In case you were wondering, no, I actually haven't done any blogworthy cooking OR eating in the past week. Trust me. You wouldn't even want to know what I've been subsisting on.

But at least it was all seasoned.

Meet Felix Ortiz. Felix Ortiz is a fucking idiot. And I know I usually deal with fucking idiots in the other place, but Felix Ortiz has proposed a food-related War Crime, and so he shall be accused of it here. Plus, he's a New York state legislator (D-Brooklyn) and I covered dumb state legislators half of this week over at YAD.

Anyway, Felix Ortiz wants to ban restaurants in New York State from using salt.

I KNOW.

Anyone who knows the slightest bit about cooking could just leave it at that. Oh, he wants to ban salt in cooking. He's an idiot. But there is a depth and breadth to his idiocy that warrants further mockery. ACT.. um, shit. Here's what he said to Steve Barnes of the Albany Times-Union:

"I think salt should be banned in restaurants. I ask if a dish has salt in it, and if I does, I get something else that doesn’t have salt."

Now, since the article does NOT go on to quote Ortiz saying "And then, when I'm done, I ask why my dish tasted like shit.", I can only assume he is being lied to and humored by waiters and chefs who provide the dish's necessary salinity in more creative, if not health-department-approved, ways. Does this dish have salt in it. YES. All the dishes have salt in them. Everything has salt in it. That's how cooking works.  But it gets better - here's Barnes:

"Ortiz admits that prior to introducing the bill he did not research salt’s role in food chemistry, its effect on flavor or his bill’s ramifications for the restaurant industry. He tells me he was prompted to introduce the bill because his father used salt excessively for many years, developed high blood pressure and had a heart attack... he has eaten, and expects he will continue to eat, among other things, ham, cheese and bread in restaurants, all of which contain salt."

So, we have uninformed ignorant, motivated purely by emotional lashing out, and hypocritical. I think SOMEONE needs to join the Tea Party. As long as nobody tells him what's in their traditional meal of pork rind and American cheese sandwiches on Wonder Bread.