THE GURGLING COD

Ed Levine's Monocle?

Ozersky calls out Levine for failing to drop the hammer on Dallas BBQ. The highlight:

Go ahead and spoil the party, Ed. It needs to be spoiled. It wants to be spoiled. Places like Dallas BBQ deserve your censure, not your grudging praise. Let’s drive them out of town and replace them all with better restaurants! These places are the nadir of cynicism, and would be an affront to any strip mall in Elkhart, Indiana. I’m consumed with hostility toward them, and I can’t even say why. But I can say this: if that onion ring loaf is really “greaseless” then I am a vegan. That thing could lubricate an auto plant.

Perhaps Ed has a bit of the Monheit in him, not that that's a bad thing. But Levine's visit does remind us that even a city as rich in food options as NYC, lots of people eat really shitty food. I would bet a fin that the Applebees over near BAM does more covers than any half-dozen fawned over Brooklyn boites you would care to name.

More generally, it suggests something dismaying about criticism as a practice, which is that not many pay attention.* A bad review of a spot like Dallas BBQ has all the impact of Michiko Kakutani suplexing the latest Twilight jawn. Folks'r gonna read the riblets. That said, if it is in fact true that many, many people will make bad choices about food or literature, it's not clear that a restaurant evaluation model that relies on millions of critics is better than a model that relies on one. Play us off Keyboard Cat, Minutemen:

*Some do, fortunately.

Books, authors, reviewers and social media.

If you have written a book, or are planning to do so, there is probably a lesson here. I wrote a review of AW&CP, explored finding a print home for it, could not, and tossed up on this blog two years ago. A conversation yesterday led me to send the review to a friend, and on a whim, I sent the post to Twitter. Someone saw it, sent it to the author, (who evidently is not savvy to Google Alerts) who informed the Cod that he was a "fucking idiot," incapable of comprehending his ability to write in several dimensions at once. I posted a link to the comment on Twitter, and away it went. Basically, several hundred people (so far today) who had not read the negative review now have done so. If you are a FOC, remind me of this when some votary of Clio I've never heard of hates on me in the Sumfinsumfin Quarterly.

WTF, Virginia Tech?

Inexplicable stuff out of Blacksburg, Va, where the Miami Hurricanes traveled this past weekend to play football against Virginia Tech. The Zaxby's across from the hotel where Canes QB Jacory Harris (above) and the rest of the Hurricanes was staying featured the sign pictured at right. WTF? It seems like maybe it's supposed to be a racist gibe, but VT also has a black QB. The association of black people and chicken, from what I have heard, comes from when dining cars were segregated, forcing black passengers to bring food with them, which was often fried chicken, which travels well, and can be eaten hot or cold. So, any association of black people and fried chicken is usually taboo, in that it makes lots of people uneasy. I am genuinely puzzled about the thinking behind this sign, and welcome explanation/hypotheses in the comments.

Fajitas can help fight cancer. Who knew?

Eat at Chilli's today (happens to the best of us) and fight childhood cancer. Which I hate.

Hugh Acheson still HATES AMERICA

You recall a few weeks ago  The Gurgling Cod dared to reveal a shocking conspiracy -- Hugh Acheson, a proprietor of the National, in Athens, GA, encouraged the good citizens of Athens to do something during the game besides watch the Bulldogs. The Gurgling Cod had assumed that a timely admonition would have recalled the National to its priorities, and it would, by now, have joined with other Athens restaurants in bars in focusing on what is important, which is to say football -- basically, America, in other words. Thus, one could safely go to the National on Saturday, watch the game, sip on a red and black Fan Can, and get some wings, and watch the game on one of several plasma screens. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth:

Disgusting.
A bargain-priced prix-fixe coinciding with the kickoff of an intriguing non-conference matchup for the Bulldogs. This is what people who care about football don't get to eat for $25:

1.

local eggplant BABAGANOUSH with pomegranate, sesame and flatbread

local SWEET POTATO BISQUE with spiced pecans and curry crema

wilted SPINACH SALAD with manchego, almonds, tomatoes, warm bacon-sherry vinaigrette

2.

braised BEEF SHORT RIBS with buttered orecchiette pasta, tomato-horseradish gremolata

NC TROUT with Red Mule polenta, local pepper piperade

VEGETABLE PLATE bountiful assortment of seasonal vegetables and grains

3.

RUSTIC APPLE TART vanilla ice cream, caramel

By offering this special, at this time, the National is actually discriminating against football fans. Discrimination is illegal. And un-American. Which is why Hugh Acheson likes it so much.

Hey, Pete Wells... Rich Gossage called, and he wants his nickname back

I may be jumping the gun ahead of the curve, but one more goose egg from interim DI/DO restaurant critic Pete Wells, and we will have the first New Yorker worthy of the nickname "Goose" since the halcyon days of the Bronx Zoo.

If it's gonna be that kind of party...

Hosting a Windows 7 launch party?

You know what I'm gonna do to the mashed potatoes.

(Striped) Bass for your face London Wed. Chef*

What they about death and taxes also holds true for the Wednesday Chef. It's been a while since I looked in, but the blog rolls on, doing what the Wednesday Chef does. Unfortunately, that means purporting to cook one receipt or another from a prominent figure in the food world, making major substitutions with ingredients and technique, and then passing judgment on the recipe.

A receipt from Molly O'Neill old enough for third grade was the victim this time, Marjoram-and-Yogurt-Baked Striped Bass. Unfortunately, not all the Wed. Chef hoped for:
You know what's disappointing? Clipping a recipe Nine Whole Years Ago (9!), saving it meticulously for Just The Right Occasion, finally getting to That Blessed Moment, and realizing that the recipe is A Total Dud. D. U. D.

The Wed. Chef had high hopes, " it involved whole fish, Greek yogurt, red lentils, and marjoram, roasted in the oven. I know! Does that sound good, or what? Third of all, I'd been saving it for nine years. That's practically a third of my life! That number alone should have guaranteed deliciousness, I think."
but unfortch, it failed to deliver. The fish tasted like nothing, and the lentil accompaniment looked like baby (sic) poop.
But you know what else is disappointing? Reading a blog post about a receipt for roasted striped bass and discovering that no striped bass were harmed in the writing of this post:
But instead, after smearing yogurt all over a bunch of fish (red snapper because there was no striped bass to be found).
If it's a waste of time for Wed. Chef to write posts like this, it's probably a waste of time for me to read them, and more still for me to write about posts like this, and for you to read them, but I continue to be unable to fathom this business, which has been the Wed. Chef M.O. for years.

*Public Enemy "Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos" It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back, Def Jam, 1988.

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50,000 leagues under the table

Via a friend we will call Dr. Yinz, news of a wicked smart blog concept -- Cooking w/ the Junior League.* The nameless proprietress will be working her way through one Jr. League cookbook per week, and providing copious commentary along the way. Right now? Rochester. If I'd thought of this back in the day, The Gurgling Cod might have not gone in quite such a "grumbling about food politics and food media with inexplicably frequent allusions to 1970s hockey and the Wu-Tang Clan, plus the odd kitchen foray" direction.
*Interestingly, changing Google Image search filter from none to moderate reduces the number of results for "Junior League" from 365,000 to 355,000, suggesting there are approximately 10,000 NSFW pix of Junior Leaguers on the Internet. If that's not a cure for the Mondays, I don't know what is.

Playstation Sugarbetes ahoy!

Not only did the keen-eyed cinetrix pass along the dismaying news that you can order pizza from your Playstation 3* but the VV story appeared along a banner ad for pole dancing championships. Not only are these more and more clearly the Last Days, but I'm guessing the timetable for Starbucks adding full release to the menu just got bumped up to Spring '10.
*Worse still: it's not pizza you can order, but Papa John's, which is essentially an adult diaper with simulated pizza-related items. Purists will point out that, say, on Wooster St, or other pizza meccas, the pizza tastes just fine without butter dipping sauce.