gastropoda

You have to give the golden-arched evil empire props for balls. On the same day its honchos were denying any role in the ballooning of the human race, the chain was boasting that it had come up with its most caloric item ever. Which happens to be merely a mega-order of enough fries to feed a village, but I’m sure they’re counting on suckers not realizing the so-called meat is not what packs on the lbs. It’s the sides. And not just the liquid ones.

I was also fascinated by the huge fuss over KFC deliveries coming through the Gaza tunnels, which was a story that came out of nowhere and was suddenly everywhere, Somewhere a flack has to be cashing a mega-check. I first saw the “news” on a British site, with the photo attributed to an agency. Other outlets sent their own lensmen to get the pic, but in every one the logo was front and center and very clear. You’d think it was Coke in a Hollywood movie. Once upon a time you would say you couldn’t buy advertising like this. Now you can ask: Why would you? Journamalists will do it for free.

And I’m sure I’ve written many times about the spectacle a young mother made of herself 25 or so years ago at a nutrition conference where we reporters were informed that no scientific evidence proved sugar is a menace if consumed in moderation. The poor woman was in tears insisting it had to be evil. It had to be! And how far we’ve come. Now it’s the demon all fat was before only trans fats were. You can hire a writer to make any case in an age where everyone can choose his own facts. I’m just not sure how it helps to ban anything. I’ve written this many times, too, but one reason I can exercise uncharacteristic moderation with sweets is that my mom baked a cake or some other dessert every single day she was not in the nut hut when I was a kid– as I later learned in restaurant school, sweetness shuts off your appestat, makes you feel sated. Not for the first time, too, I’ll note that “look for the industry label” on any “nutrition” research would be a healthy first step. Pom. Wonderful.

The truthful column hed would be: “Reporter” we never wanted to hire recommends the best free shit that came in the mail. Also, too, better than cat linkbait: “I was a ghostwriter for your most bloviating columnist.”

On the positive side, I was glad to see Beyoncé was not driven out of inaugural DC on a tarred rail for her deal with the devil du jour. If it weren’t for busybodies with typists, I wouldn’t have even known she was shimmying for shit. Fud frauds who are happy to have minions write up recipes using asparagus in January should, as Jon Stewart put it, shut up and shut up.

I guess I have to weigh in on the hometown paper’s knockoff of the New Yorker’s food issue and note how amusing it was that the flack paid to promote it in the age of social media linkapalooza chose to highlight some of the lamest material. To me the best piece was, of course, the one on the politics of food, but it could been more explicit. As I learned 20 years ago as we were researching our ill-fated harvest book, money’s what buys you power in this country; even Vidalia onion farmers had to kick in like 5 cents a bushel to protect their AOC in DC. Until there’s an Occupy K Street, Big Food will rule. And it definitely will as long as any old bacon, even the industrial kind, will do in 50 recipes from a sermonizer.

And speaking of W(here)TF are the editors, I liked how the Egopedist got to lay on the faux love for farmers and then revel in the accolades for his enlightened thinking (AKA recycling of a million others’ thoughts). But I assume his praise was meant only for those not doing the devil’s work? You know, like running dairy farms?

Finally, I’m holding off on writing my ode to the wonders of PGH until I can’t sell it, so I’ll just knock off some asides here. My consort and I had to check out the Polish shop on the Strip, and I can say this because Mr. Third Generation sort of laughed: On the way out, I noticed potholders for sale that were both tiny and crocheted — as in full of holes. “How’d you burn your hand?” “Oh, I used a Polish potholder.” We also had one of those experiences where the server was just a little too frank about the lamest options on a menu, which made me think it would be a wise chef who wiretapped his tables just to hear what the traitors say. And, without a doubt, this is the dumbest overwritten euphemism for burgers ever: “Hand-crafted handfuls of beef.” Overall, though, this was one of the best domestic eating expeditions in donkey’s years. The only downside was that it started and ended with me strapped into a JetBlue seat watching the Egopedist  stretching out a pizza crust with a rolling pin and paving it with clods of cheese. File that under “how to fuck up everything.”

And the Egopedist is really getting nutrition-nutty, not to mention confusing himself with either that God the founder or at least a kitchen messiah. He’s not a doctor, but he’s playing one online, at least when he’s not calling the dead “pigs.” What’s amazing is that the outlet that created a monster used to have standards; now no one has a problem with him basically yelling milk in a confused theater. He really is the Paul Ryan of food. Meanwhile, back in the Sunday book review they’re getting all snarky on lose-weight-fast best-sellers. Fake physician, stop yourself.

And my supremely wise consort has long insisted any think tank given print time should be identified by its political bent: Left or KKKrazy. Never was that more needed than the day the Egopedist became the dummy for ventriloquists who hide their animal-rights activism behind the white coat covering 5 percent of their organization. I can’t remember who on Twitter added the perfect hed to the milk dis — “Got ghostwriter?” — but I was glad to see I was not alone in calling BullShit. This is where the editors who mistook a $500-a-week gig for a deal might want to face what a monster they’ve created. An audience of millions needs to be fed truth, not pop science. Especially when it’s being spoon-fed by an organization that cares nothing about health and the environment. Contrast the “milk’ll kill ya” with this sanity. As I have said many times, the first time I was assigned a piece to edit, I was warned: “He’s not a very sophisticated writer.” He was brought on when the 1/2/3 passed on the zombie Franey gig. One day the seersuckers will look back and realize they should have put Panchito on the nutrition-nuttiness beat. At least the word salad could have been doused in Ranch dressing . . .

I’ve been so distracted by the Twitter this has been languishing, but: My kingdom for a fly on the wall in Grand Forks on the a.m. the Most Important Paper in America weighed in on the silly successor to the Wasilla Hillbilly’s own private happy meal. Apparently it’s a joke for a small-town reviewer to evaluate a chain moving in. But it’s service journalism for a big-city editor to order up a taste-test of the latest in chain stunts. I could maybe see it before Taco Bell invaded the city all those years ago. These days it’s about as exotic as 7-Eleven. You would never read a feature on how plastic slipcovers feel on a couch, or how a Skinny Girl cocktail goes down, but for some reason fast food is always treated like something the sophisticated reader needs to have interpreted. Maybe that’s because those chains don’t advertise and there’s no fear of a JC Penney backlash? Whatever. This is what bacon sundaes distract from.

I see those left behind at the hometown paper are not happy about the consequences 30 years on of sitting by silently as the wingnuts came first for the air traffic controllers. Now they have a buried-the-lede video out trying to drum up sympathy that is totally undermined by two Travel developments. First the section ran a typically dazzling AA Gill feature on London that butted up against a typically dashed-off piece on where to eat in that singular city by the Egopedist. Who, as was famously described the first time I had to turn shit into Shinola, is “not a very sophisticated writer.” Hope the editors were provided bags to wear over their heads, but j’doubt it with all the $$$ going to the bought-off CEO. And then there was the cry for help that was a lede story on a luxury eatin’-and-drinkin’ vacation gone bad. Could there be clearer evidence of how “journalists” are disconnected from readers? Or more damning proof that the blind are leading the aspiring seers? I mean, I once led my consort and me to Northern Ireland after hearing only that it was home to a one-star Michelin. But the trip was worth it. And we made it before the Google. What kind of reporter heads off to drop mega-dollars without even interrogating Yelp? Oh. Right. One whose every review needs a correction. Even if she’d gone to the website, she would have gotten it wrong.

As for the lame pizza issue, my advice on the Twitter was pretty much “throw the damn thing away and take a class at Pizza a Casa.” An overextended poseur is not going to change your life with his food processor and his first-draft “prose.” The paper seems intent on creating link bait, though, so I’ll suggest the ultimate: “I was the Egopedist’s ghostwriter!”

I could swear I heard the top editor of the hometown paper give an interview saying journalism comes first there, but the very next day I went to a media event where the question of the day was: Which food section reads like Page 6? After two stints there, I really can’t imagine any other part of the fit-to-print paper running a piece with so many anonymous accusations, with none of the indicted given a chance to respond. Even worse, there was zero comment from the ghostwriter with one of the longest lists of cookbooks to her credit. You know, the one who might really have some stories to tell, or at least be able to offer a defense of the good clients. Guess peeing in your own pool is not advisable (don’t get me started on the public farter). Which is probably why there was no mention of the Egopedist, either, although average readers would be stunned to realize even Mr. Knows Everything doesn’t write all the words/develop all the recipes. Almost the worst part is that this all of this link baiting came off as a glass house situation — as someone on Twitter asked: “Do all New York food writers have chefs cater and provide spaces for their weddings?”

And if the Egopedist ever actually read Descartes — and not in the CliffsNotes — I will buy my first hat ever and eat the goddamn thing. Two sentences in and this old editor wondered: Who writes that stuff? Rousseau?

Finally, my compliments to the typist, but overindulgence in sugar, especially by the subsidized poors, is not “the biggest public health challenge facing the developed world.” That would be denial of climate change as the population keeps growing (and as the kkkrazies try to outlaw birth control). Crops all over the stressed world are being wiped out by drought and floods, hurricanes and tsunamis, freak ice storms and aberrant warm winters. I’ll even list nuclear meltdowns, because it’s 30-some years since the push-back against that energy source, and still we’re vulnerable. (I’ll throw in oil spills for the same reason.) You won’t hear it put this way, but we’re simply destroying our own habitat while refusing to acknowledge the planet will still be here, evolving with sugar cane, long after obese and diabetic humans have gone the way of pterodactyls. I’d also believe less in string-pullers if this screed hadn’t targeted the poorest people in this country. A cake a day was antidepressant for my destitute family; deprivation could equal cruelty if sugar got swept away along with HFCS. If you want to regulate the white stuff, please say you mean the little snots on Carnegie Hill will have no access to cupcakes at any price. Otherwise it’s clear sugar is not the only thing that can be spun.