Out With the Old, In With the Slightly Less Old

When Madonna's tour came to Chicago recently, she stirred up controversey because of a part in her show when she climbs up a crucifix, adorns herself with a crown of bloody thorns and sings with images of starving African children on large screens behind her. Apparently, she's trying to bring awareness to the plight of these unfortunate children. But even if Anderson Cooper and Angelina Jolie - two of the prettiest, most popular people around right now - can't use those images to make their two-hour interview less boring, then maybe something isn't working.



Let's face it - this generation has grown up with seeing those same images since childhood, even during commercial breaks for Sesame Street. We've seen Sally Struthers blubber over their lack of nutrition while she herself, well...let's just say her distended belly was not from a lack of food. Quite frankly, if we've become calloused to these redundant images, then showing them over and over again, with an occassional 1-800 number thrown up on the screen for a few seconds, is sadly not going to change that. What about specific information on where our donations would go to? How donations have helped in the past? How about some connection that could actually engage me and link my experience to theirs? I know that sounds insensitive but really, a change needs to be made to snap us out of the hazy, infommerical fog.

There's two other problems with Madonna's strange choice (during which she sings "Live to Tell," no less). First, she has to be using what must be the gayest-looking crucifix ever. It's like a giant disco ball stretched into a T. That might kind of undermine her message.

Second, how played out is the celebrity crucifixion? Kanye West just did the same thing a few months ago with his Rolling Stone cover. Of course, at least Madonna had some supposedly altruistic motivations. Kanye was just feeling sorry for himself for being so...persecuted...or something. But nonetheless...blah blah blah. The crucifixion image has already been used in numerous music videos. Yes, it does get people talking (this post is case in point of that, obviously), but it's too easy. It's become so commonplace as to be rendered almost meaningless (emphasis on "almost," as the close-up of Kanye's bloodied, be-thorned head was somewhat jarring).

But maybe that's not the problem. Maybe Madonna is just too old and too irrelevant to make us care anymore. I mean, her last consistently good CD was 1998's Ray of Light (although "Don't Tell Me" from 2000's Music was one of her best singles in the last ten years). Maybe, at 47, no matter how toned and flexible she is in person, she's just past her prime and her music is therefore incapable of getting people to rally behind her latest cause of the day/month/year/tour/whatever. I mean, what does it say about her current songs that she had to use one of her oldest hits for any kind of serious, meaningful message?

Maybe, like Prego suggests in this week's Roundtable, rock stars have to hang up the leather pants and corset/unitards and relinquish their thrones to the younger, louder generation that can truly rebel against the older, established mainstream. I'm not totally convinced, but I do know that Paul McCartney's Super Bowl halftime show last year put me to sleep, so what do I know? Grab your martini and crown of thorns and head over to Rustbelt Rambling to continue the conversation...

(Thanks to fourfour and Madonnalicious.com for the pics.)

I Mean, Besides Cloning Paris Hilton...

How many ways can we make other countries hate the U.S.?

OK, go...

Square One

I realized that as I have been attempting this project of cooking my way through Giada De Laurentiis' Everyday Italian, I never really fully explained the book or how it's broken down. There are six main chapters, and each one is then divided into sub-chapters. They are:

Everyday Antipasti: Fresh From the Pantry, Everyday Seafood Starters, Everyday Frittatas, Tricolore, Olives and Olive Oil, Bread and Sandwiches, Prosciutto, Roasted Peppers

Everday Sauces: Everday Tomato Sauces, Everday Pestos, Everyday Classic Sauces

Everyday Pasta, Polenta and Risotto: Fresh From the Pantry, Everyday Stuffed Pastas, Everyday "Sauceless" Pastas, Everyday Indulgences, Leftover Pasta, Everyday Polenta, Everyday Risotto

Everyday Entreés: Everday Grills and Sautés, Everyday Cutlets, Everyday Roasts, Everyday Stews and Sauces, Everyday Leftovers

Everyday Contorni: Everday Stuffed Vegetables, Roasted and Baked, Quick and Simple, Everyday Salads

Everyday Dolci: Everyday Fruit, Everyday Creams and Puddings, Everyday Cookies and Cakes

Yes, I realize this list raises some questions. Aren't "fresh from the pantry" and "everyday indulgences" both oxymorons? Why is there a whole chapter on sauces and then "Stews and Sauces" in the Entreé chapter? Or did she really mean "soups" instead of "sauces," as that is a more accurate description of that sub-chapter? Why even bother with any other part of the book when you have a section devoted entirely to creams and puddings?

All good questions, my friends, but we must save the answers for another time, as I have something even more important to get to.

What is up with the food photography on the Food Network website?

Not that I want to bite the hand that feeds me, as most of my food pics are courtesy of the website, but it's just so weird. The food shots on the show can literally be mouth-watering, as are the pics in Giada's book. So why do so many of them just not get it quite right?

Let's take a look at this one for Pizza al Spaghetti:



Is it a) an alien b) a turtle or c) an alient turtle? Those straggling noodles look like tenctacles ready to come to life, reenacting War of the Worlds with alien pasta pods and spaghetti legs. Not that this is such a great dish to begin with, but if you look closely you can see where they cut out a wedge. Clearly they were aiming for the cross-section view, so why not go for it? They could have arranged five or six wedges decoratively on a platter to showcase it as a party snack. Not that you'd find it at my party, but nevertheless, it would still make it somewhat more attractive.

And there's this weird proclivity toward extreme close-ups, like this:



Granted, it's still a mound of grilled pineapple with Nutella sauce and hazelnuts, so you can't really go wrong. But this looks like some big landfill of discarded fruit and chocolate and the whipped/mascarpone cream looks like popcorn. A more sparse, minimal setting of just one or two pineapple slices drizzled with the toppings would have been much more elegant and effective.

The same is true of this shot of Fusilli with Tuna and Tomato Sauce:



Why so close? It completely renders the ingredients unrecognizable. See that random little chunk of meat in the upper left corner? Oh yeah, that's the tuna, I guess. If they had just pulled away a little bit, you'd see a rich red tomato sauce flecked with green capers, neon lemon zest and nuggets of meaty tuna. This close and it's like the Discovery Channel digging inside some underground pasta colony where they're crawling all over each other to mate with the queen.

On the other hand, this shot of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce and Olives doesn't really do the dish justice, either:



It's so far away it looks like any other undistinctive spaghetti-and-tomato-sauce dish. There's no character, nothing special. If they had gotten in a little closer (but not too close), you'd see the purple and green and black of plump olives and maybe even the red pepper flakes sprinkled throughout. From this far away, the dish, while perfectly pleasant, has no texture, which is exactly what makes it special.

Sometimes they do get it just right, like with this Spaghetti with Arugala Pesto and Shrimp:



Close enough to see the vibrant green sauce coat the noodles, topped by perfectly plump shrimp, yet not so close as to render the dish generic. This looks simple and beautiful and it makes me want to try the dish, which is really the whole point of the Food Network accompanying its recipes with photos in the first place.

The same could be said of this shot of Panna Cotta with Fresh Berries:



Fresh, bold berries floating atop pillows of cream. Sure, the glasses are a little too dainty-grandma-at-a-tea-party for my taste, but hey, it's still purty.

I don't know if the inconsistency is due to photographers who don't really understand the recipes they're taking pictures of, but there's so much good food photography out there, I would think the Food Network would want to stay on top of this. After all, it could mean the difference between someone trying their recipe or Googling to find another one.

Just Wondering

Have you ever walked through a bookstore and picked up something interesting only to have a stranger lean over and offer "That is such a good book"?

It's happened to me once or twice and, while there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I mean, has anyone ever said to themselves, "Hmm, this looked kind of interesting, and that guy with the lazy eye and sweaty pits said it was great. I guess I should buy it!" I mean, it's not exactly arrogant of a stranger to think that I, a stranger to them, should care about their opinion. But, that being said, why should I care about their opinion? Who are they, anyway? Granted, I'm reading much too far into it. It's probably just a genuine affection for the book expressed in an environment that promotes affection for books. Or it could be a pick-up line.

I mean, the same could be said of me writing this blog. I offer a lot of opinions - why should anyone care? With so many opinions out there now, is an online stranger any more reliable than some guy in a store? In a way it is, because one could conceivably file through my archives and decide whether or not my opinions are worth paying attention to. Not so with Mr. Sweaty Pits Man (why sweaty pits? And what if they are actually attractive? Does that trigger some sub-conscious agreeableness on the recipient's part?). For all you know, he might be striking up a conversation because he thinks you'd make a great sacrifice to appease Abithwa, the Bong God.

It reminds me of a time I worked at a high-end kitchen retail store and was ringing up an elderly gentleman. At the next register stood two beautiful women in their late twenties. He had been flirting with them as they stood in their parallel lines and both reached their respective cashiers at the same time. He plopped his merchandise on the counter in front of me and I began to ring it up. As he continued to crack jokes about the high-priced cookware to his giggling audience, I grabbed the chipotle raspberry barbeque sauce.

Elderly Man: "Have you tried that?"

Me: "Yeah." (Typical retail lie: say you tried it and loved it.)

Elderly Man: "Would you recommend it?"

Me: "Well, actually, it's great with-"

Elderly Man: "Ah, who cares?" (swatting his hand at me as if shooing a fly away)

The girls laughed at the cantankerous old man and he was eating it up. I was stunned into silence; I had never been set up like that by a customer before. He kept joking to them - "Who cares what some young kid thinks? I don't even know the guy! " - and they kept giggling. I don't know if they were laughing at him, with him, just being good sports or what. I just know that I had been used and made fun of just to get some girls young enough to be his granddaughters (or wife if this were Billy Joel) to smile at him.

But still.

Part of me was like, "Oh, gee, fuck you. If you don't want my opinion, fine, then don't ask for it." And part of me was like, "You know what? The man is old, he probably has like an eighth of a second more to live and he just needed an ego boost to distract him from his knee/hip/liver/kidney/lung/prostate/bladder/spleen/colon/heart ailment(s). And, really, why should he care about my opinion?"

Well, why should he care? Why should I care about someone else's opinion? In my own, long-winded way, it comes down to this: what, really, is the role of the critic in today's society? When people flock to The Da Vinci Code after every single movie critic hates it and people run out to buy James Frey's A Million Little Pieces (yes, I am bringing that up again) even after it's revealed to be a hoax, who's opinion holds any influence? I mean, besides Oprah, of course. Just because someone gets paid to opine, or published his opinions online, doesn't mean he's any good or any more authoritative.

Obviously it comes down to personal responsibility. Who you choose to listen to is your choice...as long as you listen to me. And Abithwa, the Bong God.

The Guts

Since I started cooking my way through Giada de Laurentiis' Everyday Italian, I've made over twenty dishes but hadn't even cracked the sauce or vegetable chapters yet. Plus, that means I still have about 95 recipes to go, and at my rate of about one per week it will take me two years to get through all of them. With that in mind, I feel like, after all my attempts at some of the peripheral dishes like White Bean Tuna Salad and Citrus Biscotti, I'm starting now to get into the guts of the book.

Marinara Sauce: As promised, I finally made Giada's basic marinara sauce, which I could then use in a myriad of other dishes. This worked out pretty well. With prep and cooking, it takes about an hour and a half to make what's supposed to yield 8 cups of sauce. Chunky and slightly sweet with carrots, onions and celery, it still felt a bit watery when ladled over spaghetti. And I could barely taste the garlic and surmised that two cloves might not be enough for 2 quarts of sauce. It also would have helped had I seasoned the vegetables better before adding the crushed tomatoes, but overall this easy recipe actually produces about 6 cups of a B+/A- sauce. With this made, I could then move on to...

Tuna with Tomato Sauce: I know, I know. Canned tuna with pasta? Gross. But bear with me here. If you don't like tuna, this probably won't change your mind. But if you do, tuna simmered with marinara, capers, lemon zest and parsley is a fresh change of pace from the usual pasta dishes. Granted, this, along with the following recipes, probably amounts to peasant food, where Italian grandmothers tossed whatever they had in their pantry into a pan and then had to figure out what to do with leftovers. But this is peasant food in the best sense: quick, resourceful, easy and cheap. You could easily feed a family with this tasty, inexpensive dish.

Tomato Sauce with Olives: Could this title be any more boring? It doesn't even do the dish justice. It should really be called Spicy Olive Basil Sauce, because that's what it is. A mixture of pitted and halved olives are sauteéd with olive oil and red pepper flakes, then simmered with the marinara and fresh basil. I didn't have any fresh basil so I used Trader Joe's Chopped Basil - fresh basil packed into a mini-ice cube tray and then frozen. You pop out the cubes directly into the sauce and they defrost into strands of fresh leaves. How handy is that? This simple, boringly titled recipe actually packed a lot of flavor, producing a spicy, chunky sauce (even the marinara seemed thicker two days after I made it), and even my sweetie, who doesn't like olives, was pleasantly surprised. With this recipe made, I realized I could now make...

Pizza al Spaghetti: More like "Crap al Spaghetti." Or, how about "Pain in the Ass al Spaghetti"? Whoa, whoa...where did that come from? Well, pardon the hostility, but this is really the first recipe that really, truly didn't work for me. I know, the title alone sounds pretty nasty, but I told myself that this project would make me try things I would otherwise avoid, and trying new things is good, right? Turns out, not so much.

You take leftover pasta (and the olive sauce provides a chunky, spicy base) and mix it with eggs and cheese. Then here's how you cook it: you pour half a cup of olive oil into a frying pan, pour in the pasta mixture and spread it out so it's a flat disc, cook it so it forms a crust on the bottom, then invert the mixture onto a plate and slip it back into the pan to cook the other side. Except there was way too much oil and when I flipped it over onto a plate (which fit the pan perfectly), hot oil came streaming out the sides. Um, what? First of all, this would be difficult enough as it is to execute smoothly, but I really didn't need hot oil splashing my arm.

Then I noticed the online version specifies only 1/4 of a cup of oil, which brings me to my question: why pay $30 for the book when the free online versions are revised, improved variations of the same recipes? I feel like a chump. Anyway, the result wasn't even like pizza, it was more like "pie al spaghetti," with a soft, tender filling between two barely-crusty edges. Cut into wedges, it was decent finger food, but I'm way too bitter about the experience to say anything nicer than that (not that there's anything nicer to say, anyway). This was the first big disappointment in the book (and yes, that counts even Polentagate 2006, which was more my fault than the book's). Sigh...

Torta di Pasta: This is a much better use for leftover pasta. It's basically the same as the Pizza al Spaghetti, except there's no flipping involved. You cook one side on the stove, then simply pop the whole pan as is into the broiler to cook the top. The eggy, cheesy filling puffs up and browns, and once cooled, it's cut into wedges to be served as a side dish or snack. With the parmesan cheese and 1.5 teaspoons of salt, this was a little too salty for me, and Lord knows I love me some salt, but otherwise I will definitely keep this in mind next time I have pasta-filled-tupperware lurking in my fridge.

Speaking of guts, I'm also trying numerous brands of whole wheat pasta to see if any of them don't taste like chewy cardboard. I'll let you in one the results once I've sampled enough varieties (I'm at 3 so far). But when you make five different pasta dishes in one week, altogether using about two pounds of pasta (I halved some of the recipes), you end up with one very angry colon. Oh well. No one said this would be easy. And now I have the burn marks to prove it.

And if you're wondering about the food photography I'm using, courtesy of the Food Network website, well, we'll get to that in another post.

OK, I had burn marks.

Ok, ok, they weren't really burn marks so much as some temporary pink stripes on my hand and arm.

But it still hurt.

Where Was Your First Time?

Neil Sadaka? Cream? Joni Mitchell? Lauren, at Life of a Franco-American in the UK, is taking a survey of your first concert - the first one with the family, the first one by choice, etc. The insightful lady that she is, Lauren can tell what your answers say about you, so don't lie and say something cool like The Doors or Nirvana, when you know it was really New Kids on the Block. But don't let that stop you from grabbing a margarita (it is like 90 degress here in Chicago, now - finally it's summer) and head on over...

Bella Intervista

"Beautiful interview," that is. Bella Rossa, another Chicago blogger, invited me to be the inaugaral subject in her new series interviewing fellow bloggers. We discussed blogging (of course), abusive computers, turkey drumsticks and more. You can read the interview here, and be sure to check out her blog on a regular basis. She frequently updates it with addictive videos, sparkling commentary and more. Thanks, Bella!

This Roundtable Might Give Your Computer Herpes

Maybe that whole 6-6-06 thing got to me this week, because apparently I’m so cruel as to introduce to you two new songs by two ladies most people would rather not hear about anymore. Evil, indeed.

But I couldn’t bring up one without the other, and I’ll explain why in minute.

First, returning to the scene after taking a break from being both “Beautiful” and “Dirrty,” Christina Aguilera is back with a new single, “Ain’t No Other Man Like You.” It’s retro, big-band horns meets hip-hop drum track, and for the first half of the song that’s all there is to back up Christina’s strong, only-barely-overblown vocals. It’s refreshing to hear a pop song that actually scales back the production instead of smothering it with so many layers of sonic fat, compensating for what’s usually a weak voice in the foreground (not that I’m referring to anyone specifically, of course). Maybe the producers learned something from Kelis’ “Milkshake,” a catchy model of pop minimalism that also became a huge hit.

Christina gets down with her funky self through the first verse, and I couldn’t help but be charmed by the high-school lyrics of “You’ve got soul/You’ve got class/You’ve got style/You’re bad-ass.” I love those classy bad-asses, too, Miss X-tina.

But then it seems like they didn’t know how to deliver with the chorus. It’s rushed and anti-climatic. Strangely, this is the exact opposite of the problem with her notorious single, “Dirrty.” Forget the ass-less leather chaps she wore in the video, I found it odd that no one blamed that song’s lack of success on the fact that it was oddly slow for what was shamelessly trying to be a club anthem. They seemed to have over-compensated with “Ain’t No Other Man,” as the chorus rushes by in a clipped, auctioneer-style speed, making it that much less likely to be chosen at karaoke bars.

As the producers carefully add more layers throughout, the song grows on you, and not like the STD’s that were crawling over my TV screen during her “Dirrty” video, but grows on you in a good way. If I was drunk in a bar and this song came on, I would even love it.

But what I really like about the song is that it’s a creative departure, and, therefore, a risk, by someone with actual musical talent. Unlike the second song that started floating around the internet recently.

If there are any small children in the room, if you have a sensitive gag reflex, or if you have to operate heavy machinery within an hour, you should probably not listen to or watch what I’m about to show you.

Ladies and gentlemen of the roundtable, speaking of STD’s, Paris Hilton has finally released her first song.

Oh, where to start? The thin, breathy vocals? The reggae-tinged backdrop? The poetic, downright philosophical lyrics? Paris is so generous to give us so much to work with. I’m overwhelmed, really.

First of all, can anyone confirm that Paris is actually singing? Those vocals are so manipulated, who knows if she actually showed up in a studio or if they just asked some hooker on the street to whisper into a microphone. The background vocals are whipped up to such creamy frothiness (or is it frothy creaminess?) that I wanted to compare them to Cool Whip, but then I remembered that I love Cool Whip and would never insult it by comparing it to anything that comes out of Paris Hilton’s mouth.

And let’s not forget those lyrics: “even if the gods are crazy/even if the stars are blind.” If the gods are crazy? Shouldn’t the advent of Paris Hilton’s record contract – nay, her record label – prove that there is no god at all? And if the stars are blind, are they also deaf? And if so, can I join them, so I don’t have to listen to this song one more time?

The best part is “If you show me real love, baby/I’ll show you mine.” You heard it from her directly, gentlemen. If you show her some love, she’ll show you her burning, cavernous...love. Thank God I’m gay.

Oh, and don’t forget the video. Just be sure to wash your eyes out with bleach afterwards, so that you never again have to watch this moist, shiny skeleton hump a palm tree. The least convincing part? Where she drives away at the end. Yeah, as if Paris Hilton drives. Or even knows how to drive a car. Or even knows how to spell "car."


Leave it to the hotel heiress to make Christina Aguilera look all classy and stuff. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go spoon out my eyes and ears so I won’t know when Paris Hilton wins a Grammy.

Sopping Manliness

Once we all admit to our lifelong fantasies of the Brawny paper towel man (...I'll give you a minute to own up to it........there), you can first head over to the website for Brawny Academy, in which the paper towel company actually cast some late-thirty-something actor, put him in a thick flannel shirt, and make him pretend to teach husbands how to be more "sensitive" and stuff to their wives (because some ad agency decided the latest version of the Brawny man needed to be sensitive as well as strong). Seriously. Check out the trailer for the upcoming series.

I wonder what the husbands have to call him. "Brawny"? As in, "Yeah, Brawny, we'll try knitting. Hand over the yarn." Or, "Hey, Brawny, if you're so damned well-versed in the desires of women, where's Mrs...Brawny?"

Anyway, once that's out of your system, head over to Serenade in Green, where Stephen is throwing questions even heavier than last weeks' Roundtable about Doomsday. Question, ladies and gentlemen, about paper towels...