Melty chocolate haiku and letter grades
First let me say, this haiku is two weeks early for Valentines Day. If I had been on-time, I could have posted something about football. Instead we get something about chocolate. Um.. yea. Anyway... Wow, lots of stuff going on in the food world this week. I never read much on the weekend, and just now I caught up on twenty tabs worth of reading in Firefox. I should probably figure out that whole RSS reader thing, huh? A few weeks ago in a post that no one read, I ranted forever about possible stale cakes in Asian bakeries and food grades from the Department of Health in the city of Los Angeles. Midtown Lunch has some coverage and comments about the issue. My viewpoint on this remains the same - this is a great idea. I almost cannot believe there's any credible, logical, and plausible argument against this. If anyone out there has any, I would love to hear it. The best part about arguments against it is that people think of extremes and how crazy this idea can become. And people forget that we have a living, breathing case study in the form of letter grades in the SECOND BIGGEST city in America. It seems to work fine.
I really don't buy the idea that it's an extra burden for restaurants to keep mice and roaches out of their kitchen. Seriously, that's part of your responsibility. Look, I eat in some of the grimiest looking places in Chinatown. If you tell me Sheng Wang has a hypothetical bad grade, I will still go there to eat dumplings. If a hypothetical bad grade hurts their revenue, they'll clean up. If they don't clean up and the lost revenue cause them to close down, another restaurant will take their place. Things work out. People do get sick from eating at certain places, and if food related sickness cause a burden on the city, then the city should take steps to try and reduce the financial burden. Look at it this way, if you were playing Sim City 5000 or something, and you had this option to reduce your city's health care budget, you'd do it. So don't be hatin'.
The LA Times reports that Orange County has recently rejected a move to post letter grades on restaurant windows. I've never liked Orange County much. It's one of the reddest county in all of California. I hate that some people are so against the notion of government interference, that they'll oppose perfectly good legislation on the grounds that it's over-reaching and too big brother-ish. To break it down, it makes no sense to oppose a good law if it'll benefit the public at large. Opposing it based upon the theory of wanting a smaller government is completely asinine.
While we're on the topic of food related news, did anyone hear about the new breed of rice? I thought this was a great piece of news that came out this past weekend. How awesome that scientists have come up with a way to help reduce world hunger. I would much rather see Dan Barber and Alice Waters talk about something like this, rather than making sure my fucking bacon comes from within 100 miles. Can someone try to help me understand why it seems like getting people to eat local is more impactful and important than reducing hunger? I don't really get it.
And I just want to reiterate that I'm pro-fast food, pro-MSG, pro-HFCS, pro-processed food. I'm pretty sure Doritos would fit in all those categories. Love it. And maybe next year I won't blog so much, and just try to win win money from doing a super bowl ad...
"I like rice. Rice is great if you're hungry and want 2000 of something." -Mitch Hedberg
Posting the letter grades is an excellent way to keep the restaurant accountable. I realy hope it passes in NY!
I can't believe you don't use RSS readers! How do you keep up?
ambitious
February 4, 2009 11:46 am
It will be so great if they could pass it in NYC... and I keep up by opening a million tabs multiple times throughout the day... haha
Danny
February 5, 2009 12:18 am