Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Seasoned with a hint of social conscience

A home-cooked meal drowned in the sauce of creative necessity

Dear Hipster:

I’ve been following your advice about eating all the food in the house in order to make space, but its not been so easy. Why do I have all these cans of sun dried tomatoes in oil? How did I get so much tuna? I could see having one bag of lentils, but four?! These are the questions that boggle my mind on a daily basis of late, and, I must confess, have begun to vex me. What began as a fun project has turned into a chore. I’m nowhere near admitting defeat, but I could use a little further guidance on seeing this thing through.

— Bradford

Sponsored
Sponsored

I’d like to make it three words, like Samuel L. Jackson would do, but I can’t say the middle one here, so, two words it is: Dinner Party.

Why should you eat those undesirable provisions all on your lonesome? Make your friends help! Friends generally appreciate — and hipster friends particularly love — a home-cooked meal drowned in the sauce of creative necessity and seasoned with a hint of social conscience. Because they’ve all been eating freshly procured meats and produce this past six weeks, none of them suffer your same sense of burnout in the face of endless pantry staples. They will scarf down your sixth attempt at lentil cassoulet without a second thought.

In general, whether eating down the pantry or merely eating to eat, you can’t err with a hipster dinner party. Hipsters have combined their love of trendy foodstuffs with an ironic appreciation of Gilded Age social conventions, and breathed new life into the art of entertaining. Where yesteryear’s social elite flexed their might by out-ostentatiousing each other, today’s hipsters show off to their peers by recreating mom’s famous meatloaf recipe... but with homemade ketchup!

A word to the wise if you plan to rope your hipster friends into your pantry-reduction scheme. When they ask what they can bring, stick to “dessert” or “drinks.” If you’re incautious, you might be upstaged by someone not limited by the preordained contents of the cupboard. Hipsters can be wily if challenged to any sort of implied cookoff.

Dear Hipster:

Is it possible to jump the shark in real life?

— Dana

Of course. I’ll venture a guess it’s even inevitable in many cases. For example, we’ve all seen plenty of hipsters jump the shark with their hipsterness. If anyone ever served you a burger on a flip-flop instead of a plate, that would be jumping the hipster culinary shark. If anyone ever brought his self-produced vinyl LP to a party and then got pissed there was no turntable by which party guests might be subjected to Mr. Hipster’s avante garde synthcore, that would be jumping the hipster musical shark.

I’m sure some hipster somewhere once went to a job interview wearing suspenders, wooden clogs, and one of those plastic clown bow ties that squirt water on unsuspecting victims. That would be, well, honestly, jumping the hipster shark with an entire life.

Naturally, that kind of personal shark jumpery isn’t limited to hipsters. Sooner or later, we all embody some parodied idea of who we are, or think we are. It isn’t limited to individuals. Cultures, movements, and styles all eventually jump the shark, followed by a kind of ideological perestroika. Importantly, nobody ever recognizes a shark jump till after the fact. You could be jumping the shark in your life right now, and you’d never know it.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Extended family dynamics

Many of our neighbors live in the house they grew up in
Next Article

At 4pm, this Farmer's Table restaurant in Chula Vista becomes Acqua e Farina

Brunch restaurant by day, Roman style trattoria by night

Dear Hipster:

I’ve been following your advice about eating all the food in the house in order to make space, but its not been so easy. Why do I have all these cans of sun dried tomatoes in oil? How did I get so much tuna? I could see having one bag of lentils, but four?! These are the questions that boggle my mind on a daily basis of late, and, I must confess, have begun to vex me. What began as a fun project has turned into a chore. I’m nowhere near admitting defeat, but I could use a little further guidance on seeing this thing through.

— Bradford

Sponsored
Sponsored

I’d like to make it three words, like Samuel L. Jackson would do, but I can’t say the middle one here, so, two words it is: Dinner Party.

Why should you eat those undesirable provisions all on your lonesome? Make your friends help! Friends generally appreciate — and hipster friends particularly love — a home-cooked meal drowned in the sauce of creative necessity and seasoned with a hint of social conscience. Because they’ve all been eating freshly procured meats and produce this past six weeks, none of them suffer your same sense of burnout in the face of endless pantry staples. They will scarf down your sixth attempt at lentil cassoulet without a second thought.

In general, whether eating down the pantry or merely eating to eat, you can’t err with a hipster dinner party. Hipsters have combined their love of trendy foodstuffs with an ironic appreciation of Gilded Age social conventions, and breathed new life into the art of entertaining. Where yesteryear’s social elite flexed their might by out-ostentatiousing each other, today’s hipsters show off to their peers by recreating mom’s famous meatloaf recipe... but with homemade ketchup!

A word to the wise if you plan to rope your hipster friends into your pantry-reduction scheme. When they ask what they can bring, stick to “dessert” or “drinks.” If you’re incautious, you might be upstaged by someone not limited by the preordained contents of the cupboard. Hipsters can be wily if challenged to any sort of implied cookoff.

Dear Hipster:

Is it possible to jump the shark in real life?

— Dana

Of course. I’ll venture a guess it’s even inevitable in many cases. For example, we’ve all seen plenty of hipsters jump the shark with their hipsterness. If anyone ever served you a burger on a flip-flop instead of a plate, that would be jumping the hipster culinary shark. If anyone ever brought his self-produced vinyl LP to a party and then got pissed there was no turntable by which party guests might be subjected to Mr. Hipster’s avante garde synthcore, that would be jumping the hipster musical shark.

I’m sure some hipster somewhere once went to a job interview wearing suspenders, wooden clogs, and one of those plastic clown bow ties that squirt water on unsuspecting victims. That would be, well, honestly, jumping the hipster shark with an entire life.

Naturally, that kind of personal shark jumpery isn’t limited to hipsters. Sooner or later, we all embody some parodied idea of who we are, or think we are. It isn’t limited to individuals. Cultures, movements, and styles all eventually jump the shark, followed by a kind of ideological perestroika. Importantly, nobody ever recognizes a shark jump till after the fact. You could be jumping the shark in your life right now, and you’d never know it.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About doTERRA

Next Article

The danger of San Diego's hoarders

The $1 million Flash Comics #1
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader