Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2007 March 20 (entry 0)

# 20 Mar 2007, 01:13PM: MC Masala Columns on Flesh: My two most recent MC Masala columns are on food/body topics. On modeling classes and beginning to exercise:

If they let me in, they must have let anyone in; I was like a sparrow taking swimming lessons. Of the fame-seeking little boys and girls in that room, earnestly practicing our cold-reading skills on pages from sitcom and "90210" scripts, how many actually got something out of it? I recall only a vague annoyance at the scattershot training and a miraculously unscathed body image.

On a ruined beet salad, and gaining a palate.

If the restaurant specializes in U.S. or European cuisine, I just check the menu first to make sure it offers more than one vegetarian entree. You see, if there's just one, it might be a token that no one ever orders. (This especially goes for vegetarian omelets. Diner cooks often forget that sticking raw mushrooms and broccoli in the middle of already-cooked eggs doesn't work.) But if a healthy proportion of the menu is meatless or meat-optional, then I know the restaurateur doesn't just conceive of a meal as "hunk of meat surrounded by little sides of starch and color."

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