![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Decadent-ice-cream-IMG_27361.jpg\" "\\"Decadent")
<\/a><\/p>\nA stroll through the grocery store illustrates how marketers use basically meaningless terms to try and capture your attention.\u00a0 Safeway\u2019s cookies and deserts use multiple different strategies to hope that one resonates with the customer.\u00a0 In addition to decadent, cookies and desserts are variously describes as home-style, indulgent or gourmet.\u00a0 Adding an international flair seems to be another strategy.\u00a0 We have Belgian<\/em> style \u00e9clairs, and cookies with Canadian<\/em> maple syrup and cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e that is imported from France.\u00a0 The trio of accent marks on cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e is a nice touch, but personally importing a dessert consisting of eggs, butter and cr\u00e8me would leave an inappropriate carbon footprint.\u00a0 To me it is discouraging that these strategies work \u2013 last week on an impulse Nick picked up a pie at the grocery store with the label \u201cFrench silk pie with whipped topping and decadent chocolate.\u201d\u00a0 Upon further review, French silk was just a come-on since the pie was made from some sort of faux chocolate, the whipped topping was not cream, and the decadent chocolate referred only to the little chocolate shavings decorating the top.\u00a0<\/p>\n A restaurant menu is another fertile ground for word dissection; I have found that almost every ingredient comes with an often meaningless adjective.\u00a0 If you go to the local diner, the menu might just list BLT, and the gum snapping waitress with the nicotine breath asks if you want in on wheat or white, toasted or not.\u00a0 As you move upward in the restaurant world, the description of the BLT gets increasingly pretentious until you get something along the lines of:<\/p>\n \u201cHand-carved apple-wood smoked bacon, a medley of crisp seasonal field greens, vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes, topped with home-made aioli-infused mayonnaise, served on artisan multi-grained seminola bread.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0You have just moved from a $5.00 to $15.00 sandwich with a marginal improvement in taste.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The word artisan now seems to be getting a workout on restaurant menus to create the image of something locally unique, food that is crafted on a small scale.\u00a0 Similar to decadent, the word has a specific meaning to me that is best illustrated by the following scene:<\/p>\n Antoinette rarely looked into the mirror as she got dressed, but instead focused on her wedding picture from 50 years ago, when she was young and almost pretty and that mole on her left cheek had not grown so big and sprouted two hairs, one stiff and bent, the other limply hanging down.\u00a0 Now she was shortened and stooped by the hard work of mothering 11 of her 13 surviving children, and saddened by the death of her husband \u00c9tienne in a threshing accident 10 years ago.\u00a0 Since that time, she had only worn a dark blue or black knitted shirt and skirt.\u00a0 While she always wore thick black stockings outside, at home she shuffled around in slippers, revealing twisted varicose veins, thickly calloused heels and yellowed toenails.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wednesday was always market day, when she brought ingredients for her bread.\u00a0 Antoinette was always greeted warmly in the shops and occasionally villagers would peek over at her as she shopped, since many were convinced that she had a secret ingredient in her bread.\u00a0 Her bread was locally famous and she had been asked for the recipe many times, but had always refused.\u00a0 Even her daughters, cooking beside here, could not produce the signature bread.\u00a0 When her children and grandchildren gathered together on holidays, she baked for several days and the smell of her bread wafted through the entire town.\u00a0 Bread brought the family together.\u00a0 All 27 would crowd into the kitchen, dining room and living room reminiscing as they dipped their bread into olive oil, slathered it with butter, made turkey stuffing or French toast.\u00a0<\/p>\n Once day Antoinette was sitting in the kitchen as her youngest granddaughter Colette played under the table.\u00a0 \u201cRegarde, Grandm\u00e8re, regarde!\u00a0 Your foot looks just like your bread!\u00a0 And indeed it \u201cGo ahead and call it Pain du Pied, Maman.\u00a0 Let\u2019s give it a special name in case you get famous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Suzette was very savvy and trademarked the name, and then took the bread to the nearby restaurant.\u00a0 Pierre, the manager at the restaurant, had always thought that Suzette was tr\u00e8s jolie, so he agreed to serve the bread on a trial basis.\u00a0 In a historic coincidence, that very night a secret food critic was eating at the restaurant since his car had broken down on the way to the Michelin 2 star restaurant in the neighboring town.\u00a0 The next day, the critic trumpeted his discovery in his column, \u00a0swooning over the perfect crustiness that gave way to the perfect interior chewiness, with a sweet yet sour \u201cje ne sais quoi.\u201d\u00a0 Pain du Pied went viral and soon the small town was overflowing with eager gourmands, who eventually awarded the restaurant 3 Michelin stars, but also warned that if the bread was not available, the meal was ordinary at best.\u00a0 Suzette, whose husband owned the restaurant, and whose boyfriend was the chef, begged her mother to expand her operations, get a commercial kitchen, hire bakers, and create a \u201cdu Pied\u201d franchise.\u00a0 But Antoinette refused, stating that each loaf was an individual work of art that could not be compromised.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n So there it is; that is, or at least was the definition of an artisan.\u00a0 Now I have seen references to \u201cartisan salt,\u201d good old NaCL, has gotten the VIP treatment.\u00a0 And Starbucks is featuring an \u201cArtisan Breakfast Sandwich.\u201d\u00a0 When I asked one of the baristas what this meant, she just shrugged her shoulders and suggested that it was an empty marketing term.\u00a0 Worldwide, \u00a0Starbucks now has some 16,000 stores around the globe, and each is potentially offering artisan sandwiches, a scale that must outstrip even the most generous definition of artisan.\u00a0 Much like gourmet and decadent, marketing has sucked the life out of another lovely English word.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The chefs descended on the village where the old woman was ——– *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n * As someone who enjoys fiddling around with words, I have always found in interesting to consider how food is described, either on menus or on packaged goods.\u00a0 Here the copywriter has a very limited space to convey as many messages … Continue reading <\/a> did.\u00a0 The thick white and cracked calloused heel looked like the lightly floured tops of the bread.From that day forward, the bread was called \u201cPain du Pied.\u201d\u00a0 As the family spread farther and farther, there were many weeks where Antoinette had nobody to bake for, and her daughter Suzette suggested that Antoinette could supply the bread to the local restaurants.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (i.e. like post, spot, stop) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters.\u00a0 One of the anagrams will rhyme with either the preceding or following line.\u00a0 Your job is to solve the missing words based on the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.<\/h6>\n
\n\u00a0
\nIn the hopes that they could coax her into confiding
\n\u00a0
\nThe magic recipe for her bread, or at the very least
\n\u00a0
\nA ——- seat to watch her work magic with yeast.
\n\u00a0
\nDespite their best offers and all the dealing and conspiring
\n\u00a0
\nShe refused to divulge the one thing that they were ——–.
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0*<\/p>\n
\nResiding, ringside, desiring<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"