you are what you breathe
by Burt Prelutsky
As the owner of a dog, I resent it every time I read a newspaper article that suggests that the money we Americans spend on our pets is wasteful – and that the dough I spend on Duke’s food, toys and meds, in a single month could support some New Guinea tribe of headhunters for an entire year. My reaction is always the same, I’m afraid. I don’t care about them, and, to be fair, I’m sure they don’t care about me.
The fact is, I don’t think it’s my business how anybody spends his money, just so long as he didn’t get it by robbing banks, selling crack, or gutting a corporate pension fund. And I sure as heck don’t think it’s anybody’s business, except my wife’s, how I choose to spend mine. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel entitled to laugh at the way the very rich choose to blow theirs.
For instance, take Rolex watches. Now, why on earth would anybody want to spend upwards of $10,000 on a wristwatch that doesn’t keep time any better than a $20 Timex? What makes it particularly odd is that the same people who insist on wearing these pricey timepieces generally feel entitled to always be late.
And when you can’t drive faster than 35 in town and 65 on the highway, why would anybody want to squander a bloody fortune on a Porsche? Does it make any sense to spend all that loot on a high-performance car when you can never get it out of second gear?
But as goofy as I find those extravagances, I recently heard about something that makes over-priced cars and watches sound like blue light specials. I’m referring to a new breed of restaurant that would make you think that the Mad Hatter had donned a chef’s toque and moved into the world of haute cuisine.
One of the more outrageous examples is Chicago’s Moto. One suspects that its kitchen resembles Dr. Frankenstein’s workplace more than it does Emeril’s. For $240-a-meal, you might get the idea they’re serving 10-pound lobsters. Guess again. The whole purpose of Moto is to redefine what food is. For instance, the sushi platter contains no fish, only tuna and rice-flavored paper. I guess that’s one way to put fiber in your diet.
The Caesar salad has no lettuce, but consists entirely of a dollop of romaine-flavored ice cream. I suppose at this very moment the staff is hard at work coming up with a recipe for ice cream that tastes like Caesar salad.
The menu itself is edible and can be crumbled into a bowl of gazpacho, turning it into alphabet soup. For your $240, not including tip, you could also dig into a virtual shrimp cocktail. Best of all, you don’t have to waste any of your precious time eating it; instead, you’re served a plastic atomizer and told to spritz your tongue to taste shrimp, horseradish and tomato-flavored air. Mmmmm mmmm.
Other culinary delights include custard that tastes like fried chicken, a crab dish that fizzes like soda pop, and a chocolate dessert prepared in a balloon.
With people more than willing to fork over a very tidy sum for a meal consisting pretty much of paper and air, is it any wonder that an enterprising Englishman was recently awarded a $75,000 grant to perfect a crunchy cocktail? Of course, if he succeeds, they’ll have to change the slogan to, Don’t eat and drive.
Finally, I assume that when you take a doggy bag home from Moto’s, they have to charge you extra because the bag, no doubt, is edible, and the air inside is considered a side dish.
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