FROM ONE VANITY CANDIDATE TO ANOTHER

FIORINA PUTS THE PETAL TO THE METTLE

TRUMP WILL RIDE OUT INTO THE SUNSET

THE VIEW FROM THE U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS

 

By JOHN McCARTHY

Virgin Islands Free Press

 

The word going into the debate was: How is Donald Trump going to do?

 

And nobody said it better than John Weaver: “Imagine a NASCAR driver preparing for a race knowing one of the drivers will be drunk. That’s what prepping for this debate is like.”

 

Some newspapers in the Midwest had compared Trump’s Teflon factor to Keith Richards’ longevity – the campaign and the person, respectively, that no one could kill. Even Bret Baier of Fox News admitted what some music reporters acknowledged while waiting to talk to Richards – they got weak in the knees.

 

“I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say that I have woken up in cold sweats wondering how I’m going to deal with a Donald Trump who’s not listening,” Baier told TIME magazine prior to the debate.

 

All along the American fascination with Trump as he elegantly bumped and harrumphed along the campaign stumps was: How low will he go?

 

Now that the first debate is in the record books, the question is: How low will he fall in the polls? And fall he will, mark my words.

 

Clearly, by all accounts (meaning social media) Cara Carleton “Carly” Fiorina of Texas won the debate. Like most Americans, I had to Google her to make sure I got the spelling right on her first and last names.

 

Fiorina might have hit all of her home runs in the B-League game; but, the fact that she has major league mettle was noticed by the “owners” of the league and we can count on the Austin native to be called up to the big leagues for the next debate once the new polling is announced.

 

You don’t think the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard isn’t tough to have risen as far as she did in the corporate world? I thought Chris Christie might be best to negotiate with Putin, but after last night’s showing, who can say Fiorina wouldn’t do it best?

 

In the main event, it would be difficult to say that Marco Rubio didn’t “win” the debate, because he did. By pointing out that most of the illegal immigrants now come from “Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras,” Rubio not only made Trump seem out of touch, but misinformed when he lambastes Mexican illegals.

 

“I also believe we need a fence,” Rubio said. “The problem is if El Chapo builds a tunnel under the fence, we have to be able to deal with that too. And that's why you need an e-verify system and you need an entry-exit tracking system and all sorts of other things to prevent illegal immigration.”

 

A close second would be home town hero John Kasich; but, no matter how competent and caring Kasich appeared – it is hard to imagine how he could qualify to be anything more than vice president. The intellectual dishonesty in claiming the “economic growth” America had under President Clinton in the 1990s as his own doing in balancing the budget didn’t just take stones, it makes you wonder if he wasn’t stoned when he said it.

 

Third place is a tie between Chris Christie of New Jersey and Ted Cruz of Texas. Some of the female commentators in the national media felt that Christie was one of the losers in the debate because of the way he went after Rand Paul in the controversy over the U.S. government spying on its own citizens under the guise of rooting out terrorism. One went so far as to say that it made Christie look “little,” which is very hard to imagine indeed.

 

Cruz seemed very comfortable in the debate, and as I was unfamiliar with his voice, I was surprised at how commanding it sounded, but after a while it did strike me as sermonizing, which was confirmed when he mentioned that his Cuban father was a Christian minister. What I don’t understand is, how can Cruz, born in Canada, run for President of the United States? I guess the argument goes that his mother was an American citizen at his birth. Where is Donald Trump when we need him?

 

The best (and most surprising) canned line went like this when “Likeable” Mike Huckabee said this:

 

“It seems like this election has been a whole lot about a person who's very high in the polls, that doesn't have a clue about how to govern. A person who has been filled with scandals, and who could not lead, and, of course, I'm talking about Hillary Clinton.”

 

Huckabee was measured and professional in his delivery of the two sentences, and Trump could be heard in the background saying “thank you” or some other such thing.

 

Scott Walker of Wisconsin mentioned coming into the debate that he is a normal person who likes to shop at Kohl’s – my prediction: this nomination period will not keep Walker from doing just that –without interruption – once he formally drops out of the competition.

 

Brain surgeon Ben Carson got a few chuckles at the end when he mentioned that he was the only one on the stage to have done certain things.

 

“I'm the only one to separate siamese twins, the only one to operate on babies while they were still in the mother's womb, the only one to take out half of a brain, although you would think, if you go to Washington, that someone had beat me to it,” Carson said.

 

But in the end Carson’s candidacy is a vanity candidacy every bit as much as Trump’s is. On CNN after the debate, Carl Bernstein said that he has known The Donald a long time and felt that Trump had already achieved his goal in running for president – to become the most famous person in the world.

 

When another commentator said that Trump was “drunk with power,” CNN host Anderson Cooper felt the need to mention that the New York real estate magnate doesn’t actually drink.

 

So “DT” isn’t likely to get the DTs – but I might – because I need a drink to come down after last night’s debate.

THE SWEET SCIENCE OF MAKING A BETTER PIZZA

ANTHONY BOURDAIN LEAVES ME HUNGRY FOR S'MORES

WHERE THE RUBBER HITS THE ROAD AT MYSTIC PIZZA

THE VIEW FROM THE U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS

 

By JOHN McCARTHY

Virgin Islands Free Press

 

I am probably not the first American to eat at a red, white and blue fast food joint when traveling in a foreign country.

 

I may be, however, the first to admit it.

 

Anthony Bourdain has made a career out of eating exotic, enviable foods in locales from Leonia, New Jersey to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. But I do recall even the crown prince of foodies talking about relishing some Popeyes fried chicken before jetting off on one of those magical mystery television trips.

 

On the way to becoming the Mick Jagger of all chefs, Bourdain has arguably become the most noteworthy of all the journalists at CNN – interviewing Boris Nemtsov before Putin’s KGB killers had the chance to black hand him – and Mexican journalist Anabel Hernandez before El Chapo’s anti-Trump death squads have the chance to kill her.

 

When I visited Sint Maarten (before the advent of foodies in the United States), I ate at a Wendy’s and a Pizza Hut with my girlfriend Arianna. (I also patronized a more proper Dutch restaurant near Great Bay.)

 

But at Dave Thomas’ place for lunch, I heaped a plateful of “crab” salad on a plastic plate, before quickly exiting out the door with my future dinner swag, disregarding the explicit warnings that the unlimited salad bar could NOT be taken “to go” – all sneeze-guard protected food must be eaten on the premises. When that Wendy’s closed (the only one on the 13-square-mile island – it was near the airport at Simpson Bay) – I always wondered if other plate pirates like myself had significantly contributed to that franchisee’s demise.

 

The year was 1991 and it was the first time I had seen fellow human beings put mayonnaise on French fries – a full three years before Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” made Europe’s condiment of choice for papas fritas common knowledge. I found it more curious than disgusting in person. And when I had heard that the Wendy’s closed, I thought to myself: “Of course, what do you expect when the people didn’t even know what to put on French fries!”

 

When traveling to Darwin, Australia in 2006, I went to a McDonald’s for an Egg McMuffin on the waterfront there. Before finalizing my order with the cashier, I asked her if they used Canadian bacon in their version of the popular breakfast sandwich. The cashier’s reply: “No, we use proper bacon.” True enough, when I opened the familiar white bag and removed the yellow paper that sticks to the homogenized plastic cheese, I found out that “proper bacon” was what we would call “bacon strips” in the U.S. The Aussie cashier seemed miffed by the impertinence of my question. But if I hadn’t asked the question then, I wouldn’t have had this funny story to tell today.

 

 

I was lucky enough to be dragged on to a private plane for a tennis trip to Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic about a year later thanks to a wealthy attorney who would one day be linked by the National Enquirer to trying to hide John Edwards’ baby mama drama in St. Croix. I was perplexed when she and her entourage religiously sought out native music and native cuisine (to include river fish at dinner) on a splendiferous most-expenses-paid vacation. A one hundred percent surprise – when it comes to eating – was not an option for me then. Now, of course, I realize she was right.

 

Which brings us to the ad I saw last night for Domino’s pizza. In the ad, Domino’s plunks an office trailer down in a Pizza Hut-signed (digitally-obscured) restaurant offering the competition’s workers the opportunity to attend “Domino’s Pizza School.” The ad says that Domino’s used to use “gimmicks” to attract customers, but now it goes after customers by appealing to their palates. It ends with a Pizza Hut employee in uniform (digitally-obscured) entering the condominium of higher learning for more training. The tagline is: “Oh Yes We Did.” And it’s funny. Or, it worked for me, at least.

 

To use a “Pulp Fiction” reference, Domino’s is daring customers to take the “Pepsi challenge” when it comes to eating pizza – in other words: Do hot dogs in the crust really taste good? I may be getting more adventurous in what I eat, but I have no desire to try the Pizza Hut monstrosity – unless I knew it would be the last thing I would eat for weeks before being lost at sea – it may be the most caloric pizza ever created. And doubly ironic that Domino’s is challenging Pizza Hut this way because PepsiCo used to own Pizza Hut.

 

When I was in La Romana in 2013 I had a pepperoni pizza at the Domino’s on Calle Castillo Marquez and noticed that the sauce was much sweeter than I was used to in the states. Most people would have let it go at that, but due to the wonders of social media, I decided to try to get an answer. I figured, of course, that I would get no response at all.

 

Was I ever wrong. I got an email from Mr. Luis Francisco Rodriguez, the head of all sales, marketing and operations for Domino’s pizza in the Dominican Republic. In the email, Mr. Rodriguez gave me his personal mobile phone number and invited me to call him with any questions I might have. So I did.

 

The first question I asked was about the sweetness of the sauce:

 

 “We use sugar to temper the acidity of the tomatoes in the pizza sauce,” Mr. Rodriguez explained. “We always used a better grade of cheese in this region because the people here have an Italian palate: we use more sugar, less black pepper and more salt (than in the mainland United States).”

 

Apparently I have no shame, because my next question seems now to have been a bit much considering how gracious he was being; still, I somehow also suggested that the pizza there was “too greasy.”

 

“If the dough is not stretched properly, then the cheese-to-oil and water mixture can be off kilter,” Mr. Rodriguez replied.

 

So when Domino’s pizza does an advertising campaign about how their pizzas are better because their knowledge of pizzas is better – I am inclined to agree.


http://vifreepress.com/2015/08/the-sweet-science-of-making-a-better-pizza/