Welcome to Delicious or Distressing, where we rate recent food memes, videos, and other decidedly unserious news. Last week we talked about Ben Affleck betraying Dunkin’ by drinking Starbucks.
Ah, the sights, smells, and sounds of New Year’s Eve in New York City. Lackluster piles of abandoned Christmas trees line the streets; the vague scent of pine mingling with festering garbage fills the air. But 2023 has decided she’s Not Like Other Girls. Rather than unceremoniously disposing of their Christmas trees, this year some people are…eating them? There’s more: Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper lost their imbibing privileges for the NYE Ball Drop because clearly nothing is sacred.
As we digested all of that, misogynistic influencer and wanted sex trafficker Andrew Tate supposedly tipped off police via a tweeted video to his precise whereabouts by way of a pizza box bearing the name of a local shop. Alas, as much as we fantasized about Romanian authorities scrolling upon Tate’s little video and whispering “We’ve got him” with the flair of Claire Danes in Homeland, it was predictably too good to be true. But it was fun to indulge it while it lasted.
As always, we’re keeping one eye open for the food trends dominating TikTok’s airwaves in 2023. If Pickle Girl (new Corn Kid), caviar-topped Doritos, and single make-ahead bagels are any indication, we’re off to a pretty acceptable (maybe even good?) start.
Last Thursday evening 36-year-old “men’s rights” activist Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania barely a day after engaging in a dick-swinging Twitter beef with teen climate activist Greta Thunberg. Tate and his brother were both detained under suspicions of human trafficking, rape, and forming an organized crime group. Early reports claimed Romanian authorities were able to locate the brothers because pizza boxes from a domestic chain called Jerry’s were visible in Tate’s video response to Thunberg, in which the misogynist influencer insisted the cardboard would not be recycled.
Though it’s a plotline fit for a dark comedy, there was no evidence suggesting the pizza boxes were Romanian authorities’ smoking gun. In fact, one Reuters article actively denies the pies had anything to do with the arrest. Plus, Tate had already given up his location much more directly in previous posts. This one was unfortunately a heist of our collective imaginations. There is one silver lining: It’s been an absolute boon for Jerry’s Pizza, which has received a flood of five-star reviews online. Good for you, Jerry. 6/5 distressing. —Ali Francis, staff writer
In what the New York Post is calling a “shocking trend,” TikTok creators are apparently eating caviar on top of crème fraîche and Nacho Cheese Doritos. “Shocking”? Really? Eating caviar with sour cream or crème fraîche and chips is already a known pairing, at least in the food world. Usually, people use a classic, plain salted chip from Lay’s, which theoretically lets that very expensive fish egg flavor shine more. But honestly, Doritos are good. That’s the whole thing about them. I’m sure our corporate snack overlords have invested gazillions of dollars into making sure they are as addictively delicious as possible. There’s no way eating them with caviar on top isn’t going to also be good. If anything, this method is a waste of caviar. Surely you lose some of the subtlety of the fish eggs (yes, I realize how that sounds) with the in-your-face punch of a Nacho Cheese Dorito? Modest proposal…what about Cool Ranch instead? 3.7/5 delicious —Serena Dai, editorial director