Surviving Obama's Economy In High Style

Today's helpful tip from the desk of Grandpa Steve involves entertaining friends on a tight budget during these hard times.

Enterprising researchers:

...separately put organic Canned Turkey & Chicken Formula for Puppies/Active Dogs, duck liver mousse, pork liver pâté, liverwurst, and spam in a food processor. The resulting confection was ladled into five different bowls and garnished with parsley.

The volunteers in this culinary experiment didn't exactly prefer the dog food, but they couldn't identify it either. "Only 3 of 18 subjects correctly identified sample C as the dog food," the paper says.

The authors conclude that: "Although human beings do not enjoy eating dog food, they are also not able to distinguish its flavor profile from other meat-based products that are intended for human consumption."

The lesson? Presentation matters. Expectations matter. And, perhaps, that organic dog food is better than you think.

And furthermore:

Trader Joe's $2-or-$3-a-bottle Chardonnay won a blind test in California against formidable competition. Another working paper published by the wine economists' group found that, as you might expect, people give higher ratings to wine if they're told it's more expensive.

A few years ago it was claimed that it was the Republicans that were about to cause Grandma to resort to dog food if she was to eat anything at all. But now with Obama in charge, dog food is just as good as pâté de foie gras. Another Obama miracle.

RSVP those invitations, y'all!