Judging by how Earl Butz was verbally ushered off this mortal coil, I’m starting to wonder if the Chimp’s obit will obsess on phrases like “put food on your family” rather than any actual evil he ever did. I was living in Louisville when the agriculture secretary got outed for making his crude joke, and it really resonated there because the city was under court order to integrate its schools and race was, to put it mildly, a touchy issue (the newspapers, whose editorial pages supported busing, got bomb threats). Even so, all you have to do these days is amble through a mall — or get squished in an airplane seat — to see that words could never hurt as badly as misguided policy. As Greg Critser documented so damningly in “Fat Land,” good ol’ Earl’s legacy is high-fructose corn syrup and other cheap happy meal excess. With luck he has gone off to a very warm place to shit.
Post Category → what were they thinking?
Bigger than a breadbox
My consort and I are probably the last viewers in America to catch up to the British version of “The Office.” And it’s too bad I know this is impossible, but one segment seemed to have been drawn directly from Planet Food. That would be, of course, the one where the losermates are all clowning painfully to raise money for suffering somewhere. In both cases, hearts were probably in right places, but it didn’t even have to be labeled Chuckling for Chad to get the joke.
No 17-year-olds were harmed
If someone gave me a choice between 101 Dalmatians and one smart Siamese, I’m afraid I would have to grab the latter. Even if it didn’t mean being spared having to slog through acres of minuscule type to find the couple of grains of spelt in a mountain of chaff (unfortunately, I lack that Reaganesque ability to look at a barnful of manure and think there must be a pony in there somewhere). It all did make me wonder when a byline stopped meaning anything, though — or when exactly the elves were allowed to take over for Mr. Claus. You also gotta wonder about the systemic breakdown when obvious free rides on the truffle train are written up in advertising brochures by columnists at the most holier-than-thou publication on the planet. But the funniest find lately was the comment in the FT by Gordon Ramsay, confirming he had once tricked an American “journalist” shaking him down for a free meal by sending her to his restaurant for lunch on a day when it was closed. To quote a master of the fine phrase: “The amount of bullshit in this industry really is extraordinary.”
Bambi goes to Target
The last eyes on the prize at the NYT can’t be totally to blame for the slovenly editing of a couple of provocative (and important) op-ed pieces on food, though. One made the persuasive case that eating locally is not as simple a panacea as it sounds, but the packaging was all about frying and potato chips. Anyone who had not already read a similar argument based on the same book in the indispensable Guardian could be excused for wondering what the hell Pringles have to do with the price of carbon footprints. And the other was either an argument for shooting deer or a plea to think more kindly about guys who do. One bad thing about knowing how the blood sausage is made down there is that I start to suspect which impossible-to-buy-out lameass is handling copy now. But it could have been much worse. The two pieces could have run in the Thursday “Push (those ads)” Styles section and been packaged as “Ruffles have rifles.”
Why lamb chops wear panties
As scornful as I’ve been toward food porn in all the glossies, with their impossibly perfect whole roast turkeys and forbiddingly gorgeous cakes, I find the new trend even worse. Showing a slab of beef carved up, or a turkey being taken apart, just leaves way too little to the imagination. Blood congealing, greasy fingers in the flesh — it’s Hustler when Playboy would do.
Like ricotta for Rocco
Cheese has been one of the last food groups to retain its dignity despite the unstoppable epidemic of Food Network-spread Tiger Beat silliness. Or so I thought until I wandered past the Murray’s in Grand Central and spotted a new Cheddar from the great Rogue Creamery in Oregon labeled Morimoto Soba Ale. Having invested in a quarter of the $14.99 pound, I can only say they really need to rechristen the show “Insipid Chef.” This stuff makes Monterey Jack look strong.
Those teeth, those eyes
On my way to Chola in the rain the other day, I noticed Ada was suddenly closed despite its elegance and two old stars from Biff. No Health Department notices were on view, but what may have hurt it worse certainly was. With tourists allegedly staying clear of NYC during the Broadway stagehand strike, why would any restaurant continue to post a huge photo of Ghouliani shaking hands with its owner? New Yorkers only tolerate vermin we suspect are on premises. Actually see them and we stay away.
Wonder why the caged birds poop?
WordPress’s oversized headlines are really making my pathetic observations look even thinner, so I’m just going to line up a bunch of offenders for a small-bore firing squad. Is Borat talking about a certain mighty mutt when he refers to “cake made of smashed cow”? (Even he might hesitate to top it with bacon that managed to look both raw and burned, though.) And now that “mighty appetite” is being thrown around down in DC, too, I wonder who deserves more credit, Christopher Guest or Marianne Pearl; transferred to food, either of their titles makes you think of breaking wind. And considering the first small-screen cooking teacher was James Beard, followed by Dione Lucas, both way back in the mid-1940s, should the obit of Chef Tell really have touted him as “an early television chef”? Strange for such a vintage reporter to think the 1970s were ancient history. . . . And, really, if only Jules would resurface on a week when Panchito has the gall to complain about lazy language. Never having gotten past the jump on his own prose, I always assume it starts: “Hi, I’m a Chimp enabler, and I’ll be your Ambien today.”
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.
Tits get in your eyes
A chain of strip clubs has sent out an e-release touting its Halloween cocktail, and the garnish is candy corn. I don’t know what’s scarier, the fact that even topless bars have flacks, or the prospect of so many Technicolor yawns ensuing from that combination of triple booze and oily sugar. No wonder they don’t let the “girls” drink at clip joints. The laps would be too sloppy to dance in.
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. . . .
Note to head: Ass faces south
Dining seems to be slipping back into its cavalier attitude toward photojournalism. I spotted an enticing shot of a train with a caption mentioning “tours head up the Hudson River,” but the story implied they were actually going by bus. Worse, that train looked to be on the Manhattan-bound track. At least it was more locally carrot-correct than zucchini with pasta in late October. I counted three vendors with the squash at Union Square that afternoon, and one was selling Flintstone-size specimens. If the pasta police bothered, I do hope they ticketed for throwing rice sticks into the ziti.
A green thing eaten raw
There’s a silly e-joke going around about a drunk who gets caught in a field with his pants down and responds in feigned shock when the arresting officer points out that he’s humping a pumpkin:
“Shit, is it midnight already?”
Unfortunately, worse forms of pumpkin abuse are happening on the commercial level. Trend-obsessed companies are turning an aroma-free kitchen workhorse into massage creams and masques and much scarier stuff — one company is marketing pumpkin pie shampoo, another pumpkin pie syrup to be mixed into cocktails or, more chilling still, coffee. The freakiest is selling pumpkin body oil. Anoint yourself with that and you might want to stay in after dark.
Limburger heaven
So much for my notion that chocolate is like bacon and goes with anything. I just read about the most disgusting novelty of the year: a truffle made of chocolate mixed with smoked blue cheese. Aside from being a waste of two great ingredients, it sounds like what dogs go sniffing for. Under each other’s tails.