January 2016

Are you as confused as I am every time you’re handed the menu at a restaurant? Of course you are. Delicately sprinkling words we’ve never heard of across a single white page to make what we’re being offered to eat a complete mystery that’s dusted, drizzled and deeply steeped in pretension, is all part of today’s most important culinary revolution. If you’re not digesting a ladle of new words with every meal description you’re really not eating out.

It seems that’s why restaurants exist now.  To challenge your verbal palate. And to make you feel really quite small for your lack of knowledge as they stare down at you, and I don’t mean because you’re seated and they are not.

Luckily I always leave quite sleepy, with my belly full,  so I forget the humiliation enough to go out and do it again. Isn’t it great there’s no grudge that can’t be smoothed over with duck fat?

If you’re scoffing, you’ve clearly not eaten out recently, or you’re eating at Denny’s which is delicious so that’s fine, but hear me out. Restaurant menus have become complicated. They look like someone stole the judges’ scorecards at a spelling bee and then handed them around. Satiated with big, verby things they seem to go to greater and greater lengths to tell you what has been done to the food items you will eat.

Gone are the days when a breakfast menu, for example, had eggs – fried or poached – with toast and bacon. Now eggs are “coddled”, which sounds a little rude to me in all honesty. Surely coddling is something you should not do to unborn chicken? Or, eggs are “shirred”, which sounds like drunk stirring from the Keith Floyd School of Cooking where the first ingredient was always a bottle of wine in the chef. I’m certain it’s something more complicated than that. And then these eggs come with a mushroom conserva, merguez, or yoghurt chermoula. I know what a mushroom is.  I know yoghurt is. Is Chermoula where that nuclear disaster happened?

Chefs hats off to these restuarants though, because they are swimming upstream like the salmon with agro dolce, abamelle and arroz negro they are serving. Yes, I have no idea what those things are. Or if that’s the correct spelling. (For all I know they could be chopping up the dictionary and just making up new pretend words).   I say this because while every other printed medium tries to stay away from big and strange words, purposely making things shorter for a population whose singular reading matter is Facebook posts, restaurants are saying screw it – my short words not theirs – and making you wade through lengthy descriptions of assations, brunoises, gribiches and escacbeches.  Leaving us all Googling what these words mean surreptitiously under the table like school kids cheating on our math papers.

Now I know you’re probably thinking I should stop dining at pretentious restaurants, and you’re right. Denny’s is great, and grilled cheese is pretty easy to say. But I do challenge that notion. Even the simplest of neighborhood restaurants seem intent on making you learn a word of the day.  And if they can’t find a fancy term for how they are cooking something, they will go to great lengths to ascribe the exact geographic locations of your tomatoes, chickens and cocao nibs. They will place a “from the region of…” in front of a sugar cube if they have to. And honestly most of the places sound a little like they’re from ‘Game of Thrones’.

Let’s talk about asking the wait staff about these words/locations. I figured out that as a rule of thumb the greater the number of words on a menu you do not know, the higher the likelihood that you will be made to feel like an utter yam for asking, an Oliver Twist saying, “Please Sir can I have some more simple words to explain what you’ll really be doing to my eggs back there”.

So, are these all just pretty ordinary ingredients, and cooking methods, and farms, and writers have just got in on the game, realizing the print medium is dying so they are having their last word suppers all over menus? Or are chefs watching too much ‘Chopped’ and feeling like they have to find the next way forward with an egg? Or – and this is my favorite theory – are English professors slipping through the backs of kitchen doors and saying, “Look, they are sitting still, at a table, they can’t leave until they get an exorbitant bill, let’s teach them some new words. Their brains have been coddled for too long.”

I like my theory. Or maybe I’m hoping as human beings we will continue to evolve our language beyond “likes”, “cutes” and “LOLs” so when we do go out for dinner we sound smarter than the food we eat. Or maybe I’m trying to divert my immense annoyance at the mental hoops I have to leap through to earn my dinner. Maybe I’m just “hangry”. Ha, take that new word, fancy restaurant. And bring me some damn coddled eggs. With chermoula. And a gribiche.

I’m sorry I have not posted recently. I was consumed with the fear that my own death would be usurped by the death of someone more famous than me. And recently there has been a fair amount of famous dying occurring.

I was born the day before Christmas. My entry into this world was overshadowed quite heavily by someone substantially more famous than me. Every year I try to pretend I can hold my own, but You Know Who always comes with the promise of a day with gifts and gammon for everyone, and I’m put back in the shadows of the Christmas tree. So, because I’m competitive, I’m hoping for a better exit.

Don’t worry – I know how much you love this smart, witty and thigh-slapping funny blog – I’m very well and have no immediate plans to leave this life. In fact it’s quite the opposite. I’m feeling positively alive with the idea of getting more famous than mega blogger “The Bloggess” or  Gwyneth Paltrow and her “Goopers,” so that when I do in fact die, I am the most famous person dying. You don’t get a lot of shots at this stuff. Your big moments are really your birth, hitting legal drinking age, maybe a wedding, likely a divorce, and then your demise. You have to make sure you’re doing these things well folks.

Let’s explore this more.

January 10^th saw the passing of the great David Bowie, aged 69 years old. A brilliant man who achieved the very highest levels of artistry, cocaine taking, and elegance. His passing was too soon. The world is still mourning. Just turn on the radio and see if you can find a Taylor Swift song to cheer you up, and you will land up crying to “Starman” again.

January 14^th saw the passing of the great thespian, Alan Rickman. How did that go, reaction-wise? I’ll tell you because Alan can’t, bless him. It went not so great. I got a BBC news alert on my phone informing me of the news with a short obituary, but the coffee shop chatter went as follows:

Barista: “Did you hear the guy from Harry Potter also died, also aged 69?”

Customer: “Dumbledore?”

Barista: “No, not him the other guy. Freaky right?”

Customer: “Do you have Stevia?”

Despite Rickman having made over thirty amazing films and appearing in countless theater productions, his death had an “also” in front of it. As though he was following a trend he just couldn’t help but get into. Or if you felt like an alternative to “also” mourning Bowie you had another, slightly more obscure British choice, but obviously Bowie’s death was the main stage event.

See my point? The only thing worse than dying is dying when someone mega famous does. As if death isn’t unfortunate enough already.

This “also” happened to The Eagles founding member Glenn Frey. When he sadly passed on to the big Hotel California in the sky this week, “Desperadoes” got sandwiched between David Bowie medleys. He had many more songs than that, but he died around Bowie time so his tequila sunrise faded into obscurity. The only thing worse….

So, all this brought on my paranoia. I actually have this  fear whenever I’m catching a flight in LA, and there are celebs on board too. I always sweat back there in economy thinking about the headline if the tin bird goes down, “WILL ARNETT AND OTHERS CRASH.”  I really, really hate being relegated to “others” status.   But that’s what I would be. Someone who was “also” on board. Dead gen pop. I mean, if Alan Rickman and Glen Fry were relegated to B list celebrities posthumously on the red carpet leading up to the pearly gates, I don’t stand a hope of even getting into the party. Right now I would be standing outside hoping I still have a way with bouncers and winking at St Peter. Or I’d be texting other dead people who are already behind the gates to see if I couldn’t somehow score a VIP bracelet so I don’t have to wait in line. Mortifying.

As with any great fear I’m working on it though. And I’d encourage you to do it with me. We should all resolve to not be “others”.  I’m obviously going to keep writing this blog to achieve my greatness.  And I also have an unsound but brilliant business plan which involves tearing up all the inspirational “Live Today like its the Best day Ever!!” type motivational posters in the world, and replacing them with posters that say, “Live like you might die on the same day as Kim Kardashian”. There’s a challenge.  They’d be very nicely designed and wouldn’t have a sunset or Kim Kardashian on, but I think the stern tone is what we all need if we plan on coming out on top before we go six feet under.

Truth is, there is no real winner here, but we should at least all aim to exit better than when we entered, right?  And try to leave greatness behind, of whatever kind. Just like (in order of their passing) David, Alan and Glenn. Thank you, and rest in peace, gentlemen.

It should be simple. “Sue this is Pete. Pete this is Sue”. But this introduction thing, it is not simple.

Faced with said Pete I don’t know if I’m supposed to shake hands, hug, shake hands and hug, shake, hug and back pat, air kiss once, air kiss twice, triple air kiss with actual facial contact or get real air. Or, if I should just offer my hand, nod and say in a low voice “Pleasure”. Okay I got the last one from ‘Downton Abbey’ so I know I shouldn’t do that one, but still you see my dilemma. When introduced to a stranger in the workplace I have no idea what to actually do. With my limbs. With my body. What trajectory should it be on?  A lean in? And with just the upper body, right? A pelvis should always stay out of a first introduction. It’s like I become a marionette being controlled by a drunk puppeteer reenacting ‘Fight Club’, and somehow there is always proboscis damage and an awkward entanglement with a person I know nothing about but their name.

“Pete. Nice to meet you”. And now I hope I never have to see you again.

So, I’m calling for international standards for Introductions and Greetings. ISIG. Or #ISIG. You can make it trend on my behalf, all good. Or you can post my blog up everywhere. Also very, very good.

My International Standards for Introductions and Greetings will be like the International Safety Standards but I’d argue will be more important  – after all dying of embarrassment during an introduction is always worse that actually dying because you have to see the people again and there are no after funeral snacks.

Of course I’ve looked into this standardizing thing in quite some depth. Actually I just found one website, iso.org. This is a body of people who standardize everything from levels of water purity so we don’t all die of bilharzia, to country abbreviations. Apparently everyone not using ‘.fr’ when referring to France is an equally huge issue. Merde! Everything that is standardized then gets a cool code, like ISO 9000 for example. Once my standards have been passed I’m hoping for ISO 1999, which is my favorite Prince song.

Let me back up a little. Or introduce my argument if you will.

Men have a greeting. The firm handshake. Every other time they meet they repeat this ritual. And as the friendship and camaraderie grows, or as bourbon flows, the handshake becomes a hug of sorts, eventually with loud patting on the back as if they are mutually burping one another in a sort of baby man action otherwise known as the “bro hug”.

Not the same for women. As young girls we aren’t taught to firmly shake hands when we meet someone. I was taught to say, “Nice to meet you”. Or to hug. And so when we step into boardrooms there is confusion because there are no rules. I’ve gotten a handshake out of men. But it never maintains, perhaps because there’s no roadmap to the “bro hug”. And I refuse to hug just because I’m a girl. And honestly, I meet a lot of people I would really rather not hug.

I’m not saying this is your fault good Sirs. I’m saying there are no standards. #IGIS/ISO 1999. Believe me, women being introduced to one another is an even greater disaster. We bungle handshakes and “Downtonesque” greetings. And then there’s always one effusive hugger with one less effusive one, stiff as a surfboard wondering when they will be released (me).

The very act of introducing people to put them at ease with one another is being overridden.

Add cultural affectations to all this. The European kissers, two if you’re Italian (I think) three if you’re Dutch (straight up time consuming and certain to create nose damage if both greeters are not well prepared), Middle Eastern wide air kissers, and then Japanese card exchangers. Can you imagine first day of work at the UN? “Oh sorry Angela Merkel, did we just kiss on the mouth? I was going for an air kiss, my bad.”

Let’s standardize friends! Pick something. I propose we begin with a handshake in boardrooms. Offer your hands. Teach your daughters. And teach your sons to shake their hands. Girls let’s embrace this. And let’s all get into one big hug when the International Standards for Introductions and Greetings or ISO 1999 is passed. Or #ISIG is trending at least. Yes? Pleasure. Mwah. Mwah.