after dinner sneeze

t says: g enjoys the occasional Vogue magazine (i.e. it’s probably the only magazine that we’re consistently subscribed to). We’ve even seen September Issue in theaters, which got me thinking about just how much goes into a magazine that is seemingly “all advertisements”. It’s a lot! But still, I kind of wish they had one with just articles and no advertisements called “Vogue-for-losers” or something like that, because some of the articles, including the food-related ones, are quite fascinating, and it’d be nice to get to them faster. However, I do have to admit that others are … less-than-fascinating.

In any case, this year’s September issue arrived (for those who don’t know the big deal – this is the issue of the year – often the biggest and has a large impact on the fashion world – I don’t know more than that – I’m kind of ignorant when it comes to these things) and was too big for our mailbox, so our mailman put it on the floor in front of our mailbox. I wonder if he even tried to fit it or if he just looked at it, looked at our mailbox, said, “awww, hell no!”, and dropped it on the floor. It’s ok – the 726-page behemoth was poly-bagged.

g instantly noticed, on the lower right hand corner of the cover (placed suspiciously close to Halle Berry’s “features”), the title “the best restaurant in the world”. So she tried to look for the article. She never did find it. Why? Because the table of contents is 4 pages long … but not 4 consecutive pages … They are four pages scattered throughout the first 250 pages of the issue. And not every page is numbered! Hell – the page crediting the editors is on page 290! When she couldn’t find the table of contents in a timely manner, I commented that such a feature was impractical for finding stuff.  g informed me that this was the point. I had a eureka moment as she made me aware that this forces you to flip through more ads and that ad space near the table of contents costs more money. Ohhhhhhhh!  It’s like the super bowl half time commercial slots … gotcha.  I kind of wish that there was a Doritos ad in Vogue …

Well, this morning I was determined to find that article.  I wanted to know the restaurant.  Would it be an actual restaurant, or would it be a stupid article saying something like, “the best restaurant in the world is the one you like to eat at”.  So I sat down before leaving for work and I flipped from the beginning until I found the relevant table of contents page.  Just so you know, the food article is on page 672 if anyone wants to read it. It’s a Steingarten piece (i.e. by the dude who’s the super-critical judge on Iron Chef America) about Noma, which recently beat out two other consistent favorites for the San Pellegrino-sponsored distinction. Now that I finally found the frickin’ article, I can read it [later … when I have more time not wasted by having to search for a single article]. If nothing else, the first picture (think a white, unburnt Freddy Krueger with kitchen knives) is pretty cool.