The Food TV chefs are money grubbing shills. Last night Management and I caught the first Applebee’s ads featuring Tyler Florence and after we scrapped our jaws off the floors she said it best, “I have lost all respect for him.”
Granted, Applebee’s probably fanned out some serious money and tickled him under the chin with it and if I were in the seat across some well-heeled suits I would probably offered my own roast leg au jus served with fingerling potatoes and seasonal vegetables. But I am not a network TV chef, I don’t have any book deals, and the name “Cheap Ass Jimmy” refers to how low that entrance fee to my carnival ride really is. Florence, however, is all those thing I am not so Bourdain is right in chastising these people for selling out their craft. Did Florence ask himself if he is adding anything to the body of work out there with recipes like Penne Rosa with Sweet Italian Sausage, Herb-Crusted Chicken Topped with Italian Country Salad, New Crispy Brick Chicken with Warm Spinach Salad, and Bruschetta Burger (I just threw up in my mouth a little there)? This is towing the same bland-ass cuisine being slung by all the other TGI-McFunsters (Bourdainism) out there.
Honestly, the sole commenter on Slashfood had it right, Applebee’s menu is inspired by what one might find on an airline: rubbery and where salt is the only discernible seasoning. While both Management and I have enjoyed some of his shows in the past, Food 911 had good tips and often was often filled with unintentional laughs this recent move smacks of greed and poor image management. Likely, it will sail far outside the radar of the typical Applebee’s customer but for the foodies out there it serves as another example of how our culture is (has) devolving (-ed) into a mass of homogeneous chains that sprawl from coast to coast making it near impossible to differentiate from one region from another. Culture is now a registered trademark with all rights reserved.
I’ve been living the grad school experience all over again vicariously through my friend Qwynwyn. This weekend she took the VALS survey which I remember doing along with countless others like Myers-Briggs and MMPI (which, by the way, is a psych ward test!) during undergrad. For giggles I decided to take it again to see what, if anything, has changed over the years and this is what it had to say:
Primary VALS Type: Innovator
Innovators are successful, sophisticated, take-charge people with high self-esteem. Because they have such abundant resources, they exhibit all three primary motivations in varying degrees. They are change leaders and are the most receptive to new ideas and technologies. Innovators are very active consumers, and their purchases reflect cultivated tastes for upscale, niche products and services.
Image is important to Innovators, not as evidence of status or power but as an expression of their taste, independence, and personality. Innovators are among the established and emerging leaders in business and government, yet they continue to seek challenges. Their lives are characterized by variety. Their possessions and recreation reflect a cultivated taste for the finer things in life.
Secondary VALS Type: Thinker
Thinkers are motivated by ideals. They are mature, satisfied, comfortable , and reflective people who value order, knowledge, and responsibility. They tend to be well educated and actively seek out information in the decision-making process. They are well-informed about world and national events and are alert to opportunities to broaden their knowledge.
Thinkers have a moderate respect for the status quo institutions of authority and social decorum, but are open to consider new ideas. Although their incomes allow them many choices, Thinkers are conservative, practical consumers; they look for durability, functionality, and value in the products they buy.
On Myers-Briggs I come out as an INTP, “INTPs are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them.” In other words, I’m one of those arrogant Ivory Tower jackasses that the folks love to hate. So, in other words, nothing has changed. 
Now that ugly episode between myself and Jinzora is in the past our relationship is blossoming and more importantly my cheap ass self has a viable home stereo solution. Cobbled from and old laptop and a set of free PC speakers given to me some 3 years ago by eMusic it is prominently (Management might say embarrassingly) featured in our living room atop our equally cheap ass 27″ Sony Trinitron (bought for 50 bucks from Prudential Healthcare when they closed their Roseland, NJ offices). Call me Sanford because I hate to see things go to waste.
Anyways, here’s a shot of set up:
The laptop is a Sony PCG-SR33 that we bought back in 2001 which never was much of a workhorse having only 128MB of RAM, a 600 MHz Celeron, and Windows ME (BLECH!). Wireless was always spotty as the unit heats up to the point where you could make a batch of fajitas on it. In this reincarnation, I’m running Ubuntu 6.06 with all non-essential services turned off and for networking I’m using a 3COM network card hooked into a Linksys WET54GS5.
The speakers are a set of Logitech Soundman X2s which do a capable job and provide a surprising bit of thump (the subwoofer is behind the TV). Target PC only gave them a 5.0 but I disagree and would rate them in the 8.5 range as they sound nice and provide quite a bit of volume. But hey, they were free!
On the software front, I tried using Rhythmbox and Amarok plus SSHFS but found that the Linksys unit could not handle the traffic and had a tendency to crash. Amarok refused to playback, deciding to eat up all available memory resulting in the laptop locking up. This is not to mention that the combination of those two packages plus SSHFS would cause the Sony to run so hot we had to turn on the AC and make some fresh iced tea. Switching to Jinzora plus Beep Media Player turned out to be the right combination, particularly now that Last.fm support is working. Firefox and Beep have relatively small resource footprints so the laptop runs cooler and when the switch hiccups it is not a complete and utter disaster.
So there you have it, my home stereo solution without dropping a dime on parts. Here’s a run down of the current Jinzora stats, a little low as I am rebuilding my collection so it is about 50GB short at the moment:
- Artists: 1654
- Albums: 1859
- Tracks: 21845
- Size: 124.32 GB
Published by james on September 22, 2006
in Shout.
Today, I cannot wait to meet our daughter. About twelve more weeks to go and I am giddy like a schoolgirl at her first dance.
Anxiety is a strange beast. There are times when it gnaws on your bones, cracking them to suck the marrow out. Times when it perches on your shoulder, breath hot and moist on your ear, nattering quietly. Today, however, is that time when it has you boxed in, turning you about with quick prods that sets your skin tingling.
Last night, I lay awake running through the classic triptych of worry: time, money, family. Will I have enough time? What if I don’t have enough money? How will my family provide for itself. Uncertainty mixed with anticipation makes for a potent cocktail, one whose effects are slow building but are amplified by my own feedback loops. The back of my eyes ache from this miasma I am creating.
I suspect that when I first hold my daughter it will be as if I rushed headlong into a brick wall attempting to vault it only to find myself sitting hard upon the ground, lights blinking and swimming before my eyes. Humbled, as I realize a greater gravity that binds me to this earth.
For pointing out this stupid simple recipe for a West African Peanut Soup, though as always I have to hack it for Management and I’s tastes. Quick run down:
Green Pepper Cubanelle, New Mexico, and a Jalapeno veins removed but 1/2 seeds retainedRed Pepper Flakes (they are all heat and no taste :-()Vegetable Broth Chicken Stock, more flavor and, well, we only play vegetarian on The Internets®Canned Chopped Tomatoes Fresh tomatoes that are teetering on the edge of over ripe
The beauty of this soup is from prep to serve it takes only about 45 minutes which is perfect when you are so damn busy you cannot even muster opening a package of crackers. I was able to bang it out in that time while feeding the pets, walking the dog, and fixing Management her “When’s dinner? I am starving here!” snack. Now that’s fast food.
