THE GURGLING COD

Rhubarb?

As one who occasionally resorts to PJ Stock clips to get through the day, the Cod was sorry that the 20 Rhubarb Receipts from Saveur did not include, say, "inside pitch on a hot August day when the score is 11-3," or, coming in spikes high on a double play," or you know." But!  They do run to a "Whiskey Rock-a-Roller," which might lead to the same place. 

Promising. Excited about these rhubarb bitters, but "Kentucky-style bourbon?" WTF? 

That said, a criminally underrated tune to play us off -- there's more to Jax's finest than Alabama and Free Birtd: 

Googa Mooga Math #googamooga

Via FOC The Lime Spider, some calculations W/R/T Googa Mooga: 

The organizers say 40,000 per day. Let's agree, generously, that peak will be 30,000. 

I think 35% will be at the concerts, and not on line for food at any given time, but to be polite, let's say 50% to make them feel like people came for the music. Also because it makes the math easier: 15,000 on line for food. 

75 vendors. 2 lines per vendor. 150 lines. 100 people per line. 

Cash transactions. Optimistically, 60 transactions per hour. That means each line will run about an hour and a half, for tasting portions or slightly larger. Even if there are twice as many lines, or half as many people, you're still looking at 45 minute waits.

Street thinkers call it Tight Math. For the sake of the people who are going, I hope these calculations (by someone w/ food festival experience) are off base. The Cod is Pro Prospect Park -- despite the restrictions on fishing. The Cod is a fan of many of the food vendors. Based on past experiences, not sure that putting all of these purveyors in the same place will lead to a better time than having them scattered around NYC. 

Also, as I clicked around, surprised to see that Eater is one of the partners, along w/ Lexus, Magic Hat and Whole Foods. If your website covers food, can you report on a festival you sponsor? 

Ozersky goes South -- with mixed results

 I missed the memo where Josh Ozersky works for Rachael Ray. But. Ol' Cutlets came to the ATL and had a good old time:

But having just got back from Atlanta, I am ready to say that there is only one indispensable event, and that is it. The reason is obvious: the south is the new capital of gastronomy in America. 

Nice of Josh to notice! But for real, a nice s/o to Cod fave Farm 255: 

There was a pig tent with a pig-ear tacos from Farm 255 in Athens, a place I have never been, using a cut of meat I like but never really enjoyed much if the truth be told. 

Also, love for Spotted Trotter, the Cod's favorite place he's never been:

 Whether it’s lardcore heroics like Gray’s or the celestial charcuterie handed to me by Kevin Outzs from The Spotted Trotter, the experience cemented the conviction in my mind that the South was where American cooking, in its most vital sense, is happening.

But! The closing sentences are, shall we say, problematic:

If only there was a giant southern food festival every month I could go to to try all this food! Once a year is not enough. But Atlanta opened my eyes, and I won’t wait a year to go back. March to the sea, gastronomes! The South has risen.

In case you missed it, around ATL "march to the sea" generally refers to Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's experiment in total warfare, what with the incinerating stuff and all. While we're at it "The South has risen" is problematic, in that the "it" in "The South's Gonna Do It Again" is not "provide porky treats to NYC food writers."  It's nice to see this festival get some love, but let's hope Rach finds Ozersky a new editor before he samples the culinary delights of Nanking. Play us off, Charlie Daniels! 

 

Guiteau Monday: Words fail

(Via)

Attachment parenting with Fleetwood Mac.

A Poem, for Mothers Day, constructed from subject headings of emails I have recently received

Shop For Mom

 

Treat Mom to Brunch

Gift for Mom: Le Creuset Fry Pan (Save up to $85)

Send an eGift Card to Mom

Treat Mom To A Trip – Save On Summer & Fall Travel. Book Now!

New shows, free movies and more for Mom

Choose a gift for Mom from our Giving Catalog!

A Care Package For Mom

Shop For Mom: 20% Off All Bags & Accessories

 

CELEBRATE MOM AND EARN DOUBLE A+ CREDITS WITH TELEFLORA!

Spoil Mom with Surprises! Plus 15% Savings for You

There's Still Time! Save 20% & Get Mom Something Special

Last chance for FREE shipping: Celebrate Mom with Peet's

Shop Great Agrarian Gifts for Mom

Celebrate Mom and fight cancer with special gifts and fun events!

 

 

Comparing Apples and tomatoes

Anchower, but interesting take here on Apple's current PR ethical challenge, and what that means for people who eat food. 

Late breaking Guiteau Monday fun with Twitter

So,  ots of fun in the 212 and 718 this weekend, and keep a candle lit tomorrow AM, as the Cod engages in what's shaping up to be a particularly unpleasant exercise in shuffling the loungers on the lido deck of the Lusitania. But! First sometimes you have to let Guiteau Monday come to you. Evidently, America's $1 Comedian keeps track of people who get sick after eating at Taco Bell, and tweet about it. 

 

Saratoga Slim's Derby analysis

Like many of you, I have forsaken work, and support myself by wagering heavily on the Kentucky Derby, guided by the precepts of Saratoga Slim, the real name of the man behind The Weekly Meat. Slim recently saw his first son come into the world, so Mazel Tovs, indeed, but also, these picks are now bound to be 50% more lucrative, the which we present as a public service. 

Can the Linebacker Speak? Seau, Duerson & the Subaltern

No food here this time, and I hope the title comes off as terse, rather than glib. So, Junior Seau is dead, of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot to the chest. Ex-Bears safety Dave Duerson killed himself in a similar way, and left a note asking that his brain be examined for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It's natural to wonder, even in the absence of a note, if Seau made the same choice for the same reason. I will leave the forensics to the coroners and the percentages to the actuaries, but the very fact of this speculation takes the conversation about Seau's life and death to a place far away from the NFL.

Toward the end of her famous "Can the Subaltern Speak," Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak writes, 

"A young woman of sixteen or seventeen, Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri, hanged herself in her father’s modest apartment in North Calcutta in 1926. The suicide was a puzzle since, as Bhuvaneswari was menstruating at the time, it was clearly not a case of illicit pregnancy. Nearly a decade later, it was discovered that she was a member of one of the many groups involved in the armed struggle for Indian independence. She had finally been entrusted with a political assassination. Unable to confront the task and yet aware of the practical need for trust, she killed herself.

Bhuvaneswari had known that her death would be diagnosed as the outcome of illegitimate passion. She had therefore waited for the onset of menstruation. While waiting, Bhuvaneswari, the brahmacrini who was no doubt looking forward to good wifehood, perhaps rewrote the social text of sati -suicide in an interventionist way."

Seau's connection with a female revolutionary who killed herself in Calcutta in 1926 comes in the challenges they both face in communicating their subjectivity. For different reasons and in very different places, the only rhetorical gestures remaining to Bhaduri and Seau lie in the nuances of the ways they choose to take their own lives. It might be possibile to tease out how an opressive masculinist culture silenced each in a different way, but I'd rather avoid getting into TL/DR territory. For now, let's just say that any culture where the method of suicide is the only form of communication remaining to a citizen is a culture that needs work.