You Think You Have It Tough

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Nicole has revealed her secrets to throwing a dinner party for 15 people in a 6 x 8 room with a table that seats six and chairs for only seven. For her next trick ...

It's a bit of a departure for her Home & Garden column in The Chron (it tops the "Home" section) because not all of the advice is entirely serious.

Consider moving: While we're on the subject of dishes, it's perfectly acceptable to move to a new apartment solely on the basis of its having a dishwasher.

I've always thought that, but have never had the guts to say it out loud.

Make sure there's enough wine: This is most important, as it ensures you'll laugh off any kitchen disasters and that you'll sail through the cleanup without a care at the end of the evening.

That is downright Galloping Gourmet.

Prepare for last-minute RSVPs: If your beautiful wooden dining table is large enough to sit six, perhaps it would be wise to ask just six, rather than 10, guests to the feast.

And even if they all do show up, you have all that wine to sail through finding them all plates without a care.

Anyway, I think our hostess is playing a support role this year, so you won't find her in the kitchen quite as much. But I'm sure there will be plenty of wine.

Quinoa Update

Fortunately, peepsNet has no rules about how many times it can write about the same thing. How could we, since we only write about the same five (or two) people. No Martian problem for us: the world consists of Nicole and Samer (necessarily in that order), some other people whose names escape me, and Samer and Nicole (not necessarily in that order).

Which brings us to the new crop of quinoa. Well, it's the old crop, and it has cropped up again as the #2 emailed story on npr.org three weeks after its original pub date. She's already done radio to explain the gravity-defying phenomenon of this seed (not a grain, as EVERYBODY knows) which can save the world, so can TV be far behind?

People: there's a writer's strike. You guys need content. It's either a reality show about cage-fighting between Survivor All-Stars and The Biggest Losers, or Nicole. Think about it. Shouldn't be taking that long.

Our theory is that many people are considering Nicole's Quinoa Stuffed Peppers as part of their Thanksgiving fare (that's called "Interpretive Reporting" for you civilians. Not "Making It Up" journalism. Definitely not).

Btw, you can email the story here.

About Tonight and the Segway Sharks

Segway Sharks Originally uploaded by Samer Farha.

Amazing. I used that line in an entirely different context with Nancy just tonight ...

Anyway -- getting a picture published every day or so on DCist isn't uncommon anymore for the boy wonder -- oh no.

Perhaps Samer has become distraught with the deafening inattention peepsNet has given him, what with all those snaps that get picked up by the hip DC site making the phenomenon of his pictures getting picked up by the hip DC site decidedly un-newsworthy, by definition.

So he's kicked it up a notch. Here is the official tweet, timing in at 2014 ET:

A twofer on DCist, today: Photo of the Day (http://xrl.us/bbjkd) and About Tonight (http://xrl.us/bbjkh).

One's at the top, the other at the bottom.

Props to DCist writer Heather Gross for making the perfect "Land Shark" reference that nobody under the age of maybe 50 will get.

Cool Cocktail
Originally uploaded by Samer Farha

Radio Primps the Internet Star

Saturday afternoon Originally uploaded by nicspir.

Nicole has conquered yet another medium with a guest shot this morning on NPR's "Bryant Park Project."

Nicole appeared in the segment about the most emailed stuff. Regular peepsNet readers already know that "Quinoa, a Sacred, Super Crop" has been #1 on NPR.org pretty much since it was posted last week.

That's right. It isn't even an NPR story. It has nothing to do with the deteriorating situation in Pakistan. Nary a presidential candidate is mentioned in it.

Host Luke Burbank called the story "A love letter to quinoa" and then turned all Tim Russert with an opening question geared at knocking Nicole off stride -- at 5:17 a.m. PT no less, basically the time she usually just gets to go to sleep after a long night of replying to fan mail: "So, what is so great about quinoa, anyway!" he lashed out (well, that's what it sounded like).

An unperturbed Nicole chuckled and replied with the poise of a veteran that quinoa tastes good and is easy to make. Take that, Luke Skywalker. She then turned the tables and, speaking directly to the NPR universe, postulated that this amazing food could feed the world. What have you done for the world lately?

Check out the podcast, on iTunes or from this NPR page. Nicole's segment begins at about the 1:19 mark.

She's Number 1!

It's official.

Nicole's Quinoa article on NPR.org is the number-one emailed in the past 24 hours.

There might be another bit of great news coming from the publication of this article, peepsNet has learned. Watch this space.