A Greene Man’s Blog

I’m NOT Addicted to Pete’s Fish & Chips

Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

With all the “I’m Addicted to Pete’s Fish & Chips!” bumper stickers I’ve seen around the Valley, I would have thought I was missing out on a local legend (having never been to one myself).

I’ll tell you a little secret though: those bumper stickers are free! If people had to pay for them, I don’t think there would be so many.

I was starving after work yesterday, and here I was sitting in the drive-thru of Pete’s on 27th Ave & Van Buren, so I thought I’d take a commemorative shot of my first time at one of the legendary Pete’s. But I’m telling you the morning after driving the food home and eating it, it’s just a greasy mess! It’s not delicious or special or anything. It’s just over-greasy rectangular slabs of fried fish on top of over-greasy shoestring fries. So, I don’t love Pete’s Fish & Chips; in fact, I don’t even like them!

Re: Sing Sing Prison Food Tray

I saw this product at La Grande Orange today in Phoenix, AZ and tried to post a cellphone photo of it, but it was very poor, so I’m simply referring to a webpage that sells the same product.

For $14, you can be the brave and free owner of this melamine cafeteria tray, a genuine replica of the orange trays used by prisoners of Sing Sing!

I can’t help but recognize the same irony that Michael Moore documented in his account of the prison that held a fundraiser, and for a pretty penny wealthy patrons could be locked up in a real cell by a real uniformed prison ward!

Don’t get me wrong: it’s a cute tray, and I love melamine for its retro appeal, but we don’t need crass materialism to remind us of the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Or do we?

Is This Extra Extra Lettuce?

Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene.

I’d like a vote: is this what you would call extra extra lettuce on a BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato) sandwich?

I call it barely enough lettuce for a regular BLT. The first time I ordered one of these from the cafe in my office building, they served it with one thin piece of green leaf lettuce. So the second time I asked for “extra lettuce” and I got two thin leaves of green lettuce. The third time, I asked if they had any iceberg lettuce to make the sandwich wetter. They said no, so I asked for “extra extra” lettuce, and I got this: two or three leaves of thin green lettuce.

And don’t give me any guff about being a Jew and eating bacon and kvetching about the lack of lettuce when I said I’d try to complain less. This isn’t complaining, it’s critiquing. I’m a food critic now; haven’t you heard? Of course I’m grateful to have food to eat (God knows we live in a world in which people starve to death), but I still have my wishes, and I wish for a moist BLT with lots of lettuce. Yeah! =)