Random lists

[oyceter]

Things that annoyed me

• Randomly flipping open Paste magazine to get music recs only to find people decrying a past Kanye West cover story in letters to the editor. "We don't like rap! Why do you write about rap? All this awful stuff about skanky hos!"


• Getting the Gourmet magazine to drool over the pictures and the recipes, reading the letters to the editor on a past issue on Latin@ food and culture only to find several of them going off on how irresponsible it is for the magazine to glorify Latin@ culture when all this illegal immigration is ruining the country OH NOES!

I would just like magazines for the plane ride that don't make me want to throw something, is that too much to ask?

Things that amused me

• The insane amount of people at Whole Foods. I always forget how crazy Thanksgiving here is.


• The insane amount of food pre-ordered by people at Whole Foods. I goggled at the piles and piles and piles of bags and boxes.


• Random things people left everywhere in Whole Foods because they didn't want to put them back. Included was a box of cranberries on top of a display of sodas, and a lonely yam abandoned by bottled water. It looked very sad.

Things that are happy

• Fondue for dinner! Alas, I forgot to bring my camera for food pictures.


• Thanksgiving plans! This year it is just me and my sister, and I think we are already planning too much, even though it's just a chicken, green bean casserole, dumplings, and mashed potatoes. I am dorkily excited about green bean casserole, which I have not made or really had before. Casseroles! So weird.


• I am in New York!

Comments

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

if you're in nyc, drop a comment to faraway66.

[oyceter]

Oh, I would, except I don't think I know her.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

say hi anyway. she's a leading light of The Evil Cabal in Queens.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

people decrying a past Kanye West cover story in letters to the editor

Weird. And yet, now his mother's just died in as tabloidy (yet not her fault-y) a fashion as possible, the Entertainment Tonight TV shows are all about his grief and empathizing with him, etc. etc. (Yes, I watch these shows while cooking. Shut up.) Maybe it really is just like soap operas, where you can take any villain character and make her a heroine just by throwing in a big heaping dose of Suffering.

Which, makes me worried for Lindsey Lohan's mom, actually.

[oyceter]

Hee! I had no idea; I usually don't follow celebrity news. But a lot of the letters sounded like normal knee-jerk reactions to rap, sigh.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

The rap thing is practically a white institution, "Let's whine about Black music that White people listen to", as if rap/hiphop/etc is really just about one thing (or as if any kind of pop music has a corner on saying not-so-great stuff about women).

Trashing Latin food though, wtf? Does ANYONE want a 'Gourmet' magazine just on German, Irish, and English cooking????? ("If it was good enough for the first few waves of US immigrants, it's good enough for us!"). I guess throwing Italy in there might spice things up a little bit!

[oyceter]

I know! I was so boggled by the Gourmet letters! I mean, possibly the Latin@ issue was very political? But still.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I poked around some on the internet coz I wanted to know more, and I found this discussion, which turned into being about something slightly different:

http://www.mangoandlime.net/2007/09/12/eating-in-exile-gourmet-goes-latin/

I kind of feel bad for the poor white guy who seem to have only been exposed to overly-Americanized versions of 'ethnic' foods and doesn't seem to realize it? My whole experience of Chinese food changed the first time I went to dinner with a Chinese (Taiwanese/Japanese) friend on the West Coast, who made sure we went to the International District and not just ordered for us but went up and talked to the server/cook and asked for exactly what we wanted etc etc etc. It was totally different from my previous Midwestern 'tacky Chinese restaurant' experience.

I feel like the guy in the thread is TRYING to understand, but is really not helping himself with how he's saying it. A few good meals can help him; not sure what to do with the people who responded poorly to the 'fastest-growing minority' bit (what I think people freaked out about re the Latin American food issue?) or that it's a non-French 'gourmet' cuisine?

I'll admit when a (white) friend told me he and his partner did a 'soul food gourmet' night, I was a little taken aback, and the foods they cooked seemed pretty far from my understanding of American Southern/African American cooking, but food is pretty flexible, and maybe it's me who is limited in my understanding?

[oyceter]

Oh, thanks for the link! I haven't read it yet, but word on Americanized versions of "ethnic" food. I am forever grumpy at anyone classifying stuff like General Tso's chicken as Chinese food, because no. Ditto with fortune cookies. And I have no problem with food changing, but it's how the Americanized version surpasses the original version that bothers me. It feels like another form of cultural imperialism -- it's not an unweighted change, and it isn't even acknowledged as a version of Chinese food. Sigh.

[maerhys.livejournal.com]

Getting the Gourmet magazine to drool over the pictures and the recipes, reading the letters to the editor on a past issue on Latin@ food and culture only to find several of them going off on how irresponsible it is for the magazine to glorify Latin@ culture when all this illegal immigration is ruining the country OH NOES!

WTF? Srsly, Gourmet is slipping big time.

[oyceter]

(icon love!)

I know! I was just reading for the tasty food porn and did not want to be slapped in the face like that!

[maerhys.livejournal.com]

They used to be my favorite but I think Saveur (http://www.saveur.com/) is much better.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Post the green bean casserole receipe! My sister loves the one she does (it's the "classic" one with mushroom soup and crispy onion bits).

[oyceter]

Here you go!

[la-vie-noire.livejournal.com]

how irresponsible it is for the magazine to glorify Latin@ culture when all this illegal immigration is ruining the country OH NOES!

Wow... you don't have idea how this brightens my day. :/ Is the animosity towards latinos that bad there? (I'm totally not from USA so I have no idea.)

[oyceter]

Honestly, I have no idea. I'm horribly bad at following the news. But from the very little I've heard and seen around places, I think there is a lot of animosity toward illegal immigrants, particularly Latino ones, unfortunately.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

letters to the editor on a past issue on Latin@ food and culture only to find several of them going off on how irresponsible it is for the magazine to glorify Latin@ culture when all this illegal immigration is ruining the country

Attitudes like that puzzle me (almost as much as they depress me). No matter how rabid some sections of the populace over here (probably the ones snapping up second homes in Eastern Europe and poorer parts of the Mediteranian -- cynical me) get about immigrant numbers, I've never seen anyone objecting to all the new food styles popping up.

I'm just hoping the Random Polish Market shows up again before Christmas, because I failed to check it out last time due to being in a rush.

[oyceter]

I'm betting there probably are some people objecting to the new food styles; I think in general there's just a lot of food-related xenophobia (ex. "They eat what??").

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty in places I tend not to venture. I just wouldn't expect them to be writing in to foodie magazines to complain.

[oyceter]

Heee. I guess they must have gotten really riled up or something!