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.

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.

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.

White People and Cilantro

I would like to take this opportunity, that my public forum I Hate Cilantro blog has so provided me, to stand on a soap box of a different sort today. I might make some of you white hipsters out there uncomfortable in doing so, but, alas, this is a price I'm willing to pay -- I like skinny jeans and Vampire Weekend just as much as the next guy (my hip, music-loving coworker has told me Vampire Weekend would be a good choice to illustrate my clear hipness).

In the past week I've received emailed links or Gchat status notifications that would have me reading/viewing/listening to items like Top 10 Raps Songs White People Like and the Stuff White People Like Blog. In the past month I've noticed similar Web 2.0 (if you will) manifestations, such as the hip office worker's favorite SomeEcards' treatment of Black History Month, or Black Heritage Month as I'm told by a New York Teaching Fellow friend it is supposed to be called. SomeEcards has cards with lines like "Let's do the whitest thing possible" where a group of honkies (if you will) ride together in a ski lift. In another, it is suggested that an appropriate way to celebrate Black Heritage Month might be to abstain from shopping at JCrew. There are many more examples of a trend I'm trying to point to -- indeed, a google search of "What White People Like" will also bring you to sites like Black People Love Us, a site I was already aware of because a hip friend had shared it with me several months ago. A good friend and his hip friend constantly refer to each other as honkies, and have for years.

So where does the soap box part come in? I want to put this succinctly, clearly. It seems to me what one couldn't call anything other than a trend, and what I'll call especially a trend specific to hip, (or would-be hip) white, college-educated often urban dwelling folks, has developed: ostensible (and that word is important here) white self-mockery achieved through defining white stereotypes (of a certain class, more on this later) but, perhaps more importantly, also perpetuating black ones across the web (2.0) and in the ever decreasing phenomenon, real life. I have zero respect for or interest in political correctness, so I'm no offended by any of these sites or cards, what have you, as such, especially in isolation. What troubles me is that this trend (these "white people" sites and cards) is perhaps not what it purports to be.

Allow me to explain. Nerds often like to make fun of themselves for being nerds, especially when they've gone to fancy schools (like I did) in similar company. These are not the nerds from the Revenge of the Nerds. These are, generally, economically advantaged nerds who relish in their nerdiness, knowing that they aren't really making fun of themselves at all when they do so, but actually subversively talking about how awesome they are (because it is, afterall, both cool and of socio-economic importance as an adult to be a nerd, so-to-speak). I don't have a huge problem with the phenomenon; I'm guilty of it myself.

What I do have a problem with is when the same idea is turned into a black/white dichotomy, instead of a smart/not smart one. I might have been born smart, but I also read and stuff. One is born black or white. More importantly, I reject the idea that it is better to be black or white (as I think most people would when put in those terms). It would be naive to say they aren't different experiences (being black or white), but it would be undeniably racist to say it is better to be one or the other. If you look at the list of things white people like to do on the Stuff White People Like Blog -- study abroad, eat brunch, recycle, spend money on expensive sandwiches, read The Times -- these are largely things another group of people like to do: educated, and/or rich people. And yes, unless I'm completely out of touch, there are educated and/or rich black people. The thing is, when white people (full disclosure -- I'm white) make fun of themselves in these terms, they're really saying, as nerds do when they make fun of themselves as nerds, that they're better than black people.

People feel good about themselves when they study abroad, recycle, order imported cheeses on their sandwiches and read the Times; they think they are better than people who do not do these things (don't deny this; you're lying to yourself if you do). The implication is that white people do these things and black (I should say other races, but I think this whole phenomenon is setup more as a black and white thing, so maybe I should stick with that) people don't; according to this logic white people are better than black people. I don't think this is what is intended, but I think, if we're honest with ourselves, it is at least part of what is accomplished.

So while everyone is busy these days making observations and drawing conclusions and theories on what white people like to do, I'd like to go on the record, as the self-declared living expert on cilantro hate (ihatecilantro.com still hasn't posted any news since early September), as saying this: There is absolutely no correlation between cilantro love or hate and race (both Oprah magazine and Gourmet feature cilantro recipes prominently). Because it is, however, a known fact that cilantro lovers are morons, there might in fact be a correlation between hipsterdom and cilantro love, and there might be an association between hipness and whiteness, but any conclusions you want to draw out of these correlations, I assure you I don't mean them as false or subversive insults.

Shiva: More than Sitting

Jewish Friend whose mother has just died: Erin, don't you run out of ideas for your i hate cilantro blog?

Erin: No, check this out -- shiva: cilantro-free.

JFWMHJD: Got it.

Here's one thing the world's great religions (by great religions I mean the ones I like, not the ones that are big; see, as I carry a minor in religion I'm equipped to have these sorts of opinions) have in common, despite seemingly limitless differences: they realize the importance of food and drink in not only everyday life, but especially in major life events, as part of the mourning process very much included.

Last week I attended my first shiva and before going, everyone that mentioned the event and their experiences with them in the past pointed to exactly one thing and nothing else: food. At shiva there will always and forever be copious amounts of food. Is it, we wondered, somehow irreverent to serve a hoagie on such an occasion, as one friend had seen during his grandfather's shiva? Well, what is it that somehow makes casserole more holy than a hoagie, another friend questioned. Good point. And who doesn't love hoagies?

Upon arrival at my friend's home last week, I did immediately notice a wide and diverse spread of food. I particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of the large boxes of coffee sitting next to the handles of single malt Scotch. You gotta figure, everyone wants one or the other (or both). Then, on to the food: mixed green salad with nuts, fruit, cheese and an impressively emulsified balsamic vinaigrette (on the side); lots of bread; grilled vegetables; cold cuts and cheeses; cake; gluten-free cupcakes; cookies (full of gluten); Whole Foods' mezze platter; macaroons; fruit; no hoagies. In this diverse spread, what was, to me (and I'm quite certain no one else), noticeably missing was cilantro, or any food that might reasonably contain it.

According to the McCormick "Enspicelopedia": "Ancient Hebrews added Cilantro to an herb mixture in the ritual of Passover." According to my modern-day Jewish friends whom I've consulted on the issue, what with their constant reading of the Torah, obsession with regular temple attendance and relentless shunning of bacon, experts on and representatives of Jews everywhere, cilantro really has no presence in foods traditionally (read currently) eaten during rituals like Passover, Hanukkah, etc. While a lack of cilantro might not save the Jewish cuisine from crimes like Gefilte fish, I never met a latke I didn't like and even the most ardent cilantro supporter might agree that cilantro's presence would bastardize and ruin the perfect condiment vehicle that is the latke.

See, the thing is, that as unmitigatedly sad/tragic/existentially unnerving as death is, especially to those closest to it (friends are just sort of fumblingly along for the ride) I conjecture, to me it isn't religion's ability to really alleviate any of this through its dogma, theology or words of wisdom. Instead, it's its insistence that one eats, that one's friends bring and prepare the food that one eats. That it is through this bringing and preparing of food that people are able to show, in some small measure, that they care. And that, yes, in the case of my first experience with shiva, this food is not only ample and diverse but provides no unwanted herbal distractions from the matter at hand -- eating, searching for the right words.

Red, White and Green

As the primaries are in full swing and the fates of many, indeed the whole nation as some of these pundits keep insisting, are on the line, this Super Tuesday's got me thinking: if cilantro were a presidential candidate, which one would it be.

To review, some things I think about cilantro, and why I hate it:

It's the skunk of the earth, it's everywhere, it's completely overwhelming, it makes me uncomfortable in restaurants and people love it but I don't (I feel ostracized).

1) Skunk of the earth: This is a tough one. Distinguishing between many politicians and general skunk of the earthiness is no easy feat, but for me, the skunkiest of them all is Mike Huckabee -- pretty much everything he has to say leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

2) It's everywhere: Easy one. John McCain. Everywhere. The Times reports today that his media coverage is killing the competition (quantity, not necessarily quality (although, as a digression, this whole liberal slant of the media thing is total bullshit)), including the two democratic contenders, Obama and Clinton, or as I would have it Obama Obama Obama Obama Obama Obama Obama Obama and Clinton Clinton Clinton Clinton Clinton Clinton Clinton Clinton.

3) Completely overwhelming: Another easy one: Alan Keyes. But, if we're limiting the list to candidates who have a shot in hell of their party's nomination, gotta go with Huckabee again on this one. While Obama may overplay the message of hope, or what I like to think of as the audacity of the audacity of hope, Huckabee insists on actually hailing from Hope, Arkansas -- it's just too literal for me. Ease up dude.

4) It makes me uncomfortable in restaurants: Look, my most effective defense in avoiding my discomfort when having to avoid certain kinds of restaurants, dishes or make a special point to have the server check with the kitchen (and very often then back with wrong information) would be to somehow decrease the amount of cilantro that's around. Now this leads me to the immigration issue. We all know cilantro's proliferation is, if nothing else, but one byproduct of unchecked and uncontrolled immigration, it being largely found in Indian, Latin American and various Asian cuisines.* It is therefore Barack Obama who would make me most uncomfortable in restaurants, intentionally or inadvertently further increasing cilantro's presence in restaurants across the country through his lax immigration policies and cosmopolitan upbringing. But, then again, to paraphrase Voltaire, I disagree passionately with your cilantro herb usage and hence assault on my palate, but I'll fight til the death your right to, you know, cook the food you want to eat in a country you want to eat it in.

5) People love it and I don't: McCain. He's gonna win the primary, heard it hear first** Lot's of folks like him because, to quote some lady from a swing state on the times audio commentary today, he's a centrist. A lot of people think cilantro is just sort of a fresh, pleasant, citrusy, summery herb. But these people are wrong. Like cilantro, McCain's danger is in seeming so neutral, so friendly, like such a good guy that's going to unite the country and personify the inner would-be veteran in all of us. Not so. Not so.

In the end, the 1-2 punch of McCain's everywhere-ness and counter intuitive popularity I think make it (excuse me, him) most like cilantro. If cilantro went up in a race against my favorite candidates (I'll call Hillary tarragon [divisive, great in small doses, serious] and Obama Thai basil [worldly in an approachable way, fresh, full of hope***) he'd have a shot in hell of winning (unlike Huckabee, who I might like less but who is less of a threat -- I'd rather eat cilantro than hot cow dung, but hot cow dung doesn't present problems when I go to eat out or to a friend's dinner party since they don't like hot cow dung either) and I really just don't have the time to write another hate blog.

Go vote!


*This is a joke used for purely rhetorical purposes. I support melting pots and salad bowls and immigration and all that.
**Also a joke.
***Also a joke.

It's Everywhere

While 2 of my Brooklyn friends trek to the East Village to enjoy a nice, healthy Saturday night dinner at Caravan of Dreams, a lovely near-vegan restaurant run by spacey for real and would-be rastas, (consider the dialogue "I'm sorry, I forgot what you ordered. Could to tell me again?," followed by an overheard conversation between our waitress and another table "I'm sorry, I forgot what you ordered. Could you tell me again?") I decide to stay home, pack for 'Home for the Holidays, 2.0,' finish some work, and make myself a delicious salad with goat cheese.

Of course, I'd have to go to the store to buy some greens and goat cheese, since I don't have anything but Christmas cookies and pantry goods in the house. So, I go to the store and throw the requisite Earthbound Farm Organic mix in my basket, but, as I'd feared, my just-down-the-street store doesn't have goat cheese, the official cheese of gentrification. They do, however, have that delicious 'no bread needed to fry it' Queso Para Freir cheese. Being flexible about these sorts of things, I'm thinking I'll make a mixed green salad with toasted almonds and some of that fried cheese with a nice super acidic with a little bit of honey vinaigrette.

I heated some canola oil in a pan, or started to, when I lifted the pan to, I don't know what now that I think about it, and promptly burnt my chin on contact. Ouch. I'm already thinking this was a bad idea. I should have just gone to Caravan, but, I'm rolling with the situation. The pan is definitely hot, and that's all I needed to know, so, you know, mission accomplished. I fry the cheese, drain the cheese, bla bla. Then I throw together a quick vinaigrette (dijon, balasamic, olive oil, honey, salt, pepper) and toss it with a large handful of greens and the almonds (bought them toasted; yes I'm alright with that). It's at this point I notice sparse pieces of what would seem to be dill (it was) and think I might be in trouble. Yeah, there are more green things in the salad that aren't lettuce.

I go for the fridge, find the package, "Fresh Herb Salad." Shit. I've bought this before, a long time ago, and seem to remember this is not a cilantro-hater's friend, this "Fresh Herb Salad." Indeed, there is cilantro throughout. It's unavoidable. I can't pick out all the pieces, especially now that it's been tossed together, and it's all variations of the same color -- even if I wanted to extract each piece of cilantro, finding them all would be a huge chore unto itself. And, I've stayed home to save time and get some stuff done, not spend an hour removing cilantro from my salad.

So, I eat the salad, doing my best to avoid the cilantro pieces. I fail. The salad was terrible. I got nice almondy-cheesy bites, but what I wanted was salad with stuff in it, not stuff with salad garnish. I realized I haven't actually eaten cilantro in awhile; I do try to avoid it. I became mesmerized, focusing intently on a single leaf. How far away could I smell it from? (not that far, maybe 6 inches) How large was each piece in the salad? (ranging from 2-square millimeters to 1-square inch) What did it taste like? (terrible, just terrible). Did I still hate it? (yes, as much, if not more, than ever).

What gets me is how ubiquitous it's become, cilantro. There are exactly three herbs in the Earthbound Herb Salad: parsley, dill and cilantro. Parsley seems a given -- most people I know like it or are indifferent to it; you can put it in anything. Dill, I have to say, is an odd choice -- I love dill, but I'm pretty sure not everyone does. This is a salad mix, I would assume, meant to please the general palate (I did purchase it in a store that doesn't sell goat cheese). Cilantro, well, there's just no need. I've come to expect it in my guacamole, salsa, saag panir, etc, but not in my supermarket salad mix. Between the dill and the cilantro, I would guess Earthbound is making some enemies with this salad.

But, the joke's on me. I need to return to checking all labels, being more mindful, asking more questions in restaurants, lest another slip-up like this occur. As cilantro is more and more absolutely everywhere, I need to up my defenses against it, otherwise cilantro will have won.

Cilantro Lovers are Morons (Part II), with an Agenda

Rick Bayless, admired in the food world for bringing authentic but modern regional Mexican cooking to the palates of the Midwestern dining mainstream and foodie elite at Chicago restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, respectively, has also withstood (if not instigated) his own share of controversy in the same community.

Trouble came when Bayless was percevied to have 'sold-out' by starring in a Burger King commercial where he would seem to be enjoying a low-fat Santa Fe something or other chicken sandwich 'served' on a baguette. My opinion on the matter is it's basically much ado about nothing -- when it comes to calling people sell-outs, especially in the cheffing community, most people should, you know, move out of their glass houses or quit throwing rocks.

But, Bayless has now put his name on something far worse than a $2.99 tasteless factory farm raised chicken sandwich -- he's put his name on the "Avocado Peeler" in Cilantro. I'll leave the critique of the object's functionality to whomever is running the "things_you_could_do_easier_with_a_spoon_than_a_twelve_dollar_object_you'll_never_
use_you_stupid_moron" blog. What concerns me is something else entirely.

Most obviously and importantly, the scooper color is not cilantro ((when did cilantro become a color -- we're in real trouble?!) unless it were dried-out near dead cilantro, and, while I like the idea that that's what was intended in naming the color cilantro, something tells me it wasn't); the color could go by lime green (although come to think of it, limes really aren't the color lime green -- we have a crisis of color nomenclature on our hands here; when was the last time you saw someone puke in puke green?) or more accurately, Ecto Cooler green.

The color's name is a lie, and so one must ask, "why the lie?" A couple answers come to mind. 1) Cilantro lovers are morons, so they won't notice the color naming is wrong but rather be attracted to the device's name without questioning its veracity (they no doubt will want to get their hands on the peeler as soon as possible in order to make cilantro-laden 'guacamole'); Bayless & Co. are just going after their stupid target audience. Or 2) Bayless has himself become a moron by virtue of his intense cilantro love and has become so clouded he can't even tell the color is not cilantro -- he just sees it everywhere (by Bayless I mean the marketers and product developers who made this whole abomination happen -- in reality he must have had nearly nothing to do with the whole endeavor -- let's hope). 3) This is a subliminal message meant to drive home the cilantro name to any moron willing to buy this product for any reason -- they want more of their kind.

They want it so badly, they've gone so far as to not offer the product, or many of their other products in any color other than cilantro. If you want an avocado peeler, you'll have it in cilantro, dammit. They're forcing cilantro - the idea - on anyone who might be dumb enough to want to buy this gadget. It's not enough that cilantro lovers are all morons, they're trying to turn all morons into cilantro lovers too: "Well, no Suzy, you know, I don't really like cilantro, but I just love the color cilantro, you know, the color of my new favorite avocado peeler by Rick Bayless, that guy from the Food Network." Morons.

However you weigh in on it, you can't argue, the morons have an agenda to attract more morons. And if we've learned anything from this presidency we ought to have learned that the only thing worse than a moron in a place of power is a moron in a place of power with an agenda. Boycott the Avocado Peeler in Cilantro.

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 Lovers are Morons

At the risk of offending, oh, say, 97% of my THOUSANDs of loyal readers, I'll go ahead and say it: there seems to be a strong link between the love of cilantro and the display of moron-like characteristics, where moron will here be defined, as any self-respecting user of the English language would define it, as the American Heritage Dictionary does, as

"NOUN:1. A stupid person; a dolt. 2. Psychology A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or vocational education. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive. ETYMOLOGY: From Greek mron, neuter of mros, stupid, foolish."

I prefer the second definition, but far be it from me to use archaic or, even worse, offensive denotations; the first has a nice, curt, to-the-point, so easy even a moron could understand it meaning, and given my audience, well... Yes, I quite like "a dolt."

Right, so, to the point, what makes these herb-lovers morons? Exhibit A (there will only be one exhibit in today's post -- I'll build this case over time), is taken from an I Hate Cilantro.com Discussion Board and goes like this:

"Okay, I heard about this website from a friend and doubted it's existince, but upon visiting the page I not only found out it's real, I realized you "Anti-cilantro" people are insane.

First, off cilantro was not spawed from satan's stomach, and angel's did not trick us into liking it. Come on would angels trick us, that sounds like something the devil would do right so the human race gets brain washed into following the devil.

Second, it's not something to get majorly offended by, like not being friends with someone because the served you cilantro, or being really picky at resturants because god you might eat some in pasta sauce.

Lastly, why pick on cilantro? Why not hate on foods like cod liver oil or limburger cheese? Foods that are actually offensive to the senses. Cilantro is not gross enough to merit an entire website and Haikus about it. It's like orange juice I don't LOVE, but don't hate it. I wouldn't go across the world to bet some, but if I had some I would use it.



Ok. Let's leave spelling and grammatical errors alone. I'll leave that to whomever is running the "I hate the rampant depletion of grammatical, spelling and self-copy editing standards in cyber English publication" blog. The larger issue here is that this cilantro lover is arguing the wrong point with the wrong logic.

1. While I don't see any convincing evidence from Cilantro Lover, heretofore Moron, that cilantro wasn't spawned from Satan's stomach, its origin is hardly the point. I also don't see a lot of cilantro haters citing Satan's patriarchy as the cause for their hate, indeed we tend to be a fairly agnostic bunch, although it wouldn't be a terrible hypothesis, I suppose.

2. I. I'll thank you not to tell me what to get offended by. II. Any friend that would deliberately serve me something I hate, all things being equal, might deserve a reevaluation. That said, I don't think too many friendships are lost on this issue. Cilantro haters, at least, are reasonable people. III. Please see "Basil is NOT Cilantro" Post. Cilantro is not found in pasta sauce. You obviously don't understand this problem properly; you need to work on your empathy skills.

3. Why pick on cilantro? Why not hate other foods? I don't know where to begin. Would anyone choose to hate cilantro. It's not fun, it's not an easy lot in life. It's a burden. It's an annoyance. It's a cross to bare. But, we're a strong people and we survive. We blame no one but cilantro itself. And why not hate others foods? One's enough for me thanks. You don't like orange juice, well, that's just messed up. ihateorangejuice.com doesn't even exist, man -- for a reason -- it rules. But, you don't have to like orange juice. I just find flaw in the the logic that because you don't like orange juice I should like cilantro. But, Moron, you just wouldn't understand.

Finally, when you say "cilantro isn't gross enough" you're missing the idea of subjective palates. It's not gross at all to you, but it is very much gross at all to me, and thousands like me. Mine is not an evangelical mission, as I have made clear in the past, but an effort to explain, to enlighten, to edify. And you represent a growing group of cilantro lovers or, a largely marginalized group of cilantro indifferenters, who seeks not to understand cilantro hate but to condemn and chastise it. You're fighting a losing and worthless battle. Hating Cilantro is a solitary battle, united as we may be, each hater has to ultimately confront his/her hate on his/her own. You don't know what you have, Moron. You just don't see.

Requisite Post Thanksgiving Post

When you're 25, more or less making a living as a writer of various merits and degrees of seriousness, residing in New York City and haling from small college town Ohio, returning to New York after Thanksgiving in said college town Ohio (and it's distant cousin, Southwestern farmland Ohio) to begin reading Philip Roth's Ghost Writer with lines like, "Mother, I will not prate in platitudes to please the adults!" (a rare instance of exclamation point in the otherwise understated Roth punctuation situation) you kind of second guess how you're going to write the ostensible would-be write itself "Thanksgiving: A Safe Haven From Cilantro in a World of Fewer and Fewer" that would go something like this:

People talk about all the familiar wonders of Thanksgiving: the turkey, the dressing (stuffing, whatever), candied yams (sweet potatoes, whatever), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes (which apparently are basically full-proof, apparently), the pies, the gravy (you can poor it on everything, it's so good, right?) And the best part of all of it: no where, ever, ever will you find a scant piece, a dash, a chiffonade of cilantro.

Is this a coincidence I ask you? Well, of course it is, strictly speaking, but it is interesting that America's favorite meal of the year, the one we all can get totally behind is the cilantro hater's favorite meal too. There are some places, some meals, some traditions just too sacred, just too refined to be bastardized by the presence of that nasty, can't even compete with sage, rosemary and thyme herb...

when what you're really thinking about is, as Roth and many great "meta," if you will, or don't, that's an obnoxious ivory tower term, or write about writing writers will tend to make you do, the place of the writer, the vanity of the question itself, the inherent narcissism of it all, the writing's relationship to other people in the writer's life, the question of its meaning other than to perk readers to say "that's good," "I get it," "that's funny" or be entertained. These are questions others have mused on, successfully - notably, Joyce, Hollingshurst and Roth himself. I'll leave that discourse where it lies, dynamic and totally unanswerable.

What strikes me is something I would imagine affects everyone who writes, produces art, performs any job, really: that sometimes there are more important things going on than what you're doing. (Sure, sure, this is a young liberal idea, I get that, but we don't want to stop wanting to be important, or rather, to do important things, right?) Food writers, when they talk about their form, tend to take one of two positions: they write entertainment (maybe infotainment) or the work is very important because everyone eats and food matters to our cultures and our histories and connects people and so on (Ms. MFK Fisher is the incontrovertible paradigm here). I agree with both positions, and I really honestly sometimes totally agree with the second one, it's just that damn sanctimonious tone always used to defend it.

Nate Zucherman, the great protagonist of many of Roth's novels, including The Ghost Writer, talks with his mentor, the secluded (I'm thinking Pynchon-esque) EI Lonoff, who describes his own long days of writing as essentially creating a sentence, rearranging it, eating lunch, writing another sentence, moving it around, going for a walk, throwing away all the sentences, then starting over. Bumped into my lit.-loving friend Wells in Ohio who talked about David Foster Wallace's description of writing as setting up a 9-hour day, 1 hour of writing, 8 hours of hating himself for not being able to write anything: indeed, poor bastards.

It's a funny occupation and people who do it love to complain about it. But they all seem drawn to it as if to some kind of duty, but a duty to self, which gets complicated. Kind of reminds me of other professions, notably chefs, who are only allowed to complain on their own time, lest they get fired, stabbed, hated or, worse, never promoted. Complain they will, but love it, need it -- absolutely.

It seems to me, at the end of the day, it's all about pleasure. People write because they're gifted and very often privileged enough to do so and they love the sweet agony of producing something good. People read for the same reasons (yes to learn, but people that really like to learn do it for pleasure, right?) Chefs cook for their own pleasure and for that of their diners. David Kamp talks about this in his United States of Arugula, that dining, above all else, should be pleasurable.

And back to Thanksgiving, which is one of the more pleasurable meals most of us will eat in a given year. Those crazy folks we call our families we often haven't seen in awhile, the food that never wavers, and if it does can and should be a source of hot contention, the cheesy but awesome spirit of thankfulness, or, as I like to thank of it, luckiness. The pleasure the day's chef gets from cooking the meal: basting the turkey, sweating the onions, seeing the smiling faces of everyone eating it, not doing the dishes. Then everyone sits back and does exactly as they would like to do: take a nap, watch the game, drink a little too much and zing your family, what have you. It's all permissible. Anything goes.

Thanksgiving is a great day and a great meal because people find pleasure in doing what they want to do and feel basically thankful for the whole situation. The same pleasure can come from writing. When you get to write about food, you get to double up on your own pleasure, and, if you can share that somehow (like my Grandpa's tried and true every year corn pudding), well, maybe that is something important enough, at least for a day's work.

Also, I hate cilantro.