I clicked on the link to Copyranter’s coverage of an ad that appears in the current issue of Martha Stewart Living (and probably in other women’s magazines) and was completely confused.

Yes, it does indeed say Pork & Nail Polish right there, in big print. The juxtaposition of words is–unique, to say the least.

And the pork tenderloin cutlets sliced and arranged to look vaguely like manicured fingernails–well, let’s say that nothing in this ad is appetizing to me in the least.

It becomes more surreal if you read the ad copy, which is written in a first person, confessional style. The breezy narrative begins with this faux-girlfriend revelation:

“I must confess, I always keep a bottle of clear nail polish in my bag,” the copy starts. “It’s my estrogen equivalent of duct tape. I can fix just about anything with it — a run in my stockings, a chip in the windshield, that loose knob on my dresser. I even dip those small ribbon knots on my lingerie in nail polish to keep them from coming untied.”

All right. Fine. At least there is no mention of using nail polish as a glaze to keep your grilled pork chop nice and shiny. That had me worried–and queasy–but if all we are talking about is a femmy MacGyver sort of thing, I can deal with that.

I guess that would mean that we are going to talk about home repairs using pork? (Hopefully we are not going to talk about lingerie repairs with pork. I can only imagine the following: “I must confess that I save the bones from my pork chops and then if my bra hook falls apart in the wash, I can just carve a new one out of bone….” How very One Million Years BC.)

But no. The ad copy continues:

“Likewise, I always keep a pork tenderloin in my fridge or a pork roast in the freezer.I can fix just about anything with it lickety-split, too–Asian Grilled Pork Tenderloin, Hawaiian Cobb Salad, Smoky Pork Tenderloin Tacos. The Other White Meat and clear nail polish. Two handy-dandy things I just can’t live without.”

So, I guess it is supposed to be a clever “play on words” sort of thing to use the word “fix” to mean “repair” in one context, and then meaning to “prepare” in another context.

But, I have news for whoever put this ad together.

It doesn’t work.

I am not about to go out and buy pork because of this. I am not going to want to buy pork because of it. In fact, I am more likely not to buy pork because this is just so dumb on so many levels. It isn’t clever. It isn’t well-written–what is up with the 1950’s style confession and the use of out-dated slang words like “lickety-split” and “handy-dandy?” This ad isn’t retro-hip, it is dim-witted and squaresville, daddy-o.

This ad is definitely crossing and whoever came up with it is Herbert.

I’m just happy that feminine deodorant spray was not included in the “confession.”

That would have just been too much to bear.

Opening the story with examples from the latest episode of Bravo’s “Top Chef” where the contestants melt down and fling curses and imprecations at each other, a March 24 New Yorker profile of Chef David Chang (a great article, by the way–if it was online, I’d link to it), and of course, the notorious Gordon Ramsay of “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Kitchen Nightmares,” Wells’ readers are deluged with a barrage of video and print evidence that chefs are angry, foul-mouthed individuals who apparently cannot express themselves verbally without tossing expletives into their sentences like croûtons into a salad.

And, apparently, not only does the public like it that way, they now -expect- it to be that way. In the new mythology of television reality shows, chefs are swaggering bad boys, badder than rock stars, and ten times tougher, in large part because they carry knives and play with fire twelve hours a day under working conditions that would make the average testosterone-laden, hard-drinking, heroin-shooting, groupie-banging lead guitarist run away, crying like a little girl for mamma.

And if there is one thing that is true, we humans like our myths.

Especially if they are based in part on truth.

Because, the truth is that most restaurant kitchens are stressful and hellish workplaces in the best of times. They are most often cramped, filled with dangerous equipment which may or may not work properly, open flames from various sources, both fixed and movable, inadequate ventilation, open vats of boiling oil, not to mention loads of very sharp objects which are meant to cut, rend and otherwise disassemble ingredients, but which are equally capable of taking off a finger or portion thereof, or ripping open an arm, a hand or any other body part that gets in the way. (No I am not just talking about knives, but also electrical equipment like bone saws, food processors, immersion blenders, and meat slicers, all of which carry immense destructive potential.)

And the stress–the necessity of working impossibly quickly and accurately, of neither wasting valuable raw materials, nor sending out inferior product, and of putting out sometimes hundreds upon hundreds of plates a night–all while working in close quarters with similarly stressed out people–it is enough to crack anyone one at least once.

When you put human beings into work conditions like these, and push them to perform perfectly, you cannot expect them to not blow off steam somehow. That is where the swaggering comes in, the gallows humor, the profane banter, and the camaraderie where insults become terms of endearment and where sexual innuendo and blatant sexual harassment of both men and women becomes the norm. (This is why many restaurant kitchens are considered to be hostile workplaces to women–a situation which is changing, and which is not the focus of this essay, but which I will talk about in the future.)

You have to understand that most kitchen workers are overworked, underpaid, and often have very little life outside the kitchen. They don’t get enough sleep, they often eat too little, and they cannot relax in any normal way, so they turn to alcohol, drugs, sex, and yes, foul language, to make it through the days and nights of their existence, all so they can turn out endless plates of gorgeous food for people who have the money and leisure time to spend on it, people who most often would never sit down to break bread with these cooks, and even if they would, might be dismayed at how the cooks would act and talk at the table.

This sort of adaptive behavior–reacting to extreme stress with foul language, dark humor and consumption of various inebriating substances–is nothing to be ashamed of, but nor should it be lionized, either.

I mean, it used to be, and still is true, that when chefs were called out to the dining room to speak to a table of guests, they would behave graciously and with courtesy. (There have always been exceptions–Marco Pierre White, the original chef from hell who once made a young cook named Gordon Ramsay cry, for example, is also said to have thrown customers out of his three-star restaurants for requesting salt and pepper.)

But now, it seems that we Americans expect all chefs to be the way we see a few of them act on television, that having a foul-mouthed, bullying persona is normal and natural to the life of a chef.

A lot of people might blame all of this reverence toward the irreverence of chefs and cooks on Anthony Bourdain, because his best-selling memoir, Kitchen Confidential, laid bare the seedy underbelly of the culinary world, and was for most people who had never stepped foot into a professional kitchen, a revelation. It was a look inside the harsh, hard life of line cooks and chefs, a look at what kitchens are really like for non-celebrities and it did whet readers’ appetites for the gritty ugliness that supports and creates the glittering facade of haute cuisine. But, the truth is that all Bourdain did was tell the unvarnished truth of his life and the lives of fellow cooks and chefs. Yes, he glorified that life, because he was living it, he loved it and he loved those in that life–but that is because you cannot possibly live and work in that way without loving it. You -have- to be tough, you have to be strong and you have to have a thick skin to get by and ultimately succeed in a professional kitchen.

But what American television producers have also ignored when they show Gordon Ramsay heaping abuse on the hapless, untalented victims who volunteer to be terrorized on his show “Hell’s Kitchen”, is that in order to be as successful a chef as Ramsay (who has a total of twelve Michelin stars to his credit, which is no mean feat), you not only have to have a thick skin and a load of talent.

You have to have heart.

You have to have passion.

You have to have love.

And not just for food, either.

You have to love people.

You have to love the people you work with and for, even if you sometimes lose your temper and yell.

You have to love the people you are feeding, because that is what being a chef is truly all about.

It is about feeding people, body and soul, the creation of your heart and hands. It is about giving them love in the visceral form of food that has been elevated beyond simple sustenance into the realm of art.

It is about giving them a piece of yourself.

That is what I find most disturbing about the recent insistence upon portraying all chefs as bullying, ego-driven martinets who seem to revel in treating their cooks and each other as verbal punching bags. It bothers me because I know that in order to cook from the heart and make food that will make grown men weep with joy and longing, you have to have a heart to cook from.

And that is the truth that Bourdain knew and knows, that Ramsay and White both know, but which I fear American television producers ignore and misrepresent in the name of ratings.

And it is a god damned shame.

Salon has a good article up today about the man who went undercover and worked at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company slaughterhouse for six weeks where he continually witnessed acts of extreme animal cruelty. He also witnessed plenty of “downer” cows–cows too injured or sick to walk– enter the US food supply, most of them going to the Federal School Lunch Program.

The article is short, but to the point, and worth reading, if nothing else for the Humane Society’s reply to the frequent assertions by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Beef Industry Food Safety Council, that the sorts of cruelty and flagrant violation of food safety and animal protection laws shown in the video are just an isolated incident in one slaughterhouse, among “a few bad apples” among the workers. (Hey, isn’t that what the US military said was going on at Abu Ghraib? Isolated incidences of torture, perpetrated by a “few bad apples?” Upper management always tries to weasel out of getting blamed.)

When asked what he thought of these assertions, Wayne Pacelle, the president of the Humane Society was unconvinced:

The Humane Society, he attests, had not been tipped off to abuses at the plant. “This plant was selected at random,” he says. “There are 6,200 facilities across the country that USDA inspects. We chose this one and found egregious abuses. There is no way that these groups can say that everything is safe.”

I have to come down on the side of Wayne Pacelle and the unnamed undercover videographer on this one.

If the slaughterhouse was chosen at random, then there is absolutely no shred of evidence to support the industry’s official party line that this was an isolated incident. Americans should meet any such assertion with the skepticism it deserves, and should demand accountability.

And, while we are at it, let’s stop eating so damned much cheap beef. It just isn’t worth it.

It is with sadness that I give the news that came to me by email tonight from Jigyasa Giri and Pratibha Jain, the authors of the beautiful and lyrically written southern Indian vegetarian cookbook, Cooking At Home With Pedatha.

Their email was simple and poignant: “Barbara, our world is empty…”

Down below this simple statement of grief was the image of Pedatha’s lovely face you see above.

Tears came instantly to my eyes, because even though I never met Pedatha, through reading Jigyasa and Pratibha’s book, I felt as if I knew Pedatha as well as any of my beloved elder Aunties. I felt the keen pang of loss, because not only had I never met this remarkable woman and inspirational cook, I never would.

I will only say now, what I wrote back to Jigyasa and Pratibha: “You two, and Pedatha herself, gave a piece of her heart and soul to the world through your book, and for that I am very, very grateful.”

Through their book, Pedatha’s images, words, admonitions, kitchen philosophy and recipes will live on forever, not to be lost by the hands of time. For as long as one copy of this book exists and there is a human being to touch it, hold it, open it, read it, and I hope, cook from it, the spirit of Pedatha will live on. So long as we can taste the flavors of Pedatha’s dishes, her spirit will be with us, a part of us.

Because, the truth is, even in death, there is no parting. Separation is an illusion–we are all, each of us, part of the unity that is the Universe.

Thank you both Jigyasa and Pratibha for giving part of Pedatha to the world. We are grateful, and will not forget her, even as we sorrow with you.

When the story broke last month about a videotape taken undercover by members of the Humane Society of the United States which showed slaughterhouse workers beating, kicking, and using forklifts to force “downer cows”–cows so ill they were unable to walk–to stand and walk so they could legally be slaughtered and used for human consumption, a quiet trickle of controversy began. That trickle became a flood as more and more Americans got a first-hand glimpse of the hideous cost, both human and animal, of cheap beef, and people began talking, both in the media and in homes across the country. Voices were raised in outrage, not only because of the vicious cruelty shown to the already hurting cows by the slaughterhouse workers, but because US government regulations disallow such cows from being declared fit for human consumption because of the dangers posed by eating meat from animals who could have bovine spongiform encephalopathy , known popularly as “mad cow disease.”

The loudest exclamations came about, however, when it was made clear that the meat from this particular slaughterhouse supplied ground beef to the federal school lunch program which serves hot lunches to schoolchildren across the United States.

The idea that innocent, unknowing children might have been fed beef contaminated with BSE among other diseases sent chills up the spines of parents everywhere.

As well it should; this story is a case of corporate greed taking precedence over the health and well-being of not just human beings, but the most vulnerable humans–children.

As if the brutal treatment of sick, defenseless cows wasn’t bad enough, it was done in the name profit, with not only the cows suffering the consequences of this senseless worship of money, but schoolchildren were also the target of uncaring, faceless corporate drones and their minions on the killing floor.

In an unprecedented move, the generally toothless, spineless and utterly worthless USDA, requested the largest beef recall in US history yesterday, imploring the corporation fingered in the Humane Society video, Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Company in Chino, California, to voluntarily recall 143 million pounds of beef from circulation.

Please note my use of the words “requested,” “implored” and “voluntarily,” in that last sentence.

Many media outlets, including CNN are saying that the USDA “ordered” this recall, even though that is not the case. The USDA, even though it is in part a regulatory agency charged with overseeing the safety of the US food supply, does not have the legal authority to order recalls of diseased, tainted or otherwise unsafe food products.

The best that the USDA can do is ask food producers to voluntarily remove unsafe products from the human food chain, hopefully before too many people get sick and die.

In this case, which the USDA says involves a very low risk of the beef being contaminated with disease-causing organisms, it turns out that the recall is utterly worthless since most of the 143 million pounds of meat in question (apparently that is enough ground beef to make two hamburgers for every man, woman and child in the US–what a treat!) has probably already been consumed. A good amount of it presumably by kids eating school lunches.

Most of this beef was slaughtered and ground up over the span of two years, so of course, most of it has already been bought, paid for, and eaten, meat being a perishable item and all. And I guess that the USDA figures that there is a minimal risk of illness because this meat, having already been eaten, hasn’t seemed to cause anyone to get sick, now has it?

On the other hand, if some of those downer cows were infected with BSE, and meat from them contaminated with the prions which cause the disease were eaten by American citizens, we wouldn’t know about it yet anyway, since the incubation period for new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is what people get when they eat prions in meat from BSE infected cows, is anywhere from 16-50 years. (I have read a bunch of different estimations on the incubation period for CJD–it seems that no one really knows for certain.)

By which time, the owners of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Company may have made billions of dollars selling possibly tainted meat to the US government to be fed to school children–a captive audience if ever there was one–and to restaurants and individual consumers. The fact that those who eat this meat may well die in sixty years or so with brains that look like hunks of grey swiss cheese is immaterial. The money will have been made, and our government, ever in the service of corporate greed, will have done nothing to stop it.

When I read letters and posts the other day on the NY Times blogs about the Humane Society video, I wasn’t really surprised to see people expressing shock and disbelief at what they were seeing, not to mention the implications of the information presented in therein. People acted as if it was a great surprise to learn what the true costs of the flood of CAFO-produced cheap meat are in this country.

Of course, the truth is that when you industrialize any process, and treat any living creature involved in that process as a product or commodity, the natural consequence of this action is that -all living creatures- involved in the process also become seen only as cogs in the profit-making machine. What I mean is that when animals, in this case, cows, are treated not as living creatures, but instead as objects or products, the humans who are involved in the process, whether they are slaughterhouse workers or consumers, are also disregarded as objects. When monetary gain is the highest goal set by a corporation, and greed becomes the ruling law of the day, and animals and humans alike are commodified and their suffering or potential safety is disregarded as immaterial to the goal of making as much cash as possible by cutting every possible corner, then it should come as no surprise to learn that animals are made to suffer heinously, workers are put into unsafe working conditions which not only threaten their lives, but also their humanity, and consumers, including children, are endangered by the consumption of unsafe food.

What should also come as no surprise is that our government is not only not doing anything to stop this sort of criminal activity, but is also complicit in it. For decades, our government has been less “by the people and for the people,” as it has been “by the corporations and for the corporations.” Laws that were once enacted in order to keep workers and consumers safe have been gutted in favor of helping large businesses make more money at the expense of human wellbeing.

And what is really amazing is that people act as if this sort of horror has not happened before. Does no one read The Jungle anymore, or do people believe that just because it Upton Sinclair’s novel inspired the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act into federal law that animals, consumers and workers are protected from the hellish brutality depicted therein?

I guess that what has happened is that consumers have assumed that because of these laws enacted early in the twentieth century, that the meat industry has changed its ways and the US government food inspectors are a well-funded, powerful group who are able to keep us all safe from corporate wrongdoing when it comes to our food supply. What consumers do not know or think about is how those laws have been weakened over decades of successful industry lobbying, and as a consequence of this how the USDA’s inspection process has been hampered by lack of adequate funding and lack of congressional and consumer oversight.

Of course, it isn’t as if there has not been public outcry on the subject of food safety over the hears. I remember a few reports on 60 Minutes in the seventies, and more recently, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma have both pointed out the precarious situation our food supply is in, all because Americans insist upon cheap widely available meat and the industry which provides it insists upon as little regulation and oversight as possible.

Neither of these works has resulted in the kind of outcry we are seeing over the Humane Society video, however.

And that is fine–I don’t care if it is a book, a video or somebody’s grandmother which get Americans off their duffs and springing into action over the issue of CAFO’s and food safety. I just want them to stop slumbering on the issue and start acting.

Whether they act by boycotting beef, becoming vegetarians, calling their congresspersons and demanding legislative action, by switching to locally produced grass-fed meat or by demanding better food in schools–I don’t care.

The silver lining to this ugly stormcloud is that finally, Americans are moved to demand action.

I just hope that people see through the sham of this “recall” and keep making a fuss. Loudly. And that they start hitting the beef industry in the wallet, so that there is financial impact. Because frankly, that is all that the meat industry in this country will understand–if their bottom line is hurt, and only if they lose money, will they change.

Upton Sinclair would be sad to see the current way that meat is produced in this country, but I believe he would be heartened by the fact that Americans are once again awakening from their complacent consumer slumber, and are realizing that the ugly face of meat is not just a historical curiosity.

It is alive and well, and stalking our children even today.