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

"Remy, good to see you, man! What'll it be – the usual?"

"Yeah, a double portion of the steak-gorgonzola alfredo, please."

If this fat person is a complete fucking glutton who eats ten pounds of food at the all you can eat Golden Corral buffet every night and is doomed to die of congestive heart failure within a year, what's it to you?

I find it weirder that apparently you stare at your plate or talk to your date without once making a comment about fellow diners.

Is the only thing you talk to your dates about how fat all the other people at the restaurant are, or can you manage to come up with other topics of conversation?

what do you think

Lots of us watch people in restaurants and make judgments which may be incorrect.

Some convenience foods I use regularly:

Chicken stock [I'll make it when I can, but I haven't the spare carcasses, and I hate paying for the gas to leave the stove on all day to simmer]
Canned tomato products
Canned beans
Frozen spinach and peas

― aka vanilla bean (remy bean), Thursday, March 15, 2012 9:17 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this is pretty much exactly my list. buy everything else fresh.

xp Because I mean, whispering "OMG look at how gross that fat person over there is! She must be so unhealthy!" is shockingly not something I miss in my life as a conversational topic.

Honestly, if I were wealthier I would probably be more of a glutton. I usually eat the cheapest thing on the menu, which is like an expensive meatball wrapped in lettuce and served with air biscuits. Note: air biscuit is slang for a fart, where I'm from.

fwiw we have no idea of scott was talking about these people while he was actually at shoney's. but he decided to mention it to us here, because he found it depressing. when you see a whole family of enormous people blowing tons of money at a shitty unhealthy restaurant, well, it can be depressing if you have any empathy for them. i know what you mean about being judgemental but that's not the vibe i got from what scott wrote.

xp Because I mean, whispering "OMG look at how gross that fat person over there is! She must be so unhealthy!" is shockingly not something I miss in my life as a conversational topic.

At a bar last night: "Look at that guy dipping sweet potato fries in his beer!"

that man is a savage

Well, now that is certainly worthy of commentary.

he should know to pour the beer over the fries

Fries don't even go with beer, onion rings go with beer ffs.

he should know to pour the beer over the fries

was waiting for him to do this tbh.

I guess we're defining "judgmental" differently. Part of the Dining Experience for me is making observations about other diners: what they're eating, what shoes they're wearing, banal shit. If that's judging them, well, fine.

It's called "Speed _________"

fwiw we have no idea of scott was talking about these people while he was actually at shoney's. but he decided to mention it to us here, because he found it depressing. when you see a whole family of enormous people blowing tons of money at a shitty unhealthy restaurant, well, it can be depressing if you have any empathy for them. i know what you mean about being judgemental but that's not the vibe i got from what scott wrote.

Let me say that I like scott a lot (insofar as I can come to that conclusion via message board posts, but you know) so I'm not trying to rake the poor man over the coals. I readily admit this is an issue of mine to read comments like this especially people I do like.

But let me point out that you also cannot make judgment about those fat people's finances. It might be well within their budget to blow "tons of money" at that shitty restaurant. This might be their one night out so they are making the most of their financial investment. Also those shitty restaurants have like $10 all you can eat buffets and kids eat free, so it's probably NOT tons of money.

My point is that you don't actually know, and all of the assumptions you are making are based on preconceived notions about fat people (gluttonous, wasteful, unhealthy).

Those are all fair points.

Can we talk about Puddings again?

I readily admit this is an issue of mine to read comments like this especially people I do like.

Holy shit, that doesn't make any sense. Let me try again: reading comments like those, especially from people I do like, is not something I am comfortable letting pass without comment (although 80% of the time my response is to back out of a thread and quietly cross that person off my "person I like and pay attention to" list).

Something like that.

Anyhoodle... puddings. Good stuff, by any definition.

http://i.mnpls.com/477/47724.jpg

Now that I have all this pudding what do I do with it

I find it weirder that apparently you stare at your plate or talk to your date without once making a comment about fellow diners.

this is all a part of my PUA persona, the walking Youtube comment box

I also like amaturist! (He came to our wedding reception!) I didn't say that earlier because Tracer only mentioned scott. Then I thought about it and realized I might sound like a jerk.

s'all good. Sorry for offending you.

Your wedding reception? Wait, who are you again?

when i've been out with alfred we've only spent like... 30% of the time talking shit about other people in the bar, so i can verify that he has other topics of conversation

carl agatha, i don't know who you are, but your comments are valid and you have every right to question MY comments. no, i'm not a doctor. i have worked in food service, grocery stores, beer stores, restaurants, and delis for decades. i know something about appetites. i myself have had my own issues with food and drink over the years. i don't hate fat people. i don't make fun of fat people, and i don't think big people are gross. yes, people can eat whatever they want. i would never tell anyone in real life not to eat something! but it is painful sometimes for me to see people WHO VERY VISIBLY have trouble moving, people who are actually laboring to move, and who, though i am no doctor, look physically unhealthy, eating in what i basically consider death traps for people with food addictions. i don't blame them though. i blame the dealers. some chains, in my opinion, should somehow be taken to task for what they sell. legally. i have no idea how. i do have Wall-E/Soylent Green moments where i want to scream RISE UP, PEOPLE! WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS! THEY ARE POISONING US! LET US FLEE THIS PLACE! but usually i just finish my burger and try and decide if i get the hot fudge sundae or the brownie sundae. i mean, i sold beer to people for years to people who could barely walk because they shook so violently. and cigarettes to people who couldn't breathe. i feel empathy. not scorn. and there is a difference between eating a hearty meal out on the town and someone getting their salt and sugar fix. i know, cuz i've been there. there are mcdonalds addicts just like there are crack addicts.

One thing that I think gets lost in the mix here is that in a lot of places in America these chain restaurants are not exactly replacing local cullinary gems with tons of healthy menu options. I mean sometimes they are yes. But at least based on my lifetime of roadtripping with my parents and on my own, there are a lot of awful luncheonettes and truck stops in the midwest that serve you, like, open faced turkey slathered in 50% fat "gravy" on buttered bread with fries on the side and no vegetable. A salad was a leaf of iceberg lettuce with a pallid tomato slice, and breakfast generally involves four eggs and at least two kinds of meat. I guess this is just owing to the country's heavily germanic and english early heritage, IDK? Although now you have asian and indian and latin american immigrants bringing other choices to those areas, I guess.

Your wedding reception? Wait, who are you again?

Ha. Previously Jenny, previously pullapartgirl, married to Jeff. Changed my user name from the diminutive of my real name after the last "should we use real names on ILX" conversation made me weirdly paranoid.

OTM hurting, a lot of the hand-wringing about healthier options and vanishing diners kind neatly elides the fact that Applebees is consistently better quality (even if I think it sucks) and healthier and more predictable than Joe-Anne's Local Burger Pit

xpost -- Ah, clarity. Hi there!

I'm not sure that the introduction of mexican food into mainstream american cuisine is gonna help

xp Hi! I tried to "announce" the new name in strategic places because I didn't want to GOTCHA or confuse anybody so I'm glad to clarify.

Pesto is somewhat overrated imdo, but for those of you intimidated by the price of pine nuts, make pistou

ultimately i think the point is the "judge everybody you see on everything they do" thing is bigger than we imagined, and we should all be incredibly paranoid

Or indifferent

is pesto hating a new foodie trend?

i was doing pesto before it was cool

I don't know, everything has gone to hell since Gourmet ceased publication. xp

otm ^^^

Saveur is all right, but James Osland is a douche. Eating Well is surprisingly not bad, but it is deffo not haut cuisine

btw you know epicurious has an archive of Gourmet magazine recipes. it's awesome. Although I'm not advanced enough a cook for some of their recipes.

That's almost all I use for recipes now, I'm glad I have access to all of those amazing christmas cookie recipes.

I really can't imagine eating haute cuisine on a regular basis.

I mostly make the really quick/easy recipes like stir frys or pasta dishes.

Yeah, almost any cooking publication's definition of "quick weekday meals" is my definition of "weekend culinary adventure." My definition of weekday meal is on par w/ lex's tbh.

I can vouch for that. You had me over for mac 'n' chz 'n' cut up hot dogs.

But TBH I think you're selling yourself way short b/c I've been over for ordinary "quick" meals and I'm always inspired. You do shit like make soup (and I'm totally Lex w/r/t soup: soup comes from a CAN!! (it was put there by a man/in a factory downtown)) and roast brussell sprouts when it's not even a special occasion!

oh, man

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/232108/

^^^ must-read

I was kind of "whatever" at the fuss over the Olive Garden review but I really adored this.