South Beach cookie theft
I feel a little bit bad for eating so many cookies, but they're South Beach Diet brand cookies, so I don't really feel too bad.
The cookies come in portion-control packets of two cookies each, but one of the packets in the box only had one cookie. I thought about complaining, but then I thought, hey, maybe that's part of the diet.
The cookies come in portion-control packets of two cookies each, but one of the packets in the box only had one cookie. I thought about complaining, but then I thought, hey, maybe that's part of the diet.
posted by JenIsFamous at 3/13/2006 03:22:00 PM
5 Comments:
Diet cookies - that's blasephemy!!!
I would rather just have one real one
like the Triple Chocolate Chunk or the Reeses Peanut Butter at Barnes & Noble...
Here's my pet peeve when it comes to things that are (allegedly) supposed to be "better" for you:
Have you noticed how when you go to restaurants lately, they try to serve you the same crap they've always had, only now with fancier descriptions designed to take advantage of the fact that everyone's supposed to feel guilty about eating anything that's not "organically grown", "free ranging", etc.? (As if the fact that the trout was fished from the river that runs through it, as opposed to just netted out of a tank, means that choking to death on some angler's hook is like sipping juleps at the cotillion, or something.)
For example, I went to a local brunch spot recently for an omelet. The waiter went to great pains to tell me that he had a goat cheese and VINE-RIPENED tomato omelet. I noticed also from the menu, that this establishment is awfully proud of the fact that the steaks it serves are made from GRASS-FED beef.
Um, maybe I'm missing something here, but what's so special about any of this? I mean, where the hell else is a tomato planning on ripening, huh? Portofino? Tell me, ANYONE, if you know--Are cows on some new diet about which I haven't heard?
EXT. A FIELD - DAY
Two COWS are having lunch. (Or perhaps meeting to get a pedicure. I forget.)
HOLSTEIN #1: (offering an air kiss) Oh my GAWD! Look at YOU! Elsie, you look GREAT! 'Fess up, heifer--Have you lost weight?
HOLSTEIN #2: Yeah, I've been cutting back on the grass. Doing pilates. Spring is here, and before ya know it, it'll be bathing suit weather, y'know. (pause) Hey, did Bessie tell you that Angus and I rented a farm for the summer in Quogue. . .
Jesus!
I really resent the fact that these restaurants are trying to talk down to us like we're children. My friend swears that at a restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, to which he's been known to take his family for the lobster boil offered Sunday evenings, they now offer "shucked corn on the cob". Well, shit, I HOPE it's shucked. It would be a real pain in the ass if it weren't, right? Grandma managed to get her arthritic paws wrapped around a tube of DentuGrip for THIS? She has to shuck the corn herself? BullSHIT!
What's for dessert--TREE-PICKED apple pie?
Matt,
"Vine-ripened" tomatoes are actually rather unusual. Most tomatoes are picked green and then shipped, and ripen during shipping. Allowing a tomato to ripen on the vine means it needs to be picked and served right away, thus making it very fresh.
"Grass-fed" beef is also unusual; most cows are fed industrial feed mixtures including hormones and, sometimes, parts of other cows, which is where mad cow came from.
Jen
I understand that vine-ripened tomatoes and grass-fed cattle are unusual, Jen, but what does it say about our society that these things not only are unusual, but because of their relative scarcity, now also are somehow special? A vine-ripened tomato is in fact what nature intended. A cow eating grass is, to borrow from "Annie Get Your Gun", just doin' what comes naturally. Neither is in fact an example of anything other than the quotidian, but each has attained some sort of exalted status because our nation's expectations have been lowered.
A long time ago, when tomatoes ripened on their vines and cows ate grass, we valued something more, and acclaim was given to that which was meritorious. Today, our encomia are reserved not for the meritorious alone, but also are sprinkled, like so much of that "freshly ground pepper" waiters proffer, on the utterly meretricious.
THAT was really my point. Only, I tried to say it less highbrow and more funny.
You are a warped individual Matt. The bit about the cows eating lunch (or maybe meeting for a pedicure, I forget) was inspired. So were the throwaway lines about doing pilates and renting a farm for the summer in Quog. But Jen is not only famous but also right about your complaint not being entirely valid Matt. I agree with you that shucked corn on the cob is a lot of bs. Vine ripe tomatoes and grass fed beef, on the other hand, isn't. Those ARE hard to get in restaurants and the fact that a tomato is plucked straight from the vine means it's got to be fresh. That's absolutely true. The grass-eating cows might not hit as many homeruns as the ones on steroids but they are better for you and not as likely to get mad cow disease.
I do agree with one point you kind of made though Matt. I would like to give a bunch of restaurant people the Pepsi challenge regarding whether they could identify the vine ripe tomatoes and the grass fed steaks. I bet they can't. If you can't tell me what's the dif I don't see why I have to pay more for it even if it costs the restaurant a little more to serve it. Either you care about being a place that offers the public healthier food or you don't. There is a big enough mark-up that the restaurant is still going to make money if the food tastes good, which is all that really matters to most people when they go to a restaurant.
Thanks Jen for providing a lively debate! And thanks Matt for being the cranky but funny guy you are! (Welcome back, BTW.) You two crack me up because you're what happens when smart and funny people with a lot to say weigh in on the issues both big and small.
Both of you keep doing what you do because it's funny as hell!
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