Welcome to ColemanWatch, a weekly feature in which we parse the particularly florid stylings of the Portland Mercury's resident food critic, Patrick Alan Coleman. Seen a sentence we've missed? Log on to your bright, burning email screen, and wend a grandiloquent email our way.
So, just in case you haven't heard, Valentine's Day is coming up. YES. VALENTINE'S DAY. A day for romance, for flowers, for love. A day for togetherness. A day for... chasing your charcuterie with condoms and lube? Say sex what now? Let's let Patrick Alan Coleman break it down, Coleman-style:
Let's imagine for a moment that Valentine's Day really is a crucial part of mating in America. Let's consider the possibility that decisions we make on that day actually link to subconscious animal-mating behaviors that prove our sexual and social fitness for possible partnering. If that's the case, taking your date to dinner on Valentine's Day is a fool's game. What does it prove?That, ladies and gentlemen and ladies, is no way to get laid. Taking your putative paramour on a picnic, on the other hand, is. (At least in Coleman's world.) And this is where the rest of the piece gets servicey-to-end-all-serviceys (something rather brusquely called out in the comments). Coleman stops with the snark and stops with the get-you-laid program, dropping knowledge about Foster & Dobbs' rentable picnic set, suggesting the animal urges unleashed by a little Pastaworks charcuterie, and puts in a row three words that should never be put on the same page as anything remotely romance-inflected: "delicious tuna salad.""Hey, look! I can make reservations!" Big deal. "Hey, I've got enough scratch to cover the bill! Drop your pants!" Uh, no. "Hey! I'm the alpha-whatever because I can condescend to this waitperson." I'll find my own ride home, thanks.
· Pic-Nookie [Portland Mercury]
· ColemanWatch [EaterPDX]
