Image Grenade

I didn’t cry, but I did feel a sense of loss on Sunday morning when I heard of Jade Goody’s death.

Stephen Fry via Twitter may have put it best, ” I suppose she was a kind of Princess Di from the wrong side of the tracks….” He further reminded us that “ Jade lived life under a magnifying glass. Magnifying glasses magnify (obviously) but they distort and they burn.”

Yes, they do.

True, she was brash, loud, and described herself as ignorant, but she also managed to use her final days to gather, quite selflessly, enough money to provide her sons with a top notch education, and put a very public face on cervical cancer and the need for early screenings.

She wasn’t Mother Theresa but she wasn’t Satan either. Like most of us, she fell somewhere in between and, when she is laid to rest on April 4th, I’ll choose to remember the girl from Bermondsey, with a tough start in life, who had more ambition that simply to become a sad statistic; the progeny of a drug addict and a habitual criminal.

She parlayed the 15 minutes of celebreality, into authoring a cookbook, becomming the star of her own fitness DVD and purveyor of perfume.

It may not have been a long life, it may not have been an ideal life, but it was hers and for better or worse,  her celebrity and the way it polarized a country, impacted so very many of us.

What with trying to do the work of two people at the office, adding extra work outs before I’m in a swimming cossie on the shores of Cornwall and life in general, I haven’t had much of a chance to blog. But some days a subject so near and dear to your heart, fills you with such joy and rapture, you simply have to address it.

That passion, foie gras!!  

While some are eschewing this culinary delight on the grounds of the inhumane over feeding practices, there are those of us who would eat it, even if I had to cram the food down the throat of a goose with my own little caribou tan hands. Foie Gras to me, is akin to donuts to Homer Simpson.

(cue the head tossed back, river of drool from right corner of mouth.)

 “Ummmm Fwah Grah!!”  

So it should be no surprise on the first night of Philly’s Foie Gras week, that yours truly is headed out to some of Philly’s finest bars, boítes and bistros, risking weight gain and elevated cholesterol in order to sup on the delicacy. Seventeen restaurants in the city are participating in the event and each will offer a plate of the orgasmic offal for just $5. So it you’re a connoisseur or a novitiate, this budget price could tempt anyone to give it a go; unless you’re a rampant vegetarian. Should that be the case, Sod off, more for me!!  

Participating restaurants include, Alfa, Bar Ferdinand, Bibou, Bistrot la Minette, Caribou Cafe, Izumi, London Grill, Meme, Mercato, Positano Coast, Saute, Time, Valanni, Vintage, Xochitl, Zinc and Zot. For links to the restaurants and addresses visit http://foiegrasweek.blogspot.com