Cookie update: snickerdoodles and almond macaroons: check. My friend Chary came over yesterday evening to keep me company while I baked, and Jim poured us dainty cordial glasses of port which we refilled with un-dainty regularity. Chary is actually the baking queen, and next week we make take on pistachio macaroons from Nigella, which is a bit of a complicated cookie, involving grinding pistachios and piping dough into cute little merenguey poufs. Ooh la la. Fancy!
Chary is also a crafting queen (we met when we both sold our wares at Portland Saturday Market), and my mom commissioned her to make these mini stockings which will be for -- get this -- tucking the silverware into on the holiday table. Picture these cuties with a knife and fork peeking out! They're made out of cut-up sweaters, by the way. Cute!
Now, in the spirit of the holidays, a selection of "insult greatest hits" that my sister emailed me today:
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
-- Winston Churchill
"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
-- Winston Churchill
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great
pleasure."
-- Clarence Darrow
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary."
-- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
-- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
"Thank you for sendi ng me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time
reading it."
-- Moses Hadas
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I
know."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
-- Groucho Marx
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved
of it."
-- Mark Twain
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
-- Oscar Wilde
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a
friend... if you have one."
-- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is
one."
-- Winston Churchill, in response
"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here."
-- Stephen Bishop
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
-- John Bright
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
-- Irvin S. Cobb
"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
-- Samuel Johnson
"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
-- Paul Keating
"He had delusions of adequacy."
-- Walter Kerr
"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."
-- Jack E. Leonard
"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."
-- Robert Redford
"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human
knowwledge."
-- Thomas Brackett Reed
"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by
diligent hard work, he overcame them."
-- James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
-- Charles, Count Talleyrand
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
-- Forrest Tucker
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on
it?"
-- Mark Twain
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
-- Mae West
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
-- Oscar Wilde
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts...for support
rather than illumination."
-- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
-- Billy Wilder
13 comments:
Oh, these are good! And the cookies sound so yummy. I want to come to your house for Christmas and eat cookies all day long. Those little, tiny stockings are adorable. They would make me want to set the table just to show them off.
The stockings? Sooo cute! What a fun way to recycle your favorite old sweater!
Love the insults - especially the exchange between Faulkner & Hemingway. I always tell my kids that cursing is the lazy way of expressing your frustration, be more creative. I love how each of these people have so creatively expressed their frustration with others. It really almost sounds like poetry!
These were fabulous anti-compliments! I adore statements that take some time to sink in, although I don't advocate us all walking around giving people eloquent insults! he he
Yes, those stockings will look so cute with silverware in them! You are all so festive!!!
Geez, who would have thought that a list of INSULTS would make my day.
Twisted I tell ya! (I meant me, not you. But maybe you a little too!) :)
I may have to steal Keating's shiver insult or Leonard's "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." Ha...loved them. Also loving the stockings--the recycled sweaters make this almost within my realm of possibility, then I looked at the cute appliques and everything and had to say "Damn...I'm not there yet in my crafty-skills." Maybe someday.
--D.--
*giggle*
HAHAHA! I love these. I have only heard of some of them.
"He had delusions of adequacy."
--That made me laugh.
Reminds me of my old boyfriend. ;)
:)
I like the combination of Christmas cookies and insults--just when I was having "delusions of adequacy" because I'm not a baking queen and would never in a million years think of putting the silver in those adorable little stockings!
What cute stockings, and such a great idea your Mom has for using them.
The insults had me cracking up (especially the Winston Churchill and Mark Twain ones) - thanks!
"Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon."
Benjamin Disraeli, reply to a racial taunt by Danial O'Connell in the House of Commons.
Loved your list.
Great insults! And those silverware stockings are adorable.
Love the stockings and the insults! And Nigella's recipe is yummy, but takes time.
HA HA HA! I did notice that this list is made up of mostly males. Is it that women are too polite to be insulting? Cool list, nonetheless.
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