kale salad snowden

above is the menu from June 24 at elysian a few diners found it amusing a few found it confusing and whipped out their food apps to find out about this ingredient they had never heard of before some were just wondering who or what snowden is do i really need to explain take a listen to any media outlet yesterday or like last week and it was non-stop snowden ok true no longer the lead what with the doma ruling which papered over the voting rights debacle and now egypt snowden is suddenly already merely the source of a trickle of hyperventilating coverage he had his moment he almost made it as the new kale ubiqitous on the tips of all tongues appearing here there and everywhere on every drop-down pop-up menu the broadcasters might as well have been saying “kale is believed to be in the Moscow airport” “ecuador has agreed to take in kale” “john kerry has asked russia to extradite kale" "kale is a traitor” “kale is a free-speech hero” “how much more does kale know?” ok the analogy wears thin after a point and snowden is not all that delicious anyway it turns out even if he is interesting enough to stay in the limelight for a brief flickering time the difference is that kale is not going away snowden is kale will pad menus from here to forever it will never come off it will follow suit with radicchio tiramisu bacon things that have become staples sacred cows every diner expects to be able to have kale in some form when and wherever they so desire even the molecular gastronauts are making kale into jelly beans and at the wood fired end of things they are throwing entire kale plants roots and all into the embers to offer slow roasted whole kale to the vegan cognoscenti snowden in the end will be very unkale-like he will be a deadended trend a hot flurry of tweets and then not a peep years from now people or at least a subset of them will be just about made of kale if the current salad craze keeps up at its present lunatic pace but snowden will be beyond recall snowden who is that people will ask and every now and then someone post-yoga might pause mid-crunchy kale strawberry super protein chop slaw and wonder whatever happened to that leaker fellow was he strung up by his tongue for his insolence was he locked away in a supermax for his betrayals did he live out his life in exile on some wikipedia-owned desert isle with julian asange kale on the other hand is going to go the distance it will exceed itself as mere food item it is after all becoming deeply woven into the fabric of our daily lives to the degree that it simply goes without mention but let me mention a few examples nonetheless in some homes lacinto kale has replaced charmin the rough texture does a great job plus it coats the rim with essential vegetal oils and the flavor profile is complex johnson and johnson is working on how to get it in and out of a dispenser an intrepid entrepreneur up north in the bay area i mean where else is making survivalist clothes out of kale fiber it is the new hemp they are called kustom kale kommando klothes* a hipster in williamsburg silverlake fixed her bike tire inner tube with kale she found lingering in her soul patch plus some local honey apples next smart phone will ship with a kale-based microchip people are printing money with kale it seems there is nothing kale cant do it can do no wrong it will never blow the whistle by the way it is extremely popular in the commissary at the NSA put that in your kale salad and smoke it

*best kale-related text ever is here

death by chocolate

it is something of a small leap well I mean it's not like someone walked on the moon or anything but it's not nothing either that more americans can say syria now than could some years ago and one or two of them can pinpoint the landmass on a map but at the same time it is terrifying that devastation is what it takes and even then it just barely registers I hear little peeps of news I can’t read very well now it is not that this skill is in remission it's just that the words fall apart under my eyes I need to have someone radio me the news directly and even then it’s hard to take even the little bits leave me speechless and teary unable to swallow I don’t need a steady diet of images to see what's going on the imagination has been made vivid across years of looking at what humans have done to one another besides at the moment I can’t watch tv there is no tv in our home I sometimes see tv at the dentist where someone thought it would be a good idea for the patient to watch cnn while getting drilled or at the pump when filling the car with gas but that’s not real tv that’s pump tv and I don’t think they are streaming footage of bodies sliced up by government forces in beiyda and banyas and though I use it for emotional and logistical reasons I don't believe in the internet because how do you know where to begin with the endless parade of voices I can’t aggregate filter screen or discern so the only news I can handle and really I can’t at all is a box of chocolates brought back from amman jordan by a friend they are made by ghraoui a chocolatier based in damascus still at it in wartime maybe they are doing a brisk business with well-heeled supporters of the regime maybe the rebels or the opposition whoever they are at this point are shelling out for chocolates to keep their morale up I doubt it they don’t have the lirat for that the box is on the table right here bright orange and very cheery at first I thought how nice someone from syria has sent a box of chocolates they are thinking of us what with boston and all that the thought ridiculous but not at all far fetched after all there are syrians sending their condolences to boston on the web it is very nice of them to be thinking of the rest of the world at this particular time in their shitshow present and some people in boston are reaching out in return this is a kind of grace made easier though perhaps too more complicated by an internet how close we can seem to come and yet how far apart we remain we remain facts on the ground in very different places but still it is almost like touching like almost but it would also not be a terrible thing I suppose to cut to the chase to post a picture that says hello syrians the reign of terror and death you are subject to is not like boston in the least but we love you and we are watching you at the gas pump and please don’t worry israel is going to take care of everything sorry we cant lift a finger despite all the prattle about red lines and chemical weapons use as a marker of utter terribleness as though all the other ways one can get done in syria style are incapable of generating a red line no nothing gets the big boys hackles up like chemical weapons use that is beyond the pale if you are sliced up and dumped in a ditch the most obvious and visible of ditches of course if you are made into a sign for others in this age-old manner it is not so utterly terrible that it will bring down the wrath of the apathetic upon your land you have to die a spectacular choked up mess in a cloud of gas to get anyones attention around here then you can be at the very least cause for some concern once we establish the facts because this is something we civilized humans have decided we should not do to each other it is against the law I guess slicing and dicing is not slicing and dicing is chopped liver in this calculus chemical weapons use is caviar is a box of high end chocolates it is the moral equivalent of death by chocolate but all that stupid dessert name means in this instance is that I am eating out of the gift box as I take in some grim news I am working my way through the syrian version of godivas they are medium quality too much hazelnut too much milk not enough bitterness chocolates from syria should be so bitter as to be inedible but I would go on eating them anyway while I try again in spite of my illiteracies to read something about ugliness in the land of ghraoui sweets the news tricking me into thinking the world is so small if there were not oceans between us you could reach out from aleppo smack the box out of my hands and say how could you do such a thing while so much death is being dished out and speechless already from reading about you I would be speechless all over again because you somehow managed to touch me

high concept

whenever I hear restaurant shop talk I am mildly perplexed by the bandying about of the word concept “what's their concept” “he's working on a concept but no one knows what it is it's very hush hush” “she's putting together a cool concept for a high-heeled soup kitchen in Hollywood" “just heard about so and so's new cuban/russian concept bay of pigs have you been yet” and so on so I am putting some concepts together they have everything to do with who I am as a person and as a cook which is highly conceptual when you think about it and conceptual is a cut above virtual in my book so in advance of the real so avant real it is unreal that a concept might taste good it might get some yelping whelp's seal of approval it might draw some attention for a while before being picked over chewed up and spit out by twitter-brains here are a few I am chewing on myself in my idle get rich quick scheming hours BLUNCH open daytime weekends only serving refined takes on classic dimsum bites the front of house mark of distinction is white male waiters drawn from the 1% dressed in tiny tuxedos huge thick eyeglasses fake top front buck teeth peter sellers style speaking hopelessly mangled english “must have studied old benny hill skits and be able to push a cart around a room” that could fly but a little place called FIN could too the menu focuses on creative use of shark carcasses that have been ripped of their fins and would otherwise rot in the sea the alternate name for this joint is WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU HUMANS YOU ARE A BUNCH OF SAVAGE ASSES a similar theme is given a workout at SOUK with its dim interior of charred stone wood and metal not stark it is appealingly minimal yet rich with the illusion of being rich with centuries of memory and a frequently changing menu based on items formerly found in the Aleppo souk before humans torched it in a quest for freedom power domination democracy or something maybe I need to keep things simple what about PIGS FEET for PINK TOES retro soul food for neohipsters google it or BARNYARD farm-to-table is so pre-nose-to-tail it is hopelessly in need of an update our carefully handcrafted artisinal ambiance retains all the sweat and shit and stink of the farm because it is simply insufficient to think that knowing where your carrot came from or how your pork chop lived will make you any less alienated from the labor involved in getting it from farm to table yeah yeah yeah I ought to rethink this one unless I want to call it COMMIE HIGH HORSE maybe these all seem a little forced downright inedible or with an edge so dull it could hardly be called cutting all I really want to do is baby be friends with you make you some good food in a lovely place that is my concept it might have legs

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talking egg

at breakfast an unjumbo egg is telling me something it has a message to get across it is letting me know that at a date certain it will become a bad egg a salmonella vehicle a pale yolk with a runny watery white that spreads out in the skillet and has no body left to it this egg where did it get these words that’s not egg it’s english those are someone else's words and that someone bless their unclogged heart is steering me clear of potential harm we need all the help we can get because who can tell good eggs from bad anymore in this food chain someone has to put words in the egg's mouth though I suspect the egg is perfectly capable of speaking for itself and would never say enjoy that is a factory talking not an egg I am not going to enjoy this egg according to a bland command I am going to eat it maybe on toast if there is any and with pleasure if there is any of that left when someone has told me to enjoy and given me a deadline to do so I am early to the expiration date party it is only September 6 in the morning and at this hour all messages seem vague I mean what year is this factory talking about what if I were supposed to enjoy the egg by September 15 2011 and I ate it now then I would be in for it then I might be facing a bout of something that could hardly be called enjoyable come on egg can you be a little more specific can you please clarify before I eat you if I could hear you over the din of this cautionary red label what year would it be what kind of world would you want to be living in what would you be trying to tell us in plain egg

long summer shorty

each time I post a plate of something like this summery short rib with blistered haricot, sautéed cucumber and red onion, roasted radish, cherry tomato, bleu d’auvergne, oregano, and reduced beefy jus I feel since old liberal lefty guilty impulses die hard ethically impelled to include a gentle reminder to self and others via a pictoral supplement to this food porn diet or more likely via these thousand words that the burning world is full of painful contradictions that bear repeated pointing out no matter how obvious they may appear to be and so it is this morning that I wonder who is trending underfed up in the skyless cloud there must be pictures to counterweight my ribs who are the internet biafrans of today and if you get that reference you and I can date each other don’t get it mixed up with Bangladesh that was another story they got a concert from the hippiest beatle of all as far as I can recall there was no concert for biafra all biafra got was jello but that was then this is some kind of now in which the current poster children for starvation if they would please turn on location services before sending out instagram photos of themselves starving then we would know where they are lol and behold they might be from Mississippi the odds-on domestic favorite but how on earth could anyone be starving there don’t they have a Costco or a Walmart on every sunny side of the street has the war on poverty not reached the southern front yet no the war on poverty ended ages ago and yielded less than a scorched Iowa corn field in 2012 its been a grim summer people are going to pay for it at the high fructose corn syrup pump I’m going to pay for it every time I pile into my corn-fed hybrid to go source some local baby fuel some non-GMO line-caught downer-cow-free infant formula I have no sign in my rear window but I do in fact have a baby on board in tow here she is

this joyful little shorty is brand new to the world which may be why I am thinking so much about life and death and eating she eats 7 or 8 times a day and poops and pees all over the place in and out baby but no burgers just formula and though she’s not a "huge foodie" she is asking for edible dirt already but she doesn’t really have the stomach for it and I have mixed feelings about it as well I mean I used to think so what if chefs want to put out plates of signature mock-earth and they utilize the latest in culinary science to concoct dirt out of top-notch ingredients

but now I am changing my tune about this fabrication of terroir because dirt is already edible you can almost live on it just ask any Haitian who was making dirt cakes and eating them after the big earthquake in 2010 when there was a shortage of short ribs and baby formula not to mention potable water so if any old hot iron top celebrity chef wants to make haute dirt maybe he or she needs to take a little trip south and see how it is really done please be sure to ask a Haitian for some pairing recommendations ok ok maybe I need to come down from my high horse and stop shouting insolent misguided condemnations and holier-than-thous in such a delusional self-edifying voice edible dirt has been around for a long time kids have been making it since the dawn of oreos not just fancypants cooks besides I have never been to Haiti and though I have eaten dirt by which I mean had my face smashed into the ground I have never tried to survive on the stuff but should I ever find myself in that position I am going to call on every chef in town who plates soil to see if they can help me out they may politely refuse my calls but I will leave a detailed message nonetheless kind sir due to an unfortunate turn of events and a drastic change in my circumstances I need to eat dirt I need some for my baby too sister can you spare a dime bag or just a little spoonful of your precious crumble and if I don’t hear back I will rummage through your dumpster anyway or the dumpsters of any number of other high end cutting edge bandwagon-jumping eateries where the LA food dirt scene is being defined as we tweet "we are all dirt eaters tonight" we are always all something in twitterland something being jelloless biafrans in search of Mississippi mud in the dumpsters of the rich and famous where we hope to strike gold in a little leftover pile of edible soil and if I am lucky or if I source it properly it will be properly local though I won't snub my nose at any of the stuff that someone had fedexed in from Haiti just in time for dinner service because it is delicious the foie gras of dirts it is the shit