THE GURGLING COD

NYC

Heading to NYC for the weekend. Won't have time to pack a lunch, and interested to hear new/interesting food ideas, esp bklyn and below 14th. Hit me up in the comments or fesser of the gmail.

Farmers markets: a fetish for (supply) chains?

This WSJ piece on growers vs. resellers at farmers markets points to a fundamental weirdness about farmers markets:

Farmers markets, with their hodgepodge of organic kale, artisan rye bread and peach preserves, have surged in popularity in recent years. But now authorities are questioning whether they're missing a crucial ingredient: real farmers.

Presumably, all of these products have a farmer somewhere in their background. So the Mystery of the Missing Farmer is a question of the identity of the person who takes your money and hands you your kale being the same as the identity of the person who grows your kale. It's a nice idea. The idea of hardworking sons and duaghters of the soil bringing their wares to town on market day has an appeal. But it's a sentimental appeal. Neither growing nor selling produce is a solo act, so how much time in the field vs.  how much time in the market must each employee spend in order to be a "real farmer"? If the cultivator and the vendor are two different people, does it matter if they work for the same business, rather than the produce changing hands? I understand that no-reseller policies exist to prevent stuff grown by migrant workers and sold at the supermarket being resold at farmers markets as grown by actual Bard College graduates, but to think of that in terms of no resellers is to make a fetish out of a supply chain, rather than considering what actually makes local agriculture valuable.

Sifton Soundtracks: The Mark b/w The Upper Crust, "We're Finished With Finishing School"

Sifton continues his tour of the canteens of the power elite by looking in at JGV's new hotel spot. At this rate, next week's story will be a sitdown with Henry Kissinger's private chef as he shows how he confits albino infants in a unicorn tusk-fired oven makes crab cakes just like the ones at Le Cirque. The Mark sounds like a Perkins, only really really fancy:

“The chef is known for his spices,” a waiter said one night, extolling the excellent lamb chops off that list. “These simply prepared items are for people who might be a little worried about that.”

Put Sifton on a plane to New Orleans, and he can find food that is cheap and interesting. (Two big surprises here -- 1) He gets after the Vietnamese options in NOLA more thoroughly than I've seen anyone do in a national publication, and 2) He really digs Emeril's flagship spot, in 2010 which seems as unlikely as actually enjoying a reunion show by punk heroes of long ago. [That did happen to me, once, when I saw the Buzzcocks in 1989.]) But I digress, and shirk my self-appointed task. In lieu of cheap and interesting food, (admittedly, not the purview of the NYT restaurant critic), the attention here to expensive and boring food is puzzling. At least, Creepy Sifton pops up:

Also recycled, pleasantly, is the pea soup, a purée of sweet green peas that taste of springtime and have the smooth texture of high-thread-count sheets; a version of it exists on the tasting menu at Jean Georges, Mr. Vongerichten’s four-star flagship near Columbus Circle. Blend in the accompanying cloud of Parmesan foam, and it’s like a lover sliding into bed: nice.

Were the Cod Sifton's lover, I am not quite sure if I would be flattered by this comparison, but as the Cod is not, we will let it, uh, slide. 

The focus on the luxe side of things may be a reflection of Sifton's novelistic ambitions --

An immodest little pizza of black truffles and fontina is an elegant and delicious take on the sort of puff-crusted pies Mathieu Palombino makes at Motorino, and worth a run through the excellent and deep wine list to find a pinot noir from Au Bon Climat to drink with it. Pizza at a Vongerichten restaurant? This one is exactly the sort to thrill a couple who hasn’t had a pizza since that time they needed to get takeout because there was a wreck on the Saw Mill up near where Hawthorne Circle used to be, and they didn’t get home from Tanglewood until nearly 9.

-- but it is frustrating for those of us who would like to see Sifton venture below 14th, or even into the 718. Until then, we will be dining with The Upper Crust: 

Zombie Streep WTF?

I am choosing to treat this as a deliberate attempt to fuck with the Cod's head. We all breathed a sigh of relief when the Academy came to its senses and did not give the Best Actress award to Meryl Streep for her cack-handed impression of a 20th c culinary giantess. Streep followed up the J n J action w/ It's Complicated, a film targeting the handful of Americans for whom the prospect of watching Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep having sex is not guaranteed to make their manly parts flaccid and their womanly parts arid. Evidently, to promote the DVD, the geniuses at Universal are dropping a recipe on the Facebook page for the film every week. Evidently, having done a criminally bad job of playing a great chef means that cooking is now part of the Streep "brand."

And the recipes. Well, there's the croque monsieur w/ mozzarella and basil, but I haven't tried any. Be careful if you do, b/c it looks like someone is working on a deadline. The roast chicken with gravy calls for a "6.6 pound chicken," suggesting 1) a bigass chicken, and 2) someone converting from metric (3 kilos), and not done much else to test the receipts.

Fortunately, John McEnroe is here to communicate my reaction:

Bob Evans Bukkake Machine?

Via la Habitual (not responsible for the title of this post, I hasten to add), comes news. But not good news.

Some may quibble at referencing a particularly vile pron subgenre to describe this, but the Bob Evans promo literature makes it impossible not to: "Our sausage gravy dispenser serves up hot Bob Evans sausage gravy at the touch of a button."It took its sweet time in revealing itself, but it it is, after all, just another Guiteau Monday.

Pregnant teens learn healthy cooking -- isn't that Precious?

Being a) oviparous, and b) male, the Cod is not able to participate directly in Boobquake*, or its rival, Brainquake. I'd considered a 'quake deathmatch, and gotten as far as putting some bleachers out in the sun, and had commitments from the ladies from cajunsexycooking.com and MFK Fisher to square off, but the Internet State Gaming Commission refused to sanction the bout, on the grounds it would be a mismatch.

Luckily, there are other things going on. Like a school where pregnant teens learn healthy cooking. Yay, right? The Cod would argue not so much. For starters, wouldn't more sense to teach teens not to get pregnant? Also, while, indeed, yes, it is better for pregnant teens and moms to eat better, it's also a good idea for nonpregnant teens to eat better. The inference, then would be that it starts to matter what these young women put in their bodies only when these bodies host another person. The takeaway here would seem to be that your body does not matter unless you are pregnant, which is a shitty message to be sending to young women. Who knows? A little bit of education about contraception and nutrition in the junior high years just might kick self-esteem up a notch, and thus discourage eating garbage and having sex with boys who won't use condoms.

*Boobquake is blowing up like a rearended Pinto. Why? Because boobs + social media = giant rock of bacon-flavored crack for mainstream media, esp. during sweeps. In fact, it's sort of depressing how much traction this particular movement has gotten as opposed to, say, protests of Jafar Panahai's detention. Perhaps the cast of, like,  Beeswax could pledge to go topless until he is free?

Mother's Day Ideas 1) Tennis bracelet 2) Brunch 3) Giving her intellectual property to Amanda Hesser

Mother's Day was never a big deal in the Cod's family, but the run-up to the first such holiday w/o requisite mother has been a little bumpy. I mention that by way of acknowledging the grinchyness that may or may not inform this post. Friday, there was a tweet from Food52, thus:

Getting your mom's recipe published in a cookbook would be quite a Mother's Day present http://bit.ly/bjLZMO Enter by midnight ET"

A way of recognizing Mom for all that hard work she put in feeding your sorry ass? Sure. And yet, if Mom reads the food52 TOS:

You have the ability to add content, including but not limited to recipes, to food52.com. We do not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of the content you provide and do not have any obligation to monitor this. You agree that you, and not Burnt Toast, its affiliates or licensers, are solely responsible and liable for any submissions you upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available to food52.com; including any loss or damage to Burnt Toast, LLC or others who may suffer as a result of or in connection with any such submission to food52.com. You shall not submit any content protected by any intellectual property or other third party right without the express permission of the owner. You represent, warrant and covenant that you own or otherwise control all rights to any content you submit to food52.com or Burnt Toast, LLC, and have all rights, power and authority required to provide such content to food52.com and to assign your rights in the submission to Burnt Toast, LLC. Any and all such submissions by you are and will be true, current and accurate. No use of your submissions will violate or infringe any rights of, or cause any injury to, any person or entity.

And:

By submitting any content to food52.com or Burnt Toast, you simultaneously and automatically grant or warrant that the owner has expressly granted us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, fully sublicensable and transferable right and license to use, record, sell, lease, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works based upon, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, publish and otherwise exploit the submitted content as we, in our sole discretion, deem appropriate. We may exercise this grant in any format, media or technology now known or later developed for the full term of any copyright that may exist in the submitted content. You additionally grant other users permission to access your submitted content for personal, non-commercial use as permitted by the functionality of the website and these Terms of Service.

Hey mom -- those snickerdoodles you used to make? The recipe belongs to Amanda Hesser now! Happy Mother's Day!

Hesser/food52 are not the only people using this model -- I'm on the record for admiring the This is Why You're Fat's model of getting paid to have other people write books for you quickly, as opposed to my personal approach of not getting paid to write books by myself, and slowly. If you can get people to do your work for you, for free, then bless your fence-painting, Web 2.0 heart! 

And yet. Sending a picture of your dog in a Richie Tennenbaum headband a and a funny caption off to Hipster Puppies, or a picture of a wheelbarrow full of nacho cheese off  to TIWYF seems like one kind of thing, and sending your mom's recipe to food52 seems like another:

1) For these Tumblrs, you are creating new content for the purpose of submitting to these sites, for whatever joy might come from having your vision publicized. A recipe, particularly one worth submitting to a contest, existed previously, and represents some portion of you/your mom's intellectual equity.

2) Volition. Presumably, for this to make much of a present, it would have to be a surprise. Thus, the "gift" would be "Congratulations, Mom, you are now a published author! But don't give your Green Goddess recipe to that cookbook fundraiser they are doing at the middle school, or Hesser's lawyers will be here faster than you can say 'Mr. Latte.' Another mimosa?"

As a rule it's a good idea to ask someone if they want their work published before it's published. Just ask noted involuntary author (and mom) Anne Bradstreet. So think twice before you press submit, and consider breaking off a day at an Aveda spa, or a nice (ie non-brunch) meal for mom instead. Play us off, Ms. Bradstreet: 

The Author to Her Book
Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, exposed to public view, Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judge). At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print) should mother call, I cast thee by as one unfit for light, The visage was so irksome in my sight; Yet being mine own, at length affection would Thy blemishes amend, if so I could. I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw. I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet; In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save homespun cloth i' th' house I find. In this array 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam. In critic's hands beware thou dost not come, And take thy way where yet thou art not known; If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none; And for thy mother, she alas is poor, Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

Eating chicken makes you gay?

The President of Bolivia has released his scientific findings that eating chicken makes you into a total nelly. Not surprisingly, other folks have suggested that Evo Morales's insight is, a) unscientific, and b) homophobic. In the spirit of rational inquiry, though it seems worth it to test this hypothesis. If eating chicken makes you gay, than the person who eats the most chicken would be the gayest. Jim Morrison avers here that he eats more chicken than any man ever seen:

While one doubts that the Lizard King would kick any member of the cast of Two Lane Black Top out of bed, "gay" seems like the wrong word for this omnivore. So Bolivian president is wrong, which is not to say that poultry hormomes definitely won't give you man boobs.

Tomato melting pot?

The Cod is genuinely puzzled about this tomato kerfuffle, via the WSJ, (I know!):

 In the kingdom of vegetables, the heirloom tomato is high nobility. Genetically unchanged from one generation to another, it offers an intense flavor prized by gardeners and gourmets.

But it has a reputation for being persnickety in the garden. While modern hybrids are tweaked and improved to resist common diseases, the old stalwarts seem to easily succumb to pathogens that can cause plants to suddenly wilt just as they seem ready to produce.  Now, as gardeners prepare to plant this summer's crop, a number of plant breeders are offering hybrids they claim have the distinct flavors and funky looks of heirlooms but are more disease-resistant and abundantly productive.

So far, so good, I guess, but

To tomato purists, the hybrids amount to heirloom heresy. "I cringe when I hear the term 'heirloom hybrid,' " says Amy Goldman, board chairwoman of the Decorah, Iowa-based nonprofit Seed Savers Exchange. The group champions the tradition of passing along heirloom seed from one generation to the next.

My question here is who, exactly, to call bullshit on. On the one hand, it seems like a corporate effort to coopt a (literally) grassroots movement,* kind of like buying a singlespeed at Urban Outfitters** -- these are like the Green Day of tomatoes or something. But, on the other hand, aren't "heirloom hybrids" what make this country what it is? I would cringe at someone who cringes at the idea of ancient bloodlines being tainted by interlopers, because that person would remind me of Ben Tillman. So are heirloom purists fruit racists, or are the hybrid heirloom marketeers heritage hucksters? Or both?

*From his cloud, Malcolm McLaren raises his sherry in approval.

**A company that sells bikes and not helmets is a company that sucks.

Sifton Soundtracks: SHO Sean Hergatt b/w Chromeo, "Fancy Footwork," Russ Chimes Remix

With each passing week, it becomes more explicitly manifest that lead NYT restaurant critic Sam Sifton has abandoned his stated charge to review NYC restaurants in favor of a battle of wits with none other than The Gurgling Cod. As the weeks pass, the soundtrack for each Sifton review becomes harder and harder to identify. We began with self-evident choices like Club Med Sucks for Choptank, but in recent weeks, Sifton has inclined to spots so luxe and so austere as to render their connections to popular music almost imperceptible. More of the same this week, with a deuce:

SOME restaurants are time machines. SHO Shaun Hergatt, the strange and occasionally terrific restaurant on the second floor of a condominium building in the financial district, even looks like one, down to the elevator that whisks you up from the lobby.

A time machine to where? 1969? 1977? 1989? Some year, any year, with a memorable musical culture? Please? In fact, it's the late 1990s! So, like um... Sixpence None The Richer? Seriously, what were we listening to in the late Clinton era?

The place is a-local, and even defies the laws of time and space to bring out-of-season fish to the menu. But the entire vibe of the place appears to surface here:

A loin of rabbit with carrots and cardamom, with a picholine olive sauce, is really a roulade cooked in the sous-vide machine then cut into four cylinders. A slender carrot runs down the center of the plate. It isn’t a carrot, though. It’s a piped carrot purée, its thick sweetness reverberating off the cardamom and the olives, a foil to the soft, flavorful meat.

It's like the kind of meal one imagines Mr. Spacely having with his mistress. As such, something, luxe, futuristic, and just a little bit fake is the thing. Through the use of my reason, The Cod has solved the clever puzzle put forth by Mr. Sifton, and has identified that the correct answer to this Sifton Soundtrack challenge is Chromeo.

Chromeo, "Fancy Footwork"_Russ_Chimes_Remix