gastropoda

As for the wannabe curmudgeon who mistook speckled for regular trout, he apparently retains an astonishing ability to have it both ways — claim bloggers are know-nothings but follow their leads; claim bloggers don’t bug him while shooting off insultingly stupid emails. As a faraway friend (south of the Mason-Dixon) commented, “It’s sad how far he’s fallen.” He did set the bar for kicking while down, though, so I just have to quote that old saying: When you find yourself in a hole, the best thing to do is stop digging. 

At least the Big Homme was gracious enough to let me be invited to his meet-the-staffs lunch, and I’ll be base enough to say they were best new chefs of my year. I was mostly glad I went for the opportunity to ask some questions I might be intimidated to blurt out at a real party, like: How hard is it for a foreigner to get a visa to work in an organization that clearly prefers foreigners? (Answer: Harder all the time.) Mostly I came away feeling glad I had a couple of dollars to tip the coat check girl: Our currency is worth less than pesos. The BH rep at my table said everyone at late dinner at Daniel the Saturday before was either French, Spanish or British, and some had flown in just for the weekend because America is now the 99-cent store of countries. I guess that explains the boom in $40-and-up entrees even in restaurants in my neighborhood. Which is great: The Cubans get iPhones and Americans get Chili’s.

I have no good excuse for not noticing this sooner, but Taste of Home is ruint. Totally ruint. At a party a while back I ran into a founding editor of another food magazine who lamented that its new owners had decided to turn a Jaguar (or something) into a Ford Taurus, never realizing they had bought something unique. But you gotta wonder about an investor who has no clue that the future of publishing is niche and decides to turn its lowrider into an SUV. I was flipping through and started realizing I couldn’t tell the “flavor packed” sandwich layout from the Mrs. Dash ad and it struck me: Isn’t this the magazine whose readers choose it primarily as a respite from endless shilling? The class cleansing is bad enough — the disappearing of so many hometown cooks and their weirdly fascinating reality (and ’dos) — but to replace them with Cool Whip and Gallo? My in-law equivalent has subscribed for me as an Xmas gift for more than a decade, but I’m going to respectfully request that she throw her $12.99 Conde Nasty’s way this year. At least I’ll get ads that look less Everyday. And I am really and truly sick of GE Profile kitchens.