The Hate Stands Alone

The queue of compelling cilantro hate topics to entertain grows as my time/commitment wanes and while the list is long and I do hope to cover some ground in the weeks and months ahead, one topic stands apart from the others and deserves immediate attention.

The apparent hiatus/tech failure/abandonment of the I Hate Cilantro site by my cilantro-hating brethren at ihatecilantro.com has got me thinking: who, what, why? But, given that I prefer speculation and creative thinking to good old-fashioned investigative journalism (contextually), let's go Fox News on the situation, let's go rogue!

Possible explanations:

1. I Hate Cilantro quit hating cilantro.

2. I Hate Cilantro is having a very serious tech problem (the site has been down for at least a month if not longer) manifest in a lone sad face surrounded by gratuitous negative space.

3. I Hate Cilantro just quit. Enough. The burden is too great to alone shepherd the growing and growingly vocal numbers of professed cilantro haters.

4. I Hate Cilantro is making an implicit statement about internet media: the masses seek a return to critical experts telling them what to think without the interruption of clunky forums and various interactive templates that would seek to make their voices heard in ways more cumbersome and complicated than the immensely efficient "comment" option provided by nearly all blogs.

Whatever has happened, the implications are clear. I must carry the cilantro hate torch alone. I accept this responsibility and will do my best to not let you down cilantro haters everywhere.

The Need to Write, The Need to Hate

I've been getting annoyed a lot recently, not that me getting annoyed is in anyway anomalous. I am someone who gets annoyed: whether a person (or group) is being a jerk or too nice (in a an ostensibly genuine but upon closer inspection not altogether genuine way), too loud or too soft spoken, too dumb or too erudite, admittedly there's a thin tipping point in my book where something goes from just right, to just not. But I'm not a hypocrite--(or at least not an unknowing hypocrite, we're all hypocrites after all) I'm annoying too.

But getting annoyed is not, you know, a trait I'm interested in nurturing. I'm self-aware enough to know that an over abundance of getting-annoyed-ness has more to do with me than with the world around me, that I have some power in getting annoyed less and that getting annoyed less would probably have the effect of, rather intuitively, me being less annoyed, which seems pretty good.

So I've done a bit of science on this situation. Having a predisposition to getting annoyed, I'm going to need somewhere to channel this propensity. And that's where you, neglected cilantro hate blog, come in: nothing is more reliably, even comfortingly, annoying than cilantro, and unlike say republicans hellbent on stopping health care reform, cilantro being you know an herb, as opposed to near-half the American population, seems like a healthier, easier and altogether more fun place to direct my annoyance.

There are other reasons, too, why I've come to think revisiting this blog might mitigate this annoyance phase (don't we all live in phases? I know I do.). Principally, I very much miss writing and not just writing, but writing about something that is so uniquely mine, not the hate of cilantro--we're a large, vocal group--but the whatever unique blend of memoir, personal philosophy and of course cilantro hate encounters this blog evolved into. In no uncertain terms: my blog is way better than ThisIsWhyYou'reFat, however fun it is (I guess), but rather than be annoyed with how much better my blog is, it seems a better use of time to write my blog than be annoyed that other people are writing (popular) stupid ones. With that I bring you....

The Week in Cilantro Hate:

1.) Thank you Vanessa for your tip on McDonald's' new salad, the Southwest Chicken Salad, which features cilantro lime chicken and some sort of Ranch dressing with cilantro in it. Now, call me a snob if you will but Ranch dressing isn't my first choice, and McDonald's chicken belongs in a group (with say haggis) of "meats I don't want to eat" (As a side note, I'm dabbling in veganism at the moment), but McDonald's: consider yourselves removed from my cilantro safe-restaurant list, a blow certainly as detrimental as Fast Food Nation, Super Size Me and Food Inc. combined (oh wait, McDonald's is doing better than ever?)

2.) This morning I had a falafel platter at Miriam in Brooklyn that came with a green tahini sauce. I of course asked if it was green from the addition of parsley or cilantro. "Both," said the waitress, "but you really can't taste the cilantro."

"But, I really hate it."
"So do I, you can't taste it."
"Is it on the side?"
"Yes."
"Cool, I'll try it."

Guess what? I couldn't taste it. I didn't eat much of it, but I really didn't taste it. This leaves me wondering if there was actually cilantro in it or if the amount was so small that even I couldn't taste it (this doesn't seem likely, haters know even the slightest amount is totally egregious). In any case, the waitress was surprisingly right, and it was great to not be annoyed.

10 Reasons To Love Hating Cilantro, Number 7: The Lying

I'm not much of a liar.

There's an obvious potential paradox here that I won't even insult you explaining, but choose to believe me or not, I'm actually a pretty honest person. This is for a variety of reasons most notably: I'm bad at lying, My long-term memory is better than my short term memory and I would have a hard time keeping my facts straight (in other words, I'm bad at lying) and I, to be honest, have this strange sense of what one might call integrity wrapped around this virtue, if you will, of telling the truth. Telling the truth is better than not, most of the time, and I leave it to men smarter and men dumber than me to decide when those times might be.

Except with this whole "I'm allergic to cilantro" businesss, which WSJ quoted me on and has been the source of much discussion since. Commenters have written that they are worried I've exposed the lie as such and restaurateurs and cocktail hour hosts across the world will no longer take the allergy proclamation seriously. Another commenter worries that the "crying wolf" waters down the very serious allergies of people like her daughter--restaurants no longer take allergies seriously, everyone's got an "allergy," these days.

To be fair, I've always had a somewhat unfounded attitude towards allergies, with the exception of peanuts (though I resent people with peanut allergies because it means I can't eat them on planes anymore), thinking they're largely the result of 1) too worrisome parents who don't feed their kids anything potentially allergy-causing and hence end up with kids "allergic" to everything 2) nature telling us we shouldn't be eating these things we're "allergic" too (lactose intolerant, please, eating milk from another species (and after early childhood) is unprecedented in the animal kingdom and just straight weird--yes I eat milk products) 3) a general hypochondria that has swept the nation. But, while these opinions aren't going anywhere soon, in all seriousness, of course if a child, especially, has a physical reaction when eating a food, I don't want to stand in the way, in any way, of them not eating that food.

But, I don't see that happening. I worked in a bunch of restaurants and I can tell you chefs take allergies seriously, especially real ones like peanut allergies, and while they find it HOPELESSLY ANNOYING, they don't want to get sued or lose business, so they comply. They've gotten so used to allergies, that they are actually more prepared and skilled at dealing with them. Separate areas for peanuts, separate pans for garlic or meat or vegetables. Do they sneak a little butter into risotto they call vegan? I've seen it done. And why? Because they find vegans annoying and their cause not sympathetic whereas they find people with allergies equally annoying, but a potential lawsuit--they would also have proof of the infraction in theory where the vegan wouldn't. (I'm speaking in general from my experience here, but I think I'm right). So there you go, the person with the allergy gets what they want and the person with a distaste doesn't, at least not relaibly.

So then the question becomes, do I, a paying customer deserve to get what I want? Yes. I think so. I treat "the help" politely and when I've explained I don't like, even hate cilantro, it finds a way onto the plate. Those of you who have watched a certain amount of Sex and the City know that the Carrie Bradshaw character does not like parsley and uses the same lying technique to avoid getting parsley in her food. This of course annoys Berger to no end and is probably the beginning of the end of their relationship, but I digress. I get what I want when I lie. It carries that I could do this in other arenas of my life, (get what I want by lying) but one must sacrifice one's integrity with calculation and consideration for mankind.

I would argue that the rampant allergic-ness of America has in fact made it easier to have an allergy in America (described above) and that while this makes things more difficult and annoying for chefs, it makes things better for diners, in other words for the demand to the restaurant's supply, and those with allergies have nothing to fear from liars like me, and cilantro haters calling themselves allergic similarly have nothing to fear because the chef is obliged to take the allergy seriously. But cilantro haters out there, if your hate is as real, as tangible, as undeniable as mine, it is as serious an unpleasantry as most not-serious allergies (which is to say most allergies) and if lying means I can enjoy a meal, one man's hives is another man's ruined palate and dining experience, let's leave it at that.

And lying's kind of fun too.

10 Reasons to Love Hating Cilantro, Number 9: The Absolute Shock it Sparks in Cilantro Fans

To mention you hate cilantro in mixed company, which is to say any company really, is to immediately incur the fierce judgment and opposition of many.

When you say you hate cilantro--you might as well say you hate the Virgin Mary herself--it is that offensive to those that love, or even those that kind of like.

I recently had this experience on an conference call:

Me: "Oh, you have a window box garden. That's tremendous. Tell me, what in it grows sir?"
Sir: "Cilantro"
Me: "Gross. Nothing else?"
Sir: "No, just cilantro, it's a limited garden as yet."
Me: "Indeed"
Conference Call Chorus: "I love cilantro." "Me too. Who hates cilantro?" "It's so refreshing." "Yeah. It's one of my favorite herbs." "Exactly. It's really good." "Who doesn't like cilantro."
Me: "I HATE CILANTRO is who... I have a whole blog about."
CCC: laughs
Me: "No, for real...."

I would never begrudge the masses their relishing in something (they find to be) delicious of course. What's funny, amazing, something to love as it were, is how impassioned the cilantro lovers are. I hear what you're saying--I too, my lot, are similarly impassioned. Perhaps. But not without irony dammit. Have you seen the I Hate Cilantro site? It is irony incarnate. Those that like are so, well, genuine! But no need to judge, I've said my peace about cilantro lovers in the past...we all have our crosses to bear.

What's fun is in an otherwise ordinary meeting, or say it's a nice brunch looking for a little culinary discourse, or say it's a conversation with a stranger in the checkout aisle you wish you could connect with (if only to argue)--hating cilantro is immediate grounds for a kind of good-hearted outrage-turned-understanding: We feel the same way, just but it's the opposite, or something. Anyway, it's fun to see people get so riled up about something they probably hadn't given a ton of (any) thought to until it was suggested someone might hate it. Many times I feel I'm the first cilantro hater people have met. Cross to bear? No, it's my privilege and honor.

The Hate Lives On and Paris Too!

It appears I have "fans," and these fans, if you will, have grown agree with me, disappointed, nonplussed.

Well, we can't have that, can we?

I remember the feeling, when a certain friend of mine named James had quit writing in his always entertaining blog, I went through all, not some, of the 5 stages of grief. To review, they are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. I have accepted that my friend James's "career" has replaced his "blog" (indeed he did just help to elect our new president--an achievement that's sheer awesomeness is ironic retort-proof, an achievement in its own right), but I cannot accept that mine (career) has replaced mine (blog). (It's funny, I was complaining to my boyfriend how much David Foster Wallace's () annoyed me, and yet...) Please loyal fans, go through but 4 stages of grief, rest on your depressive laurels and be ready for what I have to say next--I'm back and so too is my deep, serious hate of cilantro.

Perhaps an anecdote is in order.

Recently, in the blogless month of October, I took my first excursion abroad. I went to Paris, which is apparently the most touristed place in the world. Who knew? Apparently my friend's father who was nice enough to share his apartment with us for a week, apparently he knew, pretty awesome.

What would stand out to many in Paris is how awesome the food is, and certainly this was not lost on me. Practically the entire purpose of my trip was to go to Paris, eat croissant and not check my email for 9 days. On all accounts, the trip was a success. But there is more to Paris than croissant of course--there are also macaroons (the best are at Pierre Herme), pan au chocolat, steak frites, everything in the world you could ever want with ham and cheese (omelet, croque monsieur, sandwich mixed, quiche, dear god it's so good), and the list goes on. Of course there's the cafe and the champagne and the wine and the wonderful fact that to imbibe is to live, to not hold your liquor a little is ok, and to not hold it a lot is just, well, it's gauche, ok.

But it's what Paris is not, of course, that makes it awesome. Paris is not a place one goes to feast on cilantro, though it disappointingly if not completely predictably is now present in the newer, nicer restaurants, the kind that are just like the newer nicer restaurants in New York except the menus are in French and the people are too. Since all the fancy New York places are run by chefs from France, well, it's like buying Chanel shoes in Paris--sure you can, but what's the fucking point? Which is to take nothing away from probably the best meal I've ever had and certainly the most expensive, the 12+ course affair at Pierre Gagnaire--Yummo! It was a pleasure to explain in broken French, oh who am I kidding, it was in English, when the waiter asked:

"Do you have any dietary restrictions, things you won't eat, etc.?"
"Just hold the cilantro, please."
"But you don't have a problem with say foie gras, or frog legs or lightly poached oysters?"
"God know, what do I look like a freak?"
"Thank you madam, Chef will be most happy to prepare your meal sans cilantro"
"Merci monsieur."

And so the meal was divine and, my friend Margaret did have a course featuring cilantro, while mine sported sorrel--cilantro haters really do win sometimes.

But it isn't just the Michelin 3-stars that know how to cater to cilantro hate, it's more importantly the bistros, the cafes, the brasseries (the real French food if you ask me) where you don't even have to ask Chef to prepare you a special course, there simply isn't any of the stuff in the house to begin with. So thank you Pierre, thank you nameless cafe and thank you Paris for nine days without an email, without a worry and without a trace of cilantro.

Foreign Types with the Hookah Pipes

One of the great things about vocally, perhaps pathologically hating cilantro is people are constantly offering cilantro anecdotes, testimonies, periodical features of interest. Many of these tidbits aren't SO interesting after all, but some of them are.

My dear friend (I was going to call her "best friend" but didn't want to step on any toes cuz for real I have several "best" friends. Then I thought "BFF" because it's amusing as hell to me but I thought something in the intended tone might be lost on my audience: many of you I know like cilantro, and we all know what that means about your IQ.) and roommate has just moved to Rome/Cairo. She's been in Cairo a few weeks now and one of the first things she tells me is she is surrounded by Cilantro. No, not the herb, the fucking cafe.

I know. As if. Well, apparently this chain of cafes is as ubiquitous in Cairo as suicidal cab drivers. The cafes, Dear Friend tells me, have internet connections, nice amenities, a quiet, relaxed ambiance and, you know, allow women. In other words, this is a Western-style chain standing in direct opposition to the segregated, loud, cheap and dirty ahwas, traditional Egyptian coffee shops.

It goes without saying that this is an outrage, but alas, Cilantro Cafe is but one of many businesses masquerading as restaurants with the audacity (or I'm sure what they all think of as hip, or edgy or just plain clever idea) to bear the name "Cilantro." It's not surprising with all the restaurants in the world some are bound to be named Cilantro; naming restaurants after food is pretty common (and stupid, if you ask me -- thanks for asking) and cilantro, as we've established many times over, is everywhere.

What's upsetting is that the biggest chain of coffee shops in all of Cairo is named after my nemesis. Or is it? I mean, is it really a term of distinction to be a coffee shop chain? Is it really so awesome to be the very Egyptian icon of Westernization and cultural atrophy? Dear Friend tells me she'd never spend any time there, that she'd really prefer to hang at the ahwas, but damnit, honky needs her wireless connection and the ice cubes next door might make her sick. Then there's also the issue that she isn't really allowed in those "realer" places, having tits and all. So, on that front Cilantro represents progress, of the good sort that creates the eponymous noun liberals prefer to call themselves; they allow women.

I have a tremendous amount of patience for other cultures, mostly because I recognize after 25 years in the US of America one I don't know that culture is the kind of thing one can ever understand, but more to the point, I don't like to be too judgmental -- do whatever you want, please don't kill my dog (I don't have a dog). I have serious problems with religion, but, that's with all of them, not a particular one. Most of my problems are rooted in the fact that people do irrational things that are objectively bad for themselves and everyone around them in the name of a god or spirit or faith that they don't know exists. Yeah. That sounds a lot like a judgment to me too. Anyway, some of the worst forms of what I don't like about religion involve violences and injustices against women, a group I'm (on the whole) pretty fond of. Genital mutilation (ha, you thought you were reading a cilantro blog), anti-birth control policies and a general limitation of that great word W loves to throw around -- freedom -- are but a few nuisances women have had to endure at the hands of "their" religions. Exclusion from public cafes would be another.

So, while I'm down with dirt and noise and all those authentic things Western travelers like to tell themselves they like so they can have authentic experiences, in the end I value the kind of progress that allows a woman to order a fucking cup of coffee. And if that kind of place goes by the name Cilantro.... Point for cilantro.

WWJD

How's this for a mantra: What would Julia do?

If you're a fan of Julia Child, you probably don't need me to explain to you why you are. You probably like her easy camera presence, her unpretentious instruction of classic French technique, her contagious lust for life, her general bad-assness, and, if your like me, her unapologetic liberal politics and unique brand of feminism. Truly, she was a magical woman so nearly unanimously revered in the culinary and general American communities, I'd have to wonder if you were a heartless freak not liking her.


What you might not know is that Julia Child hated cilantro; an excerpt from a Larry King interview transcript:

KING: A little bit. Any food you hate?
CHILD: Well, badly cooked food...
KING: I know that. But any - for example, George Bush and yours truly, I don't want to couple it together, hate broccoli, hate it, wouldn't go near it, wouldn't touch it, what do you hate?
CHILD: I don't like cilantro.
KING: What is that?
CHILD: It's an herb that it has a kind of a taste that I don't like.
KING: Is there an everyday food you hate, like broccoli?
CHILD: No, I don't think so. I mean, if it's properly cooked and properly served, I can't think of anything I hate.
KING: So you'll eat...
CHILD: Except cilantro and arugula I don't like at all.
KING: Arugula?
CHILD: They're both green herbs, they have kind of a dead taste to me.
KING: So you would never order it.
CHILD: Never, I would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor.

Arugula, I like, but someone running the I Hate Arugula blog (doesn't exist) can use that piece of trivia. It's the cilantro I'm concerned with. I like how she describes the taste of cilantro as "dead." That's a much stronger descriptor than say, soapy. "Well, why don't you like it?" "It tastes dead." That's a pretty good reason not to like something in my book. Hilarious. Another reason to love Julia: girlfriend was funny.

I think Julia Child hating cilantro sort of speaks for itself, so I'll be brief today. But I can tell you this, in the spirit of doing as Julia would do, the next time I encounter unexpected cilantro, I will pick it out, throw it on the floor and smile, thinking of Julia doing the same.

Cilantro, The Anti-Death

There's so much fodder in any given issue of the New York Times, it's a wonder I ever get around to reading anything else. It's not that it's the best publication out there for news or anything else, far from it, but they've mastered the ability to hook me with one story or another before the break and it remains my homepage of years despite consistent urges to change it (I'm reading Into the Wild -- it's bound to have some effect).

I think of the New York Times as a website first and newspaper second, not that these are mutually exclusive things, certainly not in this milieu. I think of the [New York Times] magazine as a magazine because I generally read it in print. Anyway, I love the New York Times as website. I look at the slide shows, watch Mark Bittman's videos and enjoy the "Most Popular" emailed, blogged and searched articles for quick ideas of where to head next. These are all features made possible by the Times as website phenomenon, features I like.

It is through this interface that I read today's "A House Not for Mere Mortals." Awkward headline aside, I've been transfixed by the text-based article and audio slide show all morning. To sort of summarize, this apparently important couple has built this house in East Hampton. It's hyper-colorful, very "open," and, probably most notably, has a strange undulating, bumpy, moon-like floor throughout. The basic idea of the place, as I read and hear it, is to make dwellers uncomfortable. That through discomfort, trying to find our balance, etc., we remain young and vital. Ms. Gins, the woman in the couple, says, "It's immoral that people have to die." I think that's absurd, it's neither moral nor immoral that people have to die, it is a fact of nature completely detached from any reasonable sense of morality, but I digress. The point is these folks seems to think it is through challenge, discomfort, whatever you want to call it, that we remain young and stay alive.

While I don't find death immoral I do have a vested interest in staying alive (never argue with Darwin -- you will lose). I prefer to be comfortable than uncomfortable, (I like Pumas more than stilettos) but I get what they're saying, I think, at least in a way that someone who more-or-less accepts that she will die one day can "get" what they're saying. One of my favorite things -- learning stuff -- is an inherently uncomfortable process. Few things are more uncomfortable than tackling the unknown, whether that be organic chemistry, Excel spreadsheets, German philosophy or, in the case of Into the Wild's Chris McCandless, the Alaskan wilderness. (It is worth noting that he died in his pursuit of the uncomfortable.) But many of these uncomfortable things, challenging things, yield the most intellectually, spiritually or otherwise insightful results. Yes, I suppose many of us thrive on adversity, on difficulty, on trying to find our balance.

This of course got me to thinking about my ever-growing relationship with cilantro. Now I'm not one to draw metaphors, (I have a penchant for the literal) but I've never shied away from drawing parallels. As I've written through other lenses before, this cilantro hate thing isn't always bad. Maybe my deep passion for hating cilantro keeps me young and virile -- alive even. It's all-too easy in our culture of convenience, materialism and excess to become, well, comfortable. We ignore the world's injustices and straight-up outrages, many at the hands of W, but more at the hands of our own unforgivable (yes immoral) selfishness, isolation and indifference. And in doing so we destroy ourselves, slowly but surely. The environment's shit. Iraq is a quagmire of the finest order. And don't get me started on our prison system.

I think we have a tendency, as Americans and maybe as people, to avoid conflict (except war, we like that) and to shun criticism. To complain is bad, negative. I agree in a sense. I actually quite hate complaining (of the my life is so hard variety; no, your life is probably not so hard) but a healthy dose of criticism, of questioning as I think of it, maybe I'm alone here, but I think it's healthy, it's good and it might just save all our lives in the long-run.

While I don't pretend that my cilantro hate is going to save anyone's life or even really perpetuate my own, for me, this passionate hate stirs a spirit of criticism that I like and find good, however ostensibly negative or contrary. Cilantro makes me uncomfortable. It makes me frown. It throws off my balance. Eating it makes me immediately seek homeostasis of some order (water, wine, other food, anything, please, now). In other words, eating it, musing on it, writing about it shakes things up. And shaking things up, to quote Martha Stewart, is a good thing.

I Hate Cilantro ".com"

I hear there are bloggers out there who post, I dunno, a few times a week, every day, several times a day, but let's be honest -- as much as I may try, I'm no Perez Hilton. (It's taken some time and support of friends to come to terms with this undeniable fact.) I've made the reasonable deal with myself to post once a week, you know, -ish. But sometimes, cilantro news comes to light and you (I) realize it is only really you (me) who can properly address the issue. And so it is that I have to act now; I wouldn't be doing my cilantro-hating duty otherwise.

I Hate Cilantro.com, my friend and nemesis (these things are never simple) seems to be out of order, or under construction, or - I dont' know - folding. This is what it looks like as of 2:49pm EST, 3/27/2008:

And it's looked this way since at least early yesterday. I don't know what's going on, but I can tell you I don't like it one bit. I cannot bare the literary/web burden of cilantro hate alone; I need ihatecilantro.com back. What I'm hoping is they're going for a site redesign/revamp -- they hadn't updated their "news" since September -- and will be back bigger and better than ever. While I'm not a member of their clan, I do love what they do, the multiplicity of voices they add to the truly infinite diversity that is cilantro hate.

And so, in this uncharacteristic spirit of pseudo news, frequent Perez-style posting, I'll keep this post short and I'll leave you with this amazing image.

Bittman Go Braugh!

I love Mark Bittman (of the New York Times Dining Section) for insisting, relentlessly, to be such an elitist foodie prick; he embodies the effete New Yorker cliche so well, it's uncanny. If you aren't familiar with his work (he's written lots of cookbooks) or have only read his column (The Minimalist) I suggest you check him out in video form because only through this medium does his sincere I can't help but make it clear I know I'm smarter than you-ness come through. I'm not being ironic or sarcastic, these are actually the reasons I can't help but like the guy (he does seem to know what the hell he's talking about and he makes quick meals -- the obvious smart guy's alternative to Rachael Ray -- poor thing).

So I used to read his column every week and once in while I read his blog "Bitten," (hey, even Shakespeare couldn't resist a pun) but recently I've been watching his 3-5 minute videos instead, much to his indifferent chagrin no doubt. This week's video is for St. Patrick's Day (aka Monday for all you out there who seem to find it impossible to remember what is the same every year -- March 17th guys -- Erin go Braugh!). As Bittman introduces the segment, "In honor of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, I've decided to cook a Mexican dish, because it's green." Just about everything I love about the DB (and I don't mean Daniel Boulud) is evident from that very first sentence. You kind of have to listen to it, but, trust me, it's all in the delivery. The pregnant (I once posited that only men used pregnant as a non-literal adjective, so I guess I'm trying to prove myself wrong) pause between "Mexican dish" and "because it's green," is done with ironic perfection -- that kind of perfect Monty Python beautiful clash between the low-brow ridiculously absurd and the higher-brow intellectually germane -- right, ok Mark, sure, and you know what else is green? Marijuana. I'm just saying.



Since the whole dish is about being green and apparently Mexico's cuisine is also about being green, it shouldn't come as any kind of surprise that cilantro is but one of many green ingredients. There's the tomatillos and pepitas, the marjoram (love marjoram, love it) and poblanos, the lime and serrano. So of course, being Mexican and all, and green and all, there's the cilantro too. Once the chicken has finished cooking in the sauce of tomatillo and garlic and peppers and pepitas and so on (Mark calls them pumpkin seeds, "well actually squash seeds" dismissively. If you watch the video you'll note the characteristic crotchetiness in the delivery) he questions "That green enough for you? Wait! Some ciiiilantro..." and proceeds to top the dish with various other herbs and green things. He says cilantro with the affect of an American ex pat living in a Spanish speaking country (and maybe he lived in Mexico for 15 years, I really don't know) -- he really gets cilantro, cilantro is Mark Bittman's homeboy.

My gripe du jour is two-fold. 1) I understand the desire to play off the green rather than decidedly Irish cultural aspects of St. Patrick's Day, I really do, but for God's sake my fucking name is Erin, I got Irish heritage, leave cilantro out of a holiday we all really know is not about food but too-much drinking. 2) It seems to me cilantro is becoming an almost de facto green addition to things. Now, I'm not saying it isn't at home in Bittman's dish, (although I don't think even he would argue it'd be fine without it, just add a little more parsley) but in his delivery he makes an I'm sure accidental point, a point only a cilantro hater might notice: not green enough? add some cilantro! For Christ's sake, if it's green you're looking for add some parsley or chives, inoffensive flavors that, sure, have flavor, but it's, you know, neutral-ish. When you add cilantro you're not just adding green, you're adding gross.

Ihatecilantro.com and Me

You know the old saying, and I'm paraphrasing here, out of lack of absolute knowledge as to whether .com(s) (brainyquotes, wisdom quotes, quoteland or quotationspage) has the most accurate records, equally doubting the veracity of them all in fact, whereby brainyquotes, for instance, accredits the quote to both Woody Allen and Groucho Marx (it's Woody quoting Groucho in Annie Hall that commonly causes the mixup that it's a Woody quote -- it's a Groucho quote) and in any case, it more or less goes like this, I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member?

Right, so I find it mildly hilarious, even after time. I also think there's some truth to it, probably why it's so funny. Indeed, I've been on a Facebook group founding spree this week (having just joined the social networking situation a few weeks ago), feeling more apt to start a group called "I love mustard" then join one, but alas someone beat me to the punch and their tagline included roasted garlic mustard as one of the many in their fridge and, had I formed the group, that certainly wouldn't have made the list. Loving mustard to me involves loving its purist forms, not buying dozens of artisan varieties, so, for now, I'll love my kind of mustard on my own time, without the support of other mustard lovers.

Joining groups presents all kinds of problems because, inevitably, you won't subscribe to all the group's dogma, a conflict I would hope, but am less than sure, that the world's faithful struggle with from time to time. For me, today, the question is whether to become a member of ihatecilantro.com. On the one hand, I do hatecilantro.com, on the other, their last news update is from early September, so I question their dedication to the cause. Then again, the site is well-executed, its tone just right. Their logo and commitment to cilantro hate publicity and awareness is worthy of my respect, and that of even the greatest lover of cilantro who still believes in the importance of the first amendment, although I'm willing to consider a correlation between not only cilantro love and moronicism, but also freedom of speech hating on-ism.

But back to the original problem, I'm not sure I want to belong to a group of a bunch of people just like me, a group that would have and encourage my membership. We could be, well, so obnoxious put in a room together. It makes me think of when I was vegan, making me a de facto member of the vegan club, a truly sanctimonious and utterly difficult to be around crew. Do I want to join a group of people who will, by virtue of being in the same group, assume they have more in common with me than they might? Do I want to associate with a lot based on hate, when I'm a member of exactly zero other groups (Facebook aside,*sigh*)? These are important questions I'm asking myself as I decide if I'll be joining the 1,731 already existing members. I need to sleep on this for a few days, but I'll be back with a satisfying conclusion.

Cilantro Free Does Not a Good Meal Make

It's said that bad service makes good food taste bad and bad food taste worse. It's also said that a restaurant review that dedicates any of its precious few words to notes on service is an implicit indictment of the restaurant's food: bad service makes bad food more conspicuous, less than sublime food calls attention to other arena's of dining, service being the most obvious of these arenas and handicap bathroom accessibility now too entering the mix.

While one could have held a wheelchair orgy in either of my brunch venue du jour's restrooms (if one were into that sort of thing) one would have had to lose his/her sensory skills altogether to miss the terrible service and uncharacteristically bad food featured, today. It is not lightly that I report this experience (blogging about hating cilantro is serious work) as I eat at this Underhill Ave. Prospect Heights Restaurant nearly every Saturday or Sunday, but the service has always been atrocious and today it has come to a head -- it has made the food bad, and that takes the bad service from the realm of idiosyncratic to inexcusable.

When our obviously new, but not necessarily in a bad way, server spilled a decent portion of my orange juice on the table, then took an extra napkin (we were 3 at a 4 top) to clean it up saying "Didn't ever happen," I found it cute, sort of like something I might say if I were him*, except, and this is a big difference, I would have actually gotten rid of the evidence of the thing that didn't ever happen -- he did not. Cheeky/feisty became sloppy/bad. But that's ok. Service is quirky here. I took my own napkin (knowing I'd have to ask for one right away if I wanted one for my meal by the time it got there) and finished the job, laughing and sharing my thoughts with my poor roommates/friends who constantly put up with not only my service and food criticism, but also my deep and relentless loathing of cilantro, something that inevitably comes up at every meal.

My toast was burnt. That's an interesting bad service/bad food overlap, because 1) it's entirely possible the server did the toasting of the toast and either way 2) the server should do some quality control and not bring obviously, objectively, deeply burnt toast to any table ever. I come in every week, I wear the same hat, almost every week, I chat with the managers and chef. Everyone deserves unburnt toast, but you treat your regulars the best, that's just how it's done. He quickly threw some not burnt wheat toast on my table without a word or skipping a beat, also fine, the guy was obviously busy, no doubt in the weeds of his own making.

Then there's the main dish. I had a Nova Salmon soft scramble, a special of the day. The eggs were neither soft nor really scrambled, and there were globules of uncooked uncombined white throughout. The salmon was overcooked -- I was hoping for a lox situation, but I didn't ask, so that's my fault. Then there was green stuff mixed in, looked like scallions and chives, but didn't do much to enhance the dish, other than add some color and scare me for a moment that the dish might get worse once I got a big bite of unexpected cilantro. I didn't, but I don't think that it would have even mattered: I know, that's how bad the whole experience was becoming.

The usually great salad wasn't any good (too much frisee and it was that really thick too green stuff) and I'd probably only convinced myself that the coffee wasn't as delicious as normal. When the usually affable manager lady came over and said nonchalantly, more by us than to us, more at us than with us, "We really need that table ladies," I was nonplussed . I urged my fellow diners not to hurry, that we could finish our coffees and cocktails, even though we really wanted to leave immediately after her order, even though we'd waited twenty minutes for our table, even though we'd only been sitting for 35 minutes. "There's a nice way to do that," I said, "and that wasn't it." I thought about saying something to the manager lady, a move I would have made in a more confrontational mood, but something about November rain says to me "blog it, don't say it."

Brunch is all about turnover, turn and burn, in and out, make your money then get them out. Restaurants are also about pleasing customers. Sometimes you have to balance the two, sacrifice a bit of one for the benefit of the other. But don't sacrifice both, for the benefit of nothing. When we were so rudely asked to leave it was after 2 o'clock. The brunch rush, everywhere in New York, has passed by this time, it might stay steady until 3 or 4, but the peak has passed. We would have stayed another minute or two, left happy and been on with our days. The folks waiting for our table would have had it in just a couple more minutes. Everyone would have been happy, except for the bad food, worse service and new 35-minute meal policy, of course.

Indeed, they often say bad service makes bad food worse. (Which came first, the bad food or the bad service, I do not know, but they certainly have an aggrandizing effect on one another.) What they don't often say is that bad service can be so bad as to make you wish, if given the choice, one of those green specs in the soft scrambled eggs HAD been cilantro, had the service been a little more gracious, the eggs a little more scrambled, a little softer, a little more mixed. A good meal to me might be one where cilantro is the worst thing about it. I'm comfortable in that environment. I know myself there. When I'm asked to abruptly leave a meal I wasn't enjoying anyway, it leaves a worse taste in my mouth than stupid skunk of the earth herb I'm sure I will encounter soon.

*I worked as a server for years, part-time in college and then full-time after, so, like many servers I suspect, I feel a paradoxical sympathy for people in the position and an expectation of what I consider reasonable standards, ie the ones I cared about when I did the job.

Ask the Experts

I posted an "Ask the Editors" question on a popular industry food magazine this morning. The question went as follows: "What makes cilantro so special?" The editors responded with:

Thank you for your inquiry. I am special for many reasons. I feel inventive. I’ve got motion, restrained emotion. I use my arms, I use my leaves, I use my seeds, I use my side-step, I use my fingers, I even, on occasion, have been known to use my imagination. I’d like to make you see that there's no herb here. No herb like me. I'm special, so special. I’ve simply got to have some of your attention, give it to me.
Love,
Cilantro

At least cilantro loves itself (and I'm sure his mom thinks he's special -- bitch).

In the spirit of full disclosure, this is in reference to another question that came in, when I worked at the same popular industry food magazine, that went "What makes cinnamon so special?" Sure, what makes all foods so special?

But the question at hand is, what makes cilantro so special in the skunk of the earth way, not in the mull me some red wine, garnish my cappuccino, serve as the je ne sais quoi (I'm learning French, more on what makes French special later) for any number of, largely, Midwestern-Mex-inspired chili recipes way.

For me it's a different kind of je ne sais quoi, the Platonic ideal of awful, manifest in that stupid little herb. At a certain point, things must be described in relation to other things, right?, so, for instance, one way I could describe other foods is by how far away they are from the flavor of cilantro (the flavor of awful); a simple vanilla panna cotta would score very well here, having nothing whatsoever to do with the flavors of cilantro. Can't quite explain why, just know vanilla panna cotta doesn't taste like cilantro.

For a lot of people the stuff tastes like soap. I myself haven't eaten a lot of soap, and my folks, moderate-conservatives as they might be, never insisted I try it, even when using phrases like "I f##$&ing hate cilantro." But, I have a vague sense of what soaps generally taste like: it's slipped into my mouth while showering or washing my face, or whatever it might be, plus they (they) say that some high percentage of taste is smell, and I definitely know what aggregate soap smells like, so that adds to the idea that I know what soap tastes like as well. Despite a general idea of this, I only vaguely taste it when eating cilantro.

Again, what I really taste is awfulness. From it's texture, (cilantro-y awful), to it odor (pungently offensive) to it's flavor (Platonic idea of terrible) it's just sort of vaguely herbaceous and, here's one of the main problems, completely overwhelming.

I hate cilantro with a consuming passion. I think it's important to determine why we (the royal we) hate things, you know, in the spirit of fairness. Why we love things can (and maybe should) remain a mystery, lest we deconstruct the epistemological foundation on which that love might not have known it stood. But hate, that's a "bad thing" or, certainly a lot of hate is really bad. Perhaps if we figure out why we hate a thing we can 1) quit hating it 2) come to terms with that hate or 3) if the hate is valid, spread that hate with the utmost determination.

Jury's still out for me on where this hate will go, but, I think I've figured out the nature of my hate:

1) Platonic ideal of "tastes bad"
2) Overwhelms every dish it's in with its badness
3) Increased popularity in kitchens (both home and professional) across the country, counter-intuitively paralleling the rise in educated food consumers with discriminating palates
4) Frequently served with what would otherwise be some of my favorite dishes/cuisines: salsa -- LOVE tomatoes; everything Indian, everything Thai, everything "South of the border"
5) Makes me an outcast, constantly chastised by my bigoted friends

and I would urge any of you cilantro haters out there to do the same.

How To Cope, an Introduction

First thing's first. If we're going to hate something, we'll need some strategies to cope with this hate. As with anything, we have nearly limitless psychological, physical and spiritual tools or paths at our disposal to help us in this effort. First, we'll need to answer two questions: 1) why this deep hate of something so ostensibly innocuous, if not beautiful and delicious to much of the world and 2) once 1 is settled we can ask what a good solution to this predicament would be, especially if you, like me, otherwise enjoy food of all kinds. Whether to take pride in this hate, the sort-of punk hero solution, mitigate this hate, tricky work indeed, or accept the hate, the would-be Zen approach. Each has its own merits, and it is for each cilantro hater to decide for him/herself which is most apropos for his/her singular cilantro hating reality.

In the coming weeks and months I'll walk you through some strategies I'm exploring and, of course, some anecdotal and photographic evidence of these journeys. Following this introductory course in me and you vs. cilantro and its kin and how to cope, this blog shall take on other subjects such as loving heirloom tomatoes and feeling solidly indifferent towards fiddlehead ferns (with cilantro, of course, remaining the thematic thread); afterall, how could I or you or anyone so passionately hate something as much as cilantro without loving so much else, in fact most else, of nature's bounty, as foodies insist on calling it, or food, as I like to think of it.