Notes From all Over -- The Late Evening Edition -- Hints From Heloise -- Why I Love To Blog -- October 14, 2020

CPR for French fries. From a reader. The other day I lamented over the fact that food does not travel well, especially French fries. A reader -- from arid New Mexico -- replied, with minimal editing:

• French fries:A dry, well-seasoned, cast iron frying pan preheated to just shy of medium heat. Dump your sack of fries on that - don't cover. Let them sit a bit - flip them around while getting the rest of the food unloaded. They'll be hot and crisp. So, if someone's planning to bring a sack of food over, I'll have that pan hot on arrival - it really makes a difference.
• Pizza: If we're going to go through several pizzas, I'll preheat a big round baking stone. I put out one pizza at a time (or enough for everyone to have 1 slice) and then stick the rest in the oven (preheated to 250 degrees).
• BBQ: We have a local bbq place here with the best pork ribs I've ever eaten. They have big, slabby "Steak Fries." Because they're cut thicker, we could actually refrigerate them and reheat them with darned good results. If the potatoes are the regular cut (McDonald's), I just throw anything away after the first meal. As arid as it is here, you can't resuscitate them after the first meal. Those big, slabby fries also reheat beautifully in a George Foreman style grill.
• Onion rings:They have great onion rings - but I've never figured out how to reheat an onion ring. 

Cast iron skillet: one of my prize possessions is a cast iron skillet. I love it. I can see why they've fallen out of favor. Wow, they're heavy. But I love mine. I try to keep my ceramic stove top completely clear (and sparkling clean) at all times, but I make one exception -- the cast iron skillet. It's too heavy for my wife to throw at me. LOL. On the other hand it will fend off flying knives. Just joking. 

Copper skillets as seen on TV: I hate them, but there is a lot of sentimental value in the two copper skillets I have so I won't toss them. 

A big round baking stone: that I don't have. Amazon, here I come. I'm not a big pizza fan, but a genuine Deccimomannu calizone is to die for.  

Addendum from the reader: the cast iron skillet will also give a nice dose of "crisp and hot" to delivered egg rolls, corn bread, garlic bread, etc. We don't bring a lot of food home - for the very reason you mention - it's just not as good.

An investment note that just popped up over at SeekingAlpha: worth a read. I won't invest in MLPs any more; if I were younger ... and richer ... I don't know if I've posted this yet; I was going to and then decided not to. Maybe now's a good time. I partition off a very, very small part of my overall portfolio and actively trade it -- "churn" is the "industry" word, I believe -- based on "momentum" and dividends. PSX is one of the equities that comes up in rotation: next "record date" is November 17, 2020. I buy it for the dividend; sell it to raise cash for a non-dividend-paying "momentum" stock. I don't know if I'm making any money, but it's a lot of fun. Fitzsimmons, in the linked article, says his investment in PSXP was a complete disaster but it's looking better. That was true for two MLPs I invested in years ago. But wow, they've turned out to be a nice investment, pure luck, and it appears the worst is behind us. Archived.

I guess I better post the disclaimer.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

The Hunter Biden backstory may be one of the funniest backstories of 2020 and that's saying something.