Todd Terwilliger

Brooklyn’s edition of restaurant week begins in a mere eleven days. I am fairly certain that preparations at the participating restaurants are well underway all across the Burrough: colored chalk stockpiled, chalkboards prepped, special menus printed on special menu cards with special menu typefaces. The excitement, if not quite palpable, adds a certain unidentifiable odor to the air. Yet, beneath the surface, there is a black tide sloughing across the gastronomic landscape. There is a war coming. Make no mistake: it will be a war.

I often see images from thisiswhyyourfat.com get reblogged onto one or several of the tumblr blogs I follow. Usually, my first response to one of these photos is to suppress the urge to vomit. Today was different. Today, the photo presented something that looked halfway tasty, edible at the minimum. God help me but it did. It was a deep-fried grilled cheese sandwich.

Back in my trick-or-treating days, I don’t remember ever throwing away the sacred vestments of Halloween. Each cloak, each cape, each plastic prop and mask was a transformative charm that could be endlessly repurposed and reused. Apparently, even in a struggling economy, such frugality is no longer in vogue.
Some aspiring wizard is missing his broom.
Not [...]