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"Real Food" Friday, December 5, 2014 As a resident of Cambridge, I of course have close friends who are involved in fancy shmancy restaurants, and, as someone whose trade is making pretty rooms prettier, I probably should not point a questioning finger at people who make pretty meals prettier. But... As I was channel-surfing the other night, I came across a PBS program, bizarrely titled "Mike Colameco's Real Food," that was depicting someone tweezing tiny bits of food around a plate. "Real Food?" I haven't stopped laughing since, because I cannot for the life of me understand how any physically active human could sustain oneself if this sort of fare were the real food of one's life. On the rare occasions when I dine at this sort of place, I almost always leave feeling hungry for some meat and potatoes or at least a tuna sandwich. I do know that there are other perspectives about eating. I can recall only one chat with my grandfather, who died when I was ten. He was sitting at his kitchen table eating French toast. He said, "I have to take more maple syrup to finish my French toast, then I have to get more French toast to finish my maple syrup, then I have to take more maple syrup to finish my French toast... Some people eat to live, but I live to eat." Myself, I eat so that I can do other things, but different strokes for different folks. That said, I cannot help but find it hilarious that people will go to these lengths to transform what I consider fuel into something that seems almost purely entertainment and that would leave me starving to death in no time. Here are some screenshots of the aforementioned program:
I wonder if the leaves of this garnish are pointed in the correct direction.
Hearty! 
One must trust the chef to have counted them. 
A plate of "Real Food." 
I do not begrudge anyone one's innocent fun, especially in the matter of indulgent eating or in the matter of pushing to artistic extremes —God bless 'em!— but, for me, it just doesn't cut the stone-ground, organic, fair-trade, locally sourced, heirloom mustard. |