Posts by Keir Leslie

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  • Speaker: Remembering the Chartists,

    Minister of Health is a management position, not a health position, really. Steve Jobs doesn't know sfa about programming or chip manufacture but he's a very very good CEO of a computer company.

    (As far as I care, pay MPs whatever they want; it isn't much money in absolute terms, and symbolic stands are overrated. Pay isn't really related to societal worth, it is a function of the market, or rather, a function of whatever people can grab. Mallard's getting more money than he would as a teacher, but really, who is it hurting? We pay a tiny amount more in taxes (probably less than the transaction fees on a payment the size of our taxes would be.) It just seems like a total sideshow.)

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Food and drink,

    I'm talking about using first materials like soy sauce and flour to make food from scratch. Ideally, I guess we would but your argument is totally impractical.

    Which, er, begs the question, why is soy sauce a first material and other things not?

    (As well, fails to meet the case of beer which is an intrinsically mass prepared product.)

    Because of the corporate food interests at food shows. [...] It will always be cheaper to eat a peach in season than a Moro bar.

    Have you ever read The Road To Wigan Pier? You really really should, esp. the bits about the price of food. (By the way, Big Food may be important, but the food shows are not where it makes any odds.)

    And again, isn't is odd that poor people eat not-food? Isn't it odd that poor people like not-art? Isn't it odd etc etc.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Food and drink,

    Internet acronyms: they're the ready-made sauces of human expression

    Too true.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Food and drink,

    There is nothing that white people like more than odious acronyms.

    Easier just to use than try and make up a neologism, tho. And it is in commonish usage somewhere else I comment, so.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Food and drink,

    SWPL = Stuff White People Like, (See also: swipple, yuppie.)

    It's not a culinary code of conduct but more an argument that pre-prepared food does not actually save time, is more expensive and usually is worse for your health.

    This is why you brew your own soy sauce, and mill your own flour, right? Seriously, industrial beer is just better than not-industrial beer.

    And of course there's a classist element. There's something very nasty about saying `that's not food' about someone's diet; it's a attack on something very essential to them. And, of course, the people who tend to eat not-food, oddly enough, tend not to be so well-off. What a fcking surprise, eh? (Likewise, what a surprise that fat people tend to be poorer, and anti-fat discourses overlap substantially with anti-poor discourses.)

    (I also like to think Daniel Davies has said good stuff on this, but I suspect most of it is contained within defences of Budweiser.)

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Food and drink,

    I appreciate your sincerity in what you do, but it's a must-make-by-hand conception of cooking that was born when womenfolk had all day to do it -- and it never really existed in this country (or in Britain, for that matter), where our grandmothers boiled most things to death, and our mothers welcomed the new wave of instant foods in the 60s.

    It has never really existed is the thing; it's just a nonsense, and it's a rather classist one at that, premised on some really pernicious myths about the proper way to eat. (And it's almost certainly inconsistent to boot.)

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Food and drink,

    Food is not stuff that comes industrial prepared in a bottle for a your own ostensible convenience. Sauces? Ones I make myself from real ingredients = food. Seasonings? Ditto.

    Might I respectfully suggest that there are severe definitional problems involved in this project?

    (Apart from anything else, authentic dhal is either bought at the side of the street from some guy with a mustache and a vanishingly small likelihood of ever getting a restaurant license in NZ, or else cooked up over a woodfire before dawn. Otherwise you're just a poser.)

    As to the froo-froo thing, given you're more SWPL than a stand mixer, please give it a rest.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Island Life: Good on ya, Paula,

    Make him a Sir, but one of a group of only twenty living New Zealanders? Please.

    Well, it isn't that daft. Speaker is up with G-G, PM, Chief Justice. It's not undistinguished, which was your assertion. I do think it was a bit over the top, but it isn't much.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Island Life: Good on ya, Paula,

    Er, Hunt was Speaker of the House; in the UK, that's pretty much an automatic peerage, even if you're the worst Speaker in hundreds of years. Speaker's an extremely distinguished position, and maybe ONZ was a bit over the top, but it wasn't hugely out of line.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Food and drink,

    Colon should be a comma.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

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