A Seemingly Enjoyable Lie

I can't wait to get mine, can you?

Hunger? I Hardly Even Know Her

You might know that old Woody Allen joke*, "I was a very insecure child...I was breast-fed from falsies."The good news for the Wood-man is some of the most booming business in the food industry is in "breastaurants." Couldn't give a hoot about what the term means? Haven't been keeping a-breast of the latest? This commercial might give you a hint:



That's the Tilted Kilt for you, sure to put the starch in a man's tartans. So you have to love this passage of a recent AP article about the market segment that's been on the rise:

That growth is one reason Tilted Kilt CEO Rod Lynch, bristles at the "breastaurant" moniker. He says the word implies that the company's success is based purely on sex appeal. To the contrary, he says his customers – about three-quarters of whom are men and of the average age of 36 – consistently say the experience is about far more.

Wait a second. I do marketing for a living, and you're trying to tell me that 75% of your customers are men past the age that they're going to "get" anything like the women in that ad for anything beyond a babysitting job (ok, there's another ugly fantasy, so here's hoping that restaurant chain never opens) but instead they are all coming in 'cause your Irish nachos† are so tasty, well, you could knock me over with a four-leaf clover.

Or, perhaps, "the experience is about far more." Not to get all Freudian on your cheap thrills, but it's quite possible we really never do quite separate our hungers and sex and food connect even more than we might imagine. Not that I've discovered anything new here. The reason there's such a zing to part of George Carlin's 7 words routine is just that he, and you, and I, and the newborn drooling down the street know it: "And tits doesn't even belong on the list.... It sounds like a snack...I know, it is. New Nabisco Tits--bet you can't eat just one!"

That doesn't mean it's any less degrading for the poor women who work these places, as if waitressing where the tips top out at $6/per, bonus leers free, is any kind of wonderful. (I have to admit I keep thinking the waitresses at Twin Peaks should all go by the names Laura, Maddy, Donna, and Audrey, and dance up to your table like this, but maybe I've revealed too much of my fantasies now.) It's just part of their jobs--wear little, get the men-folk a-wanting, and then pull the bait and switch. Sublimate ends with "ate" for a reason.

*I mean the joke is old, not Woody. Although he's old now, too.

†Come for the boobs, stay for the bastardizing of numerous world cuisines!

The Latest Intelligence

It has come to this: I see a newspaper headline that reads "Inside the Mind of the CIA" and immediately assume it's a story about the Culinary Institute of America. Judge as you will.

Bottom of the Fifth and the Bags Are Loaded*

The Hot Stove League ain't methadone enough to soothe my baseball jones, so this time of year is always hard, when baseball's season ends and I have to go cold turkey. For months. (At least there's labor peace in MLB and I don't have to play the "do I root for the millionaires or the billionaires" game basketball fans get to enjoy right now).

You might be wondering why this confession of mine is here at Georgeeats, not Georgefans (which not only suggests my liking of the game, but also aptly would sum up my time in the batter's box). It's because one of my favorite internety spots, Baseball Prospectus, kindly has posted this today: "Buy Me Some Wontons and Crackerjack: 11 Foods That Should Be Available as Ballpark Concessions but Aren't."(I think the article isn't behind the paywall, so let me know.)  It's good to see them having some fun with it--no one could argue with the idea of the $2 veggie taco and the $3.50 microbrew, but then people also suggest poutine, and even better, communal fondue stations.

What I'd like to see is more places feature knock-offs of famous restaurants from the town the ballpark is in--screw Dodger Dogs, which have become pretty execrable (sorry Farmer John's!), and let's have a Pinks. And for burgers, I want a MoFo (that's a Mobile Father's Office) on at least every level. San Diego needs its Stone World Baseball-istro. Yes, I know, you can get Stone in Petco already, but why not the food too? It's already priced like at stadium-prices. Speaking of that, why not some high-end versions of classic ballpark food? This treat could be a true seventh or any inning stretch, no?

Plus, beyond food, there needs to be mobile bartenders with little carts working the aisles. How much more civilized a game might be at Yankee Stadium if a section were sipping on Bronx Cocktails. The vendor-bartender just better to be sure not to use a Boston shaker.

*You do all know this one, don't you?

Is It the Dressing or the Stuffing that Makes This So Tasty?

I've written about it before, but just so you know, Santa Barbara is home to the baby ridgeback shrimp.... OK, wait, this comes from Buzzfeed's 20 Babies Dressed as Food. Which makes me feel a lot better about not having kids, given how much I like to eat. I mean, how could you not experiment? I figure till they're about three-years-old they're yours, aren't they, so you should be able to do what you want. It might even be the environmentally sound thing to do, as you grow your own food, eat as local as possible, and reduce the global population all in one tasty meal.

Seriously, it really means that parents have too much time on their hands, and too much disposable income to make costumes that make their children look like food. Which, if you think about it for as long as it probably took people to make some of these outfits, and that better be a long time, and they better not be mass-produced somewhere (picture this: a Chinese factory with underage, poorly paid Chinese girls working a line putting together hotdog suits so American children can dress up as the food the Chinese workers can't afford to eat themselves), you just have to end thinking a profound thought like, "Huh?"

Plus I'm rethinking that next serving of baby vegetables I get at a fine dining spot.