Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Venti Vidi Vici



Its been a while.

Yesterday I hung out with my friend Andy and we saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Definitely worth seeing. Even if the heartwarming story leaves you cold, the makeup and special effects in watching Brad Pitt go from an old man to a baby and Cate Blanchett from a young girl to an old woman are worthwhile.

We also went to Starbucks where I discovered that I was still able to order a "short" drink, even though they haven't been listed on the menu for years. You know, because "tall" is the new "small." We were also talking about "venti" and wondering what it really means. According to an online tranlsation site I found, in Italian it means "twenty" which probably refers to the size of the cup which holds twenty fluid ounces. Does anyone actually need twenty ounces of a Starbucks coffee beverage? I'm sure that, at the very least, sixteen of those ounces are steamed milk. But really, I'm a hypocrite. Starbucks pisses me off, and yet I still patronize them from time to time.

I'd hoped that something positive might happen after Howard Schultz's internal memo criticizing the company's massive expansion was leaked. (Daniel Gross wrote a really great article discussing the issue for the LA Times in 2007.) However, no such luck. The move to stop selling breakfast sandwiches was cancelled and now there is also oatmeal and piadinis to be had in addition to the other breakfast sandwiches. I don't know what the hell a "piadini" is, but I'm guessing it is some sort of Americanized pseudo-Italian made-up word. I could be wrong, but I'm too depressed by the fact that they are selling them to bother looking it up.

1 comment:

Snotty McSnotterson said...

Piadina is an Italian flatbread that is chewy and soft enough to bend, not crisp like a cracker. It consists of dough similar to pizza dough that is rolled flat and thin until all the air is removed. Unlike pizza dough which is leavened with yeast and contains no fat, piadina dough is leavened with baking powder or soda and contains a fat such as olive oil, lard or shortening, giving it a flaky mouthfeel similar to savory pie dough. It is then cooked on a griddle or in a large flat pan until it shows dark spots on both sides. Piadini can be served with a variety of cheeses, meats or vegetables on top of it, or with things such as hummus. It is usually folded in half to eat, similar to a soft taco in Mexican food.

Said Wikipedia.