That's right, you (both) know who I'm talking about... according to the last poll, 40% of the Carnivore Project readers say that diet matters when choosing their Presidential candidate.
Well, good luck in this one - Obama eats Hamas Waffles and McCain only snacks on babies.
Next poll up.
Brief list of the 'tumultuous relationship' between athletes and food.
Also worth noting:
- The Yankees ban candy in the clubhouse.
The title screen for 'EastEnders', as composed from sausage and mash. Commissioned by Virgin Media as part of Richard Branson's new, sausage-based marketing strategy.
But in recent presidential elections, Jews have drifted somewhat to the right. Because Mr. Obama is relatively new on the national stage, his résumé of Senate votes in support of Israel is short, as is his list of high-profile visits to synagogues and delis. So far, his overtures to Jews have been limited; aside from a few speeches and interviews, he has left most of it to surrogates. - The New York Times
I'm not sure which is worse - the implication that Jews would reject Obama because he hasn't spent enough time in delis, or the possibility that there's truth behind it.
So, basically, we'll vote for the man that eats the most hot dogs?
Not my interview, of course. I live in an inflatable raft, tied to a buoy floating off the Isle of Mann. Even for the length of a two minute interview, guests get a bit uncomfortable. Possibly because my tape recorder is made of fish bones.
Anyway, Scott Gold, author of The Shameless Carnivore
Who wouldn't want meat-themed footwear?
adidas has a lot of interesting sauces and sides in their 'Flavors of the World' range, but, unfortunately, no meats. This is assuaged somewhat by the adidas Truffle:
It doesn't look like much, I know, but check out the detail:
A truffle pig! As my great-uncle Jean-Luc used to say, "Screw the shrooms, there's more eatin' on the porker.'
(More meat-shoes after the jump...)
"I lay and tortured myself... with the memory of all the good food I had thought so little of in London. There were Paddock's crisp sausages and fragrant shavings of bacon, and shapely poached eggs - how often I had turned my nose up at them! There were the cutlets they did at the club, and a particular ham that stood on the cold table, for which my soul lusted. My thoughts hovered over all varieties of mortal edible, and finally settled on a porterhouse steak and a quart of bitter with a welsh rabbit to follow."
- John Buchan, The Thirty-nine Steps
Blame the January blues, but there's a lot to be said for the bar staff position - which includes wine tasting trips to France.
From ESPN.com's Gregg Easterbrook:
So $100 Buys Either 400 McNuggets or 295 McNuggets: At my local McDonald's, four chicken McNuggets are $1 and 10 are $3.39. Thus, 12 McNuggets cost less than 10! Meanwhile, the Quarter Pounder with cheese costs $2.89 and contains 510 calories; the double cheeseburger costs $1 and contains 410 calories. Both have about the same content of fat (bad) and protein (good). Nutritionally, you're better off with the cheaper product! Fast food question: NFL Network has Wendy's as a lead sponsor and lends Rich Eisen to that incomprehensible Wendy's bacon-burger commercial. But the NFL itself has Burger King as a lead sponsor. Isn't this more than a tad odd?
Terrific post by Richard about Christmas menus in besieged 19th-century Paris.
Restaurants 'outdid' themselves by coming up with creative ways to serve camel, donkey and cat. (And rat, wolf and mule...)
Take a moment (not immediately after lunch) to read the full post (it includes several more horrifying menus).
I'm glad this was mentioned on ESPN's list of noteworthy touchdown celebrations:
The "We're Gonna Beat the Hell Out of You... You... You" Chant
Arrowhead Stadium / Kansas City ChiefsAfter Chiefs touchdowns, the red-and-white fanatics in the stands utter this rambunctious recantation while pointing in the direction of the visiting team and any unfortunate out-of-towners that have dared to wear the visitors' colors to the game.
For years the chant began after the third "Hey" in Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll, Part II," once a staple at many NFL stadiums. (The league banned all things Glitter from its facilities in 2006, following the British rocker's conviction on sexual abuse charges in Vietnam.)
Now the Chiefs play a cover rendition of the song by a band known as Tube Tops 2000. And the chant lives on.
Continue reading "They haven't sung it much this season..." »
Aperient: A laxative medicine or food
Buddha's Hand: A very strange looking fruit, and one of the oldest members of the citron family. It has no juicy pulp beneath the rind, and is grown commercially primarily for its juicy zest. (More information, including how to prepare one)
Fool: a dish made of fruit, scalded or stewed, crushed and mixed with cream or the like
Ort (usually Orts): a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal
Seiten: A food made from the gluten of wheat, used as an alternative to to soy-based meat substitute (such as tofu). So yes, it is the tofu of tofu. Pronounced SAY-tahn
Syllabub: a drink of milk or cream sweetened, flavored, and mixed with wine or cider
Another sportswriter raves about Kansas City (although, strangely, he does so in the third person). The Carnivore appreciates The Dash's appreciation of The Barbeque:
When hungry and thirsty in Kansas City, The Dash highly recommends the deluxe barbecue cuisine. Last Friday night The Dash had an obscenely piled meat plate at Arthur Bryant's, where they will smash white bread, ribs and fries together in rolled-up paper for to-go orders. That was good -- until The Dash lit into ribs and chicken wings from Gates BBQ on Saturday night after the Missouri-Kansas game. My lord. Dreamland officially has competition for Best Barbecue Ever. Wash it down with a KC microbrew Boulevard Pale Ale and you will be one happy human.
Harsh? True? Harsh but true? What do you think?
An interesting article from the New Scientist about the word 'locavore' (The New Oxford American Dictionary's 'Word of the Year'!) (Do you get a trophy? Who would they send it to?).
I'm still a little perplexed with the locavore movement, although I understand that the motivation behind it is fairly inoffensive. I believe in supporting local farmers and food producers - generally for reasons of economics and quality - but to do so in exclusion of all other food sources seems a little short-sighted.
He sat and stared at a card of potato chips, a jar of evil-looking pickles, a peanut machine, dusty liquor bottles aligned in front of a long blue panel of mirror, a chrome paper-napkin dispenser, a withered menu with a water-skiing maiden on the front, a squeeze bottle of catsup and one of mustard, both obviously used often and carelessly, two busy flies on the coffee-spattered rim of a thick china sugar bowl, one poster announcing a dance over in Wellsland that had taken place two months ago, an ancient cash registered which sat on a smeared glass case containing cigarettes, cigars, candy and, incongrously, a small plastic Santa Claus with a face of discontent.
- John D. MacDonald
Sports Illustrated has ranked all thirty-two NFL stadiums* in terms of the fan experience.
Arrowhead placed 16th - the definition of mediocre. Although it got full marks (10/10) for Tailgating, the mediocre Team (5/10) and dire Location (2/10) helped torpedo an otherwise decent run of rankings.
Whew.
I'm a firm believery in monomugy. I know it is difficult with the many hundreds of mugs in an office environment, but I find that my loyalty has many rewards, both emotional and physical:
- My mug gives me my identity. In an office building populated by hundreds of strangers, more know me as 'Audrey Hepburn Mug Guy' than by my given name.
- My mug gives me a sense of belonging. At my last agency, I unashamedly used the distinctive cherry red mug of the 'Vauxhall Retail Team', despite not working on the account. Although I'm sure the intrusion was initially resented, by the end of my time at the agency, the cherry mug was often saved for me. A touching story - Disney have already purchased the rights...
- My mug gives me a sense of security. There are four hundred people in this building, and I think they all have the flu. My mug. My germs.
- My mug gives me a sense a purpose. A day in the office is just another day in the office... that is, unless it becomes filled with a thousand, silly little rituals, each meant to make the day that tiny bit more exciting. A favorite mug, a blog post, an afternoon candy bar...
The mug pictured? Not my mug. So if you've seen the red & white Audrey Hepburn mug (slightly chipped) from the third floor kitchen - please return it.
Q: I think you are the man to settle a nationwide dilemma: How much do you tip when you are getting takeout? Can we set a standard on a to-go order please?
--Alex, Bangor, MaineSG: Like everyone else who ever worked as a waiter and/or bartender, I always over-tip unless the service was terrible. So I'm probably a bad person to ask because I always give 20 percent for any takeout order (at the very least, you should give 15 percent). But here's a realistic tipping scale for unconventional service people:
According to a survey, 85% of Americans couldn't live without meat.
"There is no escaping the fact that Americans have an unabashed love of meat, and the poll results just reinforce that fact," said Tim Roush, vice president of Hillshire Farms, the meat producers who organised the entirely spurious piece of fluff research.
85% is a great number - but on the other side of the Atlantic, is it quality over quantity? According to the local paper, many in the town of Lewes actually protested when the Mayor organised a meat-free dinner.
From Popbitch:
Ask McDonald's. Some questions other people have already tried - is it true you put chicken's hooves in your milkshakes?"and "Why did your employees ejaculate in my grandmother's milkshake?" [http://www.makeupyourownmind.co.uk/]
"We had breakfast at a roadside place ten miles out of Dalton on the Warrentown road. It was one of a chain operation, comfortable, clean, efficient and characterless.... I knew that in this place we could get ham and eggs that would not differ one milligram in weight or one half degree in serving heat from the same dish in the same chain a thousand miles away." - John D. MacDonald, Death Trap (Greenwich: Fawcett, 1957)
Daisuke Matsuzaka's first MLB start took place in Kansas City, resulting in the predictable destruction of my hometown baseball team. The sole good part of this is that the hype surrounding "Dice-K's" first start merited a running commentary from Bill Simmons on ESPN.
One gem of his coverage:
12:25 -- Apparently there's a fast-food place in the KC area called Sonic: They just ran an ad for the "sausage and gravy toaster sandwich" that concluded with the narrator saying, "Everything you love for breakfast, covered in gravy." And people wonder why the terrorists hate us.
According to their web site, Sonic are really into this whole gravy thing right now.
Eggs, cheese, sausage and Texas Toast. It's everything you love for breakfast, but I don't know ... it doesn't have that something special. That "it" factor that takes something from good to great. It's missing ... it's missing GRAVY! Gravy makes everything better—even this string of pseudo-witty advertising copy. Try the Sausage 'N Gravy TOASTER® for breakfast today.
Self-referential, strangely post-modern and... well... possibly right. Sonic does have a point - everything is better covered in gravy.
Think it'd work for the Royals?
One of the most frustrating aspects of my expatriate nature is the constant misuse of the term 'barbecue'. Although the British and the Australians both share a strong appreciate of outdoor cooking, neither seem to have mastered the vocabulary.
Simply put, what the non-North-American-anglophone world calls 'a barbecue' is merely grilling - the process of putting a piece of meat on top of an open flame.
It tastes delicious, but it's not barbecue - that is, it isn't based on the obsessive and lengthy ritual of marinating, smoking, spicing and then grilling. This time-consuming, multi-part process is what separates North American barbecue from the rest of the world.
BBC News (Argentina) - You could put Arminio Seiferheld on the front cover of a calendar depicting the Argentine countryside. Piercing blue eyes look out of a brown weather-beaten sixty-something year old face....
Arminio is one of the last of a disappearing breed: the Jewish gaucho.
Fortunately, there are other Jewish cowboys roaming the plains...
The Baltimore Sun reports that instead of abstaining from favorite junk foods, some high school and college students are giving up their techno-addictions for Lent. "Facebook fasting is the penance of choice for some college students this Lenten season, which ends April 8, Easter Sunday," says the story. "Others have sworn off MySpace, AOL Instant Messenger and similar semi-addictive Internet outlets, all in the spirit of intensified religious devotion that precedes Easter."
I'm not Catholic, but I am a carnivore, and - to me - this is ridiculous. I can't possibly see how waiting a month to update your MySpace space is on the same level of... martyrdom... as giving up meat. And really, as much as I love blogging about meat, there'd be no question. I'd gleefully sacrifice all the fame and glory of my lofty #8,879,493 Technorati rating for a rasher of Bacon (and/or leg of Roast Chicken and/or Kangaroo steak? Oy).
Apparently Eric Allen (ESPN.com) read 'A Carnivore's Guide to the NFL Playoffs'. In judging his top places to play football:
Kansas City: This one might come as a surprise, but everyone I know who has played in K.C. has absolutely loved it. The fans are fantastic, the food is great and the stadium is always filled.
Someone needs to convince this man that the ribs are worth dropping two dozen spots in the draft.
Some Presidential BBQ facts for the holiday (from the Heath, Patio and Barbecue Association):
Barbecues have been a White House tradition since Thomas Jefferson.
Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, hosted the first barbecue at the White House that featured Texas-style barbecued ribs.
Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter hosted a “pig pickin’” for about 500 guests including visiting foreign dignitaries.
Nature's Cook
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
Death is the cook of Nature; and we find
Meat dressèd several ways to please her mind.
Some meats she roasts with fevers, burning hot,
And some she boils with dropsies in a pot.
From Lebowski. This is truly disturbing...
199,311 tonnes of frozen ready meals were sold in the UK in 2006 (Source: British Food Federation, September 2006).
The Old Ways are back in style. After a century of decline, the new-fangled 'turkey' seems to be taking the back-seat to the old-fashioned flavor of a plump Christmas goose.
And, as expressed by more than one visitor, ham tastes good.
So, if that's the theory, how'd it work in practice? What'd y'all eat on Christmas Day?
The BBC have built a nifty little interactive menu-maker. Choose your favorites from the recipes provided, and it'll output a foxy little Christmas menu for you - ready to print.
It's pleasing to see that this timeless institution of Britishness provides several options for the main dish: Goose, Turkey, Ham, Beef and (weirdly) Mushrooms.
For more on the Goose vs Turkey debate, check out The Early Years, The Goose of Christmas Past and Turkish Independence. And don't forget to vote in the sidebar poll!
This is the sort of brilliant insight we've come to expect from Badasshamster. It's never too late in the year for a comic about grilling!
Terrific post over on the Guilty Carnivore, which uses the expression 'Dr Hetero McVirilepants'. Also, check out the comments to learn about the newly-formed 'Sino-Queer Alliance'...
And ham tastes good.
