Desperate foodies

Along with half the western world, it seems, I have succumbed to the fever that is Desperate Housewives. Intrigued by the hype that DH would be a Sex and the City / Twin Peaks mashup, I watched the first episode and was hooked. Though it hasn't really lived up to its promise, it's still the only other TV show I record so as not to miss it (the other is the Eastenders omnibus).

Being a foodie, I couldn't resist this review of DH in last month's The Observer Food Monthly. "Desperate Housewives is all about food," The Observer declared.

"At the wake of a suicidal Alpha housewife, for example, each of our main characters arrives bearing a dish which offers a deeper insight into her life. We meet Bree (Brie?), who brings colour-coded baskets of exquisite foodstuffs, trails the family she's neglected totally in pursuit of domestic excellence in her wake (to Bree, cooking isn't an expression of love, it's what she does instead); and who tries to kill her husband with a rogue onion. We meet Susan, who equates her inability to cook with deeper failings, and who doesn't blame her husband for leaving her because of it. Ex-career gal Lynette, who has exchanged a gleeful shimmy up the career ladder for motherhood, and who is now forced to buy her fried chicken from a grease-bucket takeaway. Trashy, flashy, slutty divorcee Edie, who specialises in fluffy, sugar-dusted desserts, which impress in the short term, but ultimately prove to be sickly and empty of nutritional value. Food as psychology, see?

"But that's all a bit subtle for me. I have a honed instinct for these things, and have already gleaned the core lesson of Desperate Housewives. And it's this: people who are obsessed by food, people who can cook, or care about cooking, are messed up, bad, or dead; those that aren't, can't or don't, are fun-loving, human and good. See Mary Alice (waffle maker) - dead. Susan (Teri Hatcher, burner of macaroni cheese) - most sympathetic character by far. Bree (obsessive chef) - murderous and miserable. Lynette (too harassed to fry chicken) - funny, spirited, admirable. I applaud this sentiment."

Other links today:

+ Craig's List London. When did this launch? How did I miss it? The best online classifieds here at last.

+ Tomoko Takahashi at the Serpentine. Thanks for the tip-off Hypatia.

+ David Bryne is in New Zealand. I wanna go, I wanna go!