Food and Whining - A modest outlet for a mediocrity-weary diner.

At first, the density of people at the grocery store seemed fairly normal. Those of us cursed with a "brief" attention span struggle a bit with simply making sure we get what we came for, so the quantity - high or low - didn't seem out of place; dense without being crowded. And then I began to notice a trend - a preponderance of chips (potato and/or corn), guacamole in plastic containers, and guys wandering around in football jerseys that they clearly didn't wear for work, 12-packs of Budweiser in hand hovering over the meat counter. What in the hell was going on? Ah. Superbowl Sunday. Save for the fact that it falls on a Sunday (much to the detriment of productivity the following day), it's basically a national holiday. Friends gather 'round the warm glow of an enormous television (purchased primarily for this day) and celebrate the athletic prowess of total strangers while screaming criticisms at the players that will never hear them. Normal people bet on wh...

The classic Caesar salad has descended into such mutant variations as adding "creamy" to the dressing description, "with chicken/shrimp", and - the worst offender of all - the non-adjective"garlicky". The presumed original recipe is fairly simple - garlic, olive oil, salt, anchovies, dry mustard, an egg, lemon juice, Romaine lettuce, grated Parmigiano Regiano, and black pepper. Then, of course, you get into variations - with or without Worcesteshire, Dijon mustard vs. dry, etc. But as far as I'm concerned, there are a few ingredients that can be substituted. In particular and most frequently violated, is the "vinegar for lemon" trick. Presumably restaurants are doing this for a practical and understandable reason - vinegar is far cheaper than lemon juice, especially fresh lemon juice. Then they add a similarly distorting ingredient - "shrimp or chicken". As there isn't much in the way of protein in a classic Caesa...