quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

It is! I feel weird having to defend it, but there you go.

if you use strong olive oil it turns out too bitter, but its good w/light stuff or blended

one weird trick to make delicious home made mayonnaise [CLICK HERE]

agree with icey on the straight EVOO; doesn't taste right at all. Canola or veg blend for me--maybe I'd put in a little olive oil, but would not make it the primary.

Compare the advent of digital recording to an event in the history of food or agriculture.

Mayonnaise is as it is now known a bastardization of the Sauce Mayonnaise every saucier learns to make his first season as an apprentice. Pre-packaged mayonnaise sold in jars is almost nothing but tasteless vegetable oil and water, emulsified by gum and gelatin. I think this product is analogous in many ways to the CD, and it's introduction has degraded the standard of eating in much the same way digital recording has degraded the standard of music.

-steve albini

ha, great dn brownie

oh steve

its

“The sauce was invented as a new sensation for jaded palates at court by the duc de Richelieu, at first known as mahonnaise after Mahon, the chief port of Minorca, the scene of the duc’s dubious ‘victory’ in 1756 over the ill-fated Admiral Byng. Basically Louis’s drug dealer and pimp, Richelieu, known for opium recipes to fit all occasions, is also credited with the introduction into France of the cantharides, or Spanish fly.” She gazed pointedly at Kit’s trousers. “What might this aphrodisiac have in common with the mayonnaise? That the beetles must be gathered and killed by exposing them to vinegar fumes suggests an emphasis on living or recently living creatures — the egg yolk perhaps regarded as a conscious entity — cooks will speak of whipping, beating, binding, penetration, submission, surrender. There is an undoubtedly Sadean aspect to the mayonnaise. No getting past that.”

Kit was a little confused by now. “It always struck me as kind of, I don’t know… bland?”

“Until you look within. Mustard, for example, mustard and cantharides, n’est-ce pas? Both arousing the blood. Blistering the skin. Mustard is the widely-known key to resurrecting a failed mayonnaise, as is the cantharides to reviving broken desire.”

emulsified by gum and gelatin

again with the invented bullshit ingredients, i don't get it

I mean homemade mayo does taste way better, but yeah the ingredients list on Hellman's is surprisingly non-scary, all things considered.

*holds flashlight under face*

as she read the ingredients... she realized... that the mayonnaise...

contained CORN SYRUP

noooooooooooooooooooooooo

children of the corn syrup

THE CORN SYRUP IS CALLING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/nyregion/in-manhattan-a-for-profit-private-school-that-calls-its-own-shots.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=recg&adxnnlx=1338387353-AzHYfkb94yn95bPwn9XN9g

Incidentally, I have wanted to start a separate thread for obnoxiously terrible writing in the nytimes:

“Kids are nicer than psychopaths,” he chirped in his English accent.

He "chirped" in "his English accent"? As opposed to the French accent he likes to put on when discussing other matters?

I also like how it makes sure to use at least one form of the word "exude"

Also, kids are psychopaths

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/fashion/weddings/sage-mehta-and-michael-robinson-weddings.html

"mehta"

She is slightly built, graceful and soft-spoken. Yet she has also been known, when cross-country skiing with friends who are falling behind, to shout, “Buck up!”

Mr. Robinson, 31, grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., loving cars and French literature. He manages real estate investments for a family in New York and is writing a biography of Robert Cordier, a French filmmaker and theater director. He likes modern chairs and couches, partly because they are often uncomfortable and keep him from falling asleep while reading.

Most of her education had been in girls schools. “I just found boys terrifying and alien,” she said. Months later, she mailed him a long handwritten letter on her personal stationery. “I’d just hate to lose you, oh that was an awful blah line,” she wrote.

Years passed. She graduated from Princeton, then lived in Mumbai, India, studying yoga and writing. He graduated from Yale, then got a master’s degree in modern and medieval languages at Cambridge University, then moved to Paris to write.

She remembers wondering why she didn’t feel more of a spark. Nevertheless, they made a plan to have dinner and catch up.

They met at Lucien, a French restaurant downtown. He arrived on a black Bianchi bicycle, and this time she felt sparks.

At one point during dinner, she asked him if he enjoyed swimming in very cold water. Growing up, Ms. Mehta spent summers at her family’s house on an island off Maine and swam in the frigid sea every day. “I was really asking if he jumped into things,” she said. “It’s about bravery to me. Unconsciously, I was asking him if he’d jump into a relationship with me, whether he’d just go for something.”

One of those friends, Eliza Gray, an assistant editor at The New Republic magazine,

He proposed in Paris last summer, 10 years after they met there. He did not kneel, but stood so that they could be on equal footing and he could look straight into her eyes.

He said he wanted their marriage to be “a continuous, personal, intimate alliance between our inner voices.”

It was a Jewish ceremony with Hindu and Episcopalian elements

everything feels so empty

You think you feel empty reading that article, imagine how they'll feel after 3 three years of that marriage.

this marriage sounds like it could be a Sundance Channel reality show.

"The two met in Paris in the summer of 2001. She was on a summer-abroad program for high school students; he was a counselor. For her, he was an anomaly: a boy she could talk to, for hours."

i don't think college dudes hitting on high school girls count as anomalies. but maybe i'm just not a romantic like her.

“Sage is alarmingly bright and disarmingly warm,” said Hilary Cooper, a friend."

sage is a sociopath.

I have a black Bianchi and kind of hate myself right now.

*sparks*

Can't wait to read Mehta's memoir

mehta fiction. her dad's memoir is kinda beautiful.

the nyt wedding section is a special circle of sick bullshit, but idk if it really counts as quid-ag? i mean it just nakedly is what it's trying to be.

all the quid-ag that's fit to rmde at

he was not a person who leaped into relationships easily

is this one of those things like when you read lighted in a steinbeck novel & it's historically okay, or should it definitely be leapt

He did not kneel, but stood so that they could be on equal footing and he could look straight into her eyes. He said he wanted their marriage to be “a continuous, personal, intimate alliance between our inner voices.”

one thousand times yes

spy magazine's takedown of ved mehta was a thing of beauty

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51476897/Spy-Magazine-September-1989

page 109

lol, i only read the first couple of chapters of his first memoir. i remember it being poignant stuff about going to a blind school in america? i'd forgotten that he wrote 20 more after that. i miss Spy. we have always needed a Spy.

Both are writers and care deeply about words as well as opera, cooking, stick-shift cars, modern design and swimming in cold water.

"care deeply" seems misplaced when applied to all these things at once

something hilarious i can't quite put my finger on about the repeat mentions of cars in this piece - maybe how they always get paired w/some more esoteric pursuit to round off the sharp edges/differentiate the guy from being a nascar fan

i care deeply about swimming in cold water

i care coldly about swimming in deep water

you would think that their lives would sound more exciting. they are young and rich and have traveled and they like to cook in cold water, but they both sound really boring.