THE GURGLING COD

What is to be done?

About babies in Brooklyn bars? Some of my favorite people are infants in Brooklyn. But it does strike me that a visitor from another planet who saw that 2,700 people and counting taking the time to comment on the question of babies in bars would be reasonable to assume that we were a society that had sorted out health care, unemployment and climate change, and thus had the leisure to move on to less fundamental questions. Tip of the fin to Hapolchant for the link.

Tonight we dine in hell -- at Harrah's!

The Cod generally favors boxer briefs over leather codpieces, and has slightly less prominent abs than Gerard Butler and his buddies, but as far as the dining in hell part, color the Cod Spartan:

CHEROKEE — Harrah's Cherokee Casino & Hotel has announced a partnership with Paula Deen Enterprises to open Paula Deen's Kitchen in late 2010. This will be  Harrah's first new restaurant to be introduced as part of a $633 million, three-year expansion program.  "I couldn't be more excited to be a part of Harrah's Cherokee Casino & Hotel," said Deen. "I couldn't think of a better mix – southern food and casinos. It has all the ingredients for a good time." The restaurant will be a full-service, seating 404, and will be buffet-style, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Decor will be similar to Deen's restaurant in Savannah.

I couldn't think of better mix, Southern food* and casinos? Shortening your life while squandering your life savings? It is, you will not be surprised to learn, shaping up to be another Guiteau Monday. Thanks to Mrs. Tingle for the tip, and Penny Pascal for the Peerless Photoshopping.

*I refer here to the filth Deen pushes using "southern" as  euphemism for "grotesque" rather than the diverse array of vibrant culinary traditions one can find in the Southeastern United States. Unfortunately, it's a distinction that's a tough sell.

Sifton Soundtracks: Choptank b/w Camper Van Beethoven, "Club Med Sucks"

In what the Cod intends to be a regular feature, TGC will be providing an appropriate soundtrack each week for Sifton's DI/DO review. We hope that this will enhance your experience. This week, Sifton goose-eggs Choptank:

The restaurant evokes the Chesapeake region in the way that dorm rooms at Johns Hopkins do: Duck Head khakis in the dresser and lacrosse sticks leaning against the desk, postcards from Rehoboth Beach tacked to the wall along with the covering board from grandfather’s sloop, a thrift-store oil painting, sconces from mom.

I want no part of their death culture. And, I hate golf:

More good news from New Orleans

The Cod had hoped to be on the way to New Orleans at this very moment, but could not quite pull it off. But some good news, worthy of quoting in detail:

When Prohibition ended in 1933, absinthe could not be imported. So in New Orleans, J. Marion Legendre concocted his own version, without wormwood. The federal government made him take the word “absinthe” off the label. He renamed it Herbsaint. In 1949 he sold it to Sazerac, which tweaked the formula, reducing the proof to 90 from 100. The label also changed. Now, Sazerac has reintroduced Mr. Legendre’s original, with the original label, left. It is a murky chartreuse, not the bright green Herbsaint had become. The flavor is more complex and herbaceous. It also makes a much better Sazerac cocktail.

 That's correct. As Drew Brees is telling his son,* one can now sit on the porch of the Columns, watch the streetcars roll by on St. Charles, and toast the World Champion New Orleans Saints with the same Sazerac that Liebling enjoyed.** It's been a rough few months in Codland, but there are about a dozen reasons to smile in the preceding sentence. And thanks to the aforementioned Penny Pascal for the peerless photoshopping.

 

*I commented on the earmuffs previously, and was berated for being cavalier about hearing loss. However, Cod operative GT confirms the crowd in the stadium in Miami was about half-and-half Saints and Colts partisans, so we are dealing with the noise that 50% of a crowd could make, outdoors, and a pro crowd, no less. The Cod is generally a helmets seatbelts condoms kind of guy, and even wears hearing protection when he mows the lawn, but the Brees earmuffs seem like the kind of Purell-guzzling overparenting so prevalent today. I did see this when I was looking for the snack thing, but still want to know what the DB level was at the game.

**The folks at the Maple St. Book Shop would be delighted to send you a copy, and a Fight The Stupids bumper sticker.

Untouchable like Eliot Ness

We interrupt our regularly scheduled nonsense to extend a hearty clasp of the fin to our Peerless Photoshopper Penny Pascal, who has been invited to take her skilz to the state that knows how to party.

Busting a cap in your ass latte

Via the NYT and our intrepid Ms. Stone, the news that you can pack heat while you get your Starbucks on. Whatever the Cod's thoughts on gun control (fan of Bill of Rights, but wonders if your AK-47 is too high a price to pay for my As Nasty as They Wanna Be) this open carry movement is all kinds of retarded. As the cinetrix points out, seems like this will give all those baristas a chance to use their benefits when that shard of an Allison Kraus CD comes through the clavicle after an irate customer shoots up a store. If that's not good enough, consider the Tim Allen corollary to Ibsen's famous dictum that if you show a gun in the first act, it has to go off in the third. If you have a gadget, you want to use it. If you have a winch on your truck, you hope your neighbor will skid off the road; if you have a juicer attachment, you buy lots of oranges. If you have a gun on your hip, it's there because you hope to have a chance to use it. Guns + Starbucks seems suboptimal, as nothing in a Frappuchino seems like it would lead to good choices, rules of engagement-wise, but more generally, anywhere alcohol and/or sports are present (most public places) pistols on hips seem like bad ideas.

In this context, Starbucks' decision to permit firearms in its stores is puzzling -- they are, I suppose, reflecting the law of the places where this practice is legal, but it seems to me like they might outline a different judicial precedent, outlined by Justice Eddie Murphy in the case of Raw:

You don't need to be a legal scholar to tell that today is shaping up as just another Guiteau Monday.

Some people judge the worth of a man by how fast he drinks his beer

A frothy Olympic toast.

Classic Ruins, "Labatt's" Lassie Eats Chickens, Throbbing Lobster, 1986

Benton's Bacon

Welcome EDSBS shoppers. Please, make yourselves at home, and when you're done, explore the rest of The Filthy South, the test kitchen, the various regional stuff under "Incursions and Excursions," at right or savor some beef, or more diffuse grumbling.

It's hard to write about bacon. Everybody loves bacon, but through some whim of the blogosphere its popularity has itself become popular. Perversely, many assume there is something droll about liking bacon; equally perversely, many have put bacon where it does not belong. The state of bacon-liking in 2010 is like the state of Elvis-liking circa the fat-Elvis stamp thin-Elvis stamp controversy -- it's hard to express a sincere appreciation for "Kentucky Rain" when your roommate in the work shirt with someone else's name on the pocket (get it?) thinks it's hilarious to say "thankyouverymuch."

We speak not of ordinary bacon, however. Thanks to a nice lady we'll call Tia Maria,* The cinetrix and the Cod recently came into a healthy quantity of Alan Benton's smoked country bacon. He makes it in Madisonville, Tennessee, and it's the best thing to come out of the Smoky Mountains since Sherry McAdams. True enough, David Chang did drop a multi-page mash note to Mr. Benton into his Momofuku book, but there are more compelling reasons to get yourself some of this. Food and wine writers like to talk of "terroir," or how a a food reflects local character. Well, eating this bacon is like being adopted by Dolly Parton. It tastes the way your flannel shirt would smell after you and Dolly sat around a campfire and she sang old Hank Williams songs and played guitar. It has a smoky flavor that will immediately ruin you for all other bacon, but not in an oppressive head-in-a-woodstove way. It tastes like the pig it came from, and it's the only bacon I'd consider a legit swap for home-made guanciale when making buccatini alla amatriciana. Neither too thick nor too thin, and I'd rather cook with the grease from this bacon than any actual bacon I can think of. 

Want you some? Get you some. Some music while you click or call:

*Because her name is Mary, and she is my aunt.

Preserving Haiti

Late to the PR party here, but  a chance tonight for you New Yorkers to sample wares from a spectrum of NYC artisanal pickling heavyweights,* and lob a few bucks** in the direction of Haiti, where, in case you were wondering, things are still really messed up. It's tonight, at the G2 Lounge at Gaslight, 14th and 9th, starting at 6pm. Details here. And! An auction for a baseball signed by Willie Randolph, who occupies the rarefied category of Yankees it's hard for the Cod to stay mad at. 

*Among which is Rick of Rick's Picks, who will be dropping the debut batch of Pikliz, a traditional Haitian condiment tonight.

**That suggested donation is a floor, not a ceiling, folks. and if you can't make it to the MePa, Partners in Health will be happy to see your donation, too. You could pop some toast in the toaster, break off a donation, and be finished doing something you can feel good about by the time your toast is ready.

Worst new products?

A pair of items spotted at local supermarkets are featured below. Risotto chips (New York Style!) and Pumpkin* Apple Spice Vinaigrette. What's striking is not so much the distasteful nature of the contents, as the criminal cheerful indifference to the notion that the words on the label might refer to some concept that has an a priori existence beyond the label. This is the little crutch that allows language to hobble along -- without some sort of referent that people more or less agree upon, language, as Harry Frankfurt will tell you, becomes bullshit.