gastropoda

My other too much, too soon outing was to Borough Food and Drink, where we lured a friend fresh off “The Colbert Report” who likes to try new places and loves Fatty Crab. Good thing the guanciale and ricotta flatbread and the jerk chicken were excellent, or he would never listen to me again, Zak or no Zak. The “hostess” was apparently hired for what the Cod refers to as sweater puppies (although hers were more tank top mastiffs), because she led us to a table facing the wall in the very back of the half-empty restaurant and refused to seat us in a booth (one that was still unoccupied when we left). The din was brutal, the menu was meant to be all over the subway map but ended up dinery, and the duck in my salad was fatigued. But at least we could entertain ourselves talking about having eaten at all the previous incarnations of that doomed space. When the waiter started out by saying, “We’ve only been open 30 days,” I couldn’t tell if he was apologizing or bragging.

What lured us to Eutopia this time was a 7/7/7 wedding in Tuscany — two students from two countries who met in one of my consort’s workshops at TPW were literally tying the knot in a Philippine cord-and-veil ceremony and flew him over to be witness. They graciously let me tag along and so I got to see what happens when a cheesy tradition meets an upscale ingredient: The rice most everyone threw outside the church in San Quirico d’Orcia was arborio. And compared with Uncle Ben’s, that stuff is weapons grade.

After our first meal in Rome, it seemed even more laughable that Panchito was ever plucked out of foreign correspondenthood to be restaurant critic. Eating there makes Manhattan look like the Bois de Boulogne with multiple three-stars; it’s even riskier than Venice or Florence. The trattoria we braved in a Sunday afternoon panic was so dispiriting I wanted to tell the chef when he passed me on the way to the bathroom: “You should be ashamed of yourself.” But then anyone who spends a few years facing down lukewarm cannelloni sauced with the same anemic tomato cream as the “special” ravioli would probably be just the guy Moltoville needed.

Landing at JFK felt, as Bob put it, like arriving in Mexico City. And that may be an insult to Mexico City. Not only were armed guardsmen patrolling out front, but the Delta terminal was dark, dirty, cramped and as welcoming as Guantanamo. I don’t know why I was surprised, yet again. Our last meal there before flying to Nice had been on stools in the Samuel Adams pub because I couldn’t face the Chili’s, and we paid $78 for two glasses of pissy wine each, a “turkey” club and a quesadilla. Our last meal in France was at the Nice airport, where we dropped less at Le Badiane, a bright upstairs restaurant more sleekly appointed than many in New York, with a view more of the Mediterranean than the runways (and certainly not of pigeons running around a food court). I had tomato clafoutis, Bob ate tuna tartare and we split a demi bottle of fine rose and basket of warm olive and rosemary breads. Of course, since we were full, Air France then mysteriously upgraded us to business class from Paris and I couldn’t work for all the interruptions of foie gras and Champagne. Maybe they just felt sorry for us, coming home to Delhi.

While we were tooling around Tuscany and Rome, an Italian friend was in Arles, for the fabulous photo show where we were heading next, and we got an email from him warning that the restaurants there “sucked” and saying he was longing for “good, honest Italian food.” I wrote it off as the usual semolina chauvinism, confident that even the worst French meal would always be more rewarding than endless plates of pasta. The joke was on me at our very first stop, in Grasse, where we found a relatively cheap hotel to break up the drive from Nice. The owner suggested some pizza/French hybrid, but we went wandering through the deserted streets of the oldest part of the city, stumbled upon Le Gazan and settled into a table outside, thinking it was the only option. I have eaten some bad French food in New Jersey, but this kicked the bar even lower. My monkfish tails were steamed okay, but the “bouillabaisse-style” sauce was the color and consistency of the squitters, and both came on more a platter than a plate, strewn with broccoli florets and boiled potatoes and a carrot flan and a single roasted slice of roasted zucchini. The whole assemblage looked as if time stopped in 1977. I wrote it off to the same rube mentality that produced a cup of good espresso topped with a Montblanc of whipped cream and dusting of shaved chocolate when I asked for a cappuccino at a cafe the next morning. Then we got to Arles, and I was ready to email Carlo for directions to the nearest honest Italian.

 

Without boring with details, I’ll just say sucks is an understatement for the food there. We started at a gorgeous little restaurant the manager of the incomparable Grand Hotel Nord Pinus recommended, Le 16, where both my duck and Bob’s rabbit could have been raised by Perdue for all their flavor. We continued the losing streak at the very hospitable Au Brin de Thym, where the chewy magret was partnered with a baked potato in foil(!) Gritty salads one night outside at Les Deux Fondus were redeemed only by the amazingly accommodating host and the carafe and a half of decent rose. Lunch at Le Jardin de Manon did not exactly qualify for the S word, since the appetizers were actually nicely done if American-portioned: a gateau of salmon tartare with fennel, and a sundae glass brimming with whipped cheese layered with roasted tomato, eggplant and pistou. But my braised rouget with watery pistou, beans and tomato made an unbeatable argument for grilling or sauteing that wondrous fish, while Bob’s rabbit stuffed with kidneys and more pistou gave new meaning to the words tough and tasteless (the mashed potatoes with it, however, were superb).

We did eat well in France a few times, astonishingly well once, but even a restaurant my friend led us to for Sunday lunch in Languedoc was a letdown despite the gorgeous setting overlooking vineyards, the exceptional service by the chef himself and his wife, and the world-class wine they suggested, Mas Champart Saint-Chinian made by what the chef joked was his second wife. Everything was too much muchness; it was if the French don’t have a word for restraint.

Of course I may have only myself to blame for not doing better in Arles in particular, because we resisted the insistence of a friend living in Provence that we try what she swore was the best restaurant in the region. I just could not see sitting through endless courses and dropping what the Michelin said was 55 euros a head and she warned was even higher. Of course it turns out to be the one-star getting all the press, but I’m still glad we pinched centimes now that I’m home and doing the Bush-league math. That Saint-Chinian was 27 euros. And for roughly $40, it should have been good.

Years ago we swung through Atlanta to visit friends who took us on a weekend expedition to a rural B&B where a 300-pound relative of the proprietor was rocking on the porch as we arrived and warning that “if I don’t eat in 30 minutes I’m gonna starve to death.” Which taught me that “Deliverance” can take many forms. The Italian translation on this trip came about an hour or so out of Fiumicino when we pulled off near Mazzano for something better than Autogrill processed crap and came across an Old West-looking restaurant where three or four people were sitting out on the veranda. The fattest of them jumped up as we locked the car and asked something starting with “mangia . . .?” We said “si” and followed her inside as she slapped on a cap and showed us to a table in a huge unlit dining room with a pizza oven on one wall and black lawn jockeys scattered around the others. She rattled off a few pastas and sauces, we nodded first at strozzapretti and then at amatriciana and she waddled off, seemingly disgusted that we did not want wine. Not long after she slapped down two plates of something toughly frittata-like topped with zucchini blossoms, plus a carafe of water, and we sawed away until a big-eyed young girl wearing a red T-shirt with a swastika on it brought bread and condiments. Then the pasta landed, two medium bowls of chewy noodles with chunks of pancetta and onion in faint tomato sauce. I sprinkled mine with grated cheese, ate a few bites and threw on a little more much-needed cheese, only to have the Dick Cheney of cooks appear and whisk it away disapprovingly. She was even more annoyed when I left behind half our shared insalata mista. I think the tab was $40US for two pastas, one salad, two coffees and all the scorn we could swallow. The printed menu I had sneaked a peek at listed pastas at 7E. Several times on this trip Bob quoted John Krich, who said when they worked on a travel story together many years ago (and I paraphrase): Getting ripped off occasionally is the price we pay for not speaking the language. And at least this time we didn’t have to squeal like pigs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some things I saw in Eutopia: Villeroy & Boch toilets, seatless by design, at a rest stop in Provence. Salmon steaks grilled over blazing grapevines in a very formal dining room in Nardonne on a blazing hot afternoon. A chef in Montpellier, at a restaurant where the food had come slowly and been cooked erratically, sporting a black eye. A 200-year-old wood oven in continuous use in Nardonne (even day-old on the road, the croissant and pain au chocolat from it were outstanding). Tiny saucisse wrapped like little candies on the plate with the olives at Le Jardin du Manon in Arles. Chamber pots used as planters at Osteria Delle Grotte in Singalunga in Tuscany. A waitress at a cafe in Montpellier tying the tricolor flag around her dog’s neck on Bastille morning after delivering us a perfect croissant and cafe creme. Cats ready for the Apocalypse with a pup tent and stockpiled food, in a park in the Aventine in Rome. And, best of all, box wine poured from a crystal decanter in Languedoc — talk about style trumping substance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hail to the Chimp for making us realize there are scarier things than fish from China. We could be eating what he and Fredo and a Skank Twin attempted to reel in off the coast of Maine. Line-caught by a certain fool’s upcoming definition it might have been, but it would still turn to shit in his hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the Washington Post, we’re supposed to feel sorry for the poor schmuck — he’s suffering so badly over the bloody mess he has made that he “rarely goes out to dinner.” Hate to break it to them, but Incurious George never went out to dinner (I guess because he couldn’t bring his pillow). But somehow he can always make time for vacation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m going to miss the Journal if Murdoch gets his soulless mitts on it. What other paper excels at deadpan ledes like: “On a visit to Marietta, Ga., last fall, TJ Palmer stopped into an Applebee’s and ordered a bruschetta burger”? I can’t even get my mind around what that abomination might be, but the reporting, as always, was solid enough to come through on the perpetrator: a TV face who is a chef in image only. Scarier still, that is the only one of his “innovations” that has survived since his high-profile hire. Why it outdid “crispy brick chicken” and “penne rosa pasta” eludes me, but apparently fries will move anything, even with garlic and Parmesan overkill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boston seems to have evolved into America’s most European inter-city transit hub. On my last trip I got to the train station in time — if the airlines had humans manning the phones and if I had done any research — to have had three choices of rides home. Unfortunately, I first missed the fast rail shuttle to the air shuttle while trying to reserve, then lost out on Greyhound because I didn’t realize the bus station was literally next door. But here’s what really makes Boston rule: My interview subject told me there were two good restaurants just a block or so from South Station, and I was able to kill the two hours till the last Amtrak train with foie gras torchon and a couple of glasses of white wine at the Paris knockoff Les Zygomates. New York is in the dark (as in Houlihan’s) ages by comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of the many indignities of falling and not being able to get up in Tribeca, the worst was having to lie there waiting for the ambulance and listening to some wacked-out woman from the neighborhood rant: “You have to sue! This sidewalk is dangerous. Are you gonna sue?” And I hurt too much even to whimper, “Lady, I need a doctor, not a goddamn lawyer.” My insurance company may go all ABA on me, but I still think Shakespeare had it right. Which is why, as much as I admire the aggrieved in a very high-profile case right now, I wonder why she didn’t just let a thieving dog lie. As long as the sad sack doesn’t hire a reservationist, how much damage could he do? Ridicule would have shriveled his nutsack even tighter than the threat of a lawsuit anyway. Isn’t “my way” the goal of any true creative person in any field?

Contrast this tempest in a hot dog bun with the email I just got from a friend who schlepped out to Middle Earth to my consort’s surprise party and, even on the ticket-attracting fly, took my advice to check out North Market in Columbus, where she had blowaway Vietnamese. Now the sandwich she loved there has morphed onto her menu down in Mayberry, Pa., as “Berkshire pork chop Vietnamese hoagie-style,” with the marinated slab served whole on grilled bread “schmeared” with hoisin mayo and topped with a salad of pickled carrot and daikon and much more. To rephrase the cliche about teaching: Those who can, create; those who can’t, steal. And smart eaters can always tell the difference.

As I said early on, the poor sap should have dreamed no small dreams and thrown some really crappy pasta into the pathetic scam. He could have both stolen and sold out, then called the whole thing Ed Lobster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

File this under Stake Through the Heart of Irony: Did Paul Prudhomme really cook gumbo at a Mardi Gras theme party at the White House, home of the disengaged scumbag who sat by and let America’s most magical city drown? I hope he at least pissed in it. The Chimp is so shameless about exploiting his fuckups that pet goat will probably be on the menu this 9/11.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m starting to think foie gras is the missing white woman of food: Nothing distracts so many allegedly serious journalists more reliably. Any news, good or bad, is news when it comes to an expensive and esoteric ingredient consumed infrequently by the most minuscule portion of the world’s population. Of course hysteria was bound to break out all over when a study of unknown underwriting appeared linking consumption of fatty livers by geese themselves to all manner of health boogeymen. And somehow yet another huge eat-it-and-die E. coli outbreak in ground beef was barely covered. If only someone would find foie gras in Darth Cheney’s office. . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The obituary for advertising in old media may be premature. Look at how those dollars paid off for Holy Foods, with a front-page story on a phenomenon that was already noted more than five years ago. So why is it so hard to sell out space on section fronts? Dining was actually reduced to running a house ad in once-sacred real estate. Which reminded me of nothing so much as a hooker having to pay herself for a hand job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe it’s because the population has thinned out for the summer, but the eavesdropping has been particularly pleasurable lately. I heard a guy at Balducci’s asking for “bread with no lactose” (and the clerk actually trying to help). A couple of heavyset West Indian women were striding through the Greenmarket on 97th railing: “No grapes? No bananas? What kind of market is this?” A friend was in Fairway when she overheard: “Fuck you!” “No, fuck you.” “No, no one would fuck you.” But my favorite was the garrulous young gay guy at the next table at Spice who informed his lunch date, “I’m just looking for someone who will worship me.” Somehow I suspect he would have more luck at Balducci’s than Fairway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A tour guide’s memoir my consort brought me back from Italy a couple of years ago, “Too Much Tuscan Sun,” is proving to be a real hoot, particularly the chapter about the awful Americans who arrived toting “a credit card company’s travel magazine” and insisted on following what the printed word dictated rather than listening to the local they were paying. I got some of the same sense from scanning the bizarrely inflated coverage this year of a certain event out in a town named for Scooter and Judy’s coded tree. Who all got a ticket to eat? Why are we reading the phrase “Sundance of food” over and over about an event where the main attractions are the same old same olds you’d see down at Barnes & Noble when the new book comes out? I hate to point out the obvious, but one is about indies and the other about corporate clout. Schlep to Colorado to watch a Mesa Grill dish demonstrated? I’d rather eat Communion hosts at Otto. But I give major points to the magazine for luring all these unpaid flacks west. Even I’m talking about an event that is to “sex lies and videotape” as “Top Chef” is to “The Five Obstructions.” I would just like to think that if the Daily News can afford to send a reporter to a three-day infomercial it should be able to bring back that fourth page of funnies if not the real restaurant review. And yes, I know, all I need is a Gold Card and a dream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big mistake going to see “Knocked Up” the same night Panchito’s id treated a serious trend story like a Jell-O wrestling match. I will never be able to skim him again without thinking of the cretinous roommates frenetically miming oral sex. At least the arrested development onscreen was intentional. This was as unseemly as a wine writer bragging about gettin’ wasted, man. With no director to say: Grow up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t want to dwell on guys and their piggy obsessions, but I do have to wonder what the good doctor with the cigar would say about the Bruni-worshipping blogger who typed “strawberries marinated in pork.” Someone needs his salad tossed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other WTF was the obit of 12th Street’s Ken Lay. I know I babble about this constantly, but I have to recall my mom very calmly responding to my grade-school hypothetical about acquiring fame by killing someone; she just said, “No, that would be infamy.” Now I want to warn: Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be Peter Kumps. Some crook who nearly destroyed the foundation will still get a memorial nearly as long as the visionary who founded it and built it up. The sausage-making machinery in that shiny new building must be really something. If it weren’t for the lapses, there would be no judgment at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My consort always says you could set the nuclear clock by my remorse, and never is that more true than when it comes to Estonia. I took Bob’s self-effacing friends at their word when they said there was nothing to do or see there and so will go to my urn wishing we had allotted more time to explore. Maybe then I would not have needed the WSJ to explain why the baby nation had no cuisine. Our friendly interpreters had said it was because rationing and food shortages had made it impossible to develop characteristic dishes, but buried in an excellent piece on Baltic herring as the newly designated patriotic fish was the real reason: Official Moscow did everything it could to exterminate any local recipes as nationalist. Maybe if more Americans knew that, we would not be so passive about a Chimp who has declared himself king. First they came for the french fries. . . . It’s a slippery slope to felafel and other noncorporate foods of which Washington night not approve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In an ideal world, Philadelphia’s cloutiest restaurateur would be shoving a PETA picket sign up Paula Greed’s ample ass. He’s caving to foie gras protesters when she’s raking in the bucks promoting industrial pork? What’s wrong with that picture? Supersizing ducks as if they were humans driving through McDonald’s might seem cruel if not unnatural. But abusing pigs (and the environment) to produce cheap food is downright evil. The only mystery in this sellout world is why no one has thought of getting celebrity endorsements for literal shit. I can think of at least half a dozen greedheads who would line up to promote it with the right slogan: Merde — it’s what was for dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine how much horror could have been averted if voters had understood the candidate they most wanted to have a beer with would be too hungover to function after just a couple of German O’Doul’ses. Thank allah they kept him out of the communion wine at the Vatican or even the Albanians would have been embarrassed. If nothing else, this dry drunk reign has made it too clear that a crucial part of presidenting is imbibing. Forget the debates. Next election let’s have wine tastings and watch who spits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess the NYT can blame the big move to the Taj Sulzberger for any glitches for the foreseeable future. Certainly disorientation has to be to blame for the phrase “chicken tortillas” making it into print. What in the hell are those? And would sandwiches be “chicken breads?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talk about damning with faint praise. On some forum I saw a reader raving that Barbara Kingsolver’s calculated take on “Coming Home to Eat” is “almost as good as ‘Under the Tuscan Sun.’’’ Could have been worse — she could have said “The Bridges of Madison County.’’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was sorrier than most to read of the demise of Kurowycky’s, which for several years was my special source for ham for our New Year’s open house. Sentimental as I felt, though, I still wondered at the official explanation. People are clearly not eating less cured meat these days, for starters — charcuterie/salumi is so hot you can make news out of Iowa or Seattle just by producing it. Pork in all forms is huge as well, as is the artisanal touch with any food. And so I wonder if what really did the place in had something to do with the raw ingredient. I gave up on ordering locally after my very first taste of ham from Heritage Foods USA. Once you’ve had nonindustrial meat, you’ll never go back; the most brilliant processing cannot compensate for pork raised wrong. Maybe the family should now take their show on the road — a Kurowycky-cured ham made from Red Wattle pork would be a taste to behold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the whole 20 months I was in PT, I constantly thought restaurants could learn a lot from my center — all the therapists and their assistants were watching everything, not just their own patients; there was no “that’s not my table” attitude, and I honestly never felt neglected (although rehabilitated clearly turned out to be another issue). Now that I have spent a night in a NYC emergency room, my new theory is that trauma managers could learn from brunch triage. In my short and misguided stint in a restaurant kitchen, I was trained to think, to check the lineup of incoming orders and expedite — if a loner ordered scrambled eggs after two four-tops requested omelets, it made sense to knock out his food first and turn that table. Not at St. Vincent’s. The guy who broke his ankle boozing and brawling got the orthopedist first even though that involved noisily evicting his girlfriend with the cellphone camera, making the plaster for his cast, unspooling miles of gauze, putting him under and then resetting the bone for all to see. Me? I got my fracture strapped into a shoulder immobilizer and was sent on my way with a Rush Rx. I could have been out four or five hours earlier if only someone had thought like a cook and made mine over easy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just back from one last expedition to Middle Earth, I have a slightly better understanding of why people are not storming Washington as the carnage-for-nothing continues. There are Eastons out there to lull them into thinking shopping is the right thing to do when their selected leaders have only fear to sell. Our friends in Estonia call malls “the new cathedrals,” and this one in Columbus was certainly a temple, not a toy store. My consort and I did our part to sacrifice, buying a paring knife at Sur La Table and a couple of bottles of more-expensive-than-Gotham wine at the requisite Trader Joe’s. And then we got in the car and helped the war effort by burning through $3.39-a-gallon gas all weekend. Bob unpatriotically invested in a Honda, though, and I half-regret that we had only a little over half a tank to give for Darth Cheney.

 

 

 

 

 

I also learned TSA stupidity is contagious when I stopped for a glass of wine to kill time before the flight home. The airport bartender, the one who knew Stella Artois was “from Europe” but not which country, was carding every single person who sat down, and all of us were clearly older than he was, and he was at least twice the drinking age. Of all the things we have lost in this country thanks to the Chimp in Chief, common sense is the most infuriating. But I guess I should just be glad I got to keep my shoes on.

 

 

 

 

 

Rigsby’s Kitchen in Columbus was not as enchanting the second time around, but it was our fault for not braving the Bluefish that had just opened down the street, or Rossi’s, the bar the baker at Eleni-Christina’s recommended. And we were certainly not going to try Betty’s, which both the baker and a photographer shooting him for a brochure warned us off (in unison, and loudly, “No, you don’t want to go there”). We didn’t hear in time from our chef friend that the Vietnamese “hoagie” at North Market was world class, either. Rigsby’s wasn’t bad; it just seemed a little tired on a slow Friday. And it was still far better than anyone poking around on mouthfulsfood would be led to expect. When I looked in to see what commenters were saying about Columbus, there was a lot of yuk-yuking about Wendy’s from people who had not even been there, just were certain it was a culinary wasteland. It all reminded me of that old saying about keeping quiet and appearing stupid, rather than posting and removing all doubt.

 

 

 

 

 

Misguided marketing: IFC, where I stopped in to see the wondrous “Boss of It All,” is offering David Lynch iced coffee. Ground for “Eraserhead”?

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone in a tizzy over the garbage if not poison China is shipping us should pay the WSJournal to read what American farmers are feeding their animals now that ethanol producers are pushing up the price of corn (which was bad enough). The descriptions were straight out of “Darwin’s Nightmare” — I kinda doubt cattle were ever meant to eat Tater Tots and ramen noodle scraps. To quote just one graf, “Besides trail mix, pigs and cattle are downing cookies, licorice, cheese curls, candy bars, french fries, frosted wheat cereal and peanut butter cups.” We know what that stuff does to the human body, and it can’t be any more beneficial consumed secondhand, one step up the food chain. Then again, the creepy trend might yield the ultimate American dream foods: bacon flavored with chocolate, and burgers with the fries built in.

 

 

 

 

 

Mediabistro has always struck me as the cyber-successor to the Learning Annex, with dubious experts duping desperate amateurs. But maybe it does teach useful skills, judging by the announcement of one seminar I spotted: “It seems like everyone wants to be a food writer, so how can a journalist gain an edge? Until you can walk into a restaurant and get a free meal, there are plenty of ways to build a portfolio of published food-related items.” This is making it? Free meals? Then again, I fully anticipate a burst of publicity for a certain Upper West Side restaurant in the weeks ahead — the flack is offering dinners at the allegedly professional price.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, a glimmer of success in Iraq. The president is so fat the Mayo Clinic has just taken him in for treatment. Obese politicians in a country with hungry children — they’re becoming just like us. Even so, I don’t think they will ever be overrun with commentators and writers of letters to the editor who are convinced that $28 a week would be plenty for food if the poor would just yank up their bootstraps and suffer harder. One hard-heart in the LATimes actually said they should be making their own tortillas. But Harley Karnes was the worst offender, braying on WCBS Radio about growin’ up poor in a holler and eatin’ mighty fine because his momma didn’t need no stinkin’ food stamps; she made magic with lard and cornmeal. Having grown up in similar straits, I somehow suspect his sainted mother could do that because she did not work outside the shack. Cheap food that’s good for you eats up the biggest luxury: time.

 

 

 

 

 

What is it with Southern cooks and Northern publishers? Not only are bookstores overstocked with Paula Deen titles, but now I see her sons and her brother have cookbooks out, too. Seriously, someone thought “Uncle Bubba” needed to share ridiculous recipes and bogus folksiness with the world. The last time a population explosion on paper was this out of control was after Paul Prudhomme burst onto the national scene and every sibling in the litter tried to cash in. But at least the Prudhommes brought something relatively real to the table, back in those halcyon days before a TV show became the only passport to cookbookland. Here’s what you get with Bubba: a headnote saying “beef Burgundy” was “served by his wife at a romantic dinner” and a list of ingredients that includes canned mushroom soup and Lipton’s onion soup mix. Trees were sacrificed for this horse shit? The Food Network should be shut down as a threat to the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

The Chimp Wannabe seems to be borrowing a page out of the Clinton playbook. According to the gossipy profile in New York magazine, his tiara-loving, dog-dissecting third wife absolutely forced him to eat at Le Cirque, night after night of food so rich he had to puke it up. Apparently his defense will be, “I didn’t digest.”

 

 

 

 

 

And this nutcase who already makes GoFuckYourself look charming will need a defense, now that so many politicians lately are doing the try-to-live-on-food-stamps-for-a-week stunt to bring attention to the shamefully low allotment for the poor in the land of the $12 latte. What the government gives a single person to live on for seven days is exactly $1 less than the scrambled eggs with caviar at Le Cirque, although with that $29 appetizer you do get your Yankees ring kissed. I hope anyone who cannot see through Mr. 9/11 does not mind one day hearing Judi regally announce: “Let them eat ($60) steak.”

 

 

 

 

 

Along with all its other virtues, menupages can really teach the benefits of paying attention in English class. Trying to find someplace that serves escargots for an out-of-towner the other night, I came across this comment on Cafe d’Alsace: “My wife and my dinner bordered on inedible.” And he blames the restaurant?

 

 

 

 

 

The $25 & Under on a venerable eating establishment down the street from me came up at a dinner party the other night, and of course I had to recount a battle in one of the more entertaining turf wars from my days as Deputy Dawg, when a winsome young reporter proposed a Temptation on the same thing and the guy then on the gyro beat went ballistic. To her wondering eyes it was a great discovery. To him it was a “lame-ass taco truck.”

 

 

 

 

 

Bees could be vanishing because we just don’t deserve them. I had an encounter with a flack the other day who told me the local products in a shop included things from “honey farms.” I’ll bet she thinks fish grow on trees, too.

 

 

 

 

 

Treat cookbooks as so much style fodder and what do you get? A reference to a record store that left the city three years ago. Failure must be the new success. Not to mention that ears should have been burning on 43d Street the other Monday while a seminar on “authentic Italian” was going on at the FCI. A couple of rather damning stories were told, but luckily most everyone there was old enough to have heard worse. . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My other exposure to what constitutes authentic Italian came at a lunch at the UN put on with mega-euros from Torino and Piemonte. I have a ridiculously soft spot for the city and the region, having come home from my second trip there outfitted with local screws after 16 days of four-star medical treatment, but more than sentimentality is talking here. Five courses were almost French in their intricacy, yet I was primarily impressed by the traditional stuff, the asparagus on a pool of fonduta and the agnolotti del plin, the quintessential local stuffed pasta. What made the lunch seem most like a trip out of New York despite the East River view, though, was the precision service coupled with the chefs’ modesty. Twelve “stelle” had been brought in to cook, but when the editor next to me asked which was responsible for which dish, the one who had the done the talking before every course simply said, “We’re a team.” How perfectly un-American. Freckles would be flying here.

 

 

 

 

 

If you think the suppuration in the Justice Department is bad, wait till you hear what has been happening in the kitchen on Pennsylvania Avenue. U.S. News & World Report says the purge extended to the chef, who was canned not because his food did not meet the exalted standards of the Texas elite but simply because he was a Hillary holdover. As evidence, the magazine says the menu fit for a queen looked to be a Scheib carbon copy. Imagine having to take a loyalty oath to cook. And will there one day be a Pat Robertson Culinary Institute?

 

 

 

 

 

With the town in a tizzy over the Page 6/Nello payoff scandale, a little item in the competition jumped out. Some Village restaurateur wanted to boast that a customer had comped Mrs. Chimp and her protectors, which sounded like a bullshit story even before you noticed he didn’t name the scene of the crime. And of course he couldn’t. No sane New Yorker would patronize the place ever again. Kobe Club has to be regretting ever letting anyone know Rush Limbaugh had been in the joint. Forks and glasses that touched his lips will certainly never touch mine.

 

 

 

 

 

I have to be more discriminating in my wanderings through food blogs. I went to one that led me to Panchito’s unmoored rambling on photography in restaurants, the one that wound up insisting images misrepresent reality, right down to the color of the walls. My first thought was that old punch line, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” And then one of my favorite Tom Waits songs came to mind. Paraphrasing the last line to fit, it would be “the camera has been drinking, not me. . . .”

 

 

 

 

 

The cluelessness of the Chimp’s courtiers is not limited to the Middle East. A Brit comes to dinner in a superior food country and what do they serve? Dover sole. Now there’s something she could not get at home.

 

 

 

The latest candidate for most peculiar name for a food establishment: Chicken Cabaret, on 34th Street. Do they sing for your supper?

 

 

 

Poor Michael McLaughlin. Even in death he can’t get his due. All the coverage of “The Silver Anniversary Cookbook” makes it seem as if all that brilliance was due to only the famous faces on the back cover. His name is never mentioned. At least he can eternally rest easy knowing that writing recipes well was the best revenge.

 

 

 

Despite having seen how the sausage is made, I’m still mystified as to why a newspaper that blithely recommends $94-a-pound chocolates would advise scrimping on kitchenware. My hand hurt looking at it. The last place to pinch pennies is on a knife, if only because it forces you to invest in crap you really don’t need, like a food processor and a mandoline. And if you have to replace that cheap and cheesy tool every year or so, you’d be better off taking out a loan and amortizing. The Wustof I bought in 1983 (on credit) averages out to have cost me $3 a year, while the pricey little parer that broke at its age of 22 or so was replaced for free by the manufacturer. Maybe “most of the cooks” in restaurant kitchens work with that shitty shiv, but then maybe those are the ones who squandered their loans on rip-off cooking schools and can’t complain about having to hammer nails with a high-heeled shoe.

 

 

 

Now the tainted Chinese gluten is in the feed for farmed fish. Which makes you wonder how smart it was to start taming the wild food supply. A lyrical writer in Harper’s a few years ago may actually have put his finger on the problem: Agriculture is the root of all evil. It could not be greed, could it?

 

 

 

Food writers who passed up Zarela’s invitation missed out on a lesson on Mexican corn that was as seriously entertaining as it was wildly illuminating. She has been telling me for years that the world has gone to hell in a metate now that true masa is so hard to find, but tasting the real kernels soaked, whole, ground and in a baker’s dozen other forms made her case beyond persuasively. And she is one smart pimpo: As we watched her grind corn and mix masa with plantains and griddle-bake just-shaped tortillas, we were sitting down gorging on little picadas with avocado salsa verde and tamales with mole (plus margaritas). Two things she served were particularly transporting, the esquites, corn kernels with mayonnaise and chile powder, and the enchilada de chorro, which was the closest thing to Arizona I’ve tasted in eons. Unfortunately, the whole intellectually sensual experience only made me think how narrow Mexican has become in Manhattan — we’ve gone from abysmal Tex-Mex to mostly pedestrian Puebla-esque menus, and there is so much more to the cuisine.

The real deal could have no better ambassador: She had us sniffing epazote and tasting fresh lard and struggling to keep up with all the historical and sociological nuggets she tossed off (who knew the Lebanese had influenced Mexican cooking?) Contrast that with the countless “seminars” that turn out to be nothing but shilling, with the “experts” only reciting from a poorly memorized script (can you say ron?) Zarela has the cojones to always charge a pittance, but given that so much of the media still can’t tell huitlacoche from chipotle (and will not learn that tamal does not take an E), the Mexican government should set up a neediest cases fund.

 

 

 

News that Whole Foods is opening a couple of blocks from me has the neighborhood in a tizzy, and not just because some think it should be a Trader Joe’s instead. We have one of the best Greenmarkets in town, and easily one of the cheapest “supermarkets,” plus a couple of good places for produce and bread, incomparable Oppenheimer’s for meat and even a Gourmet Garage for when we can’t run down to Fairway and Zabar’s and get better for cheaper. Do we need this behemoth abutting the projects when we can’t even buy a magazine now that all the newsstands have been forced out?

What makes me even more disgruntled (yes, it’s possible) is knowing that the opening will bring out the rube in New Yorkers yet again. Judging by the photos of throngs outside the new gelateria from Torino that I never heard of on two perambulatory trips there, Krispy Kreme has destroyed sophisticated brain cells. If it’s branded, Manhattanites will queue up. Then again, the fact that the samples are free has to count for a scary lot. In the midst of a building boom when housing costs are crippling, these are the new bread lines.

 

 

 

I’ve now been informed Tran Phat is a real guy. Which will teach me to spoof on anyone’s name, having spent decades suffering for what was inflicted on me. And not just the bad rhymes with my surname. Imagine going through seventh grade with a geography teacher who calls on you Canadian style. For my recent insensitivity, I hope I can count punishment served: At recess, I had go by Vagina.

 

 

 

The Chimp seems to be packing on the LBs since Bill Yosses started baking for him. On a more sober character that would be called a beer gut, but maybe it won’t be so obvious under white tie, the latest Village People get-up. Given that Gofuckyourself runs the show, the accidental president reminds me of that hoary joke about the grandiose illiterate who wears a tux to his vasectomy because “if I’m gonna be impotent, I want to look impotent.” At least that mission is accomplished. Bring on the desserts for dummies.

 

 

 

I see first prize in the Daily News recipe contest was a night at the Beard awards. Obviously, second prize would include a ticket to the after-party.

 

 

 

Probably the most idiotic letter I have ever read in a newspaper came from the soft-headed woman whimpering about foie gras who said she would not want a feeding chute jammed down her throat, therefore ducks should be spared. By that logic, the fact that ducks would not want shoes rammed onto their webs means humans have to give up footwear. Aren’t there online forums where this kind of nincompoopery can go hide?

 

 

 

Pity the poor magazine trying to stage a food & wine festival in soulless Vegas without using the rival’s name. Sympathy only goes so far, though. “Culinary and Wine” would send my old English teachers whimpering into the fallout shelter. Shouldn’t it at least be the Culinary and Viticultural Focus? Or maybe Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off?

 

 

 

I’m starting to think the NYC Health Department should be taking over the Iraq war. Since the rats ran wild and closings accelerated, at least one restaurant has done a preemptive shutdown to clean up just in case the “vicious” inspectors come by. This is proof the mayor is not a real Republican — it shows government can do good. The surge is working. And the only victims of the fear-spreading are bacteria.

 

 

 

At least once a day a news item makes me think of that old saying, “Figures lie and liars figure.” The latest was the “study” correlating the incidence of obesity in different cities with the recipes run in local newspapers. I admit I have a dachshund in this fight, but really, can this actually be true at a time when everything you read says newspapers are going the way of the Walkman? Somehow I suspect fast junk, microwavable garbage and the obsolescence of walking have had more of an iPod impact than the most calorific concoction ever printed under my byline. Besides, everybody knows reading is good exercise. So, for that matter, is cooking.

 

 

 

Clear warning that you are pouring friends’ wine with too free a hand at a birthday party with a Judi Giuliani theme: You get an email from the cab home from one swearing her driver is named Tran Phat. Right. Noah Smokin must have been off duty.

 

 

 

Gordon Ramsay has done more to redeem his restaurant’s reputation by taking on Panchito without taking out an ad than he could have by giving a year’s worth of free meals to the 800-Pound Gorillas. Every time he trash-talks he gains a reservation, from all I’m hearing. And of course that increasingly makes P. the Fredo Gonzales of reviewers: How long can he hang on, rubbing his bosses’ noses in bad chocolate and worse judgment? Already it looks as if the Phat Phuck is angling to be his replacement, judging by all the NYT ass-bussin’ going on lately. Eventually a bad thing has to come to an end, and we can only hope the screeners read Joe Morgenstern’s review of “Waitress” to get a sense of what a critic should be. Rather than sticking two thumbs up his ass, he gives you all you need to appreciate quality. Not the emotional what. The technical why.

 

 

 

When I left the NYT the first time, in 1983 to go to restaurant school, my partners in misery presented me with Martha Stewart’s “Entertaining” (at a party on the desk where I refused to eat the Brie because it was too funky-tasting — talk about “’twas in another lifetime”). Maybe that’s why I have a somewhat soft spot for one of the toughest broads in any business, even though I once turned down an assignment because her writer’s contract was so greedy. It really does mystify me why she is the Hillary Clinton of food. People just go batshit insane over her while Turd Blossom walks free. She gets a deal with Costco to produce prepared food, and the flaying begins, despite the fact that she has a golden track record with Kmart. Molto, by contrast, signs on to sell processed Progresso through Costco and Sam’s Club, and not a discouraging peep is heard. I don’t want to make the obvious comparison and say he’s the Laura Bush of food. But really, is it just that redheads have more immunity? Or was “Metropolis” too prescient?

 

 

 

Bill Maher has an entertaining new rule that food personalities on the teevee must stop making orgasmic faces whenever they taste something. But he doesn’t see the half of it. Flit around the internets among the food sites dipping pinkies into video and you will notice something much more disturbing. Too many of those frozen screens evoke Elvis on the throne. Personally, I prefer Giada’s moaning to some unknown’s straining at stool.

 

 

 

The heckuva-job loyal Bushie paid to promote abstinence has famously said calling in a hooker was like ordering pizza (“one large Central American, please”). It almost makes you long for the good old days of efficient government, when a single intern could do the “massage therapy” and dial Domino’s, too.

 

 

 

Normally a $1,400 Mai Tai would not be worth wasting key strokes on, but sometimes the where matters more than the what in a story. Belfast was one of the saddest cities I have ever slept in, and now it has a hotel that can charge Halliburton prices for a drink. Maybe there’s something to that old idea of prosperity through peace. Even I would welcome a press release touting a $5,000 felafel one day.

 

 

 

Workman parties always turn the food coven cheery, which must be why an editor who is no admirer of mine walked past and smiled so broadly I took a step back, then she caught herself and said: “I can’t talk to you because I was misquoted last time.” Talk about the last refuge of the indiscreet. Another editor, a couple of glasses later, wondered: “How did she know it was her?” A good question, given that the first acquaintance I ran into had asked, “Is the Phat Phuck Bruni?” Still, I did feel half a pang for causing any knickers to knot. I realize, even if the aggrieved didn’t, that a certain skin is stretched very thin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone must be putting whatever drugs Mrs. Chimp takes into the New York water supply, though. The night before the Silver soiree, I was lucky enough to be at Hurapan Kitchen in the West Village when the only guest older than I am might have been the birthday boy’s family, and no one seemed to notice. I never made it more than six steps past the entrance and through one pass at the excellent buffet but was caught up in superb conversations, including on suburban sex (absence of discussion of, that is) and the insanity of cooking naked, online or off. Not for the first time, I wished I could match Dawn Powell’s output and not just her capacity. Nrnfoodwriter’s set would be at home in the diaries.

 

 

But enough about conviviality. My third big outing was a lavish lunch where two people I talked with went bonkers on the Evil Monkey. I don’t want to be accused of misquoting after five different wines, but one said she could drag a mood down 15 levels. The other I do remember said he once shared a cab uptown with “What A Sourpuss!” and was made miserable, to the point where he wanted to say get out and walk if you’re so important. It was the kind of carping you hear about women food writers by women food writers. But this was carpers who could not be accused of mere envy. Funny, since another friend always used to say slyly, italicizing the V word, “She’s a very lucky woman.” What good is power if it doesn’t buy you love?

My consort recently sent me a link to a video he and his classmates had produced on the NPPA judging of the best of photojournalism, which gave me some perspective on how the winners of prizes given out at the lunch were chosen. If I heard right, 200 products were taste-evaluated in four hours to select six to gold-medal. That would be like doing the Fancy Food Show on crystal meth. After breakfasting at Applebee’s.

The honeybee plot continues to sicken. David Byrne, linked through the inestimable eatdrinkonewoman, has an interesting conspiracy theory up — GM producers are killing off promiscuous bees to protect their insidiously evil crops — but the awful truth is that even worse theories could be at work. If we were actual stewards of the planet, we would all be 86ed. Consider the greedism on display in the maple capital of Vermont. The NYT did yet another story on how warming weather is diminishing sap, but this one, in BizDay, wound up as an ode to the lucrative marvels of technology. Fifteen years ago my consort and I, working on our ill-fated harvest book, spent days in Mapleville waiting for sugaring to begin and developed a serious case of techo-willies. Seeing whole stands of trees strapped up to be sucked sapless was really disturbing; the farms looked like ICU units. No wonder the earth is, as Laurie David and Kurt Vonnegut said, developing chills and fever and trying to shake humans off. People who care about maple syrup will pay whatever they have to for the real deal. But in a world perfectly happy with Aunt Jemima, why rape Mother Nature?

Poor Jean-Jacques. If the health inspector had only held off another month, until after the once supreme Court ruled, he could have had the perfect defense for vermin in the kitchen: The mice were pregnant and the roaches were carrying eggs; he was only protecting the unborn.

One of the great things about the series of tubes is how it keeps a story pumping along. You skip a few pages of a newspaper to avoid the overkill on the local shooting story and you miss the public pillorying of Paula Deen, but the internets soon bring you up to speed. The only mystery for me is why she did her deal with the Smithfield devil rather than Land O’Lakes, which has bought so many smaller souls. Maybe even the super-creamy guys quailed at the sight of her guzzling their melted product as if it were Baileys. I mean, there’s pigging out and there’s pigging out.

A vendor on 23d Street had an interesting name on his aromatic cart: Nada Food. It could be a chain.

This was V for vindication week for me. For years I have been arguing with food writers who insist the Enron-on-12th-Street Popularity Contest is vital “because we have no other way to get recognition.” My answer was always: What about the Pulitzer Prize? Now I hope the laughing has finally stopped. Whatever you think about Jonathan Gold, he and his outlet showed serious chops by both entering and winning. Good on him for proving food does not have to be a ghetto; eating is the second most important thing in life, and nothing else touches on so many aspects of life. So what if the same bunch gave Maureen the Emasculator of Democrats the same award a few years ago. Their punishment will be having to read through the reams and reams of really deadly food prose that is headed their way next year . . . .

Judging by a lively conversation at a lavish press event (the crappier the product, the more resources thrown at it), the tipping point might have been finally reached for the Egotist. Now that he is on the teevee with all his anti-charisma on full display, the long knives are out. (Travel? Clueless. Recipes? Lame. Why so inescapable? Damn good question.) From there the bile flowed to the other B-boy, whose ascendancy puzzled my tablemates even more. I could only wonder why Esca was reviewed for a third time in a city with more than 15,000 restaurants, since I had been there with the last real critic when it first opened and have never understood its allure. But I guess I’m naive. Two blocks from HQ is location, location. And when you’re talking fish, you have all the silly, obvious metaphors in the sea. No wonder brunidigest has gone into hibernation. The parody is running on autopilot.

When I wrote about new jobs in food recently, I did not include media coach. Judging by said press event, the field is not just wide open but demand far outstrips supply. Here was a guy hired to educate a roomful of journalists and he repeatedly talked about “distilleration.” And “charerization.” “And Columbus brang.” (“Soders” for sodas I could forgive.) Worse, a great-sounding cocktail he demonstrated was described as “a good party-stopper” — which is just what every happy hostess wants. I did write about mixologists, and this guy was clearly a shaking wizard of the cocktail; his twists were smart and smooth. But to all those people who wrote me wondering how to acquire a brave new job in food, I can only advise: No matter how well you walk the walk, you had best learn to talk the talk.

The event was not a waste, though. The food was quite good (with the ingredient du jour showcased intelligently), and I certainly enjoyed hearing how a familiar freelance byline in the Newspaper of Integrity is a total pill on press trips. In saccharum, veritas.

Some other bilious thoughts: The best image I have heard in weeks is from the two political bloggers who described Go-Fuck-Yourself as traveling around the world like a turducken, in an AirStream trailer inside a cargo plane. Then, did the Chimp’s motorcade swing through a drive-through liquor store on his trip to Ohio? Why else would he be talking about “chicken-plucking factories”? Not to mention that the best Dinosaur-in-Denial moments happen anymore when NYT editors have to answer reader queries online. You don’t even need to have your speakers on to hear the teeth gritting. My favorite was the complaint about too much fat in recipes that was answered with “we just ran recipes for brownies and macaroni and cheese and meatballs” — you could almost anticipate the “you ignorant slut” that followed. Plus did someone say the Chinese poison in the pet food is also in the hog feed now? Grover Norquist may have succeeded in getting the federal government small enough to drown in a bathtub, but in helping to gut the FDA he has forgotten even the rich need their bacon. Finally, if you don’t already want to crawl into your own private bunker in despair, I just got a copy of a Wonder Bread cookbook. I would suspect it is a joke, but it includes balls — a formula for rolling the gummy gunk into them. Funny, I always thought a recipe was for something you would eat. And a cookbook involved food.

Just back from Middle Earth, I am feeling less depressed about the chaining of Manhattan. At least we don’t have an A&W. Yet. There was one at the Columbus airport, and I actually resorted to it after being almost hauled off to Guantanamo for trying to duck over to the Wolfgang Puck Express in another concourse, beyond “security.” And it sold cheese curds. Deep-fried cheese curds. To 500-pounders. Landing at JFK, I was half-happy to see what is going in at the Delta gates where only Starbucks was open on the outbound flight. You know it’s grim when Todd English looks good.

I’m also seeing Mother Waters in a different light. As much credit as she is due for changing the way America eats, there’s no denying a huge proportion of the improvement has been literally organic — even she would have been stymied if the counterculture had been wiped out in the food world as it effectively was everywhere else in this society. Poke around southeastern Ohio for just a couple of days and you’ll find no end of people who decided 30 to 40 years ago that they wanted to produce clean meat and pure cheese and pesticide-free vegetables and simply stuck with it, with no fantasies of fame or fortune. (There’s a concept: Iron Farmer.)

For starters, the Athens farmers’ market on a snowy Saturday morning had more variety than Union Square (ramps and garlic chives already), while the Mexican co-op Casa Nueva devoted one page of the long menu to a list of all its local purveyors of beef and mushrooms and herbs and produce. Even the Kroger had an aisle set aside for locally produced foods such as salsa and pasta. And the old rebels who crank it out walk the walk. One farmer my consort knows had just come back from the Middle East, where he goes every year with a Christian group that clings to the absurd idea that peace might be possible. This trip, he said, “Iraq was the worst we have ever seen it — Baghdad was too dangerous; we had to go to Kurdistan.” (My response: Tell that to John McCain.) Seeing how much good has been done off the radar, you start to wonder if honeybees would be threatened today if America had stayed on the greening track and not gone for the greed. But at least the fat cats can look forward to a last meal at a certain shrine in Berkeley.

Right before leaving town, I had coffee with a friend in from Houston who was still in shock after her dinner at Per Se. For three women, each of whom nursed one glass of wine for the whole nine courses, the bill was nearly $800. Unfortunately, I was not surprised by either that sad tale or her disappointment in the food itself. But I kept my mouth shut, because when she had told me the day before that she was headed to the dread TWC, I had not warned her off, only said mildly, “I’ll be curious to hear what you think.” Why ruin it for her when it was too late to bail?

The joke was on me exactly three nights later. My consort had made reservations at Purple Chopstix in Athens for dinner with his downstairs neighbor and his consort (the neighbor’s), mostly because it was about the last “high-end” place in town we had not tried. And there Bob’s bland red Thai curry was ladled over couscous while my slopped-out “veggie pesto pasta” had plenty of the first and last ingredients and precious little of the main; worse, it arrived with two slivers of parsley-dusted melon and three wedges of pita(?) flopped on the side. Soup and salad were included, and all I’ll say is that Bob’s neighbor described the former as “Appalachian tom yum.” I took no comfort in finding the bill for four was less than one bottle of wine at Per Se — it was all like hippie food for people who have never done drugs. No wonder everyone we met beforehand had asked us where we were eating and then gone either strangely quiet or wondered, “Have you tried Stephen’s?”

As we were trotting, late, into Purple Chopstix, I suddenly asked Bob: “What if it’s BYOB?” And of course the other couple was waiting with a bottle of red they had brought. Luckily, we’d noticed a liquor store across the street, so he went tearing off to save us. Much polite conversation elapsed before he ran back in, clutching a Rodney Strong merlot and laughing that it had taken so long because “the clerk didn’t hear me come in.” Of course not. It was a drive-through. No wonder every Ohio liquor store you walk into wears a sign warning that carrying a FIREARM around booze is a felony. If you can’t honk for service, you might be tempted to shoot.

The best chemperor-wears-no-clothes moment came late at night at Bob’s best friends’ house when he was trying to get me to shock them by telling how much that dinner at Per Se cost. I never even got to the amount. The wife absorbed just enough to yelp, “Per Se? That is the most pretentious name I have ever heard.”

Which made the NYT’s blithe skewering of a schoolkid who had never heard of Per Se seem all the crueler. But then that whole mess of a story on NYC’s culinary high school was marred by off-hand shittiness, the kind that can only be dispensed by someone with a nice salary, a 401K and a stock plan. I’m no bleeding heart, but I felt for the poor girl whose impoverishment had to be exposed to myriad readers, and in the lede and photo to boot. If the most significant facet of the school is indeed the income level of the students’ families, the point probably could have been made a tad more gracefully. Maybe I’m just sensitive because my father always insisted the difference between “poor” and “white trash” was soap and education. Given that he could barely provide for a family of nine, he would have been mortified to see any of his litter publicly shamed for choosing the latter. And if the snootiest restaurants are really so important, could the piece at least have mentioned where the graduates wind up? Maybe they’re at Zagat, where they only need to know from names and not from cooking.

Did anyone else find Deriding The City Of New Orleans’ choice of phrase while daintily “reviewing” the Egotist-on-Teevee a bit odd? It came awfully close to “choking the chicken.” But then when you start with circle-jerking with these guys, where does it stop?

My metropolitan chauvinism must have been getting out of control in Middle Earth because one happy inhabitant bluntly asked me what was so great about living in Manhattan. I was stopped cold, then started blathering about the gift of privacy and the gift of anonymity. What I really meant only came clear to me when I got back to terra infirma and read my Sunday papers. One party I had gone to in the week before was showcased for an appearance by a teevee star whose newest boyfriend looked like the Anna Nicole daddy, while another was significant enough to be documented by Bill Cunningham. What I remember from each is a sound bite. At the first, a designer paid by the promoters was doing a demo with an ingredient she pronounced “grand marnyer.” And at the second, the Apple-laptop deejay chose to play “Stuck in the Middle With You.” That was at the Four Seasons, where another party was starting to swing as the superb one I was leaving was winding down; on the way out, I passed Dominick Dunne and heard people referring to Kissinger coming in. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, indeed. This little island is the great equalizer, and you get your drinks for free.

On the news front, I don’t know what was creepier among recent WSJ stories, Molto Ego’s hiring on to sell frozen dinners or the fact that the FDA has been so gutted under the C student from Yale that contaminated pet food ingredients are now the least of our worries from China. And then there was the NSS (no shit, Sherlock) item in the NYPost, on Consumer Reports’ finding on which kitchen appliances are most likely to break down. Hmmmm. Would they be the most expensive, the most yuppified? Congratulations. You win a restored Fifties stove. Which at least will prevent you from nuking a Mario Batali Regional Recipe and wondering what kind of “rustic mouth feel” sausage with orecchiette can safely feed five for $10.99, celeb’s payoff included.

Publishers must be as gullible as Panchito himself if he has a contract to tell the world how he morphed from Bush-whacked groupie to not-waving-but-drowning restaurant reviewer. The title pretty much writes itself: “Triumph of the Witless.”

And of the many brilliant aspects of Bill Buford’s extraordinary take on Gordon Ramsay’s rough entry into what has become Hamburger Heaven, my favorite was his casual evisceration of the big paper’s little man at table. Manhattan has never seemed more like a backward colony than in this haunting piece, which gets right to the heart of a celebrity-addled culture. I only had Ramsay’s food at the opening party, so I can only suspect it could be all Buford describes. But I now wonder if everyone would be so enamored of Per Se if Keller cussed on the TV. Certainly the food served at a sit-down lunch during a Spanish wine event the other day was so restrained it would pass for unremarkable if you didn’t understand what went into it. But then a New York chef by way of California (and vice versa) can sing the theme song from “Freaks,” so he gets automatic beatification as one of us even though he may spend no more time here than the guy with the F image. I won’t soon forget the starry-eyed young writer at my table asking if the holy man would be coming out to greet us and being told very snootily by a waiter offering dueling waters: “No, he’s in Thailand.” London or Paris, of course, would cost him fucking stars.

 

 

Speaking of colorful speech, I was walking down Eighth Street and contemplating Pio Maya for lunch when a quarreling couple passed me with the man snarling: “What did you expect? It was a fucking Happy Meal!” Maybe she expected to be greeted with flowers?

Sugar does nothing for me, but the Saveur cover still looks particularly tantalizing this April. Right under the “savor a world of authentic cuisine” line, whipped cream is being piped from 12 to 2 on the clock of a coconut cream pie; the glimpse of the filling under all that white makes the photo. So it’s a bit of a letdown to turn to the recipe and see that the “cream” is actually made from a box of Dream Whip. I thought that stuff went the way of bluing. But then that’s what “honest American cooking” is in diners. That and “chicken base,” the essential ingredient in two other recipes. Both are sourced, which tells you even more about the disconnect between GE Profile editors and regular readers anymore. For the record, they also sell cream of mushroom soup at Gristede’s. And Taste of Home don’t need no stinking source box.

Reading the Metro story about rats and their pivotal place in the food chain the other morning, I hoped the Porcine Pantload was choking on his Frosted Rodent Flakes. More likely that scurrying legal mind was already spinning another op-ed out of the revelation of what furry vermin consider a good protein breakfast. To summarize: Rats eat big disgusting cockroaches. Ergo, rats are performing a public service. In closing, get the health inspectors off infested restaurants’ backs. Really, there’s a place in the Justice Department for this guy. Maybe under Turd Blossom.

Given that I was ready to move to Milan after my most recent foray, it says everything that it took a friend’s urging to get me to skim the Travel piece on eating there. Given that this epic was published in a weekly section, though, I mostly wondered why the food was so last autumn. Italians be seasonal, and summering Americans will be seriously disappointed if they clip and eat. I can’t forget my first eating expedition in hottest July a few years ago. Our friend Cristina, who is Milanese to the core, chose a garden restaurant for lunch one day and indulged us in the most obvious local specialties, risotto and vitello, but warned: “You will still be digesting at Christmastime.” I guess it’s easier when you’re plodding?

Do the French have a word for formidable? If so, it is the only adjective for Madame D’Artagnan as she learns the K Street shuffle and starts fighting back in Up Is Down/Black Is White style against the crazies trying to ban foie gras. Whatever you may think about the humanity of force-feeding birds that are genetically programmed to gorge, you have to question the sanity of declaring any food off-limits in the alleged land of the free. Ortolans by any name are different, considering extinction is forever. But are we really going to be the first Western country to legitimize a culinary Taliban? Didn’t some other Frenchie say he might not agree with what you eat, but he’d defend to the death your right to eat it?
The Duck Stops Here is very smart to move the debate away from the ingredient and toward the rights of the producers, the artisanal farmers who are so much more well-intentioned than the agribusinessmen lining up to rape the planet to cash in on the ethanol fad by overplanting corn (only obese America would think burning food for fuel is an ethical concept). But then with the Pucks (Wolfgang and Burger) snagging headlines on a kinder, gentler food supply, it’s looking as if this country will soon be treating hogs and hens a little too well, all lives considered. If the hyper-concerned citizens don’t want to eat an engorged liver, they can pass it by. But until scientists certify the dangers of second-hand bliss, maybe these food fascists should start picketing Walter Reed.

Now that the world knows the Chimp calls his own private attorney general Fredo, after the weakest link in the Corleone family, now might be a good time to remind everyone who gave Panchito his nickname. Even a friend of mine suddenly claims to be unaware of their BFF relationship back when a global menace was sold as an amiable cowpoke to a country that just wanted to have a beer with its president. The only encouraging thought is that Leni in a leopard print bathrobe will be too busy maxing out Pinch’s credit cards at the trough to hit the campaign trail next election; otherwise we’d be looking at a first lady in a tiara, and her husband in a dress. Fool us once. . . .

 

One of my favorite titles (and books) is “Cold Spaghetti at Midnight.” Maggie Waldron’s legacy is a supremely engaging and very useful guide to feel-better food, and if she were alive today I just wonder what she would have to say about hot sausages at daybreak. Someone’s size OOO black dress must be cutting off circulation to her empty cranium — this stuff makes Nigella Lawson look like Elizabeth David. Anything that takes a couple of hours to cook is not exactly convenience food on a very late night. And why does a deep freezer full of assorted sausages including bangers but no Italians sound like a bachelorette party gag?

The snow had not even all melted before I had already heard enough about the Shake Shack reopening to last me six lifetimes. I cannot believe I fled a tiny boring burg only to wind up in another where the circus comes to town and the rubes all wet their pants. Even in Clarkdale we didn’t get this worked up about the Dairy Queen every summer. Kroc help us all if an In-N-Out ever opens.

On the plus side of living in Manhattan, I had another experience at Fairway that could not have happened anywhere but here. That store really is like no other killing field, but for once the assault was not by the usual Mike Tyson-wannabe old lady/young mom/shrink co-dependent. I had simply reached up to grab some lemons off a stack about three feet taller than I am and found myself Velcroed to the display, with nubbly wool firmly attached to whatever had held the missing price sign in place. I love my new coat, and I was ready to freak before I realized I was not impaled on a nail. You can’t get that at peace-love-and-understanding Wegmans. The next Spiderman movie could be shot in that same aisle. Come to think of it, the “300” sequel, too.

Surreal evening of the year so far was at Craftsteak, at a strange event celebrating City Harvest’s 25th anniversary. I expected a crowd, but probably fewer than 25 people were clumped in small groups in a private room with three tables laid out with lavish pick food and with several waiters pouring wine and passing plates. For once I did not recognize a soul and sort of lurked near the eats until a guy wandered over to grab some coppa and I tried the old, “Is it just me or do you not know anyone here either?” Within two minutes his wife had materialized and we struck up a conversation that drew over a couple of other people, and I got a persuasive good-we’re-doing rap. I forgot to pick up the press packet when I left shortly afterward, but I did hear that what looked to be three tables’ worth of serious leftovers would not be donated to City Harvest, including foie gras, that amazing coppa, other cured meats, roasted vegetables and more. Only what had not been set out could be accepted. Unlike in India, beggars here can be choosers. While cats get poisoned by food you pay for.

Obsessionwithfood tipped me off to the SFChronicle’s stop-the-presses front-page discovery of restaurant bloggers, which did not exactly do much to advance the cause of old media’s dominance. It was just more proof that there are no new stories, only new reporters (and seriously uninspired photographers — was the best illustration really a woman sitting at a computer? Give that shooter a cellphone.) Plus it did not address what I find most fascinating, how flacks’ sneaky ways of catapulting the propaganda are not going to work for much longer. After seeing Central Kitchen in the Village photographed as if it were turning out seared tuna in a finished dining room, I happened to walk past and looked into a construction site. But at least this case of premature exultation was an equal-opportunity scam. Both the bloggers and the paper press got taken.

Look for Colors to start getting “reviewed” far and wide on the series of tubes, though. A flack is right now beating the blogs trying to drum up interest in a concept that was probably doomed from the git-go. New York may be, as my one wingnut friend insists, overpopulated with bleeding-heart liberal nitwits, but even we draw the line at eating solely for a cause. This place got more opening press than any 25 restaurants, and it is still struggling — clearly the 9/11 connection should have been the back story, not the raison d’eating. And aren’t “global eclectic” menus with staff to match a peso a dozen here? For once I hate to sound cynical, and I really do hope they can turn the soul train around before it goes over the cliff, but a mission statement makes a damn dry dinner.

I guess I should consider myself lucky: I eat a lot of mediocre food, but I don’t often face down anything truly miserable. The latest exception was at the newest fusiony Asian joint in our neighborhood. My spring-breaking consort in from Ohio tasted his stir-fried udon and said, “This makes the steam table in Athens look good.” My “tofu with double mushroom” arrived shortly afterward, and I knew without lifting my fork that the sauce was the same as his. As for “double mushroom,” it must have meant “from two cans.” Soup and salad were included in the specials, but I didn’t know they still made iceberg. Even at $5.95, slop is slop. The insult added to the injury was contemplating how much the owners had obviously invested in the look of the place, which is very sleek and stylish and almost downtown for Amsterdam in the 90s. It used to be that an ethnic joint would open up here in a low-rent dump and turn out great food, then renovate and expand as money flowed in. Now the trend seems to be throwing all the cash into the decor and forgetting why people with nice big kitchens go out for lunch. Cool light fixtures have no perceptible taste.

Something tells me you would not want to eat at the Porcine Pantload’s. Rat turds in the sticky buns clearly don’t worry his big inflated head. When it comes to reasoning, his bloviating made it pretty clear that as a lawyer he makes a lame food writer. But then what’s that old saying about a lawyer who retains himself having a fool for a client?

 

Bad enough that the Phat Phuck was allowed to defend his own kind in the vaunted pages of the NYTimes. But it was a tad too close for comfort to see the missus promoting Niman Ranch’s animal husbandry by essentially attacking the competition. I mean, there was no arguing with the integrity of her position — industrial pork is the real preventable horror in this country, not overfed ducks — but it would have been even more persuasive presented by someone with no need to disclose the conflict of marital interest. This was like Mrs. Chimp writing, “Es la verdad.” And spies have been outed for less.

Back to the rats du jour, I’m thinking the owner of the Coffee Shop could go to work for the Justice Department. Closed by the apparently invigorated health authorities, he offered a bizarre defense: The place has been always been a rule-breaker; inspectors have never cared. The feature reporting he had more than two dozen violations never mentioned what the tipping point is, which now makes me a little queasy about eating in my own neighborhood. After a woman behind me in the deli line at my favorite little market shrieked on spotting a coatless cockroach in the refrigerated display case, strutting over the fried fish fillets, I went online to see what the rating was. It never turned up, but the oddest pattern did: The “better” the restaurant around here, the closer to a shut-down rating. Could cheap joints really be cleaner, or just have less palm grease in their dispensers?

Anyone else find it ironic that the killer pet food turns out to be the very kinds vets have persuaded us are most healthful? And who knew pricey kitty pate was like peanut butter, with one producer capable of poisoning under many labels? Someone needs to come up with local food for felines. Organic ain’t gonna help.

Advertising works in mysterious ways. The same day Conde Nast took out a full-page ad on C7 congratulating Gourmet for winning Adweek awards for editor and design team of the year, a column on C11 showed its ad pages were down 18.2 percent from last year. As a reader, I consider that good news, though. It’s tedious having to rip out all the car and cruise ads to find the editorial anymore. I haven’t seen Jeffrey Steingarten in months because he is buried so deep in Vogue. But given that he is apparently swaddled in a bathrobe for his most recent stunt, I consider that good news. . . .

I was going to let Panchito’s latest shameless orgy of excess pass without comment, figuring it was just more evidence that the NYTimes wants to be the newspaper of, by and for the filthy rich. But the tale of the $800 meal in the hotel room New Yorkers would never rent happened to run the same day Mayor Bloomberg was quoted as saying the chasm between rich and poor in this country is neither politically viable nor morally right. And it was the same day I heard Martha Raddatz speak about how shameful it is both that Americans are being asked to sacrifice nothing for the Iraq war and that we are in no way prepared to care for hundreds of thousands of grievously wounded veterans. What made that even more surreal was that I was surrounded by the Times’ target audience at a breakfast at “21,” where the silver was gleaming and the flowers were lavish and my table mates were talking about dropping $42,000 on season tickets for four to some sport or other. (I can’t keep them straight.) At least consciousness was raised there — guests did ask what corporate America could do to help. But later, when I flipped through Dining, I really wondered how funny a National Guardsman on his fourth tour of duty would find the Chimp’s original enabler, mincing around in a leopard print robe. Next challenge: Can he eat at Atelier, Masa and Per Se and have the $1,000 pizza — all in one lunch hour?

John’s Pizza gets shut down by the Health Department just around the corner from the Ratso Bell and whose fault is it? “Sleazy fast food joints,” of course, forcing the city to force the old-time joint to seal the “Welcome, vermin” portals and cover the buffets in the garbage cans. The owners may want to get the government off their backs, but I have never felt safer eating a meal than I did at Pearl the day I spotted so many windows on Bleecker Street posted with officialese. Now can we send those same inspectors even I maligned down to Bill Yosses’ new kitchen? The rats in that establishment must be a huge problem if one has been dubbed Jabba the Veep.

My lunch at Pearl was almost literally a trip. Walking in on the latish side, I grab a stool at the counter between an older woman and a couple who are chatting away about New York restaurants, and of course I have to chime in when I realize the out-of-towners’ to-try list is surprisingly savvy. (Naturally, they didn’t compile it from the NYTimes but from Wine & Spirits, a magazine I clearly have to track down.) Turns out they have made their way to Cornelia Street after having been repulsed by surly treatment at Saravanaas, but the conversation is mostly about what a wondrous city they are in (I couldn’t disagree, only say it’s a far better place to live than to visit). And then suddenly a smiling, happy Mr. Billings is snarling, “George Bush is the shittiest president ever.” I almost have to abandon my perfect, perfect fried cod sandwich to get into this. More, please, sir. We go back and forth about Laura’s little accident and how 9/11 never had to happen and etc. He leaves making the peace sign and saying, “Make levees, not war,” and I go back to my still perfect sandwich without a word to the regular who has taken the stool to my left. And to enjoying what E.B. White called so beautifully New York’s queer prize: the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.

Now that Lonesome Dove has skedaddled back to Texas, antelope tail between its shaky legs, I hope the Fort Worth paper devotes the same amount of humongous space to the deluded chef’s packing up his tent as it did to spreading the news that he was going to make it here. It’s a story chefs never read before they hear wine-soaked applause and mistake Enron on 12th Street for a culinary Carnegie Hall. From there it’s an easy slide to thinking the flacks run the show and forgetting that “location, location, location” is the equivalent of “practice, practice, practice.” The poor guy would have been so much better off taking his kangaroo nachos west. From all I read, what sucks in Vegas stays in Vegas.

 

 

It was not the cocktails talking that made me warn a chef up from New Orleans that he would have a hard time finding better food in New York than what he had just cooked. This was at an event at the transporting Pegu Club (Hong Kong on Houston Street), where a contingent from Cafe Adelaide made getting on a plane to a wounded city sound like a duty to gout and country, and not just because wearing a faux feather boa would seem less ridiculous there. The marination of the guests started with a combination of rum, brandy and Champagne and ended three glasses later with a combination of Calvados and peach brandy (we bailed before dessert and the combination of moscato and cassis). Each glass was paired with a sit-down dish created by that chef, Danny Trace, starting with a plate of crab (cake, claws and lump) and ending with a plate of pig (tenderloin, boudin crepinette, hog’s head cheese) With crawfish, duck, honey, grits, tasso, andouille and chicory coffee thrown in, it was all an exceptional exploration of the Louisiana Terroir. And it made me think, first, how much that cornhole from GQ missed in New Orleans and, second, how much New York is missing with its bizarre obsession with burgers and steaks. Then again, if brilliance landed in the forest, could a guy who was photographed dressed for White Castle even hear it?

What do Ann Coulter and Mario Batali have in common, and I’m not talking gender? The same edamame-brain profiler, who has now taken on the local vs. organic debate, undoubtedly confusing a shrinking number of Americans (Time readers, that is). His piece whipsawed through the usual arguments, building his credibility throughout with loving allusions to such admirable food icons as Applebee’s, Froot Loops, margarine and of course the evilest empire, McDonald’s. Holy Foods? But of course. I have no idea what photos ran in the magazine, but I will be scratching my head until July wondering how an upstate New York CSA farm near the Vermont border would have the tomatoes, basil and two kinds of summer squash shown on the web in March. This story must have been in cold storage longer than those local apples he preferred.

In the highly unlikely event Bear Back Libby does not get his pardon, let’s hope he winds up in a jail where Halliburton has the contract for the food if not the soap. And come to think of it, that must be who catered the dinner Turd Blossom gave for his Chimp at which reporters waiting outside were treated to sausages and “quail wings.” Excuse me? There’s barely meat on those birds, let alone on their wings. At first I wondered if they might have been something left over from that other heckuva job by Halliburton, at Walter Reed (rat and roach legs). Then I checked the Google and saw quail wings are what hunters use to train their dogs. The only better snack for D.C. press who dutifully regurgitate whatever they’re told would be yellow cake.

The icky onanism of the latest installment of “Liberace Goes to Hooters” raises a couple of questions, and not just why he ever imagined he could outdo Eddie Murphy. First, why didn’t Rupert Murdoch think of showing tits and asses to pump up his web traffic? Oh. Right. And, given that nothing could be that embarrassing without someone pulling the strings, who is the Turd Blossom of Dining?

Once again, the real scandal was $25 and Under. A chef with a total of four stars from the NYTimes lowers his prices and gets blown off as cheap eats while the food fight with Chodorow escalates to skank level. Funny, I remember some alleged critic had this to say at Dona: “As satisfying as it can be, a strip steak seldom argues for much attention.” So enough already with beating the meat. Meanwhile, I’ll keep picking up the Murdoch rag to see what a grownup has to say about the restaurant capital of America. Who else lately would put these three names in one sentence: Kreuther, Nish and Humm? But I guess the Times thinks we only read newspapers for the butts and burgers.

WIN, revisited: The people who used to swear olive oil was a panacea are now distributing tiny buttons reading, “Just ask for whole grains.” As if anyone is actually going to wear something so profoundly ridiculous when he could be loading up on a “hybrid horrible” like a cheesecake/brownie/pie or bacon-cheeseburger pizza. What’s weirdest is that this “bold new program” requires consumers to do the hectoring. Shouldn’t the buttons be on the other side of the counter? Otherwise, button wearers are going to be harassed at the ice cream case. Too bad Gerald Ford is not around to help, because I suspect the whole silly effort has all the potential of whipping inflation into foam.

Having actually eaten at the filthiest Taco Bell, I should not have enjoyed the rats-gone-wild videos. But I know the awful truth is that “You Sexy Thing” could be playing at many more restaurants than you want to consider, especially any with a basement where rats can reproduce like franchisees. Given how little oversight appears to be applied to new construction in this town under Nanny Bloomberg, the sickening part is knowing the inspectors looked the other way. Maybe the trick would be to let rats smoke. They would be outa here faster than you can say trans fats.

Just when honey is ordained the new salt, the news sinks in that the bees are dying off. The NYTimes asked what is killing them, but the real question is what isn’t: stress, mites, long-haul trucking, the almond juggernaut, all work and no play? And it didn’t even mention genetic modification. This is the worst manipulation of nature since the foie gras burger — once corn syrup is considered bee food, you’re axing for trouble. And somehow I suspect importing immigrant bees from Australia to round out the worker force is not the answer but a whole new set of problems. Can you say kudzu? Where is Lou Dobbs when you need him?

Speaking of immunity from nature, I succumbed to an excellent lunch at the “21” Club where an interesting exchange ensued (and not one involving the email warning jeans and sneakers would not be allowed — travel writers need to be told? [Actually, yes.]) A professionally charming Italian representing the Villa San Michele’s cooking school in Florence stopped at our table and started to go on about how the hotel obsessed over local, seasonal food. Someone went off on an ode to Italian peaches, and someone else chimed in: “Our peaches are terrible. They’re hard, and they don’t taste like anything, and they all come from Chile.” Well, it is New York, and it was February. Think there’s a connection?

(Also, among the many nice touches at “21” for this gimp is that even the small toilet stalls have handicap bars. That reminded me of the tourist pamphlet I picked up in Venice that listed all the hotels there, some with a little red heart alongside the name. I thought it designated favorites until I saw the fine print: “defibrillator available.”)

One reason why universal health care might be, how you say, a good idea: A prep cook with Wolfgang Puck Catering was diagnosed with acute hepatitis A after working 13 events attended by more than 3,500 people. All it takes is one Typhoid Mary to make a human WMD. But at least this little story has an uplifting ending. Google the key words and all the news results show what you most need to know: Beyonce went to one of the parties and didn’t get sick. It’s morning in America.

Here’s evidence that the blog fad has peaked: Artisanal claims to have started one. Judging by the first two posts, the only difference between it and a press release is that you have to click through to see it. Which may be the best spam filter so far.

There’s something sad about a guy who really did revolutionize cheese in restaurants being reduced to a stunt like the world’s biggest fondue, even for a noble cause (although given the shelf life of melted Gruyere, I wonder how much actually went into poor stomachs). Is this really what a chef has to do to get attention anymore? I guess a ton of fondue has to be a lot cheaper than a full-page ad. And maybe Chodorow should grill the city’s biggest ass.

It says everything that an ad has generated more buzz than anything Dining has printed in years. But if the world’s most unlikely David had to take on the gray Goliath, he should have ripped a page out of the MoveOn playbook. I’ll bet thousands of readers would have kicked in on an ad for critic impeachment.

The real scandal was $25 and Under, which didn’t even pretend to be about that so-last-century price. Even if you ordered the two cheapest items touted, you would still need bread — and still not get your money’s worth. (I only went once, but it was a lame ripoff at lunch.) Worse, calling the joint the best option for Indian food uptown is a little like saying the airplane meal is your best bet at 30,000 feet. This may not be a restaurant wasteland up here, but it isn’t exactly Curry Hill.

And while I’m starting to feel like the boss in Dilbert whose underlings gave him a dead horse knowing he would kick it, I have to wonder what kind of newspaper would award a regular column to someone with the verbal skills of a Chimpanzee. “Bone pickers and leavers?” Isn’t that dangerously close to uniters and deciders?

Which two boy bloggers really should get a room? (I mean, it’s one thing to light your own farts. . . .) Which TV food fake literally demands what her brand marketing implies: “Eat me”? (No, the initials are not Rs.) And isn’t showing a certain bloated chef to lure suckers to a maga