First the duck must be dead

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?

Finicky for dinner: $668

At brunch with new friends earlier the same day, I had another late-breaking revelation that definitely helps explain why so much of what you read in the travel glossies is one step above resort come-ons. The host, an excellent cook, announced when we arrived that he had tried to make a coca, a form of pizza he got addicted to in a region that is Spanish in name only. It was new to me, and I once spent a good chunk of time and a lot of expensed money in Barcelona on assignment. He had such a clear sense of what the dough should be and was trying to outdo Colman to get that madeleine moment, but the experiment had faltered and so he had turned the pizza into a “Catalan calzone.” It was perfectly satisfying, but what it really made me realize is how much you miss in a foreign country when you fly in and out at the high end. The restaurant food in Barcelona when I ate myself literally sick there was splendiferous, but to this day I have no notion of how the real people feed themselves. Then again, maybe there are tourists leaving Manhattan today who don’t know from a slice.

Let ’em eat Cheetos

Judging by the dustup over a piece by a Murdoch refugee granted asylum at the Taj Sulzberger, bumper stickers on nutrition nazis’ cars should read: Figures lie and liars figure. The dutiful regurgitation of a “study” finding that “healthy eating really does cost more” prompted literally hundreds of comments, some of which actually made sense. A smarter lede would have laid out the truth that “empty calories cost less,” which is no accident given a Congress in thrall to Big Food lobbyists rather than sensitive to small-scale growers. It’s the same kind of sleight of word that made a Coke seem a better nutritional investment than a small cup of Haagen-Dazs at the height of the low-fat insanity, when crazy studies were flying by wildly. The most amusing part was when the verbal scrum turned into an ode to lentils, which Ms. 401K angrily insisted “no one could eat every day.” Tell that to nearly a billion Indians. . . .

Mint, muddled

Even knowing firsthand how the Jimmy Dean’s is made, I was still surprised to see a honking huge ad for Maker’s Mark smack in the middle of a section largely devoted to the pride of Kentucky. Closer readers than I emailed me to note that the same overexposed brand was mentioned in no fewer than three of the stories. I remember the good old days when the production editor would throw a fecal fit when clean copy got too close to dirty business. (Thanks to cost cuts, has that job been made redundant, as the Brits say?) And even then the purists were not as adamant as one of the first newspaper food editors I ever freelanced for, the one who would not even allow a brand like Tabasco into recipes on her pages; it had to be “hot red pepper sauce.” Now the genie is clearly out of the bourbon bottle. No wonder the stock I bought into at more than twice the price is now selling for almost less than Heaven Hill.

The cook, the flack . . .

Call me gullible, but every word in the NYT tale of the power people in Washington suddenly shopping at Costco struck me as a lie, including “and” and “Quinn.” Certainly Richard (WMD) Perle has proven his scummy self is a source to be totally trusted. Even if the nonsense were gospel, though, it is impossible to believe anyone so dependent on the public trough and so insulated from the miseries descending on the rest of the country actually feels any pain. The more likely explanation for any trawling for bargains is the one from which said miseries all spring: greed. With luck the cheap salmon and mystery meat will do them all in.

Crop circles

Eberhard Muller has had my vote ever since the summer day I trekked out to the family farm with a bunch of chefs and saw the “village in Texas missing an idiot” bumper sticker on his truck. But his and his wife Paulette Satur’s beat-back against Immigration overreaching makes him look even more like a true American patriot in a country unwilling to feed itself through its natural-born labor. With Halliburton busily building private prisons, this German emigre clearly knows that first they come for the farmhands. . . . The NYT played the story well enough that you could almost forgive them for giving the Jodiator front-page real estate on one of the hoarier campaign “stories,” rife with cones and corn dogs. But then they had to go and screw it up in the slide show by referring to one of the action hero’s “popular” clients as Union Street Cafe.

Right to life, you say?

The same day I noticed my bottle of Heinz white vinegar carried a sell-by date (preservatives go bad?), I opened a jar of popcorn and a big bug flew out. It got away before I could see what it was, but it left plenty of company: one teeny red crawly critter and a swarm of slightly bigger black creepy things. Almost every kernel had gone all “Alien” in the couple of weeks since I had filled that clean jar with stuff bought in bulk at the health food store around the corner. I’m used to strange creatures hatching wildly in my flour and pasta and dried chilies. I just never knew the national snack was also alive with unadvertised protein, and from a vegetarian oasis at that. Of course the whole experience was not as unsettling as the rumor I recently heard that the most overexposed, least interesting voice in food is being considered for radio. If you think Bonnie Wolf is vapid, smarmy and annoying, you haven’t heard the half of it. The wonder is that NPR isn’t chasing after onefatass.com. But then she’s back, and sequels do happen.

All fannies on the Xerox

Thanks to my party pal What I Ate, I see coworkers of the human Scratch N Match are wondering why their food pages don’t get no respect. Can you say one step above advertorial? A feature on where to eat while shopping was lifted entirely from that bastion of critical judgment, the Maroon Guide. Weeks of Thanksgiving features brazenly showcased recipes and photos from Williams-Sonoma cookbooks, for Islamochrist’s sake. Every Sunday brings another few pages of color glitz from books or magazines, with not an iota of original content. Worse, when they do rouse themselves to type, do they even test the promo pieces? Does a soup meant to serve four really need three quarts of stock? My math is lousy, but I think that averages out to Big Gulp portioning. At least if 7-Eleven ever does a cookbook, you’ll know where to read it first.

Only the little people need an arm and a leg

Panchito certainly did his part in paying down the Taj Sulzberger mortgage with his peculiar assault on the flea circus in the Sherry-Netherland. I’m sure the page views went multi-stories high; otherwise, what was the point in carpet-bombing a single cockroach? You got a mom-son act? Lump them together in a dismissive snarkfest. Got a serious chef opening his most ambitious restaurant? Kiss him off in a couple of snide grafs. But a “restaurant” no one gives a flying Wallenda about? Bring on the dedicated trash talk. It all reminds me of the most famous quote from Frieda of kiwi fame, one echoed by the foie gras producer currently under siege by animal rights terrorists: There is no such thing as bad publicity. One day when the theaters are all bright with lights again, some idiot tourists will be wandering the East Side and think: “Hey, there’s Cipriani; I’ve heard of that,” before bumbling right in. And some weird mission will have been accomplished.

Boys will be toys

Guess the bosomy one must not be working out so well as the human Scratch N Match. Her new employer has taken a turn toward testosterone with its “sexiest chefs” contest, and whatever the candidates got for their souls, it cannot be enough to compensate for being labeled “culinary cuties” or “diamond in the roughage” (did one of them shit a gem?) Even Careme, who did everything but jump naked out of a vol-au-vent in his time, must be cringing in his marzipan grave over the hoops chefs have to backflip through for celebrity anymore. Judging by the stud-wannabe photos, next the paper will be making them whip out their salumi to see which one inches circulation up. Maybe Molto can blog it.

Chops to the head

My tolerance for most online slide shows is only slightly higher than for overpraised fake accents, but I have a soft spot for Trinidad after two trips and so was suckered into watching Roti and the Wasp when my consort forwarded the link. First I wondered if the Port Authority Canteen was really the reincarnation of the Breakfast Shed, the great, funky covered collection of food vendors near the docks that was also known as Holiday Out because savvy hotel guests always headed straight there. Then I wondered why new media has to be so much like the old — when some bobblehead on the teevee bites into anything, there inevitably has to be a reaction shot. And nothing sounds more fake, and more cringe-inducing, than someone else’s slobbering “terrific.” If it was awful, would he say so? A comment I heard on my first sojourn on that rough and magical island could be applied to too many producers now being forced to try to bring stills to life. Appalled at seeing a couple of beggars on the beach at Maracas Bay, a newfound Trinidadian friend said: “They have reached the limits of their imagination.” Enough with the Sally sounds already.

No Boy Butter for him

For all the blathering about bloggers and ethics and unfounded information being disseminated in the Wild West of cyberspace, you have to wonder how a statement like Stu for Stupid’s at the Philadelphia Daily News ever made it into print. Railing on like Rush at his most drug-addled about calorie labeling in restaurants and french fries losing flavor, he stated confidently that trans fats are “basically lard.” He only wishes. Lard is a good fat compared with what he thinks makes cannoli taste good. It’s not quite on the level of his wishing another 9/11 on America, but really, someone should lock this loudmouth up on a smoking foie gras farm until he can get his facts straight. W.C. Fields called. He wants his hometown’s reputation back.

Good for the goose?

What I wouldn’t give to read Mrs. Friend’s chef-driven update of that had-to-be-a-spoof recipe for duck roasted under a blanket of bacon. The instruction to test for edibility, then microwave and feed to the dogs could have applied to the housing for the vegetables. The only thing greasier would have to be pork belly braised with both guanciale and lardo. Put that in your latte frother and foam it.

Don’t inspect, don’t tell

Big Food’s new motto seems to be “make shit while the sun don’t shine.” With the entire federal government evidently taken over by hacks and cronies, one company just got away with marketing frozen fecal burgers for months and now the chocolate industry is looking to cut its costs and push up its profits by getting DC approval to substitute vegetable oil for cocoa butter. Apparently pure food for everyone is a socialist idea. The WSJournal, in one of those stories that reeks of Murdochian sulfur, ran a long take on both sides that lent too much credibility to BF. Anytime candy makers start talking about healthier options, I want to run straight to the cane sugar — right now study after study is turning up nutritional benefits from real chocolate. And even if those are underwritten by Ghirardelli, you have to wonder why a 67-year-old burger packager simply shut down in a matter of days after getting caught with manure in its main product. Killer Jack in the Box, after all, is still selling strong.

Calling Christopher Guest

On the LOL scale, kale ranks right up there with emphysema. So why was half of New York chortling on a certain Wednesday morning? A fraction was amused by the idea of cheddar kraft. Others, like the friend I met for coffee before we both headed to the Greenmarket, wondered where the green was hiding. Finding small zucchini would take more work when booths A, B and C in Union Square had the lacinato variety, and if they didn’t, Garden of Eden, Manhattan Fruit Exchange and untold other outlets sell it probably more routinely than other kale. What’s fascinating is that people read the damn thing, jaws dropped or not, although another friend I ran into at the fabulous market on 97th Street on Friday pointed out that the drivel does make you long for the good old flip-flop recipes, which she said were superb. But the best comment came from my other friend, who pointed out that egos published side by side are combustible. Maybe Muslim terrorists were not responsible for the California conflagration. . . .