gastropoda

Getting out of town was also useful for perspective on the $5.25 million Molto Ego Fail. As many of us women wondered, why was it such a tree-falling-in-the-forest decision? Are people afraid to snark it up? Does everyone think it’s just another business-as-usual nonstory? Or are reporters and editors so far removed from “American Way of Eating” Land that they don’t think to ask how common the issues involved here are? Judging by my Twitter DMs, it’s unlikely we’ll be reading an exposé soon on how epidemic the skimming is. But jeebus, have I heard tales.

Figures that it would be Molto Ego who would induce second thoughts on my crazy idea of posting daily. By Sunday I’m sure I’ll have a whole other negative reaction to the bankster brouhaha over his loose lips; right now I love the idea of those guys writing checks for credit default swaps their guts can’t cash. And in the meantime I’m focusing on the rather astonishingly lame coverage of the linkbait. At first I was impressed the formerly arboreal media even jumped on the story. But then I started to count bylines — four for Rupert’s crew, three for Pinch’s — and neither mega-team answered the obvious question: Can you get into the “boycotted” restaurants? Saturday at Del Posto, for the record, is as open as it always was to peons: 4:30 or 10:30. Babbo’s line is nonstop busy. But if you want to know what the commenters are texting, including on whose cash keeps the crudo afloat, just head on over to your hometown paper. For the insights, you know, you can’t get on your own.

A high point of the week, I must say, was talking with a chef and his wife from London who looked at me blankly when I mentioned Molto Ego. Neither of them had the faintest orange idea who he was. This was a gathering, of course, where a megastar from South America moved among us unmolested. But my faith in the globe was restored. Even though I had to agree with the woman who said that without the guy Americans might not today be buying guanciale instead of bacon for carbonara, made with eggs and not cream.

One of many things that amaze me about Al Gore’s invention is how huge it is and how niche it is at the same time. Fud people wanna talk fud, that’s it. Luckily, political types can eat and think at the same time, so you get great links that put fud frenzies into perspective. I have said before that I was paid to consider the cookbook from Molto Ego’s traveling companion in Spain, which could very well have skewed my judgment. But really, it is any more ridiculous that she’s on the cover of a magazine targeted at Middle America when you remember the King of Siam also got his “own” recipe collection in bookstores? And without even including her banhi mi and other Asian accents.

Out-of-towners are always the little kids at the emperor’s parade — we had dinner with a sublimely food-savvy friend in from Chicago the other night and he was ranting about how cheesy the Seconda Tenuta looks. Italians, this Italophile said, do design right. And the Batali-ized translation “looks like a Bennigan’s, where they just shoved in all this shit to try to make it feel authentic.” He was happy with the espresso he’d scored with his wife but horrified by the aesthetic disaster around him. Somehow, he didn’t sound mollified when I said he should, given all the raving about the emperor’s ermine, be happy he got in at all.

I don’t often delete my Tweets but had to last week after a chef called me out for unfairly mocking Molto in New York magazine’s excellent Thanksgiving feature. I fucked up. I felt even crasser after realizing no photos even exist of me and my mom alone together. And she was not as nice as his is. Obviously I’m determined to hit most of the points a certain spouse defines New York by: Guilt, greed, hysteria and hypocrisy.

I Tweeted a version of this but still think it’s worth repeating: A new cookbook from an old Appalachian restaurant includes a top 10 set of business rules, and one is one I hope the Seconda Tenuta guys do not read: “If you consistently have lines of people waiting to get in, your prices are too low.” Scammin’. You’re doing it wrong.

This is, as our friend Leslie Wong always said, a city where “the more people get fucked the more they like it” — the longest lines are always at the pizza shop with the crappiest slices. So when sensible friends reported they tried to go to the Seconda Venuta and were dissuaded by the queue halfway down the block, this old cynic only wondered if the “crowd control” might not really be a scam to pump up demand. People, after all, once swarmed to Mamma Leone’s.

Way more obsessive diners than I, people who have eaten more Italianesque in New York than Italian in Italy, can have the final say on whether Da Joe-Mario deserves four stars. I could only throw the paper down on reaching yet another “food that leads to gasps and laughs.” I’ve been eating a long damn time and am still unfamiliar with this weird phenomenon, Roget’s 876.8. And I have certainly never heard ha-ha-ha, crudo, let alone ho-ho-ho, spaghetti.

I know we’re not supposed to blame the Chimp for anything anymore in the United States of Amnesia, but I do want to note, one more time, that I was not the one who nicknamed Panchito Panchito. But if the diminution fits, why not run with it? I kinda like “Malto,” though. Misspell the second half as Eggo and you’d have a very Boehner-colored frozen waffle to accessorize the Crocs.

Apparently I was the only food writer/blogger in town not invited to any of the opening parties for the Seconda Venuta. Was it something I wrote?

Thank allah for “Iron Chef.” To put all the ridiculous disillusionment with the Big O in perspective, it was only a year ago that the White House was occupied by a useful idiot whose idea of a good meal was a pretzel and an O’Doul’s, with his wife nowhere near to catch him as he fell. Now half the political wisecrackers I follow are Tweeting on Mrs. O and her stronger-than-Alice crusade to get Americans to eat better. If the tradeoff is a little orange tainting the White House, I guess it’s worth it.

I know we’re all supposed to pretend 2001 to 2009 never happened, but I had one thought on hearing — and hearing, and hearing, and hearing — the big White House party was crashed: The Secret Service must have been worn out by all those years of chasing the Skank Twins on their margarita binges. Not to mention hiding the pretzels from the Chimp. The return of honor and dignity and a wine-drinker in chief must be freaking everyone out. But I really blame “Iron Chef.” Once the freckled calves got in, the barbarians were through the gates.

And it was a rare misstep by the hyper-image-savvy White House to have Mrs. O pose alongside Molto’s bare flesh and schticky footwear. Even Carla Bruni could not deflect attention as assertively, but hers was visual seduction, not assault. Judging by the reaction in my email, DI/DO should have been delivered with a free bottle of brain bleach. Then again, what better way to get your eat-right-and-exercise message across than standing with poster boys for the second deadly sin?

Maybe it was not intentional, but the CIA sent a pretty clear message of what its graduates are expected to aspire to by choosing as commencement speaker a chef known primarily for appearing on the teevee. Apparently there are more jobs to be had on “Top Chef” than in hot, crazy kitchens where you get your hands dirty and your bones achy. At least Molto Croced the walk rather than just talking the talk.