News of the Week: Baked Lobsters, Vintage Magazines, and Does Anyone Know What a Buttercut Is?

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)

(Uploaded to YouTube by CBS Sunday Morning)

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