THE MORNING RANT: Lemon Zest Has Gotten Entirely Out of Hand; also, Are Crows Holding a Multi-Generational Grudge Against Ace?

I am taking a break today from policy and politics to address what is indisputably a first-world problem. I know how blessed I am, and the fact that I can complain about this issue is evidence of how blessed I am.

With that disclaimer, may I address a situation that has become epidemic in America’s restaurant kitchens…lemon abuse. My plea to American chefs: Please ease up on the use of lemon zest.

Seriously, I have reached the point where I’d rather go to Texas Roadhouse for some reliable comfort food than pucker up to yet another mouthful of lemon peel at a fancy restaurant.

I don’t dislike lemon. I put lemon in my tea and I love chicken piccata. But lemon is like rosemary or cilantro – a little goes a long way. Too much will ruin a dish, as will putting it where it doesn’t belong.

At one expensive new restaurant my wife and I recently visited with another couple, we ordered a crawfish dip appetizer that tasted pretty much like straight lemon juice. The crawfish were visible in the dip, but they could not be tasted due to the intense lemon flavor. I noticed our guests not touching the dip after one bite.

Soon thereafter, my wife and I went to another restaurant that recently opened. Here I ordered the lobster roll. Again, all I tasted was lemon – extremely bitter lemon. Not only was the lobster drizzled in lemon juice, but it was also coated in lemon zest. The sous chef had clearly gotten into the bitter white pith of the lemon rind while grating it. Suffice it to say, there was zero lobster flavor amidst all the bitter lemon flavor.

At yet another recent meal – this time a prix fixe dinner with a celebrity chef – pretty much everything had lemon zest in it, including an appetizer, the entrée, one of the sides, and the dessert. To be fair, some of it was tasty and an appropriate use of lemon zest, but what is the obsession about putting lemon zest in every dish? I love the taste of oysters, but that doesn’t mean I need to put oysters in every dish I make.

A jar of hand-made peach preserves was recently given to my wife and me. She opened it, spread some on a bagel, took a bite, and then made a disgusted face. She said it tasted nothing at all like fresh peaches and asked me to try it. I did, and there it was again – the deeply bitter taste of lemon rind. We threw the jar away.

This lemon zest trend makes me recall the exasperation I felt a few years ago during “peak rosemary.” I don’t dislike rosemary, but I do dislike too much rosemary. There was one night my wife and I went to a small-menu restaurant at which we had previously enjoyed good meals. The chef had suddenly got caught up in rosemary fever. The pork and chicken dishes were both cooked with rosemary. Rosemary bread was served with the meal. And if you wanted potatoes as a side, they were served roasted with rosemary seasoning.

Occasionally if a waiter asks if I have any food restrictions, I’ll tell him/her that I’m allergic to organic food. They usually get the joke. (Organic food purists tend to also be the ones most likely to have self-diagnosed food allergies.) I’m thinking now that I may start telling waiters I’m allergic to lemon zest so that I can get a disclosure of which menu items have had lemon zest inflicted on them.

Crows Hold Grudges…Maybe They’re Holding a Grudge Against Ace?

Since this is a non-political post, this might also be good time to discuss the boss’ problem making friends with neighborhood crows. Several weeks back, as you may recall, Ace discussed his efforts to befriend the crows who were hanging around his place. Sadly, the crows rebuffed his efforts.

Is it possible that Ace’s neighborhood crows are nursing a grudge against him for some reason? Perhaps they actively dislike people who are shelving-impaired?

“If You Think You Can Hold a Grudge, Consider the Crow; The brainy birds carry big chips on their shoulders, scientists say. And some people who become subjects of their ire may be victims of mistaken identity.” [NY Times – 10/28/2024]

Renowned for their intelligence, crows can mimic human speech, use tools and gather for what seem to be funeral rites when a member of their murder, as groups of crows are known, dies or is killed. They can identify and remember faces, even among large crowds.

They also tenaciously hold grudges. When a murder of crows singles out a person as dangerous, its wrath can be alarming, and can be passed along beyond an individual crow’s life span of up to a dozen or so years, creating multigenerational grudges.

Crows hold multi-generational grudges!?

Ace has famously told us of his childhood trauma of having to eat Kaboom cereal. (“I suppose this was General Mills' attempt to tap the downscale demographic’ in six-year-olds.”)

How sad if Ace is still paying the price of his Kaboom years with the crows holding a multi-generational grudge against him.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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