This long weekend is the traditional kickoff to summer. By all means, join the 'Fesser and cinetrix in mixing up a Dark and Stormy. Throw a hot dog, preferrably a Pearl's Kountry Klub on the grill. But do pause for just a moment, and consider that each of the white dots above, representing one corner of one of the many many military graveyards around the world, indicates a man or a woman who would much, much rather be grilling it all up than doing what they were doing on the last days of their lives, and represents an empty place at Thanksgiving dinner, a kid growing up without a parent, parents burying their children, etcetera, etcetera, Remember that.
Before going to sleep last night, the Cod read a terrifying NYer piece on Mexico as a "captive state," in that law enforcement, debt collection, etc., in large chunks of the country have fallen under the control of drug cartels. And yet, fresh off his Beyonce/Bayless repast, President Felipe Calderon is eliminating junk food from Mexico's schools. Despite being unable to provide, like, law and order, Calderon appears to be doing a better job of fighting obesity than his compadres north of the border. Alice Waters is all over this issue, right? Is it possible that better PR would help? If Calderon can do what he's doing, even when his enemies have all the good songs, perhaps Alice can fight the forces entrenched against reform with an (organic, sustainable, kale-oriented narcocorrido of her own. (See below for an example.) Can someone write a song like this about the Edible Schoolyard program?
It's as if NPR took the science desk away from Ira Flatow and gave it to Violent J with a mandate for him to uncover the principles of magnetism for NPR listeners. Memorial Day is upon us, so let's tell NPR listeners how to make hot dogs. Natural casing, grill the bun, mustard, no ketchup, etc. Where do they get this stuff? You can listen here, and if it's not enough to make you break off a check to keep programs like this coming your way, then I'ma send Ira Glass to your house to give you an Indian rope burn. And a gratuitous picture of Betty White. Finger on the pulse, those NPR mofos. The entire thing is eerily reminiscent of Morgan Freeman's essay on tostadas.
Not exactly tacos and chalupas, but still. If you guessed Rick Bayless, you guessed right. On the upside, Beyonce was handling the entertainment. But Carlos Santana Brut?
It's been a while since we checked in with the madness. But good folks at Williams-Sonoma have a Fathers Day suggestion that is loonier than Leon Czolgosz. A margarita maker! It's $350! It's hard to clean! It uses a proprietary mix! It's an extension of the Jimmy Buffet brand into your kitchen! Your dad's lifestyle may be considerably more extremely chilled out than the dads the Cod knows, but the desire for home margaritas seizes them rarely enough that ceding a stand mixer's worth of countertop real estate seems like a lot to ask. However, if you are looking for a frozen drink apparatus for dad, allow me to give a hearty endorsement to the Daiquiri Whacker! To judge from its body of work on view in Isla Mujeres, The Daquiri Whacker is like a United Way afterschool program that brings 50something dudes w/ disposable income together with teenagers in bikinis! It is, as the name suggests, a weed whacker engine mounted upside down to power a blender, enabling frozen drink production far from electrical outlets, like on the beach. I do not know the Buffet oeuvre well enough to deduce his stance on gas appliances that promote cradlerobbing infidelity, but I like to think it's pro.
Sifton makes it easy this week. Dropping a deuce on Brooklyn hotspot Prime Meats, Sifton skews away from a notion of restaurant reviewing as service journalism, and towards a notion of the restaurant critic as some sort of 2k10 Edith Wharton on deadline. But it's la vie boheme our hero aspires to, or at least the kind of vie boheme that can swing $100/head for dinner:
"Streetlight reflects off Prime Meats’ shiny black exterior. The
aesthetics are magnetic: Dutch paint, rubbed wood, old mirrors, brick,
warm light out of the past. The man on the door smiles down from his
perch, takes names and cellphone numbers, tells people he’ll call when
their tables are ready. Maybe 90 minutes? A couple of hours? If only they lived on Clinton Street! They’d be eating right now. People
want in to this restaurant so bad!"
The food sounds good, what with the oysters and lardons, and bartenders with Talmudic knowledge of bitters, but Prime Meats also sounds like a pain in the ass. No reservations, and cash-only. This detail preoccupies Sifton for much of the review, in the manner of a hack sports columnist stretching for 500 words on a subject like Jason Varitek's socks, or the folly of NYC hosting the Super Bowl:
"But forget to line your pockets in the manner of a Biggie
Smalls* impersonator and you’re going to need to leave your guests
before the end of it all, and walk to a bodega A.T.M. to rustle up
enough cash to pay your bill. This is a grim feeling for a grown person
to experience, right up there with walking around all day with a large
knot of $20 bills in your pocket only because you’re going to dinner
someplace that doesn’t take credit cards."**
In short, Sifton loves Prime Meats, but it's bringing him down. At least enough to choose the recent live version of "NY, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down" with "Empire State of Mind" interpolated, through the good offices of The Awl.***
**I would be interested how the tips work out w/ the cash only policy. Do folks round up, or do they eat their way to higher than expected check totals, and then skulk away from Prime Meats having left 12% on the table?
***The concert video, itself, also suggests what is awesome and not awesome about NYC -- you an see LCD Soundsystem live, but the room is full of yahoos singing along.
So, like, props, I guess, to Nicola Marzovilla for not having a kiddie menu at his restaurant. The idea that kids should eat chicken fingers and Annie's has always seemed kind of dopey to me. But the real fun begins in the comments, where parents trip over themselves to tell Uncle Punch and the rest of the world just how omnivorous their little anklebiter is. Spot the fake comment and win a hearty clap on the back from The Gurgling Cod:
1) "My daughter's first food was an artichoke..."
2) "Our child eats what we eat. He pouted for days when we wouldn't have his third birthday party at Alinea."
3) "...we share the pickled ginger at sushi, salsa and green chile covered eggs
at breakfast, and all manner of fruits and vegetables. He had to ask at
a friend's house what 'cheetos' are."
4) "I even remember the owner of a swanky restaurant in Midtown East
complimenting my parents on raising children who ordered the endive
salad on their own. And we definitely preferred prosciutto to bologna in
our school lunch sandwiches."
5) "we now have a 3 year old that includes among her favorite foods sushi,
Peking duck, Clams Casino pizza and rice & beans."
Via the <strike>essential</strike> inessential but fun Jesus is Love, some truth about JC
and lambs, at right. However, based on what we know of the life of the Historical Jesus, who was from the Mediterranean, how likely is it that he would be thinking mint sauce in this situation? The people who serve mint sauce w/ lamb are the same people who think Triscuits are a delicacy. Wouldn't the actual Jesus be more likely to think along the lines of a tapenade of some sort? Does The Jesus Seminar have a Formspring?
What's this? The credibility of a blog is a function of who writes it and who reads it, rather than a function of the medium that brings writer and reader together? This guy knows more about the internet than Chris Kimball,** Pat Bruno, and Joe Paterno put together! Joe Pa, for all of his success, struggles with the distinctions this guy Ripert makes intuitively, based on reading blogs. Paterno:
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