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For those unfamiliar, Ferran Adrià is the man that is considered the best chef in the world. His restaurant El Bulli is always rated with three Michelin stars and reservations for the entire year are sold out the day that they open. The food is nothing short of bizarrely innovative. From what I've heard (I am simply not special enough to probably ever get to go there) he takes all kinds of elements and then reworks them through his own brand of gastronomic chemistry. The end results end up being fish that look like apples, mushrooms that taste like spinach, and countless other things.       So, it was the other day, when I was down at Paella Day that I encountered Star olive oil with his picture on it. I almost thought it was a fake, but there it was in the Safeway. It's ridiculous in that anyone who knows who Adrià is would know that there's no possible way he'd use Star (which is fine, but not amazing) in his cooking and anyone who doesn't know who he is wouldn't have his picture push them in to buying it. It's a lovely example of clueless marketing, although I'm sure Adrià got a nice tidy sum to grace the front of the bottle.       For me, I think I'll stick to my Orovillian olive oil except when I'm in Spain in which case it's "¡Viva España!"

Years ago, I worked for this behemoth, slightly high-end clothing store in the stock department. Stock, unlike sales a pretty motley group with all different ethnicities and incomes. I found that I got along with most people and it was one of the rare times in my life where I've managed to have more than just white friends. One friend was this girl named Shanda and as most people would guess, yes she was black. We would joke around a lot, but one day, I was sleepy, wasn't watching what I was doing and stepped on her shoe. Immediately I got, "Damn, Hudin, you just went and stepped on my kicks." "Oh, sorry. I wasn't watching what I was doing." "Yeah, well you better be careful or the next time I'm gonna get black on your ass." I still run with the assumption that she was joking, but to this day, I think that she could have easily have been serious and I wasn't really about to find out what, "getting black on my ass" meant. It didn't sound like a plate of jelly beans.       It appears that advertisers have picked up on the fact that most whites take the voice of the black woman to be the most authoritative and powerful. Especially since the Corn Refiners Association has pulled out the following ad to try and tell us that high fructose corn syrup isn't bad for us:              While it initially seems to make the black woman in the commercial is smarter than the white woman and in theory this is paying a compliment, it is actually quite insulting. They use the black woman to play off the fear of, "Oh no, she's black and I'm white. If I argue with what she's saying, I'll be racist." Thus, it allows the argument of high fructose corn syrup being not bad for you to stand. Let's make sure that we understand that they only say it's not bad for you. They never say that it's good for you and it must be had, "in moderation". "Moderation" is a term advertisers use when they want to say, "Yeah, this will probably be what kills you, but we've lobbied to be able to sell it, so use it just a little." Like many people, I've mentioned that high fructose corn syrup isn't good for you and apparently the message is catching on or the Corn Mafia wouldn't be on the defensive, which in reality is a pretty pathetic defense.       They also happen to have another ad, which plays on the issue of sexism instead of racism to try and back up their claims.              The couple seems all nice and pleasant, but the husband is terrified to contradict his wife because he has no facts and while she really has no facts either (no, the premise that corn syrup is from corn is not a fact, it's common sense) he defaults to her argument instead. This is much akin to two people finding a container of a toxic chemical and not knowing what's really in it and hurt each others' feelings trying to figure it out, they decide that they might as well just drink it. I'm rather terrified that we live in an age where the media is able to dictate and override primal instincts that got us to where we are today.