On the menu…

Perhaps on yours, but I am unlikely to dine at any venue featuring even one of  these terms.   Personally,  I tend to find restaurants which include such items snobbish,  and the food way over-priced.   I mean, why not just say your chicken breasts were simmered in broth with a lovely selection of herbs and spices?   Stop attempting to sound sophisticated and elite by using a foreign phrase which translates as  “in broth”.

Sadly,  too many places are selling the “experience” instead of the actual items for sale.  I want to eat at a restaurant which concentrates on the food first,  then the service,  then the atmosphere.   I don’t care if the tablecloth is red-and-white checked oilcloth instead of crisp white linen.   If the food is good enough, it can be on mismatched crockery,  eaten with mismatched cutlery, and atop a bare wood table.  One of the best meals I ever had was at such a place,  many years ago,  in New Orleans,  and there was no menu,  you were served what had been cooked that day — fresh seafood and vegetables and homemade bread still warm from the oven.

 

Beef comeback…

Of course,  beef  never left  my menu.  It’s tasty,  simple to prepare,  very versatile,  and now that the price has decreased,  quite affordable.   There is still a medical bias against beef,  despite the extremely cautious retreat on its defects as a food item.   In fact,  there is still considerable bias against all types of meat,  and the food Nazis  will simply stamp their feet and says the environment has rendered the item unsafe if they can think of nothing else.   Remember that the same junk science responsible for this is being foisted upon you in the climate change/global warming/climate weirdness debate.

 

D.C. has rats…

I’m speaking of the  four-legged  variety,  though there is certainly an abundance of the two-legged type as well.   New York City had a rat population explosion a few years back,  and it turned out that so many of the immigrants living there came from cultures where municipal trash collection was a largely unknown experience that most of them did what they had done in their previous homes –  threw the trash where they pleased.  I have no idea whether D.C. has that many immigrants,  but from having lived there for a couple of years,   I can tell you that,  as in New Orleans,  money can purchase blindness and ignorance.

 

 

Making school food edible again….

Two of Our Lady of Perpetual Dissatisfaction’s least popular initiatives have just been wiped out by the Trump Administration.    The first was the meddlesome and totally unpalatable  school lunch  program,  which saw school districts losing money hand over fist because the guidelines produced food which tasted awful,  and were slated to become even worse by reducing salt even further,  an action  of extremely dubious usefulness. The food Nazis are  stroking out  about the salt study because many of them have careers which depend on faulty science,  just like the global warming enthusiasts.   Like the cholesterol hysterics, the salt police are relying  on junk  science,  based on even older bad suppositions.

The other recipient of an executive death blow was the  “Let Girls Learn” program,  started in 2015 by Michelle Obama and meant to facilitate educational opportunities for young girls in developing countries.  The program was run by the Peace Corps and U.S. Agency for International Development.   CNN reported the program’s termination,  but the White House  is denying  it.   CNN is trying to weasel its way out of its bad reporting,  but as far as I’m concerned,  anything run by the Peace Corps should be shut down for waste and fraud if not outright abuse.

 

 

Free in Italy…

Italy is an expensive place to visit,  but here are some fun activities which are free.   I’ve enjoyed several of these delights myself,  and would do so again.

If you’d rather just eat your way across the world sampling desserts,  here’s  a list  of can’t-misses,  some of which I have also been lucky enough to enjoy.   Greed may be good,  but dessert is better!

Unicorn toast?

What the hell is unicorn toast?   Or mermaid toast?   Apparently there are a lot of people with too much time on their hands who live exceedingly dull lives and who think  toast topped  with naturally dyed cream cheese and sugary sprinkles in an array of pretty colors is a food trend devoutly to be wished for.

I adore cream cheese and use it in a variety of dishes,  but I don’t care to embarrass my homemade bread with pastel cream cheese,  far less sprinkles of any sort,  which I simply refuse to eat on anything,  even the standard doughnuts you customarily see them on.

Will someone please help these poor people get a life?

Pasta cooking…

I seldom eat pasta because it has so many high-glycemic carbs, but I will definitely try  this method  the next time I make anything with pasta at home.   I suspect this technique requires that the book actually know what al dente pasta looks,  feels,  and tastes like.