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'Bay Area Bites' is part of KQED's Blog Authors Collaborative. Blog contributors and commentators are solely responsible for their content. If you're interested in writing or contributing to a blog on kqed.org, email us with your idea.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Son of Scary Food
Since I always start my posts with a warning, here goes: Don't read this if you have an aversion to Sarah Silverman or food that resembles body parts or if you worship the ground that Martha Stewart stencils.I mean it. Move along now.
Okay, for those of you who can hack it, my assignment for this Halloween was to write again about scary food, this time with the political incorrectness on the side. (It turns out that political incorrectness is not only very high in calories, but it's also raised on corn in Burma and slaughtered by four-year-old orphans who have flies in their eyes and harelips and call out, "Angie! Angie!" during the two hours of sleep they get a night.)
Whoops.
Anyway, let's start with a definition.
Scary [skair-ee] Adjective, scarier, scariest
1. Ridiculous
2. Tacky
3. Of or pertaining to Martha Stewart
Let's start with the "Ghoulish Petit Fours."
So, I just watched the Sarah Silverman Show last night, and these little numbers bring to mind a song she sang called "What happened to the white dog poop from the Seventies," which I thought raised a very legitimate question. (Attempts at answers located here, though I tend to think the most likely culprit is CORN and no one says so expressly. Get Michael Pollan on that immediately, dammit.)
Anyway, as usual, I digress. In short, Martha's Ghoulish Petit Fours made me thankful that poo doesn't smile at you. (But what if it did?) Then I realized that it's unclear if the lower dot on the Martha ghouls is supposed to be a mouth or a nose, which led me down the path of imagining some poor lackey at Martha HQ making these things and getting the face wrong the first time and getting strangled with the licorice "lace" that supposed to go around the base of the witches' hats.
(Note, never accuse Martha of not recycling a great idea, as with these Mashed Boo-tatoes.)
Moving on, let's take a look at I Scream Sandwiches. The salient quote? "For neat rounds of ice cream, snip away the carton with scissors, cut ice cream into 3/4-inch-thick slices, and make shapes with a 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter."
Shoot me now.
And now, the Martha piece de resistance:
Ladies' Fingers and Mens' Toes, which the site calls "ghoulishly good", a term that made me wonder just how much crack Martha's editors smoke to get through the day. At first I thought these atrocities were pastries of some sort, but they are in fact pretzels. Pretzels with almonds? Martha, c'mon.
The part I liked the most about this recipe was the implied part: Notice that the last ingredient listed is "fried rosemary (optional, for toes)". Not fingers, mind, just toes. Toe hair.
Good grief.
Before I wrap up Martha bashing, I did want to bring your attention to something else I found on Martha's site, which while not food that can be eaten, I hope still qualifies to be on BAB.
Behold the lobster baby costume.
Who would do this to their child? Notice how it looks like either a) the lobster is pooping the child (so sorry, I'm channeling Sarah Silverman today), b) the lobster is giving birth to the child (at least it's not breach), or c) the lobster and the baby are inter-species conjoined twins and appear to share a rectum. And note the evidence, yet again, of Martha's editors smoking crack! "In the end, any costume you design will be memorable and guaranteed to be loved by your friends, family, and, of course, baby!" (My italics.) Since when do babies that age love anything but boob and Teletubbies?
Okay, I'm done with Martha, but lest you think I'm a horrid bundle of vitriol who deserves to be bound with licorice, gagged with hairy man's toe, and tarred and feathered with a hot glue gun, let me leave you with two videos of Halloween recipes that didn't make me want to slit my wrists.
Behold British mini-Martha, whose name is apparently Tilly. (Tilly! Tilly! And don't you just want to eat up her accent?) I played this three times just for the sheer joy of hearing the mysterious braceleted Tilly say "lolly sticks."
And now meet Pink of Perfection's pumpkin soup, which is easy and I bet scrumptious. Oh, and I like her dress. "Her" being Sarah McColl, winsome talent/Juliet Binoche lookalike behind Pink of Perfection, "the thrifty girl's guide to la dolce vita."
Something tells me Ms. McColl would be great fun to go lingerie shopping with, then afterwards you'd stop by some chic tiny little restaurant at 3pm and wind up there until 6:30 when people start coming in for their dinner reservations and you've drunk four glasses of Beaujolais and have a horrid case of the giggles and start laughing about your vibrators and the bartender -- who is very cute and you have been flirting with -- has to cut you off.
So much more fun than Martha.
Labels: halloween, marthastewart, meghanlaslocky, sarahsilverman, scaryfood
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18 Comments:
Honestly, the Martha Halloween website has pretty easy recipes/directions for some fun treats. But some folks enjoy the Martha bashing, as is apparent by your post. I usually like this website for its informative and fun posts. Mean spiritedness can be saved for the personal blogs, can't it?
10/31/2007 9:58 AM
Meghan-
You had me giggling to the point where my coworkers think I've been sampling the liquor filled Halloween candy! I too share your abhoration of all things Martha. She just freaks me out. Dear god.. imagine if the fantastic Ms. Silverman had a cooking show of her very own... oh the joyous thought...
10/31/2007 10:29 AM
Jen, sorry my humor offended your sensibilities. I'm BAB's naughty blogger. Fortunately for you, I don't post much.
eb, want to cuddle up sometime and watch Sarah together? Love your idea of a Sarah cooking show! Imagine what she'd do with gingerbread men and chocolate frosting.
Whoops, gotta run, Martha's PR flack is banging my door down with poop dressed up as poached pears for Halloween...
10/31/2007 2:04 PM
I wasn't offended, actually. I was questioning the purpose behind a Martha bashing post in a blog that is supposed to celebrate SF Bay Area food. Seemed off topic and mean spirited.
11/01/2007 3:39 PM
Naughty blogger? Try snotty. I'm inviting those "crack smoking" Martha Stewart editors to comb your entries to look for stuff to do a piss take on. Let's see if they are funnier than you.
My kids love doing a lot of stuff from Martha's site. As a single mom, I find her site to be a great resource. Maybe you're just "too cool" for it all. Do you even have kids?
I agree with jen. Get with the program and get over yourself!
11/02/2007 5:05 AM
Satire isn't everybody's cup of poupourri-infused eggnog.
11/02/2007 9:56 AM
Ok Seriously. Can we just curl up and watch a Sarah marathon? Make some white poop cookies? These Martha doting commenters just need to relax! A Martha inspired Hot Toddy maybe? Sheesh. I love your posts (which are too infrequent by the way).
Thanks for rockin' the snottiness!
P.S. For those who love Martha (and really... it's ok... we're not knocking YOU) Meghan did give you fair warning at the beginning of the post!
11/02/2007 10:24 AM
Speaking of the lobster baby...you gotta see the martha video of babies dressed up as various food items...a turkey, a lemon meringue pie, an apple pie...outrageous!! Turkey 101! mmmm...babystuffed turkeys! just in time for Thanksgiving!
11/02/2007 10:31 AM
Wendy, stop it. This is serious stuff. How dare you?
11/02/2007 10:45 AM
You think I should be calling CPS?
11/02/2007 10:48 AM
Ah, but when will the satire get good? Holy crap (pun intended) this shit (more intended) was unfunny.
11/02/2007 2:25 PM
I once saw EB at the dog park in Bernal Heights. EB was like a mycologist seeking mushrooms in a misty forest, foraging for a harvest to use in her cookies. A fan of snot, EB was known to hang out with Puck from Real World San Francisco who would make snot rockets to use as icing on those scrumptious poop cookies.
Bygones.
11/02/2007 10:27 PM
Meghan,
I loved this post. Inspired, really. The Pink of Perfection should cook with Fug Girls (and you).
And the baby lobster is absurd. I almost snorted in a very serious panel session.
Cooking, and everything that accompanies it, should be fun. And funny.
11/05/2007 7:02 PM
Omigod! I LOVE the fug girls! I read them every day and try to channel them, which is hard, given that I'm also channeling Sarah Silverman on occasion, so it all gets very messy and I wind up hurling fashion barbs at cooks and cooking and home decoration barbs at Britney Spears and La Lohan and mock racist vitriol at myself.
And that, I assure you, makes for a very messy keyboard.
11/05/2007 8:48 PM
meghan, you've totally got me pegged. and i love afternoon drinking at sexy little boites! :)
11/07/2007 8:10 AM
Honey, only in your wildest dreams could you channel Ms. Silverman. You're more like a Laura Kightlinger.
11/16/2007 12:31 PM
Oh, whatever. But Laura K. dated Jack Black, a man I've always dreamed about...
11/19/2007 9:37 AM
Don't mind the haters. You might be a little wet behind the ears, but you'll find your niche.
2/27/2008 11:14 PM
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