Feb 10
Not that I personally buy into any edibles as aphrodisiac, but here’s my article "The Food of Love" (I don’t write the headlines, yet unfortunately I do write some pretty nice puns and alliterations) from yesterday’s New York Post.
Does it get any more exciting on a Thursday early evening? Apparently, it does–I'm just about to head over to the Outback Steakhouse across from my office. Foster’s and fried onions await me.
Ok, I was poking around the Food TV site, as I do from time to time, and about halfway down, in the middle of the page I noticed this peculiar line drawn man's face. Is this supposed to be a Food TV personality? I totally don't recognize the guy. It's not Alton, Bobby, Emeril, Mario or that whatever Ham on The Street guy. Who else is left? When you hold the cursor over him he suggestively raises his eyebrows or winks. I'm offended, he's almost as much of a nuisance as the Microsoft Word anthropomorphic paperclip. This animated chinless wonder is driving me nuts.
Er, ok, I just solved my own stupid mystery by actually clicking on the damn icon and…well, it is that Ham character. The whole thing is totally nonsensical. The illustration is a bit more svelte and sans soul patch (I guess it's tough to have a beard without a chin).
I’ve always wondered why there wasn’t more written about African food. I guess South America doesn’t get a ton of ink either, but Buenos Aires is trendy these days. Even all those random (to me) countries like Montenegro, Estonia and “The Stans” (Uzbeki, Tajiki, etc.) seem to be popping up more and more. But Africa? Not so much. And it’s not as if I have any wisdom to impart, that’s why I want to know more about what they eat, and not just Morocco or South Africa. I mean, Africa contains 54 countries so there’s got to be something good in there.
That’s why I was glad to see ”A Taste of Ghana” in this week’s New York Times (interestingly, it’s currently the fourth most emailed article—New Yorkers want more African food!). Also, Robert Sietsema’s “Foo-foo Fundamentals” in October’s Gourmet. Gourmet doesn’t put much of anything online, but it’s an article about traveling around the U.S. and trying African restaurants. I don’t have the story on me, but I recall he went to D.C. and Texas, among other places. Ok, that’s only two major publications, but it’s something.
NYC has a smattering of Ethiopian restaurants and that Senegalese strip on 116th St., but I plead ignorance on much else. I think I have a preconceived notion that much of the food will be bland and stewy, which is likely false. I’d better get out there and find out.
S.O.S. I've been stuck in a culinary wasteland since starting a new job around E. 55th and Third Ave. a few weeks ago. I miss Yagura and Café Zaiya, where you could eat like an emperor for $4.50. (I'll also admit to missing a lighter workload, which meant more web posting).
Now I'm in the land of the mediocre $10 salad. If I weren't so thrifty I'd go for the tasty looking offerings from Starwich (despite a minute pay increase I'm still firmly in librarian compensation zone. I don't know what it'll take to get me to raise my $5 lunch budget. Well, I a few years ago I was a strict brown-bagger, so I have loosened up a bit). If I wasn't half-heartedly watching my weight I'd try these "cheeseburkers" at the newish Burke in the Box at Bloomingdale's.
To my amusement, I am one block from a peculiarly tucked away Outback Steakhouse. It just seems really out of place, I can't even imagine who goes there. "No rules, just right," right? What if I started eating Bloomin' Onions for lunch? That fits neither my healthy nor under five bucks requirements (ouch, the onion blob is $8.49 at this location–it's $6.29 in most of NJ, which I only know because they actually post menus by location on their site)
To get back on task, I was meaning to write about how on day one, I scoured menupages looking for a nearby noodle shop. So far, I've settled on Master Yap, which is Chinese rather than Japanese, which is fine, I love roast meats, but it's just not the same. I crave dashi broth and chewy udon, and while Yagura's chicken did include skin, it just somehow felt better for you than a heap of sliced pork.
Master Yap's meat is so red with dye that it stains the broth and noodles pinkish orange (if you get rice vermicelli or chow fun) which seems wrong. There is a little bok choy and bean sprouts tossed in so you can pretend it's counter balancing the pork fat. But the broth is ho hum, and at $4.99 it goes over my limit with tax, though only minutely. I spruce it up with a little chile oil. I'm still not in love with Master Yap, but it has saved me from Pax, Au Bon Pain and Houston's, the biggies around my block.
Since I can't talk about my job, which isn't much to speak of anyway, I will relay another's workplace anecdote. I guess a friend, sort of a friend of a friend of mine in Portland has a set up at work where anyone with iTunes can view everyone else's iTunes accounts over the company network (I'm so jealous, I'm trying to figure out how to plug in a stupid pair of headphones. There aren't any speakers, I guess I have to use the back of the computer but the distance is too great. I need to drown out all verbal inanity so I won't be tempted to repeat any of it here. Well, this was cyber, not oral, but I was recently put off by a company-wide email that had some line like "survey responses will be unanimous" We'll all agree upon them? I was almost tempted to anonymously send back a definition.) and some coworker they call RWFA (right-wing fat-ass) has his iTunes filled with a Christian parody band called ApologetiX. They're totally the Weird Al's of the holy set. I'm bummed that I haven't been able to listen to any mp3s yet, but the lyrics really say it all. They take creative license with even the most mundane tunes. It's not like they're cleaning up dirty songs or fixing expletives, they're simply mangling top 40 hits for the love of god. Totally true examples: Bethlehemian Rhapsody for "Bohemian Rhapsody," JC's Mom instead of "Stacy's Mom" and Enter Samson riffing off Metallica's "Enter Sandman." Hilarious. In a twisted way, I'm kind of sad that no one in my office would dare play AplogetiX. It's just not that kind of crowd. You just don't get a lot of pudgy jesus freaks working in NYC PR and advertising, and that's a shame. Sometimes I miss having oblivious weirdoes around just to shake things up a bit.
I only hype myself up a couple times a year, if that, so allow me to mention my article about micheladas, spicy beer, in today's New York Post.
There's a new year's resolution–find more writing venues. 2006 is all about branching out. I know, it seems like a blogger is born every minute, so getting heard gets harder and harder. And I hate having to shout (though I love to ramble).
Sap alert: there are commercials I hate because they're really freaking horrible like the Chrysler Pacifica hot pregnant moms out on the town or the Crumbelievable Kraft cheese chunks with the bastardized EMF song, but then there are commercials I hate because they so transparently tug at your heart strings even though you know better. Those Zales (I mean, c'mon, Zales?) ads where the guy is getting up the nerve to propose (though they currently only seem to be showing the one where a guy gives a woman earrings) with David Bowie's "Pressure" playing is one such nuisance. The current contender is that Cingular commercial (this is a longer version than what is running on TV) where the guy keeps checking his phone hoping that the girl/woman he just met is going to call him later like she said she would. As if this scenario has any basis in reality. I don't know any guys (well, not guy guys) who get all moony and fixated like this. It's an invention developed to target female customers (or are men meant to identify with this unsure protagonist?). I give this fictional twosome two months tops. I refuse to be tricked and wouldn't buy a cell phone anyway, but whenever this ad comes on it hypnotizes me and induces senseless wistfulness. I don't want to have feelings about fake scenarios on television. Enough sap. I feel much better about all the drunk babies in the news lately. Well, toddler and kindergartener, but close enough. You always remember your first Applebee's Long Island ice tea.
Ok, I was just dogging that newish Ritz commercial that uses "Melt With You," (click the news tab and look in the lower left corner) and I got sidetracked in my disgust. But upon further viewings, I must admit that I actually like their use of cartoony line art combined with larger than life Ritz crackers as other objects like Christmas ornaments, serving tray and hat. It's very '60s, despite using the '80s music.
The style reminds me of a cooking pamphlet "Let's Bake," printed by Robin Hood Flour (I think the brand only exists in Canada now) that I've always admired for its illustrations. I love photographed objects and textures placed into hand drawn settings…though off the top of my head I'm having trouble coming up with any other examples.
|
|
 |
What is up with all the new cheesey commercials (pun totally intended) using decades-old one-hit-wonders? Modern English’s “Melt With You” is not so cleverly being used by Ritz Crackers. I guess it’s been a while now, probably ’97 or so, when they used this same some for Burger King. It’s bad enough when music gets subverted this way, but it’s double annoying when more than one brand attaches their name to a tune, even if it’s eight years later (Currently, there’s a Geico ad where the gecko is made to do a robot dance and I don’t know what song is in the background, but it’s also used in a Revlon commercial). Maybe I’m just hypersensitive because this is the kind of request I’d get at work, making sure that a new ad doesn’t copy older ones. I'm sure my searches aren't exhaustive, but it's not that hard to avoid aping.
But the “Melt With You” inanity is nothing compared to EMF’s (does Kraft know what the acronym stands for?) “Unbelievable” morphing into “Crumbelievable” as a soundtrack to bouncing, tumbling Cheese Crumbles. I absolutely loathed that song when it was ubiquitous on the airwaves, so my reaction has nothing to do with nostalgia or an aversion to sellouts. Perhaps it has more to do with how my gender and age puts me in the mommy demographic who would presumably respond favorably to this ditty, and that makes me feel like hurling orange processed dairy chunks.
It’s easy to pinpoint a few things I’m not thankful for: McGriddles® and Tyson Protein, not that I’m against fast food breakfast sandwiches or chicken strips. It’s just the wording. There’s something weird about naming a product in the plural. I can’t even recall the exact storyline in one of the new McDonald’s commercials, but at the end the clueless guy who can’t seem to get that the girl sitting across from him likes him says, “I guess it means that I’ll have to buy another McGriddles.” Urgh, I know it’s the registered name, but it’s just playing into that horrible habit where people add S’s where they don’t belong, like when someone says Nordstroms or Peter Lugers.
Most Americans are already far enough removed from where our food originates (not that I’m a farm girl, by any means). And more and more I’m hearing people using non-food terms for food. Maybe it started with the Atkins craze when breads, grains and pastas (amongst a host of seemingly innocent items) became an abstract enemy simply lumped together as carbs. Now, protein for all forms of meat (and presumably tofu), is becoming unappetizingly ubiquitous. That new Tyson campaign where middle aged folks apparently start playing basketball and hang gliding after eating poultry products, has a tag line exclaiming, “have you had your protein today?™” Gross. Did you know that Tyson is “the world’s leading protein provider and America’s most trusted protein brand”?
Oh wow, I should’ve guessed that there was something religious to this whole puritanical pleasure-denying, functional approach to food. Just in time for the holidays, Tyson is offering a booklet of mealtime prayers. I do have a certain fascination with prayers, but there’s something offbeat about them being on a mainstream commercial website.
What I am thankful for is an intrepid and tenacious mom who managed to track down a couple of Jones Soda regional packs with the coveted salmon pate flavor. I haven’t seen them here in NYC (though I did get the standard set at Target) and from what I gather, getting them in the Portland, Oregon suburbs was only slightly less tricky. It took trips to Thriftway, Fred Meyer (not Meyers, as even I’m wont to say) and a couple of phone calls to finally find them near her trailer park (yes, I said trailer park) on the Beaverton/Hillsboro border. Score. I’m not cracking them open until my dinner party next Saturday, so I’ll reserve comment until then.
Linen Theme by The Theme Foundry
Copyright © 2025 . All rights reserved.
Follow
