Jerk Ethic – Summer Survival Guide

When you feel moisture form in the folds of your rump, and you notice that you’re getting sleepy while it’s still sunny out, chances are it’s summertime. Either that or you’re at a wicked kegger.

It’s likely that you’re one of those weird people who likes sunshine, warm temperatures, extended daylight, and a natural healthy glow. To which I say, fuck you hippie. This freakishly hot, decidedly smelly time of year is enough to make me fall into a depression so deep, I practically can sign my name Elliott Smith. Seasonal Affective Disorder doesn’t just come after first frost, kids. There are those of us who hate the dog days worse than any other months on the calendar.

So because summer is, hands down, my least favorite season of the year, I’m going to share my tips on how I plan to survive summer in the city. Or, rather, what will keep me from mixing up a little phenobarbital colada and calling it the winter of my life.

Air conditioning

It may seem a bit excessive, but I actually budget for my summer electricity bills all year round. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I would rather skip a meal than go without air conditioning on a day that the mercury hits above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. And while this might label me high-maintenance among certain groups of people, air conditioning can be dated back to Ancient Rome, when certain Romans had aqueduct water circulated through the walls of their houses in order to cool them. Medieval Persia also adopted their own version using cisterns and wind towers that cooled them during the hotter months. If people back in ancient times could create air conditioning, then my incessant whining on only staying inside when the summer sun is high isn’t simply a byproduct of modern times. In the 19th century, advances in chemistry led to further development of my thermal cooling cynosure, and in 1902 Willis Haviland Carrier created the first large-scale electrical air conditioner, thereby convincing me that all good children should be nicknamed Willis.

(I created the air conditioner, what did you do today?)

Lula’s

Eating ice cream is a key point the summer, isn’t it? I mean, if do you really crave hot cake in August? This is why you shouldn’t have children in the summer. Have I mentioned that my birthday is in August? Yeah. Thanks, mom and dad.

I’m not going to go on one of those vegan diatribes about how, when I went vegan, I feared that I would never eat ice cream again. I knew that vegans made some damn delicious soft serve, as one of the first fully vegan meals I ever had was at Blossoming Lotus in Portland, Oregon. There my future roommate Wes Hannah* served me mighty fine chocolate soft serve that could have knocked any dairy-based concoction out of the park. It’s easy to recreate ice cream for some reason. It’s the steak tartar that vegans seem to have more of a problem with.

That said, sometimes I don’t want to throw frozen bananas in my blender, I want someone else to do it, especially when it’s so hot out that it feels like I’m walking around inside of God’s mouth. In New York we have two vegan ice cream parlors: Stogo and Lula’s Sweet Apothecary.

Stogo is great, they have a ton of flavors that are hemp based, coconut based, soy based, and nut based. They also have baked goods and the option to make your own chipwich with two cookies. I like Stogo, their chocolate sorbet is my tongue’s version of a Swedish massage, but for some reason Lula’s is more dear to my heart. Maybe it’s because it’s located a block away from a notoriously amazing tattoo parlor. Maybe it’s because it tries to recreate the ice cream parlors of yore, with sundae glasses and metal straws for shakes. (Not to mention their thoroughly modern, totally biodegradable cups and spoons for to-go orders.) Blythe Boyd and Derek Hackett have been serving up scoops of vegan goodness since October 2008, though they recently remodeled to make the checkered-floored space more accommodating to the throngs that seem to perpetually be on line for a cold one. I do believe that their Death By Chocolate might be the fuel that gets me through this summer unscathed, if slightly larger.

*Wes is up for Vegan Iron Chef. As one lady in the comments section noted, he should be up for Vegan Iron Boyfriend. Boy is easy on the eyes, and he can cook.

Ditch Plains (the town, not the restaurant)

I’m lucky enough to have friends and family who camp out here during the warmer months. On the best of years, I get out to Ditch three or four times, and those weekends are the highlight of my summer. A sleepy surf town where you’re invited to a barbecue even if you didn’t know it, this place is the most peaceful retreat from Manhattan that an unfancy, anti-Hamptonite can find. Bonus points if you bring a board, but even if you’re a sun-shunning goth like myself, you’re bound to get some r&r, and some sand in your shoes.

Traveler’s tip: there are rad bonfires down by the beach at night.

Sweat

Ever since I’ve started running again, I’ve learned to love the feeling of my own juices sliding off of me in sheets. Though that sounds dirty, it’s actually quite healthy and invigorating. Sweating regulates the body’s temperature, mineral content, and it removes toxins. The average person has 2.6 million sweat glands in their skin, so I figure I should put mine to good use. Well, maybe not that good of a use. I refuse to run or exercise outside until September. Unless I’m at Ditch. (See above.)

For the record, if you move to a hot climate, like Marble Bar, Australia, your ability to produce sweat will increase to roughly two to three liters per hour within six weeks. Apparently that’s the most sweat the human body can produce. If you’re not acclimated to hot weather, the most sweat you can make is about one liter per hour. On the treadmill, I feel like I sweat roughly that much per minute. Just ask the poor (soaked) souls on either side of me.

Iced tea

A cup of the iced mint or iced green from Grey Dog is the perfect compliment to a lazy afternoon spent reading or staring at hipster boys doing track stands.

In the United States, where Snapple is sold side-by-side with Coke and Pepsi, iced tea makes up nearly 85% of all tea consumed, with some of the earliest printed recipes dating back to 1870. All I’d really like to know is why there’s a big fucking Z in the center of AriZona Iced Tea. Is it like the trippy ‘Q’ of NyQuil?

Rompers

I’ll start with the negative up front: you have to get naked to pee.

But the romper, aka the infant bodysuit, is ideal if you want something light, breezy, and makes your absence of breasts less of an issue. Although they were created in the early 1900s as a means of keeping kids clothed as they played, rompers had their first surge in popularity in the 1950s when women started wearing them at the beach. Nowadays, they’re sold at stores that have a high ratio of employees who prefer cocaine to food, and, I swear, they’re the best thing to happen to my wardrobe since feetie pajamas. Anytime that I can wear a single article of clothing that doesn’t emphasize my lack of womanly curves, I’m happy. Hooray for rompers, my perspiration-friendly pull-on outfit.

(He got this at American Apparel for $29.)

Baseball

Let’s be honest, I’m really excited when the NFL starts on August 8th, because it means that summer is almost over. In the meantime, I love the boys of the season, as both of my New York teams are doing well.

Because I’m a sucker for trivia, I found a few facts that add to my enjoyment of this fancy stickball game:

The odds of a fan being hit by a baseball during a game are 300,000 to 1, which makes your ex-girlfriend’s excuse for not going with you to the stadium complete bullshit.

Each baseball game has 12,386,344 possible plays, which is why it seems absolutely ridiculous to me that they won’t overturn one so that a pitcher can get the perfect game that undoubtably would have been the highlight of his career.

Babe Ruth put a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep himself cool during games, and would change it for a new one every two innings.

Was I the only person who was mortified for Kendry Morales? Poor dude. For those of you who scoff at sports, Mr. Morales hit a grand slam, ran to home plate, leapt into the air to celebrate with his teammates, and broke his leg upon landing.

Kombucha

Looks like pond scum, tastes like amazing. A bottle of GT’s magic potion is bound to make you feel like you can punch through a brick wall or seduce the skinny jeans off of a barista. And while I don’t think the FDA would get behind my claims that this elixir makes my skin glow and my digestive system work like a well-oiled cuckoo clock, I swear that it’s worth every penny.

Nudity

Granted, I sleep naked all year long, but summer is the time to flaunt your skin suit. Unless you’re a guest at one of the over 270 naturist resorts or clubs in the United States, these are the only months where you get to see this much public nudity. It doesn’t matter if you’re a bikini-rockin’ badass or just a sweaty little troll like myself, stripping down is one of the boons of baking in the sun. (Use SPF! For real. Melanoma killed my grandpa, that shit is no joke.) I’d also like to express my joy in witnessing other people’s nakedness. Sure, not everybody looks like a supermodel, and I see my fair share of oiled men in hot pants on rollerblades in my area, but I love the way that everyone seems to revel in their exposure. Girls who previously covered up are now in off-the-shoulder miu-mius, men who usually are in suits and ties don khaki shorts and tank tops. There are tattoos, tans, and freckles galore. It’s the most sensual of the seasons, and the one that makes me feel the most animalistic…or human. So take it off, with your sunscreen on of course, and go out and enjoy the solstice.

It’s been almost two years since I went vegan. I remember shit-talking all of those skinny hipsters with their vegan tattoos, the ones who would hang out in coffee shops sipping espresso and munching on flax-seed filled dairy-free scones. After months of scoffing at mock meat entrees at restaurants, irritating bumper stickers preaching an anti-meat lifestyle, and soymilk being a staple at every cafe, I decided to leap teeth-first into veganism, originally with the intent of trying it out for a month. My goal was to build up an arsenal of snotty insults that could be backed up by my experience, or at least to have a Morgan Spurlock-esque health crisis, like dramatic weight loss, beriberi, scurvy, or obscure indie rock fandom. That way I could really razor my tongue against those self-righteous vegan jerkfaces. Instead, two years later, I am one of them. Still. Happily. But I won’t say that it’s all a bowl of Seitenbacher cherry dolphins. (That’s a vegan fruit snack, for you omnivores out there. They’re kinda like gummi bears. You should try them.)

I’m not going to allow myself to be guilty of what made me start this experiment in the first place. I won’t preach to you. Unless your head is filled with rocks, you know that what you eat has a direct impact on your health. To me, the key benefit to going vegan was simple. I no longer felt like shit. I wasn’t a big meat eater to begin with, but I consumed a Super Walmart dairy section’s worth of milk products per day. We’re talking a 16 ounce container of fat free cottage cheese in a sitting, at least once a day, on top of skim milk drowning my cereal in the morning, punctuated by Greek yogurt for a snack. The only way I could describe how I felt as I kicked the dairy habit was like my stomach and intestines had been suffering from a stuffy nose that suddenly cleared. Going vegan was like spraying Afrin in the nostrils of my digestive tract. I suddenly felt lighter, less bloated and congested. I ain’t gonna lie, it was no fun at all to begin with. I still crave that tub of cottage cheese quite often, but fortunately there are some tasty alternatives, like cinnamon-bun flavored soy yogurt, or even just raw nuts. Yup, it’s true that your taste buds change when you start cutting out those foods that had their hooks in your tongue.

I’m just going to throw it out there and let y’all know that my skin mysteriously cleared up around the same time,  that my energy level skyrocketed. It could have been my liver wringing out ten years of severe alcohol abuse. Or it could have been the fact that I was consuming a plant-based diet. (Or the fact that I was spending my nights in bed reading while Simon went out to spin records at the bars. Nothing holds a candle to the health benefits of a full eight-hours of shut-eye.)

After I quit drinking, which was about a month before I decided to veganize my diet, my vices were Splenda, non-fat French vanilla flavored non-dairy creamer, and Diet Pepsi. These days I’d list them as dried figs, Medjool dates, kombucha tea, and Red Star nutritional yeast. Blimey! I’ve become one of them! I’d like to say that once I became a card-carrying vegan, I received a package from headquarters that included two pairs of black skinny jeans, five new tattoos, and a septum ring. But even though all of those were things I procured after going vegan, they are unrelated, I think. I learned from doing this that a lifestyle choice isn’t an aesthetic thing, although – as with any so-called subculture – there are those who are attracted to the idea of veganism simply because of the fact that it’s different. But poseurs are everywhere, and since opening my mouth and consequently my mind, I’ve found that vegans come in all shapes and sizes, from the marathon running dad, to the preteen animal activist. Yes, it’s true, I’ve hung out with vegans who were not all twenty-something, Caucasian, educated Band of Horses fans. And although Portland is a town that seems to be run by animal-eschewing foodies, New York is a close second-best.

For anyone who is already vegan and who is thinking of opening a business, I give you my blessing. Although I couldn’t find any specific statistics, I will say that the main companies and restaurants I’ve relied upon to keep my stomach full of vegan vittles have not closed in the past two years. The restaurants out here that cater to this particular clientele seem to have a passionate following, and I’m hopeful that time and research will prove that even though they are providing provisions for a very particular niche, you can be successful if you craft a business around certain ideals. Although the hypocritical cynic in me would probably scoff  at a steak house, or the converse of the places and platters that I love (the opposite of salad must be milk-chocolate smothered bacon or something on the menu at Churrascaria Plataforma,) I will admit that I’m surprised that vegan shops and markets seem to thrive, even in a city so notorious for destroying small businesses like a smoke-belching, ever-hungry bankruptcy dragon. 

If you’re thinking of trying out a plant-based diet, even if it’s only for a month, here are some resources and advice.

Advice:

• You will fart at first. A lot. Like, to an alarming degree. Just be prepared. Don’t go to any silent films, don’t sit on the bus next to cute strangers, and maybe practice in the back of yoga class for a while. 
• If you’re lucky enough to have health insurance, or a friend who’s in med school, check in with them before you start. The last thing you want is to be mildly anemic before you start fucking with your diet. In spite of the negative press, veganism isn’t necessarily tied to iron deficiencies. (Believe it or not, dried beans and dried fruits are two of the best sources of iron you can chomp on, while that whole spinach schpeel is a myth.) 
• Drink a fuckload of water. That is an actual unit of measurement, and I urge you to drink as close to a fuckload as you can a day. 
• Don’t be an asshole. Your friends might have problems with your new diet, you might have to deal with a lot of lip service, but this doesn’t mean that you should become some sort of preachy zealot. Remember to take the high road. You’re trying this out for whatever reasons – you want to improve your health, you needed to do something for Lent, some cute girl in your class was reading The China Study – so simply stick by them. People will chill out if you just stay consistent and don’t argue. Of course, this comes from a woman whose boyfriend passive-aggressively watches Man vs. Food during dinner and makes orgasm sounds while doing so.

Resources

On-linear: 
VegWeb is the go-to spot for recipes, discussions, and articles on vegetarianism and veganism. It’s a good place to start, and the comments below the recipes are really useful, especially if you happen to be inept when it comes to directions like yours truly.

Fat Free Vegan Kitchen (and its predecessor Fat Free Vegan Recipes.) Don’t be fooled! When Susan says "fat free" she just means without the artery-clogging trans fat and high-fructose corn syrup of processed foods. There’s plenty of olive oil, avocado, and nut-based goodness in here to keep your system running, and the veganization of some of her favorite Southern recipes from a childhood in Louisiana certainly wouldn’t be considered "lite" fare. (Think creamy Creole eggplant casserole and fat-free donuts.) But this blog is a godsend for an incapable cook such as myself who likes to keep things at least somewhat healthy. After all, I live with a dude who views the five main food groups as apple turnovers, candy, bacon, pizza, and Goldfish crackers.

Girlie Girl Army and its founder Chloe Jo Davis will appeal to even your most high-maintenance, label-coveting cousin. The site includes everything from information on sample sales to adoptable pets. It’s activism with allure, like Vogue magazine for vegans, only with a sense of humor and a lot of edge. Bonus points: the Army sends out a weekly newsletter, so you get tips and treats in your Inbox without having to do anything. Awesome for those of us who like feeling better about ourselves without lifting a finger.

Food Fight Grocery. Okay, confession. When I lived in Portland, going to this grocery store was the heterosexual-male equivalent of walking into a strip-club. I knew I was going to drop a lot of money, but it would be worth it for what was about to invade my pupils like one-thousand sparkly rainbows. And I’m not just talking about the food. Sure, their actual aisles and online store are filled with a plethora of snacks, staples, and sweets, but the boys who keep the shop running…well, let’s just say they’re my centerfolds. Smoking-hot vegan boys with tattoos getting shit done in a small business? Swoon.

Locavore

New Yorkers:

Gobo restaurant is my favorite mid-level veggie place where I can take omnivore friends and have them be confused at the menu, but pleased with the chow. (Actual dialog: "What’s Satan?" "That’s seitan. It’s good. Eat it.") It’s got a cute set-up, though the sound level can get a bit ridiculous. I recommend their juices, and the spinach wonton soup. For old-school New York veg-heads out there, Gobo is the cousin of the late Zen Palate.

Everyone I know swears by Candle 79 and Candle Cafe. We’re talking serious foodies telling me that I should take a Bic lighter to my buttcheeks and make my way there right now. The two or three times we’ve made reservations something has come up, which means that the meal I will eventually eat there is destined to irrevocably change my life or give me superpowers. The restaurant is fancy, while the cafe is slightly scaled down for more casual meals. With offerings that include a daily special of hand-cut pasta, I am an idiot to have not gone yet.

Other places that have been lauded that I haven’t tried include Stogo and Babycakes. I confess that this is because I’m not a huge dessert fiend.

Stogo is a non-dairy ice cream parlor. Read that again and let your brain get acclimated to it. Three flavors that made my eyeballs salivate include soy based Mexican Spiced Chocolate, coconut-milk based pina colada, and hemp based Maple Walnut. I’ll post a first-person review of this joint once it stops fucking snowing and I can actually walk beyond a two-block radius without drowning in grey sludge.

Babycakes is famous for their vegan cupcakes, and even my passionately burger-loving friend who views vegan fare as "non-food" is known to make special trips to this shop during her time of the month. They have flavors that include red velvet and carrot, along with other baked goods, like cinnamon buns. Non-New Yorkers take note, they ship.

I used to love teany cafe, the vegan tea house and nosh nook founded by my boyfriend’s doppelgänger, Moby. Turns out the place got gutted in an electrical fire last June, no word yet on when it’s reopening. I’m pretty sure they’re still shipping their selections of 98 different tea varieties, so it’s worth checking out their website. Hopefully it will reopen soon.

In Norman, Oklahoma, the Earth Cafe and Grocery, Gray Owl Coffee, Sweet Basil, and Misal restaurant were all great for vegan fuel, which you may find surprising in a state that ranks fifth in the nation for cattle production.

In Portland, Oregon, where I went vegan, I would say that the entire town was helpful in maintaining a vegan diet. The Blossoming Lotus Cafe and the Bye & Bye bar were probably my two favorite vegan hangouts, though. If you’re passing through Puddletown, check them out, and I mean actually check them out, as the staff at both places is very easy on the eyes.

• Cheat sheet:
• There are articles online that are much better at explaining how to go vegan than this one. Look ‘em up. Read Skinny Bitch if you’re in the mood for a quick read that explains why this lifestyle change works for some people. If you’re a brainiac, tackle that aforementioned book, The China Study. Actually, fuck it, everyone should read at least a little bit of both. Form your own opinion.
• Vegans are not all animal rights activists who throw red paint on your leather boots.
• Sometimes veganism can be a sign or a trigger for an eating disorder. If you’re prone to that sort of thing, or you know a new vegan who has struggled with her body image in the past, just keep that in mind. It’s worth noting.
• Vegans are fucking hot. Seriously. Hottest fucking guys in the world. I believe I have touched on this point several times during this post, but I cannot touch on it enough. Heh.

Final Thoughts:
I can’t say that I’m always spot-on when it comes to my veganism. It’s progress, not plant-based perfection. I’m still on the fence when it comes to my stance on honey, and I get side-swiped by an errant sushi dinner or seduced by the soft swirls of soft-serve froyo, but I consider veganism to be one of the better health choices I’ve made. As with everything, I try to remember that being rigid and obtuse about any choice can be off-putting. It’s better to have an open mind and enough self-knowledge to explain yourself in an argument without being defensive. Of course, I’m standing on this soap box right now, so the view’s a little better for me.

In case you’re interested, face plant was the first blog I ever wrote, documenting my exploration of veganism which consequently, like blogging, became a way of life.

Share your tasty thoughts and edible experiences with me if you’d like. You can always write me at AinsleyDrew at the gmail one. I love getting email, I read it over lunch.

As a sober vegan with a history of an eating disorder, the likelihood of me having a career as a restaurant critic is on par with Britney Spears attaining a degree in neuropsychiatry or wearing actual pants.

One good thing about being the caretaker for someone suffering from cancer, if you’re an avid reader, is the amount of time you have on your hands. The sheer volume of hours spent sitting is staggering, you find your rump melding with a plastic horizon in waiting rooms, exam rooms, chemotherapy treatment rooms, and nearly any other room you can think of where white lab coats are de rigueur. And although many of these fine facilities offer reading material, most of it is more of the “Living With Cancer!” or “What Wig Is Right For You?” variety. Though I totally was a swooning fan of Scott Hamilton’s skating style and Olympic back-flips in the 80s, I really don’t want to slog through an article dedicated to his testicles and survival. So I’ve finally started reading all of those books that I’d sworn I would once I had the time, one of which is former New York Times’ food critic Ruth Reichl‘s Garlic and Sapphires.

My mother totes her James Patterson tomes to and fro, and, in no way do I mean this as anything but an insult to the author, she finds staring into space with an IV in her arm to be much more entertaining. As for Ms. Reichl’s writing, well, the chemo center could go on fire, I’d probably still have my nose in it.

I’ve loved her work with Gourmet, a publication that’s often way too pretentious for my taste (I can’t afford a loaf of Italian bread, I can’t exactly identify with a writer traipsing through Venice tongue first.) I’m also a huge fan of fellow female New Yorkers who tell it like it is, without compromising their integrity. Somewhere around the point when I got to her essay on trying to find a dim sum dining hall, it dawned on me that I could never, ever, in a million years become a restaurant critic. Even if I were not a shut-in with an MSG allergy. Who doesn’t eat any animal products. Or much of anything, really.

But perhaps you’re a gorgonzola gormandizing guru or a pizza polishing professional, one with an acid pen, an astute tongue, and a ton of antacids. Could becoming a food writer be in your gullet’s future?

May I remind you that print is dead?

Most freelance restaurant critics average around $1.00 per word, if they’re good. (Granted, I’m getting this research from the ever-reliable Internet, where, in a single click, you can read that oysters will kill you and oysters will make you be fruitful and multiply.) If you’re hired by a publication, you can expect to rake in somewhere around 40K a year. Again, I remind you, print is dead. More dead than whatever was in that gyro that you ate for lunch.

Being a critic isn’t as easy as consuming and concluding, there are actual parameters that separate the Yelp comments from the masterfully masticated missives.

For one, you should always bring people with you, so that you can taste several different dishes in order to get a full feel for the meals served at the establishment. Take notes on everything from the carpeting to the server’s hidden tattoos. It’s best to do this after you leave, although some brazen brunch buzz mongers write during the meal. If you’re writing for a publication that’s well-respected, or just for one whose reviews are consulted by people who can actually afford to go out to eat regularly, you may want to keep a low-profile. No celebrity events. Few charity fundraisers. Possibly, like Reichl, you may want to don a disguise. Try not to have sex with Alex Rodriguez, Angelina Jolie, or anybody named John or Kate. For me, a girl whose name sounds like a bodily function, who has more tattoos than she has clean articles of clothing, with few friends and far too many food restrictions, well, my reviews would sound like…crickets. Maybe with some distant sobbing.

It’s also beneficial for food critics to know how to cook. That way they can tell what went wrong when they taste something that’s off. Also, it can make you seem like much less of an asshole, or perhaps simply a more astute asshole, if you’re able to comprehend the amount of work that goes into planning a menu and making a meal. Language skills, especially the so-called romance languages, can be useful for understanding certain items or techniques listed on a menu. It also makes asking questions a hell of a lot easier if you’re eating in a joint that’s run by people who are making cuisine native to their country. Or, if you’re having a pastrami on rye, just ask, “Hey! How ya doin’?”

As I might have mentioned, print is dying. So what’s a fledgling critic to do? Write blogs, start podcasts, judge reality shows, become a Food Network star, read, absorb, write, eat. Epicurious and Chowhound are good resources, as is the aforementioned Yelp, if you’d like to dish your dirt on local places, and read up on what the masses are saying about their culinary (mis)adventures. Mouthfuls, UrbanSpoon, and eGullet are worthy of a peek, at least to figure out where you should take your team of tractable tasters next. If you’re serious about breaking your jaw on food criticism, have a portfolio of at least forty pieces that you can shop around. Write as often as you eat. Pitch articles. Make contacts. Email critics you respect. JJ Goode‘s article in last month’s Gourmet, for me, was one of the best personal narrative pieces I have ever encountered. The man is outstanding, and received a gushy fan-mail from yours truly.

Tracy MacLeod from The Independent describes the perks of being a food critic expertly: “The whole cloak-and-dagger side is immensely alluring, like being an MI5 agent with an expense account. It panders to some of our basest instincts – gluttony, cruelty, and the desire to eat and drink free things.” Problem it isn’t always free. Starting out, critics often have to pay for their own meals, especially if they’re freelance. Of course these receipts can be looked at as a 100% tax deductible expense, but it’s a lot less glamorous than having a black card in the company’s name, which is a fairytale situation that happens a lot less frequently than you’d think.

Stacee Sledge of the Bellingham Herald pays for her own meals, and it isn’t ’cause the Herald is cheap, it’s because they need to keep editorial pieces at arm’s length, in order to protect themselves against advertising revenue loss. Sledge highlights one of the difficulties that comes with taking note of where you nosh. “Critiquing restaurants for a living means you find yourself critiquing them even when you’re off the clock. And you sometimes need a thick skin to tell the truth, when you know your words might hurt a struggling business that the owner has sunk his or her life savings into.”

If that isn’t warning enough as to why food criticism is a lot more dangerous than an errant chicken bone, I don’t know what is. But don’t look at me. Chances are I didn’t eat the food.

Here’s some more (…wait for it…) food for thought –

For further illumination on self-imposed, seemingly deranged food restrictions, check out what happened when British restaurant critic Jay Rayner went vegan for a week. The results are fucking hilarious.

Other than becoming a restaurant critic, here are 10 Jobs That Have You Sample Food.

Jason Kottke’s discovery of what is perhaps the first restaurant review to run in The New York Times.

A pretty incredible history of restaurant criticism, by John Curtas.

I smear mustard on all email. Drop me a line: AinsleyDrew at the gmail one. And than you for everyone who donates, it keeps my belly full.

Hire us. Our words rise like dough, and make you serious bread.

Yesterday I was reading a cookbook during my mother’s first session of chemo. In retrospect it might have been a bit selfish and dense of me to be reading about crostini del mare and pasta with anchovy sauce in spitting distance from people hooked up to IVs, whose hobbies would be vomiting, dry heaving, and diarrhea, if it weren’t for the anti-nausea meds dripping into their veins. My mom raised me reading cookbooks, so I hoped that the glossy photographs of appetizers, entrees, and desserts would distract her from the blood, tubes, bags, and bored stares of fellow patients.

Even though I was raised with a voracious appetite for recipe tomes, I can’t say that I have any talent behind the burners. As an attempting-vegan with a vicious impatient streak and difficulty with the maths, I have more luck following driving directions across the country than the instructions on the back of a spaghetti box.

Publishing a cookbook requires more than the basic level of originality to grab an agent’s attention. Yes, this means you need to do something more than slather your naked body in pudding outside of the offices of Scribner, and don’t even think of sending Alton Brown another bouquet of flowers. I’ve tried, he’s allergic, it doesn’t work out well for anyone involved.

Out of the 1,500 cookbooks that are published every year, how many do you remember? Although the Food Network has helped immeasurably when it comes to increasing the popularity of cuisine-related programming, materials, and books, not everyone can become a celebrity chef. Like I said, I can’t cook. I can write, but I’m too picky to become a food critic:

Um, this restaurant seems to like the color blue a lot. I don’t eat chicken and veal is really gross, but the mushrooms underneath the halibut were good. The garnish tasted like shoes. I’m glad this meal was comped by my editor.

I’m too spastic to get in front of a camera without the originally intended programming winding up on either Comedy Central or some sort of emergency fire rescue show on A&E. But I enjoy writing and researching, so maybe the idea isn’t completely off-kilter. After all, you need a niche in order to secure your place in kitchen-based glory. Guy Fiere markets to the clientele of TGIFridays and late-nineties rockabilly dads who like wings. Rachel Ray is the patron saint of EVOO annoyance to MILFs and Oprah-lovers everywhere. Mario Batali is the more profound, prolific, portly human version of this is why you’re fat. Perhaps I can write for hypoglycemic girls who avoid dairy, deep fryers, fennel, and fast food…with a food allergy to boot.

Nearly all renowned celebrity cookbook authors don’t begin writing as a result of love for the written word. For some, like Anthony Bourdain, being a renegade chef in New York City helped them to shape their career as writers; Bourdain is now known not only for his cuisine hijinks but for hard-boiled fiction, magazine articles, and a horrendously narrated show on the Travel Channel. For others, like Bobby Flay, it was a checkered past combined with a passion for a particular type of cooking, leading to a lauded restaurant that made the ink flow. (Flay is rumored to have dropped out of high-school and worked at both a pizzeria and Baskin Robbins.) My personal favorite, and the cornerstone for my current obsession, is Ina Garten, aka The Barefoot Contessa. The woman can write about Corn Flakes on the back of a paper napkin and I’d pay $50 to read it. Hell, if she only published for Amazon’s Kindle I’d buy one of the hideous devices, and if you know me, you know how I feel about the Kindle.

Part of my obsession with Ina stems from the fact that she’s a Long Islander by choice, originally opting to purchase a specialty goods and gourmet shop near Montauk. Other contributing factors to my fascination include her vocal and exuberant adoration of her husband Jeffrey, and her penchant for intuitively organized shows, recipes, and books. She’s also a damn good writer with a story that doesn’t start with food. She used to work for the State Department.

Ina’s ability to wax poetic about floral arrangements, France, and – most importantly – fucking up in the kitchen, is what makes me read and reread her books. Although I can’t figure out the proper way to roast a piece of tofu, Ms. Garten makes me wish I were able to do more than purchase a can of soup and heat it over medium. (Once someone helps me to pop the top.) If you’ve seen her show on the Food Network, you know that her voice, humor, and personality are all sublime. It’s no wonder she can craft domestic goddessery out of everyday items, her television show alone would be the perfect accompaniment to any meal, even the kind you heat on HIGH for five minutes.

As of late, my interest in pots, pans, and procuring produce has come from a different, more desperate location in my body, somewhere slightly above my stomach. My mother, a long-time dieter and skinny-mini, weighing in at a whopping 83 pounds — three of which she gained since the diagnosis — has had to loosen her grip on fat-free food and portion control. She’s had to super-size and snack instead of skipping meals. As a wannabe vegan with a history of eating disorders, among other mental problems, I feel bad for my mom. I know that it must be a struggle to eat three bowls of ice cream a day when really all she “wants” is a salad with a side of tennis. She’s always been active, and the cancer has slowed her down. Now it’s insisting that she fatten herself up, just as the nausea and midsection distention rob her of the appetite she’s been fighting for years. I want to do something. I want to write a recipe for anorexics, cancer patients, vegans, crazy people. I want to study nutrition and figure out what the hell I can feed my maternal unit to make her healthy enough to withstand eight weeks of chemo. I want to cure cancer with a cookbook. Okay, okay, I want to cure cancer and watch Good Eats.

So you want to become a cookbook author? Good luck. Some of the best resources I could find are a website with irritating blinking text, an old article about compiling family recipes, and a semi-convoluted link to some cookbook-writing software. I also found the Institute of Culinary Education’s list of $75 cookbook writing courses, which are probably pretty useful to the fledgling tongue-to-pen sustenance scribe.

And, in case you missed it, here’s Simon’s recipe for Brussels sprouts that I bogarted. Though you’ll have gas for days, trust me, it’s worth it, especially if you hate anything that even remotely resembles cabbage:

From Like It – September 30^th, 2008

The original version of this includes Parmesan cheese and pine nuts, the former we avoided because it comes from cow, and the later we skipped over ‘cause the only ones in the house, alas, did not belong to me. But feel free to add a bit of both or either to your go.

You’ll need: a bag of Brussels sprouts, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, a baking sheet, spatula, oven, large knife.  Be careful.

First, preheat the oven to 450.

Rinse and cut the Brussels sprouts into halves or quarters, depending on how much gas you want to have. (Kidding. You are going to be flatulent regardless. Deal with it.)

Mix the cut up sprouts with 2/3 cup of good olive oil and a 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar. Also, a teaspoon of salt.

[Confession: we didn’t measure. Two splashes from a medium sized bottle of oil, three splashes of balsamic, a hefty shake or two of salt. Baking is a science, cooking is an experiment.]

Put the greased, grapey sprouts on a baking sheet, spread ‘em out evenly, pop the whole thing in the oven for twenty (20) minutes. Mix them once while cooking with a spatula. They’re done either after twenty minutes or when they’re browned.

Take them out, eat them, vacate any unventilated spaces.

But, really, once your done playing the butt-trumpet, you’ll be back for seconds.

Drop me a line: AinsleyDrew at gmail dot com

Thanks to everyone who donates, you keep us fed.

Hire us. Though we can’t cure cancer or gas, we can pen mean web copy.

The other day, while on line for a burrito*, I overheard a snippet of conversation between two young, comely ladies, one in a polka-dotted halter top, the other wearing red Chuck Taylors:

Polka Dots: Yeah, man, I don’t know what to do. I mean, I could work there forever and, like save money and shit, then maybe go to back to school or something.

Chucks: Word. I totally think I’ve gotta go to grad school. I mean, what else am I going to do, right?

Polka Dots: Yeah. Do you think they can make the chimichangas vegan?

Nearly every one of my friends, after being released from school with a degree and finding the world a cruel, inhospitable place, came to the conclusion that there was only one solution. In an economy that seems to be held together by chewing gum and wet newspaper, with a housing market that is only reminiscent of a GHB-fueled game of Monopoly, my friends and, hell, even myself at one point, have decided that there actually is hope.

Hope is ivory pillared and smells of stale pulp and ink. It is elite and competitive and is accompanied by a giant chip to put on one shoulder and an equal pile of debt to put on the other. This idyllic, leaking life-raft is referred to by most as…graduate school.

At first it seemed that the reasons for going back to school were simply for my friends to better themselves, to further their careers, to gain that competitive edge by acquiring yet another piece of paper. But soon, within a few years’ time, I found that for both myself and others the idea of continuing education existed to delay the inevitable. Let’s face it, we’re not kids anymore. This generation of mine is known for having a few, shall we say, minor issues with growing up. We’re stuck. The quarter-life crisis has become a permanent reality. And graduate school is the shiny, new pacifier quelling the tantrum against responsibility.

Now, as a freelancer, with no “steady” job and a cynic’s amount of hope for my future success, I wonder if I, too, shouldn’t throw my hat back in the ring. Sure, I’ve applied, an undisclosed number of times, and have been accepted, also an undisclosed number of times, but the idea of even more debt, especially on a teacher’s salary, convinces me that a life of waiting tables, where I don’t owe a cent to monolithic organizations, is at least an existence free of a certain amount of strife. I mean, take the base definition of life in this day and age, combine it with the daily news and even a modicum of expectation, and you wind up with the bottom line: you will be poor.

I don’t even know who you are, and yet I can say it, and be right.

At least I know I am poor, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Why make it an interminable set of circumstances?

I’ve heard of people applying to grad school because they didn’t know what they wanted to do, similar to the ladies dining in that fine Mexican establishment. This, to me, seems like a very expensive period of self-discovery. I mean, if you want to be a doctor, you have to go to med school, fine. But if you want to work in an office and climb your way up the corporate ladder, or if you’re just not sure what professional direction to take, I’m not really sure how valuable another degree is. Again, this is coming from someone who is trapped in the empty freelance well. Any ropes that are dropped are appreciated, but it’s still up to me to climb my way out.

It’s a blessing to know what you want to do, to feel passionate about something and dedicate your life to it, even if it’s terrifying and you don’t know when — or if — the next paycheck will come. Eventually I’d love to get a degree so that I can scope hot college ass…I mean, so that I can assist in furthering the future of the craft. I would love to be an editor, or work with a publication, and it’s true that a graduate degree could potentially augment my somewhat spastic resume. (“You worked as a fish monger in New York. Why is this on your CV?”)

I’m not sure if I found myself jealous of those two betties waiting for burritos ‘cause I wish for stability, or because it’s a semi-reflexive response. If I had a MFA I could, in theory, teach, and live a life filled with meetings and lectures, all of my time parceled out into well-organized chunks, a meager paycheck arriving regularly. Hey, at least a teacher’s salary is a salary.

But I wonder as well if it isn’t just another safety net for those of us in the almost-thirty set. To “know” what’s going to happen, well, that’s the sort of security that allows us to be irresponsible for that much longer. (This gross generalization excludes those individuals who are in school because their desired careers require it.) It’s normal to not know yourself and to flounder, at least that’s what my dad keeps telling me. Just like with walking, however, there’s only one way to learn, and that’s to fall.

Again, I have no answers here, I can’t even afford to apply to graduate school at this point, even if it were necessary.

I know what I want to do, and that is to write for money. I don’t need to go to school to figure that part out. I guess my bottom line is that school won’t tell you what to do, kids. You’re the authority on that now.

* I was informed that my very favorite burrito joint up here in North Portland is not vegan. I have two options: to go to the other, more expensive, not-as-good burrito joint a block away, or to pretend that I don’t know it’s not vegan. Or to just stop being vegan. I guess that’s three options.

AinsleyDrew at gmail

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Thank you to everyone who donates. It keeps me fed, which keeps the fingers moving. Without you there would have been no burrito.