dressing if it gets your kid to try a real floret. With ranch, no betrayal necessary!).

If you’re really getting desperate, throw it all in a spicy/sweet curry, or a stir-fry that includes pineapple, or melt it all under cheese on a pizza, or roll it up in rice and nori for sushi. Kids will get a few bites, at least, before picking off what they don’t like but the vegetables are still there on the plate, part of dinner, to be expected, until the end of time. Tolerance with this pays off. Just last week, my six-year-old made it through a slice of pesto pizza without first pulling off every bit of spinach. That’s progress!

I love vegetables and I also like to cook so we sit down to pretty tasty veggie-heavy meals regularly. The approach in my house, though, is to serve every veggie dish on a no-pandering platter (with a fresh dollop of “no other options” on the side). Draconian? Sure, but for this I’ll get skinny kids that might one day actually eat a fresh blueberry or take more than two bites of a salad.

Remember, it’s 2007 and the Clean Plate Club disbanded at least a decade ago. Two bites and it's over until tomorrow. So what if your kid doesn’t eat five servings of fruits and vegetables everyday? You didn’t either and, except for those thighs, you turned out juuuuuuust fine.

Update: For family photo of the veggie chowing family, look here.

J. Peterman Catalog: The Resurrection

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 18:02:00 GMT

"The earth tilts, bringing shorter, nippier, less humid days. Flakier pie crusts. Bigger moons. Jogger-free beaches. Mums and asters. Boeuf bourguignonne. Dartmouth/Princeton rugby. Killer Scrabble. John Keats. Venice. Unfiltered cider..."

You still awake? Good. Then let me tell you about how I was recently beamed back to 1994.

This time of year mailboxes are packed with catalogs offering up toys, clothing, and fruit baskets. My four-year-old loves to get the mail and the first thing she does is hunt for "toy books." Then she spends the next 20 minutes on the floor flipping pages going, "I want this...I want this...I want this..."

As I was sorting through the mail the other day I came across something I haven't seen since the Counting Crows had a top 10 single: The J. Peterman catalog.

For those that have never seen the J. Peterman catalog (or seen Seinfeld), the catalog is bound with heavy card stock and has no photographs (and no people) in it. Instead, it's filled with hand-sketched pictures of the clothes and accessories; flowery, over-blown language (see above); and references to lots of shit that only rich, white people know about.

If you're going to a F. Scott Fitzgerald-themed holiday party and need Zelda's cloche hat ($198) or a Gatsby shirt ($85), this is the place to do your shopping. Otherwise, grab your partner, pour a couple of glasses of wine, and take turns reading the catalog aloud. You will laugh your asses off, guaranteed.

"See you at the Chincoteague Oyster Festival." /snort