Look at this, KFC Double Down, and despair. Paula Deen’s Lady’s Brunch Burger is 1/2 pound of ground beef, topped by a fried egg and two slices of bacon, on a Krispy Kreme donut. It’s a myocardial infarct and type 2 diabetes on a single plate!
Paula’s Food Network show is “Paula’s Home Cooking”, which makes the point that the shit people slap together at home can often be far worse than anything KFC, Burger King or McDonald’s sells.
(via The Bygone Bureau, which has a whole Paula Deen dinner party.)
debit
Oh my god. BARF!
LarsThorwald
My mother adores Paula Deene, and sees nothing wrong with making pancakes by literally frying them up in a quarter-cup of butter.
This is yet another exhibit to my argument as to why our parents’ generation needs to go.
Brian J
I can kind of, in a sick way, understand the double down, if only because it all kind of goes together. But who really wants or needs eggs, let alone Krispy Kremes, on a burger? The fat content, while appalling, isn’t the biggest problem. The taste is. I can’t imagine how that would taste good, and I am not a really fussy eater.
Also, it’s now a little clearer why the 300-pound diabetic guy I work with, who eats like shit and generally takes terrible care of himself, considers Paula Deen his adopted grandmother.
daryljfontaine
Isn’t this just a Luther with a fried egg on it? Still a cardiovascular and gastronomic abomination, but hardly nouvelle cuisine du merde.
D
debit
Look, I made english toffee bars this weekend, and used a recipe that had a total of three sticks of butter, but this is something I only make a couple times a year and know full well it means some serious time on my bike as a result. But a burger, egg and bacon on a donut? That is so seriously fucked up I can’t even begin to imagine where it came from. Unless Krispy Kreme’s marketing department was behind it. Now that I could see.
MMonides
Wow, that’s even worse than the Old Fashioned burger from Madison’s Old Fashioned bar! I thought Wisconsin led the world in dangerous food!
JAHILL10
That looks disgusting and logistically, aren’t your fat fingers going to get all yolky when the egg starts coming out through the hole of the donut? Blech!
dr. bloor
Let me see if I can find the link, but I saw a photo of a Double Down between two Krispie Kremes. So there.
Chyron HR
YOU LIE!
That’s two donuts.
(Might be nice with a cake donut bun and a sausage patty, though.)
MattF
I can see hamburger, eggs, and bacon. But the two Krispy Kremes is just disgustin’.
R-Jud
And I felt bad about putting extra sugar in my coffee this morning. Jesus.
debit
The next logical step is to give it the Monte Cristo treatment and slather it in batter, deep fry, dust it with powdered sugar and serve with a high fructose corn syrup based dipping sauce. AND THEN SERVE IT AT THE STATE FAIR!!
Okay, I’m grossing even myself out.
stuckinred
@LarsThorwald: Just how old are you?
stuckinred
How bout deep fried Snickers
electricgrendel
Look up the video on YouTube of her and the African American host making and eating this thing. Its downright sexual.
daryljfontaine
@stuckinred: No thanks, though I recently tried deep-fried dill pickles, which were downright amazing.
D
Chat Noir
That thing looks disgusting.
MMonides
BTW, the Double Down isn’t even the worst fast food sandwich out there http://consumerist.com/2010/04/10-fast-food-items-worse-for-you-than-the-kfc-double-down.html
debit
@stuckinred: Or deep fried butter. Oh god, too late. She’s already done it.
edub
This is a slight variation on the Craz-E Burger that debuted at the Eastern States Exposition (The Big E) in Massachusetts a while back.
No, I did not partake of the deliciousness.
electricgrendel
There you go. Paula is downright cooing over the donut. That, her blood red talons and the fact that she wears her blinging rings WHILE MAKING BISCUITS OH MY GOD THERE IS BISCUIT DOUGH IN THERE GROSS GROSS GROSS!!!…ahem…really skeevs me out.
Punchy
OT:
Kansas Legislature just announced it will introduce Arizona-style show-yer-papers legy. And with the level of KS crazy, my bet is that it passes easy.
electricgrendel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv8yEMRDe_w
Bah. There’s the URL for the link, which apparently I am too much of a newb to know how to post in the comments.
geg6
That might be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.
But I feel that way about pretty much anything Paula Deen makes. I detest her and her mommy’s boys sons. Just detest them.
Oh, and I hate Krispy Kreme donuts, too. Totally disgusting. They taste like lard covered with sugar.
R-Jud
@MMonides:
Clearly, you’ve never been to Glasgow.
MMonides
@R-Jud: They do that stuff in WI too! And they have fried cheese curds and brats. It’s like Madison is a deadly-food singularity.
Bill E Pilgrim
Wow. See, now to me it’s not the sheer animal fat content that makes that remarkable, or what’s the word…. repulsive? …. since where I live making things out of 75% butter is par for the course.
It’s the fact that it’s like someone threw breakfast, lunch and dinner all on the same plate as if to save dishes.
A hamburger on a donut?
To me, it’s like a bowl of cereal with a pork chop floating in it.
JCT
As a cardiologist in an urban area, I weep.
The tragedy is that these “heart attack on a plate” meals are cheap, accessible and fast. And while nothing like this will kill you as an occasional indulgence, folks where I trained really do eat them *daily*.
An uphill battle.
JT
r€nato
That there burger… it’s like telling your heart to go fuck itself with extreme prejudice.
Va Highlander
God, I’m hungry.
Back in the Dark Ages, when I was at UVa, you could get a “Grills with” at the University Diner, which was two KK donuts fried in burger grease on the grill and topped with a scoop of ice cream.
At “The White Spot”, a few doors down, you could order a “Gus with”, a bacon cheese burger with the works and an egg on top.
No one, no matter how drunk and hungry we were, ever thought of combining the two like that, but it seems a logical progression, now that I’m staring at the picture.
This may or may not be a snark-free post. That I’m hungry is a mildly disturbing fact, though.
TooManyJens
#WeBrunchHard — Ur Doin It Rong.
Bill E Pilgrim
@R-Jud:
If you want to talk about literally dangerous food:
I can’t find it right now but I read once that haggis was actually used as a weapon, they’d toss them at the enemy, hoping to pop them open on their spears, drenching the enemy in boiling hot organ soup.
Xenos
Paula Deen is a public health menace. The Food Channel is often just food porn for fatties, but this is like giving Jeffrey Dahmer his own show.
Gregory
Sufferin’ succotash, but that Deen monstrosity looks disgusting.
JAHILL10
If this is the “Lady’s Brunch Burger” for chrissakes what are the men eating? Deep fried cattle haunch?
soonergrunt
Wow. That’s just hideous. Why not just fill a syringe with lard and inject it directly into your veins? It would save time and money.
Luthe
You never can be sure about a woman whose personal motto seems to be “More butter!”
Lavocat
European friend of mine tells me the market over there just took a nosedive.
It should hit here in about 6 hours.
This should be a nice little ride.
Toodles.
pk
I feel nauseous just looking at it. Seriously, this stuff simply does not even go together! Who the hell (other than this demented twit) has ever even thought about putting bacon beef and egg on a donut. And the fool has a T.V show? This is not cooking. Its the food equivalent of a freak show.
Ash Can
I’ve always considered Paula Deen to be the quintessential Southern cook. There’s a reason the South leads the nation in heart disease (and every other unhealthy-diet-related disease), and she exemplifies it.
Sarcastro
Clearly, you’ve never been to Glasgow.
“You’re Scottish… fry something!”
I have a sneaking suspicion Paula Dean is a ringer. I’ve lived in the south most of my life and I’ve never met anyone else down here who could ruin fucking cornbread.
Kirk Spencer
I’m kinda peeved at all the grief the double-down is getting. For that matter, some of the whole food nazi stuff is getting ridiculous.
Let’s start with the double down. It is a chicken cordon bleu, served in a box instead of on a plate with a side of asparagus tips or some other such fancy.
On the whole food nazi thing – stay out of my bedroom and stay out of my kitchen. Leave my sex life and my taste buds alone. Sure, make sure the ingredients I get are good before I buy them, but quit trying to tell me what goes with something else. I got enough of that seeing teenage girls gag over “icky” (read – never tried it, won’t try it) food I was preparing.
I don’t like the Lutherburger (yes I’ve tried one), so don’t think I’d like Paula’s version, above. On the other hand, I once had a mouth-delighting experience with a bacon-wrapped tenderloin topped with a honey-wine glaze.
Look. All this BS about “heart attack waiting to happen” is pretty much overkill on the same lines of the teenager’s “icky”. Can you overdo it? Yes. But one meal? Bah.
Try it, you might like it. If you like it, add it to your life’s choices. Not eat it every day but add it to your choices.
And if you’re not going to try it, get the h*** out of my mouth.
August J. Pollak
This is a Luther Burger. It’s a staple from soul food restaurants.
Christ, white people will steal everything good from the black man, won’t they?
LarsThorwald
@stuckinred: A sprightly 40.
stuckinred
@Kirk Spencer: Last time I saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it!
r dangerfield
r€nato
@soonergrunt: doesn’t taste as good though.
debit
@pk: Totally agree with you. But I have to do this, sorry. You’re nauseated. That “brunch burger” is nauseous.
David in NY
The only time I watch Paula Deen (or any cable) is while I’m on a treadmill at the gym. If I don’t get nauseated, it’s a great incentive to keep going.
Nylund
Comment 4 has it right. This is just a Luther burger with a fried egg.
Supposedly the burger is named after its inventor, the late singer Luther Vandross. That might be an urban legend, but what is true is that there are many places that sell variations of this already.
Since I’ve moves south of the Mason-Dixon, it seems like way too many people think that Salt, Fat, Batter, and Sugar constitute the 4 food groups. If they do cook with fruits or vegetables, then its just usually to add salt, fat, batter, or sugar (ie. deep fry it, or make a dessert out of it).
MMonides
So, has anyone noticed that KFC used the Overton Window to successfully make the rest of their menu seem healthy? Firebaggers take note: this is how it’s done.
jibeaux
I know we don’t ban people hardly ever, but can we make an exception for trolls who write “hell” with asterisks? Please?
Paula Deen may be some sort of quintessential Southern cook, but to me she takes a cuisine that is historically yummy if not the healthiest, and makes it less healthy and less yummy, whereas good modern Southern cooks take old standards and make them fresher and more healthy, and add interesting ingredients that haven’t always been available. I hereby nominate the Lee Bros. as the quintessential Southern cooks for the new millennium.
Comrade Mary
Kind of on topic: Radley Balko is on CBC Radio’s The Current right now, weighing in on a fast food toys ban in Santa Clara.
You can stream the broadcasts here. If you miss the current Eastern time zone, it will shift across the country for the next few hours.
jeffreyw
Deen is a piker.
debit
@Kirk Spencer: Dude, no one is trying to tell you what to eat or cook. I find that monstrosity repulsive as well as unhealthy, but if you want to have one, go right ahead and enjoy.
Alan
People freak out over the fat but the evidence is piling up that it’s the sugar. The donuts dipped in sugar is the worst of the two. But the batter on the chicken should be avoided too.
Big Fat Lies
freeulysses
David, I thought I was the only person who had the misfortune to have a gym membership at a place where Paula Deen of all cooking shows is on the gym tvs.
PurpleGirl
I like butter and I like fried foods… but that thing does not look appetizing at all. And adding the donuts, well even though I believe in eating dessert first, I’m not enticed by eating dessert with. I’ll pass on thinking what it tastes like.
R-Jud
@Lavocat: I’m in Europe. Here’s what the Guardian said 15 mins ago:
“Reuters is flashing that German MP Juergen Trittin, head of the Greens, is briefing journalists that the total package could be as big as €100bn-€120bn. The French PM has also come out and said that the existing €30bn package on offer from the EU should be implemented immediately.
This is exciting the financial markets, sending the euro rallying against the dollar, and up above 87p against the pound. Greek bonds have also benefitted – the spread between Greek and German 10 year government bonds is back around 830 basis points. That’s unacceptably high, but better than the 1,000bps spread we saw earlier today.
The FTSE 100 is also gaining, now up 32 points at 5632.”
jwb
@debit: But you’d have to put it on a stick.
Face
Yahoo Finance has the pre-market up huge. A disconnect or typo of epic proportions.
jibeaux
@Comrade Mary:
Ah, for those of us wondering when glibertarians would start talking about Arizona, I guess we have our answer.
Neutron Flux
@Punchy: Sheez. I go to North Carolina for business a few days and they start this shit? While $400 mil short of revenue?
I guess I could get all Chock Full O’Nuts on this, but think I will just ignore it while I am here.
r€nato
@Kirk Spencer: Look, I enjoy a Jack in the Box Ultimate Cheeseburger myself every so often (once a year, max).
But WAY too many people in America, eat like this WAY too often.
One of the reasons health care is so expensive here, is that people demand the right to eat too much of the wrong foods their entire life, they don’t exercise, then they expect doctors and Big Pharma to fix the diabetes, heart disease, and other assorted maladies associated with a lifetime of poor eating and non-existent exercise habits.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@LarsThorwald:
That picture is go gross that I’m hoping for a flurry of posts just to knock it down so I won’t see it again. But I want to have pancakes at your mom’s house.
WereBear
Preach it, brother!
Yes, folks, it is the sugar. Ever since the Fear of Fat gripped the nation, sugar has been the substitute, and diabetes has skyrocketed.
I discovered that fat is good for me; upping my fat and lowering my carbs has let me drop weight, lowered my triglycerides, and made my blood pressure what my PA calls “perfect.”
Maybe I’m a mutant, but it really works for me.
Ash Can
@jibeaux: “Quintessential” means “most typical of.” Unless and until Southern cuisine in general looks more like the Lee Brothers’ than Paula Deen’s, they won’t, by definition, be “quintessential.”
Now, “best,” on the other hand…
jwb
@Face: At the moment the foreign markets seem to be doing fine. FTSE 100 up 30, DAX down 15, CAC 40 down 3. The Asian markets took a small hit overnight. But this doesn’t look like a meltdown.
Barbara
It’s true that some home cooked food is worse than the fast food kind, but not usually.
Whenever I see something like this, I try for fun to see what I could do to make it less deadly. First, use half the beef — 8 ounces is a lot — and make sure that the beef is 93% lean, which means that 4 oz. would be about 170 calories or so. Likewise, you can get by with one strip of bacon — only about 50 calories, and you can cook the bacon “lean” if you want to. To me, the egg is a bit superfluous, but it’s easy to cook an egg by poaching, which gives it 80 calories.
And I think the KK donut is not only superfluous but positively the anti-matter of taste. I wouldn’t want it on the same plate or even the same table! I would go for half an English muffin, coming in at 65 calories or so. So my revised version, still very tasty, would be about 400 calories. The original is probably closer to 1200. You can revise downward at home, but all you can do in a restaurant is try to split the meal between two people.
Grills-with’s were disgusting. I ordered one, once, and quit after two bites. Yuck.
Omnes Omnibus
@MMonides: It is the KK doughnut bun that makes the Deen burger disgusting. BTW I like the Old Fashioned for Friday fish fries.
mr. whipple
You know what’s really good on KK glazed donuts? Sausage gravy.
flukebucket
@stuckinred:
LOL!
Bnut
@Xenos:
I take this line. Amazing.
stuckinred
@WereBear: Gotcha dawg, modified south beach all the way.
“If I knew I was gonna live this long I would have taken better care of myself”
m mantle
PurpleGirl
Re new evidence about fat, sugar and carbohydrates: In a way the new studies vindicate Dr. Atkins and his diet ideas. (And before anyone mentions that he died and had heart disease…. his death was the result of complications from a fall on ice and his heart disease was unrelated to diet and weight, it was an inherited condition, I believe.)
There are endocrinologists who work in diabetes and favor a low to no carbohydrate diet now to control insulin production.
ChrisS
No cheese on that thing?
Huh.
FWIW, 90% of the food network shows are godawful cooking (“If you can’t add hot sauce or deep fry it, it won’t taste good!”). There are like 16 variations of dump & stir, 12 cake decorating shows, and four deep fried shows (Ds,Ds & Ds, Paula Deen, etc.).
The only one I actually watch is Good Eats, only because Brown takes the time to illustrate why something is cooked the way it is. He’s not cutting edge, but after watching his shows, I understand more methods and not just recipes.
stuckinred
@PurpleGirl: Do they differentiate between simple and complex?
Rosalita
and I thought her Krispy Creme bread pudding was bad… yeesh!!
stuckinred
@ChrisS: Ah for the days of the drunken Graham Kerr!
David in NY
@freeulysses:
I confess I can actually choose what to watch, but Paula Deen has all the fascination of a car wreck or five-alarm fire, at least until my stomach starts to get queasy. And I keep thinking, “Aren’t she and that guy a little overweight already?”
Sarcastro
Christ, white people will steal everything good from the black man, won’t they?
Yes, especially from the massive black population of Hamburg Germany.
Barbara
ChrisS, you are validating my decision to forego cable. I get my fill of cooking shows on PBS, and find Jacques Pepin to be particularly fun, “Fast Food My Way.” As you might imagine, fast food his way is what most of us would consider fine dining. But he really does cook an entire three course meal in 30 minutes. I also like Lidia’s Italian American Kitchen, but I’ve never actually made anything she did.
pk
@WereBear:
What type of fats though? Do you use use animal fats or plant based like olive oil?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Sarcastro:
Hey, that thing above really could be called a Hamburger-Berliner, come to think of it. Not exactly the same kind of doughnut but close.
Mike in NC
I tried haggis on a visit to Scotland in 1986 and can still taste it. Utterly disgusting, as is the fried pizza. The only edible food in the entire country was fish and chips, but hardly ‘healthy’.
Congrats to Paula Deen for coming up with something more appalling than the old McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches that substituted syrupy pancakes for English muffins.
Kirk Spencer
@debit: Dude, look at the comments in this thread, and see if you can keep a straight face while telling me nobody’s telling me what I should eat.
@r€nato: Yes and no. I agree it’s a problem with the American lifestyle, but there are a host of contributing issues. There are things like the constant rush that makes fast food such a popular option. (20 minutes from start to finish instead of at least 20 minutes just to prepare the meal in the first place, much less eat and clean up.) You’re right about the lack of exercise, but it’s in large part because we’ve built our culture around the automobile and a culture of watching instead of doing. The food available isn’t the culprit.
@jibeaux: I thought “hell” would hit the moderation. It also tends to make people get more wrapped around the word than what I said. (And troll? ooookay.)
Rosalita
exactly! and no substance. give me a classic cake donut every time. guess that’s the yankee in me, seems everyone in the south was bonkers for kk donuts. blech.
chopper
bread and deep fry that fucker and i’m sold.
Va Highlander
@Barbara: If you were sober, I’m not surprised.
chopper
@debit:
i love the last comment on her recipe – “I make deep fried butter every night for my family! But I use lard!”
ugh. i wonder if an entire family has ever had synchronized heart attacks.
jibeaux
Have you ever READ this blog?
R-Jud
@WereBear:
Same here. It doesn’t really seem to matter whether it’s plant or animal fats. I try to eat a lot of nuts and seeds as opposed to eggs and meat and cheese, though. My carbs are 70% nuts and vegetables, 20% fruit, 10% grain/other.
I lift weights, so my scale weight hasn’t really dropped in the last few months, but my body fat has. Last time I weighed this much I was a US 12; am now a US 6.
geg6
@Kirk Spencer:
Feel free to eat whatever garbage you like. I don’t care, honestly. I’m not going to stop you.
I simply don’t like this kind of crap. I generally don’t eat anything fried. I hate southern cooking in general. It’s simply a matter of taste for me. Paula Deen and her accent and her girly boy sons make me ill because…well, just because (don’t want to insult the southerners here). And I have never seen her cook a single thing I found in the least appetizing.
That said, I use butter in my cooking and I like red meat and all kinds of other things that are not so healthy, so I’m no food nazi. I just prefer healthier foods most of the time and it’s a taste thing, not a food nazi thing. Give me some fresh, roasted veggies and that’s a perfect meal for me because they taste delicious with very little added to their natural flavors. Just my preference.
Kirk Spencer
@jibeaux: point.
jibeaux
@Ash Can:
Yes, but I think the healthier cooking is becoming more quintessential. I’ve lived here my whole life, and the last five or six years it seems like the number of farmer’s markets, CSAs, and produce delivery companies doubles every year. A few years ago they opened a midweek farmer’s market in season catering to downtown office workers. Starting this year, they do it twice a week in two different locations, which is in addition to whole new weekend markets that have opened. A neighbor of mine started just last year a fresh weekly produce delivery service, it’s a bit like a CSA but it’s more flexible and of course delivered. She has over a thousand customers now. I can’t say as I’ve done a scientific survey of people’s kitchens, but I definitely think people are more aware of healthy eating than they used to be. Now, maybe they’re letting it all rot on the counter while they fry a Krispy Kreme sammich, but the local Krispy Kreme is closed for renovations, so maybe they’re actually figuring out what to do with it. Last night, I grilled cabbage and leeks from my CSA for a grilled cole slaw — it sounds a little weird but it really worked.
LuciaMia
Hey, isn’t that the Good Morning Burger , featured on an episode of the ‘Simpsons?’
Copyright infringement!
jibeaux
@Kirk Spencer:
Shouldn’t have called you a troll, sorry. But c’mon, no one is telling anyone what to eat or proposing the Nasty-Ass Brunch Bill. It’s just a hundred comments of “that is completely and utterly gross”, which it indisputably is. We’re not a country short on completely disgusting things.
master c
Paula Deen is gross….this is perfect for her.
Rosalita
Much worse gets posted, no worries. Stick around, you’ll see.
jibeaux
By the way, if anyone is considering a CSA, I really recommend it. For one thing, with all the choices out there, it is actually liberating to have someone just provide you with produce and then you have to figure out what to do with it. A huge number of choices can be more difficult than a small number of choices, and it can get you out of your food ruts. Grilled cabbage and leek slaw is not something I would have set out to make had I not had cabbage and leeks, but the results were great. And I find it cuts back on my trips to the grocery store. They tell me in advance what I’ll be getting, I search out some stuff to make with it and shop accordingly. That of course plus all the usual local and organic and keep your money in your community cheerleading. I love it when fresh produce is easy and abundant, I find it easier to lose weight. Five pounds to go.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@LuciaMia: Remember the super waffle Homer made himself in the snowed-in episode? I was all over it till he added the liquid smoke.
master c
K Spencer-the Double Down is hilarious! Dont you think it’s funny?
Give yourself permission.
Go eat one! The commercials have worked.
ksmiami
As humans, we are all drawn to deep fried dough. For me though, rather than that Deen abomination, the best donut store in the whole frikkin world is a place in Newport Beach, CA (of all places) called Mag’s donuts owned by a really sweet Vietnamese family. As a once in a vacation treat, their cinnamon rolls and jelly filled are HEAVEN and the coffee is good and cheap. Krispy Kreme is industrialized cardboard sugar.
WereBear
@pk: I don’t care.
Transfats, now those are villains.
Bnut
There’s a place called the Chip Shop near me here in Brooklyn that can fry anything. Mars bars, twinkies, snickers, pizza, mac and cheese, and my favorite, the fried cherry cobbler (recently banned by the New York City health department). I can get being poor and eating poorly. But when I see unhealthy well-off folks I lose my shit. This is not the middle ages. Being overweight does not make you noble. It makes you die younger.
Ash Can
@jibeaux: That’s very cool. (And BTW, I’ve always considered Cajun/New Orleans cuisine to be not only the class of Southern cooking by far, but a real American art form.)
Jorge
@jibeaux: Aw!! H*** No!!!
:)
stuckinred
@jibeaux: That is really big here in Athens, GA. The problem is that the folks that can afford it probably need it less than the people who spend their food stamps on high fructose shit.
geg6
@ksmiami:
Not all humans. And definitely not THIS human.
I might eat something deep fried, perhaps 3 or 4 times a year. Usually, I do it to be polite when a guest of someone else. Otherwise, I’d probably never touch it.
Hate, hate, hate fried food. Hate it.
stuckinred
Dog is My Co-Pilot
I didn’t think anything could make KFC’s Double Down look good. I thought this was a joke at first, but apparently it’s not. It makes my teeth hurt just looking at it. Yuck!
Comrade Scrutinizer
Haters.
Erik Vanderhoff
Jesus H. Christ on a donkey wearing a sombrero! So, the South lost the war with guns and so they’ve turned to a far more insidious weapon, cholesterol!
Omnes Omnibus
@Erik Vanderhoff:
We’re going to need to see his papers, sounds like an illegal immigrant to me.
schrodinger's cat
This does look disgusting and doesn’t seem particularly delicious either. I am not a big fan of donuts, and I never had Krispy Kremes. I remember when Food Network shows were actually good. Now it seems like they have characters playing the part of cooks on their shows, too much fake cheer for my taste.
I too love PBS cooking shows, of the current ones America’s Test Kitchens is my favorite. Good recipes and I love their equipment and food reviews.
MCA
The sad thing to me isn’t that someone would come up with this – that Americans will push the envelope on how much saturated fat and sugar they can combine in one 4,000 calorie meal is no surprise. The sad thing is that the f-ing Food Network has fallen so far into lowest common denominator land. That network’s not even about cooking anymore. As evidenced by the fact all the actual chefs are on other channels now, and have been replaced by southern Home Economics teachers run amok and fat guys with frosted hair who travel around to greasy spoons to whet your appetite for junk.
Randy P
@Erik Vanderhoff:
They’ve already made big inroads in that war. This damn Yankee became a permanent convert to biscuits with sausage gravy when I lived in Maryland.
But I have to agree with the “eew” faction. I love Krispy Kremes. A big tragedy in this area is that there was one franchiser who owned the rights for the entire Philly metro area, including down to Wilmington, DE. (Apparently that’s how KK does things). So when he went bust every single store closed at once.
So I make no claim to healthy eating. Last night’s dinner was Guinness and wings. I love burgers. I love icky donuts. But I can’t imagine why I’d want to combine the two.
For that matter, I can’t imagine why I’d want an egg on my burger, though I’d be willing to try it. Maybe with salsa and cilantro, go for that huevos rancheros effect.
Bnut
The Food Network is spinning off a new channel called the Cooking Channel. I’ll reserve judgment until I see some programming. However, the word “hipster” occurred several times in the article I read, so my hopes are set none too high.
Butch
Just like me to wait until I can jump in with one of my usual pointless observations. I live far enough from a major city that I tend to buy most of my books on line, which means you don’t get much of a chance to thumb through them before you buy. (How am I doing for irrelevancy so far?) I just bought the new Alice Waters cookbook, In the Green Kitchen, because I’ve wanted one of her books for a long time. (She’s the chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley.) It’s not what I expected – it’s cooking 101 on things like how to wash lettuce and how to fry an egg.
Erik Vanderhoff
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wasn’t there a song about Jesus getting reincarnated as a Mexican and getting shot by a border guard while trying to swim the Rio Grande?
I must confess, the very thought makes me giggle.
debit
@Randy P:
See, that actually sounds okay, just like Eggs on Horseback (egg on a tenderloin steak), the dish that I’m assuming the Dean monstrosity might have been based on before it mutated.
tesslibrarian
Okay, here’s the thing: Paula Deen isn’t the quintessential southern cook. That’s more along the lines of someone like Nathalie Dupree, who, while also annoying, is only so in that Old-Atlanta-Junior-League sort of way. Charleston, SC, is definitely the right vibe for her now.
Deen’s schtick is being a parody of a Southern woman, and she’s somehow combined the worst of 20th century southern cooking (lots of post-war convenience foods because it took ages for air conditioning to be standard) and some sort of blind-to-history reinterpretation of “soul food,” which seems to end up with her adding all sorts of gunk to perfectly good meat and vegetables so everything has less flavor. WTF??
The only episode of Deen’s show that I’ve seen (I think her voice would work as weaponry) had her add mayo, cream of something soup, milk, and something else white to frozen broccoli, then “season” it with a single teaspoon of curry powder. What was the point to that teaspoon? Curry sometimes shows up in southern foods. That’s it.
For southern food, traditionally, only one or two slices were used–meat was/is expensive, difficult to store, and a pain to prep–the 1923 Athens Women’s Club cookbook’s instructions for fried chicken is primarily about how to bleed it and pluck it; the frying over a hot, unairconditioned stove is the easy part and is barely addressed in the directions.
For special occasions, my gramma used to fry one chicken, often cutting larger pieces into smaller ones to stretch it–enough for each plate to have one piece, because the rest of the table was covered with green beans, lima beans, blackeyed peas, corn on the cob, plain sliced tomatoes, mashed potatoes, spinach, turnip greens, and for dessert there were at least three choices (a poundcake, maybe a pecan pie, and ice cream). The point is, you didn’t need or deserve more than one piece of chicken. That was just being greedy. The beans and peas and greens had been cooked with small hunks of smoked ham, but it was just for flavor–boiled ham is disgusting.
Whenever I come across a recipe that begins with whole containers butter and/or sour cream and/or cream cheese, the joke in our house is that it must be an Ina Garten creation. You really don’t get less Southern Food than Garten. Her food is simple, her corn-basil salad makes corn seem worth the effort, but seriously, most of her recipes only needs about 1/2 the butter and 1/3 the sugar if you want it to both be good in taste and in visits to the doctor. Garten primarily explains a good place to start.
Sorry. But Southern cooking is a thing for me. Much the way I don’t like being tarred as in league with that idiot from Maine in last night’s post or whatever moronic piece of legislation passed the Georgia house, I do not want it assumed that I’m not a southern cook if I don’t deep fry everything and top it with a doughnut and mayo.
canuckistani
The best donuts I’ve ever had are made by Mennonites and sold at the St. Jacobs Farmer’s Market just outside Waterloo, Ontario. They are fatty and cakey and delicious. They are the donuts that Plato eats outside in the sun, while the rest of you eat the KK shadows in the cave.
Fortunately, getting them is not convenient, otherwise I would be the subject of some Learning Channel show about the world’s fattest man and the donuts he loves.
David in NY
@debit:
See, I got it right in the comment following yours. It is, however, a losing battle.
David in NY
@Bnut:
Chip Shop? Fifth Avenue? Fried Mars bars?
There’s lots better food elsewhere on that street.
Bnut
I’ve watched Paul Deen enough to know she knows jack about Southern soul food. Fried butter balls and burgers on KK donuts? Where’s the fried green tomato BLT’s? The hoppin’ john? The oxtail soup? The okra and tomatoes? Adding more butter, sugar, lard, etc to some dish does not make it a “modern version of a classic”. Using better ingredients while not sacrificing taste is.
jibeaux
@stuckinred:
Very true. Our markets, at least some vendors, take those EBT cards, but I don’t know how widely they’re used. Produce isn’t cheap in general, but some of it’s a bargain — cabbage, sweet potatoes which we are absolutely swimming in almost year-round, greens…
debit
@David in NY: A copy of Elements of Style should be in every classroom. Sadly, it wasn’t in a single one of mine. I found it on my own and reread it every few years for enjoyment (and a refresher). It’s a little gem of a book.
Bnut
@David in NY:
I know there is. I really love Cafe Steinhof on 7th.
tesslibrarian
@Bnut: Yes! Okra and tomatoes! I make some to freeze every summer so I can pull it out in February when it seems like spring will never arrive. True comfort food.
Robin G
@tesslibrarian: Damn straight. If you need more than a little ham hock for your pot of green beans, you’re doing it wrong.
I detest Paula Deen — her accent isn’t even a real accent anymore, it’s a schtick. People don’t cook like that. And Aaron McGruder ought to sue her damn ass off.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the Itis episode… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVor-zkA1CA
NobodySpecial
You know, I’m down over 60 pounds from last year, and I still eat unhealthy foods.
I just eat less of them.
Oh, and I cut out the soda for diet tea. Made a hell of a difference.
That thing’s disgusting, by the way. Just thought I’d brag on myself a bit.
PurpleGirl
@stuckinred: No they don’t. The reason is that all carbohydrates provoke an insulin response — the production of insulin — and the goal of the diet is to control the amount needed and its production. They don’t want to create an overproduction or a too-frequent production, both of which can wear out the pancreas or also lead to insulin insensitivity. They aren’t easy eating plans to create or stay on. (JeffreyW’s photos make me envious because I can’t eat most of it.) Maybe later today, if I have time, I’ll find some references.
Bnut
@Robin G:
You mean there a people who have NOT seen the Boondocks? (shudders)
salacious crumb
y’all bitchin about Paula’s latest monstrosity know how she gonna spin this right? elite liberals looking down on simple working class moms like herself just trying put food on table. “look at you know it all tofu eating gym going elite types too afraid to have a bit of fat around your waist preaching to us down home salt of the earth folks about things like confederacy and slavery and gay marriage and war and all those pansy ass things”…
Michelle Obama should think about ever wanting to hang out with her again…
Mnemosyne
I know virtually nothing about Southern cooking, but there’s a yummy “new Southern” restaurant in Santa Barbara (CA) called Tupelo Junction Cafe. Their red beans and rice is dee-lish.
I’ve tried low-carb diets and I just can’t do them. I literally get depressed (and since I’ve had to be medicated for depression in the past, I know whereof I speak). Apparently my brain chemistry thrives on carbs and, since I have no family history of diabetes, I don’t worry too much about avoiding whole wheat bread and suchlike.
David in NY
@Bnut:
Figured you knew. Just didn’t want folks to think that was typical of Brooklyn these days.
Gina
@Barbara: I really like the PBS cooking shows that are on the digital subchannel I get with the antenna. I used to love Food Network (a dozen years ago), shows like “Ready, Set, Cook”, and real cooks in real kitchens. Now, I find it is mostly stuff that bores me – factory tours, endless cake competitions, more factory tours. Check out Daisy Martinez on PBS if you haven’t, makes a neat counterpoint to Julia & Jacques.
The Moar You Know
I don’t form arterial plaque. It’s true. Some weird genetic thing.
I could eat one of these every damn day and it could not possibly kill me.
However, since I don’t want to be one of those people who have to be extracted from their bedrooms with a forklift, I won’t. I can’t form plaque. But I can gain weight.
ksmiami
Actually, Scott Peacock and Edna Lewis’ book on Southern cooking is a definitive bible and the recipes are actually healthy and use a ton of fresh veggies. Except for some of the desserts, Deen’s food is pretty gross.
Bnut
@ksmiami:
You’re right. To be fair to Paula, her pecan pie IS pretty damn good.
flukebucket
@NobodySpecial:
Preach it. Eat any-damn-thing you want to eat. Just don’t eat much of it.
Works like a charm.
Svensker
@Butch:
Try the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook. It’s lots of fun to read, too. If you really want a GREAT cookbook that has the kinds of things that inspired Alice Waters, check out Richard Olney’s French Menu Cookbook. His garlic/lemon chicken is a cooking course in and of itself and perhaps the most delicious thing I’ve ever made. Olney is not well known enough and he really was a food genius. Bit of a prickly bastard, too, but the food was sublime.
Oh wait, the garlic/lemon chicken is in Olney’s Simple French Food, which is also a must have.
David in NY
This and that last thread we had featuring Brunswick stew, has made me want to go out and buy a tough old hen, some okra, lima beans, corn, etc., and make a big batch (maybe when those things are really in season). The thought of that actually makes me hungry. Looking at food prepared by Paula Deen does not.
PK
@debit:
English is not my first language. But I am always open to learning.
Darn! Now I suppose I’ll have to show my papers.
Butch
@Svensker: I’ll give it a try. I love cooking (keeps me busy here in the boonies) and I even tried out Ree Drummond’s Pioneer Woman. Nothing in it will have you doing backflips….
Comrade Mary
@canuckistani: Hmmm. According to Veloroute, it’s 113 kilometres one way from here to Waterloo. I think I could manage a round trip in a day — if those doughnuts are really all that you describe. Pray that you do not disappoint me.
catclub
@jibeaux:
What is a CSA?
All I can think of is Confederate States of America.
Paula is from the south, but it must be something else.
debit
@PK: Ah, then my apologies! I never would have guessed English was your second language.
The example used in Elements of Style goes something like this: You are not nauseous unless you truly do make other people sick. Sort like the difference between repulsed and repulsive.
Kenneth
@Va Highlander:
I was just at the White Spot two weekends ago. I had a Gusburger with fries, and some Grills With. It was amazing. I’d like to say I exercised it all off, but no.
David in NY
@catclub:
CSA — community supported agriculture. You buy direct from the farm. They deliver what’s being harvested and you eat it. I’ve never done it (my life a little too complicated for it), but it sounds interesting.
Seanly
@WereBear:
I love the new commercials from the high fructose corn syrup industry-group attacking the attacks of HFCS. They miss the point of what I think is the real issue.
I think the real issue with HFCS is not the use of that product, but that the sweetness (and calories) of everything that previously used cane sugar is way up. If they increased the amount of cane sugar rather than replacing with HFCS and then increasing that, I think people would complain just as much.
David in NY
“I love it when fresh produce is easy and abundant, I find it easier to lose weight.”
By the way, this is true.
stuckinred
@jibeaux: I was just looking at the video I shot of the Okra Man in the Quarter!
PurpleGirl
@catclub: CSA = community supported agriculture. It’s a component of the local food movement. The food sold to the members of the CSA group is grown by local farmers. (Read local here to mean somewhere sort of close by, i.e., for a Brooklyn group the farmer could come from Long Island.) CSA’s are membership groups and you agree to buy a certain amount of the food the farmer provides. See http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
DBrown
I double Dog dare you to eat one!
Tom Hilton
Sounds kind of like my Five-Cholesterol Omelette: eggs, cheese, bacon, avocado, and sour cream. The butter you cook it in is bonus.
PurpleGirl
The problem with high-fructose corn syrup is that it is not handled by the body in the same way as other sugars are. The problem isn’t the calories or the sweetness, it’s the chemical structure that the body cannot handle or process. I think it is telling that both weight gains and increases in type 2 diabetes correlate to increasing use of HFCS in prepared food.
stannate
In a cooking contest between Paula Deen and the equally odious Sandra Lee, I’d choose food poisoning.
For those who want to see the good things that can be done to a humble hamburger, I suggest Kuma’s Corner in Chicago. Excellent burgers, great beer, and bone-crunching metal: a combination that’s hard to beat.
PurpleGirl
To all BJs, if you can eat carbs without problem, enjoy. I don’t want to sound like I’m telling anyone what they should or should not eat. I think a problem we have with food and weight is that we look for a one-sized fits all solution, and it isn’t going to happen. We do not completely understand body chemistry and the solution is likely to be very individualized. I also found it easier to lose weight on a protein-rich diet, but I do like breads and some veggies. And now it turns out I really do have restrict them as much as I can.
Jager
@debit:
My breakfast this morning; a bowl of 2 day old chili with an over-easy egg on top, sprinkled with hot sauce. I cleaned up the bowl with a tortilla. I am a bad boy, aren’t I?
debit
@Jager: What, no sour cream and shredded cheese? For shame!
Glen Tomkins
Wow!
Serve your family a meal that says, “Die before I do, bitchez!”
Brachiator
Can I have two?
As some other posters have noted, nobody is suggesting that anybody eat stuff like this every day and every meal. But this food Nazi zero-tolerance BS not only gets old, but easily leads to stupid cruelty like this (Boy, two, left in tears as nursery staff confiscate his ‘unhealthy’ cheese sandwich):
Note here that “healthy eating” options somehow became the obligation to force a kid to obey an irrational pseudo-nutrion mandate.
You can always tell a food Nazi because the first thing that he or she is concerned with is with the supposed unhealthiness of a food, and never with whether or not it tastes good.
Deluded folks who think that a single bite of “unhealthy food” is going to lead to an immediate heart attack just prove the point that Puritanism from the left is just as insidious as Puritanism from the right.
canuckistani
@Comrade Mary:
Because you can spell “doughnut” correctly, I will warn you that it’s been a couple of years since I’ve been, and they may not still be there. But the Stone Crock Bakery in St. Jacobs itself was often a good doughnut fallback. Also, the cinammon and sugar teaballs*.
(*like a spherical doughnut, meant to be consumed with tea. But it sounds dirty, especially nowadays.)
chopper
@Bnut:
there are a couple of em actually. food’s okay. as another said, there’s better food on 5th ave.
speaking of which, anybody actually go back to gorilla now that it opened back up? walked past yesterday and it was completely empty.
chopper
@Bnut:
AOC still has the best fries i’ve ever had. maybe it was just a good day tho.
Kelly K.
Sorry, but I hate when people who differentiate between Krispy Kreme donuts and other donuts, as if other donuts weren’t disgustingly unhealthy as well.
chopper
@PurpleGirl:
it isn’t that it isn’t handled. but it is handled differently.
sucrose is broken down by the body via an enzyme you produce in your small intestine (sucrase). the rate at which it’s broken down can be controlled by your body so the simple sugars don’t all go to your bloodstream at once. HFCS is already broken down, so it bypasses that function and spikes your blood sugar way fast.
thing is, the simple sugars like fructose and glucose are present in foods as well – eat an apple and you’re getting some fructose in its raw form as well. however, you’re also getting some complex starches and most importantly fiber which slows down the digestion as well, keeping the simple sugars from going right into your bloodstream as well.
that’s why fruit juice can be just as bad as soda full of HFCS – you get the simple sugars and that’s it. oddly enough, something like kool-aid is better because it’s sucrose instead if you make it with table sugar.
chopper
man, did i just use “as well” four times in a single sentence? hell.
twiffer
i like butter. i eat more meat and less veggies than i should. potato chips are a weakness. i drink. i smoke. my exercise routine is neither regular nor particularly existant. in short, i am should not be considered a paragon of the healthy lifestyle set. gradually drifting towards the pariah end of that spectrum (i’d probably already be there, but for the odd phenomenom of pipe smoking not bothering people as much as cigarettes do). yet even i wouldn’t touch this fucking monstrosity.
okay, sure, it’s more cause i think it is a terrible flavor combonation. still, donuts should not be used as a bun. for anything.
Jager
@debit: Damn, I knew I forgot something!
David in NY
@chopper:
Lot of Brooklyn folks here today. I’m making note of fries at AOC. Haven’t eaten over that way lately.
twiffer
@Brachiator: re the nursery school: fuck them.
my son turns 3 in a few months. discussed diet with his dr., cause he doesn’t want to eat veggies and would be happy to subsist on a diet of chicken nuggets and cheez-its*. doc basically said: “he’s 2. as long as he eats something, it’s fine.”
these people are doing more harm than good. it’s enough of a challenge to get a toddler to eat anything under normal circumstances.
i see from the link, this kid’s parents took him out of that daycare immediately. i would have done the same.
*i jest only slightly. he also will regularly eat cashews, any sort of berry, yogurt, pizza and toast.
PanAmerican
Didn’t Elvis knock down a couple of these before his final engagement on the porcelain throne?
WereBear
@twiffer: It might help you to know that in a study of grade school children allowed to eat freely, they wound up, over a time curve, having a fairly balanced diet.
This was in the 1950’s, when the Artificial Food industry was in its infancy.
Your child is getting protein, dairy, and antioxidants, after all.
Peter
In Nevada they serve this with a chicken on the side so you can pay for a CT scan after you stroke out mid-burger.
twiffer
@WereBear: exactly. pretty much what his doc was saying. we try to offer him healthy stuff (which sort of forces us to try to be heathy too). as long as he tries it, that’s good enough for now. if he’d rather have strawberries than peas, that’s fine by me. if he tries stuff and still won’t eat it, then we’ll resort to something we know he’ll eat. at his age, any food is better than no food.
Bill H
What?! This idiotic half assed moron claims to be a Southern cook? Any kind of cook? A Southern anything? Non-fucking-stick cooking spray on a cast iron skillet?
My grandmother just rose up out of her grave and smacked me on the head for even reading that shit. My skillet is sitting on the stove right now cringing in terror and I had to reassure it three times I would never do such a thing to it.
Svensker
@Butch:
Thanks for that — had never seen her website. She has a lot of personality. Her photos are wonderful…wonder who does it?
Joseph Nobles
Elvis would have, if it had been invented yet.
But, no, Elvis stuck to regular old cheeseburgers. I don’t think he even put bacon on them. And then there was the butter-fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Don’t knock it if you ain’t tried it.
BTW, Australia and New Zealand have been putting fried eggs on burgers forever. It’s the doughnuts-as-bun that’s the killer here. Deen should have thrown a couple of slices of beetroot on there as well.
Mnemosyne
@Seanly:
Ever notice that they always work the phrase “fine in moderation” into those propaganda commercials? It always makes me start screaming at the TV, “I’m sure it’s fine in moderation but you people insist on putting it in every fucking thing I eat!”
It makes me wonder what their research is saying if they’re being so careful to emphasize the “in moderation” part even in their “yay HFCS!” commercials.
maus
@LarsThorwald: @2
The only way I would accept them as the “greatest generation” is in girth.
maus
@Mnemosyne: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqIpAyHJ2ws a thousand times.
Mnemosyne
@PurpleGirl:
Exactly. I usually think of myself as being genetically engineered to eat carbs since I’m Irish, Italian and German. My ancestors thrived on potatoes, rice and brown bread.
Of course, I also ended up with lactose intolerance so, sadly, my genetic engineering has a few bugs in it. I can’t stand soy milk, but it turns out that the new almond milks are pretty tasty and don’t have that annoying chalky taste.
Chris
Actually, if you replace those doughnuts with a regular bun, what you have there is a classic Australian hamburger. :-) (OK, you don’t need 8 oz of ground beef either.)
As for Krispy Kreme: I tried them a few times, but they made me feel ill. If only Montgomery Donuts still existed…. (Not that I live in Maryland anymore either)
Butch
@Svensker: She takes most of her own photos. The cookbook is interesting; she has lots of photos of her kids and life on the ranch and it’s a fun read. The recipes are pretty inconsistent, though, and you definitely need to try them once before you make them for company; the lasagne is good as is the sherried tomato soup; the jalapeno poppers are great but how she manages to stuff 36 jalapeno halves with the ingredients listed is beyond me; pico de gallo is very good but there’s nothing unusual about the recipe; the chicken is good if you ignore her instructions on making a paste of the flour; but the steak with whiskey cream send the household scrambling for a supper of breakfast cereal because it was so bad. Her love of Lowry’s seasoned salt is also mystifying, but then someone who can admit to (and include of photo of) leaving the spigot open on a container meant for sangria has to be OK.
maus
@Butch:
How is the overuse of MSG by food network “celebrity chef”s mystifying?
rikyrah
My niece and I were watching an episode of Paula Deen, and when she came up to the third recipe in a row that began with ‘ 2 sticks of butter’, my niece and I began to crack up.nobody watches Deen if they want to lose weight.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@debit: But that’s not correct. You can use nauseous to mean either “causing nausea” or “affected with nausea”, at least according to the Random House unabridged and the American Heritage 4th edition. The Random House includes this usage note:
__
while the American Heritage usage note says
__
gil mann
Now all I can picture is some dude fucking a fried donut.
Waldo
I’m still recovering from the Double Down I had Monday. I’d say it’s neither as good nor as bad as you’d imagine. Not quite the gut punch that Wendy’s Baconator is, but not as tasty either. In fact, the deep-fried KFC chicken totally overpowers the wimpy bacon in between.
cliff
@MMonides:
yum, that sounds great!
cliff
@Omnes Omnibus:
well, he is one of those a-rabs, better indefinitely incarcerate ‘im