As the start of Congress’ new session approaches, Democrats are feeling the pressure of being viewed as a do-nothing majority. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sensing the need for bold, decisive action, has… imposed a gourmet menu in the House:
The processed cheese has been replaced with brie. The Jell-O has made way for raspberry kiwi tarts and mini-lemon blueberry trifles. Meatloaf has moved over for mahi mahi and buns have been shunted aside in favor of baguettes.
Newly ascendant Democrats may have hit roadblocks on Iraq and fiscal issues, but they have revamped congressional menus, replacing fatty, pre-made foods with healthier, gourmet alternatives. The once dreary congressional cafeterias now abound with haute cuisine.
At last, America can cast its weary gaze on a true agent of change. And biodegradable flatware that goes limp in the coffee.
Great. Nancy in a hairnet, wrinkling her nose as you reach for the mac and cheese.
Reminds me of certain coworkers who could never complete their end of a project on time because they were always busy on non-essential bullshit tasks. I would point out the critical goals and the yobs still missed targets, until I became the leader and promptly replaced them with others who could produce. Washington DC is in the same situation, and we need the same solution.
How much was the cafeteria earmark?
It actually sounded ok to me except mostly it sounds like that food you get from Starbucks more than anything else which is a little overpriced but most of it is very good. I’m a little concerned though cause they didn’t talk much about breakfast and that’s the most important meal of the day.
Reminds me of when pigs start walking upright like men.
Can’t blame em for wanting to fix the food. You know you’d do it too.
I guess the rest of us can eat cake.
See I think Techie is right. It’s the freaking Capitol and it’s not like they can just open up a food court. I hate food courts.
Can you imagine what would happen to their local economy if they all had to jam their chubby fingers into their skin-tight pockets of their fat-ass pants and pay for their own troughs at the restaurants scattered about the D.C. area?
Oh wait, my tax money feeds those porkers. I feel great.
Actually, I’m surprised they don’t all have a personal chef for each lawmaker. Wait, maybe they do, and the cafeteria is to be used by the hoi polloi only.
Also they have a taco bar. Which I think I would like that and I think if you were honest with yourself I think you would probably have to say that you also would enjoy a tasty trip to the taco bar. My favoritest ever is King Taco here in Los Angeles, but they don’t have a taco bar and also you mostly have to go to the hood for them except for I guess Pasadena.
fuck those assholes. could they just steer clear to lower my fucking taxes, so as I wouldn’t have to eat grilled cheese sandwiches again this week? or do I have to wait until they set up a program for feeding professionals in the burbs living check to check?
Yeah happy, for God’s sake, lets not skimp on the refried beans for that herd of gerties. Could be Newt’s bold new energy plan.
If they ever lift the ban on drilling for stupid, the first well should go up in the Capitol Building.
I must say that the cafeterias on the Hill truly suck. I wonder if these changes will make their way to where the plebes eat or if they’ll be solely in the Members’ dining rooms, because of the fiscal responsibility or something.
that’s it… fuck the private sector. I am trading in my over-edumacated, over-rated pipe dream for a government job. working hard… not sure why.
Those sound like the snooty kinds of food, the kinds that take longer to describe than they do to eat, and the idea that the more the better. Is simple well prepared food becoming a thing of the past?
I would serve nothing but chili, dead cow, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, and biscuits and gravy. And, bacon. And, Canadian bacon. And, thick bacon. And, proscuitto de parma. And, the rest of the pig.
Nothing says Champion of the Working Class quite like Brie and Mahi-mahi.
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If they ever lift the ban on drilling for stupid, the first well should go up in the Capitol Building.
They won’t have to drill for it. They could just back up a suction truck to the Capital Doors, run a hose in and turn on the pump.
exactly, instead of giving them a raise, let’s provide more expensive food nobody’s heard of!
JD,
Canadian bacon?
Come on, Karl. I would not care if it was called French bacon. That is good stuff.
Mahi-mahi used to be a trash fish and then they renamed it mahi-mahi just for marketing mostly. Y’all are kind of being curmudgeonly about this I think. Food for God’s sake is a uniter, not a divider, at least if someone else not me cooks it.
The Jell-O has made way for raspberry kiwi tarts and mini-lemon blueberry trifles
Nancy could not figure out how to eat the Jell-O with her fork.
I wonder if they have cilantro on the taco bar.
happyfeet – How right you are. Food is a uniter. Can’t we all agree that Sandra Lee is hot, and that Paula Dean would be cool to have as your Grandma? Or that Bobby Flay would be fun to have at a BBQ. Or that BAM is kind of annoying after a while. Or that the Gleenwaldish guy on the original Iron Chef is an absolute laugh-riot. ha HA !
Paula Deen is my favorite of the ones I know. She reminds me of people from back home a lot. She respects cobbler, and that means something.
Okay, so San Fran Nan is good at changing menu items.
But can she iron shirts?
Who the hell drinks coffee with a straw?
JoeC – I am not so sure about the shirts, but it looks like she did a good job ironing the wrinkles out of her forehead, which is only slightly smaller than Herbert’s, though more plastic-y looking.
but…but… Pelosi!!eleventy!!! they’re eating better than me. with my money! anyhoo, my fave lately is the veggie soup with beans and hot dogs. I’m easy that way.
I’m guessing it’s for stirring. guess they’ll have to switch to the more expensive spoons.
The baguette’s are not pre-made like the buns? They aren’t shipped in like any other food by the Sysco Kid? They are made on site? From raw flour, etc.?
Nice if you can get it.
Okay, I read the article, and the most ironic part is that the little guy, the lowly paid staffers are the ones that are getting whacked the most by this, since Pelosi’s new food costs a lot more than they did previously. Looking out for the little guy, chunk of brie at a time.
This is really just too easy. And too predictable.
JD – my experience with ‘snooty food’ is not that more is better. It was usually less, but beautifully presented.
Imagine Henry VIII being given ‘snooty food’. If your vision does not involve mass beheadings for entertainment as a steer is placed on a spit, then I’m not sure you’ve channeled the right Henry.
My favorite with the veggie soup so far has been pot roast this lady made in the one I made more tomatoey than the others. I think that was kind of not in the spirit of the thing though. But really the whole thing is that if you don’t take your lunch at least sometimes to work I don’t really feel for you, and if that’s somehow like not part of the ethos of your office – which I see sometimes – I think you are doing a lot of people there a huge favor by giving them an example so they feel they have permission to just throw a couple Trader Joe’s burritos in the microwave and call it lunch. That’s what I think anyway plus also with lunch you don’t get from the store you pay sales taxes so you’re actually doing a lot to support these morons and their stupid moron schemes and really you should think about that.
But do they still have Senate Bean Soup?
It is a bit ironic that this appears to be the only thing gazillionaire Pelosi, as speaker, has been able to accomplish…imposing foie gras in Capital cafeteria!
SGT Ted’s comment is hilarious.
But foie gras involves mistreating geese! Does San Francisco know this yet? Cindy may have a chance after all!
whew! I take my lunch both days. we don’t eat out much. being “poor” and all. ;D
happyfeet – I am one of those that does not take my lunch, ever. I tend to go to La Bamba for “burritos as big as your head” for lunch. In the months with nicer weather, driving range, and skip the grub.
I always make sure I take my lunch enough at least to reserve the possibility I brought my lunch so I can get out of lunches I don’t want to go to and also it’s generally smart I think. You should think about making some ceviche and taking that. That’s a good starter lunch I think. Also I just got a message that Brad Renfro is dead.
yup. That’s sad cause a lot of people only know him from when he was a kid.
But anyway that girl upstairs is really good about getting you fed for like $5, so that makes sense cause I don’t actually ever have leftover stuff from cooking at home, but still. I think taking your lunch shows character. Not that the inverse or whatever is true, and it sure wouldn’t have helped Brad any.
ceviche … grub of the Gods. A new ceviche place opened in town, and being in steak and potatoes country, it has not exactly taken off. So, we can always get a table. They make the guac right at your table, and the ceviche is out of this world good. It is my current favorite, until the next new place comes along.
I pay my “lunch in the office” dues. So, are we cool, HF?
We’re cool. I’m not that judgey, really, just when I was a kid starting out in LA I fell in with a bad lunch crowd and I want my money back is all.
hf – I am total loner guy, who avoids all work cliques like the plague, and only goes out to lunch with people from the office when my our VP tells me I have to.
We never had politics until NG. Now lunch is more strategical and it really takes some of the charm out of the gig.
Hopefully, her profile makes up for her negativity and stupidity, at least in part.
It’s ok. It’s another nudge for me to start looking around. Nudges are good.
Brie? BRIE?!?!?!!!! Jeezus H. Tapdancing Christ on a cross.
Brie.
The French have won. Again.
Anthony Bourdain just ate a still beating cobra heart. I mean they cut the heart out of a live fucking cobra and he ate it while it was still beating. I don’t know whether to post that here or in the Kung Fu weenie men thread.
BMoe
ewwww. I mean, I’ve watched Anthony Bourdain once in a while, but he seems more like the Steve Irwin of the traveling foodie set…just less than 11 and no “crikeys”
I like watching Alton Brown.
Home says: “Mmm… still beating cobra heart.”
Alton just steamed some mussels. I used to make those a lot back in my restaurant days, might need to boil up a pot of them this weekend. Steam them with butter, white wine and shallots, and dipping the juice out of the bowl with some crusty bread at the end is almost better than the mussels.
Best meal ever: big bowl of cream of mushroom soup, with a glass of sherry thrown in just before serving; side of soda bread with Kerrygold butter.
Be still, my beating cobra heart.
I think I would try the “still beating Cobra heart” just to do it. My better half is nodding her head in agreement as she reads this over my shoulder. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
“If they ever lift the ban on drilling for stupid, the first well should go up in the Capitol Building.”
“They won’t have to drill for it. They could just back up a suction truck to the Capital Doors, run a hose in and turn on the pump.”
It’s actually an ongoing process. A crack crew of hardened professionals clad in subfusc coveralls continously, yet discreetly, herds the gelatinous tide across the marble halls of power and out onto the mall. They use carbon-fiber squeegees purchased on the same Air Force appropriation as the towel dispensers at Area 51.
The mortality rate among the crew during senate confirmation hearings and the last week before the session ends exceeds that of junior carrier pilots. Drowned in a tide of stupid, so that we may sleep… well, safe isn’t the right word…
Theirs is truly the never ending task. Sysiphus had it easy.
Great place to visit!
I like your diary. Allow to be friends!