Nov 7
This film is showing as part of the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival at The American Museum of Natural History that runs from November 12-15, 2009.
I wanted to say that there was irony in sending a diabetic to cover a dessert-centric event called SWEET, but then I became concerned that I was using ironic in an Alanis Morissette sense, i.e. incorrectly.
Ironic or not, endless confections and champagne did not kill me. Guy Fieri touching my shoulder, leaning in and speaking an inch from my ear came close, though.
Oct 3
There’s nothing stopping me from used book shopping in New York, I’ve just never been fond of the experience here. There’s just no thrill of the hunt. I’ve never understood the big deal with The Strand, and of course for cookbooks one could go to Bonnie Slotnick’s, no hunting and pecking necessary. Housing Works doesn’t even count as a thrift store.
I only buy new books on Amazon anymore when in my younger days I scoured for used periodicals and books on a weekly basis. As much as I like ripping on Portland, the city is rife with book buying opportunities and that hasn’t changed. I don’t necessarily mean at well-curated stores like Powell’s (I did pick up Indonesian Cookery written by a Brooklyn Public librarian in 1963 at Powell’s Books for Cooks, though).
I mean junky discarded books at skuzzy thrift stores in places like Gladstone, Gresham and along 82nd Street. The uncollectables. And being in Oregon over Labor Day weekend, half-price sales abounded. I ended up having to have my mom mail my bounty along, just like she has been periodically doing with the boxes of books I left behind over 11 years ago.
This ungainly set of books includes:
Better Homes and Gardens After Work Cook Book, 1974
Better Homes and Gardens Meat Cook Book, 1971
Better Homes and Gardens Shortcut Main Dishes, 1986
Better Homes and Gardens All-Time Favorite Hamburger & Ground Meats Recipes, 1980
Indonesian Cookery, 1963
The Fine Art of Chinese Cooking, 1962
Sunset Adventures in Food, 1984
Time Life The Cooking of India, 1975
Fondue: The Fine Art of Fondue Chinese Wok and Chafing Dish Cooking, 1969
I used to be drawn to mid-century cookbooks and pamphlets, mostly for the line drawings and highly saturated color photos. Nothing newer than 1969 entered my apartment. But more and more I’m pulled toward cookbooks from the ‘70s and ‘80s, eras when I was actually alive. I’m still on the fence about the ‘90s; they need to simmer a little more before their charms are revealed. A friend recently gave me a 1996 copy of Food Wrap, about packaging design. It’s dated for sure, but most of the products look like things you still see in stores. It needs at least another five years.
The thin hardback Better Homes and Gardens series have been cranked out of years. I have a slew of cutely nostalgic ones from 40 years ago. The late 20th century examples, however, are kind of grotesque, possibly because they showcase the kind of food I grew up with. I think I owe my mom an apology. I hated her cooking when I was a kid, my sister and I made no bones about it, but now that I’m looking at these books with recipes like canned corned beef stroganoff and pizza-style meatloaf, I realize she wasn’t pulling those hideous ground beef, green pepper and Catalina dressing monstrosities out of her ass. I’m sure the women’s magazines of the day were filled with these well-intended family feeders, as well. God, what will today’s children be complaining about in 2039? All the wretched truffle-oiled mac and cheese and chipotle-laden, organic pork burritos they were forced to endure?
The more blog-consumed I become, the more I neglect my old print favorites. I’ve been wanting to cook through my cookbooks for ages, gross recipes or not. And just as how I’ve grown to embrace chain restaurants, I’m thinking about tackling the ugly eras first. I’ll never learn to love stuffed green peppers, though.
Non-shockingly, the New York Times’s dining editor doesn’t frequent McDonald’s with his kids and claims minimal television watching in his household. But when five-year-old Dexter, a budding mixologist who sleeps with vegetables instead of stuffed animals, starts hearing schoolyard rumors about the Golden Arches, Pete Wells acquiesces and they pay a visit (notably when his wife is out of town because Park Slope moms don’t allow such folly?)
And no, the world didn’t fall apart despite the cooking oil for the fries and McNuggets containing dimethylpolysiloxane, “…used as a lubricant, a dry-cleaning solution, an aquarium sealant, a component of the tiles that let spacecraft plunge through the atmosphere without burning up, a treatment for head lice and the thing that makes Silly Putty elastic.”
In the end, father and son make a tastier, more caloric fried fruit pie at home. (Strangely, I’ve never liked fast food fruit pies or the Hostess versions. My dad was the only one in the family who ever ate them. But now I’m totally dying for a fried pear pie, though I would work caramel in somehow.) And the most memorable part of the experience according to Dexter was the Hot Wheels car that came with the Happy Meal.
As I’ve often said, chains are about more than the food.
There’s nothing like a New York Times trend piece to make one feel surly and contrarian. Yesterday’s “Brooklyn’s Tide of Chains, Decidedly Local” did the trick for me.
“While New Yorkers have been nervously eyeing the encroaching tide of national chains, fearing the stores will wash away all things small and charming, a different retail species has taken root in this still-gentrifying quarter: the chain that is distinctly, even aggressively, local.”
As a resident of this “still-gentrifying quarter” I feel a renewed vigor in my love of national chains.
It goes without saying that Jay Leno is not on in my home during prime time or any time. (I did try to watch about four-minutes-worth last night and caught a predictably non-funny parody of that girl who threw back the baseball her dad caught during a game between unknown teams because I follow sports even less closely than late night talk shows.)
But I wish I had been watching Conan last night because there was a delightful chain restaurant-heavy interview with Megan Fox. She knows an awful lot about Sizzler and had this to say about one of my weaknesses, the Cheddar Bay Biscuit: “The cheese biscuits at Red Lobster. Yes! They deserve applause.”
I’m clapping as I type. I’m also imagining a "Kokomo"-style ode to Cheddar Bay. “That’s where we want to play, way down to Cheddar Bay.” I mean, if Jimmy Buffet can sing about a cheeseburger.
Even one of my favorite Malaysian food experts, Rasa Malaysia, has strayed from her traditional Southeast Asian-focused mission to publish a recipe replicating these soft, cheddary gems.
Sure, they’re a bunch of cranks but the New York Post is good for some things. You wouldn’t find a feature about the origins of T.G.I. Friday’s in the New York Times’s dining section. Well, you might but it would be annoying and likely to contain words like folderol.
Who knew that there was a whole stable of offshoots based on days of the week?
“Thursday's (a more upscale supper club), Wednesday's (a huge discothéque), Tuesday's (a speakeasy-style bar — no relation to Ruby Tuesday) and Sunday's (an ice-cream parlor).”
If I were one of those Brooklynites who throws secret dinner parties in my rugged yet airy loft for my friends who just happen to be media elite, I would totally recreate Thursday’s.
Even as someone who appreciates chains, I do have to side with modern Spanish gastronomy and Food & Wine's Kate Krader in this instance. Plus, who wants to align themselves with bankers, Jack Daniel's Ribs & Shrimp or not?
It's hard to believe but there was a time when I had no idea what an Applebee's was. Portland was a late bloomer that way. I became hip to that fast casual restaurant scene through my teen penpal in Tucson, Seth Bogard, an unusually funny and prolific zine publisher known for Xeroxed missives about Macaulay Culkin, puberty and yes, Applebee's. I was inspired to seek out the nearest location–in Hillsboro as it turned out–and took a photo out front. I wasn't ready to venture inside of that world yet. Now I'm mature enough to handle it.
Completely un-chain-related, but this week I happened to catch Seth on Split Ends, the Style network show that's like Wife Swap for hairdressers. Culture clash, fish out of water, you know the score. It's strange to think of teens now being 29 because that makes me ahem, elderly. It think it's ok as long as I don't start a cougar blog.
It's a fast food bonanza over at Esquire.com. The best. The worst. And sure, lots of usual suspects…does an In-N-Out hater even exist? Lurking on slide 21 of fast food faves is Rick Bayless' pick, Birreria Reyes de Ocotlan in Chicago, illustrated with one of my very own photos. Go goat meat!
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