How to make the best spaghetti ever - and downtown parking

My buddy Elwood does not understand Facebook and believes it is a place for people to post stupid photos of themselves and make dumb comments like "I'm sitting on my couch".   When in reality it is that but so much more. So many awesome tips on how to make your life better - - - such as making sweet corn in 3 minutes with absolutely no silk (did you know that every carnal ( or kernel as you Americans say)  has a silk attached to it?) .

BUT - spaghetti has evolved for me recently.  I mean - how many people have actually read instructions on how to make spaghetti.  They do it like their mom did and just went with it.  Well, my mom was wrong and now spaghetti is SO much better.

I tried a new trick that took a lot of time off the process and saved a lot of water (the next major wars will be over water).

First take your favorite gourmet spaghetti sauce (I use Prego but am open to suggestions in a jar) and add about 1/2 teaspoon of Hershey's Cocoa, this smooth's out the acid in the tomato sauce.  I also add a bay-leaf which does nothing but makes you feel you are actually cooking (has anyone ever done a side by side testing of with and without a bay-leaf?) and if you want you can add a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar because sugar is good for you.  And I suppose if you want to be anal you should not use a metal spoon.

Then the big part is the spaghetti.   Toss away that big pot and use a frying pan.

Put spaghetti into pan and cover the spaghetti with cold water.  NOTE - NEVER buy a glass top white stove.  Turn on high. This is where a lot of time is saved as you are not heating a mammoth amount of water AND you are not constantly squishing the spaghetti to get it into the boiling water.

And you probably should not let your metal spoon just sit in the sauce.

Bring to a boil.

I bet this saves at least 10 minutes doing this and the spaghetti is not all broken. Boil the spaghetti until it's ready.  Then take a small pot and place the colander on top of it and drain.  You want to capture about 1/4ish cup of the boiled water for later use.

NOW - the magic happens. In the pan that the spaghetti recently exited put maybe a teaspoon of butter (or more or less) into it to melt.

Put your drained spaghetti back into the pan, pour about a 1/4 cup of the boiled water on top of the spaghetti and then pour the spaghetti sauce on top and mix.

What this will do is make a super rich and creamy concoction.  You can of course add meat balls or I like to fry up a little hamburger and add some mushrooms  and onions and so forth but this was a quicky spur of the moment what do we have to eat thing.  You will be amazed at the difference.  I know I was.

Bon Appetite    

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I belong to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation forum where other people that "run" smaller cities can talk about problems and how to fix them.  A few days ago one person from Ashland had a post.

There is a prevalent perception in our community (Ashland) that there is a lack of parking in our downtown, even though studies show that we do not have a shortage. Has anyone encountered similar issues? If so, how did you go about reconciling this with the public (educational campaign, better signage/advertisement of available parking, encouragement to walk more, etc)? Thanks in advance for your responses!

I had to laugh because we have that problem here in Columbus.  Everybody believes we have a lack of parking downtown.  Whenever there is something that will take away a few parking stalls there is an outcry about the lack of parking.  REALLY?

Do you know how many parking stalls there are one and a half blocks from Sharrows Downtown?

ABOUT two hundred and thirty five (235)  parking stalls. and we have a parking problem?  OH - people will walk a block and a half at a big box store and not complain but if they have to walk more then 100 feet downtown, it's a parking problem.

The response to the original comment was universal.  "There are 3600 spaces within 2 blocks of the city center in Wausau but people complain there is no place to park".

In Superior the problem is that business owners park in front of their own business AND THEN complain there is not enough parking for customers (we have that problem in Columbus).  Same thing happens in Duluth where they have a 2 hour parking limit and get tickets (we have a 2 hour limit but very few ever get tickets . . there is a van that has not moved for a week in a public parking lot - no tickets).

So the unanswered question is - how do we inform the public to get off their butts and walk a block OR - how do we better inform the public where parking is, educational campaign? better signage/advertisement of available parking? encouragement to walk more?  Perhaps it's something the CDA can look into.

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I am all for Bernie if he pulls off a super Hail Mary but it's basically impossible. He really needs to win every state by about 40% now.  Last night he made up for losing Guam so a win meant nothing except he fell further behind.

Remember when I guaranteed Trump would not win?  Yea - FAIL!!!   Luckily the general election demographics is nothing like the Republican Primary demographics.  now he has to deal with a LOT more woman and a LOT more Latinos and both are not real pleased with him.  Do not believe any of the predictions for the General Election as they are meaningless at this point.

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According to a CNN/ORC poll  57% of Americans DO NOT AGREE with legislation mandating which bathrooms transgender people may use. Do people know what "transgender" actually means?  It means you are no longer what you were and now have literally switched sides.

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63% of Americans believe in UFOs

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Di you know that Egyptians used honey to kill bacteria on wounds as a disinfectant?  Yea - I know know honey is awesome on mosquito bites but nothing can grow when covered with honey.

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You know that photo of Trump eating out of a Taco bowl for Cinco De Mayo?  Where is his wedding ring ?????

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