Anthony Bourdain is something of a culinary and cultural hero of mine. Or maybe he was. No, he still is, but his armor's a little tarnished in places.
There's an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations that I had not seen in its entirety. In fact, I still haven't. I just caught a little more of it tonight.
It's the episode in Argentina that includes, among other things, a barbeque with 150 cows crucified over trench fires and a walk on a Patagonian glacier with a couple of Gouchos.
There is a scene, the one I had missed previously, on an estancia (a ranch to you and me) where Tony witnesses first-hand the process of cutting spring calves. There's the winnowing out of calves from their mothers, the branding, and some fairly graphic castration. This particular estancia favors a Hereford variant that lacks noticeable horns so Tony was spared the sawing and the ensuing bloody skulls.
Tony's little tummy got upset.
Two decades of slapping meat on a grill; a lifetime of derision spewed at vegetarians and all it takes to shake him to tears is the sight of a little blood.
Welcome to my entire childhood.
I don't claim to speak for my kin or anyone else who raised a show calf, lamb, hog, rabbit, turkey, or chicken. I can only speak for myself.
If you don't eat meat, you're a grazer. If you've never taken the life of an animal and put its carcass to your nourishment, you're just another vulture eating cellophane-wrapped carrion. I'm not saying for a second that I'm any better but to see a chef get all misty-eyed at the process of producing his raw materials seems a little naive.
If you're going to eat meat, something has got to die. For the meat to be any good, it's going to have to be castrated as a toddler and slaughtered as a pre-teen. Calves are usually harvested within a month or two of losing their baby teeth. And Tony's mistaken about the reason that the balls are taken; it does make the males more docile but, more importantly, it robs the body of testosterone which toughens the meat and leaves an abundance of estrogen which causes the body to store intramuscular fat; that delicious material known as "marbling" in the rendered product.
Food doesn't come from the grocery store. It comes from the ground. Grab some perspective. It ain't Nagasaki and you ain't Oppenheimer. It's a cow; you're a cook. Have enough respect for the creature to hold back your tears when you realize what it gets put through to make a decent meal.
Sugarpants.
2008/06/02
2008/05/09
New Game
I know that I've posted a lot of totally misogynistic chum lately. What can I say? I'm working through some stuff. Men and women aren't equal. All men are not equal. There's a freaking bell curve, for goodness' sakes. I'm not going to sit here and make apologies or excuses for noticing the same things that comics have been noticing since the first cave man said, "Take Ookla wife...please!"
HOWEVER.
This FLDS stuff is sticking in my craw. And not just a little bit. I have friends, people who are dear to me, involved in the process of evaluating the wives and children that were pulled from the YFZ (that's Yearning For Zion) Ranch; aka the FLDS Church compound.
(I'm not going to hyperlink everything in the following tirade. I'm a smartass, not a pundit.)
- Three of those fuckers were on TV last week and one of them said, "I didn't know it was against the law" in reference to marrying girls under 18. Really???? Texas is the third state where you've set up a polygamist compound and it wasn't because things were going so well in the last two. You sure you didn't know it was at least frowned upon?
- The sect tend to hew to their own "mental health professionals" who are in the church and prescribe whatever drugs are necessary to keep women happy in their role as sperm recipients, house maids, and whore-masters to their daughters. 33% of women in the sect are on some kind of prescribed psychotropic. For the ones who never get with the program, they've set up a special insane asylum which is widely used as a threat to keep women in line.
- "Bleeding the Beast." Can't afford another wife but the 17 year old is already worn out from your first 3 kids? Make the government pay for it! After all, if you get three women pregnant and only one of them can be your wife, the other two are single moms who are entitled to gub'mint funds. Take every handout available and in this way you contribute to the overthrow of the US government. That's right. The good people of Texas and the lesser United states have paid these sons of bitches more than 5 million dollars in the last year to lay around and fuck little girls. Let's all pat ourselves on the back for that one folks.
If defrauding the government for cash actually allowed you to overthrow the government, then somebody from Halliburton would be Presiden.....................never mind.
I propose a new game. I call it "Bleeding the Mormon." I haven't worked out all the details yet but here's the basics. Every time a FLDS husband in custody gets raped by another prisoner, somebody gets a carton of cigarettes.
Unfiltered. Why not kill two birds with one stone?
HOWEVER.
This FLDS stuff is sticking in my craw. And not just a little bit. I have friends, people who are dear to me, involved in the process of evaluating the wives and children that were pulled from the YFZ (that's Yearning For Zion) Ranch; aka the FLDS Church compound.
(I'm not going to hyperlink everything in the following tirade. I'm a smartass, not a pundit.)
- Three of those fuckers were on TV last week and one of them said, "I didn't know it was against the law" in reference to marrying girls under 18. Really???? Texas is the third state where you've set up a polygamist compound and it wasn't because things were going so well in the last two. You sure you didn't know it was at least frowned upon?
- The sect tend to hew to their own "mental health professionals" who are in the church and prescribe whatever drugs are necessary to keep women happy in their role as sperm recipients, house maids, and whore-masters to their daughters. 33% of women in the sect are on some kind of prescribed psychotropic. For the ones who never get with the program, they've set up a special insane asylum which is widely used as a threat to keep women in line.
- "Bleeding the Beast." Can't afford another wife but the 17 year old is already worn out from your first 3 kids? Make the government pay for it! After all, if you get three women pregnant and only one of them can be your wife, the other two are single moms who are entitled to gub'mint funds. Take every handout available and in this way you contribute to the overthrow of the US government. That's right. The good people of Texas and the lesser United states have paid these sons of bitches more than 5 million dollars in the last year to lay around and fuck little girls. Let's all pat ourselves on the back for that one folks.
If defrauding the government for cash actually allowed you to overthrow the government, then somebody from Halliburton would be Presiden.....................never mind.
I propose a new game. I call it "Bleeding the Mormon." I haven't worked out all the details yet but here's the basics. Every time a FLDS husband in custody gets raped by another prisoner, somebody gets a carton of cigarettes.
Unfiltered. Why not kill two birds with one stone?
2008/04/16
New Wife
I think I'm gonna get a new wife. I'm not kicking the current one out, by any means. I just heard about this place over in San Angelo that's having a clearance sale. Might be a good time to pick up a spare on the cheap.
2008/04/04
Zing!
OK. Look, I'm as conservative and ignorant as the next guy, but if you're going to sit next to me on a plane, open a book penned by Michael Crighton and point to it saying, "Right there in black and white, global warming is bunk science!" WHILE YOU'RE WEARING A MAGNETIC BRACELET TO IMPROVE YOUR GOLF SWING.....
Then I'm sorry, but I'm just going to have to fart and blame it on you.
There were two of them going back and forth the whole flight, one O'RLY talking point after another. One would start the "bunk science" routine and the other would say "immigrants are driving up oil prices!"
Really? Because they're driving construction equipment to build your soon-to-be worthless McMansion? Look, you're Italian, he's Irish. I'm Dutch and English. We stole the bitch first, why don't YOU get the fuck out?
The flight ended. I got up, they stayed seated. "You guys aren't getting off in Austin?"
Then I'm sorry, but I'm just going to have to fart and blame it on you.
There were two of them going back and forth the whole flight, one O'RLY talking point after another. One would start the "bunk science" routine and the other would say "immigrants are driving up oil prices!"
Really? Because they're driving construction equipment to build your soon-to-be worthless McMansion? Look, you're Italian, he's Irish. I'm Dutch and English. We stole the bitch first, why don't YOU get the fuck out?
The flight ended. I got up, they stayed seated. "You guys aren't getting off in Austin?"
2008/03/20
And OOOPS
Guess who Bill Clinton turned to for spiritual guidance after his dalliances were exposed?
Uh Reverend Jeremiah Wright-ah!! Can I getta AMEN-ah!
Uh Reverend Jeremiah Wright-ah!! Can I getta AMEN-ah!
Seriously....shut up.
Geraldine Ferarro (who is technically the first woman to be the Biggest Loser) is now upset that Obama asked people to recognize that her feelings were a valid part of the dialogue.
Is anybody besides me starting to wonder if re-electing Reagan and Bush, Sr. might not have been the worst possible decision to make in 1984? Does this woman understand how much she is fucking with my reality right now?
Is anybody besides me starting to wonder if re-electing Reagan and Bush, Sr. might not have been the worst possible decision to make in 1984? Does this woman understand how much she is fucking with my reality right now?
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