Sometimes an article comes along that almost perfectly encapsulates my attitude toward something. In this case, it's a New York Times article about the young editor of Seventeen, and the attitude it nails concerns eating in New York. Jason, you'll like this one.

"It's almost impossible to get a table here at night," she said brightly, surveying a dining room starting to fill with a weave of tourists and office workers. She often hits the Red Lobster in Hicksville on the way back from Hamptons weekends, she said, or drives out to a Secaucus, N.J., location. ("They have the best fries!" she declares.)...

Putting a big dent in 24 fried shrimp would probably put your typical women's magazine editor in the hospital, either for treatment of shame or stomach rupture, but Ms. Rubenstein revels in her pedestrian palate, which she says is a legacy of her life as the daughter of Iranian immigrants on Long Island. "We went out to eat very rarely, and we thought that a place that had a big lobster on the front had to be pretty fancy," she explained.

When it is required, Ms. Rubenstein is happy to show her face at Michael's, the Midtown nexus of media power, but left to her own devices, she is still mesmerized by the sight of a big red plastic lobster...

[At Bubba Gump's] Ms. Rubenstein ordered something called a Blue Lemon Up, because, she said: "Blue is good. Blue cotton candy, blue soda, it's all good."

The waitress smiled. "You get to keep the glass," she said.

"Oh, goodie," Ms. Rubenstein said, managing to resist the urge to clap her hands. And her mood brightened further, if that is possible, when she spotted hush puppies and cheese fries on the menu.

Dude, I got excited just reading about it.

I'm also happy to hear that someone else thinks about how which outlet of a fast-food chain has the best fries. And I'm all about the blue comment.

Also, memo to David Carr: liking hush puppies and disliking corn dogs, or more specifically disliking shrimp breading that tastes like corn dogs, is no more weird than liking polenta but disliking a sauce for being too mango-y. Know what I'm saying?

It's a great bit when her mentor talks about how he likes Red Lobster now. Yeah, you know, you really only need to take a food snob to, say, Popeye's, three times, and they'll like it. Because that's food that basically trying to taste as good as it can. Plus: mmm, fried.
posted by Mike B. at 11:40 AM 0 comments