Lest you suspect...

...that I exaggerate for literary effect:

The Maggot Incident happened again. This time an unwashed pot of chicken saag was to blame.

I need to take myself out back and shoot myself, I am so disgusted and disgusting. And I can feel them crawling all over me. yeeeeeahashshgh.

auaaughgahagghaghhhh.

Fucking eye infection.

The Ways That People Suck: Example #3,528.

So my husband edited this wonderful little piece for Archaeology Magazine.

Brilliant, no? Eti Bonn-Muller did a great job, and Eric will go down in history, if there is any justice, for coining the phrase "Brotzi."

Now, since the piece came out, three dried-up fucks* have written letters saying they're cancelling their subscriptions because they don't want to see Brad Pitt all up in their archaeology house.

Idiots.*

Do your part for all that's good in humanity and drop Archaeology a line. And may your words be a line in the sand against the forces of humorlessness and overreaching self-regard.

*Please note that the opinions expressed in the blog post are not endorsed by the editorial staff of Archaeology Magazine. The view that these people are dried-up fucks is entirely personal on my part.

At long last I'm evil!

So I'm reading my Atlantic Monthly today, a piece about the essential immorality of gourmets - a position I have a certain amount of sympathy with. So imagine my surprise to find my book quoted - extensively! B.R. Myers takes issue with my account of lobster killing; the passages apparently indicate that I am hostile "to the very language of moral values."

Finally, someone gets me!

Seriously, though, I actually do feel like his point is fairly dubious. He seems to think that I'm all about mocking people's sensitivity to the lobster killing, but that isn't the case at all. On the contrary, my lobster chapter was all about the real hesitancy I had to boil the lobster, which I was doing at Julia's explicity behest. Yes, I make with the funny. But I laugh at all manner of offensive shit - the lobsters are just getting the same treatment I give everybody else. Better, even; can you imagine the heights of crassness I'd have reached if I'd been writing about boiling Karl Rove?

All this to day, thank you, Mr. Myers. You hate me, you really really hate me, and that is sort of awesome.

Julie Powell: Author, Bon Vivant... Vegan?

So, got back from Argentina, went to the doctor. Looks like Julie is going on the straight and narrow for awhile. My cholesterol is, apparently, a BAD scene. And this was from blood taken BEFORE Buenos Aires. Jeesh. So I'm off the red meat and dairy. Have also taken it upon myself to quit drinking and smoking (well, mostly.) Doing yoga. Living like a goddamned monk.

What is sustaining me as I pass through this vale of tears? Two things. First, my discovery of the delightfully goofy Flaming Fire:



More importantly, though, is the green market in August.



I know I've always been a greenmarket naysayer, and I still am annoyed by some of the smug foodies who shop there. But the market itself is great - the tomatoes this year are enough to live on. Which is good, because they're pretty much all I can eat.

Not pictured - Hatch green chiles!!!!! Heaven! Though it's hard to think of anything I want to eat with them that doesn't involve cheese and/or bacon.