This Gives a Whole New Meaning to the Phrase “Lobster Pot”
There’s an old saying, “If you want to cook a lobster, use marijuana.” Okay, the saying isn’t that old (in fact, I just made it up), but it could be a saying from now on.
A restaurant in Maine is now getting their lobsters high before they cook them.
Supposedly it relaxes them (the lobsters, not the cooks) and eases the pain when they’re eventually lowered into a pot of boiling water. Like a hippie lowering his body into a bubbling hot tub.
This was the next natural step in the world of weed. It’s becoming more and more legal every year, and new dispensaries are opening up every single day. There’s one not too far from where I’m typing these words. Marijuana is in chocolate and baked (ha ha) goods and lollipops, and one day pot stores will rival liquor stores in their numbers. So of course we’re going to start using it for things like this. Soon it will be just another ingredient found in many food products, like sodium or riboflavin.
One day it will be pumped into the air systems of night clubs and casinos and maybe even gyms. We’ll have pot-scented candles (maybe those already exist) and pot dog treats, to calm down Fido so he won’t chew up the rug.
Best in Show
I’ve been trying to figure out what this Westminster Kennel Club “Best in Show” winner, named Wasabi, reminds me of. A weird lamp from the ’70s? Something Lady Gaga would wear? One of the Tribbles from Star Trek?
This Guy Owns Rare Copies of the Post (Oh, and Some Other Magazines Too)
Pat, I’d Like a “W” as in “What the Hell?”
I’ve watched this approximately 97 times and he does indeed say “buttercut” and not “buttercup.” Not that buttercup would be a more logical answer.
Headline of the Week
“Oh My God, I’m in a Whale’s Mouth.”
RIP Ned Beatty, Ernie Lively, John Gabriel, Val Lauder, Lisa Banes, Paul Soles, Larry Gelman, Martha White, and Claudia Barrett
Ned Beatty was a terrific character actor who had memorable roles in Deliverance, Network, Nashville, All the President’s Men, White Lightning, Rudy, and the first two Superman movies with Christopher Reeve, as well as many TV shows, including Homicide, M*A*S*H, Roseanne, and Szysznyk. He died Sunday at the age of 83.
Ernie Lively appeared in many films, including The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Passenger 57, and Turner & Hooch, as well as TV shows like The Dukes of Hazzard, The X-Files, Seinfeld, Newhart, and The West Wing. He was also the father of actress Blake Lively. He died last week at the age of 74.
John Gabriel was best known for his long-running role as Dr. Seneca Beaulac on the soap Ryan’s Hope. He also had a recurring role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, appeared on Seinfeld, The Untouchables, and Law & Order, and played the Professor on the original pilot of Gilligan’s Island. He died last week at the age of 90.
After I read just one of her pieces for the Post, Val Lauder quickly became one of my favorite writers. She started as a copygirl at the Chicago Daily News in 1944 (!) and went on to work at Time, Newsweek, CBS, NBC, and CNN, grabbing a Pulitzer Prize nomination along the way. She taught at the University of North Carolina for 30 years, and a teaching award there is named for her. She died Wednesday at the age of 95.
You can buy her memoir The Back Page: The Personal Face of History and listen to an interview with Val at the UNC site.
Lisa Banes appeared in such movies as Cocktail, Gone Girl, and Young Guns, and TV shows like The Trials of Rosie O’Neill, The Orville, Royal Pains, Desperate Housewives, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She died Monday at the age of 65.
Paul Soles did the voices for two very popular characters in TV history. He was the voice of Spider-Man in the 1960s animated show Spider-Man, and he was Hermey the Elf (the one who wanted to be a dentist) in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He died last week at the age of 90.
Two years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, Martha White was thrown off a bus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for attempting the same thing. The incident caused a bus boycott. She died Saturday at the age of 99.
You know Larry Gelman as Vinnie, one of Oscar’s poker buddies on The Odd Couple, Dr. Tupperman on The Bob Newhart Show, and a hundred other TV and movie roles. He died last week at the age of 90.
Claudia Barrett appeared in many TV shows and movies but is probably best known as the girl carried off by the big gorilla in the diving helmet in one of the goofiest movies ever made, Robot Monster. She died in April at the age of 91.
This Week in History
George H.W. Bush Born (June 12, 1924)
The 41st president (and vice president under Reagan) was the subject of two Post articles: “The Flowering of George Bush,” which covered his rise in the Republican party, and “Our Healthy Veep & Family,” an article by Post publisher Cory SerVaas about Bush’s exercise routine.
National Baseball Hall of Fame Opens (June 12, 1939)
This year’s induction ceremony will actually honor the 2020 inductees (there was no ceremony last year because of COVID and no inductees were named for 2021). Those players are Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons, and Larry Walker.
This Week in Saturday Evening Post History: Old Spice (June 18, 1960)
Old Spice has always been a good choice if the kids are trying to think of something to buy dad for Father’s Day, so this ad could still run today (though don’t pay attention to that date in the ad — this year it’s on June 20).
Lobster Recipes (For You, Not Me)
People often laugh when they hear that I don’t like summer or beaches and that I can’t swim, an odd development considering I grew up and live in an area internationally known as a great summer and beach place. I also don’t like most seafood. I like fried clams and scallops and maybe haddock (it’s the fried part I like), but I find things like lobster, shrimp, and crab to be not only unappealing but rather vile.
But hey, here are some lobster recipes! The Spruce Eats has a Classic Lobster Salad, while Food Network has a recipe for Lobster Stew. Delish has a recipe for Grilled Lobster Tails, and also one for Lobster Mac & Cheese, or as I call it, “a great way to ruin mac & cheese.”
By the way, you won’t need marijuana for any of these recipes. Just cook them the normal way, Cheech.
Next Week’s Holidays and Events
Juneteenth (June 19)
Here’s the Post’s Ben Railton on the Civil War and Juneteenth, the symbolic anniversary of emancipation. This week, President Biden signed a law to make the day a federal holiday. (And since it falls on a Saturday this year, it means some federal employees get today off.)
Summer Begins (June 20)
If you’d like to know the exact moment you can start with all of your summer fun, it begins at 11:32 p.m. ET.
Featured image: Aleksandrs Samuilovs / Shutterstock
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Comments
I really was fascinated with the magazine collection! I have a few hundred various old magazines going back to 1918. I’ve even sent one to my son’s high school history teacher in 2003 to disprove her teaching on a battle during WWII as I had the Life issue that covered that particular battle. I also have brought many to a local nursing home memory care ward, and the residents there are amazing. One of them worked for McDonnell Aircraft Company (McDonnell Douglass) during WWII, and one of the magazines featured stories on the company during the war. The gentleman’s daughter sent me a thank you note because it opened hours of conversation from him talking to her as if he had just come home from work that day. She said he was all lit up with excitement when he spoke about his job!
Ruth, that’s terrible. Although I haven’t had a whiff of Old Spice in a number of years, I did read Proctor & Gamble ‘reformulated it’ in 2016, the same year you referred to. Not too smart on their part. It has to be a cheaper way out for the company to have done that, but at what cost? I’d like to see sales data on it between 2016-2021. I’ll see if I can’t get a verified unused bottle on ebay from 2015 or older. The nose knows, and something stinks here on more than one level.
Unfortunately, Old Spice has changed their formula and no longer smells the same, in fact, it absolutely stinks now! I tried to buy some for my husband in 2016 and went so far as to try and find an old bottle of it, which were selling at exorbitant prices. Don’t know if they’ve gone back to regular prices. It’s too bad as most of the men in my family wore it and it was always one of my favorites.
Lobsters unfortunately taste wonderful, but I rarely have them out of guilt. I can thank (or blame) Mary Tyler Moore for that. Escargot in butter and garlic sauce is my substitute. I can’t have that very often either because there just aren’t enough French restaurants around. Of course I’d have lobster a lot more often if I could turn Mitch McConnell and all those in power working against the American people 100% into actual lobsters and drop THEM into that pot of boiling water, Bob; with no high. No.
Sounds like marijuana’s been on your mind this week. Its possibilities seem endless, but no mention of the weather? We’re burning up because of global warming because of those lobsters in their former form. I hope you’re coping okay this miserable summer, so far. Oh! I forgot. It’s been hot for so long I forgot it’s only starting!
I’ve been thinking about the ‘Best in Show’ dog, Wasabi, too. Well, he/she reminds me of ‘Cousin It’ on the Addams Family. Not something Lady Gaga would wear, more like something Morticia Addams might carry as a handy mini version of ‘It’ when she’s on the go. Could she teach it to sound like Cousin It? It makes more sense than a bark, in this case. I’m sure Wasabi is wonderful, but my heart belongs to that egghead, the American Bull Terrier (think Spuds MacKenzie).
That report on the magazine collector was pretty fascinating. Don’t think I’d probably be interested in a lot of the magazines he has, but others yes, of course. I have quite a few including nice selections of: Life (1883-’36 humor version), LIFE, Look, Liberty and The Post, naturally. I like the general interest magazines that flourished in my grandparent’s time, before TV. All gone except the Post. There’s a few ’60s Vogues with Jean Shrimpton on the covers. Really beautiful. Too expensive to buy now!
Michael Packard is lucky to be alive after that whale encounter. Lucky it spat him out instead of swallowing. With a last name like that, perhaps interacting with vintage Packards would be better and safer from now on.
I’m sad Val Lauder passed away. She was 95 years young and had more tales to tell and share online at the Post. I feel God made a mistake taking her too soon, but wanted her in heaven starting this week.
What a beautiful Old Spice ad. Definitely wall worthy art, even if it is photography. Father’s Day barely acknowledged any more than any other ole Sunday. I saw a couple of tool ads for Lowe’s and Home Depot. It’s better than nothing—or is it? Kind of like “the wife” so happy getting pots, pans or a vacuum cleaner for Christmas in 50’s Post ads we’ve seen. Couldn’t do that today, but with men? Sure. Why not?