Diasporic Dining: Chez Ivermectin

overflow of wastewater, photo: Susana Secretariat

For your first course you're served a broth spotted with slim reeds of Beyond Vegetable, a synthetic green that resembles industrial pollutant. Next comes the main dish, the Donner Party kebob, hunks of meat that resemble human flesh and would be considered a delicacy in any zoo. But the food is only half the story. The hyperactive servers with bulging eyes who look as if they are part of a low pressure system producing hurricane force winds are accompanied by the other diners, a unique mix of mid-island women with dyed blond hair who long ago gave up on those post pregnancy stomach tighteners. They are joined by men in double knit pants and white patent leather loafers, whose most salient defining characteristic is their blowed dried hairdo resembling that of a former president. These kinds of patrons travel in schools and exhibit belligerent demanding behaviors reminiscent of the insurrectionists who invaded the capital on January 6. It's always embarrassing to leave uneaten food (with all the hunger in the world) but what is really needed is a trough rather than a dumpster for these leftovers in which even pigs, would still be loathe to feed.

read "Diasporic Dining: Les Specialities de L'Etat Islamique" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen "Twenty-Five Miles" by Edwin Starr