gastropoda

A typically artful Ann Telnaes cartoon has a woman baking special gingerbread men and her daughter cheerily biting the head off a little Darth Cheney. Not sure even I could bring myself to do that, which makes me wonder about this trend toward passing out cookies with people’s photos imprinted on them. I didn’t even break the cellophane on the Martha Stewart with horns, but the Daniel at Versailles from the “Last Supper” party was harder to resist, despite the fact that the actual chef was surprisingly warm to me as I left. A cookie from Bouchon is a cookie from Bouchon, after all. So the thing sat on a kitchen counter for a couple of days, nibbled on by my consort and me until only a little tiny Frenchman on an ort remained. It was the longest-lasting cookie in our history. Maybe a Chimp face should be plastered on every Whopper bun. The obesity rate would drop overnight.

You know you’re getting ancient when hors d’oeuvres from Martha’s first books are passed and they don’t taste ridiculous. We were all wide-mouthed and innocent a quarter of a century ago, before the world was so awash in food information 24/7 that cartoon characters could be hired to throw ingredients around ridiculously on the teevee. Almost every other aspect of the quick roast at high heat, though, hit its mark, whether the Bitch wine poured beforehand or the explanation of why a fume blanc was served (Robert Mondavi coined the name — a spin on pouilly-fume — but was not so greedy as to try to trademark it). The Control Queen should only have been savvy enough to realize the best rule in pushover partying is very simple: First you marinate the neighbors.