Two weeks ago, I asked whether people would feel cheated if a bakery sold customers Sam's Club or Price Club pies as homemade.

Eileen, of the blog Ambassador Boo, runs a bakery in New Hampshire. She wrote back noting an aspect of the problem I hadn't considered when I asked the question. People apparently have grown so used to industrially made pies that they disdain the real thing. As she puts it,

"At our bakery, we often end up with the opposite -- people come in, and they want a pie. And we say, Oh, we just made this lovely blueberry peach this morning, it is $20. And then they get all huffy, and say, "You know, I can get a pie just like that at Shaw's/Albertson's/Sam's for $3.95". It is hard to explain to those people that this is real pie crust, and made by hand, and etc.

"As we are the only real bakery in the area, most people usually buy it. But not all. One person one time came and bought a slice of pie (blueberry), ate two bites, and came to the counter and said, "This is the worst pie I have ever tasted. It is absolutely disgusting." And we were shocked, and offered her money back and a free other-dessert (she said no, which is weird), and asked what it was that was so gross. Tasted like dirt? Gross crust? And she wouldn't tell us! Just that it was horrible. Then she left. We tasted what she had left on her plate (not proper, but whatever), and it tasted great! Blueberries! Buttery crust! Yum!"

That, I think, is one of the sadder things about food that I've recently read. And yet, I know it's happening. People like the stuff that comes from a box, or a tin. They think it tastes right, somehow, and that the authentic product is the mockery.

Before anyone gets worked up about my elitism, I should say that to the extent these feelings are essentially nostalgic accidents, I don't think anyone should mind. I know that Heinz ketchup is sugary glop, but drowning some cheap fries in the stuff reminds me of the Friday evening hamburgers my family had when I was a kid, our only foray away from home food for the week. Those are evocative memories, and I don't mind the occasional culinary mistake to reach into them. But I think we've got ourselves a generation of younger people particularly who don't even know about the original article. That is to say, people who think the real pie tastes disgusting, rather than recognizing that what they're after is margarine and preservative taste. That, I think, is the worrying distinction - and is something that can't be addressed by well meaning state programs, but at home.

From The Guardian

Russia's security chief [Nikolai Patrushev] accused Britain and America of using civic groups as a front for spies yesterday, and blamed similar operations for fomenting recent uprisings in other former Soviet republics.

* * *

Mr Patrushev also said spies were operating within the US Peace Corps, which was thrown out of Russia amid spying allegations in 2002, the Saudi Red Crescent and the Society for Social Reform, a Kuwait group.

from Ryan:

Anyone who thinks that Peace Corps is a major spying ring should sit in on the trouble most volunteers have finding out the class schedule at their own school, let alone state secrets. But though I can't imagine these accusations having any official impact on me or the volunteers around me, it serves to reinforce the uninformed suspicion that some people have of us just because we're foreigners.

Doing exactly what I hate it when other bloggers do, I am arguing in Amber's comment thread about whether cutthroat Scrabble play "leaches" the fun out of the game (I say no). (Her original post is here.) I don't even have my 2-letter and 3-letter words memorized, but this may finally impel me to get it done.

If I were less lazy, I would spin this into an actual post. Maybe I will eventually.

Whatever problems my Land Use professor Robert Ellickson may have with the L'Enfant plan one benefit, not to be dismissed, is the fact that one of D.C.'s diagonal streets, Vermont, gives me an almost straight walk to the nearest Whole Foods at 14th and P. [These folks may pooh-pooh the notion of wanting groceries within walking distance, but how often do they shop for groceries, and do they realize how quickly the Zip-Car costs add up if one is unwilling to be intermittent? True, one has to be very careful shopping at Whole Foods on a student budget, and I generally limit myself to the things that Whole Foods does much much better or not much more expensively than a normal grocery store.]

At any rate, out of a combination of laziness and punchiness I bought a roasted chicken that was literally seconds off of the spit. True, I thought, I can and do roast chickens myself all of the time for less money, but it was late, I was hungry, and I quickly calculated that the chicken was much less expensive than the sliced chicken meat I was about to buy for lunch sandwiches at the deli counter. I can slice my own chicken, thanks.

[Plus, I told myself, this would be an experience I could report on; roast chickens are something of an obsession of this blog. (I am too lazy to collect internal links, but they are here.)]

The results-- not bad. The chicken is scrawnier (1.75 pounds) for the price (8 dollars) than I would like, but it did produce over a pound of meat (which is more than the deli counter would have given me). A little too dry, and most critically, no leftover grease and too hard to turn stock out of. In other words, this thing will be no substitute for doing the roasting oneself, which requires an easy 20 minutes of labor and a few hours of working and reading in a garlic fug to produce a far superior product. But it is a lovely substitute for so many other kinds of prepared food at the grocery store, or as a backstop when dinner plans must suddenly change on short notice.

Whole Foods is no Beirut, but it is good to know that these things are tucked away as insurance.

[But lest one think these experiments always turn out well, the Sutter Home White Zinfandel that I bought in a moment of similar curiosity from the nearest liquor store to my house is almost too embarrassing to mention.]

Although he has unfortunately decided to "sidestep the invitation to strangle poor Crescat in Escher-like self-reflexivity" extended here, Jacob Levy can be found discussing the Breakfast Club here.