Food, Glorious Food . . .
March 31st, 2007 by 
Caroline Spector
I’m quite incapable of being clever for this post today, so I’ve decided to talk about someone else’s cleverness – our very own Bradley Denton.
Because Brad is annoyingly modest, he hasn’t made a big deal out of the fact that Picador is re-releasing a trade edition of Blackburn. Blackburn is a book you just can’t get out of your head. Brad doesn’t preach. Rather, he just puts you in Blackburn’s head and lets you sort everything out from there.
After I pre-ordered this new edition from Amazon.com, I grabbed my loaner copy and flipped through the pages re-reading some of my favorite passages. I am particularly smitten with Brad’s ability to marry humor and horror together. If you haven’t read Blackburn before, here’s your opportunity to get a copy of the book. If you’re not morally troubled by it, you’re a sociopath — and isn’t that handy to know?
Now in the non sequitur section, I’ve been thinking about last meals lately. Don’t know why, but I’m fascinated by what people want for their last meal. (For an impressive list of last meals…) Admittedly, I can’t imagine having much of an appetite knowing that you’re going to be dead in an hour or so, but it got me to thinking: What would I eat for my Last Meal?
After careful consideration, I’ve decided that I would start with gorditas. These are little potato cakes with goodies inside like chorizo, cilantro, peppers, and corn. I like the mild corn-stuffed ones.
For my main meal: Lobster with loads of drawn butter, a nice salad with a blue cheese vinaigrette, and asparagus with Hollandaise sauce.
Dessert: Tough one because in the Carolinian Universe, the main course is just an excuse to have dessert. So I’m torn. Éclairs? Chocolate mousse? Blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream? Baba au Rhum? Pumpkin Cheesecake? Pecan Pie? A raspberry fruit tart? An entire box of Godiva soft-centered chocolates? (No nuts, dammit.) Wong Fu’s Peach Pudding? Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting?
I’m thoroughly torn. My promiscuous adoration of sweets is stymieing my ability to decide. Guess I’ll have to make sure I never end up on death row…
March 31st, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Maureen did a wonderful post on last meals in her blog. It was called Something About Texas. It fits right in with yours.
March 31st, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I’m drooling now. (Not, I should add, at the prospect of your last meal. It was the gorditas.)
March 31st, 2007 at 6:45 pm
The site that your ‘list of last meals’ link goes to, sells thongs with ‘Dead Man Eating - Looking for a killer meal?’ embossed on the mount-of-venus panel. If I knew somebody to give it to, I would.
Somebody should point this out to The Dude, though, because I bet he does know somebody who will appreciate it.
…They also sell BBQ aprons, of course….
March 31st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
As Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel sings to the Warden in “Last Meal”:
Get me two dinosaur eggs, over easy
Fried in butter and not too greasy
Mosquito knees and black-eyed peas
I want a little bit of butter on my be-bop bees
A sabre-tooth tiger steak . . .
I want a whole hippopotamus — well baked!
April 1st, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I just got back from here, where John Waters addressed this very topic, and declared that he would request “a single leaf of arugula!” It was part of a hi-larious keynote lunchon address, during which he also spent, oh, 5 minutes on tea-bagging and bears. I think he was a bit let down that his audience of librarians, instead of being prim, chortled and guffawed (and, for those of us of a certain age, nearly peed).
April 1st, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Caroline, why not just have a dessert buffet?
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:58 am
The real advantage is that you don’t need to worry about bloating or weight gain at all.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Maureen,
I bow before your desert genius. A desert bar, yum!
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Jesus looks sad in the picture because the other guys ate all the Bluebell ice cream before he got any.
You can see it, the way he’s got his left hand reaching out there, saying, “Hey! How come I didn’t get a bowl?”
Judas got the last scoop.
That’s why he’s considered the betrayer even now.
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:35 am
[…] already mentioned this back in May but the book was not out yet. April 17th was the release date for the new edition of Bradley […]