Pontormo

I can't resist: Benjamin Franklin said "Fish and visitors stink in three days." McDonald's Filet-o-Fish Sandwich stinks from a block away. ← Anne, clever! If the puzzle comes from Sandy and there's at least one clear connection to be made to Philadelphia, you KNOW his adopted city is involved. I'm clueless, myself.

1-Maurice LaMarche provides the Orson Welles-impersonated voice to one of those popular animated sitcoms; the character is called The Brain. He also serves as the voice of Kellogg's Tucan Sam. 2-Kellogg's manufactures Nutrigrain Bars. Hence, the connection, though I'm sure the originator had a more interesting, direct link in mind. * * * Regarding my earlier post and point-system: Why not provide equal points for: 1) Making the connection cleverly in 2-3 steps AND 2) 6 steps? If it's solved in 4-5 or 7 or more steps, no points. For example, I'd say zero points for my Howard Roark and Chilean Sea Bass solution as it stands. Were I to point out that you could eliminate steps 2 & 3 and you'd still have the solution and submit that now, you would nod and give me the points for 2-3 steps. Criteria? It's going to be subjective. However, I'd say a good solution that involves more than 2 steps is one in which all steps in between 1 & the solution are critical to reaching the solution. So, #2 in a 3-step response has to be there to make sense. Numbers 2, 3, 4 & 5 MUST be in the submitted sequence AND essential to the link made in #6 to award those points. This way, people who enjoy quickies can submit quickies and those who prefer a circuitous route can have the pleasure of doing things their way, too. 3) If a proper response is offered for a 6-stepper, the topic gets retired and a call for a 2-3 step answer is no longer made. 4) Every topic submitted MUST be based on a legitimate connection. Ideally, the author of that topic reached the solution IN SEVERAL STEPS, the more, the merrier. That way, the challenge might prove greater and sustain interest.

Bruce: It's great to see someone from around here doing a food blog. I share the admiration of all regarding your food. (And your wife's visual pun.) Out of curiosity, what outskirt of D.C. instilled an interest in the foods of different cultures? I look forward to the rest of the week.

1. Howard Roark embodies Objectivism, the belief that one's own guiding principles are as real as those of any given society and one must transform one's own vision into reality by giving it material form even if it goes against the rules of that society. As an architect, he fulfills this mission by designing buildings, including a skyscraper that soars potently above Hell's Kitchen, gleaming in the sun. 2. Gordon Ramsay is a chef who embodies Pragmatism, believing that if you give the public what it wants, you can get filthy rich in the process, while still maintaining one's own integrity. Therefore, he works out to look sexy for the camera, screams and yells on a TV show called "Hell's Kitchen" to create high drama, and still manages to feed his customers very well in New York City where it is his ambition, like Roark, to Make it Big. 3. Lorna Yee personifies Hedonism, the idea that the world is to be enjoyed and that pleasure is a goal in and of itself as long as that personal commitment is not followed selfishly. Therefore, she bakes constantly, buying enough quantities of chocolate alone for Valrhona to expand its operations, increase its benefits package, etc. You can imagine what she does for dairy farmers, sugar plantations, etc., let alone the friends, family, restaurant patrons and loved ones with whom she generously shares her wares while still managing to consume her own fill. She was photographed in New York City with Gordon Ramsay and an architect. 4. Henry Lo, the boyfriend, and architect, also embodies Objectivism. He decided one day to eat Chilean sea bass, calling it by its other name, to detract from the fact that many in society believe that it is irresponsible to eat a species whose fate may very well go the way of the Dodo bird if we are not careful. He shrugs like Atlas, mentions the opposing point of view expressed by Whole Foods, and stands up for what he believes. Upon occasion he can be seen up high on tall buildings, flipping foie gras burgers, his spatula gleaming in the sun.

Daniel: See Busboy's original thread and Old Foodie's linked SCIENTIFIC article. Homophobic fears and terror of men becoming girly are linked, irrational aspects of a culture that still associates huge, fatty hamburgers at Burger King with masculinity and plant-based food sources with femininity. There is an interesting and wackoo book out there by Piero Camporesi that maintains the reason there were so many visionary people expecting miracles right and left back in medieval Europe is because everyone was either famished to the point of delusion or strung-out on mold spores since no one knew anything about food safety back then. It doesn't mean you're going to have a close and intimate conversation with Cleopatra next week if you stop scraping off the rind of your favorite soft cheese . If you belong to Netflix, I'd suggest ordering a bunch of films from Asian cultures in which soy beans were cultivated long before the West had discovered how to scratch itself. Observe closely the numbers of blood-thirsty warriors whose voices never rise above a bass level on the soundtrack even though Kurosawa is known for feeding mapo tofu to his actors. Cf. the numbers of sensitive heterosexual sons, robust homosexual men, shy women, strong heterosexual women, repressed businessmen, motherly mothers, bewitching ghosts, dumb fat slobs, adorable little boys and precious little girly girls in films directed by Ozu, Mizoguchi, Koreeda, Wong, Ang Lee et al. I believe that when Tony Leung's character dined with his lovely neighbor during In the Mood for Love, he ordered tofu. Trust me, it didn't make him any more resistible. I bought a package of tofu yesterday. I'll let you know if I find myself wearing more pearls, high heels and lace this week than is my norm. BTW: walnuts, peanuts, almonds, chickpeas, lentils, black beans, cannellini, and Rancho Gordo are your friends.

FTR: I initiated the Kafka and pea soup option, so my brief answer was a spoiler for the 3-step option rather than a solution. I liked Henry's so much, I wouldn't try to top it. Kudos to Judiu for noticing slip-up regarding father and son Fondas. Here's a suggestion: Since the originators of this game really favor the short form, I bow to official rules. However, I find that we're getting a little too elementary in coming up with obvious associations and quick 2-3 step links. Wikipedia is the favorite source for information and it's easy to discover, as I did, that the designer of the wafers in the oreo cookie was German, just like the current pope. How about developing a point-system that awards clever, complex, convoluted responses to the same degree that short and sweet answers win honors? Ingenuity is what this is all about, after all. P.S. Orson Welles has two matching vowels in first and last names.

Henry: I never knew you had it in you. ( I was going for Kafka's Gregor who became a cockroach and Gregor Mendel and peas, but I like yours so much better!) Okay: Pope Benedict and oreos: German by birth, Pope Benedict is the head of the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome, who holds up the Eucharistic wafer when celebrating mass. Oreos are sandwich cookies whose "cream" (shortening, sugar, etc.) connects two wafers that were designed by a German. I promise to do a convoluted one later. P.S. Ooooo, Kerry! Props for your bard!

Well, since there's no pea soup, the buzzer goes "BLAAAH!" Doesn't count. Interesting to see how answers make connections different from one's own. I was thinking about Nabokov and a different book and a side of Nabokov that has to do with an obsessive pursuit outside the realm of literature. Chaucer? Franklin's Tale, I think. Love of marrow bones. Harry Potter and eggplant--or aubergines. There is a long thin eggplant known as the snake eggplant and Harry Potter spoke whatever that language is called. At any rate, he understood what snakes said and could talk back to them. ETA: Because apparently my response was overlooked.

And out of duy, I will add: Johann Strauss and arancini Nabokov and vanilla Virginia Woolf and He Cai Dai Mao Chaucer and osso buco Kafka and pea soup Alfred Hitchcock and bouillabaise

1. Bing Crosby played lots of golf on greens 2. Carrots are topped by greens 1. Santa Claus is a fat guy who wears red and white 2. Kobe beef is red and streaked with white fat 1. Marilyn Manson is a pasty, feminized persona who has been made into a doll, a grossly untalented man who shares his professional identity to some degree with Limp Bizkit and Cream. According to Relient K, he ate my girlfriend and Satan consumed her mind. 2. Strawberry Shortcake, as invented by a greeting card company, is a strawberry-scented doll whose name evokes a seasonal dessert that is best served with biscuits and whipped cream. Girlfriends share their Strawberry Shortcake dolls and accessories, and thus, are consumed by the evil inanity that is produced by untalented capitalists intent on making us buy things we don't need. 1. John Cleese provides the voice for the sheep in a movie version of Charlotte's Web. 2. Tripe is made from a sheep's stomach.

There's a thread somewhere on this forum asking how we plan our meals. I've noticed that the Dinner thread is starting to affect my methods. For example, I was so taken by Hathor's salt-crusted chicken, I found a recipe online (thanks for the mention of your blog, Judith, I'll check later) and went out in search of one. Alas, shopping on a Sunday at dusk is not a good idea and there was not a whole chicken to be had. Slim pickins all the way around, so I had to go with something else. Besides, since the crust involves around 8 egg whites (at least the recipe I found had this requirement), I'm going to have to wait until a time when the freezer isn't stuffed with gnudi, cappelletti, tortelli and a disk of unformed egg pasta dough. Now, Judith, I saw your Mexican wedding soup on one of the few gloriously winter-cold days we've had down here in the tropics, and since there's ground beef in the freezer, I went out and got me some chard last night ! Shaya, please continue to inspire us. Klary, great idea for dealing with this unseasonable weather. I've got a stack of rice wrappers, scallions, limes and cilantro all because Daniel reminded me that I haven't had tofu for ages. I suspect the mapos here also are an influence, though, it's a desire to lose weight--and rare in the Carnivorous Culture that is eGullet--I need to make a concerted effort to eat more protein. As much as I would prefer that gorgeous, gorgeous rack of lamb , Marlene, tis time to tend to the black beans and hike a couple of miles to catch me a smoked ham shank.

I thought that was tomato soup? Anyway, it was certainly Campbells and less than three steps. ← Silk-screened

Actually, Daniel, I was guessing since I don't know. The most recent White Castle reference I have is a rerun of "Ugly Betty" I just watched and I don't recall "Superfreak" being mentioned...nor do I know why you're singling out the clam strips.

Does this involve Harold and Kumar going to White Castle in a movie that incorporates Superfreak in the score?

Doesn't making it in 2 count? See my post above in which I offered 2 solutions done in 2. If it's supposed to be 3 and you're not giving me props for my 6-er, then: 1) What I already said about Il Moro and the blackberries in the garland above Leonardo's fresco. 2) Blackberries are used as telephones, agendas & email devices by PC policy wonks in Washington, D.C. who are not down with 3) The way Bill Cosby is presenting himself as a social critic now that he's no longer making Jello commercials. * * * Henry, my man! Actually, I was thinking of an ending that included Bob Fosse as choreographer for the original Broadway production of "Chicago" and its ban, but via a route you took with Heidi Klum as a supermodel, a country singer's current girlfriend according to Wikipedia, his ex-wife, etc.

Okay, as I ate my carrots, I came up with the following which is dedicated to Henry, and designed to be completed in six steps, though my hat's off to anyone who finishes in 2-3: Seal and foie gras

Sorry, I didn't see the rules when I browsed quickly through this thread. Not that I am playing to win, gosh, I'm writing now because I am waiting for my carrots to finish steaming, but I still think it takes more ingenuity to either invent a relationship that has actually six degrees of separation or be long-winded in coming up with a riduculous series of precisely six degrees, no? < that's supposed to be batting its long eyelashes without rolling the pupils. ETA to make point: 1. In the lunettes above Leonardo's Last Supper, illusionistic garlands hang, filled with references to the Sforza patrons, including blackberries whose name in Italian puns on the nickname of Ludivico Sforza, il Moro. 2. Jello comes in all sorts of berry flavors, including blackberry. OR 1. Leonardo was into horses, drawing lots while designing the equestrian monument for Ludivico which was never realized. 2. Jello is made with gelatin, a substance derived from hoofed animals, like horses. Quick, but...

1. Leonardo da Vinci continued the long-established tradition of painting The Last Supper on the walls of a refectory in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, using an experimental combination of oil-based pigments instead of painting in true fresco with egg yolk, thus making the image virtually illegible only a few decades after its completion. 2. The residential community who dined in that room ate a simple, austere diet unlike the ruling Sforza family who paid for the wall painintg. 3. Ascetic diets are also followed outside of the Christian tradition, in the 20th century, for example, by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. 4. The Beatles went to India to seek spiritual enlightment from MMY. 5. After his career with the Beatles, Paul McCartney recorded "Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder. 6. Not only did Bill Cosby record a parody of a Beatles album called, "Hooray for the Salvation Army," he also sang "Little Ole Man" on a record to the tune of "Uptight (Everything's Alright)." And we all know that Bill Cosby's about the Jello. * * * Number 1 is so detailed so you can take it from there in a different direction, though I imagine Henry wanted you to go with Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code, then maybe a public fountain in Splash and something about college students filling fountains with Jello as a prank? ETA: Since Anne still wants something more obvious on the Hilton hotels, I'll get back to you in a few days on other obscure combinations. Fun game, Janet!

1. Nicole Kidman starred in Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise 2. Tom Cruise is married to Katie Holmes 3. Katie Holmes starred in The Ice Storm Directed by Ang Lee 4. Ang Lee is Taiwanese 5. Taiwanese are notorious for eating anything 6. No Taiwanese would ever even consider putting Haggis in their mouth Leonardo Da Vinci and Jello. ← 1. Clever, Henry!!!! 2. What I like about your reply--besides the humor--is the fact that you actually provided six degress of separation. The challenge for this rest of us to establish more complicated relationships is on!

Pamela Anderson was reported to have been vacationing in Portocervo, Sardinia on one of the celebrity sites I just googled. Botarga is a regional specialty of Sardinia. Both Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton have maintained their public profiles, in part, due to videos of their sexual activity on the internet. OR Paris Hilton appeared in Tokyo plugging her wonderful CD. Danny Meyer is reported to be opening another Union Square Cafe in Tokyo. Botarga is served on spaghetti at Union Square Cafe. OR Paris Hilton is friends with Ivana Trump's daughter. Ivana Trump has been photographed partying in Sardinia w her Italian honey. OR Paris Hilton appeared briefly in Lost in Translation, a movie directed by Sofia Coppola. Sofia's family is into wine and not just film. Bottarga is consumed with wine, sometimes while watching film. OR Botarga is made from dried-up mullet roe, i.e. clusters of fresh, young eggs that have aged. One day, we will no longer have to hear anything about Paris Hilton anymore since all we care about are fresh, young things, and thus, as she ages, her fame, too, shall dry up.

Looks like some of us have repeated one another re some of the points nicely distilled above. While there are exceptions to just about any general rule, I'd take issue only with: I've noticed that beer is standard at some American tables and is associated with consuming very American foods such as lobster, hot dogs at baseball games, chili...

Regarding responses to Shalimese's cautionary post about the difficulty of an insider analyzing something about her own culture, the opposite point of view has often been used in arguments. "You can't understand what is going on in X because you are not here like I am." Different perspectives on American culture are interesting whether those of De Tocqueville; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Dorothy Day; Alastair Cooke or Isabel Allende. If by "American" only The United States is taken into account, a lot has changed since James Beard wrote the first cookbook I ever owned. However, signs of its current and future state are there: 1) regionality, a feature shared with just about any country of any scale 2) hybridity: more than most nations, I'd argue, given: a) the importance of immigration and numbers of inter-marriages that lead to intrafamilial multi-culturalism at the table. This factor also brings many so-called "ethnic" restaurants to places beyond major urban areas. b) given the relative youth of the country, many transplanted food traditions have not been fully assimilated, even if they are regular parts of our diet. Therefore, while salsa may have replaced ketchup as a favorite bottled condiment made from tomatoes, it is still viewed as "outsider" or "Mexican" food by many US citizens. "Quesa fresca" is not as familiar as words like "spaghetti" or "pizza", so you're bound to see Spanish text on the packaging of the former, with little Italian written on boxes containing the latter. Nonetheless, there are uses and forms of all three items--i.e. the cheese, pasta & pizza--that would be unrecognizable to citizens of the countries of origin. I'm not sure of the simplest way to put this, but I'd contrast this with dishes that Italians adapted from French courts in Naples centuries ago and French dishes that developed from Italian dishes yet are now fully French. 3) in continual flux, given factors listed in #2 above Lasagna (vs. lasagne in Bologna) may be codified as dried, broad noodles, boiled and layered with tomato sauce, ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan, but it's fiddled with constantly whereas Italians will fight about what is truly authentic. The closest thing to that way of thinking in the U.S. that I know is Manhattan vs. New England clam chowder. 4) tied to marketing and commercial forces of the food industry, whether in the spheres of individuals who eat at McDonald's regularly, rely on Lean Cuisine to accommodate a busy schedule, or "foodies" who take their cues from the Food Network, the latest article in The NYT, their magazine subscriptions or the specials at their favorite stores. Given factors that include the size of the country, social mobility, education, class and geographic mobility, there is also a rather schizophrenic quality to the degrees to which so many of us are democratic, showing an open-minded acceptance of new, foreign, innovative types of food on the one hand, yet on the other, we are remarkably provincial, close-minded, monotonous or simply content with our own family's traditions which are not necessarily boring or unhealthful. This second, overly generalized tendency may be tied to geography as well. We're not as close to the very different cultures of other nations as Europeans or some Asians, Africans, or Middle-Eastern residents are, nor do we belong identify with diverse groups the way that members of the European Union might.

1. Samuel Pepys wrote his diary during a terrible outbreak of the Plague which makes you sick. Hamburgers, when cooked to rare or medium rare, if prepared with tainted meat, contain e-coli. E-coli makes you sick. 2. The benefactor of Pepys was Sir Edward Mountagu, the Earl of Sandwich. Hamburgers are sandwiches.

Fine dining is to be had on the rooftop in the Rembrandt Hotel in Bangkok where the South Indian food proves outstanding. Hence, chutney.