@FASTLAUGH

Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly: That nice cop fed all of those ungrateful, dirty #OWS hippies a free vegetarian meal at taxpayer expense. #MegynKellyEssentially

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Let them eat carp

Qu’ils mangent de la carpe

by shf

CHICAGO (FastLaugh.com) — Asian carp are prolific, plankton-gobbling pests threatening to choke the life out of the Great Lakes, all the while an escalating number of Illinois residents go to bed hungry every night. Illinois officials launched an anti-hunger program today designed to address both crises, one bony, carpy nibble at a time.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources held a public tasting event in Chicago, complete with a Louisiana chef and a team of paramedics on standby, to start a campaign that may lead to feeding the bony, carpy fish to people who might otherwise starve to death, or steal from wealthy people and political donors in order to eat.

Chef Philippe Parona deep-fried some carp cakes, and also sautéed a pan full of carp fillets containing several protruding, jagged bones.

The fillets, after being deep-fried in butter with a large dosing of Creole seasoning, had no detectable taste of their own thanks to the massive quantity of butter and seasoning needed to cover the otherwise carpy taste.

A homeless man, sampling the fare, was heard to say shortly before choking to death on a large carp bone, “Yum… It’s to die for!”

The carp cakes, slathered with a cheese and cream sauce, are as savory and moist as just about anything drowning in a cheese and cream sauce would be, according to Chef Parona. He noted that they “compared favorably with some of the overpriced soggy appetizers typically found at a 24-hour Denny’s along Interstate 70.”

It was not made clear whether the Illinois Department of Natural Resources would be supplying the state’s hungry residents with free butter, Creole seasoning, and cheese and cream sauces when it came time for them to prepare the bony, carpy tasting fish in their own homes or highway-underpass encampments.

“Fish translates to one thing: food,” Parona said. “Well, actually you could use these carp as fertilizer, but that’s not what I was paid to come here today and say. The idea to exploit Asian carp’s nutritional value has major obstacles, mainly overcoming the gag-provoking response that its outward appearance often inspires when someone thinks about eating it. After all, this is a butt-ugly fish that grows to 100 pounds and is able to sail out of the water.”

“We’re in uncharted water here. Well, actually, we’re in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal,” said Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokesman Kris McLoud. “Why remove the carp and then dump them into a landfill when you can take them and use them for food? If we can get passed the name `carp’ and all of the dangerous bones that present a constant choking hazard, and all of that negative perception that comes with carp and bones and choking… we can prove this is going to be a highly nutritious, cheap meal. Now, I’ll be damned if I would eat carp or serve carp to my family since I earn a government salary and can buy real food, but the homeless and hungry should be grateful that we are feeding them something that we would have otherwise dumped into a landfill.”

The idea is modeled after a state highway program that collects roadkill meat and meat-by-products to be ground and distributed to food pantries.

But, there’s no system in place for netting Asian carp in large amounts and cleaning and distributing the fish. State officials don’t know the most feasible way to dole out the carp: minced or as bony fillets.

While eating Asian carp isn’t new — it’s consumed in China and in pretentious French restaurants — the first step to get it to the masses is countering the gag and choke factor.

Illinois officials appear to have their work cut out for them. Recent visitors to Our Lady of Grain Food Pantry in Chicago were skeptical. The pantry puts canned and dry goods, meat and bread in the food bags it gives out. If carp were to make its way there, workers would include it with the meat, leaving people to figure out how to cook the bony fish on their own.

“I wouldn’t eat it,” William Vincent, 49, an unemployed former bank worker, said with a look of disgust on his face.

“Ugh, I don’t know. I might if I got desperate enough,” said Christopher Walker, 25, a former moving company worker.

Chef Phillip Moss was among the first to serve it in a pompous Chicago establishment. “It’s nearly impossible to fillet because of all the jagged bones, but everyday cooks could use its minced form as a beef substitute.” Moss said. He then pointed out that “another now popular fish, the Chilean Sea Bass, was rebranded from its original name, Patagonian Toothfish.”

Nutritionists and food scientists tout Asian carp as low in mercury because they don’t eat other fish and are high in Omega-3 fatty acids.

These same nutritionists and food scientists were a bit less forthcoming when asked what other pollutants, toxic compounds and adulterants might be saturated in the carp’s flesh from their life in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Qu’ils mangent de la carpe.

Bone Appetit.

shf happens on the road: Texting and driving and elk, Oh my!

August 2, 2010

by shf

Grand Teton National Park, WY (FASTLAUGH.com) — Note of warning to that graceful elk blissfully sauntering across U.S. Route 89 in Grand Teton National Park.

Hey, there — graceful, blissful, sauntering elk…

Since so many drivers in Grand Teton National Park are texting rather than keeping their eyes on the road — and since just beyond the protective confines of Grand Teton National Park, elk burgers are the daily lunch special at a popular roadhouse — you might just want to maybe consider looking both ways before stepping into traffic.

Thanks for that brake-stomping, texting-interupting, near-miss memory in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

shf happens on the road: Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

July 28, 2010

by shf

Buffalo Gap National Grassland, SD (FASTLAUGH.com) — Note to the South Dakota Department of Transportation.

Hey there, SDDOT…

One afternoon recently, a somewhat startled traveler on Highway 44, just west of Scenic, SD in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, was driving through that vast, undulating grassland and wondered aloud, “What the hell, South Dakota Department of Transportation?”

The somewhat startled traveler had been pondering the fact that every time the grieving family and friends of Lloyd Looking Elk drove by his roadside memorial at the base of that beautiful hillside in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, how truly grateful they must be to your fine department for so gently and compassionately reminding them of their loss.

Evidently, state-sponsored signage that callously jeers “Why Die? – X Marks the Spot – Drive Safely,” is South Dakota’s masterful solution to the epidemic of vehicular deaths in Indian Country, a good many of which are alcohol-related.

You’re certainly doing a wonderful job with this awareness campaign by keeping SDDOT’s sign painters and installers very busy these days — and with long-term job security for them too. Good for you guys!

The somewhat startled traveler observed, tragically, many dozens of these “Why Die?” signs scattered about the highway shoulders, ravines and hillsides throughout Buffalo Gap National Grassland, and the adjacent Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Those many utility crews being paid to repair those many shattered telephone poles along your highways seemed to be one of the major economic activities taking place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that recent afternoon when the somewhat startled traveler passed through.

Meanwhile, literally just moments south of Pine Ridge, across the state line in Whiteclay, Nebraska, a law enforcement officer comfortably hunkered down in his air-conditioned cruiser awaiting one-mile-over-the-limit speeders, while several locals — presumably from both sides of the state line — lay drunken and sprawled face-first on the hot ground nearby.

Thanks so much, SDDOT, for providing a somewhat startled traveler with a very powerful — and very disturbing — South Dakota memory.

Bonus points awarded to Whiteclay, Nebraska!

shf happens on the road: Bighorn Medicine Wheel

July 24, 2010

by shf

Medicine Wheel (Bighorn National Forest), WY (FASTLAUGH.com) — Note to the obnoxious tourist family with the brood of unruly, ADD children.

Hey dude and Mrs. dude…

When you conceived, and then acted upon, that brilliant idea of dragging your behaviorally-impaired young children up the side of a 9,800 ft. mountain in Wyoming for a strenuous hike to a centuries-old Native American sacred site, what exactly were you thinking?

Near the top of the mountain, close to the medicine wheel, a justifyably annoyed and concerned stranger shouted your way calling you out for allowing your children to scatter off the marked trail and disrespectfully traipse on such a delicate and sacred landscape despite you having being told this was not permitted by the friendly rangers at the U.S. Forest Service at the base of the trail upon your arrival at Medicine Wheel.

What parts of “You MUST Stay on the Trail” and “This is a very fragile, sacred landscape millions of years old” and “STAY OFF” didn’t you and your kids quite understand?

A short while later, returning to the base of the trail, the same justifyably annoyed and concerned stranger had a few well-chosen words with those same friendly rangers at the U.S. Forest Service and advised them to, in turn, have a few sharp words about respect for the land and respect for rules with the obnoxious tourist family with the brood of unruly, ADD children.

The rangers were advised to be on the lookout for a portly family with several whining, Craisen-eating, Craisen-littering, under-dressed, shivering children.

Sadly, that probably described several other families who were there mauling the landscape that afternoon, so you got off the hook from receiving a well-deserved U.S. Forest Service lecture.

Just so you know, dude and Mrs. dude… America’s national parks, monuments, forests, and sacred Native American sites are national treasures to be respected and preserved for future generations. They are not your playgrounds for commiting thoughtless acts of erosion and litter. Got it?

Thanks so much for providing such a high-quality, high-altitude Wyoming memory.

shf happens on the road: Roadkill in Pennsylvania

July 23, 2010

by shf

Roadkill, PA (FASTLAUGH.com) — Note to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Dear PennDOT,

Your Welcome Center Division is to be commended for having such incredibly visionary vision: “By assisting motorists as they enter Pennsylvania, the Welcome Center Division will drive safe, efficient and economic stimulating travel throughout the Commonwealth.”

So, here’s a question for you guys… when a driver leaves the relative safety of one of your Welcome Centers behind and enters the vast (and seemingly endless) hinterlands of your state, just how much exploded and rotting roadkill in various stages of decay can they witness on a per mile basis before becoming too distracted and nauseated to drive safely, thereby defeating your Welcome Center Division’s safety vision?

Have you guys even driven on I-80 or I-81 lately? Is your state budget so blown that you can’t pay a few people to occasionally remove the THOUSANDS of carcasses from your highway shoulders and lanes of traffic? Is this how you guys define safety?

Don’t ask your State Police… they’re too busy generating revenue by writing speeding tickets near the bottom of hills.

Thanks so much for providing a special Pennsylvania memory.