The Coalition of the Swilling

Agreed.

(And here is The Cheese's take

Close parenthesis, Lisa!

Sorry.

Bingley cooks great and he won't embarrass you by calling you "God" or anything as unseemly as your compatriot did with that other guy.

He may even have actual French wine to serve instead of those boxes...

I swear I will hide the boxes away; my country's honor is at stake, 'Fly.

Mr. Bingley,

Thank you for your kind invitation. My wife and I would be delighted to share your hospitality during our next visit to your country.

You won't mind if we bring a food taster will you? Purely as a guest, I hasten to assure you. It's just that we expect to dine with the Obamas at some point on the trip and, well, one can't be too careful.

Mr. Bingley,

Thank you for your kind invitation. My wife and I would be delighted to share your hospitality during our next visit to your country.

You won't mind if we bring a food taster will you? Purely as a guest, I hasten to assure you. It's just that we expect to dine with the Obamas at some point on the trip and, well, one can't be too careful.

Dear Mr. President,

I fully understand your concern, and please be assured that I have a Food Taster already on staff, at your full disposal.

Best Regards,

Mr. Bingley

And I, sweet Binksley, most certainment promise to wear zum clothes and leaves my guitar for ze intime strummings at ze Palais Royale at ze home. But I will be zere, non? Luckys you!

Come on, Bingley, a lab as food taster? I don't care if he's trained to smell poison, he's going to give it a shot anyway. It's people food.

My dear Mr. Bingley,

I must apologize for a lack of clarity when I accepted your kind invitation. I by no means meant you to think I have even the smallest concern about the quality and purity of your food and drink. Quite the contrary, I meant only to inquire if I may bring my food taster as a guest to your home. I would like him to enjoy an evening off duty among Americans who take pride in their country and food. His presence on the trip is for when we brave the uncertainties of official dinners hosted by your apologizer-in-chief.

You will forgive the little misunderstanding please? French is my first language as you will appreciate, but I do like to practice communicating in more than one.

Better hit Costco with a semi, Bingster. You'll need a lot of pork to feed Le President and his entourage.

I agree with the objection to using a canine as food taster. Dogs operate on the theory that "if it makes me sick, I can just barf it up. And then try eating it a second time."

Many years ago I found out about chocolate and dogs when my own lab got three Hershey bars I left on my dresser. She ate them in sequence, pausing only to barf up the last last one before proceeding to the next.

(Got ya beat, Steve. As in a whole, deep cast iron frying pan full...of fried chicken grease.)

(And I DO mean about 3 QTS worth.)

Puppeh photo! Yay!

Steve, our Food Taster decided one day that the 10lb bag of Idahos on the counter might be tainted, so he needed to, er, protect us from them.

So he ate all 10 lbs whilst we were out.

I can't leave the house with anything on the counter, including tin cans of food. My lab will chew a can down to 1/4" flat if given the chance(she's done so twice over the years). And lest you think I don't feed the poor thing, just yesterday the vet once again admonished me to have her lose about 5 lbs(just like every year).

Okay, fine, this thread has morphed from "what to feed visiting French persons?" to "horrible scary things dogs eat" (that's an observation, not a complaint).

I hate starfish, as does anyone who has a beach with shellfish. Those pointy bastards will clean out an oyster bed in no time. So periodically at low tide, I or my parents will go down and pull out all the starfish we can see and toss them above the high water line so they can slowly die like the scavenging parasites they are. Then, once they're extremely dead we usually toss them back in to finish decomposing.

Somebody told my father that dead starfish make great fertilizer. I'll bet they do. If you don't have dogs, I mean.

I have no idea how many rotting starfish my two dogs excavated and ate, other than Way Too Many.

But hey, no problem. Remember the "if this makes me sick I can just barf it up" rule? In this case the rule was not instantaneously applied - the dogs waited to get back to my house before commencing pukeage.

Gotta hand it to the Hoover people, they make a fine vacuum cleaner. After I scooped the bulk of the puke with a dustpan, my Hoover did a great job getting the rest of the stuff out of the carpets.

Only thing is, years later and even after several bag changes, every time I fire up the Hoover it wafts a fragrant aroma of rotten starfish dog puke.

And incidentally, lest anyone think I am griping, I have come to appreciate the scent of aged rotten starfish dog puke.

To me, it smells like a clean home.