THE GURGLING COD

I can't believe it's not swine flu.

Still having trains run on me from two directions, workwise, but a brief note of how global pandemics* create strange bedfellows. Both US pork producers and the Israeli government is shying away from the "swine flu" label. Not sure how "Mexico flu" is better.
*Or not. Whatever. I just feel bad that "sexting" had such a brief moment of prominence as the new thing for news to yell about.

Mothers Day fun with your favorite catalog... and Sleater-Kinney

You may be starting to sweat the whole Mothers Day business. What's the best thing to get Mom this year? What would say "thanks for carrying me around in your womb for a heck of long time, during which you could neither drink nor smoke, and then looking after me and whatnot for another few decades, and generally remaining in my corner, even when I fished that $20 out of your purse to buy weed?" It depends on the mom, but a meal cooked by professionals, an expensive handbag, DVDs of Maude, a ride in a convertible with Magnum P.I., an opportunity to spend time with her friends  all come to mind. Conventional wisdom holds that what does not come to mind is the gift that seems to say, in the voice of Eric Cartman, "GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN!!" but sez Williams-Sonoma, an apron with her name on it is a "top gift for mom." Sadly, there is a nine-character limit, meaning that it would take six aprons to spell out the first line of Little Babies, as illustrated below:

Sleater-Kinney: "Little Babies" Dig Me Out, Kill Rock Stars, 1997

 

Twitter fritters

All Anchowery up inz, I know. Sorry. But I did Tumblr about dumb Twitter stuff in the NYer.*
As for the more immediately relevant to this blog Twitter story in DI/DO? Mostly OK with it. With an ongoing and abiding interest in text (dayjob) and cooking (avocation), the intersection of the two always interests me. Reducing the instructions for how to cook a dish to 140 characters emphasizes the way that the process is always a collaboration. rather than stenography. For some things (baking) I'd be frustrated, but mostly, it's enough space to communicate your food idea, and leave room for the cook to breathe. I do not think it's the future of how people will write about cooking, but it does offer a respite from both the humorless detail of Christopher Kimball, and the irritating carelessness of the Wednesday Chef.
*If you remember the Achewoods where the characters call up various cartoon characters and tell them to stop, well, it's time for Doonesbury to get a call like that.  

UPDATE: Oh, snap.

Someone's in the kitchen with Poe.

I know these are not the best of times for the newspaper racket, but Sam Sifton's agit is spilling into the receipts:
1. The morning or ideally the day before cooking, prepare the dough. Using a hand whisk, combine the flours, yeast and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer. Switch to a wooden spoon and stir in 1 1/2 cups cold water and olive oil until a rough dough forms. Set the bowl on the mixer and, using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed for 1 minute. Increase the speed to high and beat for 4 to 6 minutes, until it becomes a wet and vaguely menacing mass. (If it forms into a ball, lower the mixer speed to medium-high. If not, stop the mixer to scrape down the sides once.)
Vaguely menacing? With more time and talent, I would write the dialogue I imagine between Sifton and Dough, which I imagine would read like a version of the "Tell-Tale Heart" as retold by Steingarten. Feel free to have a crack at it in the comments. It is, after all, just another Guiteau Monday.

DI/DO Roundup

John T. Edge spills the beans on the dirty secret of the dirty south. As it happens, "Southerner" emerges as a reified and monolithic category. Not to get all 18th Brumaire up inz, but but the adjective applied this generally (Southerners do this...) sits in the belly kind of like a Hardee's biscuit.*

FloFab extends unicorn antler tasting spoon from her secret underground lair, samples the Handy Corn, and approves.

Meanwhile, Pete Wells is not so lucky, being unable to distinguish between turkey and the pork in the NYT cafeteria. As the lads from Ugly Duckling explain, it can be hard to tell turkey and pork apart (at 4:50 mark).  

Ugly Duckling  "La Revolucion" Taste The Secret, Emperor Norton, 2003

*JTE has forgotten more about icebox pickles than I'll ever know about Southern food in general, is the dean of Southern foodways studies, and I'm a damn carpetbagger, after all. But still, it's strange, in 2009, to see someone narrating to the NYT audience what Southerners, qua Southerners, do.

!Important Ivy League News flash!1!!

This just in:
College students roasted a pig! Stop the damn presses! What's that? Pig roasting on college campuses is not news? You say it happens, repeatedly, at most D-I football schools most Saturdays in the fall, and sometimes in the spring, just for practice, and therefore is not exactly earthshattering news? But this pig got roasted at Yale. Why didn't you say so in the first place?

Yo dawg, I heard you liked how God gave his only begotten Son to be our savior, so I hollowed out two of your own children for you to wear as slippers.

Now 50% off at the local market. I considered it, but found the performance of the song that plays when you squeeze bunny who is loved by Jesus even though he is wearing slippers made out of bunnies to be a little bit jejune.

Half off at the local

An eminently refusable offer.

An interesting missive showed up in the inbox:

We recently found your blog, and were very impressed by it. My partner and I are in the process of building a food blogging destination site, where we will feature content from high quality bloggers. The layout of the site will be like a newspaper, which we think will add legitimacy to our content. We will have multiple themes all related to the food industry, ranging from food sourcing, restuarants, recipes, etc. Much like a real newspaper's website, but focused on the culinary world.

We believe your blog could be a valuable addition to our website, and we would like your permission to use your blog content. Your blogs would be part of a highly reputable site, where only high quality content is delivered to an audience who is interested in a wide variety of culinary news.. We will be marketing our site aggressively, so your blogs would reach a much larger audience than they reach currently. Any content from you would reflect your name (real or blog, up to you), a picture, a bio, etc. We hope to have our bloggers become recognized names and personalities, and not just be content contributors. 

Our goal is to upload your blogs through an RSS feed each day. We won't require you to write more than you do now, although since we like what we see, the more the better! 

Hopefully you will consider this opportunity to reach a large audience with your excellent blogs. We are currently in the process of building the site, but are trying to get bloggers on board now. Please let us know your thoughts, and if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you.
(Redacted) & Redacted.
I do, actually have questions, but thought I might better pose them to Codland:
1) Are they serious?
2) Did I miss the part where I get kissed?
3) How is it that the form of a newspaper will give them "legitimacy"?
4) Should I be relieved that I would not be "required to write more than I do now"?
I welcome answers in the comments. 

Paula Deen and Kafka

Paula Deen's entire career reads like a bizzarro version of Kafka's Hunger Artist as retold by Carl Hiassen.

Mark Bittman Straight Thuggin'

Of all people in the food world jumping on Twitter, it's surprising to see Mark "The Minimalist" Bittman be the one who sticks up for your right to wear your pants droopy. And Anchower, I know. More soon.