Marilyn Haggerty's amazing Olive Garden review and the subsequent viral shitstorm

lex did you let the egg cool first, run it under cold water, etc?

siiiigh no. lots of people have since told me this is what i should have done. i don't know where they learned it from. nonetheless i have not recovered my confidence re: eggs sufficiently to attempt them again

It sounds like Lex really doesn't want to start cooking-maybe he could, if he really wanted to, but he doesn't, so why be so pushy about it? Also it's not like he goes to McDonald's for every meal, or eats nothing but Pop Tarts, it sounds like he has a reasonable diet, not worse than that of many who do cook.

As far as OG etc, I agree they are not really innocuous due to food production methods, their effect on local culture etc, but IME, people who make a display of how much they hate OG rarely make it about that. They don't even mention factory farms, regional culture, local economy etc-it usually seems more an opportunity to display their superior taste, and experience and knowledge of "authentic" food.

Meh, it's OK to hate things that taste bad, are overpriced and horrifically unhealthy.

It sounds like Lex really doesn't want to start cooking-maybe he could, if he really wanted to, but he doesn't, so why be so pushy about it?

we have an interest in making this thread very long

i only just read this. it's funny/sweet because she so politely avoids going into detail about the food and quietly minimizes the damage: "Instead of the raspberry lemonade she suggested, I drank water."

will someone please let the lex off of the hook and tell him everything's okay. i can't take another botched meal anecdote.

i posted this last night in the gay thread:

i tried to steam some broccoli the other week and it just...i have no idea why it didn't work. i thought i knew how to do it. i've done it before. but nothing happened. i ended up having to gnaw sadly on semi-raw florets.

― lex pretend, Tuesday, March 13, 2012 4:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

along with the last time i tried to join in on pancake day and toss pancakes, which ended in disaster when i somehow managed to toss the entire frying pan :(

if you're buying 12-15 things to make a stir-fry it's not exactly easy to plan out how you're going to use everything else, try as we might
― frogbs, Wednesday, March 14, 2012 11:10 AM (20 minutes ago)

Yes, it is. You're not trying hard enough.

beginning to think your problem might not be cooking

buy less things to make a stir-fry imo

i think i understand now lex - you've learned your kitchen techniques from saturday morning cartoons

stop cooking on ketamine!

i heard an interview with her son on local npr. he writes for the wsj! nothing too revelatory but he did have to explain to his mom what 'going viral' meant.

― goole, Wednesday, March 14, 2012 9:36 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh ha i just remembered something pretty funny: the host asked the guy how, since she is very non-negative about anything, you could tell if she was giving a place a bad review? and his answer was if she writes more about the decor, the food probably isn't too hot.

didn't marilyn spend like five paragraphs on the seating?

the famed olive garden review might have been a vicious pan all along

Lex's cookophobia is fun!

goole this has been mentioned

along with the last time i tried to join in on pancake day and toss pancakes, which ended in disaster when i somehow managed to toss the entire frying pan :(

― lex pretend, Wednesday, March 14, 2012 11:40 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i hope this was accompanied by one of those "falling on banana peel" slide whistles

sorry, this thread is bonkers

I'm just talking about makin fancy, good restaurant quality stuff, not your evryday meal. I don't think my grocery bills/trash piles are any higher than yours.

I'm just cracking up because I'm imagining Lex putting pancake batter into a pan, and then putting that pan in a larger pan, and then attempting to flip the smaller pan with the larger pan.

is that what 'pancake day' means

No, that's a sex act

You take two intact...

i am a big fan of cooking alone, which is a totally chill relaxing yet mentally stimulating activity. i do like to have someone to share the results with if i'm making anything remotely ambitious.

if i still lived alone i'd be having brown rice salmon and kale every night.

Lex should compile all the stories into some Švejk-like compendium of mishaps.

http://www.collegecomplements.com/img/products/Norpro-Pancake-Turner.jpg

alien technology — recovered from Area 51, starting to be seen in test labs in Dubuque and East Lansing.

Omelette probe

xxpost

yeah if i'm cooking something simple but tasty i have no prob cooking/eating alone.

but if it's something fancy or ambitious i want an audience or collaborator.

i just made ramen noodles using my electric tea kettle at work. dollar lunch.

the kind with the corn kernel and green pea packet. love the corn and pea packet.

i was gonna say, my friends in the Midwest (OK, Indiana) were telling me that they think that the entire article is really just a almost-Swiftian-oh-so-subtle pisstake on Olive Garden (since they claim inside knowledge on Midwest/Heartland humor and such). it does kind of work that way once you try to look at it that way (all the talk about the parking lot and the decor and not so much talk about the food as such).

if you don't have something nice to say...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-wx11l3nr4

the awl people are right about the accidental poetry (or maybe not accidental? i shouldn't sell her short...) of this:

"There is seating for those who are waiting."

hahahhahahahahaha Hurting OTM

"You can find the latest Hagerty coverage on MarilynHagerty.com. It includes links to two new Herald items now available for sale: a new e-book collection of Eatbeat articles and a new Marilyn Hagerty T-shirt."

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/232085/publisher_ID/40/

quick work, marilyn.

I thought the review was fine if the OG is the kind of place her paper's readership wants reviewed. And the outright snottiness of the original Internet reaction was unnecessary. But acting like it's an especially well-crafted piece of writing also seems kind of condescending imo.

the awl people are right about the accidental poetry (or maybe not accidental? i shouldn't sell her short...) of this:

"There is seating for those who are waiting."

― scott seward, Wednesday, March 14, 2012 2:27 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eat yer heart out, t i m @ k f c. e d u

her drunken noodle review is pretty similar. no real food critique:

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/231996/publisher_ID/40/

omg, from the taco bell review:

"CS had a taco and a small drink. A creative 13-year-old, she mixed Baja Blast, Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist, something I really don't encourage. Something, I am sure, she has seen older kids do."

kinda love this

Then, there are Japanese-inspired Teppanyaki platters of rib-eye steak, mixed seafood, tiger prawns and scallops. They range in price from $12 to $15, and I told myself this would be nice another time.

"But acting like it's an especially well-crafted piece of writing also seems kind of condescending imo."

i don't think so! i think her review can be instructional. i like the simplicity of it. there is a zen-like quality to it that comes from writing like that for decades. lots of people who can write could never write something like that. there is absolutely nothing forced about it at all.

i find it kind of crazy as a food writer myself that she writes these fairly lengthy reviews and never brings even one person along with her!! she only ever eats one thing!

tbf i have no idea what the intent of "eatbeat" is (reviewing restaurants or providing news about new restaurants), but the idea of an article where someone goes and eats a meal and does not discuss the quality of the food is v. foreign to me.

i mean, if i lived in grand forks, i would not be relying on eatbeat when figuring out where to go on friday night.

you're assuming there are places to go on friday night

well clearly there are at least two such places, the olive garden and drunken noodle!

I think it's literally just like Grand Forks is a small, not especially foodie place and she's like "here are the options of places to eat so you will know what they are." I really wouldn't read too much into it. I mean we're talking about a city of 50K in a very sparsely populated state.

I mean I think you guys are not understanding what it is like to live in a place like that and especially to not be an internet-savvy 20- or 30-something that uses zagat.com and yelp for recommendations.

but i assume people there still have opinions about whether food is good or not!