Who is the latest casualty in Michelle Obama’s war against calories and fun? Prepare yourselves, because this one is a huge blow to this country’s Proud Obese and their important culture and lifestyle: the Darden Restaurant Corporation is what will now murder your children with mixed greens. You might not have heard of this Darden, but this is the thing that owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster, the restaurants that revolutionized the obesity epidemic by taking the ideas behind the fast food diabetes factories we all came to love, adding a tablecloth and silverware, and charging a few extra dollars for the same increased blood pressure. The Never Ending Pasta Bowl is American innovation at its best, so why doesn’t Michelle Obama want to Win the Future, through sheer body mass?
On Thursday, our FLOTUS made an appearance as the Orlando, Florida-based (ha ha, of course) Darden announced that it would do some things to maybe make children’s menus slightly less toxic. Children are crying all across America, because next time they go to Olive Garden, they will be given “sides of fruit or vegetables and 1 percent milk unless an adult requests a substitute. Sodas and fries will not be listed on the menus, but in most cases can be requested.” But what about Freedom?
Darden Restaurants CEO Clarence Otis smiled for the cameras last week with First Lady Michelle Obama, who has campaigned against childhood obesity, as he unveiled Darden’s plan to reduce calories and salt by 20 percent over the next 10 years.
Almost immediately, posts on the Facebook fan pages for Olive Garden and Red Lobster took on the vitriolic tone that is all too common in politics today.
“I LOVE Red Lobster, but if you follow the plan of Michelle Obama I will not be eating at your restaurant ever again,” wrote one poster. “… I will not have my food choices dictated to me by food dictators like Michelle Obama.”
“You should be ashamed,” said another. “The government does not know best. Americans and the free markets do. My contribution to the free market economy of the USA will be to never eat at an Olive Garden restaurant again.”
Oh! We see what you did there, Michelle Obama. You have encouraged a restaurant chain to adopt barely noticeable menu changes, forcing this country’s slobs to boycott their own disgusting slob habits, which they are doing to “send a message.” You are one clever FLOTUS, and we like it. [Orlando Sentinel]
{ 333 comments }
Dead Lobster, for the seafood killer in you.*
*this will only be understood by those, like me, who have shellfish allergies.
Lobster?
Nope. CHUCK TESTA!
I'm sorry to hear that. I love shell fish not only because it's tasty-wasty but I like to pretend that I'm a giant on an alien world eating strange monsters when I getting my feed bag on. + there aren't enough foods where you need a hammer to eat in my opinion.
Next time you find yourself on the east coast of Australia, try the bugs.
Delish, mate!
Oh, man, that link just came back to this story. What kind bugs?
Sorry, just wiki Moreton Bay Bugs.
You have a *rich* fantasy life, don't you, baconz?
It's fufilling to say the least. I even make noises and little voices that go "Noooooooo". You can get away with that in fancy places as long as you remember to tip 22%.
Since this household comprises folks who like to do the same sort of thing, we try to restrict our dining adventures to the home, where no one can be disturbed by them.
(Ever get the fried amaebi heads in a sushi restaurant? Those are good for some fun.)
God?
What is it, My child?
Nothing. This just explains why God hates shellfish, that's all.
So sad, Barb! I'll bet Pawleen likes shellfish just fine. But srsly, it's a cruel tragedy that you have to miss out on one of the most wonderful things that ever evolved as human fud.
I experienced shellfish for a while before the allergy kicked in. I would love to have some scallops and king crab.
I could make you some scallops in green curry and king crab.
No great loss. The shellfish in the desert Southwest is not that good anyway.
Now that I think of it, it's probly why she moved there.
I have a friend who used to be a fishmonger in Albuquerque (I know, right?). He was more than happy to tell me which Sushi restaurants to avoid.
My very dear ntD, promise you'll go wiv me when I traipse through the southern lands. The last time I went, I like to about died from what I ate there. Although there was a lovely restaurant, what was it called? Mexicali Rose? Driving out of Tucson, Arizona. I forget. Anywho. Mostly, it is to die from what they callz fud.
No trick needed. Haven't ever eaten at one…
Yes, well, as much as we all love eating the kale and buckwheat pita wrap at the feminist vegan collective, sometimes you want a nice big bowl of delicious, meaty carbs.
Or you can get a bunch of delicious meaty carbs that's actually been cooked well from a good local restaurant instead of shitty national chains.
The shitty is literal- quite often- based on the amount of illness/food poisoning after eating at restaurants.
Thanks to my in-laws, I've been at (one each) Red Lobster and Olive Garden. They are remarkable for their bland American not-horribleness. Why anyone would choose such a place over something that's kind of interesting, I don't know, but there they are.
You assume there's something interesting to be had. Especially if you have kids who, no matter what you try, won't fucking eat the kale salad with homemade vinegarette and a sensible portion of salmon (or anything more exotic than some variant of ground meat, starch, salt and fat).
Personally, I get stuck in a lot more Chili's and Appleby's than Red Lobsters or Olive Gardens, but it is all the same pile of crap along with the TGI Garbage and chain steak houses of the world. In fact, in Springfield they have a Chili's tucked between a Lone Star and an Olive Garden. It's a hat trick of craptastic, and from what I can tell that's the high point of restaurant row in 98+ percent of America.
You just need to train your kids better (it helps to start at early age).
Here's mine scarfing some jellyfish at a filthy storefront Chinese dive when we were in Manhattan last spring.
I got one who will eat most things but has weird hangups (like hamburger is always better than steak weird) and one who is just a world class picky eater. We've done everything permitted by modern conventions (mainly positive reinforcement, but I've threatened to take away her hamsters on more than one occassion) to get her to eat a broader range of foods and it just doesn't work – she's gonna do what she wants. We could, I suppose, gavage her with veggies like a French goose, but there are all these pesky laws against that sort of thing these days.
I know that look. Later, she said "DAAAAAAAAAAD!" and rolled her eyes, like, hakam you Oldz are alwayz photographing on us? Lame Oldz.
Mine have been somewhat adventurous- more my son until my daughter spent time in Hong Kong- eating with the locals. UMMM, chicken heads!
Why multiculti is so good for ya — when you have restaurants serving kai juk (Chinese rice-porridge with chicken, hold the 100-y.o. eggs), donburi, bibimbap, sushi rolls, rice bowls, and the like, you can ALWAYS find something for the kiddies while getting yourself something decent and edible.
Just in the past month, two friends have been diagnosed with diabetes. Maybe it's time to say goodbye to refined carbs.
Me either. Too many excellent restaurants within driving distance with better food.
But do those "excellent restaurants" have wine selections to match the array of fine Gallo, Cavit, and Sutter Home offerings at the Olive Garden?!!! Of course I usually wash down my Penna Vodka with a Bud, but my wife goes all fancy sometimes.
I'm betting they have "wine product." (A horror I just learned about from a guest who felt a last-second obligation to bring a bottle, and grabbed it at the supermarket.)
Of course, you need "wine product" to go with your "cheese food". For your entree, you have your choice of chicken or fish.
Being as I am a cheap bastard who believes in getting value for my penny, I almost never order wine at a restaurant, prefering to bring my own. Corkage is usually around $10-$20, and instead of paying $50 for a bottle that's, at best, worth $15, you can dig up something really tasty for like $15-$40. Pretty much, if you want good value you have to know the restaurauteur and they have to also not be a cheap bastard, which, I mean, come on. Doesn't happen any more.
Keep up the good fight, Ms. FLOTUS. As an Eye-talian, I am deeply offended that the Olive Garden even exists. Can she move on to the Jersey Shore next?
I quit going when they took away the salt licks.
-Bambi
Bambi?
Nope. Chuck Test . . . .
Oh, never mind.
Food dictator = asking that you not turn your kids into unhealthy fat slobs.
Fuck that… if I'm gonna be a fat sack of crap so will my kids! They are not commie hippies dammit!
Food Freedom Fighter: Heart Attack Grill
Live Fat and/or DIE!!!
I will give up my Fried Butter when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!!!
For whose terrible health their fellow-citizens will have to pay … and pay, and pay.
But they told us it was OK to just let them die. What to do, what to do… I hate these moral dilemmas. (I can see why people just ditch the whole conscience thing and turn Republican.)
"I LOVE Red Lobster"
That pretty much says all you need to know about how culturally backwards the average teabagger is.
An aberrational love of Red Lobster is one way in which the TP crowd and the more "urban" crowd actually see eye to eye. At the same time, of course, the TP folks would never go the same Red Lobster as "those people."
Oh, and Sizzler. Gotta have the garlic toast at the Sizzler.
Wow. I have never eaten at any of these places, not because I'm a snob, but because I did not grow up eating that kind of food, so it's not inherently interesting enough to me to make me drag my ass out of the house in search thereof. Plus, having been married to several excellent cooks (serially, not polygamously), I'm a decent cook myself, and have no trouble putting together bland American versions of food.
I feel like I have been terribly, terribly deprived. (Googles nearest Red Lobster)
What I love about Red Lobsters is that they are easy to find and usually within a mile of a good restaurant.
Smart strategy.
Depending on where it is; try driving up the portion of Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philly, home of many urban equivalents of rednecks, and it's nothing but strip malls with chain restaurants, including at least one Red Lobster, as far as the eye can see.
I grew up on Cape Cod. We had some of the best sea food we could wrangle. My uncles always had lobster pots, and at low tide, we would dig CLAMS galore. Mom made the best clam chowder. Now, I must say, in Colorado we are devoid of any sort of sea food other than smallish crayfish. My buddies think catching a 12 pound fish is a big deal, well it is, if you haven't latched onto a 40lb blue. I can't even enjoy the frozen stuff that passes for sea food here. I now have settle for those itty bitty trout. It's a right wing conspiracy I tell ya.
Man, you're just making me all jealous and stuff. I grew up on the coast, and there is nothing like fresh seafood.
You know, it's a mostly-true stereotype. Red Lobster is where us "urbans" have our birthdays, anniversaries, graduation dinners, etc…Oliver Garden, Applebees and the rest? Not so much. But, we've always been a seafood people when we could get it. You don't eat fish, shrimp, and the rest in our community, and you're looked upon as strange. lol
We don't like Red Lobster because it's particularly good seafood, but because it's just one of our many options for seafood.
Does Sizzler still exist, even? I have many
fondneutral childhood memories of the erstwhile Sizzler near my parts, and most importantly, it's salad bar, because my family was all poors.(even in the Land of Limosene Liberalism, as Westcheter has sometimes been called (by Salon!), it's still suburbia and so you are constantly a few miles away from sad strip malls and Walmarts, no matter where you go)
I am having mixed emotions over mixed greens.
Kortney will help you love vegetables.
Hee hee hee
Try tossing them.
Just don't toss your cookies, too!
Tom Waits said that, too.
I do believe this is how the Bolshevik Revolution started.
Yes, it was after the Tsar ended the "Unlimited Pasta Bolshevik."
Brilliant.
BEEP WRONG!!! its was the French revolution, that's how we got HEiNZ
Michelle just doesn't understand that American exceptionalism means a people who will rule the world by consuming all the available food, thus starving our enemies.
If we don't all kack fir… gasp, choke! Ack! ACK!
…American exceptionalism means a people who will rule the world by consuming all the available food
Haha! Jokes on you! That's not food you've been shoveling into yer gaping maws!
Americans know best?!?!?!?!!? Too easy to snark on. Way tooooooo easy.
No problem; little Lurleen will no doubt still get her corn syrup IV every night at bedtime.
Sodas and fries will not be listed on the menus
But the infinite calorie 5 cheese super pasta death bowls are just 8.99
Great "last meal" choice for the condemned, though.
Perfect choice for a bulemic prisoner.
Luckily the food dictator has not conquered that upscale provider of gourmet vittles known as 7-11. The free market still provides over cooked nitrate laced hot dogs and plenty of Cheetos for the connoisseurs of saturated fats and Rush Limpballs.
Washed down with a "Big Gulp" of one America's finest fructose laden beverages.
Isn't 128 grams the minimum daily requirement for America's yoots?
I've always wondered who eats those hot dogs, aside from people in alcoholic black outs.
Bitch better not be touching the cheddar biscuits or I'm gonna have to cut somebody.
Amen. I'll be voting for Thad McCotter if FLOTUS touches my cheddar bisquits.
But you get unlimited cheesy cheddar biscuits!
Unlimited? Oh there is a limit. "YOU GO NOW MISTER! YOU BEEN HERE FOUR HOUR EATING BISQUITS!! "
Hai ya! Like that, is it?
I knew someone would defend the only thing at RL that isn't typically rubbery and bland. Of course, I am pretty sure that the only reason the biscuits are such a highlight is because the rest of the menu is such a pile of shit.
You can make a decent cheddar bay biscuit from a mix, you know? And that way you get a whole pile for yourself.
Or I could just go there, where someone else makes it so I don't have to.
That's the American way – arranging for someone else to do X, where X is something approximating labor.
Funny, I thought it was the 'humans since the invention of cities' way.
You can also make a decent cheddar biscuit from about 5 ingredients. Maybe 6, if you want garlic, too. Takes about 15 minutes, including the baking
Or I could spend 15 minutes doing something I enjoy instead.
Like fuckin. I'm with you man. I'm on Team Red Lobster Cheese Bisquit. Forget these damn bakers and their spare time and penchant for handling confectioners sugar or whatever.
like standing in line at Red Lobster?
I was trying to avoid the obvious "I can't bake" argument. Biscuits and muffins are about the easiest things in the world to make – which is why everyone and their cousin can open a cupcake shop (made using the "muffin method"), but you can't convince some people.
I don't enjoy baking (although I really enjoy cooking), but my solution was to stop eating baked goods. I can't say it's been bad for my health, neither.
I think you have to be far more precise with baking than you do with cooking, and I grew up watching my Dad cook. His recipes were always "Two of this plus a handful of that and then just shake some of this in and chop up some of those, stir, add salt, taste." It means I'm a lazy baker when I make the effort, and then, of course, things don't come out right. I notice that the more engineering-minded seem to really enjoy cooking technique, including baking, much more. Part of the enjoyment is the precision and the physics involved, I suspect.
which is why everyone and their cousin can open a cupcake shop
and apparently get their own show about it on TLC.
Cheese + garlic + bisquik then its time for a nap!
Better dead than Red Lobster.
I just looked at their menu, and I couldn't agree more.
Not so much of an either/or, Manchu.
As one of those trying to lose a little weight, I have decided to use my poverty as an excuse to support Mrs. O.
Any excuse will do, dood!
Sorry to hear things are going badly for you, though. Don't you have a knee problem just like mine?
Yup, My knees don't like the weight, and they complain all day and all nite. Or until I get drunk enough to shut em up.
Well, I'll tell ya, I'm working on dropping the weight. It really seems to help. (Getting drunk also, but that's a tad more expensive, not to mention worse for the health.) Saw the surgeon last week and he said to exercise and build up the muscles around the knee. That's what I'm working on right now.
That's what they told me too. It's the bones around my implants that hurt. I really think I have more problems than worn out knees.
I will remain happy as long as I can still bypass the Olive Garden's pasta and just get a steaming bowl of alfredo sauce.
Or, failing that, just to get the Olive Garden in-house cardiac surgeon to coat my arteries with crazy glue. Saves time.
Sprinkled with /buried under grated Parmesan! Mmmm!
Then, dip some of those 'buttery' breadsticks in it… :drool:
Heck, you don't need to go as fancy as that. If you are still in the MW, your local McDonald's probably has the "cup of gravy" on the breakfast menu. Sure, it's intended as a side to go with their not so great biscuit, but they won't mind if you just plunge a straw into it and go to town.
I once baked a large batch of chicken for a shelter. One woman did not want the chicken- but asked me for the "gravy"(it was chicken grease!!!!)
You want the UNLIMITED bowl of Alfredo sauce. With extra cheese. (Be sure to wash it down with 1% milk, for health.)
"…wash it down with 1% milk, for health."
Reminds me of the people who go to Wendy's and order the Triple Cheeseburger, Supersize Fries and Diet Coke.
"You want nuts on your hot fudge sundae?"
"No thanks, I"m on a diet."
Is this the Diabolical Diet, Bielushka?
Is there something wrong with their *pasta,* too?
(HTH do you fuck up pasta?)
Our FLOTUS is attempting to perpetrate the greatest injustice our world has ever known.
I wish it were possible to put all chubby Americans on a really tough diet (1200 cal/day) and teleport the vast quantities of food produced in this country directly to the starving masses of Africa and Asia. OK, they'd be kinda unhealthy for a while, but at least they wouldn't be starving.
Millions are at risk of taking her advice! It's worse than 9/11, right??!!?!!!
Freedom Fries!!!!
You can take away my trans fat laden, sodium fortified, greasy feeding trough pseudo-food from my cold,dead pudgy hands!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDAI0vfUYg
A common theme, for them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be4Dnok9rCU
Got your sides of fruit and vegetables covered. Sugar laced smoothies and French fries.
Anyone that loves Olive Garden or Red Lobster has forfeited the right to have their opinion taken seriously.
Ohhh, I read that as 'have their onion taken seriously' and I was about to agree. The Onion should never be taken seriously. Actually, come to think of it, 'Opinion' is just 'Onion' and 'Pi', and we all love pi.
At least until we have to work out its value to 17 decimal places.
"…and we all love pi. "
Ala mode. Of course. Washed down with a 600 calories worth of cappachino.
Maybe it's just the deep-fried lard topic on my brain, but I immediately pictured this onion.
"Anyone that loves Olive Garden or Red Lobster has forfeited the right to have their opinion taken seriously."
Now, why can't we apply this reasoning to anyone who loves Rick Perry's candidacy? "Sorry ma'am, but you're too dumb to vote. It was your civic duty to try, and we do appreciate your patriotism."
So, Biely, is there some way we can put you in charge of vetting voters? Because, you know, that would be the most excellent test.
Let them get obese and die. That's what freedom is all about.
Trouble is they die slowly that way, and hog all the Medicare payments on their long, slow trek to the graveyard. Smoking is a much more effective Darwinian herd-thinner.
Still too damn slow… hmm… give 'em all NASCARs sans the roll cages.
And a state 85 mph speed limit (which you start enforcing at 95 or 100.) Two-ton SUVs moving at those speeds thin the herd even faster than lethal injections!
Even more effective, just have Obama come out against speeding. They'll be dropping like flies.
Always with the good ideas, mein Biely!
The trouble is, before they die they contract diabetes and heart disease, and then want evil government Medicaid to pay for their treatment.
No problem, just prescribe a large portion of Olive Garden for those folks as their treatment – we can issue a special kind of food stamps for them. Should speed things up.
About 50 cc of alfredo sauce, I.V., should do the trick.
Mmmm…fettucine Alfredo con Parmeggio
I WILL NEVER EAT AT THE LOBSTER GARDEN AGAIN!!!
I told you not to take the blue one…
Aha, all caps! So you're the Governor Scott Wanker-paid troll that Baconz said was posting on Wonkette!
I guess I should go Olive Garden to support them with the bagger loss. I am sure they will make less money on me as I will order the soup and salad, no breadsticks. Salad has to cost more than Cheese Food Pasta bowls.
Just go to a really good Thai restaurant and enjoy your meal instead.
Mmmm, Thai food. Heavenly.
You got lots of Vietnamese restaurants up where you live too, don't you, Lascaux?
Wow, 'Murricans are dumb.
*said as a proud American*
I just got back from a week's vacation in Wisconsin. Man, you should have seen all the white people!!! They have a food up there that is so popular I am surprised it hasn't been exported to the rest of the country, called "cheese curds." I never saw a nutrition sheet, but it just sounds scary. Also available in fried.
Cognitive dissonance of the week for me was a pickup truck with both a McCain-Palin 2008 bumper sticker and a "Recall Walker" one. WTF?
They eat Kurds in Wisconsin??? It sounds like canibalism.
No, no. The Turkeys eat the Kurds.
In Canada, cheese curds are known as a healthy alternative to poutine, which is French fries mixed with melted cheese curds and covered in beef gravy. To burn off the calories of one serving takes five hockey games or 600 ends of curling. (1200 if you use the pansy European push-brooms instead of the corn brooms that were used back in the day when curlers were men. Relatively speaking.)
I have yet to taste this putain of which you speak. Oh, you said poutine. Right. Never mind, then.
I'm with you, Pristine. This poutine is too close to poontang, which I know I would fuck up and say if I ever tried to order poonta…I mean, poutine.
There are those restaurants, you know. Venus on the half-shell, and all.
O Québec! Je me souviens de vos putains!
Vraiment.
And poutine is just a little too close to Putin for me. If I ever slipped up at teh restaurant and said I'd like to eat Putin for dinner…
I just have this vision of Vladi rolling that cold, cold gray eye in your direction.
Admittedly, cheese curds sound like some fresh hell, but they taste GOOD. They are also on poutine, which sounds like…well…anyway, I thank the Canadians for more than a few things, but this poutine business is in the top 5.
I had cheese curds the first time at Cornell University Dairy but my first fried curds were in Eau Claire, WI. And those were the only two times I ate those things
I take it this is not one of those enthusiastic endorsements, then?
I love Wisconsin — in the summertime. The ones who aren't fat are running and biking and hiking all over the place becasue they know they can't do that during the winters. The ones who can't just sit there on their driveway patios and blather on about stuff and things while the brats are going and yeah, cheese curds. I can live without them for a very long time. They give me the shits like you would not believe.
Well, Little Miss Muppet spoke highly of them, including something called 'whey', but then Kermit said something stupid and she punched the little green curds right out of him.
Clearly, the driver of the vehicle is one of Tweety's favourites, the salt-of-the-earth blue-collar white church-going voter, who always supports the GOP because the Dems are the party of "acid, amnesty, & abortion". Those voters just always have assumed the GOP masters wouldn't actually go thru with the anti-worker agenda, for the reason of whiteness, & then got a cruel wake-up call from Scooter & (News) Anchor Lt. Gov.
Not to be … difficult, or anything, but why on earth would you vacation in WI? Was it for the political climate, or what?
Meh, never been there. Free place to stay at the homes of a couple different colleagues from Kabul days. Plus, it's been over 100 degrees down in Texas for like, forever, and a little cool-down was welcome. Madison is a blast, as well. Saw the 24-7 Recallers out front of the capitol, got super-hammered with all the college kids too.
Cheese curds don't last very long, even refrigerated, so they'll never be big outside major dairy regions. Even a day or two of refrigerated travel and they're just bland, rubbery cheese.
And they're not worse for you than any other cheese, really.
Did the founding children die of starvation so that our kids have to eat mixed greens and not the freshly extruded HFCS/lard/salt paste technology has rendered into fun food shapes and colors?
I think not.
You know what the definition of irony is its when knuckle scraping reactionary douche bags decide to boycott GM the same year they bring back the Camaro. When was the last time you met a progressive with an IROC.
http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4d42ef34…
Great minds…
Americans and the Free Market know best. That's why two thirds of Americans are overweight.
So what you're saying is the free market benefits about 1/3 of us because the other 2/3 buy our shit and make us rich. That 1/3 seems a bit high, but if that's the number, well, we're just going to have to bring that down some…
But what if you want the children fat like butter?
Freedum!
For those who wish to rehab from Olive Garden and Red Lobster, may I suggest a 1/2 way house of pancakes.
1/2 way Original or 1/2 way International?
1/2 edible.
International sounds soshulist.
Oh, bullshit. I'm reserving my right as an American citizen to be morbidly obese with diabetes and heart disease.
Michelle Obama?!?
Nope. CHUCK TESTA!
Neilist
Wonkette's Chuck Testa Endowed Chair of Texting & Taxidermy
"A Meme To Replace "Benazir Bhutto is Still DEAD"?
Next thing you know Michel²e will go after that unique St Louis delicacy, "toasted*" ravioli. Wish I had a bowl of it now, with marinara sauce on top.
_________________________
* = breaded and deep-fat-fried in this case.
Toasted's not a bad idea for 10 o'clock on a Monday morning.
It’s disgustingly good.
Here I am, trying to lose weight and all you do is talk about food. Now that I have stopped licking my screen, can we talk about the Jobs Bill Or How we will be road kill in Texas? Hmmmm. bbq road kill.
Over time, the teabaggers will remove themselves from the population through evolution, but it will be many, many years before the last one keels over and falls off their Hovabout.
Only if they croak BEFORE reproducing, and they start that at age 16 (judging from one well-known Alaskan clan of 'baggers.) Olive Garden needs to step up their game, big time, if they want any Darwinian cred.
Not according to Idiocracy, which is starting to seem less funny movie and more prophesy…
First they came for the soda and fries and I said nothing.
Olive Garden® When you're here, you're family! Specifically family members who didn't show up for our wedding so now we just give 'em a feed bag full of bread and pasta then go back to watching rasslin'.
If our children are skinny, the terrorist folks have won.
The Olive Garden Facebook page fans collectively losing their shit over this are the reason the wait staff at any restaurant where I try to order vegetables and non-fried food for my toddler have a full-on freakout. Thanks, you right-wing fucksticks, for making what should be another minor part of my life into a huge hassle. What's that, the 5,000th one for you assholes?
Tough to imagine any of those people as "sticks" of any kind, but "fucksticks"–yeah, I guess . . .
Fucklogs?
"Fucksacks" is a better match for the topology.
Agreed. Fucksacks it is.
“I LOVE Red Lobster, but if you follow the plan of Michelle Obama I will not be eating at your restaurant ever again,” wrote one poster. “… I will not have my food choices dictated to me by food dictators like Michelle Obama.”
Translation: No uppity nigger woman is gonna take away my right to gorge on fat-laden cheezy biscuits and unlimited breadsticks. READ THE CONSTITUTION!!!!1!!!1111!!
Wow, 20% over ten years… well then I will only get 327% of my daily allowance… damn it!
DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY SEA SPIDERS!!!
Spiders tastes gooood. Sea Spiders taste gooood.
History's greatest Food Dictator? Benito Mussels-lini.
/shows self out
Generalissimo Francisco Frank-n-beens?
The Vichysoise puppet government?
Juan and Eva P'rawn?
Julius Caesar Salad? Idi Amint Sauce? Josef Stalinguini?
Idi Ham n' cheese?
"Noodles" Romanoff, mobbed-up pre-revolutionary muscle.
Adolf Gritsler?
Surely Pol Pot takes the cake.
Augusto Pinochet Noir?
It's the Oliver Gardens of Stone. Eh? Eh?
Sure, 'cause fresh-from-the-garden olives have stones in the middle!
Dear FLOTUS:
You have a good–and healthy–heart. You are loved. However, please let these fat, body-gravy steeping doughballs eat until their stomachs explode, like in that movie "Se7en". Just let the trash take out itself.
Also Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, also.
Paul Ryan immediately announced that House Republicans will hold the line against any decrease in calories, and any talk of exercise is a "non-starter." As a country, we will get in shape through sound free-market principles. As we put more calories into the hands of the job-creators, our health will improve. Also, trickle-down gravy.
What I wouldn't give for some pot roast with gravy right now!
Try hiring a high school kid to do your push ups and sit ups for ya. Not even minimum wage could entice them.
That's what Messicans are for.
No hable “big belly” pinche gringo. It is a difficult proposition.
I believe most gravy is better characterized as "trickle-out."
I do wonder how a company voluntarily changing their menu to be a bit healthier is against the Free Market, or how the first lady trying to convince people to, once again, voluntarily change what they eat and companies to change what they serve makes her a dictator. Or did I miss the part where Hitler politely asked the Jews if they wouldn't mind rounding themselves into concentration camps, if they wanted to?
Exactly. I don't see what is so socialist about a restaurant deciding its bottom line benefits if they don't kill their customers with a bottomless bowl of trans fat and cholesterol. The restaurant benefits when it helps customers avoid visits to their cardiologists and morticians.
“I LOVE Red Lobster, but if you follow the plan of Michelle Obama I will not be eating at your restaurant ever again…"
"I will not have you lowering the salt and calorie content by a measly 2% per year… FREEDUMB!"
Look at the bright side: on average, Red Lobster will be a slightly more pleasant place, because this dipshit customer will now be stuffing his maw at Chucky Cheese.
Red Lobster is to seafood what Taco Bell is to dog food. I never eat at the lop or the olive garden. In fact you could whirl a dead cat on a stick and hit a better dego joint than the Olive Garden.
In fact you could whirl a dead cat on a stick and hit a better dego joint than the Olive Garden
EAST COAST!!!!
Traditionally, the East Coast had to pay better wages to their Italian immigrants to keep them from moving out west…..
The Lobster Garden people should hire Kortney and her cucumber as spokesperson. I'm sure the teabaggers will do whatever Kortney tells them.
Hell, I'd eat that!
All they have to do is put "Kortney" and "bottomless" in the same sentence and they would have a line out the door.
For example, "ALL YOU CAN EAT BOTTOMLESS KORTNEY menu EVERY EVENING FROM 6 TO 10 P.M." above a picture of Kortney and her cucumber.
"Bless us, O Lord! and our Cookie Crisps cereal and sausage griddle cakes , which we are about to receive from our blessed Jimmy Dean, through Christ our Lord and Walmart."
Amen.
Such a good Catholic boy you are!
Yup, and I got the emotional and physical scars to prove it.
They're trying to ram ramming less down our throats down our throats!!!!!!!!
I think you have the premise and opening number for a musical here.
Win.
We'll have to rename it Red Star Lobster.
America: where we all pay outrageous healthcare premiums so slovenly couch-spud idiots can eat pounds of grease and get someone else to pay to keep their hearts running.
I can still eat at Chi-Chi's right?
If Chef Boyardee is still alive, he's rolling in his grav-y.
Honestly Red Lobster has some good lobster, but if you want to see what a TeaParty nation will be like for gourmet go to the Cat Food aisle of your big box store.
These people are too lazy to boycott anything. You can't think they will go to a real Italian restaurant or a decent seafood place. If it isn't endless servings, covered in batter or drowned in dressing(that Olive garden salad is gross), these fatties won't eat it.
Rotund 'Mercans do not seem to understand the difference between information and mandates.
They don't make the distinction, because they also resent having information forced upon them.
Having choices is so hard.
stop it with man dates and hardness.
I was mildly surprised no one went there immediately.
True, MrFizzy, but Faux News will cure them of "information" and Marcus will cure them of "mandates" so your very observant and eloquently stated point is moot.
I really wish she had made suicide prevention her cause. Teatards would have been offing themselves left and right, every time she publicized the cause. "This'll show her," they would say, right before they pull the trigger, or turn on the gas, or jump from the bridge.
It's not too late for her to announce a new initiative…
The seppuku epidemic among American citizens has gone on long enough! Michele has to lend her voice publicly to the prevention efforts.
"…I will not have my food choices dictated to me by food dictators…"
That's right. You know who else wanted people to eat better?
Justin Wilson, the Cajun Cook?
Julia Child?
Republican TV-sweetheart and real-life asshole Alton Brown?
The Land o' Lakes Squaw?
Jeffrey Dahmer, 'cause he was tired of stringy meat?
That whiny guy from England who tried to get some school district in West Virginia to serve some of the stuff they actually grow in West Virginia? (I saw it on the T.V.)
Jamie wanted them to eat coall?
Hannibal Lector? Oh, wait, I thought you asked who else wanted better people to eat.
Now if only we could convince the teabaggers that "voting" is part of the worldwide librul/communist/Muslin conspiracy and they should boycott that too. Shouldn't be too hard, right? Those dummies will fall for anything.
I recently partook of a meal at Olive Garden whilst visiting family. First time I'd ever eaten at one. Wasn't bad.
But Red Lobster is to seafood what the Houston Astros are to baseball.
Where was the outrage when Laura Bush told us that we should be reading books to our children? How dare the government try to be dictators about what my children are doing?
Teatards luv eating. Reading? Not so much.
A Teabagger boycott of Red Lobster? Michelle is smarter than we thought.
As long as I get my after-dinner mint:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlK62rjQWLk
I wonder who will play in the Never Ending Pasta Bowl this year?
Don't like to eat out. I think I ate at OG one time many years ago, very forgettable. Red Gobster, now that's a different story: wifey's fav. Threw my 70th BD surprise party there. I fucking hate it, but then I wear the same 32" waist Levis (501's) I wore in High School and she is North of 300 pounds. No lessons here, folks, just move along…
I would say that it's more likely your genes have something to do with your jeans…
(32" high school. 48" today. *sigh*)
You would be mistaken. I have a vicious weight problem. I am hungry most waking hours and am totally committed to an ongoing exercise and diet regimen. Dad was the same way, he got up near 250 (@5-10″) before Air Force threatened to kick his fat ass to the curb. He fought his weight problem (and won) the last 40 years of his life and died at 84 of stomach cancer.
Well, then, my hat's off to you. That takes a tremendous amount of dedication and hard work.
Thank you! Especially since I love biscuits, gravy, mashed potatoes, ham, bacon and all the things I can't have. Not to mention living with a Georgia Girl who eats like a bird (twice her weight daily).
JFC, I wonder what they would say if Michelle had decided to follow Nancy Reagan and promote an anti – drug agenda instead. I can hear it now: “… I will not have my drug choices dictated to me by food dictators like Michelle Obama.”
Idiots.
“The government does not know best. Americans and the free markets do."
Exactly. That's why too MUCH government regulation – not too LITTLE, and certainly not the free markets – caused the housing market collapse.
Fat, drunk, and greasy is no way to go through life son.
But drunk is ok, amarite?!
Of course.
Ten years to reduce salt and fat?? Seriously people…it's not like we're designing a new fuel efficient engine.
*sigh* I hate when Red Lobster or Oliver Garden coming into the news, because you always get a big fight between the people who say, "I don't care, I need those cheddar biscuits!" (THEY ARE LACED WITH CRACK!11!!NOMNOMNOM) and the "OMG, I would NEVER step foot in one of those plebeian restaurants! I only dine out at the Nepalese French-fusion place down the road owned by this absolutely CHARMING Native couple. But usually I cook a ten course meal of nothing but lean protein and healthy greens that my children absolutely ADORE!" people. Sorry to say, Wonketteers, we haven't broken the trend.
I think I may have been at that Nepalese place- in DC- but it closed.
Discourage sodas and fries at the Olive Garden? It's the freakin' sauce on the ravioli that will kill you deader'n a road-kill lasagna in January. Olive Garden: where I stood in tears amid the alien lard.
JK FTW.
Ruth?!?
This is good news for Fuddrucker's.
What is FLOTUS doing? Now all of these assholes will live longer!
Nah, they will find a supplement salt bucket and lard bag…
For that to happen, they'd have to listen to her. No worries.
You know what really undermines your God-given right to eat yourself to death? A gluten allergy. Suddenly, there is nothing left to eat but fruit, vegetables, lean meat, nuts – it's horrible. Did you know there is grain in everything? THERE IS GRAIN IN EVERYTHING!!! Sure, you can still eat fries, but you'll just be craving a cheeseburger the whole time you're chewing.
Now if excuse me, I am off to gorge myself on carrot sticks salted with my own tears.
Where would you enlightened, foodie snobs recommend that someone with a Red Lobster/Olive Garden budget eat out then, in U.S. America?
Step one: move out of the suburbs. Everywhere else, bodegas abound.
They can eat out…of a garbage can. We all will be, soon enuff.
Well, plenty of Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, Salvadorean and Peruvian places but I guess they don't exist in Bumfuck, Arkansas
Nearest VietNamese/Thai/Korean/Chinese/Japanese place. Much better food. Oh, hey, also Mexican.
Is it still considered a "boycott" if I have never eaten there because they are terrible and you live someplace that is suffused with excellent and affordable actual Italian food?
"I LOVE Red Lobster,"
Well, that's your first problem, right there.
I've had some nice meals at OG, but I do need to be careful about too much of certain items there. Most restaurants have shit on the menu you shouldn't eat too much of, but they are not responsible for what I put in my mouth anymore than Kortney is responsible for what goes in hers.
I was recently with some folks discussing weight. One person who needed to lose about 80 pounds complained about government rules requiring calories to be listed next to the item on the menus. My response was that this is information I need to make better decisions about food. If the government didn't require it, I would have no easy way to plan meals out. Now, I can do it at a glance. Pllus, I know certain ingredients are being manipulated to make me want to eat more of it, so now I'm informed (and 95 pounds lighter).
Oh, and I'm sure she's still gaining weight out there someplace for Freedom. Sow.
Those damned signs took all the fun out of scarfing down those apple fritters at Starbucks, and I cut way back on my intake. This is known as an "informed decision" — something that was never the strong suit of the teabagger crowd.
I put my full support behind the right of our great nation's citizens to decide for themselves what to eat. God bless America!
~ Gov. Chris Christie
I'm glad you said "full support" rather than "full weight". With the latter, MIchelle would never have a chance.
C'mon now, you gotta give people! It is very PC to eat at the locally produced/organic/green restaurant with the funny colored carrots, but sometimes you need to go out with the family. You need a spot that Mom likes and your brother in law (who complains how ketchup is too spicy) will tolerate. Besides, Gina Gallo has come up with some decent varietals out of those big tanks in Modesto along 99.
Do the varietals still come in the giant one-gallon bottles?
Mmmmm…. big jugs of Gallo Hardly Burgundy. Brings back memories!
Mostly, I remember waking up and not remembering.
I was just checking out the Red Lobster page on FB and there is one poster who said she's never been, it looks great but no RL's in Boston. Poor kid, we all know how hard it is to find good seafood in BOSTON, for fuck's sake.
Wait 'till she goes to Europe, and finds no Olive Gardens in Rome.
There are plenty of Taco Bells and Chili's in New Mexico. Send her here; she won't be disappointed.
Oh, and "I was just checking out the Red Lobster page on FB"?!?!? Thorstein Veblen must be spinning in his grave.
I wanted to read some of these vitriolic posts the LA Times referred to. They seem to have quoted the best ones, though.
My morbid curiosity took over, too. The LA Times didn't mention all those brilliant "YOU COMMIE BASTARDS" posts, which were among my favorites.
S'true. I live in Btown, and don't have a car, and thus have never been to either RL or OG. Not sure I'm missing anything. Those chain restaurants scare me cause they serve 1100 calorie salads, never mind the fuckin desserts.
And in related news, the fast food industry wants a taste of that foodstamp action.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/sto…
I shit you not. Seriously, what's the name of the Profits Before People amoral fuckstick that came up with this?
Hahahaha that reads like an onion article. Reality has completely jumped the shark.
It's not like people get tons of money in food stamps. If they spent them at mcdonalds, on $7 hamburger meals, they'd use them up in a week.
$7
hamburgeranusburger meals.Fixed
Now, now, now!
There's nothing wrong with an Never Ending Pasta Bowl if you're going to get up off your lazy ass and run a 100 mile marathon the next day…
Darden Restaurants should hedge their bets…
- Make Olive Garden the Liberal restaurant full of fruit and pictures of Michelle Obama.
- Make RED Lobster the Conservative restaurant (get it? Red?) and provide fried butter sticks along with the bread basket. Make the logo a lobster with a big pot belly and acne.
Damn! I wonder what kind of tempura grasshopper legs she munches on by the pool, when she is on one of her $6,000,000 taxpayer expense paid vacations in Spain!
MIchelle, check. Food, check. Yep, that has everything to do with the subject at hand.
Biely, darling, you know how those boyz get, the sight of a successful intelligent black woman just makes them so, so hot and craycray.
Didn't you all hear? The First Lady is black.
You know, I wasn't ever a big fan of the president (a supporter, but not a particularly ardent fan), but you can't even measure how much I want him to win re-election, now. America needs to get this out of their system, and they'll need two terms/doses of this president to even begin to come to grips with the fact that they are just plain-ass xenophobes.
Red Lobster, you say? Sounds a little commie, to me…
But, no, really; Red Lobster is good for what it is. Olive Garden on the other hand isn't even good for what it is/what it's trying to copy. It's like the Taco Bell of Italian food; it's like what Tex-Mex is to actual Mexican food.
Darden restaurants are exempt from Obamacare. Coincidence?
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/09/15/a-fun-fact-a…
Since that's about the only core principle Bourdaine has, what do you disagree with him on?
Although "convenience" stuff certainly dominates OUR lives, I can remember when people took pride in doing those sort of things themselves. My father refused to eat anything that wasn't cooked at home because he grew up on home-cooked food. Since my mother was an atrociously bad cook (everything simultaneously raw AND burned), he learned to cook, and did a pretty decent job of feeding the children. Grandma refused to have plumbing and power put in, because she said it made you lazy. Right up into her 90s, she was chopping wood for her own stove and fetching water in buckets from the river until the family finally staged an intervention.
Naw, the jellyfish and the photo thereof were both her idea. I think she's just thinking, "I'm in NYC, so I'm gonna eat something exotic, dammit!"
Also to impress/disgust her friends. (To their credit, most of them tried a bite.)
Hey, wow, you raised her right! I remember getting the youngest stepkid geared up for a trip to Bali. "But do they have MacDonalds'? How about Coke, do they have Coke? 'Cos I'm not eathing none a that weird shit, OK?" Fortunately, he proved to be a hardy little soul and came home singing the praises of Nasi Goreng.
Oh, I love those, they're great! Er … sorry, wut?
But narrating the destruction of Hobo Beans isn't nearly as fulfilling…
I like it. Fried butter should round this out perfectly.
On the other hand, the Ancient Romans had their own types of fast food, as did most other ancient civilizations.
This is why you call ahead.
And the Olive Garden is there- near Grant and the Boulevard!
Maybe in the past 10(?) years, I found a number of Indian restaurants there(but maybe farther away- in Bensalem?)
So long as it's less than 15 minutes away, you win!
The state of Texas thought of it, all on their own.
You are absolutely right that baking is generally much more precise than cooking (which is why I do more cooking than baking). But the muffin method (basically mix wet and dry ingredients seperately, then add former to latter and stir just until incorporated, is about as easy as baking gets. You do have to measure, but it isn't like making yeast dough or baking baguettes.
Dood, where's your sense of adventure? You gotta get all wild and crazy with that shit, or it's not worth doing at all, yaknow?
Yes, street food was a huge thing in early China. In fact, there's a wonderful novel called Rickshaw (Luo Tuo-Xiangzi) that describes life, and street food, of that time.
Dang, BerkeleyBear, I guess I'm just gonna HAVE to get off my lazy ass and try it!
So, you weren't visiting them and whispering in any shell-like little ears, or nothin'?
Oh, thanx (with an x), Pristine – put that vision in my brain just before bedtime!
Look up Alton Brown's myriad takes on it at foodnetwork.com. I happen to have been given all his cookbooks, so I'm biased, but I find him about the best thing going at demystifying all things cuisine oriented.
Yep. You can just guess what the people who spent 2 years of their lives getting a Baking & Pastry certificate at a culinary school (avg price 20k per year) think about the rise of non-bakers squeezing them out with what are 1950s chiffon cupcakes (the secret is a load of vegetable oil – yum).
I haven't been back “home” in a few years. But I think maybe next summer. I can hear the clams shaking in their shells now. I talked to mom the other day and they just had a Red Tide. It takes a while for the area to recover.
Wow. I'm so sorry to hear that. I have a lot of pain myself, and I try to ignore it or keep it under control with the Noble Herb. I'm sorry you're in so much pain. Alcohol actually does seem to make it worse, I'm not sure why and none of my surgeons/doctors have been able to tell me.
If you want to discuss this offline, please write me anytime at the political cat (oneword) at gmail dot com. It worries me that you're depressed and sinking — I hope that isn't true, or is just reflective of a particular day or mood. Best of luck and health, my friend!
Yay! Clambake!
Safe journey, happy travel, and may the clams fall willingly into your maw! (I know it's a year away, but hey, I believe in celebrating every little thing because ya never know.)
Comments on this entry are closed.