Congrats, Whitney! Remember when you were still on drugs and you made this?

Whitney Houston announced her sobriety today. So Whitney, we celebrate your sobriety, just as once, you celebrated the fact that little children walk on balance beams and learn to swim. This video is like a stack of icing, sheets and sheets of icing, off of many cakes of footage.

Enjoy.

A tent of conscience over stakes of intellect...

...over a wedding party of dizzying evidence, DJ'd by clarity.

May as many people read Michael Pollan's article in the Times as possible. And Mr. Pollan, I'm really sorry about the, uh, metaphor above. It's a compulsion.

The Mating Dance of the Celeb and the Starbuck

There's something confusing going on. Or maybe something simple, and I've confused it. A picture is worth a thousand product placements (this genius montage via Jossip quite a while ago)


Celebrities are ALWAYS carrying Starbucks, and the WORST of them, the WORST, are Mary Kate/ Ashley Olsen. I weigh at least 300 lbs more than the both of 'em combined, and I don't need elephant-dumps of coffee in my hands at all times. I drink a small cup in the morning, made at home and carried in a geeky rubber thing, and then a refill around three. Even when I had money, I almost never got Starbucks because, c'mon, it's just BORING. That, to me, is a more compelling reason to avoid it, and shoot for a local brew, than the fact that it's burny and bitter and overpriced.

But back to the Olsens. I used to think that maybe the reason you always see celebs with Starbucks is because there are a lot of Starbucks AROUND-- it was statistical. But this photo (via People) of Ashley Olsen and her friend Chewbacca coming out a Paris Starbucks says to me that this shit is DELIBERATE.



WHY would you seek Starbucks out in Paris? Why is she always holding it? Does she have a "lifetime free coffee pass" from Starbucks, for all the valuable magazine placement? But why would Mary Kate Olsen care about free coffee? SHE'S A BILLIONAIRE. Even her 12 daily ventis don't make a dent (denti?) in her shaggy, oversized wallet. So why the Starbucks infatuation?

And obviously Mary Kate here is metonymic for the rest of the celebrities. But these stars make effortful, professionally-aided attempts to cultivate seemingly idiosyncratic style. (Again, Mary Kate swaddled in trash bags, accompanied by Hun) So why do they cling to a mid-brow, much-vilified corporate icon like Starbucks, more often seen in the hands of overweight mall waddlers? What do they get out of it? Is Starbucks the only coffee shop in LA?

Sites like this add to the confusion. Who engineers it? Is it not engineered? Do celebs just enjoy Starbucks?

And a related question: can Mary Kate's tiny heart, already working overtime to carry her enormous shawls, handle 800 fluid ounces of caffeine per day?

Best Situation Baked Ziti Has EVER Been In

Beats sitting on the formica in Bensonhurst, don't it?

Like a cobra in a shopping bag

Jesus, man, throw on a pair of Umbros or something.

I don't understand

This summer, when I learned to make traditional Finnish pulla, I was dismayed. Even after baking delicious pulla five or six times, no local neighborhood Finns came with tarpaulin in hand to wrap me up and carry me home, plant me in front of a huge iron kettle, and call me "wife."

Now, I have begun to make my own rye bread regularly. This is not because I am some sort of obnoxious, esurient epicure: this is because I am scared of my neighborhood at night and I'd rather just bake the bread myself than wrestle a wigged-out hobo to get inside the grocery store. Plus, flour and water are much cheaper than bread.

But it's become more than defensive now; I'm emotionally attached to my rye bread. I don't come home to an empty house anymore, I come home to a ball of dough which has been rising expectantly, waiting for me to come home, punch it, and roll it around a little bit-- LIKE A WIFE OF MY OWN!!

But here's my question. Pulla was one thing. But rye bread? DAILY? I understand that I live on the 12th floor of a building with pretty tight security, again, surrounded by a moat of wigged-out hobos. But I'm a TEENSY bit incredulous that no woodsmen have come to club me in the head and lovingly drag me home by the hair to shave their backs and cure their moose. I think I deserve to get thrown across a threshold for this display of ur-Finn domesticity.


Well, until then, I'll just be here on this Laz-E-Boy, reading Soap Opera Digest.

Mommy's a scary mommy

I know she's just been through something tragic, but has she also just been through a carwash of Vaseline??

Thanks, Big Guy

Dear Julia,

I thought you would appreciate this hilarious insano.

Keep truckin'.

Love,

God

Starvin' Marvin

People have been asking, "Now that you're in grad school, Jules, are you eating like an anorexic Cistercian monk?" (I paraphrase.) Away from my boyfriend/cook, away from the New York restaurants I loved, and most palpably, away from the professional life that afforded my indulgences, am I sitting on a rock by Lake Michigan, gnawing on my arm like a crazy cur?

The answer to that question brings me to about eighth grade, when my kitchen dabbling became a regular after-school workshop. Nevermind that I was obsessed with processed foods. (I loved the critical quest of adding water to Lipton packs and seeing what became of the various powders: Alfreddo? Garlic and Herb? They basically all tasted the same.)

Obviously, years of this shit has formed a chemical Lego palace somewhere in my colon. I shudder to think about it.

Anyway, why did I come home from school, drop my bag, and hit the pantry, selecting a robotic pre-pack of pasta powder and setting to work in my lab? Was it because I was a pig? Because I was so hungry from lacrosse practice? Taking over for my absentee parents? None of the above (except maybe the pig, obvie.)


No, the reason I cooked so furiously was because I WOULD ALWAYS RATHER COOK THAN DO MY HOMEWORK.

Which should explain why my fridge right now contains: spinach and turnip green soup, spaetzle, an apple tart, lentil stew, tzatziki sauce (WHY? I had dill, I had yogurt, and I'd rather roll in poison ivy naked than read more Foucault), and a chicken thigh with roasted apples. I've got a lot of reading to do tonight, which means a couple of squashes might get roasted, and I think we're in for an elaborate coffee drink or two. I can't help it. It's a compulsion. I think better when I know somethings bubbling or roasting or braising somewhere in the kitchen. I think it helps my brain braise.

Better than that BrainBraiser9000 I bought off QVC!