gastropoda

Speaking of weightism, I can only hope the latest Time magazine makes the thin-skinned fat-is-fine crowd reconsider just a skosh, although I’m doubtful given how Dick Cavett was slammed on the NYTimes blogs for mentioning classmates at his 50th-year reunion at Yale were not lumbering. But the stories on childhood obesity in the new issue make it very clear that more than aesthetics is in play here — one shows very graphically how avoirdupois affects not just joints, heart, liver and other vitals but also the brain. And kids have no say in the fatter. But as good as the whole thing was, my cynical side has to note that this was the fattest Time since my consort re-upped his subscription. Why? Nearly every other page is an ad for some “healthful” processed food. And snacks is snacks, sugar free or not.

I also wasn’t so convinced we should think like a chef after reading 30 lessons from them. I was most surprised Lord Thomas recommends bacon made from any old hogs when you can really taste the difference with the heritage kind. And any chef who cares more about carrots than the environment probably should keep it to himself. One thing that does not belong in the kitchen is a disposable razor. Buy that guy a scrub brush if he’s so anal he thinks babies need skinning.

I know food magazine advertising is meant to get you to stop and stare rather than read what you bought the damn thing for in the first place. But the trend toward portraying meat as the nasty bits left after an amputation gone awry is still unsettling. I saw a really gruesome beef thing showing what looked to be scabs of cow. Why? Your guess is better than mine. And another one headlined “pork & nail polish” made me read every word of copy to try to figure out not just why those words were juxtaposed but what exactly those skinned penis parts above them were. Apparently you can use Smithfield’s frozen finest to fix a run in your stockings. Or something. Bring back the GE Profile kitchens with the chubbies chasing themselves in the stainless-steel mirrors. . .

After you have written the most odious and uninformed piece on New Orleans published outside a Dittohead blog, where do you go next? Straight to the ex-wife’s competition to natter (and natter) about how rough your life is. Forget the attempted digs at non-critics that made him look as clueless as he was about puppy drum. My sick suspicion is that he was actually trying to be three whole pages of funny. I’ll put it this way: An icy douche is a laugh riot by comparison. And it doesn’t require cartoons.

The morphing of food blogs into food glossies is continuing apace, which I guess should not be surprising given the stranglehold advertising has over both. But I was still amazed to see that just about every cyber-outlet in town picked up a “story” from the NYPost about a kosher cheeseburger without ever noticing that an essential detail was dead wrong. The “popular” steakhouse in the piece was located on the wrong side of the park. Considering I walk past it at least every other day and have never seen it full, I guess I shouldn’t wonder that the repeat offenders also didn’t realize the shill potential of the original piece was at terrorist alert level. Wait till you hear the echo chamber on chefs with charitable hearts. No shit, Forelock.

Just bitching as the BS backs up: Is there anything duller than someone else’s struggle to knock off the LBs? Am I cynical in thinking Southern is seductive but necrophilia is creepy? Could anyone really be shocked, shocked that ol’ Rach’ might not actually consume the crap she endorses? (I was happily surprised, however, to see some smart editors jumping off the SS Cretinous.) And if you’re not even a real critic, what is the point in writing about a neighborhood restaurant for millions of readers merely to trash it? If it sucked, why would you even go back? I can’t wait for the flat-out rave for the one-step-up-from-Olive-Garden headed for the mothership. . . .

Let the economic experts who have done so well so far duke it out over whether we are headed for or already in a recession. I’m going to take my cues from restaurateurs forgoing great-but-pricey birds in favor of Bell & Evans (in the land of the one-eyed critic, the blind steward is king) and from food magazines foretelling their publisher’s troubles. You know it’s a leading economic indicator when the Journal of Conspicuous Consumption does a whole issue on high/low eating. Never a discouraging bean was ever seen in those pages. Gold cards must be getting kicked back all over America.

At the same time, it makes me uncharacteristically sad for my profession to see how the national epidemic — greed with a capital G — has infected so many restaurateurs. I was half-tempted by Park Avenue Season for my birthday until reading it is being sued for stiffing employees. Pastis and Balthazar are accused of being just as venal. And the guy who cleans up with those strange Cinema Cafes just got caught with his hand in the sales-tax till, as the Shore owner did before him. The food world has always been exploitative, but now either more bad behavior is going on or more evildoers are getting caught. And if it’s the latter, could the restaurant investigators maybe head over to the banks now? Or the oil companies?

Am I the only $15-a-year sucker wondering why a magazine would run a cover line touting a pull-out guide on “what’s in season now” right alongside a photo of pancakes topped with wild  blueberries? It is the February issue, after all, and said fruit is a long time gone. Then again, the contents page features a frittata filled with asparagus. And don’t even get me going on the hypocrisy of a big name nattering on about eating less meat in the same week he’s insisting millions of readers run out and buy honkin’ slabs of pork. Having grown up in Arizona before the Colorado started running dry, I also have to say that any “green” issue that includes a fat advertorial promoting Las Vegas pretty much undermines itself. Even if the city could turn wine into water, it’s an eco-disaster no amount of local cauliflower could ever carbon-offset.

Copy editors’ eyes must be on the stock tables lately, because some pretty amusing oopses have been seeping into print. The NYPost ran recipes side by side calling for egg yokes. The NYObserver identified the photographer who created “My Last Supper” as Meanie (which was especially ironic given what a lovefest with chefs her book party was). The home of the Human Scratch N Match ran a photo of a food book recommended by none of the experts in the accompanying story (one of whom, incidentally, happened to be a restaurateur whose favorites were “written” by celebrities who had had him on their teevee shows). The infallible NYTimes described lattice tops being rolled out for pumpkin pies. The Washpost recipe for Anzac “cookies” (rightfully, biscuits) said they could be stored up to five days — this for a treat designed to be durable enough to be baked and shipped to soldiers and still survive nuclear winter.

And then there was the story in the WSJournal comparing apples and olives — a recipe from Molto for a sausage-stuffed pork loin and a recipe from Thomas Keller for veal breast with polenta cakes, glazed vegetables and sweet garlic — to see which might be less nutritionally dense than a Big Mac. Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of what lurks inside ingredients could tell the caloric deck was pretty much stacked against the fatty cow and assorted accouterments. But the real asleep-at-the-send-button was the description of “the Falstaffian redhead” as “not-quite fat.” Does he have to ride around in a golf cart to qualify? Or is it just that America has defined adiposity downward?

All the cyber-guffawing over Food & Wine’s baroque Thanksgiving menus happened to coincide with an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I just signed up for a year’s subscription at the cheaper-than-Conde Nast-monopoly price of $12. I had given up the magazine eons ago when I realized it was a sand trap at $36, automatically renewed on my Amex account, but I would pay a pittance without credit card indenture. So of course what arrives in the mail right after my check clears but an offer to “extend my subscription at the same money-saving NEW SUBSCRIBER RATE of $19.95.” Jeebus B. Child. That publisher could be selling subprime mortgages for all its transparency.

As is the case with most magazines that arrive on my doormat through the mail, I subscribe to The Week first and foremost for the food, and last week it outdid itself with a condensed version of Outside’s extraordinary story on eating dog in Vietnam. I found the link to the actual piece through chow but absorbed enough to know it should be required reading for all the big swinging dicks out there (or little flopping ones, more likely) who like to show how tough they are in consuming critters for the camera. Rarely is the culture of a comestible taken into account. May they all be monkey brains in a future life.