I finally saw a picture of Janet Jackson's breast from the Super Bowl. Now, unless the picture was somehow altered, I do not believe that it was, in Justin Timberlake's words, a "wardrobe malfunction". (Nice fucking euphemism.) There's a star-shaped hoolie on her nipple. Come on! That was soooo planned!
Also on CNN, a story about how some goofball is going around helping people lose weight or some such thing. (I had to turn it off.) He is helping these people remove fat from tried-and-true family recipes. Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick! My grandmother is rolling in her grave and she's still alive. What the fuck is wrong with Americans? We are so paranoid of fat...ugh! Ya know, your grandmothers' recipes aren't broken so don't try and fix them. It's you, you lazy ass fucks, that are broken. Stop eating these shitty excuses for cookies and blah blah blah. Diet this and fat-free that. That stuff tastes horrid! Then you go and lose sleep because you ate a single normal cookie. Purge - starve - purge - starve.
When I went shopping the other day, one of the things I needed was plain yoghurt. It took me nearly 2 minutes to find some that wasn't low-fat or fat-free skim bullshit fuck crap. I related in another entry on how I was in a good mood and singing to myself. Well, since I was already vocalizing, I muttered aloud something like, "It's all fat-free crap - where is the regular, fat-laden stuff?"
If any of you eat diet foods, that's fine - I am not inclined to tell you how to eat - but I want you to feel guilty because you make my shopping more difficult. If any given product has a "lite" or fat-free variation, then 99% of the shelf space is given over to these ilks and the good stuff is nearly hidden so I have to scour to find what I want. And you know what else, you make certain products more expensive. Take chicken. Now, I usually buy dark meat because it has more fat and thusly more flavor. I usually buy quarters and just debone the stuff myself too. But I occasionally buy the skinless, boneless variety. Take chicken thighs. Sans skin and bones, they run me $2.99 for a 1.25lbs. package. Now, look at breasts. They are $4.99 for the same amount by weight. $2 more! Why? Because they have less fat and thusly are in higher demand. So the price is jacked up. Then again, there is humor to all of this because I get to watch these hyper-thin yuppie women wrapped in indecision ponder which non-fattening gunk they want. Urban Outfitted and reeking of expensive perfume, they diligently compare calorie counts while this scruffball just finds the single brand that actually has fat in it and whisks a jug or a box of it into my cart. No wonder these people look so miserable when they shop - they perceive eating as a necessary evil that could potentially render their expensive wardrobes unwearable and they needlessly prolong the experience with their Herculean label-comparisons hoping to cut out that half calorie here and there.
When I make a pie crust or tamales, I use lard. A tamale without lard is like coffee without caffeine - another pet peeve of mine. I'm sorry but, when I was growing up, I had a friend whose family moved to Chicago from Mexico and his mom made them with lard. That's how it's done. One time I went to a grocery store but couldn't for the life of me find lard. So I approach the guy behind the meat counter and asked where it is. The face of the yuppie next to me recoiled in horror as if I'd just taken a dump in my hand and eaten my own shit. Classic! The guy points out the lard's location to me and I'm off.
And I'd like to see some truth in labeling. Take mayonnaise. Fat, by definition, is the main ingredient. How can you have fat-free mayo? It's an oxymoron. Mayo is egg yolk suspended in oil! Fine, make the shit if you want, but don't you dare put the word "mayonnaise" on the jar. "Mayo-substitute" and "mayo-like goop" are fine. But to call it mayonnaise is just plain wrong.
Then there's this whole Atkin's diet. From my understanding, it means no carbs. I'm sorry, but civilization started because human beings figured out how to grow grains. This gave us bread - the staff of life. (Beer followed closely behind.) Are we so fucking uncivlized as so to decline an offer to break bread with someone because Joey "No-Carbs" Atkins says so? How fucking rude is that? There's just no way I could give up bread. The Natural Ovens Bakery up in Manitowoc made sure of this when they put the culinary equivalent of crack on the market - their 7 Grain Herb bread. It makes, hands down, the best fucking toast ever. I have eaten whole loaves of this stuff in single sittings. Tasty morsels inflected with flax, sage, rosemary, and tarragon. I really wish I could bake bread but, alas, I cannot. I'm going to marry the next woman I date who can bake bread. If you take the time to mix, knead, proof, and bake, then I know you have a good palette, patience, and put TLC into what you do and I need a woman with these qualities.
This is not to say that I am promoting fat-only foods or to eat red meat 3 squares a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. And eat vegetables. When I went to the store this morning, the guy in front of me had about 7 packages of what looked to be flank steak. Christ, at least have a spot of salad with that - you know, some kind of roughage to move that stuff through your colon. This discounts iceberg lettuce. That shit has virtually no flavor, no fiber, and is, for most people, merely a vehicle for dressing. The idea is to find some good, tasty greens and dress them, not to drown them in fat-free ranch.
And don't let me get started on fast food and chain places. The round things that pass for pizza pies in this country are ridiculous. The sauce is supposed to have flavor, Mr. Domino's. The crust is supposed to be baked, not deep-fried, Mr. Pizza Hut. It disgusts me that, when we send our culinary culture abroad, it is led by McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Taco Bell, and the like.
You know who also draws my ire? People whose diet consists of hamburgers and french fries. Getting them to try some, say, Indian food is like getting a camel through the eye of a needle. What is wrong with these people? Anything beyond salt & pepper remains an enigma to them. You know, salt & pepper are good'n'all but the reason they're everywhere is because, back in the Middle Ages, A) salt preserved perishables and B) pepper hid the flavor of rotten/rancid foodstuffs. They were meant to cover for lack of refrigeration, not to be the sole flavors of everything you eat. We have refrigeration and airplanes made trading spices easy as pie. Not all Jamaican food burns your mouth. Not every Indian dish is Madras hot. My dad is this way. Nothing spicy and virtually no aromatic herbs or spices. Everything has to be pretty bland that way. No Indian food, no Mid-East cuisine. And he puts cumin in everything. Spaghetti sauce does not involve cumin! He's a good cook but his palette is so limited that he makes the same half dozen things in rotation.
Alrighty, then. Rant over. I need some lunch.
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