Winding Down

Yeah yeah. It's been a while. I know. The blog gods got me back though. As I was sitting out on a longboard during a surf lesson this weekend I started think about the last time I had blogged. I couldn't remember. It had to have been over 2 weeks ago. The air was crisp, the ocean warm, and I felt like a million bucks. And then all of the sudden I felt like five cents. Nausea slowly began to creep in and with every wave I caught I felt more and more ill. I honestly thought about vomiting right then and there out in the ocean, but then thought better of it because I had visions of grizzled fisherman chumming the waters in search of Great Whites, and if I threw up on myself, I'd basically be chumming myself.

I powered through, catching gnarly 1-2 foot barrels, because after all, with lobster salad at an offensive $60/lb down the street from the beach, the price points for anything out in the Hamptons don't exactly give you the warm fuzzies and I was determined to go until I literally couldn't go anymore. So when I got home the blogging gods made me pay and I gave back to the Earth if you will. I felt better immediately, but the moral of the story is make sure you hydrate and blog, in that order of course.

Now that I've spent several weekends out at the beach I think I've sufficiently lost touch with the pulse of New York. My world really exists from the walk to my office from my apartment and back. Thirteen blocks one way and thirteen blocks back. However, out in front of the little plaza where I work there's certainly some interesting things to be observed. For example, last week I sat next to an elderly man who was wearing a suit and proceeded to take scissors out of his pocket and cut his own hair. I also saw a woman perform an interesting feat of health as she alternated smoking a cigarette she held between her middle and index fingers, with eating a Snickers bar held between her thumb and ring finger on the same hand. People do strange things when it's this hot I suppose.

Maybe it's the heat, but I've decided to wind this thing down over the next couple of months. But before I do, I'm going to leave you with a final story, a true story, about me that I've told a million times in person but have yet to put down in writing. I don't know how many entries it's going to take, but it'll be my opus, if you will. I hope you stick it out with me for it.

Stay cool. It's hot out there.

Card Confusion

The world is a confusing place. You don't need me to tell you this. You can step outside on any given day and see it for yourself. One day you have the President of the United States telling a company domiciled in England how to conduct their giving (or not) of dividends. The next day you can be walking down the street in East Hampton and see a husband and wife pushing an extremely expensive stroller down the sidewalk. What so weird about that? Nothing, except that inside the stroller was a 5 lb. dog. Yes folks, a dog. In a $800 stroller. My monthly rent in Ann Arbor wasn't even $800. By way, I'm quitting finance and going into stroller-making.

There are some things that you know will be confusing. But there are some things that should just be simple and straight-forward...like buying a birthday card. Apparently this is not the case anymore.

My girlfriend of several months celebrated her birthday last week. With the gift found, purchased, and wrapped all I needed was the card and I was set. After work I headed to the card section of my local CVS. Huge selection. Lot's of Hallmark stuff. I was going to go in, pick the card, buy it and go home. Five minutes tops. So I go to the birthday section, and as you well know, the sections are further divided. As I scanned I came across "From the Both of Us". No. "Sister". No. "Religious" is actually a favorite of mine. There's nothing like getting a birthday card signed by your boyfriend and Jesus Christ. I thought that would be funny, although kind of inappropriate, but funny.

What I like in a card is limited wording, or as I call it, "editorializing", because I like writing a lot, surprise surprise. After a few minutes I still hadn't found anything appropriate. I came across a section called "Love". Okay, I thought, I'll see what's here. I grabbed a card and looked at the front, which started "When we're old and gray", and I immediately put it down. If you're trying to scare someone off after a few months this is definitely a good card you choose. So I continued in the "Love" section hoping to find something better. I saw a teal card and grabbed it. It started "I want to sneak away with you". So I'm thinking, all right, we're onto something. Next line read "To a deserted island". Okay, I like deserted islands, go on. "And I know it might be selfish"...okay where are we going with this now..."But our kids are driving me fucking crazy, and walking away from our home and mortgage wouldn't be the worst thing, and seriously, why did we get that pool because I don't think anyone so much as dipped a toe in that thing all summer...". ABORT ABORT ABORT. I dropped the card like a hot coal. Wow Hallmark, talking about keeping it real.

The last thing you want to do is get a card that scares the bejesus out of someone, especially if you've only known that someone for a few months. It's a birthday, not a jail sentence. So many of these cards...so much potential and then one thing just seriously inappropriate. I saw this one card, and on the cover it read "You Rock My World". I thought, finally, something promising. On the inside in bold letters.....

"HERPES"

What the hell was going on here? So it's been like ten, fifteen minutes now. I'm officially the weirdo who can't find a birthday card, and I'll be damned if I'm leaving this store without a card. And that's when it hit me, like a 2x4 across the head, or should I say a mahogany 2x4 across the head. A section literally, and I swear this is for real, called "Mahogany". (Please read the "Cards with Sound" Section of that link.) I opened up the first card and it started, "Ayo Babygirl". First of all, is Hallmark telling me that "Babygirl" can only make it to a Mahogany card. That's a little bit racist Hallmark, is it not. Non-Mahogany people say "babygirl" all the time. In fact, my first full sentence as a child was "Babygirl, can I borrow some suuuuuuugar?"

I had to give this Mahogany section a chance. There was one card I liked. On the front it said, simply, and tastefully.

36-24-36

On the inside, simply, and perhaps a touch less tastefully

Only if you're 5'3"

I passed on it, and then picked up another one. On the front it read "Girl, you are crazy delicious". Nothing wrong with that. On the inside, "Tonight I'm going to drizzle syrup on that badonkadonk and then call up your mama and say 'thank you'". After a few minutes of giggling to myself I gave up on the Mahogany section, but I will say that I like that Hallmark has really made an effort to segment their selection. I hope this actually has translated into more business for them.

At this point though a solid fifteen had gone by. I was on the verge of frustration now. I happened up another section called "Love - New". Again, this is for real. There is a "Love - New" section. Now this seemed promising. The first card I saw...just a picture on the front. Perfect. Simple. On the inside "You put the 'Pill' in 'Morning After Pill". Um, yeah, when they were talking about "Love - New" I didn't realize the emphasis would be on the "New" part, and not the "Love" part.

I found the perfect card though, but it's what you write in the card to express yourself that matters. Next time you go to Hallmark just be prepared. Life has gotten confusing. I'm not sure when it happened, but it happened. Life should be simple and fun and fulfilling. Summer is going to give that to you. Get your fill. Have a great week.

Chillin' With Mr. Hoshizaki

It feels like summer is officially here. At least that's what my lobster red back is telling me right now. New adventures, new bathing suits, new jobs. Yes, new jobs. Today was my first day of school all over again. My third rotation. My third job in ten months. Do you know how hard it is to be the new guy every four months? It's not that hard. It's actually kind of fun. You see, I really only need four months worth of jokes in my repertoire, and then I simply bow, exit stage left, and find a new gig.

This new job finds me across the street from my old one, but sadly 29 floors lower than my old one. I can no longer see New Jersey and Brooklyn and on a clear day Buenos Aires from my window. I see the concrete jungle that is midtown Manhattan. I have a nice big workspace, I'm not too far from the bathroom, and most importantly I have the closest seat to Mr. Hoshizaki. Mr. Hoshizaki is literally the coolest dude on the floor. He's the kind of guy who you always find hanging out in the kitchen just chillin' with the ladies in the morning. And under pressure it's pretty clear that he has ice water in his veins. Oh you don't know Mr. Hoshizaki? The man, the myth, the legend...

The Hoshizaki Ice Maker

Hoshizaki ice makers are the best. I'm not even going to argue this point. I love them. There, I said it. And I sit geographically closest to Mr. Hoshizaki. He is mine. I am never leaving this job. In my last job the ice was questionable. It tasted a bit like catfish and a bit like freon. It tasted like shit, but at least it had a pretty shade of blue. But no longer. Hard, yet chewable, cube-shaped morsels of tasteless goodness will be savored every single day for the next four months...at least. And that's pretty much it. After one day...best...job...ever.

It's a short one today. I think the sun took a lot out of me this weekend. I'll be back later on this week hopefully. Oh, and don't be a hero. Use sunscreen.

Spinning

I'm off to another wedding tomorrow. Pittsburgh here I come. But before I get on that plane I needed to tell you about my maiden spinning voyage last Sunday. Yeah, I went spinning. Like stationary bike riding spinning. In the Hamptons. On a Sunday morning. Bayg.

I wasn't at all hesitant to go but I did wonder how serious a workout I could get in an hour of pedaling...and 4 days later I'm still feeling the answer. First of all, let me just say that the crowd was, I don't know, kind of MILFy. Everyone was good looking and seemed to know one another. Supermom Kelly Ripa was in the class before me, but I missed seeing her because, surprise, I was peeing. Do I have "going problem or a growing problem"? I don't know anymore. First it's Kelly Ripa, then I'll be kayaking with my buddies and I'll have to pull over on the side of the bank to pee. But likely I'd just pee right there in the kayak, you know, because I'm in the water anyway.

But Kelly Ripa or not, I walked into the barn and took my place on my bike. First impression: why is the seat made of barbed wire and bamboo. Like seriously. On a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being Frette sheets on a pillow top mattress and 10 being this

I think the bike seats were about a 12 or 13. What I quickly learned was a lot of spinning is about controlling your abs and your torso, and apparently not slamming your nether-regions down on the seat every time you go from position 1 to position 2. I learned the hard way. I really still don't feel it so much in my tush, but moreso in my small intestine and ego. Bruises are deep my friends, bruise are deep. I can see how these lithe, skinny little things seemed to be so at ease on the bikes. It was because how hard is it to simulate a climb when you have no body mass to hold up as you climb. Skinny bitches and their damn skinny lattes and skinny jeans.

So that was really the only negative, the lasting scars and possible infertility, but you know, sometimes you gotta sacrifice for a good sweat. I thought the music was great. A lot of it was keeping the beat and if you have any sense of rhythm you can really find a groove. It was kind of like dancing and all the songs were all the club songs I would want to hear if I was out. But there are instructions to, barked out by the instructor who urged the masses, "to make this day the first day of changing your life" and "channel your energy to make a change" and other stuff she learned in The Dalai Lama Comes to New York 101. Was it inspirational? Eh, I don't know. I think I'm a sucker for some of that stuff sometimes. You can't "win" at spinning, but by God I was trying to "win" so I was kind of buying what she was selling. And as a result I was sweating, like a pig, in the kitchen of The Breslin Bar.

Profuse sweating is not what I would call a recessive gene in my family. I was dripping so much that I thought that after the workout instead of wiping down my bike they'd find me in the crowd and tell me that the sweat damage was irreparable and I'd simply have to buy the damn thing. It was like there was a faucet coming out of my chin, and part of it was me, and part of it was because they had 100 people elbow to elbow, forehead to ass, in a barn built for Barbaro and only Barbaro. I hope they hose that place down like they do at the end of the night at Rick's in Ann Arbor.

So how was the workout itself you ask. Well, there certainly was enough eye candy to keep me focused, and the back row is certainly the catbird as far as I'm concerned. The workout was great though. At one point towards the end I felt a little vomititious. It reminded me of basketball camp back in the day. The first drills were always after breakfast, so after you'd loaded up on pancakes and chemically enhanced OJ they took you out on the court and had you do plyometric drills for hours. You didn't even touch a ball in the first few hours. You basically would go on doing kangaroo jumps until the fat kid at the end threw up breakfast and then they'd stop the drills and say, "see, you think you can just come here out of shape? You think this is some kind of joke?" etc etc as they set the tone for the week. It was basically just go go go until vomiting occurred and you just prayed to God it wouldn't be you. Well, with five minutes left in the workout, with my triceps on...

Fi-yah?

Yeah, with my triceps on Fi-yah and my quads barking at me, I thought to myself, what are the chances I'd be the first one to throw up in here? Of course I didn't, but the moral of the story was that I was S.P.E.N.T. Gracias to Bret and Amanda for showing me the light. Spinning really did hurt so good. I can totally see how people get really addicted to it, and how it can tone the shit out of your body if you do it enough and do it correctly.

I will return to icing my rear end though. I need to be able to Harlem Shake my face off this weekend. Enjoy.

Some of this. Some of that. Some of Toohey's New.

In my opinion, this blog is better when I'm crankier, grumpier, and slightly surly. So I've been waiting for those moments in the past weeks in order to turn those feelings into a post…but they never came. Wait, am I complaining that I have nothing to complain about? Yeah, that pretty much sounds right. And since my hours at work have been great, and I've been seeing friends, hanging out, working out, eating well, and learning how to tie a bowtie properly I'm just going to write about all the good stuff and just hope that it's all palatable and not overwhelmingly saccharine.

As for my bowtie, I learned how to tie it in preparation of becoming, for the first time in my life, a groomsman. A quick story before I move onto the incredibly fun and lovely wedding of Kim and Old Greg…the first time I had to do a bowtie by myself in a pressure situation was 2005. I had put on all my tux gear and all I had left was the bowtie. In the approximately 30 minutes it took me to get it right I had sweat through my shirt so hard that it looked like I'd gone to another wedding prior to one I was about to go to. My shoulders burned from holding my arms up for 30 minutes straight and I had fogged up the bathroom mirror and could barely see what I was doing. James Bond be damned if I was going to let that happen again. It didn’t. I've only been to a handful of weddings, and only have been married once myself (it was in Laos, there wasn't much English, I wasn't sure what was happening, my dowry was four goats and a tin drum of rice wine, whatever, it happens sometimes), but I think the following is universal when determining how to make a wedding great: 1) Good band, 2) Good music, 3) Bar next to the dancefloor. It's the triumvirate of awesomeness, and you'd think it wouldn't be that difficult to pull off, but it's not a given, and it this wedding, they nailed it. The wedding was in Columbus, OH and both bride and groom were from the midwest which means one thing…everyone is so damn nice. Like not "cordial" nice, but like "hey, for real, for real, we really like you and we are genuinely happy to share this occasion with you, friend". Let's all raise our glasses and toast true midwestern values. They exist. Anyway, it was great to have a lot of my good friends in one place for an entire weekend. It was by far the classiest we've acted as a group, I think ever. I think part of it was that we had dates and toned it down (slightly) and part of it we were dressed nicely an nobody really wants to clean jagermeister off a white tux shirt. Of course our classiness ended in about 2 hours when we sequestered the videographer and made him film a pretend beer commercial that we made up. Wow, how I miss College Part II. Toohey's New! And again, congrats to the bride and groom who are somewhere in the Pacific living out ABC's Lost for real.

The Old Stag. Toohey's New.

During my trips to the Caribbean it was almost never a question what I was going to eat for dinner…"fish and sauce, and fish and rice and sauce". Last night I took one step closer towards my next Caribbean voyage, a wedding in Turks and Caicos in November. I am in that wedding as well and the groomsmen went to try on the suits we will be wearing for the wedding. On the way to the store I noticed a large number of girls, fashionably dressed (read: most in black tights with long-ish plaid shirt dresses giving off that "I'm not trying-but I am-but I'm not-but I kinda am" look) scurrying around 5th Avenue in the 20s. It seemed like an awfully high concentration for the area, and then I realized the reason after I passed a sample sale. Forget consuming fish and sauce, and fish and rice and sauce, these girls were consuming baygs and baygs, and baygs and baygs and baygs. It was a bag sample sale. It looked like a colony of ants, rifling through leaves (bags), bumping into other ants as they went back and forth sorting, sifting, clawing. It was quite a sight for a Thursday afternoon. I guess walking back from midtown to the 60s with all the other suits and tourists I'm not privy to such NY activities, but I was glad that while millions of gallons of oil pour out from under the Earth, and not several blocks away an entire area was being shut down, these ants kept their eyes on the prize. Nobody has the determination New Yorkers have.

And while I'm talking about New Yorkers and their determination I want to give my pitch for Lebron James to come to NY. You know, because he reads my blog sometimes.

Dear Lebron,

I can't give you much. You can't even stay in my apartment, because you wouldn't fit in my Murphy bed. Sorry. Not even if you slept diagonally. I don't know a ton of girls to introduce you to either, because most either have boyfriends, are engaged, married, or are looking for a Jewish guy. If you are willing to convert though I might be able to help. I can't get you into the clubs. In fact I showed up at Marquee once wearing a full leg cast and was summarily laughed out of line. But what I will tell you is this, in this city you can make ANYTHING happen. Anything. You can sit on a stoop with a fish taco and beer, or you can be the absolute fanciest you can possibly be. This is a city with everything imaginable, tangible, non-tangible, and everything in between. It is the best city in the world and you can be the King of it…and maybe win a couple games too. Come join the party.

Sincerely,

Finger:TheBlog

Ok, I just needed to do my part in the wooing process. Lebron's official announcement is going to be crazy. I'm thinking primetime on every newschannel. I can see it being rivaled by only one event that I can remember in recent memory…The OJ verdict. When OJ was found guilty I couldn't even…wait, what? He wasn't? Are you serious. He was found not guilty? Wow. Are you sure? But he murdered those two people, did he not?

Anyway, my stint in Corporate Treasury will be coming to a close soon. Next stop, the Investment Bank, where people "stop being nice, and start being real". Or was that the Real World? Either way, I fully expect that everything I've been able to do in paragraph one, I'll be doing less of, which means in turn this blog will get better. But until then I'm going soak it up as much as I can, eat sleeves of girl scout cookies in single sittings, and run aimlessly through the streets of this city, preferably with Lebron James. Enjoy the weekend.

You scratch my creepy back…

Back in the day at Michigan I used to give a lot of advice. Was I qualified to give advice? Probably not, but people kept asking. My toughest decisions centered around whether to go Pad See Ew beef or Pad See Ew chicken, and even then I had a hard time deciding. A Supreme Court justice I am not.

To the undergraduate girls I was friends with I became what I sometimes liked to call Sketchy Uncle Finger. I often found myself walking a fine line between “I’m interested” and “I’m your guidance counselor”. I advised on everything from boy issues to career issues. I mean, this wasn’t exactly Albert Camus insight I was giving here but sometimes things just had to be said.

-Why is my boyfriend so immature and why does he think it’s okay to call me at 3am?

-Because he’s 21 and on drugs and you’re wearing a bandana as a dress and you live in Michigan and it’s February.

-Do you think I need to go back to business school?

-It really just depends on how much you like being hit on by guys with buttondowns and facial hair?

It was both an art and a science. Office hours were held from 10pm to 11pm at the back tables at Scorekeepers, and then afterwards you could probably find me on the dance floor. I jest of course…kind of.

In addition to Sketchy Uncle Finger, I also was pretty involved in more wholesome endeavors, namely helping out other MBAs in the Corporate Finance Club. (Insert nerd joke here). Basically, I found the second year MBAs to have been incredibly helpful when I was going through the process so I wanted to give back, and since there was no chance in hell that I was going to give up my Sunday evenings which was when the meetings took place, I decided I’d just meet with other MBAs to review resumes, or to prep for interviews, or to take someone out for an ice cream cone if they needed cheering up. I had managed to wrangle a summer internship and then turn that into a full-time job, and de facto I became someone people thought “knew it all”. “Knew it all” to me meant I knew how to talk to recruiters, how to not cut myself shaving, and how to throw beanbags through a circular hole in a wooden box-ish thingy on the weekends. What more to life really was there?

CORNHOLE!

So yeah, I knew it all, whatever that meant. The students I used to meet with would usually come to me wound up like a jack-in-the-box and for whatever reason I did a good job calming them down. I told everyone that everything would work out. Right off the bat their shoulders would just relax and they’d stop talking to me like some pre-programmed robot. Sometimes people needed to hear that. Shit, sometimes, I need to hear that. As I look back I think people might’ve confused my gravelly “advice voice” with a Marlo Brando Godfather-esque voice and perhaps they thought I was dispensing good advice because I literally sounded like Don Corleone…when the more likely scenario was that I’d probably been belting out the lyrics to every single rap song the night before and was simply hoarse. Either way, for whatever reason, these MBAs seemed to hang on my every word and looked at me like a dog does a TV.

oh yes you are. oh yes you are.

In fact, after one one-on-one session the girl I was speaking with asked if I’d talk to her husband, and I said sure. To this day I’m still not sure whether he was a Michigan student or just a lazy husband who needed a pep talk and a slap on the tush. Either way I was happy to help. It was the least I could do. I always felt that the vibe inside the walls of the school could sometimes be a little toxic, so if I could just get someone to talk about recruiting without having to make it so formal or so pressure-filled I would because the people who were relaxed were always the ones who got the jobs.

But I’m a suit now and “greed is good” or something like that. I still speak to Michigan students who are in the recruiting process and offer advice but now I wear my corporate hat and it's not as fun but it’s good to be involved. Truly. However, the other day I get this email from a guy who graduated in 2008. He starts off by saying that he saw my profile on the business school directory, and that while we never met, my face looks very familiar….and I start filling out the restraining order. Next he says he came across a posting for a job at my company…okay…in Houston, TX. Now, for a second I’m going to pretend that perhaps he has me confused with the famous furniture Finger family from Houston and perhaps thought I had some pull down there because of my name, although I know this is not where he’s going. Next he says that he has someone he wants to recommend for this position. A fine candidate he says (excellent), a Michigan graduate he says (excellent), a woman who has won not one, not two, but yes, three “formal recognition awards” (excellent although unclear), a woman who has outstanding references from all of her past employers (excellent), a woman who is none other than…his wife (huh?).

His wife. His wife who apparently has no hands because she cannot type an email to me herself? His wife who is too busy knitting/churning butter/tending the rabbits to write me an email herself. In 2010 I thought nobody puts Baby in the corner. I guess I’m wrong. But like all Finger: The Blog tales, this gets better. He closes with the following:

“Can you please forward her resume to the right people for her consideration for an interview opportunity. I will greatly appreciate it. In [the] future it will be my pleasure to reciprocate this favor of yours if you need”.

This works out great for me because I know that when I’m ready to lock up my wife in a subterranean dungeon in about 15 years I’ll know exactly who to call to help me built it. Part of me wanted to write back “Two words. Happy. Ending.” But I thought better of it. It’s one thing to meet someone in person, and even talk on the phone, but it’s another thing to bend over backwards for a woman with three “formal recognition awards” who has to rely on her creepy husband to tell you via email that "you have a real purty mouth”. Suddenly Sketchy Uncle Finger is looking a whole lot more wholesome.

Spring Ad Infinitum

Spring. Ad Infinitum...until, of course, summer rolls around, but until then...Spring. Live it. Love it. Rent the movie. Twice.

Perhaps you've joined the mass exodus and headed outside of your house/apartment/office/opium den to shed a layer or two and enjoy the sun. Perhaps you've taken it one step further and have gone out and up. Up as in elevation. I alluded to this back during the days of my glorious travel, but there's something about climbing up that Y-axis that really lifts people's spirits, both literally and figuratively. There's something about Spring that makes a person say, "hey, I know where we can drink..."...pause...look both ways...come in a little closer...whisper..."outside on a roof". Having been hostage to snow and sleet for so long, it seems like people aren't content with going to a bar that can simply have the windows open and some fresh air. The beginning of Spring brings out the classic "go hard or go home" attitude in many New Yorkers. It's all about patios and rooftops. But as excited as we all are let's just remember, it's not even May, people. Girl in the sundress...when the sun goes down it's going to be 40 degrees, and nobody is going to want to hear you complaining about being cold. Hipster dude with the beard in the cut-off shorts...when the sun goes down you better hope your legs can grow a beard too because you and your plaid shirt are going to be freezing. But that said, you have to love Spring in New York because there's no wading in, there's simply... "cannonball!"

"I'[m] trying this new fad called uh, jogging. I believe it's jogging or yogging. It might be a soft j. I'm not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It's supposed to be wild."

Grab a spot on your favorite roofdeck. Hunker down with a cocktail or beer and some good company, and get that 60 degree sunburn you've been thinking about since January. It's not just the humans who have caught Spring fever, it's the animal kingdom as well. What, like a coyote can't enjoy a jog or yog down the West Side Highway too. If you don't think coyotes want to look good for the beach this summer as well you are sorely mistaken.

Correctly running against the traffic, kinda...

And speaking of running down the West Side Highway...wow, who knew how awesome that is? Today was the first day I've ever run down there. A lot of grass, surprisingly, basketball courts overlooking the river, the Statue of Liberty cheering you on...still, to me, Central Park is the cat's meow, but it's just another reason why New York in the Spring cannot be beat.

But what if your thing isn't running, rooftop drinking, or petting wild coyotes. What if your thing is trying new Spring-y recipes. The market in Union Square has moved past its grey/brown/beige/boring tubers, bread, and quiche phase and is now offering stuff that has...wait for it...texture and color. You'll start to see all kinds red tomatoes and an awesome diversity of greens. Unfortunately, diversity in food can sometimes be taken a little too far.

"An Australian publisher has had to pulp and reprint a cook-book after one recipe listed "salt and freshly ground black people" instead of black pepper.

Penguin Group Australia had to reprint 7,000 copies of Pasta Bible last week, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported.

The reprint cost A$20,000 ($18,000; £12,000), but stock in bookshops will not be recalled as it is "extremely hard" to do so, Penguin said.

The recipe was for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.

"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind, and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," head of publishing Bob Sessions is quoted as saying by the Sydney newspaper.

Really Bob Sessions? Really? Do you really wonder why would someone might be offended? Personally, I prefer my food without freshly ground black people. Come to think of it, there weren't a whole lot of non-Caucasians in Australia when I was there last year and now I guess I know why. As far as I'm concerned, the first mistake was including a recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines. What, is this post-WWII Czechoslovakia? What's the appetizer to that dish, Stone Soup? I think I'd rather have a cardboard sandwich with melted cardboard on top, with a side of chipotle cardboard sauce. Somewhere Chef Boyardee is turning over in his beef ravioli-filled grave.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is Spring...yeah, get on the bandwagon, because this is when it starts to get good. Now where's my effing umbrella.