The Naughty Bits
I don't know if any of you are familar with Anthony Bordain, but he is my most favorite food author of all time.
His first book entitled "Kitchen Confidential" broke down the barriers between what actually happens in kitchens across the world (heroin, whores, coke, whores, etc....did I mention whores?) and what we THINK goes on behind those "swinging" doors.
And sadly for me, one of the true regrets of my life is that the $196.08 per month that I pay to Comcast (hence known as the evil empire) does not include the Travel Channel!
For you see, the Travel Channel contains several great food shows that are so much better than the drivel on the Food Network. And the greatest of these shows is Tony Bordain's travels across the world eating the most amazing indigenous food I've ever seen.
But I only get to see it when I travel.......which is kind of funny it'self when you think "I've got to TRAVEL to see the TRAVEL CHANNEL".
Well, at least I thought that was funny.
So if any of you know anyone at Comcast in Hattiesburg, tell them that you know a guy that is INSISTING that they put the Travel Channel in the lineup.
Yea, that should do it!
Anyway, I am forced to go to the Travel Channel's website and read Tony's blog - because the evil freakin; empire keeps me from watching him.
Damn it, all my folks at work watch him because, oh yea, COMFUCKINCAST has it in the lineup in Laurel. IN LAUREL! A place where they wouldn't know good food it it bit them on the ass......
Nevermind.....I'm getting all worked up again.......where was I?
Oh, so yea, I read Tony's blog.
And I absolutely love his style of writing. It reminds me of how I think I would write if I could find someone to write for again....so consequently I love reading his stuff!
When I went there today to read it, it had me rolling in laughter because he's just so damned funny.
So, in the one of the best practices amoungst us cooking folks - I lifted his blog right off the page and pasted it below.
I'm sure he won't mind.
I'm sure if he did - I could kick his ass.
So either way, I'm covered...........SO ENJOY!
" Thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes...black eyes...like a doll's eyes. When he comes at you, doesn't seem to be livin' ..until he bites you--and those black eyes roll over white, and then you hear that terrible high pitched screamin'...the ocean turns red..."
Robert Shaw (as Quint) in Jaws
So, I get invited to a movie premier. This doesn't happen a lot and it's for Julie/Julia, and I happen to be very sentimental on the subject of Julia Child . The book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" has a sort of totemic place in my personal history--as it does, I'm sure, for millions of others.
I am also a big Stanley Tucci fan. He directed and co-starred in the single best live action film on the restaurant business (Big Night) and there was certainly no reason to believe that Meryl Streep couldn't "do" Julia. ( Of course she can.) But that's not the point of this tale.
The next morning, I'm still trying to reconstruct the exact progression, the details, like trying to remember the license plate of the truck that hit me.
Only this wasn't any normal truck. This was far more terrifying and traumatic an event than being smashed by the grill of a Peterbilt, pulled up into the wheel well, dragged for a while, only to have my shredded remnants left by the side of the road, wondering, in my last moments of consciousness, "What the hell happened?" I'm pretty sure, judging by the vestigial ectoplasm on my jacket that I was sideswiped by pure evil.
I'm standing there by the boeuf bourgignonne station, sucking down martinis with my wife (they drink a LOT of martinis in the movie), minding my own business, having an innocent chat with some friends, when I notice someone has their hand on me. An icy, tendril of fear runs down my spine. I turn and find myself looking straight into the deceptively attractive and reasonable looking face of Sandra Lee.
To make matters worse--and more.....uncomfortable, she's standing next to her boyfriend, Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General of the State of New York.
Now, I've said some unkind things over the years about Sandra.
Far too many and far too terrible things to ever apologize for. Plus, I pretty much meant every word. Once you've seen Sandra making Kwanzaa Cake on YouTube, there's no backing down.
My head is reeling with the thought that one phone call from Cuomo and my last twenty years of tax returns are getting audited . I'm paralyzed, wondering what the statute of limitations is on various things I may or may not have done twenty years ago.
Sandra is talking. I know this cause her lips are moving and she's saying--overtly anyway, nice things. Like "You're a very naughty man," and she's chatting amiably with my wife. But one hand is picking over me like the meat buyer at Peter Luger selecting a rib section--like some demonic bird of prey is poking and prodding, deciding where the weakest, most tender point of entry is, giving, as I recall, a point by point review of her investigations to my wife--who ordinarily, I have to say, would have been across the table with a tomahawk chop elbow to the top of the skull by now, but who, like me, sits mesmerized and grinning insanely, frozen by the ..bizarreness of the moment which seems to go on forever as Sandra's hand wanders upward, tugs an ear lobe and asks if my ears are red yet. (They were.)
Having had her way with me, she leaves the emptied husk of my carcass teetering at the table and moves on.
I felt like the victim of a drive-by shooting. "What just..happened?" I said with a weak, trembly voice. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the quiet but very thorough disembowelment that had just occurred. Nothing. It had looked, to anyone who'd care to notice, like any other cocktail party conversation--but I knew better.
I had looked into those eyes. I'd seen. Oh, she was smiling all right, but I'm pretty damn sure you could have dragged a rusty butter knife across my carotid artery right there at the table and her expression would not have changed, maybe only the eyes, they'd roll over white as I geysered onto the chafing dishes.
As we say on the show all the time, "What have we learned today?"
I learned that were a nuclear weapon to fall on New York, I'm pretty sure that if no one else, Sandra Lee would survive to clamber out of the rubble. That if it came down to a fight over the last can of food, she would surely emerge the victor.
I learned that I am truly and deeply afraid of her.
And I'm pretty sure she's a Democrat.
His first book entitled "Kitchen Confidential" broke down the barriers between what actually happens in kitchens across the world (heroin, whores, coke, whores, etc....did I mention whores?) and what we THINK goes on behind those "swinging" doors.
And sadly for me, one of the true regrets of my life is that the $196.08 per month that I pay to Comcast (hence known as the evil empire) does not include the Travel Channel!
For you see, the Travel Channel contains several great food shows that are so much better than the drivel on the Food Network. And the greatest of these shows is Tony Bordain's travels across the world eating the most amazing indigenous food I've ever seen.
But I only get to see it when I travel.......which is kind of funny it'self when you think "I've got to TRAVEL to see the TRAVEL CHANNEL".
Well, at least I thought that was funny.
So if any of you know anyone at Comcast in Hattiesburg, tell them that you know a guy that is INSISTING that they put the Travel Channel in the lineup.
Yea, that should do it!
Anyway, I am forced to go to the Travel Channel's website and read Tony's blog - because the evil freakin; empire keeps me from watching him.
Damn it, all my folks at work watch him because, oh yea, COMFUCKINCAST has it in the lineup in Laurel. IN LAUREL! A place where they wouldn't know good food it it bit them on the ass......
Nevermind.....I'm getting all worked up again.......where was I?
Oh, so yea, I read Tony's blog.
And I absolutely love his style of writing. It reminds me of how I think I would write if I could find someone to write for again....so consequently I love reading his stuff!
When I went there today to read it, it had me rolling in laughter because he's just so damned funny.
So, in the one of the best practices amoungst us cooking folks - I lifted his blog right off the page and pasted it below.
I'm sure he won't mind.
I'm sure if he did - I could kick his ass.
So either way, I'm covered...........SO ENJOY!
" Thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes...black eyes...like a doll's eyes. When he comes at you, doesn't seem to be livin' ..until he bites you--and those black eyes roll over white, and then you hear that terrible high pitched screamin'...the ocean turns red..."
Robert Shaw (as Quint) in Jaws
So, I get invited to a movie premier. This doesn't happen a lot and it's for Julie/Julia, and I happen to be very sentimental on the subject of Julia Child . The book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" has a sort of totemic place in my personal history--as it does, I'm sure, for millions of others.
I am also a big Stanley Tucci fan. He directed and co-starred in the single best live action film on the restaurant business (Big Night) and there was certainly no reason to believe that Meryl Streep couldn't "do" Julia. ( Of course she can.) But that's not the point of this tale.
The next morning, I'm still trying to reconstruct the exact progression, the details, like trying to remember the license plate of the truck that hit me.
Only this wasn't any normal truck. This was far more terrifying and traumatic an event than being smashed by the grill of a Peterbilt, pulled up into the wheel well, dragged for a while, only to have my shredded remnants left by the side of the road, wondering, in my last moments of consciousness, "What the hell happened?" I'm pretty sure, judging by the vestigial ectoplasm on my jacket that I was sideswiped by pure evil.
I'm standing there by the boeuf bourgignonne station, sucking down martinis with my wife (they drink a LOT of martinis in the movie), minding my own business, having an innocent chat with some friends, when I notice someone has their hand on me. An icy, tendril of fear runs down my spine. I turn and find myself looking straight into the deceptively attractive and reasonable looking face of Sandra Lee.
To make matters worse--and more.....uncomfortable, she's standing next to her boyfriend, Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General of the State of New York.
Now, I've said some unkind things over the years about Sandra.
Far too many and far too terrible things to ever apologize for. Plus, I pretty much meant every word. Once you've seen Sandra making Kwanzaa Cake on YouTube, there's no backing down.
My head is reeling with the thought that one phone call from Cuomo and my last twenty years of tax returns are getting audited . I'm paralyzed, wondering what the statute of limitations is on various things I may or may not have done twenty years ago.
Sandra is talking. I know this cause her lips are moving and she's saying--overtly anyway, nice things. Like "You're a very naughty man," and she's chatting amiably with my wife. But one hand is picking over me like the meat buyer at Peter Luger selecting a rib section--like some demonic bird of prey is poking and prodding, deciding where the weakest, most tender point of entry is, giving, as I recall, a point by point review of her investigations to my wife--who ordinarily, I have to say, would have been across the table with a tomahawk chop elbow to the top of the skull by now, but who, like me, sits mesmerized and grinning insanely, frozen by the ..bizarreness of the moment which seems to go on forever as Sandra's hand wanders upward, tugs an ear lobe and asks if my ears are red yet. (They were.)
Having had her way with me, she leaves the emptied husk of my carcass teetering at the table and moves on.
I felt like the victim of a drive-by shooting. "What just..happened?" I said with a weak, trembly voice. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the quiet but very thorough disembowelment that had just occurred. Nothing. It had looked, to anyone who'd care to notice, like any other cocktail party conversation--but I knew better.
I had looked into those eyes. I'd seen. Oh, she was smiling all right, but I'm pretty damn sure you could have dragged a rusty butter knife across my carotid artery right there at the table and her expression would not have changed, maybe only the eyes, they'd roll over white as I geysered onto the chafing dishes.
As we say on the show all the time, "What have we learned today?"
I learned that were a nuclear weapon to fall on New York, I'm pretty sure that if no one else, Sandra Lee would survive to clamber out of the rubble. That if it came down to a fight over the last can of food, she would surely emerge the victor.
I learned that I am truly and deeply afraid of her.
And I'm pretty sure she's a Democrat.
posted by KK at 12:56 PM
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