Nanny State

Well I finally got my box of fresh organic produce delivered to my door, at 9:30 last night. They keep strange hours, those Urban Organic delivery people. Now I just have to figure out what to do with a bundle of Swiss chard that is roughly the size of Jack. Food has been on my mind lately what with the new ordinance that requires all restaurants in the City with more than 15 locations nationwide to post calorie content on their menus. Since New York has basically been turned into a giant shopping mall, replete with chain restaurants and food courts, this affects a fair number of places that I never go to, except for Starbucks.

(Warning, Rant Ahead: As some of you may know, New York City has become a much safer, cleaner and boring City under the watchful eye of our dear leader Mike Bloomburg. Since taking office he has passed a smoking ban, the aforementioned calorie posting requirement and is presently studying whether to move up the required closing time for bars to 2am instead of the current 4am. Mayor buzzkill indeed. What surprises me is how much support he has. Since he was elected in 2001 Bloomberg has successfully turned NYC into a police state by introducing the random searching of bags in the mass transit system and continuing Giuliani’s practice of ticketing people for "quality of life" violations. You know, such dangerous threats to the public order like taking up two seats on the subway, sitting on steps, fonts being too large on store signs, climbing trees in parks, feeding pigeons, "loitering" in front of your own home, using the wrong color garbage bag, etc., etc. Not to mention the fact that he banned smoking in bars yet wrote exemptions specifically designed to allow the upper-class to smoke in certain places. He continues to support the illegal arrests of cyclists during Critical Mass bike rides, supported the NYPD's illegal search-and-arrest methods during the RNC, and even proposed making extended dog barking illegal, yet he remains enormously popular. I just have no idea why. )

Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes, calorie counts at Starbucks. I’m a creature of habit. During the week I usually eat a yogurt with cereal for breakfast-watching the waistline and all that. On the week-ends I like to cut loose and order a cranberry scone when I pick up a cup of coffee at the local Starbucks. Jack usually goes for banana bread, but has been known to down a bran muffin when he is particularly, er, backed up. Imagine my surprise upon finding that that small pastry with its vague resemblance to a cowpie packs in a walloping 380 calories! The muffin at over 400! Damn you Mike Bloomburg for making me feel guilty about eating overpriced pastry on the week-ends. From now on I’m going down the block to the Italian bakery where there is no talk of calories and the only time you’re made to feel guilty is if you buy too little.