Good morning to all the good MF's! I have good news and bad news: the good news is that you can now purchase the complete "Tales from the Larder" series thus raising some needed dough for the men & women in uniform: if you go to my team page here, then you're on the right track. It's only 9.95 and will provide you with hours of fun, cooking tips and expanding waistlines. Please donate today and we will send you a link for downloading. A huge thank you to our residing goddess, asimbagirl, who did a splendid job of putting together this eBook...(or is it Ebook?) and to our gracious host and mojomander-in-chief, TexDem.
The bad news is, well, you know by now that I'm a seasonal poster (ie: I have to go to 11 work harder during the next three months) and this series will go into hiatus for the summer and resume in September. I have some surprises-in-waiting...
Quite a few posters have emailed me with this question: why is it called Tales from the Larder? Well, once upon a time there was AAF an ass with interstellar aspirations....so he wrote the following...
....Being born into a family of hoteliers had some advantages, to be sure. As a kid I used to spend most of my winter time reading in the hotel larder because it was quiet, the overhead lighting was good and the smells were reassuring. And it was also a place where I could sneak in a few slices of bread and hack a bit of hard cheese from the panoply of Italian and French produce, sit on my chair and dream about the origins of all the products we managed to store. And I did most of my reading & thinking. René Descartes liked to do his thinking in bed, I did mine in the larder. It was my domain throughout the winters and certainly not the place to be in the summertime as the hotel was taken over from April to October by a brigade of noisy, fellow loons.
So it was in that larder that I became seriously interested in food and I made a point of scrutinizing and itemizing every tin, bottle, bag, boxed spices, jars, blocks of cheese, preserves and all the hanging charcuterie; the country hams from various regions, the armies of salamis, the rings of smoked sausages...I became an expert in label reading and developed a nose for sniffing out rancidity and spoiled goods.
This was some larder! A huge, oblong-shaped tiled room, with a wide center shelf and two aisles on which one could have easily skated around, I lorded over it from my chair and corner desk with great confidence. It had two doors leading into it, one from the main kitchen and the other one that led into the back of the bar area. There was also a small trapdoor leading down directly to my uncle's private cellar, in which he kept his prized collection of brandied fruits and rare liqueurs. No one was allowed to trespass his cache of goods. Except me, occasionally. I guess it was reluctantly granted because I was the nosy type and could not be kept out indefinitely. I was also good at keeping the place more or less in order. I loved looking at all the fancy bottles filled with colored liquids among his vast collection of maritime mementos and a truckload of old, leather-bound books (he had been a head chef aboard a large cruise liner and sailed around the globe several times, collecting along the way). Those memories have never left me....
Now that you have had your coffee, please click on this link to my donation page and buy the damn thing! Even if you can't cook, your Auntie will be grateful to you, and who knows, she might put your name in her will.
Now a word from our Sponsor:
Netroots For The Troops introduced NFTT 2010 Personal/Team Fundraising Pages. The idea is to empower each of you to multiply your personal donations by creating a Personal NFTT 2010 Fundraising Page. Through this page you will be able to approach your friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers and colleagues etc to donate to NFTT via your page. We're asking you to sign up to personally raise $1000.00. If you were a small donor last year but wanted to do more, this is a way for you to increase your donation via your contacts.
While we're encouraging this to be individual efforts we're not going to discourage teams. For example; we have a mother/daughter pair who's last name is Hobbs and they're going to call the pairing "The Hobbettes". It was that or the Hobbitts and they liked the "ettes" better than the "itts".
Getting Started: Sign up now!
There are two ways you can help: 1)Make an individual donation by clicking on the Donate button and/or 2) Register to be a Personal Fundraiser by clicking the Register button to the left. We're ready to help you get started by creating your own personal fundraising page! Once you've signed up, we will email (within 36 to 48 hrs.)to you a Fundraising Kit that includes sample solicitation letters, how to order business cards, and tips for how to ask people to support your cause.
Use your imagination to raise funds. Last year we had a kossack and her daughters raise funds at a neighborhood event by selling lemonade. Ask your church, temple, synagogue etc. to assist you in your effort. Approach a small retailer about "putting up a jar". Have fun with it. Make up a flier to put on every car you see with a "Support Our Troups" magnet on it.
What Can I Do On Daily Kos?
We're asking you not to post a diary for your personal pages on Daily Kos. Daily Kos is NFTT's home base and we'll still be posting general diaries for fundraising on Daily Kos. We're also asking that you refrain from posting comments within the general NFTT diaries promoting your personal page.
What you can do, is post a comment in Open Thread and other open forums requesting someone to go through your personal page to make a donation.You can also make your sig. line your donation page link. Just be courteous and polite in whatever you do for NFTT. People love supporting the troops, so you don't need to be overly aggressive in soliciting for their benefit. Your actions reflect upon all of us.
Netroots For The Troops mission is two-fold: annual shipment of CARE packages to US soldiers and Marines serving in hostile regions of Iraq and Afghanistan for the duration of their deployment, and on-going financial assistance for veterans and their families upon their return to the states.
Netroots for the Troops is a project of Netroots Arts and Education Initiative (NAEI), a 501(c)3 organization. Donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
On with the games!!
Mojo Friday Guidelines
If you comment you have to recommend all comments. (in order to receive mojo you have to give mojo. It's only good mojo manners.)
Everything you say may be taken as a joke (so if you ask a question, expect a silly answer)
You must recommend the diary (and pimp it unapologetically)
You don't have to comment to recommend.
You can't steal my idea (right, like that ain't goin' to happen)
Please, no pictures or YouTubes until after 300 comments. Now, after 300, use a little common courtesy and be responsible in the number.
Mojo mojo mojo mojo, mojo mojo mojo.
PJ (that's me) is not bound by the guidelines. Heh
Mojo Friday Goals
A. At least 300 different commenters and 1000 comments by 1:30 PM EST and 1500 by 5:00 PM EST Friday Night that it's posted.
B. 100 recommends for each comment, at least.
C. Stay on Recommend List at least five hours (this requires some strategic planning by you guys, refer to guideline #3)
D. At least 200 diary recommends. 300 would be better, spread the word.
E. And always, fun fun fun.
F. Have at least 75% average participation rate as seen here in the Mojo Friday Postgame Show by Hedwig.
G. (New) Have at least 30 kossacks over 90% participation (see here for some tips).
H. Overload the servers with recommends, not to mention dominate Top Comments Mojo list. (we do tend to mess with the site with all of our recommends at one time)(also, to dominate the Top Comments Top Mojo we need at least 50 comments with over 200 recommends, see guideline B)
I. That's enough for now. (Have a suggestion? Post it.)
How to Succeed at Mojo Friday Without Really Trying.
For those of you new to MF (Mojo Friday) we have our own lingo about a few things. Thank's to MF'er Jez (the link will explain) go to this diary for a little more fun and explanation.