Put $16 worth of heavy cream into a $240 churn and after 15 minutes of labor you get a pound of butter? Would make more sense to keep a cow for morning cappuccino.

Also, too, the whitest, hottest elephant in the room was the libel case that went unmentioned in the all-the-news-that’s-fit for printed and digital pages. Nearly a million bucks is not exactly chump change as penalty for calling a mere bad boy a drugged-out bad boy. Come to think of it, though, facing down barristers while wearing a diaper was one way to get a free trip to London. Even if the rooms were not quite George V.

I’ll let everyone else chew over what it means that an actual star is taking over the kitchen of an iconic restaurant. (So many other words for “headline” in a headline.) I’m just enjoying how the media playing field has been leveled. A blog gets the story and up-front reports that it came via press release, as does so much “news” even in the age of rapid-fire Twitter. The serious outlet gets the story and dances around the sourcing because of course it would be unseemly to admit it’s business as usual (see: any BizDay report on food advertising). But the biggest sign of progress is that once upon a time the “scoop” would not have seen the light of print, digital or dead-tree, if the “reporter” had not been guaranteed an exclusive. Unpleasantness, as an editor confined nearby used to complain, would always ensue, with much screeching into a landline. Now those gold-plated bidets must come with a thin layer of humility.

Then again, we are talking newspapers today. The most gobsmacking tip I’ve gotten in donkey’s years was less about a sad story than about how it was sold. There are no heroes or villains in it; no one wants to talk, nor should they. But my hyper-famous tipster was right on the main point. It was the food world equivalent of the Iraq war BS. “No” said it best: “If you want to sell a lie, enlist the media.” I guess the wash-off stinks less from a gold-plated bidet. But jeebus, did I ever try to warn them about the family silver . . .

Wonder if anyone involved in rough-drafting/editing/printing an item about a $550 sushi kit has any idea what it costs to launder and dry a load of laundry publicly these days. No dishwashers for dishwashers . . .

Maybe the new JGold Wannabe shoulda packed up his silver and china, though. Reaction to the “let ’em demand cake” by the food coven’s nastiest bit was fast and furious. I would have been oblivious to it if not for a FB posting by an unmet friend I take for a sweetheart, so I didn’t post over there what I alluded to on the Twitter: Who in holy hell would listen to etiquette advice from someone who puts the C(word) in coven?