Humor Me

Fish is a funny topic. But also a tasty one. Enjoy either way.

The New York Times
May 31, 2006
Holy Mackerel and Other Guilt-Free Fish
By MARIAN BURROS

BACK in the 1950's, when there were plenty of fish in the oceans and rivers, Americans — other than Catholics on Friday — had little interest in them. But now that we have discovered the pleasures and benefits of eating fish, many varieties are nearly depleted and many have been tainted by industrial pollution.

The information put out by food safety and environmental organizations paints a discouraging and sometimes confusing picture about which seafood to eat. They list dozens of species whose well-being is threatened by overfishing; fish whose harvesting threatens species that are accidentally caught and discarded; and fish that contain dangerous levels of mercury, PCB's and pesticides. Some people simply ignore the warnings.

But what of the fish you can eat without worrying?

Like the shy kid at the dance whose charms are not readily apparent, unpopularity has kept some species in circulation, waiting to be discovered. Atlantic mackerel wears its reputation like a pocket protector and horn-rimmed glasses, but a little attention reveals its sweet side. When a vegan I know returned to eating fish, then extolled the marvels of mackerel, I knew it was time to give it a whirl.

Chilean sea bass may be everyone's delight, but it is being loved to death and needs a break from its fans. Pacific halibut, black cod and mahi-mahi are excellent substitutes for Chilean sea bass, which, if it went by its real name — Patagonian toothfish — might not be so popular.

Sardines have become the worthy darlings of Italian restaurants, and with a quick pan-frying the smelts of my youth taste just as good today.

The alternatives to depleted wild fish stocks are often farmed versions. But some of them raise troubling environmental and health concerns (salmon) or are just not very tasty (tilapia). On the other hand, farmed rainbow trout and catfish are delicious, even just pan-fried with a dusting of cornmeal. And for those who love shellfish and mollusks, there are few restrictions.

Among these choices, there are some that are high in the omega-3 fatty acids that can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease: wild salmon, including canned; Atlantic mackerel; herring; sardines; black cod; anchovies; and farmed oysters.

Our list is made up of fish with no environmental issues: they can be eaten once a week or more. It is drawn from Oceans Alive, a Web site of Environmental Defense, an advocacy group. The list focuses on concerns about hazards to humans from contaminants and harm to fish from industrial harvesting.

Environmental Defense provided additional information to The New York Times about fish available in New York City markets that are not on its official list. The Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has a Web site that focuses on environmental concerns (mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp), works closely with Environmental Defense.

The Oceans Alive Web site (oceansalive.org/eat.cfm) has information on almost 200 species of finfish, shellfish and mollusks. Many carry an eco-best or an eco-worst stamp, judgments based on the impact fishing will have on species' populations. Others have a health concern stamp, and the site suggests how many times a month those fish can be safely eaten by men, women, children up to age 6 and children ages 6 to 12. Serving sizes are eight ounces for men, six for women, four and a half for older children and three for young children.

If Oceans Alive cannot find enough data on contaminants in a species, it recommends eating it no more than once a week.

In compiling our list, seafood considered an eco-worst, like Chilean sea bass, was not included, whether or not a health concern exists. At the same time, some species, like wild striped bass, are considered an eco-best because of stringent fishing regulations, but Oceans Alive said they should not be consumed because of high levels of contaminants. So they were not included. (Farmed striped bass can be eaten once a week, according to the organization, but the taste is not as appealing.)

Not everyone agrees that those contaminants create a hazard. The tuna industry, for example, believes the levels of mercury in their species are low enough that the benefits of eating tuna outweigh the risks. Others say the levels of PCB's and pesticides have dropped considerably in the last 20 years and are not dangerous.

Buying fish on the no-problems list can be tricky. Fish counters are stingy with information, and their signs can be deceiving. Last year The Times found that much of the salmon labeled as wild in New York City stores in the off-season was farmed. By law, fish must be labeled with country of origin, but stores seldom provide specifics.

Good luck finding out whether the halibut in the case is from the Pacific or the Atlantic. The former is highly recommended, the latter is overfished and can be contaminated with mercury. But the more customers annoy fish store managers with questions, the more likely they are to receive answers. Fishmongers should know whether fish is farmed or wild at least.

Not everyone is going to like all of the no-problems fish. But the sole and the halibut, the sardines and the mahi-mahi, not to mention all of the shellfish, would be high on most lists. Then there's wild salmon, my splurge in season and a favorite even in winter. When it has been properly frozen, it is delicious, much better than fresh-farmed.
***



The New York Times
May 31, 2006
A Guide to Guilt-Free Fish

These fish can be eaten once a week by adults, according to an assessment of contaminant levels by Environmental Defense. Those marked with an asterisk can be eaten more than once a week.

WILD

*ANCHOVIES
ARCTIC CHAR, color added
*ATLANTIC BUTTERFISH
*BLACK COD (Sable, Butterfish on West Coast)
*BLACK SEA BASS Younger children no more than four times a month
*HADDOCK
*HAKE (white, silver and red)
HAKE (Chilean, Cape and Argentine)
*HALIBUT (Pacific only) Older children 3 times a month, younger children twice
*HERRING
*MACKEREL (Atlantic or Boston only)
MAHI-MAHI Younger children 3 times a month
*PACIFIC COD
*PACIFIC SAND DAB (yellowtail flounder)
*PACIFIC WHITING
*PLAICE
PORGIES
*SALMON (Pacific)
*SARDINES
*SHAD
SMELT
*SOLE (gray, petrale, rex, yellowfin)
SOLE (Dover; English or lemon, older children 3 times a month, younger children twice)
WHITEFISH

FARMED

CARP
CATFISH (domestic)
STRIPED BASS (rockfish)
*TILAPIA
*TROUT (rainbow); TROUT (steelhead)

SHELLFISH

*CLAMS (northern quahogs)
CLAMS (Atlantic surf, butter, Manila, ocean quahog, Pacific geoduck, Pacific littleneck and soft-shell)
*CRAB (Dungeness, snow) Dungeness: younger children once a week
CRAB (Florida stone, Jonah, king)
*CRAYFISH (United States)
*LOBSTER (American) Children 2 to 4 times a month
*MUSSELS (farmed blue; wild blue, children 2 to 3 times a month)
MUSSELS (New Zealand green, Mediterranean)
OYSTERS (farmed Eastern and Pacific)
*SCALLOPS (bay; Northeast, Canadian sea)
*SHRIMP (wild American pink, white, brown)
SHRIMP (spot prawns and northern shrimp)
*SQUID
*SPINY LOBSTER (Caribbean, United States, and Australia)
###

Interesting take on teeth. Enjoy .


The New York Times
May 28, 2006
The Funny Pages | True-Life Tales
Tooth Wisdom
By CAROL KOLB

Right from the start, I was attracted to my boyfriend Tony's teeth. They were cavity-free and nearly straight. Not perfectly straight, or the result of braces, but better — he had naturally nearly perfectly straight teeth. He would blithely comply whenever I wanted to open up his mouth and inspect his teeth as if he were a horse. He knew I liked those teeth.

My mouth, on the contrary, is a mass of metal. "The junkyard" is what Tony calls it — lovingly, of course. I have tons of fillings. My entire family does, so I feel that it can't be completely my fault. When my siblings and I were young, my mom would schedule all our dental appointments on the same day. Dr. K.'s dental office felt a bit like a factory, with the four of us splayed out in a row under the "Hang In There" kitty posters thumbtacked to the acoustical-tile ceiling. A full brigade of young, pretty hygienists buzzed around keeping all our gums numb until Dr. K. finally leaned down to fill and drill and shamelessly flirt with whoever was holding the suction hose. (In retrospect, all this borderline sexual harassment was exactly the reason I named "dental hygienist" as my desired future profession all through elementary school.)

Now I have metal in every molar and, along the inside of my bottom teeth, a wire cemented in place — the last remnant of three years of braces, a process that started with the removal of four teeth. I'm not complaining. Facing these dental hardships helped me to truly appreciate the effortless beauty of Tony's teeth.

Then, not long ago, Tony mentioned that he needed to go to a dentist. His gums had been bleeding when he brushed. He casually mentioned this while we were at his mom's house, and it threw the room into a panic. Tony didn't need a dentist, Grandma Piccolo said, he needed to see a periodontist — immediately.

Then Tony's mom explained that she had lost her teeth to periodontal disease when she was in her 20's. Unless Tony wanted the same thing to happen to him, he needed to get a painful-sounding $3,000 procedure called periodontal scaling.

This seemed like a classic case of maternal worst-case-scenario hysterics. What could be wrong with Tony's teeth? They were wonderful. Back at my apartment, I assured him that he just needed a regular dentist and a cleaning.

But his mom had lost her teeth, he said.

"Are you sure?" I asked, clearly doubting it. "Your mom has dentures? No, she doesn't. I've never noticed them."

"Well, she must have dentures if she lost her teeth," he said.

"So your mom had dentures the entire time you were growing up, and you never knew this until now?" I asked.

"You were there when she said it!" Tony yelled. "You heard her yourself." Tony had only raised his voice to me maybe twice before, but suddenly we were in a fight over his mom's teeth.

Sure, I remembered his mother saying something about teeth, but I don't listen all that closely to crazy talk. "She must've meant that she lost some teeth or almost lost her teeth," I said.

Tony glared at me. "Periodontal disease is called the silent tooth killer, you know," he said.

Later that week, Tony saw a dentist, a man he referred to as "Jack Irwin, D.D.S."

Jack Irwin, D.D.S., had a two-chair practice in Brooklyn and didn't employ any hygienists. He did every last bit of polishing and X-raying with his own two hands. On the day of Tony's appointment, even his receptionist was gone. When the front door jingled in the middle of Tony's examination, the dentist called out in his Kings County accent, "If you're selling something, turn around," and the unseen person quickly pulled the door closed.

Tony's dentist's office was located two blocks from my dentist, who Tony found out doesn't accept his insurance. Tony mentioned this to his dentist, saying that the prices were a lot higher down the street. He pointed out that my dentist had a big waiting room, several examination rooms and a full staff. Tony was trying to stir the pot, despite the fact that his dentist was at that moment arranging a tray of hook-ended, sharp-pointed metal instruments destined for Tony's mouth.

Jack Irwin, D.D.S, just shrugged and said, "It's a different way to run a business."

Tony came home with good news. His teeth were not going to fall out. I was far from surprised by this, but I was surprised by the part of the report that came next. Tony had three cavities. He waited for my reaction. He knew how much I liked those perfect teeth.

The holes had been so small, though, that Tony's dentist had mocked them as he filled them. "Look at the itty-bitty wittle cabbities," he said as he filled them with nice, modern, tooth-colored composite.

Tony opened up his mouth so I could take a look. I had to get in there really close and squint to notice any difference at all. The teeth were still good.

Later, Tony got on the phone with his mother. It turns out that she does have dentures. I still can't believe Tony never knew this until now. What's wrong with that family? Periodontal disease is a very serious matter.

Carol Kolb is a former editor in chief of The Onion. Her last True-Life Tale was about getting free cookies.
###

Grillin can be addictive. My dad had a modern (for the time - circa 1965) gas grill with permanent coals (igneous rocks) under the hood. I still love a high-tech grill - and also a simple $15 Hibachi. Enjoy.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 28, 2006
Pimp My Grill
By ALLEN SALKIN
A KALAMAZOO grill can suck a standard tank of propane dry in two and a half hours. Not that backyard grill-users would want to crank every burner simultaneously and reach the full 154,000 B.T.U. capacity of this $11,290, six-and-a-half-foot-wide brute. But, as with a Porsche that can go 175 miles an hour on the autobahn, some owners find it sweet to know they've got that kind of juice under the hood.

"Our gas line had to be doubled in capacity from the house," said Connie Dove of York, Me. She and her husband, Mo Houde, took delivery last year of a Kalamazoo Bread Breaker Two Dual-Fuel grill with an infrared rotisserie cradle system and a side burner.

They hooked the 600-pound stainless steel hulk into their home's main propane supply, choosing not to mess with standard tanks, which each hold only four gallons of fuel. That's enough to allow a typical backyard grill to run at maximum for 15 hours, according to the Propane Education and Research Council in Washington.

"It is very, very powerful," Ms. Dove said. "A turkey you can have in an hour and a half."

The Bread Breaker, which has a temperature gauge that reaches 1,000 degrees, is one of an increasingly popular breed of supergrills that are becoming backyard status symbols, as Americans, mostly of the male variety, peacock with an object that harks back to the earliest days of human existence.

As Memorial Day marks the official beginning of grilling season, many men will find themselves almost genetically drawn to throwing hunks of raw meat onto a fire and poking them with tongs. It's a pull that some will spend almost any amount of money to satisfy, said Pantelis A. Georgiadis, the owner of Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, the grill manufacturer based in Michigan. "There is a market segment we call the 'man cook with fire' types," he said.

When Daniel Conrad, a lawyer, moved to Dallas four years ago from Pittsburgh to join the woman who would become his wife, his parents bought him a small Weber grill. "It wasn't big enough for my ego," Mr. Conrad, 34, said. "So I got this giant enormous Weber grill."

Now, he rushes home to his wife — and to his baby, a Weber Summit Gold D6, to slow-cook ribs or experiment with smoking turkeys. "Grilling has become my creative outlet," Mr. Conrad said. "The only two extravagances I have in my life are my car and my grill." He drives a Mercedes.

And like luxury car owners, many people who splurge on a grill that can simmer, bake and fry are looking to impress.

Last fall, Dave and Allison Petrullo of Commack, N.Y., installed a custom-built Cal Spas grill on their patio with an outdoor refrigerator. They spent more than $100,000 renovating their backyard with a new synthetic deck, masonry, a whirlpool and a pool waterfall, so $6,500 more for Mr. Petrullo to have a brick sanctuary with a Cal Spas grill as its central altar seemed like nothing. "I told him to just go for it," Ms. Petrullo said. "And get your dream barbecue."

Though they have actually cooked on the grill only three times since they installed it, it has been a hit with Mr. Petrullo's friends, who congregate around it at parties and give it a going-over like a pack of high school boys around a Corvette, Ms. Petrullo said. "They like to lift up the hood and play with the knobs," she said. "They open the doors underneath, and they open the fridge next to it to check it out."

The high-end grill market, which generally refers to any grill that costs more than $1,000, started quietly in 1990 when Dynamic Cooking Systems, a company based in California, introduced the DCS Professional Grill. The 48-inch-wide $5,000 appliance, which included H-shaped cast-iron commercial-quality burners, a heavy-duty side-burner and more B.T.U.'s per square inch than any other grill then on the market, was adopted by a few deep-pocketed souls on the grilling vanguard.

But those in the grill industry say the market did not begin to take off until the last half-decade, when homeowners in the West and the South began building increasingly elaborate outdoor areas with brick kitchen islands and ornate all-weather furniture.

"You had the ultrarich people who were buying high-end grills," said Dan Darche, sales manager for Masda Corporation, an outdoor home furnishings distributor based in Whippany, N.J. "But for the more normal families, the concept started to take off abut five or six years ago, and it's been increasing ever since."

Now the high-end grill market accounts for 3 to 4 percent of the 14.5 million grills sold last year, said Don Johnson, the director of market research for the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, the grill industry trade group. It includes about a dozen players.

Viking has its Ultra-Premium line of grills starting around $2,500, which, among other doodads, have adjustable chrome-plated warming racks and stainless steel "flavor-generator plates" that, according to product literature, "catch drippings, generate smoke, minimize flare-ups and allow for better heat control."

Weber, the grill maker founded in Mount Prospect, Ill., in 1952, is refining its most expensive grill, the $2,200 Summit Platinum D6, in response to buyers who want more bells and whistles, said Brooke Jones, a Weber product manager. "They are looking for stainless steel grills and more accessories like rotisseries, warmer drawers, side burners and hand lights," she said.

Lynx, another high-end maker, sells a model with a 54-inch-wide cooking surface (one inch longer than Viking's biggest) for $6,500; it is equipped with dual halogen grill surface lights and red brass burners. The Twin Eagles Pinnacle Grill Series features dual-ring sealed burners and black-stripes across the starkly modern stainless steel silhouette of its base for a "museum-style look," a sales brochure effuses.

But the Queen Mary 2 of outdoor cooking is the $35,000 Talos Outdoor Cooking Suite sold by Frontgate, a luxury goods catalog retailer. The sprawling stainless steel temple features a searing station with a restaurant-style griddle, a hardwood cutting board, two side burners to heat sauces, a warming drawer, 3/8-inch-thick cooking grates, a 16,000-B.T.U. ceramic infrared rotisserie, a bartender module with a sink and a nine-volt electronic ignition system. The company doesn't release specific sales data, but a spokeswoman, Amy Crowley, said that fewer than 50 have been sold.

Some of the new top-of-the-line grills are hybrids, with interchangeable heating drawers that allow cooks to use gas, charcoal or wood for barbecuing. (Barbecuing, which usually involves indirect heat, long cooking times and wood smoke, is different from grilling, which simply means cooking on a grill.)

Many of these grills can reach temperatures of 2,000 degrees — hot enough to melt brass — if used improperly, but grill manufacturers say temperatures should stay under a safe 1,000 degrees (which can melt lead).

"If you load it up with charcoal and light 100,000 B.T.U.'s of propane under it, you're going to have a 2,000-degree fire going," said Russ Faulk, director of marketing for Kalamazoo. "It's not going to lead to cooking success." In addition to the owner's manual, Kalamazoo tries to give in-person training to new grill owners, as do most of the other high-end manufacturers.

But for those who want to stay on top of cooking technology, there is no such thing as too much power; grills have become an extension of their constantly updated kitchens. Describing the family's indoor appliances, Ms. Dove in Maine said: "Our stove is a Frigidaire Profile series with five burners, and we have a Miele wok burner and a Thermador downdraft system. The grill is something that has the glamour of the indoor kitchen."

During summer months her family uses the grill, which they have named Bertha, three to four times a week, but even in winter the short path from the house to the grill is kept shoveled and the grill is fired up at least twice a week. "When you look outside and she's covered up with a grill cover," Ms. Dove said, "she looks like a monster."

Devotees of expensive grills speak of being able to cook multiple dishes at once for large crowds and rave about exacting temperature control. "Because it's so big, you can do things you wouldn't do on a normal grill," Mr. Conrad of Dallas said. "You can cook ribs slowly by putting them on the side of the grill away from the heat. Practically speaking it's fantastic."

Those in the grill business also want to sell buyers on the idea that these grills can do more than just grill. Fireplace Patio Shoppe in Eastchester, N.Y., regularly brings in a chef for cooking demonstrations on a $6,600 Fire Magic Monarch Magnum, which, with the hood down, can flawlessly maintain a temperature of 350 degrees. "He actually cooks a pie," the owner, Darin Del Gardo, said. "Usually apple crumb."

A new breed of grill cuisine is rising along with grill prices. A new book, "Weeknight Grilling With the BBQ Queens" (Harvard Common Press), includes recipes for Blistered Whole Squash, Peppers, and Scallions with Goat Cheese, and Stir-Grilled Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and a Kiss of Smoke.

Still, according to research by the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, hot dogs, burgers, steaks, and chicken are by far the most commonly prepared foods on outdoor grills. As A. Cort Sinnes, author of "The Grilling Book" (Aris Books, 1985), put it, "The way most grills get used, even the expensive ones, is you turn it on, you cook some chicken breasts, and you turn it off."

But does anyone really need to spend thousands of dollars to do that? No, said Chris Schlesinger, chef and owner of the East Coast Grill in Cambridge, Mass., and the author of books about grilling. "Give me two bricks and an oven rack and some wood, and I'll cook you a better steak than any expensive gas grill, hands down," he said. "It might look good in your garden, it might be more convenient, it might impress your friends, but it's not going to cook you a better steak."
###

I've been toying with the fun/work connection - the fun of the job well-done - the fun of work. Here are some thoughts. I hope you find them toyworthy.
Of Fun and Work
Part one: Experiencing Your Competence

A couple Sundays ago, there was a King of the Hill episode called 24 Hour Propane People, showing what happens "When Strickland ...refocuses on making Strickland Propane a 'fun' place to work' and makes his employees dress in costumes, have sleepovers in the office and use catch phrases." This very show aired about two or three days after Kevin Eikenberry and I met to talk about what we might do about this very thing - how we might help people make the "real" fun/work connection.

Of all the many connections we discussed, Kevin found himself especially drawn to my description of the kind of work-related fun that takes place when you are "experiencing your competence."

I first thought about the competence/fun connection after I read Csikszentmihalyi's story, documenting the existence of a factory worker who actually enjoyed his work (see Knowing How to Play). Since then, I have become even more firm in my belief that in the secret recesses of the heart of work, a lot of fun is being had. You can find a collection of my work-and-fun-focused reflections in my Fun & Work reflections collection.

Part two: Freedom

In response to my having made the fun-work-competence connection, I received the following, by email, from fellow facilitator and brother-in-fun Bill Harris:

I think many people likely don't think work can be fun. Some of those might benefit from seeing Richard Feynman's video interview and the way a focus on fun helped him do great work (beginning with the segment on his turning down an opportunity to join Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, at 20:14).

Others might benefit from changing jobs -- or at least changing their attitude towards their current job. (I think I've seen people who think that work shouldn't be fun; you weren't being earnest if you were having fun.)

One of the big deals for me, though, is freedom. If you "make" me do something I don't want to do, you run a risk of me reacting inappropriately, and that could include suing later (see this). You also might find that I discover the thing you're suggesting really is fun, but that's a gamble. For example, I think I'd find a ropes course very un-fun, and I've been at a fun evening event with a comedian in a workplace that turned out to be painful more than funny. On the other hand, I recall Halloween costumes at work, juggling fruit at work or watching people bowl with oranges down the hall -- and the pleasure / fun from seeing a group make great progress or finally catching on to the answer to a tough problem.

The challenge is that people in many (most?) organizations don't feel able to speak up clearly, openly, and honestly, so it's hard to tell whether you're forcing someone to do something, I guess. That's one of the things I focus on, but it's not always easy; in fact, it can demand quite a bit of courage and personal insight on people's parts, even if management says they favor
it.

Yeah. So somehow, the fun of work, the inherent fun, has to do with the experience of freedom. Oh, yeah and again yeah!

So here's my take on the fun-freedom connection.

What's yours? What is it like for you when work is fun. How important to that kind of work, the fun kind, is your personal experience of freedom and competence? What else is important? I'm collecting stories. Wanna tell me yours?

The funniest folks on earth are those who are in the trenches - like moms. Enjoy.

The New York Times
May 10, 2006
A Mom's Winning Riff on the Parodies of Parenthood
By FELICIA R. LEE

Rubi Nicholas's mouthful of a life became her comedy routine. She's a Pakistani Muslim with a Greek Orthodox, stay-at-home husband who converted to Islam. They live in a Denver suburb with their daughters. They fit in just fine. "Except," she says in her stand-up routine, "every time my daughter leaves her Barbie Jeep in someone else's driveway they call the bomb squad."

Ms. Nicholas's comic cocktail of culture clashes and motherhood has earned her the title of "Funniest Mom in America."

The 36-year-old mother of two was chosen last night during the broadcast of the finale of a five-part reality series on Nickelodeon's Nick at Nite programming block, called "Nick at Nite's Search for the Funniest Mom in America 2."

As part of their victories, both Ms. Nicholas and last year's winner, Darlene Westgor, are $50,000 richer and talking with network executives about their own shows.

"The modern mother, more than anyone, needs to keep a sense of humor," Ms. Nicholas said in a telephone interview, referring to all the books and television shows that take on the push-pull of career versus domesticity, or the desire of families to swap mothers. "There are things I had to let go of — clothes that match, anything white, combed hair," Ms. Nicholas said. "So my kids are white, and they have dreadlocks."

Right now, Ms. Nicholas's jokes are shoehorned into her life as an executive for a health care insurance carrier. If things work out with Nick at Nite, though, she envisions her own television show as "hugely autobiographical," a kind of "I Love Lucy" in which she and her family supply the exotic element that Ricky Ricardo provided for his daffy, red-headed wife.

Because anti-Muslim sentiment reigns in some quarters, Ms. Nicholas hopes her family's example generates some good will. She recalls her parents changing their telephone number because of threats they received during the Iran hostage crisis. ("People don't understand there's a difference between Pakistanis and Iranians.") But being an outsider, she said, has also always been a source of humor.

"We look for that next domestic goddess — who's the next Roseanne?" said Sal Maniaci, the senior vice president of development and original production at Nick at Nite. Last year's "Funniest Moms" show drew about 1.38 million viewers during the hourlong special, and the network decided to expand the franchise. The call for contestants drew hundreds of responses.

After months of tryouts, 10 finalists competed at the Laugh Factory in New York in a series of challenges that included a sitcom screen test and performing sketches for an audience of children. For two weeks, they lived together in a New York City penthouse and received help with their routines from real comedians.

The show's host was Katey Sagal (from "Married ... With Children"), and the trio of advice-giving judges included the actor Alfonso Ribeiro and the comedians Carol Leifer and Mario Cantone.

Mr. Maniaci said that Ms. Nicholas stands out because she "gives us a fresh look at cultural similarities and differences."

The runner-up to Ms. Nicholas, Lisa Alvarado honed her skills in comedy clubs in both Chicago and Los Angeles, mostly talking about being Peruvian and single. "It was a great learning experience," Ms. Alvarado, a 34-year-old hairdresser who lives in Los Angeles with her 14-year-old son, said of the competition.

"And I'm not even the typical Latina," she says in her routine. "I'm not, because I got pregnant in my late teens. There was so much pressure in my house, you guys. My Mom's always like, 'Hurry up, your little brother's already a grandfather.' "

Like Ms. Alvarado, who jokes about people searching for Peruvia on the map, Ms. Nicholas cheerfully says that no one ever understood her culture. When she was a child she enjoyed calling her school and pretending to be her mother with excuses for absences, she says in her routine. She grew up in Pottsville, Pa., a coal region in the central part of the state.

"Calling to let you know that Rubi will not be in school today. For today we celebrate the holy festival of the blind goat," Ms. Nicholas says in a heavy Pakistani accent.

And did somebody mention airports? "So a little bit about me," Ms. Nicholas said in the final show. "I married a white guy to improve my airport cred. Yeah, and he had to become a Muslim to marry me, and he had to marry me because you know what they say. Once you go Pak ... that's right, you'll never eat pork again."

Ms. Nicholas entered the contest at the suggestion of her 6-year-old daughter, who heard about it on Nick at Nite last October and said to her, "Mom, you're really funny." Her other daughter is 3 years old.

With the family's support, Ms. Nicholas began working the microphone at comedy clubs in Denver. She learned about timing, establishing a rapport with the audience, body language. "The first time I was onstage I had my hands in my pockets and my face buried in the microphone," she recalled.

A "Funniest Mom" judge this year and last, Ms. Leifer (whose writing credits include "Seinfeld," "The Larry Sanders Show") is now the writer and producer for a sitcom pilot for Ms. Westgor, last year's winner. Tentatively titled "Darlene," it will be based on Ms. Westgor's life as a 45-year-old single mother rearing two teenage sons in the Minneapolis area.

Unlike Ms. Nicholas, Ms. Westgor had a few years of stand-up experience when she won the title. Like Ms. Nicholas, she's working with elements in her real life for the show, like an ex-husband who lives down the street, calls all the time, and takes her and their sons out to Sunday dinner.

As for Ms. Nicholas, she says it's a boon to mothers that Nick at Nite is nodding to the idea that motherhood is rather inherently funny. "I'm hardly perfect — that's what makes it funny," Ms. Nicholas said.
###

Stephen Colbert strikes again. He seems to have a much harder edge than, say, his mentor, Jon Stewart. Enjoy.

The New York Times
May 3, 2006
After Press Dinner, the Blogosphere Is Alive With the Sound of Colbert Chatter
By JACQUES STEINBERG

Mark Smith, a reporter for The Associated Press who is president of the White House Correspondents' Association, acknowledges that he had not seen much of Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central before he booked him as the main entertainment for the association's annual black-tie dinner on Saturday night. But he says he knew enough about Mr. Colbert — "He not only skewers politicians, he skewers those of us in the media" — to expect that he would cause some good-natured discomfort among the 2,600 guests, many of them politicians and reporters.

What Mr. Smith did not anticipate, he said, was that Mr. Colbert's nearly 20-minute address would become one of the most hotly debated topics in the politically charged blogosphere. Mr. Colbert delivered his remarks in character as the Bill O'Reillyesque commentator he plays on "The Colbert Report," although this time his principal foil, President Bush, was just a few feet away.

"There was nothing he said where I would have leapt up to say, 'Stop,' " said Mr. Smith, who introduced Mr. Colbert and sat near him on the dais. "I thought he was very funny," Mr. Smith added, though there was hardly consensus on that point yesterday.

At issue was a heavily nuanced, often ironic performance by Mr. Colbert, who got in many licks at the president — on the invasion of Iraq, on the administration's penchant for secrecy, on domestic eavesdropping — with lines that sounded supportive of Mr. Bush but were quickly revealed to be anything but. And all this after Mr. Colbert tried, at the outset, to soften up the president by mocking his intelligence, saying that he and Mr. Bush were "not so different," by which he meant, he explained, "we're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol."

"Now I know there's some polls out there saying this man has a 32-percent approval rating," Mr. Colbert said a few moments later. "But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking 'in reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

That line got a relatively warm laugh, but many others were met with near silence. In one such instance, he criticized reporters for likening Mr. Bush's recent staff changes to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." "This administration is not sinking," Mr. Colbert said; "this administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg."

In an online survey begun yesterday, the snarky Web site Gawker sought to boil down the matter to its essence by asking readers to vote on whether they thought Mr. Colbert's performance, broadcast live on C-Span and since then widely available on the Internet, was "one of the most patriotic acts I've witnessed of any individual" or "not really that funny."

Meanwhile, on its Web site, the trade journal Editor & Publisher posted more than a dozen letters from readers under a headline that reflected the broad range of electronic opinion: "Colbert Offensive, Colbert Mediocre, Colbert a Hero, Colbert Vicious, Colbert Brave." Mr. Colbert's employer, Comedy Central, said it had received nearly 2,000 e-mail messages by Monday morning — a response, it said, rivaled only by the contentious appearance nearly two years ago of Jon Stewart, Mr. Colbert's comedy patron, on the now-defunct CNN shout-fest "Crossfire."

Others chided the so-called mainstream media, including The New York Times, which ignored Mr. Colbert's remarks while writing about the opening act, a self-deprecating bit Mr. Bush did with a Bush impersonator.

Some, though, saw nothing more sinister in the silence of news organizations than a decision to ignore a routine that, to them, just was not funny.

"I'm a big Stephen Colbert fan, a huge Bush detractor, and I think the White House press corps has been out to lunch for much of the last five years," Noam Scheiber wrote by way of introduction on the New Republic's Web site. But a few lines later he said: "I laughed out loud maybe twice during Colbert's entire 20-odd minute routine. Colbert's problem, blogosphere conspiracy theories notwithstanding, is that he just wasn't very entertaining."

In addition to the challenge of coming after the president and his doppelgänger, Mr. Colbert struggled to find common comedic ground in a room that included politicians across the ideological spectrum, as well as reporters and Hollywood stars. In that sense, he was in good company: many of his recent predecessors — who have included Cedric the Entertainer, Jay Leno, Mr. Stewart, Ray Romano and Al Franken — were knocked, at least in some quarters, for falling flat.

"It's very, very tricky," Mr. Franken, a Democrat who played the dinner twice during the Clinton years but was not there on Saturday, said in an interview. "I thought that what Stephen did was very admirable."

Mary Matalin, a Republican who has served the Bush White House as assistant to the president and counselor to the vice president, had a different take.

"This was predictable, Bush-bashing kind of humor," Ms. Matalin, who was there, said in an interview. Of Mr. Colbert, she said, "Because he is who he is, and everyone likes him, I think this room thought he was going to be more sophisticated and creative."

Mr. Colbert declined through a "Colbert Report" spokeswoman to comment yesterday. Similarly, another Colbert target, Mr. Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said he had no comment, including on reports that Mr. Bush had appeared irritated by the end of Mr. Colbert's speech.

"We'll let others be the entertainment critics," Mr. McClellan said by phone from the White House. "I know better than to insert myself into that one."
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