Take it from one of the neckless

I simultaneously love and hate Anthony Bourdain. I love to see the places to which he travels on "No Reservations," but I think he is kind of gross as a person (as opposed to, you know, gross as a baboon). His writing is sometimes quite clever, but often quite cliche. All in all, though, I do find him entertaining and his show always enjoys its place in my TiVo Season Pass Manager.

While I am simultaneously loving and hating on Tony, I can safely say that I simply hate Rachael Ray. I am bitter and jealous of the empire that she has built on "taking a little help from the store," as any devoted reader of this blog can tell you. Plus, she doesn't tip very well.

So imagine my thrill upon reading Tony's most recent anti-Rachael tirade, this one relative to her position as spokesperson for Dunkin' Donuts:

"'I'm not a very ethical guy,' Anthony said. 'I don't have a lot of principles. But somehow that seems to me over the line. Juvenile diabetes has exploded. Half of Americans don't have necks. And (Rachael's) up there saying, ‘Eat some [bleeping] Dunkin' Donuts. You look great in that swimsuit — eat another doughnut!' That's evil.'"

I really do believe that it is the sole discretion of the individual to decide which foods go into his or her mouth. I also believe that Rachael is allowed to endorse who she wants to endorse, and that she is permitted to make as much money as suits her.

That said, she remains a pain in the ass. So, go Tony!

Inexplicable sausage eating

Yesterday, on the way back from a wedding in the Finger Lakes region of New York, we stopped in Buffalo to visit our cousins. It was a lovely day, and we were enjoying their beautiful backyard and wonderful patio. They suggested that we stay for lunch, and fired up the grill to char some kielbasa. Sister and I had not had kielbasa in at least 15 years, as we "don't eat meat" -- well, at least red meat and pork.

But I mean to tell you, we SCARFED that kielbasa, eating two sandwiches each.

We do not know what came over us.

There are no other restaurants that are good enough for the Australians

One of the worst parts about the Mill's closing is that I will never be able to take my Australians there.

For many years now I've hoped that some or all of my Australians might decide to travel over to this here hemisphere, and for many years now I was certain that the first place I'd take them would be the Mill. Where they would be greeted with the kind of warmth and hospitality they've shown me each time I've set foot on their fine, fine continent, then served a great meal by a magnificent staff. It would be like a fancy extension of my own living room, only with much better atmosphere, friendly faces to do our bidding and a fully-stocked bar.

But...it was not to be. Now where will I take them for dinner when they visit? The closing of the Mill has far-reaching and global consequences.

(It is completely irrelevant that the Australians are not currently planning a trip here, nor am I certain that they ever will be able to visit. Not the point.)

1989-2007

I am a freaking surly, emotional mess of late. I have been since August 7. The reason: my favorite bar/restaurant is closing. And before you go thinking it's like my neighborhood Applebee's is shuttering, let me explain.

Though it is not mine, it is "mine." It is "ours," mine and a spirited group of regulars' who could drink Norm, Cliff, Frasier and the whole damn Boston lot of them under the table any day. To say that my family has been patronizing this establishment regularly is putting it simply; more accurately, my family has chosen its hallowed, cozy, comfortable walls before, say, any number of substantial purchases and/or retirement plans that might have been realized in the absence of such a wonderful place.

The Inn at Turner's Mill, we will miss you so.

We will miss your warm, dark, welcoming glow. Your gleaming wood bar, and your deep, rich sandstone walls. Your 150-year-old construction, your shining and spotless hurricanes (how did the servers avoid fingerprints on those globes all these years?). Your port-in-a-storm hospitality. And your staff. Good lord, your staff. Who catered to our every whim, even when we must (surely!) have been drunk and perhaps moody. Many of you have become friends, good friends, the type of friends who won't disappear once the doors are locked for good. My father has said it best: there will never be another place that is as comfortable as the Mill.

During the past week and a half, I have had my own Kubler-Ross stages-of-grief situation:

Denial. I received the call that the Mill was closing from my father, while standing in the check-out line at a local store. I was in such disbelief, the cashier had to ask me if everything was OK. I immediately drove over to the restaurant, in the hopes of learning the rumor wasn't true. It was.

Anger. Ask my co-workers. And my husband. I have not been a pleasant occupant of space recently. Favorite bartender Chris, who has admirably commanded the Mill's bar for many years, might be in his own anger stage right now, as last Friday he looked me in the eye and, flying in the face of the Mill's strict no-facial-hair policy, stated, "Know what starts today? MY GOATEE." A round of anger, on the house.

Bargaining. "I promise to come here every night if you'll only stay open." Four nights a week wasn't enough; but I swear, I will take one for the team. Alas, I could eat lobster at market prices each Monday through Saturday, topped off by several glasses of Louis XIV, and I still would not be able to keep the doors open. The owner is ready to close. And that is that.

Depression. When I got home from work yesterday, I was stricken by a sort of unwarranted malaise. Husband: "What's wrong?" Me: "I don't know. The Mill is closing. I want to take a nap." At the risk of offending those who have lost loved ones recently, or even not-so-recently, I sort of feel like there has been a death in the family. I might need that medication that, if you were represented by a frowny oval caricature, would make you into a smiley oval caricature.

Acceptance. We were all at the Mill tonight, including my five- and two-year-old nephews, who love it there because of the fun service they get from favorite bartender Chris. The owner's mother walked over to say hello and my older nephew looked at her and said, "This place is turning into something else." My tears started flowing, but he had said it all. Last week, he wouldn't admit it was closing. He kept asking, "But when will it open again?" I think he gets it now, and so do I.

Poor little Pippa

My sister has alerted me to the sweet, humorous and somewhat sad story of Pippa, the sulphur-crested cockatoo who is guarding a bowl of chocolate eggs as if they were her own.

There is a reason the sulphur-crested cockatoo is my favorite bird: Cadbury! Just like me, they are fiercely protective of Cadbury!

My OJ can't relate to this because we live in a small Midwestern town

And the only "notable" people we see in the Acme are those local real estate agents with many millions in annual sales. But still, hilarious:

Dear Gallon of Orange Juice,

Just last Sunday I picked you up from your brightly lit case at Bowery Whole Foods. Why I picked you, only God can say. Had I not picked you, your fate surely would have traced a different course. Just last Sunday, I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Liev Schrieber, the Brando of our generation, and we together eyed the rows and columns of fresh squeezed juice, a tropical spreadsheet. His hand, which is also the Brando's hand of our generation, reached out and plucked your citrus brother from his place while I grabbed your handle and threw you, callously, on top of a bunch of asparagus I had picked up next to The Soprano's Will Janowitz.

And so off you went with me, while Liev, cradling your brother in his arms, strolled without you to buy some organic strawberries. Don't be cross with me, my gallon. Be happy your twin is resting in a $20,000 Sub Zero fridge, waking up to Naomi Watts in some flimsy nightie, and bringing him to her lips for a long cool drink. You, on the other hand, have me to contend with, ridden with halitosis and no starlets. Your only friends in our rattling jalopy of a fridge is a tub of brackish mayonnaise and a tallboy.

It's no wonder, therefore, that you are becoming less and less present by the day. You were fully there on Sunday afternoon and by Sunday night, you had ebbed and retreated. Do not go gently, dear Orange Juice, for though you may perish, as soon as April 7th in fact, your brother is somewhere in the GI tract of one of the greatest actors of our generation.

Sincerely,
Joshua David Stein

Regarding Rachael Ray: "Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf."

I am rather displeased with the Food Network.

But Tony Bourdain says it more thoroughly -- and with more insider knowledge -- than I ever could. Salient point:

I mourn for Mario..and Alton...Bobby and yes--even Emeril, nobly holding the fort while the TV empire he helped build crumbles like undercooked Bundt cake into a goo of Cheez Wiz around him.

Enjoy as I regurgitate dot-com content for your reading pleasure.

Presented without commentary, but with plenty of hunger and Pavlovian yearning

Girl Scout Cookies. Thin Mints and Samoas on the lower left:

(Image courtesy of Slashfood. Yum.)

Your apparent interest in campy metal gives me hope for the future of our world

Since I posted a few days ago about the heavy metal Domino's pizza commercial, several of you fine folks out there have stumbled across Sympathetic Weather through Web searches utilizing the following strings:

-"it mocks your silly rules"
-it mocks your silly rules
-Domino's "your silly rules"
-singer Dominos commercial silly rules
-Dominos pizza commercial metal
-dominos pizza+metal song
-metal new dominoes commercial
-dominoes pizza tenacious d comm
-"silly rules" dominoes
-dominos pizza metal song
-dominos pizza heavy metal commercial

I can't even tell you how excited I am to learn that such searching is going on out there. Not even because it leads you to this blog. But because it means that, dammit, you need to know, specifically, how it is that Domino's is going to mock of your silly rules.

Meanwhile, your interest in Joel McHale's sexual orientation continues. Which I find to be fascinating, because he is totally straight. And cute. Anyway. I tell you, I don't know what I did for entertainment before I could monitor traffic to this blog.

That's about right, part 2

From the "Listening Party Forum" on cleveland.com, the online home of The Plain Dealer (and, for the record, I have no idea why I am reading forums on cleveland.com):

Anyone out there know why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website has been flagged by Google and StopBadware.org as a site that can harm your computer?

And the most excellent response:

well several reasons
there may be a bug/virus,.. not sure..
but i know another reason
rock and roll is bad for society and listened to bad citizens

(Also for the record, this anti-rock response was written by a different user than the one in the post below.)

Meanwhile, I would like to draw your attention to the outstanding new Domino's television ad that's being aired here in the Cleveland area. It features two red flying v-shaped electric guitars swooping in over a pepperoni-laden pizza, and the details of the special are displayed on screen in an awesome font not unlike this one. Apparently this deal is so great that it "breaks all the rules," and when those words appear on screen the heavy metal singer who's been wailing in the background articulates the following brilliant lyric about this phenomenal pizza opportunity: "It mocks your silly rules!" Best. Ad. Ever.

Tenacious D is right: you can't kill The Metal.

Slow afternoon

Not much happening today at work, and much to my shame I've been perusing the Rachael Ray Sucks Community at LiveJournal. And while I do think she kind of sucks, I have only been able to come to that conclusion because I watch her show. Which means that I either like her, or am jealous of her, or something. Which means she wins. (But I will be the winner when I play 30 Minute Meals bingo later, when I hit the jackpot on her first mention of Grandpa Emmanuel.)

I am fully aware of my place among the people who "hate" her but who are also strangely "obssessed" with her; I want to read about how much energy the haters are willing to devote to the dot-com in the service of reviling her. My husband thinks this strange love/hate phenomenon makes her seem somewhat like the antichrist.

Anyway, the focus of this post is not Rachael Ray. The crap I was reading about her this afternoon got me thinking about how much the Food Network has changed since I started watching it nearly 10 years ago. I consider myself to be a decent and knowledgeable cook, and what I didn't learn from Mom and Dad I learned from late-'90s Food Network. David Rosengarten. Sara Moulton. Ming Tsai. Two Fat Ladies. Too Hot Tamales.

Sadly, the network now is a vast wasteland of insipid food competitions, poorly executed travel documentaries, cursory lists and cloyingly-written peeks into mass food production. Alton Brown is the lone guiding beacon on this foggy, craggy shore.

I would forsake all other TV (except "Lost") to see some of those 1990s shows again. There should be a "Food Network Classic" channel -- much like ESPN Classic. They could run all those old hour-long live shows that Sara Moulton used to do. Those were awesome. Sara finished a complete meal in a whole freaking hour, and did it without resorting to carrying around a delicately balanced tower of onions, unwashed celery and poultry seasoning to save supposedly time-sucking trips to and from the cupboards. They could also rerun...

..."Taste." David Rosengarten's brilliant mother show, which begat Alton Brown's nearly perfect but not-all-the-way-there "Good Eats." I beseech someone -- ANYONE -- to release the old "Taste"s on DVD. David, do you own them? Does some production company? How about the Food Network? PLEASE! That show was sublime, and did the absolute best job of devoting whole episodes to a single ingredient or dish. The pasta carbonara installment was especially great; David dressed up as a WWII soldier to enjoy the finished product (apparently the dish gained popularity among American GIs in Italy during the second World War). If I recall correctly, both David and Alton have theater degrees and also went to cooking school. Is it any wonder their shows are so similar in execution?

Attention, Food Network: people love Alton. They will love David (if they don't already). Rerun the old "Taste." Or release it on DVD. Or facilitate the DVD release, somehow, if you don't own the shows. Do something, I beg. It really isn't that much to ask.

This is what happens with lawyers and grantwriters are bored on the job

My sister is enjoying a personal pan pizza for lunch today. She is apparently taking the adjective "personal" rather literally, as our important e-mail correspondence attests:

Sister: This pizza is personal - in fact, it's way too personal. It's starting to get fresh with me.

Me: If it knows what is good for it, that pizza will calm itself the fuck down and respect your privacy.

Sister: that pizza is getting all up in my grill. it needs to back off, and talk to the hand.

And so goes another productive workday in America.

She still rolled up a pretzel rod inside a piece of salami and called it an appetizer, so it's OK

I just had to do it. I had to watch the first episode of Rachael Ray's new daytime talk show. As I programmed the TiVo, I thought: (1) it might be sort of like watching a train wreck; (2) I need to know what she can do beyond "taking a little help from the store" by opening a can of beans; and (3) I am curious to see just how far Oprah's influence can take you, even when you are a babbling fool. (Yes, I know the answer to #3 is very, very far, unless you are James Frey.) I wanted to be able to write something nasty, such as "I don't know what makes me more nauseous: Rachael Ray's rotating stage or her persona."

And?

You guessed it. She wasn't half bad. I absolutely hate hate hate to admit this, but she has a little personality in there that is pretty funny and surprisingly articulate. One that has been totally obfuscated by the EVOO on her Food Network gig. A few times during her new show, this little personality appeared and made me think, maybe she is a little like me. Is it possible? Am I relating to her? Shit.

Then there's her unbridled enthusiasm. I always knew she was this way, as it's a characteristic that comes through very clearly on her Food Network shows. In that context, however, it is extremely annoying. Her thrill at spending less than $40 per day on meals makes me want to slap her. On the daytime show, though, she seems more genuine. More relaxed. More grateful for her success, which many (including jealous ol' me) argue that she should not even have. At one point she said, "I'm Rachael Ray, and I'll give you a dollar if you watch me." It appears that she has some wit under all that vapid garbage bowling.

I don't think I'll watch her each day; she's not that good. Plus, I already have a two-hour daytime TV commitment and if I increase that to three hours, the dog will never get walked again. And then I will no longer be Pack Leader, and Cesar Millan will be all over my ass. But still....Maybe my husband is right after all. Maybe I like Rachael Ray. Is it possible? It can't be possible. I am having an identity crisis of epic proportions.