THE GURGLING COD

Pictures of Sporty Spice Sell Records, Too.

When the Cod was launched, I had no idea that I'd so soon be reducted to defending the Spice Girls, but fuck, this is Geldofonkulous. Thanks to Mr. Gum, we learn that the Spice Girls will not be permitted to reunite for the Live 8 megaconcert.

" Live 8 organisers were adamant their style of music did not fit in with the serious political message about world poverty the transatlantic event hopes to portray.

A BBC spokesman said: 'Many of the biggest rock stars in the world have agreed to take part, and the Spice Girls just don't fit.

"It's a political rally to put pressure on world leaders and their kind of pop act didn't seem right for this kind of event.'"

Fair enough, or actually "fair enough + but of Dawkinsian proportions."  If this concert featured all, like, cerebral  political types, I can see not letting Posh et al into the treehouse, but the lineup reveals the following: Snoop Dogg & Robbie Williams @ London; Axl Rose & Jamiroquai @ Eiffel Tower; A-Ha @ Brandenburg Gate; Duran Duran @ Circus Maximus; Maroon 5 in Philly, among others. Not quite sure how you define a degree of political engagement that puts the Spice Girls on one side of a line, and Jamiroquai and A-Ha on the other.

Making Plantains for Nigel

First of all:  thanks to Certified Bannanas for passing this item along. Get the new CB mix while you are there, which is fun, indeed fun enough that to see them live, I would consider a return to the Enormous Room, a Cambridge dining concept that hijacks standard issue campus falafel truck food and serves it in an attitudinous "clubby" atmosphere. Oh, yeah, no chairs, mostly, so leave that ass-lampshade mini in the closet, unless you want to go that route.  A tip for the DEA: you will have a lot of plantains cut in half. Slice them in to medallions, and shallowfry and serve with harissa. Ideally fry in duck fat.  This is spicy, so  you'll want to make sure you have plenty to drink. The 22 oz Presidente featured here would be a good choice. If cryingwhileeating.com is wrong, the Cod does not want to be wrong. I imagine it will be popular, poss the "Save Toby" for the summer of 05.
Harissa (Adapted from Didi Emmons' Vegetarian Planet.)
1/4 cup hot chile flakes
1/5 cup curry powder
1 cup chopped hot peppers
1 heads peeled garlic cloves
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 oil
salt to taste.
Toast currry or equivalent spices lightly. Take off heat.  Add chile flakes.
Puree garlic and peppers, adding vinegar while you do.
Add dry ingredients, blend while adding oil slowly.
Obs, this will be hot, and the Cod is no fan of frattish tests of endurance, so if the stuff is too hot to be useful, add some honey or even puree an apple. This stuff keeps, esp if you float some oil on top beore you seal it.

Cobb Job

Anchower, I know. But it is good to be back. The malign influence of Todd English seems to have settled in like the fog in Prufrock around the kitchens of the Back Bay, as exemplified by the inexplicable festooning of an innocent Cobb salad with smoked salmon at Turner Fisheries. Turner Fisheries has been allowing conventioneers in the land of the bean and the Cod to get their lobster on without going outdoors since back when Mission of Burma was playing at the Bradford, but it has a special place in the heart of the Cod's lizard brain, thanks to the deeply tanned and thoroughly sequined chowder spokesmodel in mermaid costume Turner Fisheries deployed at an early 80s chowderfest at the New England Aquarium that a younger Cod was shanghaied into working at. In any case, a  pound or two of shrimp and crab tossed with lettuce, then paved with smoked salmon that is the preternatural peach of the Cosabella things they sell around the corner might be delicious, or an excellent value, but it is not a Cobb salad, which refers to a specific combination of ingredients, as surely as BLT means Bacon, Lettuce, &  Tomato. There is room for disagreement--one might, conceivably, sub asparagus for haricots verts in a nicoise, and persist in insisting on calling it a nicoise. It would be wrong, but at least fathomable. In an effort to be whimsical, however, you have chefs tossing together whatever ingredients people are hot on these days, and appropriating a familiar name: "this is a PB&J, made with bison carpaccio, ramp confit, with Jerusalem artichoke 'bread.'" No. Heidi Pollock had a stirring denunciation of the debasement of the Caesar salad, in the late lamented Might. Fortunately, it is available in this entertaining collection, so you do not have to attempt to divine where it might be squirreled away in the Inveraritian expanses of the McSweeney's empire. Some interesting thoughts on Cobb here, though anyone who orders a salad at IHOP ought to expect to reap the whirlwind. More soon, I think.

A Modest Hamburger Proposal

The Cod has been bearded in his den (one of them, anyway).  A hamburger  that weighs more than the birthweights of all  infants born to FOCs in 2005, combined? (Sam, Julian, Elijah and Lila, holler!) In the Upstate, no less? Damn. Won't let it happen again. I am on record as opposing burger escalation, more so after a sojourn in the Atlanta airport. But a burger so big that five of them weigh as much as Lindsay Lohan? That goes right past the exit for Promoting Your Sportsbar-land and lodges solidly in Jonathan Swift Country.  Here is a link to the text of "A Modest Proposal" if you have not had a look recently. A Hamburger Today is getting plenty of warranted love from real fishwraps, and hardly needs my kudos, but its laser-like focus causes me to predict a new lazy dodge for describing blogs that obsessively chronicle a narrow topic, like hamburgers: "A Hamburger Today is like Jan and Michael Stern's Roadfood -- on Adderall!

Ankling

This weekend I will be "blogging" on the legal pad that is my "notebook," as Fesser duties call the Cod away from his trusty workstation.  Sadly, not as official starter for the Indy 500, a palm bestowed upon Reggie Miller this year. Also, who's behind the wheel of the official pace car for the 2005 Indianapolis 500? General Colin Powell is who. Interesting list of  pace car drivers in recent years: Morgan Freeman in 2004, and a pre-Passion Jim Caviezel back in 2002? Who knew? Of course with the CART/IRL split and the ascendancy of NASCAR, the Indy has been conducted in virtual secrecy for the last several years.  Also, IMDB indicates that Jim has been cast as Ethan Allen in a new film called "Rebels." Ironic, in that Ethan Allen was arguably the Revolutionary Era's #1 Deist, and wrote a tract called "Reason the Only Oracle of Man," which repudiates the divinity of Jesus Christ:

"That Jesus Christ was not God is evident from his own words, where, speaking of the day of judgment, he says, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."

Does Mel know? Developing! At least in my imagination. Have a good weekend, and make sure to put sunscreen on that hot dog.

Catfish Craziness

Saratoga Slim and the Punisher both sent this along, which makes it Codworthy, I surmise. CNN points out that the 125 lb. fish weighs as much as a sixth grader. More helpful? Fish weighs as much as Nicole Richie and two Thanksgiving turkeys. I have already shared my  thoughts on catfish-- Tim Pruitt, I salute you, and hope you have plenty of ginger on hand. On display at Cabela's I gather. If you have any foreign friends visiting, take them to Cabela's--it will confirm all of their prejudices.

You can look the word up again and again

Unfortunately, my copy of Whodini's Escape languishes on casette in a barn in another state, so I have nothing musical to share with you, but do point to Whodini as examples of a group of citizens concerned about words and their meaning:

Friends
Is a word we use everyday
Most the time we use it in the wrong way
Now you can look the word up, again and again
But the dictionary doesn't know the meaning of friends

It is an example some would do well to emulate. You'd expect the paper of record to share Whodini's philological concerns, but you would be mistaken:

An entrée of ginger-glazed Alaskan king crab legs consisted of stringy flesh under a cloying varnish. It tasted like a canned seafood candy bar, so odd and unappealing that the friend who ordered it justifiably said she wouldn't have felt any more dispirited if a server had mugged her for the $27 that the dish cost.

Ok, Bruni's friend (how many of us have them?) feels ripped off by the king crab legs she's eating while rocking on Uncle Punch's dime. But getting mugged is not dispiriting. Here is dispirited. If you were mugged by the waitron of a trendy faux-Japanese boite, you might feel the crushing weight of despair settling on your soul like a soggy eiderdown, or a desire to swap your Wayfarers for a bag of newly-baked rolls,  but you would  probably feel angry, violated, scared, so forth, before you got around to that. Fussy, yes, but imprecision in language is the route to a return to the world of Jean Auel, which is a world without Whodini. Nobody wants that.

Guess who's back...

Don't call it a comeback:

THE gates of the ancient Greek underworld were patrolled by a pooch with multiple snouts and a mean streak. The gates of Koi are patrolled by a man with a single clipboard and an aloof mien.

Maitre D' as Cerberus? Sure? Patrolled by a pooch? Classic Bruni. Or,

Like an aged pop star on the latest of several proclaimed farewell tours, Koi ultimately relies on pose more than performance

Also, it appears that Bruni opted for the blue pill in the Meatrix, so he can continue to believe the lies we tell ourselves about where our meat comes from:

The pan-seared meat had been ordered medium-rare, but much of it was closer to medium-well, and if its provenance was indeed some preserve of specially pampered cattle, I predict a bovine class action suit in the offing. Those cows should be growing much fatter, happier and more flavorful than this.

Jesus.
Also, there is a "Hangar Steak," which may be a Japanese term for "Hanger Steak,"  or a special kind of steak for air travel, or bad editing. A "hangar" is a common error, based on a roughly 14:1 hanger:hangar ratio on Google, but Bourdain, and the OED, are on the side of "hanger." You don't like to see spellcheck goofs like this in student papers, let alone the freaking paper of record.

Jungle Update

I promised myself I would not turn in to one of those tedious bloggers who actually write about their job. For some reason, academics seem to think this is ok, while most of the civilized world understands no one wants blogs about accountanting, or law talking, but rather accountants and lawyers yammering about their obsessions with clog dancing or model railroads, or the Olsen twins. But I will break that rule to share the following. Keen readers will have noted that the Fesser is embroiled in teaching some sort of intensive lit survey that meets 3hrs/day 6/days a week. Two weeks of this count as a regular course, which is a travesty, but they pay you. B/c of the length of the class, there are snack breaks, and the students take turns bringing in snacks. Yesterday, we discussed Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. At the first break, after going over the descriptions of the meatpacking plant, I contributed 1 Slim Jim / student to the snack. They ate them all, I was disappointed to see, but they did read the ingredients. Maybe next time, they will wonder about "snapping into" "mechanically separated chicken." Baby steps. More soon--think the count might have reset the analogy machine for me!

The Publishing Industry Broke My Analogy Machine

The current Signet edition of The Jungle has an afterword by Dr. Barry "Bestselling Author of the Zone" Sears. Quoth Sears: "The Jungle and The Zone have much in common." That's like...wait, that's just real messed up.