Post Category → silliness

Drive-through all night

And maybe I’m just cynical, but I thought it was rather amusing to see everyone dumping on the new McItaly while accrediting the Fast Food Diet. Domestic beef topped with asiago cheese and artichoke spread in Italy? Bad. Tacos and Subway processed crap here? Worth consulting nutritionists and other experts on whether you will lose weight. (Few of them, I noticed, brought up what that junk does for your body besides fatten it right up.) Who needs Berlusconi when we have such a free press?

Cava time

The cultured really are different from you and me. The friend who treated me to a dazzling “Carmen” at the Met insisted we pick up some Maison du Chocolat “coffee beans” at half-time. And she was right: They worked. Fluffy white head directly in front of us was bobbing and sinking through the last two acts. But we had upscale NoDoz.

First they came to bastardize the cappuccino

I’m not going to blame Julia for this, only Julie for alerting Big Food to the new potential for old French standards since the crazy success of the movie. But thanks to my favorite part of the Sunday papers — the coupons — I see Jell-O is now marketing “chocolate” “mousse.” And it looks just as scary as you might imagine, sort of like Cool Whip crossed with what a  coal miner coughs up after a hard day in the pit. Still, it could be worse. For all the discontent right now, we’ve come a long way in this country. Not so long ago they would have had to have sold it as Freedom Flan.

One from Column D, another from Column C

Crazies are my weakness, so I have to confess I do keep up with the freak show that is Sarah Palin on narcissism parade. Every day there’s new insanity to inspire jokes —  after she quit her Hawaiian vacation someone on Twitter cracked that she couldn’t finish a piece of pumpkin pie. But the high point came on her book-signing stop in Salt Lake City, when Costco removed all the tomatoes for fear of pelting. Have to give her credit, though. She briefly accomplished the impossible: separating Americans from out-of-season produce.

A million little aspics

Speaking of which, I guess the only amazing thing about all the long knives suddenly coming out for the world’s most famous food blogger is how long it’s taken. Once she admitted she’s into pain, the gloves were off, and I’m not talking latex. We were at a dinner party in Brooklyn the other week when another guest, one not even in the food coven, went into how she had behaved like a Palin-class asshole at a premier. Twitter has been abuzz with how contemptuously she treated 9/11 firefighters, to the point that one editor turned down the first book. And now a question that has long bothered me has even started to be broached on Twitter: Was it misery or was it fantasy? Only her poor schlub knows for sure.

Manteca floss

While I’m starting to feel like the unpaid lard crusader, though, I also know the wondrous stuff has its limits. And they start at caramel. With that melty candy, you want flavor, and only butter will do. Lard is about results, not taste. But I can understand why trend groupies are glomming onto it. It’s close enough to bacon to pass.

Hide the free shipping

Failed contrarian pitch of the week: Does Harry & David even need to exist? In this age of local/seasonal/sustainable/artisanal, who on the feverish planet needs a fancy box of wax rocks for three or four times what your friendly neighborhood Greenmarket gets for pears picked close to home? Let alone half a pound of cookies for $29.95? If the company had any sense, it would switch to candles in the shape of fruit. Stick a wick in it. It’s done.

Deviled in the details

I’m happy to admit I Feel Bad About My Dreck thoroughly redeemed herself with her review of the mismatched cookbooks on Food52. The competition really was like pitting an earnest indie film against a Robert Downey Jr. extravaganza. But the writing and the smarts in her takedown were like the great old days of “Crazy Salad” and “Heartburn.” I’m still not sold on the notion of the great unwashed voting for what’s worthiest with food — in the immortal observation of Mimi, if popularity were all, McDonald’s would be serving the best burgers in the world — but the reviews almost validate the silliness. Icing on the cake was seeing the Drivelist tout that review. As if all those warning words for cookbook authors did not apply. . . .

In lieu of drugs, send turkey lifter

One of Neil Young’s best songs has the rocking refrain “piece of crap,” and it will be echoing through my cranial sieve from now until January. Judging by the catalogs piling up around here, Thanksgiving is coming and the consumer’s getting dumb. Does anyone really need a “stuffing cage” to shove up the turkey so you can extract all the nasty bits with more work than using a spoon? It struck me as a poultry speculum, and the cleanup has to be about as appetizing.

Pie Spy

Proof that Faux News is addling America big time: A very traditional bakery is selling “holiday-shaped” cookies. It would make sense if there were Kwanza and Hanukah shapes. But you can’t say Christmas? Even if you’re punching out dough as trees and bells?

That orange aroma? Comes from a stick.

I got in a tiny tiff over on Twitter while in a manic phase when I responded to one too many Halloween PR pitches by saying pumpkin does not belong in coffee or beer or anywhere near chocolate. Who knew there were so many devotees of odd combinations? Or students of Colonial brewing history? It’s all a matter of taste, and since I could live happily without chocolate I can’t be wrong in insisting it should not be allowed to marry pumpkin. But even the most ardent aficionado of weird should concede that the latest tie-in, pumpkin tea, is a pot too far. I’m picking my fights better, or I would also have pointed out that fresh pumpkin is really not a good substitute for canned. Having spent a morning in a cannery in the pumpkin capital of the world, watching how a full ton is cooked down to 600 pounds, I know the main ingredient of this particular squash is water. If you bake a pie pumpkin you are asking for oozy. It’s great chunked in risotto or chili, but as a purée for pie it’s soup.

Fresh figs for all & Kanye

I’m usually pretty good at over-interpreting meanings in movies — I still remember how quickly I pegged the crack epidemic to “Alien Nation” at a time when everyone was still pretending Lee Atwater was not the vilest dog whistler around. So why am I mystified as to the significance of the frozen corn in Sendak cinematized? The kid flees the house after spurning Birds Eye’s best, with a grandiose statement of his disdain. But why? Maybe Spike Jonze’s next project is with Saint Alice and other sanctimonious souls in the Bay Area: “Where the Chang Talks Aren’t.”

Nutshell in a Playgirl

The sorriest ad campaign so far has to be the new one for pistachios, a desperate — and successful — attempt to get media buzz by hiring sleazes like the knocker-upper who was just a heartbeat away from the VP’s mansion. Your guess is as good as mine why someone would be motivated to buy freedom nuts after watching the dim son of an accused drug dealer hawk them. Then again, if cracking pistachios is the great barrier to enjoying them, maybe the idiot beauty queen from South Carolina is the perfect spokesmodel. Anyone else would know to buy them shelled.