gastropoda

You have to give the Italians credit. They’re no happier with their corrupt government, but they always think food. And so they dumped mussel shells in Rome to protest politicians who are insisting on austerity while “clinging to their privileges like mussels cling to rocks.” Could you imagine the Teabaggers doing anything like that here? First they would have to know a mussel was not anything gay, despite its beard. Then they would have to know where their shellfish come from. Hint: Not Walmart.

Speaking of which, I could not believe NPR’s report on how food stamp demand is way up in the US of We’re-No.-1 A. I listened to it thinking yet another hack from a Kochsucker think tank was hammering home talking points, only to learn it was a staffer whose salary is underwritten thanks to liberals (step away from the “sources,” reporters). My desperately poor, over-kidded parents were too proud to take “government handouts” and would trade with the Mexican neighbors to get commodity peanut butter and mystery meat, so I can sort of understand the wingnuts who think this is an every-cook-for-herself country. But really. We can afford $75 billion on “homeland security” but $68 billion on something that returns nearly double that to the economy is going to break us? Most disgusting was the “some say” assertion that food stamps discourage recipients from growing their own happy meals. You can’t buy a hot roast chicken with food stamps. But you can damn sure invest in bean plants.

Just back from Turkey, I can’t begin to describe what luxury it was to be able to tune out the kkkraziness for 10 days. Unfortunately, some huge news from the homeland was inescapable. Apparently the Big O had burgers for his birthday lunch. This should settle it, though. What kind of muslin wants fries with Ramadan?

Forget the migraines and the pray-away-the-gay husband. The most insane thing about the crazy-eyed one is her assertion that she loves celery, the vilest vegetable ruining tuna salads everywhere. Of course, she did qualify it by saying she could eat an entire stalk by herself. Apparently she doesn’t understand true love would be a whole bunch.

And with the wingnuts holding the economy hostage, I guess this was the perfect moment to argue for higher taxes on junk food (definition to be determined, with of course no marketing money involved). The only good thing about the kkkrazies taking over is that epithets need one character fewer; tax is the new four-letter word. But since this notion would hit the poorest hardest, maybe it does have a chance. Which makes me long, yet again, for the good old days of recycled “French Cooking in Ten Minutes.”

That said, every time I see the furor over the 1,700-calorie cheeseburger — the shit heard ’round the world — I just think: Dead boyfriend in the middle of the road. The Lump in the Bed was damned lucky with the media. Now they’re so desperate for traffic they’re throwing out the same red meat to the kkkrazies that was chewed over endlessly in 2009 and again in 2010. Imagine the “whitey tape” hysteria if Mrs. didn’t eat cheeseburgers.

I guess this is one way to create jobs: pass a law requiring restaurants to hire armed security guards to watch out after 9 o’clock. This is happening in Newark, after an off-duty cop was killed, but I can see where it could lead. Someone gets food poisoning, you have to hire a health inspector. Someone in a wheelchair can’t get from car to table, you have to hire an aide. Just in case the grease-encrusted vent does up in smoke, keep a fireman on staff. John Galteria would be a great concept for a chain if we could eat the namesake. But it’s not hopeless here yet. I read about an American now making and selling cheese in Russia whose biggest problem is “bureaucracy.” Which makes him sound like a whining teabagger until he points out that the system provides a way around it: “Corruption can work against you, and corruption can work for you.” Break the law in Russia and you can pay off the cop. In the United States, “one has to deal with the paperwork.” Call me a libtard, but in which country would I rather risk a raw-milk Camembert?

I keep Tweeting this, but Jonathan Swift must not be listening: Wingnuts apparently want to ban abortion to guarantee a healthy supply of babies to feed the poor in this country. Why else would they be yammering about “protecting” the unborn while whacking food help for pregnant woman and actual children? And no wonder one segment of the new nutrition plate is only labeled “protein.” Soylent would be too obvious.

The fiscal loons hellbent on starving the government/killing the people also want to cut money for food inspection just as Europe is literally shitting itself over tainted produce. (Cucumbers? Bean sprouts? What else could be infected with cow crap?) I’m not good with math, but I do know a restaurant could not survive just by reducing what it spends on ingredients and staff. It has to charge more. So tax the $135 Milos soup. Or at least those fools so easily parted from their money by the “free market.”

Jon Stewart did an epic takedown of the most cringe-worthy pizza date in history but only touched on the most ironic part of it. How could someone who made a pilgrimage to the “Statute” of Liberty to dis recent immigrants be photographed knife-and-forking slices chained by Albanians? Then again, maybe she thought they were from Birmingham.

I hope no one who believes Jesus rode a dinosaur caught up to Jasper White’s review of a couple of lobster books I’m glad he read (and liked) so I don’t have to. Did he really state, unequivocally, that the Red Crustaceans “today are in fact very similar to the original members of their biological family, which appeared about 250 million years ago”? If the chain’s namesake is older than Earth, how is any creationist going to be able to eat mislabeled fish while stiffing the server again?

The only surprise of the un-Rapture was that the Pom people were not behind the big con. Then again, they spent a mere $10 million to get an obscure juice certified as a miracle elixir. The cult of the gullible dropped $100 million and still couldn’t get naked Christians into heaven.

Also, too, I have to say I wasn’t entirely happy to be crossing the Peace Bridge back into the United States of Amnesia again. This is a bit of reTweeting, but can a guy with a face only a proctologist could love really be considered presidential? How in the hell did he get his alimentary canal installed backward?

A Waikiki resort is now offering “GMO-free cuisine.” Which will make the birthers go even nuttier — could there be better proof Hawaii is really not America?

I was kinda disappointed there was no rabid wingnut outrage over the Big O brewing beer in the White House. With all their obsession with the unborn lately, the Teabaggers must have fresher eggs to fry.