In Salon I write about my worst meal ever, ever. It was so bad, so sad, so uncomfortable, went on into the next days and remains with me even now ... presaged in my mind today's celebrity-chef-poster-child tragedy.
I'm batting, like, eighth in this line-up, which starts here.
Oh man, I've had much worse food than that Michael. But I will allow that your suffering may have been greater than mine. For starters the meal I'm remembering was much shorter, and nowhere close to $700. But then what would you have made of a salad of jicama and field greens with pureed strawberries and garnished with chocolate chips followed by coho salmon in a paper bag tied with ribbon, sawn open with a serrated knife, miserably overcooked and laid out on a bed of previously frozen, unseasoned, frozen spinach? Huh?
I agree, our worst meals are about sadness. Mine occured the night of my father's funeral when I savored a tub of KFC a little too much.
I'd have questioned whether there was a God that night, except that I remembered the mind plays funny tricks under a lack of food, immense grief, and the loss of one's inheritence to a crazy aunt. Under those conditions, anything would taste good, even lobster foam.
Rocco's downfall was described in Tony Bourdain's "The Nasty Bits". Who'd have thought that you were part of that same sad story?