Sunday, April 14, 2002


lemme tell ya, i'm getting too cranky for my own good. the day you lose your sense of humor, it's all over. . .you've got to be able to make fun of yourself. . .

so on this note, i was sitting around on this unseasonably warm afternoon -- we've gone from having september all winter, to january all spring, to june warmth instead of april showers -- eating a cold breast of duck and pondering the august new york times.

nothing like aimlessly enjoying a sunny sunday morning, (while the cat, who believes anything that once had feathers belongs in his little japanese bowl, climbed up on the couch behind me and leapt straight on my plate, knocking it from my hands and flat into my lap, in an attempt to create a distraction whereby he could make off with said duck by dragging it under any convenient piece of furniture. unfortunately for him, by the time he made his move, all that was left was the skin. . .which with his daring leap he had catapulted all over me!) wiping the duck grease off your face. . .

the problem with the new york times -- besides amanda hesser's so-called food journalism [rant here] -- is that it is always the very last to know. (ok, well, at least amanda hesser admits this week she can't really cook, doesn't really have any dishes to call her own, and grabs ingredients only so she can write an article on deadline about their novelty. which only further begs the question of why the times is printing her self-involved musings. . wait! is a blogger making this criticism? uh-oh. . . let's move on. . .)

for example, today it highlighted valerie's hair salon on the lower-east side as the epitome of secret chic, when in fact it was hip before 2001. (as a former client of valerie's, i know this for a fact.) i moved on with my stylist shiloh to an even cooler l.e.s. salon quite some time ago. shiloh, formerly of san francisco's architects & heroes (flash required), alone is responsible for the ultra-blonde barbie you all know today. i love this salon, even tho' they all quite mockingly call me donatella. . .hey, i'm a big girl, i can take it!

a more relevant example also in today's style pulse section, where the clueless times writer notes that scharffen-berger mini-bars, "with their european labels," are all the rage in fashionable handbags. (why isn't this article online yet???)

european labels? that scharffen-berger is made in the bay area seems to have escaped the attention of the times. but we true chocolatistas merely raise our eyebrows at such clumsiness. . .while keeping el rey bucare carenero superior 58.5%, courtesy of mr. right, in our own longchamp from last year. . . .

this, dear readers, is the humor: an ability to go from preachy, self-righteous liberal yesterday to clownish snobbery today, without a single care that bits of duck are probably still hanging from one's ears. . .

posted by fortune | 10:23 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments