Art Department Weekly | Issue 76 Vol. 6

ADW

art department weekly issue 76 Vol. 6

food adventures model eats a burger luxury please an open letter PLus: five things scoops of joy dream kitchen

how to make sure your food always tastes better

You are here

cover

ed letter

2

shorts Page

Because We Just can’t stop with the food

Syracuse in the house

7

Dollar store sliders

18

13

9

14

19

Dream Kitchen

26

food play

10

11

16

27

luxury please

A Subtlety, or the marvelous sugar baby

17 for when you can’t even

eat shit, lady with a peach

22

watch virtual what they food eat

28

tales from catered photoshoots

scoops of joy

23

utopia review

animated chegs

21 comics corner

25

15

20

@model Eats a Burger

expanding my pizza pallette

An open letter to the people of the times square red lobster

express your love

false developadvertising ments

24

8

5

code + cupcake

jump page

12

breakfast for dinner

Food adventures

4

kara walker

6

3

mini board mini board

29

5 Things

30

Art Department Weekly is published by Dinosaur Girly Productions, 1468 W 8th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11204. The entire contents of ADW are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without expressed written consent of the publisher. ADW accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts and/or photographs and assumes no liability for products or services advertised herein. ADW reserves the right to edit, rewrite, refuse or reuse material, is not responsible for errors or omissions and may feature same in other mediums for any and all purporses.

In this issue 3 Editor’s Letter 4 Mini Board 6 Because We Just Can’t Stop with the Food, Madeline Vega

10 @modeleatsaburger, Melissa Kurland

11 Scoops of Joy, Julie Bensman 12 Round Up Dollar store sliders, pour your beer, stock photos, breakfast for dinner, Luis Vega

14 An Open Letter to the People at the Times Square Red Lobster, Thom Woodley

16 Expanding My Pizza Pallette, Sal Cheech 18 Express Your Love 20 Dream Kitchen, Madeline Vega 22 Girl Stuff Kara Walker,

engagement chicken, eat shit, code + cupcake, Madeline Vega Luxury Please Victoria Tallini-Vega False advertising, new products, more ads, Madeline Vega

26 Animated Chefs, Luis Vega 27 Food Play, Luis Vega 28 Watch What They Eat, Mike Posillico

29 Virtual Food, Madeline Vega 30 Five Things

Art department weekly Luis Vega Chief content officer Madeline Strum Managing Editor Credits Madeline Vega (cover, 3, 6-7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14-15, 18-19, 20-21, 23, 27), Melissa Kurland (10), Istock (13), Jase Patrizio (16-17), Victoria Tallini-Vega (22), Luis Vega (26). Facebook screen shots: Hot Nerd Girl, Brookelyn Suddell, Julonda Washington Carter, Pollo Campero, Robb Riedel, Lisa Stem, Jase Patrizio, DL Hughley, Codeandcupcake.net, Miss Representation, Photoshop Disasters, Eight ’o-clock Bean Coffee.

i want ice cream We all have a symbiotic relationship with food. We need it to survive, yet for some reason it is so much more. Food is nostalgic. A bite—even just a whiff—can transport us to another time and place.

Maybe a time where we didn’t have as much stress or responsibilities. The smell of your mother’s pernil roasting in the oven, the taste of bubblegum ice cream— you’ll keep these with you forever.

Julie Bensman takes us to the past, describing what it was like to scoop ice cream in high school (Page 11) while Jase—I mean, Sal Cheech takes on a tour of great pizza (Page 16). I have tried to visit all of the places mentioned—even the Colonial Cafe from Julie’s piece. Well, okay, the one across town that still exists.

The pictures here and on the cover are from the last time we visited. We don’t get to visit it often—it is almost a thousand miles away, but the trip is worth it. I love a good food adventure.

Food is adventurous. My wife and I once walked more than three miles to get to Mill Basin Deli to try their amazing pastrami sandwich. I would do it it again in a heartbeat. I would also stand around, enduring ridiculous wait times for cronuts or DiFara Pizza. I would do just about anything for good food. Once I lucked out and we stumbled upon a place I had been talking about for almost a decade. I used to eat at Pollo Campero in Sunset Park, but we found it in the depths of Long Island. Madeline tells you more (Page 9).

Food is everywhere—especially when we can’t eat it, like toys and on TV. To be more realistic, dolls and fictional characters need kitchens and coffee shops and ice cream parlors. We didn’t give Madeline nearly enough room (Page 20) to round up all the places Barbie needed to be eating, from her aiplane to her Soda Shoppe. The Lego Friends seem to be falling in the same ideal—my

daughter has tiny cupcakes and appliances for her various sets on top of all the Little People, Dora the Explorer, and Just Like Home toy foods. (Do Monster High dolls eat?) If that all sounds like only girl toys include food, it’s just not true. Lego works food into sets for Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Pizza trucks, ice cream trucks, turkeys, and raw fish find their way into other Lego titles.

And way before boys are old enough to be hit with PIrates of the Caribbean marketing, there are a slew of genderneutral toddler-friendly cooking toys.

Why would kids want to play with food? They see adults cooking and eating all the time. Almost every episode of the Honeymooners was centered around their kitchen. Central Perk on Friends proved so popular that a pop-up shop here in New York had hour-long lines to get in. The diner and Soup Nazi of Seinfeld’s fame are tourist attractions. Mike Posillico tells us all about it (Page 28).

Food is a creative outlet. Cooking is one of the rare mediums where you can take ingredients, mesh them together and make a new amazing creation. Then, of course, you eat it. There are few pleasures on earth as satisfying as a good-looking, great-tasting meal. That spark of creativity to transform ingredients in a short amount of time and make it attractive is what makes a show like Chopped so pleasing to me (Page 27).

We simpy can’t get enough of food. We hope you can’t get enough of this issue.

mini board

put your hands in the air The picture on the left was shared by Hot Nerd Girl on Facebook. The picture on the right is from Katie Santino. “When in Maine, I take pics with lobsters instead of eating them. Loved the grilled cheese!�

repays his debts Upon searching for where this photo originated, it appears that loads of people have created tip jars to raise funds to save Tyrion. I would create one to stop Mr. Martin from killing him.

the horror I would love to know how long this driver had to look at those little red hands before needing to purchse a vanity plate. Unless it took two seconds. Then I don’t want to know.

in the next block I understand Facebook making suggestions about pages I might like based on what I’ve clicked in the past. I’m unnerved by the way it generates ads for things I’ve looked at on Amazon. But when it pairs up the news story with the joke?

Now the algorithm has a sense of humor and we will all be replaced by machines.

D

r A e rh

t r yA

ove

b

“that hole is roughly the same size, but no, not the right one” -rebecca

“the cowboys are the kardashians of the nFl” -david

“can’t decide what’s scarier, the amount of teachers having sex with underage students or ebola in nyc” -meredith

“do you see this as a farm-to-table experience?”

-luis

“did he really think i’m malala? and that if i were, i’d be at the Boom Boom room?”

-mindy

“northeast ohio steeler fans have no business being so full of pride and excitement about leBron and the cavs. the bandwagon is full” -Joshua

playing with photographing talking

Because we just can’t stop thinking about

with the Food

Food blogs are so five years ago, but that doesn’t mean we’ve ever stopped thinking about what’s for dinner and what can I put in my face right now. Madeline puts down the Pringles to elaborate.

A food issue in July? If we were going to talk about gardening and our favorite farmers markets, it might have made more sense to me. But no one here is reaching for a carrot when it’s time to work (or avoid work). Give me something to fill this hole created by doubt, something sweet to mask the lack of solutions, or at least a restaurant I “have to try” really far from my desk.

If we were all filing paperwork instead of creating magazines, this might be a different discussion. The general public doesn’t walk past the filing cabinet and say, “I hate that folder.” But everyone from upper management to a 3-year-old can say, “Ugh. Why that color?” or “Is that what you meant to say?”

It’s easy to hate; it’s hard to not take it personally. So we eat. We need to do something right and free of criticism. The

KitKat does not care what photos I was able to repurpose just as I do not care that the KitKat is not the best chocolate I’ve ever had.

chemistry. I grew up under the impression that every time she cooked, it was an assault on her feminist principles. But she cooked (still cooks) every day.

Emotion will always be tied up with food, but most of the time food is scientific.

The ingredients will react in certain ways under certain conditions. I like to follow recipes as exactly as possible the first time through even if the directions seem silly. Stir it with a wooden spoon 35 times? Done. Beat it on high for 2 minutes? Okay. There’s a difference.

I guess that’s how I came into this issue—as grudgingly as she modeled. We started talking about a food issue in June, slated for July publication. Maybe there was not enough junk food around the house. Maybe we were all too busy. I emailed a lot of requests for content because I was sure no one wanted to read about food from from my point of view. But here we are: The Food Issue.

My mom did not like to cook. I laughed when my brother-in-law asked if my pumpkin pie recipe came from my mom.

Um, no. I made the generic pastry crust in the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook and then I followed the canned pumpkin’s directions for a filling. My mom has never had a love for cooking or

The six pictures above are from the few times I documented my cooking in 2013 and 2014. Most of them are from Thanksgiving (breadsticks from scratch, that bowl of fruit, pumpkin pie) and Christmas (a good cranberry sauce) and a pernil I made in between. Yup. Food.

One trip to the store, one swipe of my credit card, two receipts, two names.

“Food Universe”?

Awfully pretentious for a store that only got shopping carts last year.

shopping locally at the chain store If you’re not shopping small businesses, you are a terrible person. That’s the message I feel I’m getting all the time. Last Halloween I was so excited to come across a farmers market, but there was no way the guy selling me the pumpkin had anything more to do with growing that pumpkin than Waldbaum’s had with this lettuce grown in Pennsylvania.

Puffy cupcake dresses are the new blech

First there was one, and then they just kept showing up. Everywhere. I think I prefer real puffy dresses to these now.

roots For those who aren’t up on our history, ADW started when Luis announced that he was going to publish his haiku. Here are two new gems.

Crumbs where have you gone Your cupcakes were so yummy Please reopen soon

Creamy, light and smooth I want to eat you daily Fage is the best

Food Adventures Sometimes finding a place to eat lunch is more than just getting lunch. Especially if it’s on the weekend with kids to entertain.

The idea of a food adventure started at our house when we put Kal in a stroller and walked almost 4 miles to eat Pastrami at Mill Basin Deli.

Tuna the Dog

Or maybe it started when after years of talking about cuchi fritos, we finally headed over to a place on 5th Ave near Sunset Park... Either way, the key is the physical effort to get to the establishment you’ve heard about for so long. This ensures that you will not be disappointed in the food when you finally get it. If you were simply standing around for two hours to get into the Cheesecake Factory, that’s nothing. If you were standing outside in 30-degree weather with your mother-in-law for two hours, that’s a whole different game. More effort makes the food taste better.

Some adventures are planned. We knew we were going to a hibachi grill and went into it with the expectation that the kids might not eat anything. But when everything is on fire, suddenly even salad is delicious to Kal. He probably had the most fun eating green tea ice cream (his favorite color) with chop sticks.

Habachi

Luis’ perpetual list of places he’d like to eat Blue Ribbon Chicken Pollo Campero Butter Margon 5th Ave cuchi fritos Dairy Queen Peter Luger’s Mill Basin Deli Colonial Café

Other adventures come out of nowhere.

We never planned to go to Pollo Campero. For years Luis salivated over the memory of Pollo Campero—the best fried chicken he had ever eaten, but located in one of the sketchiest areas.

Then a couple weeks ago, his mother checks into a lovely Long Island hospital, so we load up the boys to go visit. By the time we get there, she is checking out.

With nothing else to do, we go looking for a place to eat. At this point, there are two things I know about Pollo Campero— great chicken, seedy neighborhood. As we drive, all of a sudden a giant inflatable chicken rises above a sparkling and brightly-lit Pollo Campero. The chicken really was amazing, but it turns out Pollo Campero is Disney-fied. (They were located on the property for years.)

And sometimes what starts out with just eating ends up an adventure. Our visit to the Tribeca Family Festival was a disaster until we fed the kids, which helped us stay long enough to walk across town to meet Tuna the Dog. —MV

@modeleatsaburger One of the few events typically catered in publishing is a photoshoot. Having appeared in edit for Allure and ad campaigns for Levis, we asked globe-trotting model Melissa Kurland to talk about food.

Best meal you ever had on set?

It’s hard to come up with one stand out meal. However, if we are shooting somewhere outside New York, I really appreciate it if the catering includes a local specialty.

Worst meal you ever had on set?

I understand that often the most inexpensive choice for the client is the bread basket, but it’s not ideal for long term energy and for models it just makes us feel bloated. I certainly don’t feel like modeling lingerie after eating a muffin!

Do you prefer the whole crew eat together?

I love it when the whole crew eats together! We work in an industry where everyday we work with different people. Lunch is one of my favorite times because it’s often the only time where we really get to know one another. Especially if it’s more than a one day shoot or if it’s somewhere you had to travel to, it’s really important that the crew and models have an opportunity to bond. It can be quite lonely otherwise.

Favorite place to order from while on set?

I always love the surprise of where the client orders from. I’m a big foodie, so I love trying new things from new places all the time. But for the record, I never feel comfortable ordering from the in-house studio cafés. If I want an iced coffee, I make sure its on my tab, not the client’s. Just feels right.

Any nightmare stories on set during a food break?

I was shooting for a big international campaign in Miami. It was

being shot on location far from South Beach, so I’m sure the catering options were limited.

The lunch was plentiful and good for the most part. However, when I went to try a small piece of the dessert cake, my stomach had an immediate reaction that warned me not to take a second bite. Needless to say, I ended up being extremely sick very fast. My assumption was that the cake must have been made with a bad egg. It was my first experience with food poisoning, and I had to continue shooting after the break.

How could I explain to the crew what was happening to me without insulting the client by accusing the catered food? I couldn’t even physically bring myself out of the restroom to tell them where I went for so long. I remember the feeling of the blood draining from my face. When I finally got the strength to go to the mirror, I could see that my face had turned completely white. Not so great for a campaign shoot!

After about 45 minutes of feeling like I was going to die, it finally began to pass. When I showed up back to the set, everyone quickly ushered me to be shot. I had zero energy.

Fortunately for that one shot I was the “accessory” to the male, so I didn’t have to be 100%. At least now when I see the ad shot where I look like I am in “despair,” I have a colorful story to go along with it!

Melissa is represented by New York Models, LA Models, Premium Models (Paris), MGM (Hamburg), and Mega Models Miami. Follow her adventures in photography and food at http://everydayfaye.tumblr.com

free Food

It’s always nice to eat on the company dime. Well, maybe not always. A round-up of dining experiences from other staffs.

best

better

Day 1 of coconut shrimp at Tao Beach

Food feature leftovers

Ordering dinner for everyone because it’s closing week

Discovering the ball of foil in the middle of the dip used to make the dip look more plentiful in photos

bad A bag of Cheetos to share with cover model and crew Day 4 of coconut shrimp at Tao Beach

Scoops of

joy

Julie Bensman was so excited to write this, she submitted it not even an hour after LV asked

May 23, 2014 at 8:10 PM Hi there, I am a former Colonial Cafe employee, working at the Juice Cafe as a Supervisor from 2000-2002. On a recent visit to the Colonial St Charles East, I noticed you

I’ve had many jobs in my 30 years—bartender, pottery studio instructor, cat shelter medic, writer for a local newspaper—but the best job by far was actually my first: ice cream scooper.

Colonial Cafe is now a chain of several restaurants in the western suburbs of Chicago, but I worked at its very first location, a charming 19th Century historical building on Main Street in St. Charles. In my four years, I rose the ranks to become supervising manager, making $15/hr (major coin for a high school senior) and eating all the ice cream I could shove in my greedy mouth.

I can still recite virtually every sundae recipe and ice cream flavor (top picks being NY Cherry, Chocolate Peanut Butter, and Double Chocolate Almond). The cafe was a town staple and the owner, Tom Anderson, came from a long line of Andersons who had started and grown the brand since the 1800s. I vividly remember Tom (who had to have been 60-something at the time) getting on his hands and knees to pick small weeds from between the sidewalk cracks leading up to the cafe’s front doors.

My father has always said “You can’t be mad when you’re eating an ice cream cone,” and working at Colonial proved this time and time again. My regular customers included a pregnant woman jonesing for her daily “super-thick” pineapple milkshake, the carnies on break from setting up the Ferris Wheel in the parking lot next door and, of course, kids in the neighborhood whose names (and ice cream orders) I came to know and love.

Fourth of July was always the craziest evening at the cafe—it was all hands on deck. I manned the cash register while the brawnier guys (as brawny as a 16-year-old can be) scooped ice cream with the speed and furor of a crew team near the end of the race. One guy sprained his wrist over the course of the evening but as we sat smoking cigarettes and drinking milkshakes watching the fireworks at the end of the night, it was a battle wound well worth the pain. Ah, those were the days...

don’t carry my favorite flavor anymore: New York Cherry. You also don’t carry old flavors I remember such as Double Chocolate Almond and Chocolate Marshmallow.

Is there any way to still try these flavors at other locations perhaps?

Thanks, Julie

May 27, 2014, at 11:52 AM Hi Julie, Thanks for your feedback on the ice cream flavors. I am passing your request to revive some of the old flavors to our R&D team.

(I miss the Bubblegum, personally.)

Thanks again, Natalie Krusemeier Office Manager Colonial Cafe and Ice Cream

May 27, 2014 at 1:30:57 PM I loved bubble gum! Thanks for the quick reply. I really appreciate the follow up.

Best, Julie

man versus dollar store

e h t in

It’s fun to see what your old boss is up to—especially when he’s publicly posting pictures of his adventures in dollar store cuisine.

d e fe

When I saw this, I had to ask Robb for more details.

“I was in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and I have a thing about dollar stores; I always look to see if there’s some nasty food in there. So we saw these and I couldn’t resist. I thought pan frying in butter would make them crispy and more delicious but honestly the texture was awful. Like paste. Fish flavored paste.” I guess we will not be looking for these lobster slider patties in Family Circle.

—Madeline

joyFully gAthereD to eAt kAbobs Free stock images are great. They’re just nice enough that you might search the rest of the site for a more costly image. I thought this free image would be good for this issue because it’s a family eating. Then I realized they are eating raw vegetables on sticks.

What? Do I even want to know what that is in the middle of the table?

breAkFAst For Dinner

One of the greatest indulgences of adulthood is being able to decide you want breakfast for dinner. There are simply times you need pancakes, eggs and bacon. I can’t control when that urge happens. I can’t promise it will only happen in the morning.

So, I don’t care when it happens. If it’s dinnertime and I want the sweet caress of Aunt Jemima after filling the house with the smell of bacon (there are few smells like it on the planet), that’s exactly what we’re gonna have—and I’m not ashamed about it.

Side note, breakfast is the only decent thing I can make.

If I’m offering to make you dinner, it’s probably going to be breakfast.

—LV

Luis creations: Storm trooper pancake, bacon omelette, Millennium Falcon.

becAuse you only WAnteD hAlF A cup In addition to such wonders as pork-chop-on-a-stick, you can pour your own beer at Target Field. Both ideas strike me as fun and awful and maybe catchy but mostly awful.

Attendees who prove their age and purchase a pre-paid DraftServ card will pay for only what they pour. The distributor has calcuated how much one can pour in 19 seconds to be sure that the machines and regular stands are serving the same amounts. Fans also won’t be able to serve themselves too often—a human being will attend the machines to check for levels of intoxication and cheating. However, they will not stop you from mixing SB Nation’s “Mauercide,” a concoction incorporating all four beverage options.

An open letter to the people at the Times Square Red Lobster from Thom Woodley Last night I entered your establishment a man. This morning, I am something else.

It all began a few weeks ago, when I saw an advertisement for Red Lobster.

This had its intended effect, and made me desire seafood, and specifically, the seafood available for purchase at your establishment. I stated my desire on my social network of choice, where many of my friends commented. Some agreed that, yes, visiting Red Lobster would be an excellent use of my money and time.

Others warned me.

One comrade by the name of Ciaran emailed me, at 6:45 a.m. the following morning. “I’ll go,” he wrote. “Any. Time.”

He proceeded to tell me that he loved Red Lobster, that its founders were “innovators of restaurant concepts (flash frozen mass distribution), flavor combos, food science, you name it.” He went on to rave about the “coconut skramp” and the “Lotta Collata.”

He cc’d a friend of his, Darius, who I was not acquainted with, but who shared a love for Red Lobster, and would

similarly attend. Any. Time. “Set a date,” Ciaran concluded, rather aggressively.

And so we did. After some rescheduling, the three of us, plus my friend Felix, a last minute addition, strolled last night into the Times Square Red Lobster, which was the only Red Lobster available to us as citizens of the New York City metropolitan area. We were welcomed cheerily, escorted to our table with grace, and found our waiter, Luc, to be exceptionally friendly and ready to cater to our every whim.

At the time, this seemed a blessing.

Now I am not certain.

Now, I have previously attended various Red Lobsters in the great state of Pennsylvania. In fact, when I was a child, Red Lobster was my chosen destination for every birthday meal. I have many fond memories of big-haired Allentown waitresses serving me shrimp poppers, and watching my seafood-despising father squirm. The last time I had visited one had been as a young man of 21, and I am now a gentleman in my mid-30s. I fully anticipated, based on prior experience, that I would consume a large amount of food and drink. To prime my body, I ate nothing all day except a cup of yogurt and some pistachio nuts. Then, before dinner, Felix and I went out and downed a few beers on an empty stomach.

So, when I entered Red Lobster, I was extremely hungry, but also a tiny bit buzzed. Perhaps these two factors worked in tandem to eclipse my wisdom and ignite my hubris, for soon I found myself confidently ordering the Lobster Pizza, a big bowl of New England clam chowder, extra cheesy biscuits, and a “Top Shelf Margarita.” This was merely to be my prologue. For my entrée, I selected the flagship meal of the Red Lobster fleet… the Admiral’s Feast. Shrimp, bay scallops, clam strips and flounder fried to a golden brown, with a ration of broccoli on the side. This was the favored meal of my youth. In college, for a brief time, my compatriots referred to me as ‘The Admiral,’ because of my acceptance of a dare to eat two of said Feasts in one sitting. A dare, I might add, that was successfully accomplished.

The food arrived quickly. Almost too quickly, in retrospect. The Lobster Pizza was delightfully malleable. The New England Clam Chowder was tepid, but served the purpose that a Chowder should serve. The cheesy biscuits were a carbohydrate delight. The Top Shelf Margarita turned out to be accompanied by a tiny little pitcher of Grand Marnier.

Meanwhile, Felix, Ciaran and Darius feasted on two plates of Coconut Shrimp, while discussing Red Lobster’s innovative use of flash freezing technology.

When my Admiral’s Feast came, I was thrilled. It was just as I remembered it: an enormous amount of fried seafood on an oblong plate. A tiny forest of broccoli hid in the corner, as if to separate itself from the seafood and say, “Whatever happens, we were not responsible.” I ordered another drink. This time I went with Ciaran’s recommendation and got the Alotta Colada, a 700-calorie concoction that turned out to be an enormous tsunami of ice cream and alcohol. I asked for double rum, and Luc obliged with a shrug.

About halfway through the Feast, I started to sense that I had, perhaps, eaten enough. Felix had already quit, having eaten only a fourth of his Admiral’s Feast. Ciaran hadn’t quite finished his wood-burned shrimp, lobster and scallops, while Darius was profoundly dominating his immense kettle of crab-type objects. I decided that I must power through. I would not eat my shrimp, as I am now deathly allergic, but the scallops, flounder and clams must be eliminated. This I accomplished. I took solace in the Clean Plate Club award I might receive from my imaginary parents.

While we waited for Darius to finish, I took a couple more bites off of errant cheesy biscuits that had escaped their trough.

I knew something was wrong the minute Luc asked if we wanted dessert. “No,” I found myself saying. Despite the perceived deliciousness of the Warm Chocolate Chip Lava Cookie (1070 calories), I refused. But surely, I found myself saying to myself, surely you are mistaken. You love dessert.

You need dessert. Yet this night, I did not desire it. Oh no, I realized. Oh no, I have consumed far too much.

Find more of thom woodley at thecuriosityroom.com. Through the magic

of comments and sharing in social media, Madeline found Thom’s open letter and had to ask him if we could run it here. Who is Thom? An interesting man. “It doesn’t always work, but I’m as proud of my failures as I am of my successes.”

Around that time, the mother of my children sent me a text message, asking me if I would run her a small errand. ‘Oh jesus’ was my reply. It was not, in fact, a response to her request, but rather a groan of realization that I had done something terribly, terribly wrong. It was a final pathetic whimper before succumbing to a coma. It was the broken cry of a man begging for forgiveness, or failing that, the sweet release of death.

We paid, bid our hosts goodbye, and exited to a balmy Times Square night.

Outside, Ciaran and Darius spoke of going to Dave & Buster’s, but I found myself unable to even conceive of doing that, or indeed of taking any action that wasn’t collapsing on the couch of my apartment, or failing that, the floor. I said farewell to my compatriots, knowing that after the ordeal we just went through, we were more than compatriots. Now, we were brothers. I made my way swiftly home. I was asleep within minutes.

I was visited by a great deal of dreams, none of which made any sort of mortal logic. There was the dream of digging a great muddy hole in my backyard. There was the dream of chasing a golden butterfly across a sea of blood. There was the laughing old grey-bearded man, massive in his scale and limitless in his depravity. O, I dreamt of vipers, wriggling up my body. Goblins and hodags and Jersey devils flittered across my mindscape, waving their claw-like appendages and beckoning me to come dance. Come dance with us, forever.

I woke at 4 a.m. with a burning sensation in my stomach. A loud gurgling had commenced, a great cataclysm of internal oceans. A profound fatness had crept over my entirety. From my abdomen to my throat to my third eye, all were covered with a layer of intangible mindgrease. I felt a great welling up within me, as if a thousand honeybees had taken up residence and commenced to breed.

I commanded myself: get thee to a bathroom.

Then the diarrhea started.

I won’t go into detail on this matter, except to say that at a certain point, the boundary between ‘diarrhea’ and ‘not diarrhea’ became blurred, and then nonexistent. Soon, I could not imagine a time in which I did not have diarrhea. I have always had diarrhea, my mind whispered. I am diarrhea.

In this state, my soul went on a journey.

Why had I done this? Why had I willingly put myself in a position that I knew would give me such pain? I had multiple opportunities to correct my path. I could have skipped the appetizers. I could have skipped the Alotta Colada. I could have substituted the Admiral’s Feast with something smaller, say, a nice salad. Or, I could have skipped the Red Lobster experience all together, relegating it to the part of my brain where dwell the likes of He-Man, high school drama club, and the Police Academy films—things that truly were better once upon a time. Any of those choices would have spared me.

But then, would they have? Was this even a choice? Or was I directed inexorably to this event, and thus to its outcome? Had I free will? Was my visit, and its concomitant consequences, preordained? Had I followed a path of my own volition, or had I been the victim of

taking place in the ethereal realm?

Was anything, anyone, anywhere real?

Was existence real? Or was it all the fever dream of some wayward demiurge who had eaten too many celestial cheesy biscuits?

My young son, awakened by my all too audible dilemma, knocked on the door and asked in his sweet voice if he could “use the potty.” “NO,” I replied sharply.

“Daddy is using the potty.” Daddy is using the potty, forever.

I could not tell how long I was in that bathroom. Was it an hour? A few minutes? Multiple reincarnative lifetimes? When I emerged, I went back to bed. When I finally awoke, and found it time to go to work, I immediately went into the shower, but the hot water could not wash away the inner stain of what I had done. I tried to dress, but my body rejected any and all accoutrements. I want to be by myself, it shouted. I felt as if

around that time, the mother of my children sent me a text, asking if I would run her a small errand. ‘Oh Jesus’ was my reply.

I had done something terribly, terribly wrong. ...The hot water could not wash away the inner stain of what I had done. the machinations of some demonic puppeteer? Do any of us have free will?

Are all of our actions scratched into the Akashic records of our existence from time immemorial, and we do naught but follow its groove til its inescapable conclusion?

And who actually was The Admiral, of whose feast I had so willingly partaken?

What sort of man was he, that he could so easily devour so much flounder, scallops, clams, shrimp, and broccoli, and so often that they would name the feast after him?

What girth had he? From which Navy sprang his titanic form? Was he, in fact, a man at all? His meal was of Herculean proportions; was The Admiral a demigod, or a giant, or perhaps great Poseidon himself? Or was He the Great Admiral, the Admiral over us all, to whom we are but loyal little dinghies in a great fleet? Had I, in fact, supped at God’s table? Was this flounder which I did so heartily gorge upon that which the Son of God multiplied for the masses? Did last night occur in real time, in real space, or was it an event

any exercise I had taken in the last decade had been undone in one night. It took another hour to pry myself from my bed, into my clothing, and out the door.

When I complained to the mother of my children about the agony I was feeling, she simply looked at me with clear disapproval and said, “Well, you’re getting old.”

Ultimately, I made it into work, where now I sit. I have successfully eaten an apple and I suspect it might be the only food I consume today. My body is on the mend. My soul, I cannot speak for.

I want you to know, Red Lobster, that while you were responsible for supplying me the food that ultimately sparked turmoil both existential and abdominal, I do not hold you culpable. You were only behaving as a Red Lobster should behave. You advertised copious quantities of seafood of dubious quality, and that is what I received. You admitted the calorie count on your menu, and I looked squarely at that 1200-calorie Continued Page 18

From the Jersey Shore to Dumbo, Sal Cheech takes us on a historical tour

expanding my pizza palette I really thought it couldn’t get any better than my Pizza Hut personal pepperoni pan pizza. Deep dish plain cheese to go with my large fountain Coke. All of the students who would manage to complete and pass their book reports in the 6th grade English class would get to go on a class trip to this beloved chain. It was the best pizza in my young mind at the time as well as many others.

Though the owner threatened to break my hands for scraping off the tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and Tzatziki from his

“world-renowned” gyro, when I had my friends over for the weekend during 6th grade, I’d like to order from The Little Spot. This pizza was a Greek-style pizza with a different kind of airy crust and a tangier cheese. This was obviously more adventurous than the standard run of the mill early pizza chain restaurants.

When I was in high school, I could be found at the Jersey shore where I spent most of my summers working and trying to save up some scratch for college.

Where there is a boardwalk, there is pizza.

But not just any pizza, this was Mack & Manco’s (now Manco & Manco after a bitter family feud with the Macks). This would serve as my future benchmark for all pizza. Normally once or twice a week I would treat myself after a shift as porter with a few “cuts” at the counter. The managers at these pizza shops were gruff no-nonense kind of guys. Perhaps their referring to a slice as a “cut” was their way of being bad-asses. It was kind of intimidating to order from these men.

They were very direct and expected you to have your shit together and know what you wanted before they came over to take your order. There was a certain attitude

that came along with it. Just ask anyone who visited Ocean City, New Jersey, back in the day and they will tell you that this was the best pizza spot out there. The place was always jammed… Whether it was inside the restaurant or in front where people would be lined up, grabbing cuts and stacks of boxes to go. The guys would toss the dough up high into the air with this “Yeah, so what” look and wouldn’t be the first to look away when you made eye contact, and then would roughly throw this great mozzarella/sharp cheddar blend right onto the dough. Then they grabbed a clear tube which came out the side of a big trash can (lined with trash bags I hope) and pumped a foot pedal which would spit out sauce into a neat spiral around the pie. This was their method for speed, because they would have to turn these pies out on a dime for the infamous shoobs (people who aren’t local and come in for a short period of time) and for the occasional celebrity. You’d see Shawn Bradley on the boards (couldn’t really miss the Mormon Monster as he towered over the mere mortals at 7’6” and lumbered through the crowds to get at a pie or two).

This pizza was the absolute best and it

had to be eaten on the premises so you could get that thin crispy cracker crust. It just wasn’t the same getting it delivered or carrying a box back to your girlfriend’s parents’ house. I mean it was that time in a young man’s life when it would be pretty emasculating to go to your girl’s parents’ house with a soggy pie that didn’t hold up straight when you wanted to savor it at it’s best. Mack & Manco’s had three locations on that boardwalk, strategically spread out so that they could continue their domination of creating the best pizzas in the world.

I eventually made it through college, somehow bypassing all of the pizza establishments along the way. There were a few but nothing really worth mentioning. However, I was fond of the Greek-style pizza at Acropolis. Then again who would really argue at 2 a.m.?

Fast-forward to graduating from Syracuse University, I landed in NYC and heard that it was pretty much the pizza mecca of the world. Get that New Yawk slice they said! My buddy took us to the Pizza Box in the Village, which was my first slice. (I think it closed a few years ago.) I hate to say it, but it was pretty much forgettable—a big old, stale, dried-out reheated slice. Not as bad as “Famous” Ray’s pizza though. I wouldn’t touch that no matter how shit-housed I was.

So, nothing had really trumped Manco’s as far as I was concerned. In all fairness I haven’t even hit the tip of the iceberg with New York Pizza. The internet was still in its infancy, and we had just moved to Park Slope in 1998, and there were a few spots around in the neighborhood. The same

friend who introduced us to Pizza Box loved Pino’s pizza a couple blocks away from our apartment on 6th Avenue. It offered great value and the slices were huge. I discovered Two Boots (which was NOT affiliated with the original in the East Village), but loved it with its cornmeal crust and Lousiana-style ingredients— andouille, cajun shrimp, and chicken toppings. This is specialty pizza; it’s not really a traditional pizza experience. I was told to check out Lento’s pizza from our boss, because it was “the jam.” Traditional thin crust pizza made fresh by an Italian

the pizza offerings were. I found Joe’s Pizza on Carmine and Bleeker, which I think is still one of the best go-to slices out there. Super thin-crispy crust when freshly pulled from the oven. It was even featured in Spiderman! Another is Lombardi’s on Spring Street, which claims to be one of the first pizza joints in the city. If you go back in the restaurant, you’ll see the original date on the pizza oven in tile. These pies are made with fresh muzz and the thick cut pepperoni is off the charts. They also have a really beautiful clam pie, which was supposedly started in New Haven. This was

his wife was crying as she at the pizza because it was that good. family from Bay Ridge. I liked it, but I didn’t make it a point to go back there more than once or twice a week. I ventured down 7th Avenue a little farther towards Flatbush Avenue and found Roma Pizza, which had two different kinds of mozzarella pizzas. I was curious; I noticed that the fresh muzz looked a lot better with its round white circles covering the pie evenly rather than its lesser counterpart of the regular shredded mozzarella distant cousin. This was my first fresh muzz slice and it just tasted way better, fresher, less salty and not as processed (and therefore a tad bit richer in price). Definitely think we’re on to something here.

At the time I was working in Midtown, so options were fairly limited with Sbarros and Famiglia pizza. Nothing to write home about here as John Stewart will tell you. Eventually I found a new job Downtown and naturally I explored what

where I took my father and his third wife for dinner. His wife was crying as she ate the pizza because it was that good. My friends who were expecting their first met me there for dinner and showed us the ultrasound scans, so naturally we christened the moment with a few pies.

With that said, we haven’t even really sampled what Brooklyn really has to offer. I lived in Park Slope for a year and then moved back to Manhattan only to return to Brooklyn in 2005. This is where it starts to get interesting. I really started to explore what was out there. Our friends with the family had moved to Fort Greene and we happened upon Graziella’s Pizza, which has an amazing pie as well as a huge location with a two floor eatery. Rosie Perez was there with a bunch of her friends since she’s from the area. Clearly it was a great Continued Page 18

Why don’t you just make your own pizza? Back in 2009 Sal Cheech and his future wife had a date making pizza together, which was a pretty cool experience considering all of the pizza they consume. Pizzaolo Mark Bello taught a small

class on how to make your own New York City pizza. You can do it all at home with your oven turned up on the highest setting (not recommended for summer months). You can make your own dough, cheese and sauce. He recommended that you always explore your neighborhoods and use whatever is available close by. Sal Cheech and family have been hosting pizza parties ever since, as evidenced by the pictures on this spread. (With the exception of the Spumoni Gardens squares.)

express your love Getting a child to eat can be rough—unless it’s something (made of sugar) that they had a hand in creating. These were some of the times it was easy to get Kal and Boom to eat: Kal’s Minecraft cake, Boom’s first birthday, some cookies, pancakes, Christmas cookies, football cookies, Kal’s other Minecraft cake, more birthday cakes, Streaky’s birthday cupcakes, Christmas cookies. —MV

open letter cont.

Admiral’s Feast and invited it in. You warned me, through your avatar the waiter Luc, that the Alotta Colada was a profound undertaking, especially with double rum. In short, you did everything inherent to your existence, and for this I cannot blame you. Would you blame the tiger for hunting the elk? Or the volcano for spewing its ash into the air? Nay, and neither can you blame the Red Lobster for populating its booths with endless supplies of doughy, cheese-covered deep fried biscuits that cannot remain uneaten.

In a way, I might thank you. While I suspect I shan’t be gracing your doorway in the foreseeable future, the experience has taught me a good deal about myself, my limits, and how I love to ignore them. I am but a man, Red Lobster—and you have reminded me of this.

You told me I would ‘sea food differently.’ I do now. I sea food differently. I sea a lot of things differently.

Yours, Thom Woodley

pizza pallette cont. neighborhood place, tons of folks there during the peak evening dinnertime. Then there’s Grimaldi’s in Dumbo close to the Brooklyn Bridge. Patsy Grimaldi used the coal oven to create that one of a kind charred thin crust pizza. Good chance you’d be waiting in line for a while to get your pie. The original owners took their space back along with their original oven and renamed their place in honor of the family’s late mother, Juliana. You see it’s illegal to have a coal burning oven in New York now. This one and a few others have been grandfatherd in.

Then there’s L&B Spumoni Gardens in Gravesend, which offers a square sicilian style pizza on a tray. They put down the cheese first then top with sauce, sprinkle parmesan on top. Order a spumoni afterwards and you’re set. I stood in line on a hot August weekend and was talking to a nice woman in line

who said that she hasn’t lived in the neighborhood for over 40 years but always makes a point to come back and get herself a few “squares.”

If you venture into Midwood, you will surely encounter the mighty Dom DeMarco of DiFarra, who’s been throwing down since the ’60s. He does the pies and nobody else! A lot of love goes into these. After these masterpieces come out of the oven, he throws some grated pecorino-romano generously, splashes some extra virgin olive oil around and pulls out a big bushel of basil and roughly chops fragrant leaves to finish it. Only he crafts these works of art.

It’s his way.

If you want to take a trip down memory lane, you can go down to Coney Island and grab a pie at Totonno’s.

Last time we went, we had to battle Sharrif Floyd and his adopted family

while they did a New York pizza tour and took up nearly three-quarters of the restaurant. Totonnos still has their coal oven and the pizza is solid.

A Carroll Gardens favorite is Lucali, which is run by a local Brooklyn guy. The lines are long and there’s velvet rope but it’s worth it. They roll their dough with wine bottles and use ingredients from their backyard garden. It’s a must if you find yourself in Brooklyn.

If you head north to Bushwick, you’ll find the insanely popular Roberta’s which has a wood fire oven that reaches unheard of temperatures. Pies come out fast and tasty. Overall a cool place to hang out, but be prepared to wait.

Some say it’s the water that makes New York pizza superior, but I think it’s a combination of that along with its storied history dating back to the 1900s. Pizza tour anyone?

dream kitchen In 1984, the ideal kitchen was burned into Madeline’s psyhe—few toys or rooms have compared The Barbie Dream Kitchen came with more than 80 pieces—miniature ice trays, a tea kettle, a vegetable platter, wine glasses to hang, bottles, a turkey, and (my absolute favorite) the silver pot with a lid. I lodged a penny in the pot so it was permanently full of soup in my imagination. I adored that kitchen. It smelled like vanilla. Nothing else was ever as complex and compact and functional. Well, maybe an IKEA model or two—especially if the glasses and pots hang. There was one apartment I lived in for a minute where the kitchen had all new cabinets and a new oven, but there was hardly any workspace. Then there was the kitchen with so much counter space but terrible appliances and a broken faucet. I had a studio for a year, and that kitchen was so bad I forget it even existed. I don’t think I ever even made coffee in that apartment.

Loving Family has realistic-looking food, but it’s stuck together. It must be modeled after people who shop but don’t cook.

The kitchen in the Barbie house Luis bought Megan has lights and sounds, but cabinets don’t open and there is no counter space. At all.

Loving Family

Barbie house 2005

Lego Hogwarts Lego Hogwart’s is just like the books—you see the Great Hall where food appears magically.

Dora’s situation frustrates me to no end.

There’s really no functional way to fit her furniture into her castle.

Boom plays in the kitchen we bought Kal for his first birthday. There is a tiny sink, two burners, and an oven hidden behind Boom.

Plenty of storage, but no workpsace.

Dora Castle

Step 2 from 2010

know this

t to a h W

spice cabinet

k c o st your

You should always have salt, pepper, olive oil (and butter), paprika, thyme, and oregano on hand.

Plus a dozen more.

in try pan

Cooking Temps

If the raw texture is tough, use a low temperature (250˚) for a long time. If the raw texture is soft, use a high temperature (375˚) for a shorter time. Pork shoulder takes all day while a chicken takes about an hour.

Get a CookBook

I have only opened How to Cook for Dummies once to find out what to do with brussels sprout. Better Homes and Gardens with an imagination is better.

Onions Garlic Potatoes Beans Rapunzel succumbs to decision fatigue

Tomatoes

Worse Than No Counter Space

The only thing worse than having no place to cook is having nothing to cook. The energy required to cook is also at a premium, but if you can convince yourself it won’t take that long and it will taste good, then you might find the energy. Empty cabinets make me crazy because it means I have to figure out a dozen things to purchase. Keep your kitchen stocked and you won’t find yourself overwhelmed with decision fatigue. —MV

Tuna Olives Marinara Sauce Pasta Rice

miscellaneous opinions concerning food Gross sounds Slurp Crunch Squelch Clanking Utensils on Teeth Smack Burp

Foods that should not exist Frito-topped Pizza KFC Original Recipe Boneless McGriddles Blooming Onion Fried Oreos

Foods where it’s hard to like every variation

Foods that are pretty much always the same

Mac & Cheese

Applesauce

Meatloaf

Brownies

French Toast

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cheeseburger Salad Cronut

Sigh/Moan

KFC DoubleDown

Snap

Spaghetti Pie

Beer

Crinkle

Lunchables

Coffee

Burrito

French Fries Pancakes Apple Pie Ice Cream Pumpkin Pie Fried Chicken

I never go to Reddit, but I visited AskReddit for help here. It was a bit hit-or-miss on the opinions, but there was one user who seemed to sum up how everyone who has a thing about noises feels: One time when I was young I asked a kid to close his mouth when he chewed. Everybody got pissed and told me that I was rude. That was the day I learned that everybody is an idiot.

It’s a statue made of sugar, right?

Kara Walker exhibited A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, this summer, and when I started reading about it, I thought, Ooh, a giant sculpture of sugar in the old Domino factory. But then I started to read more.

The first time I laid eyes on Kara Walker silhouettes (maybe 1998?), I thought, Oh cute. And then quickly realized, Oh shit! This is slavery and sexual abuse.

Somehow, people attending the new exhibit still only saw a naked lady there for them to abuse. There are many people who have a much more informed and personal stake in how the work was received.

The obscene selfies taken at the exhibit are more than just dumb jokes. Start with Nicholas Powers’ story of trying to educate the masses. (http://indypendent.org/2014/06/30/ why-i-yelled-kara-walker-exhibit)

Rather than show enslaved and abused women, I will include this screen shot (also from this summer) of a stat celebrating black women’s achievements in education.

(The next picture down was of the black inmates from OITNB.) Why are Janay Rice and a naked statue the only stories I see repeated? —MV

luxury please Filet Mignon in a Chive-Butter Sauce With a Broiled Lobster Tail posted to Facebook generates sexist comments Quick but delicious surf and turf lunch made for me by my husband while sitting out back on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

After posting about my husband cooking me this delicious meal “just because,” I received comments that “I should be cooking for him.” ?? Ladies, if you truly feel that it is your “duty” as a wife to do all the cooking, cleaning, and shopping— girls, you are depriving yourselves of a luxurious life with a real man!

A man who knows how to cook really gets me hot! —Victoria Tallini-Vega

engagement chicken The myth of how one dinner can entrap a man for happily ever after When I started designing this space, I typed “Bullshit” and then filled with placeholder text. I’ll just disclose that now in case you can’t guess how I feel.

Several years ago Glamour ran an article titled “Engagement Chicken,” and I ignored it. Then Luis came home from a day of listening to Howard Stern at the office and told me about how a caller had insisted Howard had been tricked into marrying his girlfriend using this recipe. I still could not be bothered to read the article. I had already seen the Perdue oven roasters

commercial one too many times where the whole family pleads with the mom that she can roast a chicken. And Glamour keeps trotting this mythical recipe out with more examples of it “working.”

Roasting a chicken is not difficult. Being a good listener, being able to compromise, biting your tongue when necessary, and being able to successfully express what is important to you are all much more valuable skills in life. Glamour is demeaning both men and women when they continue to perpetuate the myth.

—MV

e d e o k a c c p + Cu

eat shit, lady with a peach

The no-win world of feeding small children on the go is briefly explained by Madeline who would like to be healthy, but you know.

All kids have three power moves—talking, eating, and using the toilet. Or rather, refusing to do any or all of those three things. They are the keys to pushing adults’ buttons. Especially in public.

Taking kids into public in New York via public transportation is its own special brand of hot button issues. The germs, the weirdos, the people who mean well but... It’s not hard to muster a “don’t talk to me or my kids” bitch face when you’ve just waited 20 minutes for a bus, squeezed into two seats with a folder stroller, a giant bag, and two kids who are screaming and slapping each other, and then carried them all up two flights of stairs to wait for the train on a ridiculously narrow platform. Yes, let’s go to the zoo! This will be so much fun...

My best hope for a break from the madness in that moment was to give my boys a giant bag of chips. Poof! They were suddenly quiet and sitting nicely. And yet some lady eating the world’s crunchiest peach is going to keep looking down her nose at the three of us. I should be able to enjoy these eight minutes of calm, but instead I’m now going to project all my angst onto this woman with the repeated looks at my boys.

If I were super confrontational, if it were a longer ride, I might have asked her what was wrong. But like I said, I was projecting. Did she think they should be eating organic peaches? Because no one in the medical profession could care less as long as I know that chips are not vegetables. I had already complained to the pediatrician and then the city Health Department that my 18-month-old doesn’t eat. They had decided he was an appropriate weight and chewed properly. No worries. Just keep trying. If all I can get him to eat are chips, then so be it. At least he’s consuming something more than just the decals off his toy cars.

Also, how does she know what else they’ve eaten today or this week?

Maybe she doesn’t care what they’re eating, she just missed when I cleaned their hands. In which case, good luck avoiding germs with your kids, lady. Should you choose to breastfeed, your options in 99.9 percent of stores is nurse in the aisles or next to a toilet. Dirty looks or dirty atmosphere.

Take your pick. (Or never leave your house.) You can’t win. People will give you a dirty look for taking too long in the stall.

In the end, all there is to do (no matter the scenario) is take a deep breath. You can not control what others think. Breathe in, patience. Breath out, fucking patience.

Two of Boom’s favorite things to put in his mouth.

The idea of sitting down to learn CSS didn’t even appeal to me when it was my job, so I completely understand the need to start a learning group that gathers to eat cupcakes and empower females. There are a lot of “mompreneurs” who not only want to get their ideas out there but also teach their daughters to do the same. CodeAndCupcake in Chicago created a series of workshops to do just this. It is an offshoot of Girl Develop It, a nonprofit organization that exists to help women who want to learn web and software development.

Before you hate on the idea, turn it around. Isn’t it kind of amazing that there are multiple groups trying to let girls be girls and still be application developers at the same time? You can dominate in a male field without becoming a man.

I have been on set with a food stylist picking through a 3-gallon tub of ice cream to create one perfect scoop. That’s about how it goes in all the categories— not just food. burgers

Never as big or fresh cloest organizers

If only it self-organized...

Tacos

so misleading

misleading

Never as gravity-defying salads

Wilted or colorless with a an odd balance of ingredients board games

Little kids play with things their own way and have to learn to take turns

Watchdog site Photoshop Disasters shared this published image (they added the borders) that one of their readers spotted on Free People’s site.

vacations

Mine are never as stress-free cookies

They can be produced like an assembly line

False advertising

This pink ad

This brand is completely offensive, encouraging the sexualization of girls who need to just be kids. Even if only co-eds wore PINK, they should know there is more to happiness than attention from a man. They do not need to look like this to be loved.

not so misleading

Realistic lines from hip to calf make me believe this is the model’s shape

More than once I’ve taken my parents out to eat just to have my mom announce, “This is nothing like the commercial.”

There are in fact all sorts of rules created by the FTC concerning ethical practices in food advertising, from not filling a bowl of soup with marbles to fluff up the contents to not using makeup on produce to make it more colorful. Yet food stylists are still hard at work, creating illusions.

For some reason, we can forgive the food for not looking just like the advertisement, but not humans.

Celebrities are supposed to look like celebrities all the time, and, if we buy the things they wear and use, then we too will be happy, wealthy, and successful (even if that celebrity is not actually happy, wealthy, or successful).

So, in the same way that the FTC laid down regulations for food advertising, there are groups lobbying Capitol Hill to regulate “Weapons of Mass Perfection.”

Like Photoshop is the root of all evil—not the foundational belief that if you lose five pounds, then your life will be better. That if you are skinnier, you are happier because everyone will think you are prettier. You will be more confident and get noticed by all the right people and you will be going places. If you buy this product, it will make

you more attractive to the opposite sex, which is all that matters. The problem could not be the abundance of skinny white people... We could petition for more diversity in body types and skin colors or stop purchasing from companies that offend us with their small thinking, but that requires mindfulness.

—MV

Watch the video on indiegogo.com

play to learn Sproutel created a cuddly bear for kids with Type I Diabetes that teaches them to manage their diet, check blood glucose levels, and recognize their symptoms. As one of the creators, Aaron Horowitz, says, “The ramifications won’t manifest until later in life,” which is hard for just about anybody to understand in a culture so fixated on immediacy. Instead of using scare tactics to teach young diabetes patients about checking and regulating, Jerry the Bear uses fun to teach them.

According to the fundraising site for Jerry the Bear, Jerry comes with 10 food cards and an insulin pen. Children can feed Jerry by swiping foods over his mouth, check his blood sugar level by squeezing his fingers, and give him insulin using either the included insulin pen or the pump on his screen. The goal is to put Jerry in the hands of every newly diagnosed child. So far, the site claims he has reached 2 percent of children newly diagnosed with T1D. One mom says they didn’t know anyone with diabetes and now her child has the bear to go through this with him. In the video, Jerry says, “We are special and brave bears.”

The idea of escaping stigma and an insitutional feel is important to the father of another child. In the video, the patient’s brother and sister who do not have T1D are playing along, trying to feed the bear. The patient actually has something desirable.

The site claims that five months after receiving the bear, children still play with him for an hour each week.

What if we could retool this so all kids are learning to eat healthy? It might not be the same because Mom or Dad still might feel like eating a quarterpounder and fries as a snack, but maybe. No one wants a bear to tell the family how and when to eat, but if it could help little kids understand why they feel terrible, could that be so bad?

—MV

millions of ideas for chips Lay’s says they received 14 million submissions to their “Do Us a Flavor” contest. Meneko Spigner McBeth was announced the winner October 20 for her wasabi ginger flavor, inspired by her grandmother’s homemade sushi rolls.

Runners-up included cappuccino, mango salsa, cheddar bacon mac & cheese.

McBeth will receive $1 million with the potential to receive a 1 percent cut if sales exceed $100 million. Last year’s winner, cheesy garlic bread, is still for sale.

Photo: Diane Bondareff/InVision for AP

Good ad bad ad Usually I’m disqualified from answering surveys about advertising because I say that I work in the media, but the other day I took a survey and expressed in no uncertain terms how tired I am of seeing gross “before” pictures with ridiculous headlines about how the man is begging to get her back after the woman in the photo magically dropped a thousand pounds. Vomit.

The only thing worse is the weird repurposing of images, such as the example below.

It’s a bad attempt at fashion photography now used to sell a sleep aid? There’s not enough room here...

Meanwhile, the Dollar Shave Club Super Bowl ad had me feeling left out. Why do my razors have to be colorful and $37? This ad is heaven sent.

AnimAteD cheFs

I watch a lot of cartoons. There are a surprising number of chefs in them. I compiled a list of my favorite animated chefs and had them battle it out bracket style. Here are my Elite Eight.

—Luis Vega

Swedish Chef Muppet expert of swedish delicacies.

Ma can’t compete with Swedish Chef

Roadblock wins the Gumbo battle (he also carries a gun)

Roadblock G.I. Joe chef specializing in Louisianna fare

Poppin’s easy baked goods don’t stand up to Swedish Chef frog legs (look out Kermit) Ma Hunkel (Red Tornado) Personal chef to the Justice Society of America

Poppin’ Fresh (Pillsbury Doughboy) Purveyor of easily baked but delicious goods

Chef Cafeteria chef to the South Park crew

Swedish Chef pulls out the upset with his famous swedish meatballs... I can’t be the only person who has pretended to need furniture simply to get some meatballs at Ikea.

Remy sends Roadblock back to basic training with his famous Ratatouille

Poppin’ Fresh pulls an upset over Chef with some Toaster Strudel

In the battle of animated animals, Remy outclasses Ping

Tiana Princess, chef, and owner of gumbo-inspired restaurant

Remy Technically proficient chef specializing in Frech culinary arts

Ping Chef and noodle shop owner in Kung Fu Panda

s c i om r

c rne co Luis transforms leftover pizza and kfC

FooD plAy

One of my favorite shows on television is a competition-based reality show. One where every commercial break starts with a cliffhanger and every return is met with an elimination. Every episode features a $10,000 prize winner who is entered into a larger end-of-season tournament. Sounds exciting, right?

If I told you this show was on the Food Network, you probably wouldn’t believe me. That show is chopped. Easily one of the best produced competition shows on television. There is rarely an episode of it that is on that I can turn away from. Once the basket ingredients are revealed and I get a small taste of the chefs’ personalities, I’m done. I’ve gone from channel surfing to devoting an entire hour to a show where I wouldn’t think I have a common interest.

Chopped is pretty simple in premise.

Four competitors, three rounds, one winner. A panel of judges taste before the commercial, cuts someone when they come back. Each of the four competing chefs gets a little bio vignette where we learn about them. Then host Ted Allen introduces the judging panel (a rotating crew of notable chefs and the true stars of the show). Once introductions are complete, the competing chefs open their appetizer round baskets. All the baskets have the same (and often absurd) ingredients that must be transformed into one dish in the allotted time frame. The panel tastes and critiques. Sometimes Ted Allen asks the competitors a pointed question to allow for a moment of sympathy (“I was diagnosed with terminal cancer” or “My whole family was killed in a gory car accident”). The show goes to commercial, comes back from commerical, someone is cut, and we dive right into the next basket—the entree round. Interviews and voiceovers from the

competitors are spliced in to maximize drama. After another elimination (where someone is asked what they would do with the money), the final two chefs face off in the desert round. By this point, there’s no changing the channel.

Chopped is simply perfect. All the personalities mesh really well. The judges range from pretentious and snippy to encouraging and hopeful. The competing chefs are generally extremely creative and incredibly inspirational. The dishes they can come up with in the allotted times are nothing short of amazing.

As a self-described disaster in the kitchen, I wouldn’t think I would be as enthralled with Chopped as I am. Yet, I simply can never turn away. And on more than one occassion I will turn to my wife and say something like “Those basket ingredients can easily be transformed into a delicious hash” or “I would take that and turn it into a reduction to serve over the duck” or “That chef simply didn’t transform that ingredient enough; the judges will penalize him for that.” Um, what? I am a terrible cook. I rarely step into the kitchen out of fear that I will burn the place down. I’m the last person who should be critiquing chefs.

But that’s the beauty of Chopped. I’m so inspired by the creativity the competitors show that I feel like I can step into the kitchen and transform anything into an amazingly edible meal. I really can’t, but after watching an episode (or three in a row) I feel like I can turn this weekend’s leftovers into a Chopped-worthy meal. And isn’t that the best kind of television? The kind that inspires us into thinking we can be more creative. Maybe it’s not that far-fetched that I’m as big a Chopped fan as I originally thought.

—Luis

KingDoM coMe One of my favorite scenes ever in comics takes place in a themed restaurant in the DC Universe. It’s the final scene in the epic Kingdom Come. Unfortunately, if you bought the single issues, you missed the wonderful epilogue at Planet Krypton (think a comic-focused Planet Hollywood) featuring Clark, Diana, and Bruce. A great scene where Clark and Diana try to spring news on Bruce he already has deduced. The tone of the series was so heavy, that this brief moment of humanity felt like the perfect ending.

Watch what they eat With so many TV sets created around kitchens and restaraunts, Mike Posillico dives into the reasons it works (so well hordes of fans could not pass up the chance to set foot in a Central Perk re-creation) Question: What do Monk’s Café, Cheers,

Patty’s Pub, The Max, and Arnold’s Drive-In all have in common?

Answer: They are the place settings, no pun intended, for one of the latest and many of the greatest sitcoms of the past 40 years. These delectable establishments have allowed our loveable protagonists to set up a base of operations where they could hatch secret plans, stage meetings, chow down, booze-up and provide the viewing audience with a unique universal “home away from home” experience.

It’s not difficult imagining yourself inside the coffee shop while the cast of Seinfeld, at the adjacent booth, wagers to see who would remain “master” of their “domain.” While you’re at it, sidle up next to Cliff Clavin, inside Cheers, just in time to hear him lecture about how the umbilical cord is 90 percent pure potassium! No, this isn’t The Twilight Zone; this is a “situation comedy.”

More often than not these eateries are pulling triple duty by providing a central location for the cast to meet, setting the mood for the episode to come, and providing an opportunity to introduce new characters on a whim. The underrated series Dead Like Me almost always began inside Der Waffle Haus with the team of grim reapers stuffing their faces with breakfast foods of all types before heading out to collect souls.

A substantial percentage of the megahit Friends, took place inside Central

Perk, a location I imagine many of us could more accurately describe from memory than the homes we grew up in.

Alice Kramden’s kitchen from The Honeymooners wasn’t much more than a table, sink, and icebox, yet 90 percent of the entire show took place on that single set. The vacantness of it directly correlated to the Kramden’s place in the world.

Series that have gone down in history as classics assuredly flaunt iconic surroundings that set the mood for the show at large. Who among us didn’t want to pull up a seat beside a hefty Tony Soprano and mangia on scungilli salad, sip Chianti and harken the sweet sounds of Bennett, Sinatra and Martin inside the cozy confines of Nuovo Vesuvio?

On the flipside is poor Al Bundy, starving his way through 11 seasons of Married with Children while his spendthrift wife Peg avoids the kitchen like it’s a seedy part of town. All the while, Al is relegated to eating “toaster shakins,” (leftover crumbs from inside the toaster), “Tangwiches” (Tang Orange Drink Mix on bread), and making soup from M&M’s shells found trapped between the oven and the refrigerator just to stay alive long enough to sell one more shoe.

I’ll close with some trivia. The refrigerator on the set of The King of Queens was not only functional, but was fully stocked at Kevin James’ request.

He’s a method actor of the highest ilk.

brave (& hungry)

new world

virtual food

Probably the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard Martha Stewart say is Cooking Mama is a great game for teaching kids to cook. Really? The first time I heard of Cooking Mama was when Kal was a few months old and Megan wanted to show me “this turkey game” on the computer.

You were supposed to violently kill and prepare a turkey for Thanksgiving. The overall message of “eat tofu” was lost along with the skill of carefully seprarting the skin from the muscles in order to insert butter. Every task was a race against the clock. It gets even less technical when you switch from the computer to Nintendo DS, and the goal is to scratch or tap the stylus as quickly as possible. But, really, what game that involves food is supposed to be preparing kids for life? It’s not like Hungry, Hungry HIppos stopped my brother from stuffing himself to the point of throwing up at Thanksgiving 1987.

At least Cooking Mama is about food preparation. Almost every other video game relies on food to magically appear.

In video games, there are really only two basic things to heal characters: time and food. You don’t want gamers to become too dependent on drugs, right? So teach them to eat the food they come across and to get some rest.

The new versions of Angry Birds drive me crazy because they don’t eat to heal. Your options are to come back in 10 minutes, buy your way in, or use a Telepod (which is also buying your way in).

In the DS games where you care for pets and babies, you simply buy food.

There is no idea that you have to clean the bottle, find the formula, and hope it’s the right temperature and consistancy.

Earn points, buy prepared food.

In the series of Bratz video games we conquered with Megan, those big-headed girls spent a lot of time selling smoothies, but they never consumed any food.

I don’t know that they ever ran out of energy. They just needed to sell the smoothies to earn money to buy clothes and makeup.

In the Lego games, you run out of energy all the time, but you don’t consume food or search for healing devices. If you can’t kill something to earn you more hearts, you just have to hope enough time elapses. No food.

In Minecraft survival mode, you must find food, build a shelter, and figure out how to cultivate more food. You don’t want to kill every animal you meet because they will provide more food if you care for them and are around to pick up the steaks, pork chops, and eggs they are dropping. You can’t eat any of those things until you build a furnace. Once you start harvesting wheat, sugar cane, and more, you can use the in-game recipes to craft pies and stews.

Almost every Stampy Cat Minecraft video starts with Stampy eating cake for breakfast—a dream come true for many of his fans. Stampy transforms a crudelooking game of building blocks into a dramedy when aliens need cake to power their space ships, when it turns out the moon is made of cheese, when he simply feeds his pet dogs.

As a humongous Minecraft and Stampy fan, Kal built statues of his favorite YouTube characters and gave them each a cake. (That’s the split screen of my character watching Kal’s character dole out cakes.) We have yet to successfully run a farm, but maybe I can say the game is teaching him to work for food.

—MV

Fox ran ads for Utopia almost non-stop during the opening day of football. I had to watch this show. It was obviously a Survivor/Big Brother mash-up, but they did such a good job of casting (if your definition of “good” excludes ethnic diversity) and the whole premise was “Let’s make a brand new start!”— quite inspiring considering all the news about Isis in the Middle East and cops in Ferguson. So much hope.

But then the show was mostly people fighting about food. Who is taking care of the live animals? How do we get electricity in here so we can charge the phone to order food? How do we make money so we can buy food?

Two guys immediately seceded because they wanted to buy soda and Ramen. A court system was created after threats of violence resulted from mayonaise being used without consent. (Somehow, not after the previously mentioned guys stole money and destroyed food.)

Food is powerful.

Utopia, maybe not so much.

Josh presents Exhibit A to the court (top), the empty bottle of mayo labeled with his name.

Five things the random things on our minds the hundred ChArt

Every day Kal writes the numbers 1 to 100, which takes anywhere between 1 and 100 minutes to complete. hALLoween CAndy

Who cares about beautiful weather—fall is about the abundance of sugar. fALL tv

Yay, New Girl is funny again.

(But what is Schmidt’s first name?) tony romo’s frACtures

He’ll be okay. They wouldn’t take him to London if he weren’t starting. Right? #CowsboysUK Cronut wAnnABes

Dunkin Donuts launched their long awaited Croissant Donut.

(They are not allowed to call it a “cronut.”) While better than their regular donut, it’s nowhere near as good as the original cronut, or the copycats that followed from Gregory’s or the defunct Crumbs. The Gregory’s crossaint donut was particularly good. Light and airy with delicious cream filling.

Dunkin’s creation suffers from simply being too dense and not airy enough. If they can find a way to decrease the density, they could be on to a wellpriced and quicker (have you seen how long those cronut lines are?) alternative. Until they can figure that out though, I will go to Gregory’s when I need a cronut fix—their coffee is really legit.