G-- D--- P---y P--n.

I was all set to feel honored, or if not honored, then just damned cool: I just noticed I had a couple of site visits from Iceland, which is just a few steps removed in my mind from other top-of-cool places like Greenland and Antarctica ("Top-of-cold," I can hear some of you saying).

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ! They were Googling that unfortunate piano-playing kid with the suggestive name I mentioned months back. I swear, my blog would have half the traffic it does if I hadn't picked up on the tale of Poor Dear P---y P--n (henceforward PDPP, since "The One Who Shall Who Shall Not Be Named" is already taken).

Oh, well. Guess I'll just have to become a more interesting blogger. Or give up and become the repository for information about PDPP. She does live in New Jersey, after all.

The Book I'm Not Reading: various excerpts of Marx's work.

Bold Gull

...this from BBC News Scotland--thanks to Qwags for pointing it out. (Yes, it's a slow news weekend--I have been reading all weekend, and have hardly left the house...and am still exhausted. Ah, grad student life. Definitely not funburn.)

Seagull becomes crisp shoplifter

A seagull has turned shoplifter by wandering into a shop and helping itself to crisps.

The bird walks into the RS McColl newsagents in Aberdeen when the door is open and makes off with cheese Doritos.

The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps.

Shop assistant Sriaram Nagarajan said: "Everyone is amazed by the seagull. For some reason he only takes that one particular kind of crisps."

The bird first swooped in Aberdeen's Castlegate earlier this month and made off with the 55p crisps, and is now a regular.

Once outside, the crisps are ripped open and the seagull is joined by other birds.

'Fine art'

Mr Nagarajan said: "He's got it down to a fine art. He waits until there are no customers around and I'm standing behind the till, then he raids the place.

"At first I didn't believe a seagull was capable of stealing crisps. But I saw it with my own eyes and I was surprised. He's very good at it.

"He's becoming a bit of a celebrity. Seagulls are usually not that popular but Sam is a star because he's so funny."

A spokesman for RSPB Scotland said: "I've never heard of anything like this before.

"Perhaps it tried some crisps in a shiny packet in the street, and was just opportunistic one day at the shop when it saw what was inside.

"As everyone knows, gulls can be very quick and fearless, and clearly this one is no exception."

He added: "We'd discourage people from feeding gulls though, as gulls in towns generate lots of complaints every year, and the availability of food is the only reason they live in urban settings."

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

T: "What am I going to say about our soup?"
J: "It was orange. It was orange, and it was awesome."

Y'all would think that we haven't been eating, or we haven't been cooking, for the amount I've been blogging about it lately. Not so--but by the time we've cooked and eaten, there's no time to talk about it--it's been back to work, or alternately, time for a quick bout of the train game. But I've been meaning to write about roasted red pepper soup for a while, so tonight is the night.

The first time I made it I looked at several recipes online, and decided not to follow any of them. Here's what I did tonight:

3 red peppers, roasted under the broiler & skins removed (obviously)
2 medium-sized potatoes
3 skinny carrots
1 largeish onion
2 cups vegetable stock (from bouillon, alas)
about 1 cup water
a little salt
a little black pepper

I sauteed the onions in a combo of olive oil and butter, added the carrots, peppers, and potatoes briefly, and then the stock & water, and let it simmer for--hmmm, maybe half an hour or 45 minutes? Then I pressed the whooshy thing into service and pureed the whole thing. Jenny chopped some fresh cilantro for garnish.

It wasn't the best roasted red pepper I've made--I think the last time was better. Here's what I'd have changed this time:

1. During the onion phase, I meant to put a few hot red pepper flakes in, but I was a little tipsy, thanks to a delicious Stone IPA on a mostly empty stomach (thanks to Rob for turning us on to that!).

2. Ditto some dried oregano--just a pinch. I think a tiny bit of dried basil would have been nice, too.

3. An extra red pepper would have boosted the flavor--or, alternately, fresh local peppers would have been tastier (I used Fresh Direct peppers that weren't as ripe as the ones I'd been getting at the Grand Army Plaza farmers' market).

Still, it was delicious, even if it wasn't life-changing the way our dinner Monday night was. After nearly a year, we returned to our favorite Indian restaurant in Brooklyn: Joy. And it was indeed joyful. We had our usual Joy haul: chicken tikka masala, chana masala, a side order of aloo gobi, vegetarian samosas, poppadums, garlic naan, and rice. But seriously: this isn't some little Brooklyn restaurant where we eat when we don't feel like going into Manhattan. If this says anything, I even prefer it to Madhur Jaffrey's restaurant Dawat, although the tandoori oven there is all it's cracked up to be. Now, we haven't explored Jackson Heights, so I can't compare Joy with the best of Queens, but J & I both were doing the happy food dance the other night.

And Think of All the Vitamins

This is shameless, but I'm going to deny y'all a substantial post--and instead, implore everyone to trot over to Rob's blog Vaca Estupenda, where his most recent post includes a clip of the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. Check it out!

And I thought *my* baking was strange sometimes....

I usually avoid baking. I find it much less satisfying to have to measure ingredients than to feck a bunch of random items into a pot--which is perhaps why I love cooking soup so much. Nonetheless, I'm a pretty big fan of goods others have baked, as John can attest! Not these, though, over at the Real Thai blog....

(photo shamelessly lifted from Austin Bush's blog, Real Thai. There's more where this one came from!

The Book I'm Not (Re)Reading: Joan Scott's Feminism and History

Good Job, Tom Cruise

(Top Gun was on tv this morning...I couldn't help but think of this video....)

Thug Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Alas! They killed U-Turn, who delivered one of the best line I've heard in a while, quoted above.

I suspect most of you, my dedicated readers, don't watch "Weeds," but for those of you who are keeping up with this season, you'll understand, and might enjoy this post on TV Squad. For the rest of you, I promise something with wider appeal soon--or at least, with different appeal.