There’s a interesting article in the LAT about why everyone hates Alice Waters. I exaggerate a bit, but there does seem to be substantial and increasing animosity to Ms. Waters.
The Caitlin Flanagan article in the Atlantic can be found here.
My own feelings about Ms. Waters and her movement are…complex, and I haven’t sorted all the way through them yet. But I do want to pull this quote for comment:
…she takes a dim view of In-N-Out, though it touts fresh ingredients and hand-cut French fries. “It’s probably better than any other chain,” she said, “but it’s not real or authentic. I’d rather eat from a street vendor in Sicily.”
- What does she mean by “real or authentic” in this case? What is the thing that she feels In-N-Out is trying, and failing, to replicate?
- My response to the “authentic” complaint is to quote Calvin Trillin in American Fried
:
When a reviewer starts explaining how the preparation of a quiche Lorraine at the restaurant he has visited differs from the way one prepares a true quiche Lorraine, I always want to interrupt. “But did you like it?” I want to shout. “Did it make you happy? Did you clean your plate?” Any chance that I might someday acquire a serious interest in how closely what I ate resembled the true article disappeared one day at a block party near our house while I was eating some homemade gazpacho and talking about how it differed from the authentic gazpacho one got in Seville. The more I talked about the difference, the faster I wolfed down the gazpacho—until I realized that one way what I was eating differed from authentic gazpacho was that it tasted better.
Lawrence suggested that I might want to link to this Reason piece on the cocktail crackdown.
The makers of Tito’s Handmade Vodka have taken a plea in their pollution case.