bowlinger qua bowlinger

1. Where to take that pesky exam in July. This is a level of commitment that I’m just not ready for.

2. Where to go for an awesome trip after taking that pesky exam. This is much more fun and is entirely based on the idea that wealthier relatives might contribute to the funding (it worked for grad school). I’ve been thinking the Trans-Siberian railway, and then taking a passenger/cargo ferry from Vladivostok to Japan. Or taking the railway on its Trans-Mongolian route, from Moscow to Beijing.

3. Not watching The Office after this season is over. I’m really really annoyed about a lot of plot and character developments. Anyway, this seems minor, but I’m very engaged in American television.

4. How I can’t wait to eat at Chick-fil-A. I sometimes cry myself to sleep over this.

I apologize for my discontinuation of posts about food and the law. I will go back and update soon, especially what we had to eat. But right now I need some help! This week is the last meeting of food and the law, unless we can come up with some other topics for OB-S. I already sent him the Posner opinion about the horse meat, which he never responded to. What are some other food and the law issues? We’ve done taxing fat, tort liability, bio-engineered food, the problem with corn, and now we’re doing packaging and labeling. If you can  help suggest something and he agrees, I will try to get you into the meeting. Is that good incentive?

I think it’s all the driving up Hwy 23 I’ve been doing lately, but I really have a craving for chicken.

Anyone want to take a road trip this weekend? If so, any preferences? I vote for the “chicken plus one meat” combination, but would be willing to consider the “Family-Style Ultimate Bavarian Combination” for just $2 more.

Gandy Dancer Taps into Staff Tips

From the article:

Earlier this month, the upscale Ann Arbor restaurant began charging its servers 1.5 percent of the tips patrons leave on credit cards to help the restaurant pay credit card processing fees.

Turns out The Gandy Dancer is owned by a restaurant conglomerate, Landry’s, a “Texas-based chain that operations a casino, five hotels and more than 180 restaurants in 30 states, including seven others in Michigan.”

As if we needed another reason to hate Texas.

So, there’s an amazing article you should read in the Michigan Daily. dm’s certainly aware, as are we all, of the pathetic state of Thai food in the Ann Arbor area. I had some masaman curry yesterday that cost close to $15. FIFTEEN DOLLARS  (?!?!) for extremely mediocre curry served in the restaurant portion of a nearly-abandoned hotel out by the highway.

Anyway, maybe part of the difficulty Thai places are having in Washtenaw county is related to issues like these:

Rackham student Sirarat Sarntivijai said she was confused and offended when a restaurant called No Thai! opened on South University Avenue in September 2005. She thought the name suggested that Thai people were not welcome in the restaurant.

Members of the Thai Student Association, including Sarntivijai, its president, said they find the name deeply offensive.

I could go into a lot of the details of the article, but the gist is that the Thai Student Association thinks that the (admittedly stupid) name of a Thai-owned Thai restaurant signals that Thai people are discouraged from eating there. The TSA helpfully suggested some (even more insipid) names for the place, including “No Thai!: by Mr. No”.

As long as we’re suggesting bad names for a crypto-racist Thai restaurant, how about “White Thai” or “Black Thai” (depending on how formal the table service is), or maybe “Colombian Neck Thai” (for the forthcoming Latin-Thai fusion endeavor).

The menu: beef chili, lentil soup with ham, foccaccia, two kinds of tea

 The topic: Civil liability and fast food restaurant chains. Should fast food chains be subject to tort liability when people eat their food and become obese or have diet-related medical issues? Can we liken this kind of suit to those against drug companies, i.e. a “design defect” products liability claim? Can we compare this kind of suit to those against tobacco manufacturers, which 30 years ago might have seemed impossible for plaintiffs to win? Will civil liability not do anything to solve the real problem, and this should be purely a regulatory issue - smaller portion sizes available, healthier options available at the same cost as cheap “bad for you” products, nutrition facts made clear and available, etc. Or, is all this paternalistic and the real problem comes down to human choice and responsibility?

The best part of the evening was OB-S admitting that he actually likes eating at McDonald’s and his favorite are the Chicken McNuggets. He said, “No one eats Chicken Selects. They are just not as tasty.” And he ate the famous 7 oz. burger at Jackson Hole Burgers in NYC.

Next class: packaging and labeling concerns

my dear pastor smackdown fans, it is with a heavy heart that i inform you that my dream of visiting Fiesta Mexicana on Cross Street in Ypsilanti and reporting back to you on it today was dashed by the misfortunate event of the restaurant being closed on mondays.

undaunted, i deftly switched cultures and hemispheres and went to Dalat Vietnamese Cuisine on Michigan and had the beef noodle soup(you may know this soup to be called pho). it was good. not Pho 777 in Chicago good, or Pho Pasteur in Boston good, but for the middle of stinkin’ Michigan, i’d say it hit the spot.

i’d give it better marks if it had come with a better assortment of condiments.

here’s what you get at Dalat: a bowl of noodle soup with sliced beef(you can also order it with meatballs or tendons or tripe), a dish of condiments including a wedge of lemon, bean sprouts, and sliced jalapeños. there are squeeze bottles of hoisin sauce and chili sauce on the table.

i’m partial to having basil in my pho, so i would give Dalat higher marks if my little side dish had included basil.

i also got a vietnamese iced coffee. the total came to $8.70 before tip. god bless ypsilanti.

of course, now i’m tempted to go try Miss Saigon on Stone School road tomorrow for a proper pho smackdown… unless of course popular opinion merits a re-visit to Fiesta Mexicana and a continuation of the pastor smackdown ASAP.

let me know, dear readers. let. me. know.

i shall do your bidding.

update:
Fiesta Mexicana Hours : 4-9 p.m. Mon., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tue.-Thu., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat.

The menu: baked wild salmon, mixed greens with avocado, asparagus, and roasted peppers, baguette, homemade pumpkin bread, hot cider

 The topic: Should obesity be a category that gets anti-discrimination protection under a federal scheme like Title VII? Should it qualify under things like the Americans with Disabilities Act? Are people who are not morbidly obese, but only overweight according to the over 25 BMI standard, discriminated against? As you can imagine, there were many very strong opinions on this topic. Most people felt that weight was not a characteristic like race or sex that should be included for discrimination protection in employment settings. But a few felt very strongly that people who discriminated on the basis of weight should even be sanctioned for their conduct. Most agreed, though, that what we are talking about with the obesity crisis (which some people think is a made-up or dramatized public health issue) is really related to health and not necessarily fatness.

Anyway, again, very interesting conversation, great food (that salad he makes is the same one he made for the dinner last year and it’s delicious). Apparently there were a few open spots in this class, a few people have dropped? I don’t know that he’ll let anybody new in at this point, but there were a couple new people there last night who just got added.

The menu: grilled lamb, tabbouleh, hummus, homemade falafel, some kind of delicious grilled and buttered pita, baba ghanoush, thin buttery cookies filled with melted chocolate, coffee, chai

The topic: taxing fat

The proposed plan of our “special guest”: the taxing of common fatty foods….but….wait for it…only for people who are fat! You would be required to get your BMI read and if you are over 25, which apparently is the limit for people who are normal and not obese, you would be subject to the tax at grocery stores and restaurants, etc. I kind of forget the next part, there is a card, and people who are fat get the card? Or maybe people who are not fat get the card. Anyway, there is some kind of card and that’s how the tax gets applied. So when the server comes to your table at the restaurant, everybody pulls out their card and you don’t have one, so your part of the bill gets taxed. According to our guest, this creates an economic incentive as well as a public humiliation factor. The guest likens this to cigarettes which carry an additional tax and also has the public shaming element, which includes the guest riding past you on his bike while you are smoking outside the school and him laughing and yelling at you (which sounds worth it just to try).

A two hour discussion followed involving the many disputes people had with this plan, including the discriminatory effect on the poor, the idea of American food culture as embracing of poor diet and poor exercise habits, etc. We also discussed the tax taking other forms, like higher insurance premiums and companies having to pay large class action settlements (although admittedly there were many causation and proof problems with that idea).

Overall, excellent food as usual, and fun, lively discussion and debate of a legal and yet non-law school nature, which I am appreciating more and more these days. I’ll keep everybody posted throughout the semester on this course.

… is Posner’s recent opinion in Cavel International, Inc v. Lisa Madigan. Posner reluctantly upheld Illinois’ recent law banning the slaughter of horses for human food purposes.

Some highlights to look forward to: (1) the picture of the lion eating a birthday cake on page 11, (2) Bo Derek on page 14.

PDF opinion here.