Friday, June 21, 2013

Curated Food Packages

First, off Hat Tip to the incomparable changoperesozo for giving me the idea.  Here are a few "curated food packages" as consumed by the digerati in modern-day San Francisco.   Warning: this post requires a degree of local knowledge about San Francisco neighborhoods similar to that implicitly assumed by New Yorkers when writing about New York, to wit: mention of neighborhoods east of US 101 and south of I-280.

  • Brogrammer Bento: While influenced by traditional nori-wrapped rice, this bento provides Bro-friendly panko-crusted goodness.  Because they didn't serve sushi back in the frat house in Bloomington, the purely Japanese rice triangle with sour plum or salmon is augmented with good old-fashioned fried chicken croquettes, a few tired Iceberg lettuce leaves covered with sesame-infused salad dressing, and green-tea ice cream.  The rice is sourced locally from the rice paddies recently planted in Islais creek by anarcho-syndicalist Japanese-American 99-percenters, the chicken from coops installed in disused public housing units in the Crocker-Amazon, and the lettuce from the site of the old Schlage key factory.  The green-tea ice cream is sourced from a restaurant in the mall in Citrus Heights.    
  • Salome Salumi: For Gay Pride, this Oscar Wilde inspired choice starts off with an assortment of "Herod" brand beef and turkey salumi.  This is followed by chicken a la Bosie: boneless white meat, lightly poached.  The "Pitcher of Dorian Gray" is a can of Red Bull.  The Salome theme is carried out finally with a dessert consisting of "seven veils" of cotton candy hiding a cupcake representing the head of John the Baptist, surrounded by a blood-red raspberry coulis on a miniature platter.  This meal includes a Flip Wilson video retrospective entitled: "The Importance of Being Ernestine".      
  • Mid-Century, Cold War, Prop 65 nightmare: "Precious Inorganic" Farm organophosphate-dipped Gem Lettuce in a not-Tuscan-but-Tuscan-inspired California Mentholated-Kool vinaigrette (made from cigarette-infused vinegar and rancid California olive oil:  the Surgeon General warns this will give you the buzz of your life).  The main course is a von Neuman Ranch cornfed nitrate-cured machine-smoked ham and processed non-dairy-creamer-based cheese sandwich on No Wonder it's completely genetically modified bread.  For dessert, "Neapolitan Ice Cream" reconstituted from freeze-dried astronaut ice cream bought 20 years ago on a visit to the Johnson space center when the US could still launch their own astronauts without any help from those Commie bastards.  To wash it all down, Coca-Cola to protect your "precious bodily fluids" from fluoridation.  Dental implants and cancer treatments not covered by your high deductible insurance plan.