So I went to my local neighborhood Panera (since every neighborhood has one now) wanting a bagel with cream cheese. Anyone who knows me knows I don't diet, and there was no pretense of eating healthy going on here. I know I am ordering a carbohydrate disk with fat smeared on top. I know this. I take comfort in knowing it is not a sausage and egg biscuit from McDonald's, nor is it a serving of hash browns scattered smothered and covered from Waffle House. But still, it is not diet food and I am not trying to fool myself into thinking it is.
The guy at the counter is named Gabriel and it is immediately obvious that English is his second language. This endears me to him immediately because it is hard be from somewhere else. We joked. I chose a blueberry bagel sliced and toasted with raspberry cream cheese. A winning combination. The first bagel flew through the slicer and landed somewhere under the cash register. The second got stuck and needed prodding with the end of a broom handle (sanitized I'm sure). My order was to go so I took my little bag to my sweltering car, cranked on the air and opened my bag.
That's when the horrible truth came to light.
Poor Gabriel had been duped into playing the pawn in this country's erroneous battle of the bulge. He unwittingly slipped me low-fat raspberry cream cheese. The calorie count alone will take this little tub of chemically altered and artificially flavored crap out of contention for diet food status...and really why? That is it. Why? It is cream cheese. If I am going to eat it I want all the fat dammit. I am not on a low fat diet and I never will be. WHY am I forced to eat low-fat stuff prescribed for me by some high-minded executive at a mediocre bagel joint. Where does their board of directors get off thinking they know what is best for me?
I realize that they are not so much concerned for my waistline. It is a capitalist decision to make Panera's wallet fatter at the expense of my taste bud because America is hysterically decrying fat as the culprit for its huge butt and are grateful to lap up engineered low fat goop to make themselves feel better.
Fine.
But I would like an option.
But...what if there was an option and Gabriel took one look at this un-skinny American and made the dicision for me rather than ask since the language would make it difficult. What if he is not a pawn after all.
Regardless, it is a conspiracy.
And I want my fat back.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Friday, June 01, 2007
Least Favorite Ingredient
When I was still reporting a few years ago (god has it been that long?) I was sent to a factory that sits high on a bank of the Mississippi River in Keokuk, Iowa, a crappy little town on the Southeastern tip of the state. I saw this foreboding yet bland blonde-bricked structure a couple hundred times since I moved to the area, but I never really noticed it. Every time you cross the bridge from Illinois into Iowa, there it sits puffing out smoke from its stacks, aloof and safe behind miles of chain link fence topped with barbed wire. I never wondered why a factory would need such security, with guards at the front gate and at every break in the fence. They were not friendly in general, but they were particularly unfriendly on this day. The story I was there to cover was an explosion at the plant and word on the street was that someone got hurt.
“Can I ask what you’re doing here?” Cocksure as he was, I decided to respond without sarcasm.
“We heard scanner traffic about an explosion here something about an injury. We’re here to see what happened.” I was sweet as pie, smiling even.
“There is no news story here,” he chuckled “why don’t you go on back to Quincy-nothin’s going on here.”
And thus sarcasm ….
“Sir, I am sure that in your capacity as a security guard your news judgement is impeccable and that you might think you know better than me what constitutes news from the perspective of that little box you sit in every day. But from where I stand I think it would be in this plant’s best interest to set to ease the minds of the gossiping masses in this town as to what has happened here today….” Meaningful pause….”Especially since everyone knows that a major explosion here could potentially level half of Keokuk.”
It was true. In all the little towns along the Mississippi the people who live there add danger to their lived in the absence of actual crime with the knowledge that doom lurks in those big grain silos on the river. They could blow up at any minute and take out one half to an entire town- depending on the town’s size. The grain is kept dry to keep it from rotting and it heats from a little fermentation and the friction of movement in those sun-baked silos. Any good ol’ boy in any of these towns will indoctrinate newcomers with this unsettling news. One spark and it’s all over for Keokuk, or La Grange, or Clarksville, or Myer, or Hamilton, or Hannibal. They’d never knew what hit them- like an atomic bomb, sort of.
Sure the factories say it ain’t so…but we know better.
Anyway, I was told to leave and that I was not allowed on the grounds of the plant and that no one was making a comment. Fine, I expected that.
So my photographer and I drove around the perimeter, along a river bottom road, and found a little gap in the fence, drove in and saw the fire engine, lights and all, down one of the roads in the complex. Ray is getting a ground level long shot, and I see a security guy in a golf cart coming at us- a different one from Mr. Newsman at the front gate. I chat with him and stall while Ray pretends to be turning his camera off, rolling the whole time. I tell the guy I thought we were off the actual property since there wasn’t much of a gate by the river dock….So we get thrown out again with specific instructions not to even step on the green grass on the other side of the fence since that is their property, too. We were only legally able to shoot from the street- from where you could see nothing. Of course we got plenty of shots of Mr. Newsman (from the street mind you) and made him a ten second celebrity against his wishes.
Eventually I got through to the CEO in Charge of Damage Control for the plant by telephone. He sounded like a PR guy hired by the KGB. “One man injured slightly in stable condition in an explosion that was very minor in a maintenance shed on the grounds.”
No big deal, but everyone was talking about it and exaggerating it so we need to set the record straight- I thanked him for his time and the information.
“So tell me, what is it exactly that you make here at Rochette America?” I asked.
“Corn syrup.”
http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
http://www.stuttercut.org/hungry/archives/essays/000229.php
www.roquette.com
“Can I ask what you’re doing here?” Cocksure as he was, I decided to respond without sarcasm.
“We heard scanner traffic about an explosion here something about an injury. We’re here to see what happened.” I was sweet as pie, smiling even.
“There is no news story here,” he chuckled “why don’t you go on back to Quincy-nothin’s going on here.”
And thus sarcasm ….
“Sir, I am sure that in your capacity as a security guard your news judgement is impeccable and that you might think you know better than me what constitutes news from the perspective of that little box you sit in every day. But from where I stand I think it would be in this plant’s best interest to set to ease the minds of the gossiping masses in this town as to what has happened here today….” Meaningful pause….”Especially since everyone knows that a major explosion here could potentially level half of Keokuk.”
It was true. In all the little towns along the Mississippi the people who live there add danger to their lived in the absence of actual crime with the knowledge that doom lurks in those big grain silos on the river. They could blow up at any minute and take out one half to an entire town- depending on the town’s size. The grain is kept dry to keep it from rotting and it heats from a little fermentation and the friction of movement in those sun-baked silos. Any good ol’ boy in any of these towns will indoctrinate newcomers with this unsettling news. One spark and it’s all over for Keokuk, or La Grange, or Clarksville, or Myer, or Hamilton, or Hannibal. They’d never knew what hit them- like an atomic bomb, sort of.
Sure the factories say it ain’t so…but we know better.
Anyway, I was told to leave and that I was not allowed on the grounds of the plant and that no one was making a comment. Fine, I expected that.
So my photographer and I drove around the perimeter, along a river bottom road, and found a little gap in the fence, drove in and saw the fire engine, lights and all, down one of the roads in the complex. Ray is getting a ground level long shot, and I see a security guy in a golf cart coming at us- a different one from Mr. Newsman at the front gate. I chat with him and stall while Ray pretends to be turning his camera off, rolling the whole time. I tell the guy I thought we were off the actual property since there wasn’t much of a gate by the river dock….So we get thrown out again with specific instructions not to even step on the green grass on the other side of the fence since that is their property, too. We were only legally able to shoot from the street- from where you could see nothing. Of course we got plenty of shots of Mr. Newsman (from the street mind you) and made him a ten second celebrity against his wishes.
Eventually I got through to the CEO in Charge of Damage Control for the plant by telephone. He sounded like a PR guy hired by the KGB. “One man injured slightly in stable condition in an explosion that was very minor in a maintenance shed on the grounds.”
No big deal, but everyone was talking about it and exaggerating it so we need to set the record straight- I thanked him for his time and the information.
“So tell me, what is it exactly that you make here at Rochette America?” I asked.
“Corn syrup.”
http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
http://www.stuttercut.org/hungry/archives/essays/000229.php
www.roquette.com
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