The other day I mistyped a URL looking for James Wolcott’s singular snark and realized I’d come up with the perfect title for a Tin Chef cookbook: Vanity Fare. Could someone please explain to me why, in this day and artisanal age, anyone would print a recipe calling for cream of crap soup? You know what works great? Actual cream.

And speaking of cookbooks, the moribund weekly that put Coulter on the cover hit a new low with its roundup, easily the laziest I think I’ve ever read. Every day I open our front door to find new books piled up, and the best choices include one by someone most skilled at appearing on the teevee? One whose recipes are not “hers” but produced by minions while she’s off doing what she does best? And the third recommendation is a book you won’t cook from? And the fourth is more a pander than a tout? The whole column took me back to the sorry old days when cooks cooked and writers wrote and editors understood that the twain rarely met in the same contributor. Also, too, can someone please explain to me why anyone would want a beer-braised cheeseburger? Better to grill some stew meat. And wax melancholic about Atlantic City.