6/30/08

Florent

who? When will it ever end?

Pork rinds and inebriated hillbillies

Oh, and morbid obesity, too.

Not fud, but pretty good

at least to this determined non-driver.

Not fud, just LOL

San Francisco

at the Seaport

(Filched from Eater) 

Tube steaks

Funny that people are not that skeptical about E. coli burgers on the cheap. 

Not fud, just appalling

We in the streets in February 2003 were so naive to think it was all about the oil

Not fud, just trenchant

Let them drink Bud

Gin from a teacup

and an explanation of the Lone Star space

Not fud, just funny

Call them the great defenders

Whose idea was it

to give this guy a column to drool out

6/28/08

Williams-Sonoma sees this

and there will be five new catalogs. Jalapeno roaster, meet baby food pusher. 

(Filched from the one useful bit of Chowhound)

Mme Sarkozy

is just as easy as you've read. Funny, I've thought Italian cooking is getting more French and have almost reconsidered an old rant

Host Twinkie

No one ever invite her to a Santeria ceremony -- God save the chickens in a "religious smorgasbord."

At least there's one thing

Washington gets right: food on stamps. These are much nicer than the Squanto series. 

Not fud, just the price of beer

And he doesn't even get into the many mansions the old Straight Talker has to choose among for his weekends away. 

6/27/08

Not so sure about organic

but he's right about arctic char. Get ready for prices to go up as demand does, especially once people realize it doesn't aromatize the house the way farmed salmon does. Plus it sounds so much nicer than trout. 

Not fud, just funny

Walking to the farmers' market this morning, I spotted a van with the perfect name for the last seven years of the Bush-Cheney Co.: Freedom Demolition. 

The hole

big enough to drive a semi through: What the hell do they taste like? (And what might "cheddar asiago" be? But I kinda like the sophistication of "Burgundian pinot noir.") 

(Plus I just checked the link, and it's pretty embarrassing when the perpetrator's name is misspelled on its own handout.) 

Finally, a rejoinder

to some pretty clueless attempted snark.  

We've come a long way

from 9/11

And for the truly strong of stomach . . . 

6/26/08

Aside from the gushing

this is pretty cool

Not fud, just the anti-Panchito

Forewarned is forearmed. Plus he's just a great read

(Addiction courtesy of First Draft)

Why the only sale posters

in the windows of the Food Shitty are for meat

Not fud, just thank you, Panchito

Compassionate conservatism, indeed. Enlarge the image at your own risk, and I don't even like dogs. 

Slow food day

but wine? Nice. 

Subway lunch and dinner for a month, though, are not going to nourish future fossils to fuel future cars. . . 

Not really fud

unless you consider how it gets from field to table. Guess we can't argue about blood for oil

"Terrorist alert milkshake"

All you need to see is the screen grab, though. Or maybe the recipe. 

Not fud, just "The Lives of Others"

I can see them confiscating cheese in their arrogant stupidity. Laptops and cameras? 

(Filched from Trex)

6/25/08

Beyond food porn

Let the backlash begin. I wish the bass's eye did not look as if he/she/it had been on a bender, though. 

Not fud, just sobering

Can you imagine a(nother) president who has never shopped amazon, let alone been inundated by lame email jokes? Even the Hanoi Hilton must have WiFi now. Do we want his finger on the Kindle? 

Ranch on rice

Catch of the day. 

Not fud, just spot-on

and not as filthy as usual, although you will want to cuss mightily on seeing so many smirks in one place. 

Not fud, just good

"Smiley faces of a corporate state." Not sure Nader is the correct response, though. 

Don't worry

the pharmaceutical companies will profit from it: nearly one in 10.

And he's older

than George Carlin

Encore

for a great technique. Fava beans are in the Greenmarket right now, and eating them this way is like shelling peanuts. Rather than oiling them last night, I just soaked them, and that works even better. 

Somehow

I suspect he could even turn shit into something worse. 

A long way

from Florentmania

The bloom

is off the Turd

6/24/08

Big chicken in cowhide boots

No 99-cent burgers wanted in South Korea. No tinhorn dictators, either. 

Every day

is National Jackass Day lately. This is not praising but drowning. 

Not fud, just "The Lives of Others"

Operators are standing by to hear your protests against letting the most reviled president in history get his way on spying on Americans. New York's senators in particular need a nudge. 

Not fud, but a good idea

If only. 

Give me

the proverbial fucking break. It's not Franco. It's Terri Schiavo. Allah help us if it goes on to be the Man from Nantucket. 

Second life

Interesting development in the life of the marketing genius who taught me one sure thing: There is no such thing as bad publicity. All anyone remembers is the reference, not the context. 

Is Florent

the Franco of New York City restaurants

End times

are near. What, they couldn't get raspberry and chocolate into it

Not fud, just appalling

If they'd denied him a visa, Martha-style, 40,000 people would not have been screwed. But at least no one died for him

6/23/08

I should be cooking

with four friends and a consort due at the table in a little over two hours, but I just walked in with a bagful of paper and cat products and thought again of how happy it makes me to see this in our thoroughly urban foyer, a memento of the year of magical rethinking

Not fud, just jaw-dropping

If only Americans would put down that bottle of Bud they wanted to drink with the Chimp and pay attention to the banana-ing of the republic. 

Groans

are the worst medicine. And this on a Sunday when Single and Looking (nee Out of the Gene Pool) bought the big one. Anyone wonder why printed newspapers are in trouble? 

Not fud, just prescient

If only everyone had listened way back when -- he does connect Dick to Colin in inimitable fashion. 


How ostentatious was the cake

at the second "low-key" event? Six hundred close friends partying at the White House while the Midwest is drowning. And a cash bar afterward? Skanky is as skanky does. 

(Gleaned from the indispensable Dan Froomkin)

Connecting the dots

 The only mystery is why our dictator has not suggested raising giant rabbits that eat more than they yield. I would call this an exceptional read, but everything at Tomdispatch qualifies. 

Carlin

Food kicks in about 2:30. 

How many cannibals

can your body feed? Mine could do a party of eight. 

How overcaffeinated

can you get? I was at spastic. 

No kibble

for this cat

Do they make

hot dogs with Rocky Mountain oysters

But ketchup

was unseemly

6/21/08

As John Prine would say

pretty good, not bad. But it must have been those feisty-fearing editors who would not let her say Virgin Mary. A margarita cannot get its hymen back. You would be drinking lime juice only, maybe with salt.

The ultimate

commentary on the Man From Nantucket overkill. 

She's right

Stick a -30- after us. It's over. 

Not really fud, but amazing

She lied, no one died. Yet the Chimp can meet with the Queen

Maybe it's because

the Times magazine has not landed on our doorstep yet, but this was the first laugh of the day. Silly, but it has its moments.  

(Filched from metafilter)

Not fud, just perspective

And he was right from Day One about the Chimp, too. 

Might be time

to revive the Y2K larder. 

Not really fud, just depressing

Before this is all over, the Big O is going to be eating at Applebee's to prove he's one of them.

6/20/08

Now if they can only invent

the weer bladder (for elimination of both rent-a-liquids). 

Stick a California roll in him

I hate it when I get sucked into the drool of Panchito -- the Italian expert who mistook a sociopathic dry drunk for a good ol' boy and now apparently has not noticed all the sushi in his faux homeland -- but the staycation aspect redeems it. No Tuscany for me this year. 

The ultimate get-rich-never scheme

To paraphrase Jay Leno, the approval rating is so low that if the sucker has dinner with his wife and daughters, he's the only one at the table who thinks he's doing a good job. And somehow I doubt those mugs are going to escalate in value in the time it takes history to transform shit into Shinola. 

Not fud, but amen

Can you say "pet goat"? 

And there's this. And this

Brave new food

Funny, I was reading this and thinking all the contortions sounded sort of like what we went through at the CIA years ago when I took the "nutritional cuisine" course for a story for Health magazine. They had all these tricks for cutting the fat in vinaigrette etc., but inevitably, you just wanted to get out your handkerchief. 

Tin chefs indeed

Defensive, are they? If Rachael uses her pots and saute pan every day, I'll eat Puck's $99.90 set of 11(!) pieces. 

Honor

and dignity

At least

he didn't expect cake

Not fud, just "The Lives of Others"

It can happen here. If you don't pick up the phone and call these losers to protest. It takes minutes; surprisingly receptive representatives are standing by. 

6/19/08

Remembering

the good old days of Wordstar when "Galapagos" was inevitably suggested whenever I typed "jalapenos." 

Even better are the misspellings on food forums; I particularly liked one complaining about "all this carp." 

(Filched from Grub Street, which itself found it through a past-its-sell-by blog.) 

Not fud, just smart

Rumors must be reported. Since the lapdogs were trained to repeat lies for war, there's no stopping them. 

Not fud, just dead-on

No brains for oil. 

Feeding time

in the Chimp compound. 

Not fud, but not fantasy, either

And the reasons just keep coming. 

And people think

I have too much time on my hands. . . 

Not fud, just appalling

Just thinking about the Barney song will set you on edge. Somehow, I don't think they hate us for our freedoms

6/18/08

Not fud, just sharp

Surely a good ol' Texas boy won't object to the uglification of the Maine coast. 

Who chopped down the cherry tree?

You've come a long way, America. 

"If geeks talked about cookbooks"

Apparently there are people crazier than some forums I could mention. . . 

She wasn't stealing

She was marketing. Would anyone have gone to the site if not for the purloined recipe? The best part of this, which is an alternative to the WSJ's piece, is the breakdown of candy consumers. I think I qualify as a Detached Occasionalist. 

I ate too many as a kid

-- and grudgingly -- but apparently catfish are worth eating nowadays. 

Smarter than calling Dad

Using the effen Google. Salient detail is right there, no thrashing needed. I bailed in pain, but what about asking a guy who would know? Strunk & White would be weeping. . . 

6/17/08

Nothin' personal

but I had a similar backwash of annoyance on reading this bizarreness. The orange flower water is as essential as Angostura bitters are to a proper rum punch. And agave? Get outta here. 

The risks of overripening

And the rewards of farming and processing creative juices


And the bakeoff loser is . . .

The one who can't pull out

Not fud, just compelling

I am a hard ass about kids, but this works. Since I no longer give cash, I will give a plug. 

Waiting for fresh meat

A Guardian cartoonist slams the door on a chimp ass.

Filet of athletic equipment

And who wouldn't prefer "a bottle in front of me"?

Not fud, just laughable

A library full of pet goats.

Not fud, just one great read

You'll laugh, but you'll despair. "Sharks still eating bodies. . ."

My outrage meter

has hit the WTF level so many times it must be broken. The Big Dick's old company has done so much evil while taking billions to "support" the troops you would think it can't get any worse. But you'd be wrong. I can't get into our NYTimes account to link the full story, but I give them credit for tucking the Names of the Dead into the story, under the food shot, in the dead-trees edition: 4,093 identified. Go Fuck Yourself must really believe there are shopping malls in hell.

Veg and non-veg

Beggars can be choosers in Mumbai. Fascinating story, but of course I have to quibble. Why is food inevitably described so imprecisely? None of my cookbooks have a recipe for "yellow curried gruel." And can gruel be carnivorous fare?

My favorite party trick

has been both disseminated and demystified. It always amazes me how amazed people are when they see how fast you can chill a bottle of Champagne in an emergency (learned it from a sommelier friend eons ago who always stayed after our New Year's open house to make pasta when the glogg was gone and the warm gift bottles were lined up on the counter).

M. Night,

eat your heart out. (So to speak.) A happening in a milk bar is real entertainment, especially for someone in major procrastination mode.

(Filched from metafilter)

Everyone's doing it

Stealing recipes, that is. Maybe it's time to abandon the charade that any of these millionaire fools has homey tastes, let alone ever bakes.

6/16/08

In an ideal world

Americans would elect their leaders on the basis of which one might possibly-perhaps-maybe be able to extricate them from a bankrupting war and provide health insurance and public transit instead. But no. We have to dick around in the cookie jar. I know why she steals. I cannot understand why the lapdogs run with the nonsense, election after election. We are ruled by the top of the food chain in a rotting banana republic. Why do we pretend Evita baked alfajores?

I hate it

when someone both smarter and quicker on the cursor says all that needs to be said about something end-of-days ridiculous. Gettin' harder and harder to keep the base camp's fires burning . . .

File under "tangled web"

Shrimp never strikes me as a luxury food anymore; it would be a whole other story if the Man From Nantucket were serving foie gras with his apparently unfermented grape juice. And at least it wasn't arugula, and nobody got $400 haircuts. Did they? What's a million among journalists?

Also, this takes its semisweet time getting to the point, but skim down to the last third and you will be feeling very optimistic. Or maybe not. There are CrackBerries in the afterlife?

For all my skepticism

about the frenzy over tainted tomatoes, I have to admit I did just wash the sublime champagne mango I just bought at Gourmet Garage (still no bag reward). Crap on the skin goes straight into the flesh when you slice into fruit. And in a world where the preponderance of farmworkers and food handlers have no clean place to void, let alone wash up afterward, it's amazing the rich all over the planet are not brought to their knees before the porcelain throne every night. Shit doesn't just happen.

Calling Ralph

on the big white telephone. I think the state might have bigger things to worry about than people getting trashed on ice cream. That is rent-a-binge material. And so far bulimia is not a crime at any age.

Huge kudos to Gothamists for being able to read verbiage like "splendid and scrumptious new agrigoodies" and "agrilicious" without gagging themselves.

Not fud, but entertaining

Who needs Jell-O wrestling? I am so ready for Death Match of the Fixed: The painkiller queen vs the tiara princess.

Why waiters should believe

diners when they say the wine is corked. Tasting it is not always smart.

(Filched from the indomitable Lisa Casey)

Forget the MRSA in the pork

Foie gras will always be the target. Luckily, there is one smart purveyor.

6/14/08

Be careful what (truth) you say

The Boy Wonder should probably get out his shit shield. Some years ago I pointed out that the chef's new apron was invisible, and a shilling underling unleashed a horde of feces-flinging comment monkeys.

While Mo-Do still dreams

of riding in the first car in the homecoming parade, serious stuff is being debated. Although I do wish Home Ec could go back to teaching the cash-strapped that beans and cornbread (or beans and tortillas) make a much more nutritious dinner than cereal and toast.

Not fud, just sharp

I miss nothing about the home of the Human Scratch N Match but the 'mics, particularly Dilbert.

But speaking of asparagus,

this is rather transporting. She keeps it up, I'll blogroll her.

Then again,

political comments can be dangerous. Follow one linking to a "favorite headline of all time," and the next thing you know you're deep in the paper's food section with jaw dropping over the ripped-off-the-wire hollow "features." And the awful realization that they use "Kentuckiana" down Louisville way. I still remember the slot who hated it so much he preferred "Indi-ucky."

The best food commentary

is on the political blogs. Here, the post is adequate, the feedback exceptional. And it reminded me of my trip to Satur Farms a couple of years ago with a bunch of chefs, all of whom were most anxious to see the white asparagus growing and had to be tactfully informed that the absence of chlorophyll is what makes it white. It's buried in dirt.

The anti-locavore

Figures lie and liars figure, but the assertion about food miles accrued on supermarket runs is intriguing.

Not fud, just LOL

And the comment, too.

Much better than a cheese stake*

Passing strange, sandwich style.

(Spelling courtesy of NYTimes, slide 10.)

Not fud, just funny

At least we know he's never looked at porn online.

Menage a trois

All politics is food.

He also links to the ultimate commentary on the Village losing one of its people.

But The Editors have a pretty sad observation as well: "He wasn’t alone, dying today, although the others passed without the benefit of A-list eulogies."

6/13/08

6/12/08

Fountains of pain

For all the horrors of my childhood, I did grow up drinking artesian well water. Two years ago I met a hydrogeologist from out my way who said the water coming out of the ground around Tucson was hot to the touch because the wells had to be drilled so deep. And now it's even worse: "Arizona is out: It now imports all of its drinking water." How about a few more golf courses, or swimming pools, in a region where swamp coolers always outperformed air conditioners?

Not fud, just funny

To think people once believed they could traverse the country in houses on wheels with no consequences. As much as I fear reincarnation, coming back as an archaeologist could be a laugh a minute.

If the label says it's food

it must be. Let them count the ways. . .

(Filched from Thomasmc)

Wait long enough

and a cartoonist will always say it best. For years I've been railing that American drivers are dinosaurs: Little tiny brains in ridiculously outsized bodies. And even the weightists can't take offense here -- I'm not even going to talk about "Cadillac bodies on VW frames."

Which came first?

The salmonella in the egg or in the chicken? So far, this cuts through the FDA tomato crap best.

Don't eat the tomatoes -- have the beef!

Interesting revelation on who got the cellphones to pop the popcorn. I was gullible because my dad died from brain cancer and I suspect the worst. Which is why every time I see someone's head pulsing blue, I get queasy.

The real "Top Chef"

And of course I missed it. This, however, is still showing in NYC and well worth seeing: France without a flight.

I don't feel so bad

about the crappy waitress at Roberto Passon Sunday night. We almost ate here, for about the 12th time. (Just to clarify: I will go back another 12 times; the food's seriously good, especially when a woman is manning the brick oven.)

I always thought

Robert Downey Jr. could do no wrong, then he dropped a Burger Death promo into "Iron Man." All is now forgiven. Maybe.

(Gleaned from Eater)

A hot dog in Rome

Not even electing Obama is going to clean up this mess. But at least the Italians are not going to let his vileness go unremarked. And neither should we.

6/11/08

Slyest dig ever at the Rachael ruckus

Ms. Malkin, I'm afraid they know where your parents were born.

Dining with jock itch

Figures. I go and say something nice about the interactive Pinch Paper and it turns out the whole story is not so savory.

Not fud, just wondering

If Dick had a dick, would his motorcades sound less like Hell's Castratos? And people rag on Bill for acting wacky after bypass surgery. . . .

Think his pee

smells like blood?

"Food safety is never an issue"

in the farm bill. Lobbyists get only what they pay for.

And don't even think about what factory farming does for pigs. Purell ain't gonna help.

Some fud

Mostly amazing. The piano has been drinking.

(Gleaned from this grab bag)

Ultimate wine for dummies

Almost makes you want to try a red with roasted penguin or "barbecued" kangaroo.

(Filched from Sogood)

Not fud, just vital

Better than the national brief.

Not fud, just tart

Regrets? He's had the wrong ones.

Not fud, just inspiring

And I've never read a Harry Potter.

(Filched from the Boy Wonder.)

And I'm going to make my own

Worcestershire sauce. Write, my ass.

Farting vegans

And Thanet Earth.

I think McDonald's

pulled the wrong ingredient.

Got Evian?

Protecting water from sunlight?

And take a look at what has happened to the lake where we went camping as kids. Then check out the pools and golf courses. . .

They've come a long way

from banning "feisty" because the slot was convinced it meant "small farting dog."

Take a Judith Leiber bag

to lunch. But don't take your Seafood Selector.

Not fud, just funny

Honor. And dignity.

We'll be seeing

a lot of this cake, I suspect.

(Filched from onegoodmove)

6/10/08

Not fud, just compelling

He wants a place in the history books? Index him under Impeachment, Worst President Ever.

When the tin can is rocking

don't come knocking -- she'll kill you.

(Filched from gawker.)

The smaller the farm

the higher the yield. Tell that to Congress.

If you're not losing it

you're not paying attention. And yes, there's a food angle: The Chimp's crew bent over for free meals.

The only distillers

the world should need: cartoonists. Am I the last sitting idiot who didn't realize how/why Truman was vindicated by history? (In my defense: No one said anything in school about Japanese internment camps in Arizona, but my dad drove us past an abandoned one one summer to educate us. And people wrote him off as nuts.)

Filched from another daily addiction: Dan Froomkin.

Worse than I realized

Don't know that I can recall a front page like this during any of the many, many E. coli beef recalls in which people actually did die. Talk about sacred steers.

Someone's feeling guilty

about dumping his crippled wife for a Bud heiress.

And there goes the youth vote.

Of course it was invented in the U.S. of A.

And is probably made in China. 

Get out the duct tape

We're all gonna die! All bases are covered -- local case, poll, live chat -- except copy-editing (varities?) If only the alarmists had been on the job in the run-up to the war. . . .

(Filched from Romenesko)

Not fud, just sadly amusing

The only reality-based newscaster.

Not fud, just embarrassing

And only 223 days to go.

While we're freaking out about tomatoes

South Korea has a bigger fear factor.

Not fud, just inspiring

Drive-by messaging

(Filched from Jesus' General, where only the strong of stomach should watch virtual McLame doing his interpretive dance.) 

And here I thought

the silliest part was that anyone might be sitting at home following the live flogging. . .

6/9/08

Yes. We can.

Dream, anyway.

Always 5 o'clock somewhere

Last to link

but this is actually quite good, and not just because a friend was involved in its creation. The writing was also missing that weird twee aspect so many manly men down there adopt when addressing a subject once relegated to the women's pages.

The wrong end

of the alimentary canal.

Not fud, just cojones

Right from Day One.

Just a couple of millionaires

sitting around cooking. When will the silly charades end? (Turmeric and basil in chili? He must be an arugula eater.)

On the bright side

you can still eat the canned kind. Or so they said last week.

Nothing as good

as a bad review. 

They're all turduckens

It's not just Big Dick. Mrs. Chimp travels the same way

All silliness is local

As usual, nobody sez it better about the "abbatoir" at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. But could someone please explain the newsworthiness of a drunk getting trapped in a bar? I feel like I'm back in Glenwood, Iowa, where a front-page story in the Opinion-Tribune would be about a guy building a condo for purple martins. (No link, either, because I don't want to encourage them.)  

Not fud, just appalling

How much more honor and integrity can the White House take? 

(Filched from The Editors)

6/7/08

How did I miss

avocado pits on the front page, for guacamole's sake?  

Only cake, but stomach-turning

As bad as it looked at the time, what we didn't know was even worse. The whole excerpt is even more sickening. Can turds blossom in hell? 

But can they fry

a squirrel, Huckleberry style

If this came in an apron

I'd order one

Christ on a tortilla

This should be good, from the first martyr to truth after 9/11. 

(Filched from bartcop.com)

Heard it through the coronet

Trends, malapropisms, deal breakers -- what more could you ask

No fud, just incisive

Cliffsnotes on a scandal: We can't "let these people back into polite society." 

6/6/08

Why France rules

These are easier on the ears than human larvae in a restaurant. 

At least Damien Hirst

had a sense of irony with his encrusted skull. This is 4,295 levels of ridiculous. I don't care how much money you have. (Let's hear it for dead media: I spotted the coke holder in my daily paper. The print edition.) This, however, has style

Is it meant to put you off your meat?

Oddest ad campaign yet for a burger chain. 

(Filched from metafilter.com)

The smartest guy in the virtual newsroom

Never forget: He was right about the Chimp from Day One. 

Today's column is the short version of the 1996 brilliance. (And somehow it's applicable to fud & dying fud sections.) 

And all the bourbon bottles are liters

Pretzels for gavage, too

When tax dollars went for more than endless war

And when kitchens were meant for cooking, not showing off. Thirteen minutes short but brilliant. I think we need a new WPA for creative types. . . .

Two fud metaphors

and one of them is "long-awaited is a post-steakhouse bowel movement." 

Thirsty?

No rain in Spain, either. 

6/5/08

One that got away

The danger of linking wildly after four cups of tea in the morning is that you can't get 'em all. I'll have more to say at the base camp on Sunday, but this take on the new French, in every sense of the term, was rather insightful.

Not fud, just devastating

Coffins disguised as air freight, but don't let a mother curse the president.

With pictures.

Eat your heart out, MoDo

Bambi, my ass.

(Forelock tug to Sadly, No.)

Feeding time

For lapdogs. Thank Allah Panchito is busy noshing at the truffle trough this election.

But I'm not going to feel guilty

drinking $7.97 Veramonte sauvignon blanc from Chile. I hear the wolf out on the horizon. . .

(And I don't think nonsubscribers can read these online, but the WSJournal today has two accidental-life-during-wartime stories: people planting vegetables instead of flowers for their own Victory Gardens, and women giving up pantyhose. This time, though, no one has to draw a seam up the back of her calves.)

Almost worked

in New Orleans . . .

6/4/08

Not fud, just funny

Down to two. Almost.

Always the wrong end

of the alimentary canal with these guys.

I hope the hot sauce is better

than the blog. Looks like a classic case of a web designer ordering up all the elements in vogue at the time. But if the Boy Wonder says the closing of the store is a DC tragedy, I believe him.

They are France, and you can't, too

I abandoned a certain section when I slogged through seven columns of reviews apparently written with one eye on the computer screen, the other on the mirror (you could almost hear the grunts and "You go, girl!"s) and saw: On the web: 20 more. And so I missed a gem. I would give a hat tip to the certain someone who tipped me off, but it is a very small world. . . .

Let alone arugula

And these are the guys paid to analyze why Hillary lost but never mention America really hates the Chimp's illegal war*? Speaking for the common man after $40 entrees?

*Amazing how quickly the lapdogs bury the evidence. Click now and the three American soldiers slaughtered are so far below the lede they might as well be disguised as cargo

She lost me at pig's blood

Was it really a yearning for the good old days when cilantro had to be omitted because those great unwashed hordes of Middle Americans might not be able to find it at the Kroger?

Nobody sez it better.

Well, there's always a sequel

In my first copy-editing job, at the Louisville Times, we always had to insert this sentence into stories about lawyer-enriching tiffs: "Claims made in the filing of a lawsuit represent only one side of the case." But it sounds as if women are not the only troublemakers here.

6/3/08

Thinking out of the bottle

Why do I think something this intelligent would take five years to plan in Manhattan and one week in Albany to shoot down? Then again, are there even 12 working water fountains in this borough anymore? We can't even get these. (Filched from Tengrain.)

Let Allah sort 'em out

Stick a straw in it. It's done.

(Cribbed from crooks&liars.)

The pink, surrendered

I deleted this over at the base camp because I realized it really had nothing to do with food, but my standards here are obviously lower. And so it's back by demand, in mildly sanitized form:

This was a bad week for anyone who fancies herself living in a sophisticated city. The streets were overrun with the female equivalent of Fleet Week sailors: strange visitors in look-at-me uniform. (Yes, I know there are girls in the Navy, but the boys are the UPS guys of the military.) I have never seen so many Botero-esque women in skimpier costumes in the sidewalk cafes on Columbus; I can’t even imagine what a Technicolor freak show the Village was. It was as ostentatiously ridiculous as kayaking around Venice. (If I had a driver’s license for any reason but national ID, I would propose a story to La Repubblica on “seeing Manhattan by RV.”) Earth to America: “Sex and the City” was fiction. Teevee. Not even a reality show. The worst thing is this Halloween-in-May parade made me remember a creepy incident on Bleecker Street one night when a guy walked out of Amy’s Bread ahead of me and started harassing two women who did not appear to be from around here: “You think you look sexy? You look like tramps! ‘Buy me drinks and you can [redacted] in my [redacted].’” I don’t think it was Mr. Cindy, either. I guess things could be more unsettling, though. Imagine the streets overrun with Indiana Joneses with enlarged prostates.

"In Spain, water is a new battleground"

Sounds grim, no?

But in America, doing something about it is "politically risky."

Who told this country it could have its cars and its future, too? While North Africa moves ever northward:

"The changes on the Almarcha family farm in Albanilla over the past three decades are a testament to that hotter, drier climate here. Until two decades ago, the farm grew wheat and barley, watered only by rain. As rainfall dropped, Carlo Almarcha, 51, switched to growing almonds.

"About 10 years ago, he quit almonds and changed to organic peaches and pears, 'since they need less water,' he explained. Recently he took up olives and figs, 'which resist drought and are less sensitive to weather'.''

If I were the investing type, I'd be putting my money on camels. Or at least their stem cells.

Bunker fare

Search string of the day over at the base camp: Do people in Regina eat horse?

Yeah, those barbaric furriners.

6/2/08

And that mythical 3-cent discount

at Gourmet Garage won't do a thing about the Everests of plastic bags.

(Forgot the HT: ristocrats.blogspot.com.)

Don't think he's talking arugula

I suspect he means $48-a-pound mesclun. The meat should not cost less than the salad. Although I noticed just now that our neighborhood grocery store (really a bodega on steroids) has signs in the windows advertising only specials on beef, lamb and veal. Everything else must be priced out. 

Keep your eye on the scarf

The wonder boy turns up the real reason Dunkin is evil: By not providing health insurance for workers but paying them so little that they qualify for Medicaid, the chain pushes the cost onto the taxpayers. It's the Wal-Mart scamola, forcing Big Government to subsidize Big Business while clinging to the conservative antipathy toward universal health care. There should be a VAT on every cup of that bitch's brew. And I don't mean Rachael. 

The future looks fat

That's a lot of 99-cent meals. And to forestall any complaints about headline insensitivity, I have to note that both USA Weekend and Time had the same advice this weekend. The sidebar in what's becoming Survivalist Weekly (first the economy, now true disaster) is not online, so I am poaching: "Get in shape! The cruel reality of physics is that overweight people move more slowly and need more space, so they have more trouble fleeing. On 9/11, people with low physical abilities were three times as likely to be hurt while evacuating the Towers." That said, I'm not heartless. I know from experience it is far, far harder to lose it than it is to keep it off. Actually, the reverse is true, too. Which means little kids living on clown calories are getting screwed.  

Not fud, just funny

Atta J. Turk sits through it so you don't have to.

(I almost never delete posts over at the base camp but just did because I realized that one really didn't have anything to do with food.)