Andre Ethier eats it

Pax Arcana

It appears as though Manny Ramirez’s strident intellectual curiosity and taste for the finer things have rubbed off on his teammate Andre Ethier.

The third-year outfielder was profiled in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, but not for his playing ability or fiscal acumen. Instead, it turns out Ethier is quite the foodie:

Mr. Ethier knows where to find the best throat-meat tacos in Los Angeles, the juiciest Salvadoran papusas and the city’s tastiest Romanian chicken stew. He waxes poetic about the pinto beans in his native Arizona, where they’re often pureed with cream and lard. “Here they want you to taste the bean, not the lard, which is… different.”

Ethier, who latched on to food writing as a distraction from the pressures of being a young and handsome millionaire, even has a food blog of his own — called Dining with Dre:

Mr. Ethier says he modeled his blog on his favorite foodie journal, “Feasting in Phoenix.” Each entry is structured chronologically as if the experience occurred in a single night, though it’s usually an amalgam of several visits. “I take a little creative liberty,” he says.

After taking pictures of each dish and composing the text on his iPhone over several weeks, he sends the finished piece to the Dodgers’ vice president of communications Josh Rawitch, who does nothing more than clean up typos and check his grammar and punctuation. Maggie Ethier says she was surprised to learn that her husband — who earned a C in creative writing in college — had such a clever way with words.

There are more reviews in the works: one of an Ethiopian dive, the other of a Korean barbecue joint. Mr. Ethier says he’s planning to write a culinary guide to Phoenix for Dodgers fans, now that the team is moving its spring-training operations there.

Hmmmmm. Interesting. Let’s get a sample of what he writes about over there:

I have developed a liking for Japanese food since I have had many a great dining experience with Takashi Saito and his native cuisine. When one might think of Japanese food, everyone always comes up with sushi. I know I did until I went to a few authentic Japanese places with Takashi and got the chance to experience the true Japanese food.

I was introduced to Shabu Hachi by Takashi a  few weeks ago. It sits on Olympic in Santa Monica in one of those oh-so-typical LA corner strip malls. From the outside, you have two Japanese restaurants to choose from – one being the typical sushi place and Shabu Hachi, a place offering up some of the best shabu shabu I have had and I think Takashi would agree.

I think when I speak for all food-interested bloggers when I say the following:

Fuck you, Andre Ethier. You fucking fuckface.

I’m sure you think it’s awesome to eat rosemary-speared rounds of foie gras off of naked supermodels. And I bet there are all kinds of awesome places to find fun shit to eat when you’ve got fucking hundred dollar bills spilling out of your perfect-fitting designer fucking jeans.

Well listen close, dipshit, because I don’t want to have to yell — I don’t get to OPS .846 in the majors, so you don’t get to write frivolous bullshit on the Internet. This is my world, dickhole, a haven for guys whose dreams of swatting at major league fastballs have already been crushed. Blogging about stupid crap is our refuge from the pain of our epic failure to have your life, you throbbing hairy ball sack. So take your movie star good looks and get the fuck out.

Oh, and if I see one goddamn post about zombies or vikings, I will not hesitate to rally some pipe-hitting bloggers from Perk is a Beast to fucking firebomb the shit out of your adorable little blog. Get it, fuckface?

Thank you.

The Dugout Gourmet [WSJ]
Dining with Dre [Home]