May 29
Yes, I was confused by the “Nothing Says Summer Like Icing” headline in today’s dining section, but then the Times always makes declarative statements that mean nothing to me.
I guess cakes can be summer food if you want them to be, but the paper is going to have an awfully hard time convincing me that twentysomethings making $60,000 a year are struggling.
I do love a layer cake, though. And the more garish, the better.
What was the most brilliant article in today’s New York Times? No, not the one about treating gang violence like an infectious disease nor the creepy piece about parents tracking their children’s grades and attendance in real time.
No, it’s "Déjà Vu Dining," an earnest in-depth review/round-up of suburban chain restaurants by their “in the region” writers. I could’ve written the whole thing myself, and with great pleasure.
I have no idea who these writers are but one can only imagine. The overall Manhattan-centric Times always seems woefully out of touch with reality, and I can’t understand how their bedroom community counterparts appear to be equally removed from the scary dietary habits of regular folks. The article gives the impression was that these restaurants were their first encounters with chains.
At least that’s what I gathered from statements like, “in the league of the best Italian restaurants” in regard to a Long Island Olive Garden. All that says to me is that the state of Italian cuisine in Massapequa is sad and that independently owned has no correlation to quality despite the common perception.
And only someone who feeds their kids gluten-free chicken nuggets and whole grain French bread pizza would say “my teenage daughter is a fan of spicy food, so she was enthusiastic about a visit to Chili’s in East Haven, Conn.” Or maybe I’m the naïve one because I had no idea that Chili’s was known for piquant flavors (though the chain does exist in heat loving Kuala Lumpur) But compared to an Amy’s burrito, Southwestern eggrolls probably do seem spicy.
I wonder if this is meant to be a nod to recession-fighting tactics. While the rest of the nation is supposedly subsisting on 99-cent frozen dinners and Manwich, tri-state denizens are dallying with stuffed potato skins and chocolate lasagna? If so, I’m all for this cost-saving plan.
Here's a real penny-pincher; make your own 3,148-calorie battered onion treat at home.
I don’t celebrate Passover (or any religious holiday, really), have zero interest in Earth Day and have never understood the allure of outdoor dining in NYC (or anywhere, hence my fascination/revulsion with Gourmet's perpetual alfresco porn. April's issue contained an Italian maritime doozy, which I haven't had the wherewithal to analyze) so there’s like nothing food-related on the internet to properly distract me today.
Boo.
However, I will admit I’m fascinated by the German man who eats 12,000 calories a day and can’t gain weight. A pint of mayonnaise a day?!
Not so much the financial analyst fast food stunt. Uh, this was already done in like 2005 when it was timely. Oh, and by this guy, too. But what would this city be without rich people thinking every idea they have is original, genius and worth exploiting for profit?
Funny that they don’t mention her current role as the single Real Housewife of New York City who can’t get her boyfriend who already has three children to commit to her and make more babies.
Instead, Pepperidge Farms has played her up as the “break-out star” from a 2005 Martha Stewart Apprentice spot (the gal clearly loves her camera time).
I suspect it’s because it’s hard to sell the concept of taking back snacks when the woman subsists on lychee martinis and air. I keep waiting for her to eat something, one little nibble—she’s a “healthy foodie,” right? But no, just cocktails.
On last night’s episode Bethanny was bragging about her friend’s restaurant Table 8 in Miami and the whole scene filmed there was her sitting at the bar drinking and getting a lecture about her eggs no longer being fresh (admittedly, someone talking about my eggs like they’re a farm product would make me want to slam a few oranjitas, myself). What’s the use of pals with restaurants if you don’t get free food?
But you seriously think I’m going to read a book called, Gain 25 Thin Thoughts. Lose 25 Heavy Habits and Be: NATURALLY THIN! written by a drunkorexic?
Some time ago, during a hellish meal at Montreal’s Au Pied de Cochon (service was some of the most sophomoric, assholiest I’ve encountered, which isn’t entirely unusual with restaurants foodies love) James found a screw in his pork chop. At the time we speculated about how it would be reported in a New York Post headline and imagined it would involve the staff having a screw loose.
Well, we finally got our answer thanks to a disgruntled bacon cheeseburger eater in the Bronx: “Wendy’s Got a Screw Loose: Suit”
Who knew that it was even possible to blow $300 a pop on Boston Market? Or that you could pay for fast food with checks. I guess you do what you have to for rotisserie chicken and chipotle meatloaf.
I kind of prefer the sheer idiocy of the Indiana woman who scored $57 worth of Applebee’s food after finding worms in her salad…then left her purse behind with a container of worms. At least it wasn’t a human finger.
Even though I didn’t think it wasn’t true, I was kind of scared by the inexplicable ‘80s urban legend that Wendy’s put worms in their burgers. (To this day, I still believe that Rod Stewart had gallons of antelope semen pumped from his stomach, so these myths are persuasive.) The second I heard chain restaurant and worms in conjunction with the above story, I automatically assumed it was about Wendy’s.
Wendy’s seems to have a lot of trouble. Just off the top of my head I can think of two shooting incidents involving the chain, one recent, one not.
I love this article, “The Myth of Fruit” from Wednesday’s Guardian. This quote sums up what I’ve thought for some time. And I can get all cranky on the subject and presumably not rile up freaks on the internet, assuming the public is less passionate about fruit than food allergies, their appearances on Jeopardy! and wine bars in Williamsburg (scroll to comments for warm fuzzy fun).
“If you believe the nutrition industry, every week produces some new superfood, often a fruit: blueberries, pomegranates, acai berries. The fact is that fruit consists of water, sugars (normally about 10%), some vitamin C, and some potassium (thought to be good for controlling blood pressure). And that’s kind of it.”
I’ve always hated fruit (though I love vegetables) and feel like it’s a chore to eat. The mandarin oranges (I can’t call them clementines—is this an East Coast thing?) Granny Smiths and bananas I’ve been lugging to work the past few months have been killing me.
Fruit juice feels like a total waste of calories and smoothies seem like a joke. Melon is flat-out disgusting and the only food in the entire universe that I won’t eat (well, there’s malta, but that’s a beverage). Minus melon, I don’t mind tropical fruit every now and then, but that’s all. And maybe my problem is that I was raised on bland grocery store produce, though I doubt it. People are always raving about Honeycrisp apples, but to me an apple is an apple and they’re boring.
If I want sweets, I would rather eat real desserts (poached pears and baked apples will not cut it). Nature just doesn’t make candy; that’s as sad as calling graham crackers cookies.
Bad fruit image from Lunacy Beads
The term beefcake (as opposed to cheesecake, I suppose) always seemed funny, unsexy and early ‘80s like Chippendale’s dancers and referring to asses as buns.
Beefscapes, on the other hand, are the most awesome food art since that guy started painting on tortillas (and they certainly beat Sandra Lee’s tablescapes). Canyons and valleys of meat? Maybe the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board's new ad campaign is working on me because I’m not a huge beef eater, yet I still find these carnivorous dioramas creepily mesmerizing.
Just get a load of that eye-popping Crumb-Crusted Top Sirloin and Roasted Garlic Potatoes with Bourbon Sauce.
I had this bright idea during my two Christmas days off that I would actually read books in 2008. So, I put a shitload of hardbound printed matter on hold at the library, assuming they would slowly trickle over to the Carroll Gardens branch (it took months for my requested The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to show up and when I went to pick it up someone had taken it from the holds shelf. There is a place in hell for patrons who “steal” others’ reserved items). But now I’m freaking out because they’re all coming at once and the tomes are laughably enormous.
I’ll never be able to get through 753-page American Food Writing: An Anthology: With Classic Recipes, 582-page Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink and 614-page Tree of Smoke in my allotted three weeks. I don’t even know where to begin.
Thinking about books got me to playing around with Shelfari, a social networking tool that seems fun yet ultimately as useless to me as MySpace, Facebook and the rest. I started adding all of my cookbooks that were available and quickly realized that I have hundreds of cookbooks and pamphlets, yet probably only cook from about ten on a regular basis.
Great, in 2008 I could start cooking from all the books I’d bought for one reason or another, mostly reasons having little to do with good eating. For instance, Girl Food (an old zine pal made ziti from this for Robert Crumb–and wouldn’t you know it–she got laid) and The Madison Avenue Cookbook (which is poo poohed in this 1963 Time article that does give the nod to new book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking with no mention of one of the now legendary authors). It would be fun.
Except that Slashfood practically started doing the same thing, I recently stumbled on Cooked Books which champions gems from NYPL, the kitchn just started a book club and now Eat Drink One Woman has a guest blogger also talking up old cookbooks. Whew. Never mind, then, I'll keep my cookbooks to myself.
Um…because everything else I write about here is so original. No matter, I do foresee some tweaking and revamping in the immediate future. I just don’t think it will involve cookbooks (or god forbid, viral videos).
I’m not really about newsiness, if you haven’t noticed. I much prefer writing about things of little importance than current events. But I swear I’ve been channeling the New York Times dining section for the past two weeks. Last Wednesday they had the article about creating an indoor market in NYC when I had just been talking about the very thing (mostly an inner monologue) after visiting Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market.
Today, they tackled a pet peeve that I was actively researching for no purpose whatsoever last week: food allergies. This was prompted by a woman sitting at the table next to me at beerbistro on New Year’s Eve who made a point of asking if the desserts had peanuts in them because she was allergic. But she didn’t seem truly concerned, especially since she’d already taken a bite. I imagine if you were genuinely prone to goober-induced anaphylactic shock you would be more diligent than that.
I’ve always been very suspicious of people who claim allergies because I think with adults it’s just a way of legitimizing food aversions and quirks. A former coworker used to mention her chocolate allergy whenever treats were brought into the office, and I was convinced it was just a mental thing to keep from eating desserts. With kids it seems more the domain of neurotic overeducated, wealthy-yet-not-working mommies who have no real problems to fixate on. Seriously, according to the CDC only twelve people died from food allergies in 2004 (their most recent data).
Too bad I’m not a Harper’s subscriber because I’d like to read this month’s article, “Everyone's gone nuts: The exaggerated threat of food allergies.” “Are the dangers of childhood food allergy exaggerated?” provides a scholarly UK perspective.
So, I was a bit relieved that today’s article, “Food Allergies Stir a Mother to Action” painted Robyn O’Brien as somewhat of a crackpot. I do think it’s notable that children are increasingly allergic to food and I don’t doubt that manufacturers play some role with unnecessary chemicals and additives. But I just can’t take a grown woman seriously when her arms are smaller than her single-digit-aged daughter’s. Intentionally emaciated limbs ≠ person possessing sound reasoning.
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