It’s January 3rd, 2012, suckas! And you know that that means, right?
Right! TNS is turning four years old!
And you know what THAT means, right?
Right! Giveaways for you!
As a great big thank you to you, the readers without whom TNS would be a pointless void, four of you will get the cookbook of your choices from the Book Index.
To enter, just leave a comment. Any comment. It could be a New Years Resolution. It could be a glowing description of my awesomeness. It could be something you cut and paste from Wikipedia. Whatever. Sharing (Facebook, Twitter, you know the deal) gets you an extra entry.
One week to comment. Random number generator (AKA Brian) picks the winners.
Bon chance, and thank you thank you thank you for being the superfantastic readers you are!
Thursday Night Smackdown 
Welcome back, and happy new year! Looking forward to some fantastic recipes and commentary in 2012.
Since there is no possible way to accurately describe your awesomeness (and sucking up might help my chances of winning, right??), I’ll just say a very happy new year and happy blog birthday to you!
Yay! What a having-to-go-back-to-work-after-a-long-vacation-sucks treat! Hope you have a really good 2012, regardless of how much or how little you post here 🙂
Happy birthday. Nothing feels quite as good as a new blogiversary! Thanks for four years of good food and good laughs!
Damn, it’s good to see you back! Happy New Year; I can’t wait to see what you’re awesomeness will conjure in 2012! Yes, you guessed it, much like Lisa, I’m sucking up in hopes of increasing my chances. All joking aside, I’m really glad you’re back for year #4. The world of food blogs is much duller without you.
I’ll stop sucking up now.
Hi Michelle!
Nice to see you back, even for a short little post. Happy 2012!
yay for 4 years! also i totes shared this on facebook because i like to win stuff.
So happy to see you again! Missed the snarkiness of your blog-my feed is overrun with blogs that make me feel so inadequate. (Not that yours makes me feel adequate or anything-not even close) I like yours because you write like I imagine you talk-straight up and no bull.
Welcome back!
Welcome back and Happy New Year! Like just about everyone else I can’t wait to see what the new year brings for TNS!
Welcome back, and happy birthday!
“The word fennel developed from the Middle English fenel or fenyl. This came from the Old English fenol or finol, which in turn came from the Latin feniculum or foeniculum, the diminutive of fenum or faenum, meaning “hay”. The Latin word for the plant was ferula, which is now used as the genus name of a related plant. As Old English finule it is one of the nine plants invoked in the pagan Anglo-Saxon Nine Herbs Charm, recorded in the 10th century.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennel
On this anniversary, I went to go reread my faves, and Paula Deen’s Chicken Divan (https://thursdaynightsmackdown.com/2008/07/24/paula-deen-casserole/) came back to glorious life for me. Nothing can top it; if you quit blogging forever you’d still be full of win for your description of that glutinous horror. NOT EVEN THE FISH NOODLES can compare. Google Chrome actually refused to load a picture halfway down–protecting me, I’m sure, from something that would drive me insane if I saw it again. It’s above the cheese. I’m too scared to reload it.
Hats off, man. Hats. Off.
Dude – this just reminds me of something you once said in college. When asked who you shared your birthday with, you responded, “Oh, shit, just Jesus.” Hope you had a good one!
Hope to hear more from you in the start of 2012. I need more snarky in my life.
nice post and all. but wtf no F-bombs?!!?!??!
Glad you’re back….I’ve been on snark deprivation for some time now! Happy 2012!
Happy happy bday
Happy New Year!
Yay! You’re back!
I plan to cook and eat more produce in 2012. Although possibly not until the spring/summer/growing season, so it’s not really A Resolution.
Happy New Year! The Tour de France would be so much less without your commentary.
I think it would be rad to get a cookbook. Happy new year !
I didn’t get any cookbooks for Christmas! Halp!
Michelle! I’m SO damn glad you’re back. I hope you’re feeling better and are ready for more snark and doggies eating things that you cook! Hooray!! 🙂
Happy new year, birthday, and general tremendousness!
Glad you are back, looking forward to more TNS in 2012!
Happy Birthday, TNS! Great to see you back!
Happy Birthday, TNS!
Happy blogoversary! I love reading your posts. They never fail to make me laugh. Also, I hosting a Boxing Day brunch this year and made a variation on the Flamenco eggs you posted. So easy (I used tomato sauce I had made and frozen in the summer) and so good!
This is very exciting!
I love the new year–all the bloggers who have been taking breaks come back. Good to see you again.
Welcome back! Happy New Year! Happy Bloggy Birthday!!
I fucking love reading your blog!!!!!!
Well, if you insist…
Per Wikipedia, Awesome means that which inspires awe. Some awesomes from the sports world:
Awesome Again, a Canadian Hall of Fame thoroughbred racehorse
Awesome Gem, thoroughbred racehorse sired by Awesome Again
Awesome Kong, an American female professional wrestler
Well then!
One of my “things to do in the new year” is to make a pair of potholders picturing M.C. Hammer’s face (or pants) with the caption “U Can’t Touch This.”
Thanks for all the work on the site. It helped me accomplish several food-related goals last year and will continue to do so this year.
Good to hear from you! And happy anniversary!
Welcome back. Happy new year!
You always give me a good chuckle and great gift ideas! congrats on another year.
“a glowing description of my awesomeness”
Happy Birthday! And welcome back. I hope you are well-rested; I’ve missed your writings! (I make my fiance watch Top Chef with me now, but it isn’t the same).
Thanks!
yay thanks! and happy birthday!
happy birthday tns! thanks for keeping us laughing and cooking.
happy 2012!
Happy new year, happy blogaversary and a belated happy birthday. That’s a whole lotta happy for you.
Yay! Happy Blogaversary! And Happy New Year! Looking forward to many more awesome recipes in 2012.
While I want to win, I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for sharing with all of us strangers out here in internetland–both the food and the more personal stuff. It’s nice to have someone to relate to. So thanks 🙂
It makes me very happy that 2 people actually did copy and paste from Wikipedia.
Happy New Year! Happy blogaversary! I’m definitely glad you’re back. It’s so reassuring to see that I’m not the only one dropping f-bombs all over my kitchen.
Also, I like to win things. 🙂
Yea! So happy you’re back!
I’ve never commented before, but I’ve been reading for a couple of years – – – and I want to welcome you back! Happy New Year!
Happy Birthday to you! Me too as mine was a few days ago. I hope that the next year is filled with snark and good food for us all!
Happy birthday, TNS! What a great way to start off the year!
Great to see you back. Hope you enjoyed your hiatus. We all missed you!
Happy New Year! Awesome blog. Awesome shit I always do want on Mondays. Awesome blogger to thank.
Ive missed you and I still use my Pitiful potholder, a finalist in a past contest.
Wow, welcome back! How funny, today, Jan. 3rd is my daddy’s birthday.
Glad to have you back!
Happy New Year! Love, love, love your blog!
Happy New Year and Happy Birthday! I love your blog and I’m not just saying that in hopes of getting a free cookbook. Ok, that’s part of it, but I really do love your blog and hope you’re doing well!
My bad…totally posted this ON the book index. That’s the kind of day it’s been.
I will admit that I’m a lurker. But I’m SO glad you’re back! 🙂
I would love anything you would like to send me…keeping in mind that I’m in medical school and know next to nothing about cooking. 🙂 What do you recommend?
Hooray! Glad you’re back, hope stress is low, can’t wait to see new posts in the future!
I dearly hope you are returned! Happy New Year!
Happy Birthday! We should celebrate with milk and cookies cocktails.
Are you back? Please be back; we’ve missed you so! Someone further up the comments mentioned your Paula Deen post, and I think you should know that I still get hysterical giggles every time I see that woman’s face, due entirely to your elegant description of Chicken Divan. Thank you.
Happy 4th TNS!
Welcome back!
Happy Birthday! I’m really looking forward to another year of posts 🙂 Even if they are scattered, haha.
YAY! Happy Birthday to Blog! Thank you for teaching me how to poach an egg. My life is better because of you and my poached egg meals. I am not being sarcastic.
Happy Birthday! Happy New Year! Thanks for being awesome! I wanted to let you know that I’m always excited when your blog appears on my feed.
Happy Blogiversary and Happy New Year! I have always enjoyed reading your blog, and obtaining many super delicious recipes as well! May 2012 be a great year for you and your blog!! :o)
Happy birthday! Hope you can start blogging again soon!
Stumbled upon your website because I was looking for ideas on what to do with leftover scalloped potatoes and came across your Tight Ass Tuesday:Repurposed post. Hilarious! I laughed through the whole post. And the soup was delicious too!
What.The.Fuck.
(ok, just wanted to curse there)
You’d think that after getting Jacques Pepin’s books on Methode and Technique, and the CIAs 9th ed. the professional chef that I’d be satisfied with my cookbooks for the holiday season. Well no I’m not!
Also, a link to my chicken divan recipe – in my estimable opinion it does not suck:
http://foodgardenkitchen.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/chicken-divan/
Feliz Cumpleanos!No, I’m not a latina, I just play one on tv… Great to read your voice again. Always refreshing, always entertaining, and delish. Always. Thanks for being there.
Hope this is the start of many new, wonderful posts from Thursday Night Smackdown in 2012.
Yay! You are back 🙂 Happy Birthday!
I miss the insanity – it makes me think my family is more normal. At my family Christmas at any given time about 85% of us are on some kind of heavy medication – shit gets real. Enjoy your time off, and Happy Birthday TNS! So glad I stumbled upon you in years past. Many happy hours spent reading while listening to the elderly complain about incontinence, etc.
Happy Birthday to you!!
Happy birthday, happy New Year and happy everything! I love your site, and hope you are doing well.
Yea! Michelle is back!
Or at least back-ish. I hope your time off was both fun and restorative. Wishing you a very late Shiny Bright Solstice.
(Are any of your cookbooks for newly diagnosed diabetics?)
Welcome back!!! I have missed the witty humour and the ohhhh so delicious food porn i stare at during work hours (shhhh dont tell anyone). Yay for a new year, yay for birthdays, yay for food 🙂
In December 2008, SEPTA started design work to ensure that it would have “shovel ready” projects in preparation of a future stimulus bill being signed. This positioned SEPTA to be able to move swiftly with 32 projects. Of these 32 projects, 16 projects related to stations; 6 projects related to right-of-way (ROW), bridges, and track; 4 projects related to traction power systems; 5 projects related to communication & signal systems; and 1 project purchased new hybrid buses.
welcome back! Looking forward to awesome new posts and snarky commentary.
Happy blogday!
Random comment for free stuff.
I like the sound of purple.
Happy blog-birthday, and welcome back! Hope you’re ok.
Man, I need some new cookbooks, as I’m feeling cooking uninspired this week…
So tired of uninspired food and have really, really missed your wonderful sarcasm! Happy blog birthday. : )
Post more. Your food always looks scrumptious and you don’t skip on the good stuff. Like booze and fat.
Also, everyone visit my website and look at the pictures of my cute kid. That is all.
Happy birthday, TNS! Looking forward to more posts from you, Michelle. I’m watching Top Chef while I type this. Yay!
So glad you’re back! I assume that this is because Plan R is working. And if you have moved further down the alphabet, just remember that Plans AA-ZZ, AAA-ZZZ, etc. still await. This includes the plastic surgery/implant plan (Plan DD), the American Automobile Association plan (Plan AAA), and the naughty movie plan (Plan XXX). I haven’t tried them all but I suppose that they are something to look forward to! Happy fourth birthday and best wishes for a sane(r) 2012.
happy birthday! i miss your top chef recaps!
Happy Birthday and Happy New Year to you! I’ve missed you and look forward to more in 2012!
Ooooh a contest! I can never think of anything clever to say under pressure. So, um. Wikipedia it is. On Thursday:
Thursday is a day of the week.
Thursday may also refer to:
Thursday, a 1998 film directed by Skip Woods
Thursday, an American post-hardcore band
“Thursday”, The Features song
Thursday (German: Donnerstag), an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen from his Licht cycle
Thursday, a mixtape by The Weeknd
In other uses:
Abergavenny Thursdays F.C., a Welsh football club
Thursday Island, Queensland, Australia
Thursday Next, a fictional character in novels by Jasper Fforde
Ruby Thursday, a fictional character in the Marvel Comics Universe
Happy birthday and happy new year! Nice to see you back 🙂
OK, here’s an awesome thing I found for you. I assume like all right-thinking food people you have seen and made fun of the episode of Sandra Lee where she makes the ‘Kwanzaa Cake’. Well, I found an interview with the person who actually made the thing and in it, she both apologizes for it and talks shit about Sandra Lee. Here’s a fun snippet:
“I can honestly say Ms. Lee had nothing against African Americans or Jews. She just has incredibly bad food taste. She was not discriminating about who would be harmed from her culinary “creations.” Think what your taste would be like if you came from carnival or circus people. Did I just offend Paris Hilton?”
And here’s the whole thing. http://www.dlisted.com/node/40059 Enjoy!
I want to write something really deep here, but my three-legged cat is laying on one of my hands and being sleepy-adorable, so suffice to say that you’re one of my favorite bloggers of any caliber and I’m so glad you’re around. Okay, cat squeaked grumpily at me, so that’s that.
Welcome back, we missed you in our house :0)
Happy birthday and welcome back!
Welcome back! Here’s to a year of awesomeness!
Happy New Year!
I’m really glad you’re back. Happy 2012.
My internet world has been less without your TNS postings.. This quote is a blast form the past and one of the funniest fuckin things I have ever read 🙂
“Why is it that you go to therapy to make yourself feel better, you spend an hour talking about horrible crappy things, and then you leave feeling worse? If I want to feel bad about myself, I could just look at myself naked in a mirror, jump up and down a few times and pocket the $100 bucks.” 😀 Most of us know who wrote that right!!
Glad your back!!!
It’s about time you came back to grace my virtual tastebuds!
Love the newest Smackdown – great photos!
K
Happy new year, and welcome back!
Happy birthday! I love your blog and was heartbroken when you left. No joke. But geeze loiuse you are so damn young I am now thoroughly depressed. No wonder you have so much energy to cook.
So glad to have you back; steak last night looked awesome! Here’s to an excellent start to year 5.
Your awesomeness made me want to be a food blogger. Then, your awesomeness made me actually BE a food blogger. Then, my laziness and busy-ness stopped me being a food blogger. But I didn’t care, because you are still a food blogger, and TNS is really all I need in the Department of Food Bloggery.
Happy Birthday! Drooling over your TNS steak. Yum!
Happy New Year! And Birthday! January’s an exciting month, isn’t it?
Happy Birthday!
Happy New Year. (belated) Happy Birthday. And welcome back. You’ve been missed.
Missed you!
Happy birthday! Thanks for another year of hilarious commentary and delicious food!
Great to see you back. Hopefully you are feeling better soon. I’m not sure what we’d do without your awesomeness profanity-ing up the internets.
IT’S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!
Good to see a post from you. May more hijinks follow…
Happy, happy day!
I was so excited to see new posts from you in my Google Reader – Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to us all! My only eating resolution this year is to eat 5-7 servings of fruit and vegies every single day. I know I can do that and it will make a difference. Then, I eat the good stuff the rest of the time!
I’m so glad you’re back! Yay for us, and happy birthday to you!
TNS makes my life worth living. Maybe this year I will kick my hubbie out of the kitchen and cook some good food of my own. Thanks for the humor and the inspiration!
So glad to see you back!!
Love you, love this website. Not in a creepy, stalkerish way, but the kind you keep in your pocket. So happy you’re back!
your cookbook list has already inspired several of my most recent cookbook acquisitions 😀
Happy birthday! Here’s to another 4 years of awesome food & snark!
Happy birthday and thanks for teaching me how to cook shit that makes people happy so they stop bothering me.
I have a resolution to make something from Pinterest at least 2 times a month.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us in 2012…
Made your Pad Thai Summer Rolls with Peanut Sauce for New Years Eve at work, awesomeness perrollified. Yummo.
Thanks for the laughs in 2011, and looking forward to many more in 2012.
I don’t comment much, but I really enjoy your site and the irreverence you bring to the whole affair. I hope the upcoming year brings you only the best and, selfishly, optimal conditions for blogging. 😀
BACKBACK BACKBACK BACKBACK!!!!!!!! YAY Happy dance of elation!
i love your blog and i love giveaways. whenever people ask me for good blogs to read, i refer them to you as an example of “doing it right”. also i want a prize. pick me pick me!
My tummy hurts right now, but I still want to eat that steak you made a few days ago. Congrats on 4 years of bloggery!
What could be better than a blogger with an “Awesome Shit I want” post every week?
So I just found this site courtesy of teh googals. Wow, what a ride. Naturally, I subscribed to the feed. So there you go, now you can pick me….:-).