You Know What They Say About Four-Letter F-Words...

A loving God would not allow this. We are (apparently; I found out from the site) in the year of the pig. The Southern Foodways Alliance is holding its annual symposium in Oxford, MS. With a focus on the pig. Because it's the year of the pig, get it? It's October 25-28, with a Delta Divertissment (pre-symposium bus ride and bonuses) that includes a whole-pig demo. And I've asked off for the prior weekend because I have a wedding in the family.

Of course it isn't financially feasible, and the Divertissement is really small, so it's probably sold out, and Honey would not be pleased to see me go away for the long weekend, what with the conflicting hours and all. And I could show up early at work one Pig Day (they happen every couple of weeks or so) and piss off chef with a thousand questions and petulant demands for cut-by-cut commentary. But Alice Waters will be there (More on the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook later). And Anne Quatrano. And Shirley Corriher. And Eddie Hernandez. And other names and profiles that make me stomp my foot like a child and declare, at two in the morning in a full apartment building, "It's not fair!"

Teaser: The Chez Panisse Café Cookbook is good. Real good. Come back in 24 hours to find out how good. Also, I have milk in my fridge. Raw milk. How ever shall I use it?

Resources:
1. Southern Foodways Alliance.
2. Blindly trust me, and buy it before I tell you how good it is.

Ugh.


I ache right now; I'm too tired to move enough to change out of my nasty clothes, much less bathe. I haven't even finished a beer in the hour since I've been home. And tomorrow, I work from three to ten one more time, before a relaxed and productive Monday of...laundry. I'm working six long, high-pressure days--a completely different set menu daily plus a limited menu for the bar--to celebrate the restaurant's fifth anniversary. Last night I watched my chef literally press his nose against a piece of pork belly that hadn't cured properly before abruptly straightening up with this terrible grimace. Somehow, this combination drives home the magnitude of the "glamorous restaurant" myth.


And of course there was the disparity between me and the rest of the world as I drove home through Buckhead and Virginia Highlands. I watched happy, enthusiastic people get down with their music and convertibles, groups of friends meeting on the sidewalk, bikers outside Belly General, while sweating in my chef's jacket, unable to do more than inch through traffic, pray that I'd make it to Buddy's before midnight, and more than a little resentful that anyone else wasn't in the kind of funk I am.


I'm hoping that this beer, radio paradise, and the vegetable chapter in The Chez Pannise Café Cookbook will restore a positive attitude. And that failing all else, sleep and vegetables will set me right by morning.

Correction


This article in the AJC quotes a Coca-Cola spokeswoman who tells us that caffeine is largely used as a flavoring.


What does the Bible tell us about caffeine? Page 434 informs us that "[c]affeine is the most widely consumed behavior-modifying chemical in the world. It is an alkaloid ." No mention is made of caffeine as a flavoring. Page 258 answers the alkaloid flavor question: "Alkaloids are bitter-tasting toxins that appeared in plants about the time that mammals evolved and seem especially effective at deterring our branch of the animal family by both taste and aftereffects. Almost all known alkaloids are poisonous at high doses, and most alter animal metabolism at lower doses: hence the attractions of caffeine and nicotine."


Long quotes aside, anyone who has consumed crystalline caffeine or Water Joe knows that caffeine is bitter. The Coca-Cola spokeswoman says that this bitterness is detectable and a selling point in sodas like Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew. But has anyone who's ever drunk these beverages been able to detect the soupçon of caffeine under the calories, acids (for "bite") and various other flavorings? I doubt it.


Coke and other beverage manufacturers put caffeine in drinks because it kicks up people's metabolisms, and there's nothing wrong with that; it's why most people start their days with a cup of coffee or tea. They take it out when their drinkers, having developed an addiction, seek to cut back or quit caffeine entirely. And while some people seek out the bitter flavors in coffee and tea--which have more caffeine, the major source of that bitterness--it's unlikely that young children and habitual soda drinkers are looking for bitterness. In fact, sodas are often seen as more drinkable forms of caffeine.


So let's be honest now Coca-Cola. As one caffeine-freak to another, there's nothing wrong with wanting a buzz, or selling it to someone else.