Once a month, I open my writeme inbox and realize that if it’s Monday, it must be bitch-about-Dexter day. Funny how an annoying schtick so quickly became as tantalizing as norovirus. Funnier still to contemplate how easily readership could be lured back. Instead of showcasing an unformed palate, why not drag out recipes from some of these grandmas facing down death panels, to get their best ideas published before they are offed by socialists? I know the effete makeovers of solid old recipes touch on the same territory, but who wouldn’t want to read formulas for the last meals of Obamacare victims? “Cooking With the Doomed” has a nice ring to it.
Post Category → every larva a king
In Hong Kong, an apprentice without a cleaver
I’m still getting my mind around the ad- and comment-driven insanity of starting a column devoted to “a little chef shall teach you,” but I suspect the mom we had lunch with the day the magazine landed expressed a pretty common reaction: “I think I’m gonna puke.” And her spawn is all growed up and off in London on a fellowship. I admit my greatest accomplishment in life has been not repeating my mother’s mistake of producing a litter (seven kids in 8 1/2 years), but even if I liked human larvae I would have a hard time accepting the possibility of inspiration from them. Judging by what I encounter at parties and in public, many are idiots, few are savants. Hollywood dogs would make more sense — just consider the potential of “Marley Under Pressure.” I can hate the sin but admire the sinner, though, so I’ll just say the silliness could have been Baby Gap sillier. So far, at least, none of the fetal Roccos and prepubescent Panchitos springing up all over the internets have been awarded a regular gig. To the 15-year-old doing back flips in the bathroom to get a Per Se reservation, you just want to wearily say: Learn to masturbate. It’s only food.
Fish eggs, meet face
It’s hard to imagine how, in the age of print on demand and world domination by Rupert, the Page Six magazine wound up showcasing the Neptune Room just as the joint is locked away behind a sad sign. Really, how could it survive with a Mermaid Inn now so close? I guess they thought they could get by setting up “reviews” by Broadway actors who establish their expertise with stumbling assertions like “the crowd is typical Upper West Side in that there were young and old diners, but not many children.” Denial is not going to get downtowners to venture to the land of Baby Jesuses and triple-wide strollers. Especially if they all read the obit in the blogs already.
And the ad is for Dunkin Donuts
One more justification for hoping we will all be dead when history starts taking attendance: The NYTimes story on privileged kids too busy to eat because they feel compelled to power through to college, defiling the temple at every lunchtime. If they stopped to smell the cafeteria pizza, they might realize this is a race to the bottom. Knock yourselves out, kiddos. Ain’t no jobs out here. Unless it’s going into low-end medicine and taking care of all the children growing up on poor diets right now. Substitute “food” for “feet” in that old saying about complaining about no shoes and see what you conjure.