At least I suspect it was Rachael Ray.
Of all the items for the grocery store to run out of on the day before Thanksgiving, pancetta was the last thing I was worried about. Oh, I had these big aspirations about making my stuffing with figs and pancetta along with all the staple Thanksgiving foods, but the grocery store ran out of pancetta on Wednesday morning. Plenty of turkey and canned pumpkin and whatnot, but pancetta? Forget it.
"Ay-yup," said the guy at the deli counter. "I reckon there was some recipe on the Food Network that everybody was all excited to try". His guess was Paula Dean, though personally I think she would have dismissed pancetta in favor of straight up bacon. Stuffed with lard. With a side of butter. No, I think it was probably Rachael Ray.
Mostly because I love to hate her. I mean, who spells "Rachel" like "Michael"? So should I pronounce it "Raykle"? Gimme a break. Also. Men are fascinated by her, and for the simplest of all reasons: she has lots of cleavage and wants to cook them burgers. She's exactly halfway between sexy hot party girl and maternal nurturer who will take care of you for the rest of your life. She sets unreasonable and terrifying standards for the rest of us girls who can think of a better way to spend the day than winning a wet T-shirt contest and then baking you cookies (note - the foregoing sentence was much more lyrically effective and also much more crude in its first incarnation. Inquire for details).
So what do we do? We march straight down to the grocery store and we buy up all the pancetta, yes, because sexiness is not enough anymore, we must be sexy and cook bacon, and not just any bacon, no, but sexy Italian bacon, because this icon of womanhood has ordained that thou shalt cook pancetta and give lap-dances this Thanksgiving, and as a consequence my un-Rachael-related made-up recipe (which I suppose I may have unconsciously leaked to her busty minions when I came up with it all by myself months ago) had to be prepared with the homelier, Paula Dean-endorsed inclusion of humble hickory-smoked bacon.
Epilogue: it was delicious. But I have not forgiven Raykle, nor do I intend to.
2 comments:
trader joes had pancetta....true story
a.m.
How Rachael Ray passes for someone who knows how to cook is a mystery to me. I once looked in her recipe book, and half of her recipes call for pre-made, packaged items of one kind or another. You're so right - she is the intersection between suburban 50s mom and modern hoochie. If that's the secret to success in this world, I'll pass.
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