Veritable Virtual Cornucopia

Here is an assortment of anecdotal rimshots, arranged carefully in a wicker horn o’ plenty, and placed as the centerpiece on the Plebiscite Thanksgiving kids table. What?!? (Here are some tidbits I dug up from some old notes):

Flying into Kunming, China this summer, I was reading John Barlow’s Everything but the Squeal, which documents this dude’s attempt to eat every identifiable part of the pig he can, while criss-crossing his wife’s homeland in the northern Spanish region of Galicia. Personal-narrative travel-writing type stuff (my secret guilty pleasure). While it’s not the most riveting conceit, there are some truly stellar passages.(1) “Dirty Day in Laza,” for instance describes a trip to an annual Dionysian orgy of epic porcine magnitude. Dirty day apparently comprises equal parts good-natured pranksterism, violence, drinking, hedonism, and pork eating (the steaming, sticky head meat known as cachucha, to be exact). Anyway, I’m reading about this, as the greenery of the Yunnan hills is coming into view, wondering if there’s any Chinese equivalent that I’ll stumble upon. Probably not. Then I start thinking about these forgotten little corners of our world that travel writers have a penchant for/prerogative to make sound awesome and appealing. I remembered The Mayor’s Tongue, which I read not long before Squeal and in which the eponymous mayor—an evil Ghost of Christmas Present –type character—resides in the hills of a mystical alternate-universe version of Trieste. Not a travel book, but the same writerly license being employed in bending the exotic toward the phantasmagorical.

I experienced some cognitive dissonance reading about Galician pork adventures, while flying into southwestern China. Not unlike taking a sip of iced tea, when you expect to be drinking Mr. Pibb. 

Here’s the thing about white meat turkey: Why?

 

---

(1) One of which, we managed to excerpt for the next issue of meatpaper. Hey, that’s self-promotion! Hey!

Muchodinero horse

Harvesting the passion (Liveblogging my Martini 3/3)

Sheeho asks why I can’t put my phone down and liveblog on two-hour delay. You know what I think? I think Fuck you, Sheeho.

Some couple is sitting at our former table. No tree in sight. Martini!

*Update* Overheard: “Be careful with that rocking horse. Mucho MUCHO dinero.”

No mon, no fun. –your son (Liveblogging my Martini 2/3)

Where the hell is this tree? Has it absconded with my next martini? Oh here’s a wreath. Whocares.org/wreaths

Liveblogging my martini

Montage Hotel, Laguna Beach. Hendrick’s martini. We were asked to swap tables, which is a fo pa (it’s French), but it’s cool, given how extenuating these circumstances are. (what? I just extenuated that word). They’re bringing a gigantic Christmas tree in. I will only relocate my martini for Christmas trees.

We’ll see if this tree is really coming, or just an excuse to move me to the back of the luxury hotel bus.

Another martini soon.

Friends Thanksgiving Turkey

*Wholfoodzzz comes through with a photo!*

On the off chance that anyone thinks that I’ve grown as a blogger or a person, let my complete failure to photodocument the recipe I’m about to describe serve as a reminder that I am useless and largely dependent on genital jokes and Mission Street Food anecdotes to maintain my readership. (MSF is back on December 4, by the way. We are switching to a Hot Off the Grill with Bobby Flay format: one celebrity chef, a Tony Soprano–esque butcher vying with an avuncular fishmonger for screen time, and Jacqui Malouf. Anybody? That was funny for viewers of early-2000s FoodTV. If I can bring a smile to but one child, then I have succeeded.)

Last night Peg and wholefoodzzz hosted a Friends Thanksgiving at their apartment. I dressed up as Phoebe and brought the “smelly cat souffle.” OH JUST KIDDING THAT’S NOT WHAT A FRIENDS THANKSGIVING IS, IDIOT.

Miami in Three Parts: Part Three of Three Parts (aka the Rundown III: The Rock’s Revenge)

Places to which I donated money in Miami *NOW WITH SOME DEGREE OF ACTUAL INFORMATION*
ASCII Key:

Sweet peach ( * )
This place is for boobs ( * )( * )

El Rey de Las Fritas: Batidas and fritas. Grunt, snort. ( * )
Michael’s Genuine: Frank Bruni does me right again. ( * )
La Sandwicherie: This might have been a sweet peach, but most of the fillings of my sandwich fell on the cab floor, and I had to flee, so who knows how good this sandwich may have been. ( * )( * )
Club Deuce: Oh so comically weird and wonderful. ( * )
T-Mex: Formerly San Loco. So bad. This is a sentimental peach ( * )
Puerto Sagua: Pete’s pick. Reluctant sweet peach. ( * )
Le Tub: Special place in my tiny, frigid heart for thee, Le Tub. ( * )
The Raleigh: Continues to get me drunk for free. ( * )
Cafe Malecon: If only for its proximity to the book fair and their Cuban coffee. ( * )
Redlight: Weak sauce(s). ( * )( * )
Yakko-San: I’m spoiled by Izakaya in SF. ( * )( * ) 
Various arepa stands at the Book Fair: Good next-day pick-me-up after a 4 am Kung Fu Panda screening. ( * )
Epicure: “Best tuna fish in the world” or something. ( * ) 
Magnum Lounge: Gay piano bar showing PeeWee’s Big Adventure when we visited. ( * ) 

This concludes our Miami-themed programming. Up next, posts based on old notes I found in my iPhone, while writing down notes about Miami. Topics may include: cognitive dissonance, Kunming (China), Spanish hogs, and forgotten corners of the world.

PS. I just ate a leftover cucumber from last night’s Friends Thanksgiving. More on that (Friends Thanksgiving, not the cucumber, which was sort of weird tasting) later.

Forum on KQED right now

I love holiday food discussions on public radio. It makes me feel like I’m driving with my mom to the grocery store, when in fact I’m sitting in the office with Peg and Pete, going absolutely nowhere in my life or career.

Relapse

I could not maintain my BiRite boycott. Failure bowl:

Soup

Bacon Jacket

This post has not yet been rated.

Jay led me to this today:

from Bacon Today

I said it looks like the turducken is wearing a bacon jacket.

Jay said “bacon jacket” sounds like a sexual act.

I said a “bacon jacket” is when you wrap [bleep] [blip] [blap] another [blop] [applesauce].

This Thanksgiving, Plebiscite encourages everyone to gather around the hearth with family and friends, and try to come up with your own naughty “bacon jacket” definition. Post them here, or at babysfirstkiss.wordpress.com.

That is all.

 

Also coming soon: Miami Part Three of Three Parts