Coincidentally, I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which is so ghastly at the start that you begin to think the only way out is (shudder) vegetarianism. And then Peter comes back and plops down this Protein of the Future, these “Series Foods for Leisure Time,” reasonably priced at only 60 euro cents and attractively packaged. See that Remy Martin bottle and globe pictured on the beef pack? That means they’re classy and cosmopolitan!

Trouble is, they taste like shit.

They also look a little like shit–you can see one just poking its meat-free edge out of the chicken pack.

And they don’t save you from the gross industrial agriculture trap, because they’re made out of soy beans, sugar, salt, MSG, and “smaak versterkers,” which I think means flavor enhancers. Which really just means “people.”

But all my doubts are washed away when I read the fine print assuring me, “This product is especially developed by a team of food specialists.” OK, then. If cows can adapt to thrive on corn, then I can maybe adapt to live on this stuff. But then who’ll eat the cows? The food specialists? It’s all so confusing.

Uh-oh. I ate another one, and I didn’t wince nearly as much. Mmm, peeeeeople.

Yesterday, Tal reminded me about Chocolate & Zucchini, which is probably the ur–food blog, at least in the subcategory of food blogs operated by winsome, sincere lasses, as opposed to those narrated by big, burly lawyer-men.

Now, I haven’t read it much, but I kinda hate C&Z. Every time I click over to it, Mlle Clotilde is doing something delightfully meticulous and sincere and winsome, and then taking a beautiful photo of it. And she has this slightly artificial way of writing that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s just that she never says fuck?

The other thing that dismays me about C&Z is its name: When I see the words chocolate and zucchini together, all I ever think of is zucchini-chocolate cake. Yes, it’s a real thing. And no, it’s not disgusting. It is a proud relic of hippie ’70s thrift, a byproduct of late summer, when the fat zucchini vines, seemingly the only thing that flourished in New Mexico gardens, would be bursting with these monstrous squash, at least as big as your forearm. Whatever you couldn’t palm off on your neighbor–well, presto, into a cake it goes. The cake is pretty moist, and kinda vegetable-y. And don’t worry—all the chocolate frosting cancels out any health benefits from the zucch.

But Mlle Clotilde is French, so to her, chocolate and zucchini represent twin poles of food experience, or something abstract like that, and then some commenter has the gall to write:

Of course, chocolate and zucchini, when you come to think of it, really do not fit together for any civilized recipe – could that be called a culinary faux pas?”

“Civilized.” Harrumph. Just because I grew up in a place where other kids thought we might not have running water.

Anyway, as an antidote to all this ridiculous preciousness (see also C&Z’s “About” page, which is ardent and lovely, but provokes a terrible snarl in me on a bad day) I direct you to a hilarious thread on eGullet about vile-looking food. I didn’t realize people were so compelled to photograph their dinners that they even took pics of the ones that look like crap on a plate. Anyway, all the failed food styling is very encouraging to see, and a little dose of reality that a lot of food bloggers don’t seem to dwell in.

NOTE: Per the comments of a helpful reader, Alex Witchel is in fact a she. I guessed, and I guessed wrong. Please adjust pronouns as necessary below, and change ‘Unk’ to ‘Auntie.’

This week’s New York Times Dining section brought yet another who-the-hell-are-you? essay from this Witchel person.

I can only respond with contempt. The piece is about a charming hostess he knows, the type who “never blink[s] when the schnauzer escapes captivity to hump the ambassador’s wife’s leg.” (If this were a systematic ripping-to-shreds of Witchel, a la The Bruni Digest, I would now insert a vile and funny photo as illustration, but I think this image is pretty clear and disgusting on its own, don’t you?)

Witchel himself confesses that the best he can do is “gather 6 to 10 people, double or triple a recipe and, with the help of a lot of good wine (mostly for [him]), hope for the best.”

Yeah, and? That’s what you’re supposed to do! Or am I missing something?

I do like how he specifies it’s good wine at his otherwise crappy, pathetic and unworthy dinner soirees where his guests must just have an awful time. Because everyone knows people really hate home-cooked food if it’s not served with utter aplomb.

Which brings me to the meat of the article. This charming hostess he knows, a Southern woman (of course she’s Southern) who maintains her accent despite the rigors of NYC, has been known to “serve meat loaf and chicken potpie in the same meal,” which apparently is a good thing, in Witchel’s estimation. So high-low, all “good wine” and meat loaf.

Anyway, this hostess throws a dinner, then “short-circuits” in the middle, and “chaos, of sorts,” ensues.

So I kept reading, with bated breath, to find out what the chaos would be.

Let’s see, the buffet and passed hors d’oeuvres went smoothly. The lasagna gets served just fine, but, heavens, with a Bordeaux! Witchel twitches: “I would have hyperventilated at even the thought of serving French wine with Italian food. Ten demerits!”

I get the impression–or at least I hope, for his sake–that Witchel is playing up his finicky side, in a gambit to draw in the reader who may also hold such weird preconceptions about wine and food pairing. “Dear reader, you’re insanely uptight,” he seems to be saying, “but, hey, so am I…well, a little. Stick around, and maybe you can learn something from ol’ Unk Witchel!”

But I’m not such a reader. As long as there is wine, and it’s not Kendall-Jackson, I’m good.

But back to the impending “chaos”:

Then an odd thing happened. She signaled the waiter…. After a few whispers, he went around the table removing the silverware meant for salad and cheese, then served the salad on dinner plates.

Whoa. Crazy. Wait, the waiter? Of course your party will go swimmingly if you have a goddamn waiter.

I’m so disgusted, I’ll just skip to the chase. The hostess gets confused and serves this lemon mousse Witchel adores—after the salad and before the cheese!—and then, when he calls the next day begging for her secrets, she says she didn’t make it herself, she bought it. And everything else she served at the dinner!

Which in itself is no crime, but she passed it all off as her own labor (“I just whipped this up”), which is ridiculous. If you can cook, cook. If you can’t, order out—but don’t pretend you did it all yourself. It just makes life hell for quivering balls of insecurity like this hapless Witchel guy.

And your dishonesty is especially rotten in a dinner-party setting. People come to your home, for home-cooked food. And there’s nothing more satisfying than home-cooked food. But then to get served up big slabs of lasagna from the corner caterer—maybe it looks homey, and tastes a little homey, but guests have got to sense something is not quite right, and they’re really just getting another mass-produced meal in disguise.

But, rereading the essay, perhaps Witchel was the only sucker. He didn’t guess that the hostess was “joking” when she said she whipped up the mousse herself. She admits she had a bit to drink, and that’s why she forgot the cheese course. Indeed, “the more events had gone astray”—if you can call any of that astray—“the more lighthearted she had become.” It’s a hard day when I feel more sympathy for the woman with a waiter and entirely catered food than for the guy who is at least willing to cook for his guests, even if he gives himself demerits while he’s doing it.

Again, open invitation to Alex Witchel to come over for Sunday dinner. I’ll show you “astray.” But we’ll have good wine.

I haven’t been in Cairo since 1998, so I guess there’ve been some developments. I know you can drink Lowenbrau beer there now, for instance, and the subway has a second line. And then I was at this pan-Mid East cafe in Las Cruces, NM, of all places, and they had this “malt beverage.” In the US, that means St. Ide’s, but in Egypt, that means something non-alcoholic, sort of fake beer, which I’ve never liked.

But this malt beverage came in a pretty blue can (fayrouz means ‘turquoise’ in Arabic), and in pineapple flavor, no less. So how could I say no? And it was delicious! Fizzy, not too sweet, very refreshing.

A fine product of Egypt–I’m very impressed. I remember when Stella beer used to have twigs in it.

Thanks to Beverly for, I guess, fishing the can out from under the seat of her car and taking a picture…