Biggie’s rhymes hum with complicated life. He took the invisible details of his world — the cry of a killed rival’s baby daughter; a lover’s orgasmic shouts of “You chicken gristle eatin’ motherf**ker!”– and made them glow so that, in between head-nods to sick beats, anyone could see his stories. And for me, never having killed a man, never having had sex good enough to require that kind of name calling, it was the little things Biggie shared that invested me in the lives lived in his rhymes. “Born sinner, the opposite of a winner, remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner,” he rapped in his breakout hit “Juicy.” The scenes and characters he crafted were vivid and real.

But when I heard him rap about cookies in “Sky’s the Limit,” Biggie Smalls became to me something truly greater than a just a wit and storyteller:

Here comes respect:
His crew’s your crew, or they might be next
‘Look at they man eye! BIG, man, they’ll never try.’
So we rolled with ‘em, stole with ‘em.
I mean loyalty: n**gaz bought me milks at lunch.
The milks was chocolate; the cookies, buttercrunch.

He was bragging about being harder than you, tougher than you, even when he was a child in school. But he was still a child. He loved his chocolate milk. He remembers the flavor of his favorite cookies. The Notorious B.I.G., this spinner of murder rhymes and playboy fantasies, made himself vulnerable. “Sky’s the Limit” is a song about how far he’d come from the street life, but it’s also a song about the innocence he lost even when he was trying hard to never be innocent at all. Under all his bluster, under the killer braggadocio of “Hunt me or be hunted: I got three hundred fifty seven ways to simmer, sauté” (“Unbelievable”), he still had his throat exposed to the world. Usually you couldn’t tell because he was rapping, straight-spittin’, but sometimes, you could see underneath and it was fleshy and soft.

There’s much more in that song — stories of how he sewed fake Izod logos onto his shirts to seem richer than he was — but it was the cookies, buttercrunch, that made me understand food’s potency as a symbol, its ability to bridge enormous gaps between him, his characters, and the listener, whether that listener hustled on his corner or was a Chinese kid from the suburbs. Everyone can imagine the horror of hunger, the anger it can engender. Everyone, no matter how hardened, can remember the foods that defined their childhood. And everyone knows, whether you are eating sardines or lobster, that what you eat and what you want to eat says much about you.

For years, I tried to listen to other tapes in my little suburban family sedan, but I would just keep going back to the Black Rhinoceros of Rap, listening to him drop unexpectedly like bird shit. He died 13 years ago today. He was 24. I knew then I would never get to see him grow as an artist, and only years later would I realize how I’d learn from him. I just kept playing him in my car, and I let my tape rock until my tape popped.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A collection of Biggie’s finest food rhymes

Biggie was a funny man, and he mastered the silliness of sex and food. Back to “Juicy”:

The Moet and Alizé keep me pissy
Girls used to diss me
Now they write letters ’cause they miss me
I never thought it could happen, this rappin’ stuff
I was too used to packin’ gats and stuff
Now honies play me close like butter played toast
From the Mississippi down to the East Coast

And he built a legacy in masterpieces of carnal seduction like “Big Poppa”:

We can rendezvous at the bar around two.
Plans to leave, throw the keys to Lil’ Cease.
Pull the truck up front and roll up the next blunt,
So we can steam on the way to the telly. Go fill my belly –
A T-bone steak, cheese eggs and Welch’s grape.
Conversate for a few, ’cause in a few, we gon’ do what we came to do.
Ain’t that right, Boo? (True.)

I mean, if he can make your girl leave you for that level of romance, what couldn’t he do? Outside of sex appeal (when “b**ches used to go, ‘Ewww!’”) Biggie also rapped often about his fabulous wealth, invoking culinary luxuries, like here, in “Hypnotize”:

I can fill ya wit real millionaire shit: escargot.
My car go
160, swiftly. Wreck it, buy a new one –
Your crew run run run; your crew run run.

And just imagine him, all 300-plus pounds, lazy eye and top hat, rollin’ through his English gardens, contemplating seafood as he does in “I Love the Dough”:

Country house, tennis courts, and horseback
Ridin’, decidin’: cracked crab or lobster?
Who says mobsters don’t prosper?

His language was his weapon against the world, and so he bragged with ferocious skill. No detail, no material, ever escaped his eye or its place in his quiver. He was a rapper who didn’t have to rely on street slang because his eye for detail in the larger world was so acute. This is from a freestyle with DJ Mister Cee:

All it’s taking, is some marijuana and I’m making
MCs break fast, like flapjacks and bacon.

But he was always clear on his relationship with hunger. This is from “Things Done Changed”:

If I wasn’t in the rap game
I’d probably have a key, knee deep in the crack game
Because the streets is a short stop
Either you’re slingin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot
Shit, it’s hard being young from the slums
Eatin’ five-cent gums not knowin’ where your meal’s comin’ from. 

The most fascinating of these photos is called “Pig Cafeteria”:

The caption reads:

“The Pig Cafeteria” was an exhibit produced by the Department of Agriculture to educate farmers about new methods of farming and raising livestock — specifically, what to feed pigs so that they would be healthy and profitable.

So maybe it’s just poor word choice, because when I see Wilbur here licking his lips and holding out his plate at a Pig Cafeteria, I assume that he will be in for a sad and delicious shock, smothered in barbeque sauce. But maybe Pig Cafeterias are just cafeterias for pigs, not serving them — the way we call where kids eat lunch “Human Cafeterias.”

Definitely check out the rest of the exhibit up in the Times, especially the poster demanding “Eat The Carp”:

Or the kind nurses that come to your home and tell you about the benefits of this “dairy product”:

Man, the past looks totally terrifying and not at all tasty. I’ll take Reagan’s “Catsup is a vegetable” decision* over carp demands or pushy milk women any day. 

*Yes, I know it didn’t actually go down quite like that.

“Get me the New Yorker!” I hear you screaming at your personal assistant/GOOP editor (?)/Chris Martin, “I will teach them who is the most grandiloquent food celebrity of modern culture!”

And congratulations, Gwyneth. You did it. Lizzie Widdicombe’s article “Gwyneth’s World: Gwyneth Paltrow, Movie Star and Domestic Goddess“so turgidly describes your latest dinner party with Jay-Z, Michael Stipe, the Seinfelds, Christy Turlington and a bunch of other famous people that I wanted to crumple up my edition of the magazine and throw it across a steam room. But I can’t. Because I don’t have a steam room, and also I don’t have a copy of the New Yorker. Some of us aren’t made of crisp, lemon-scented money, Gwyneth!

Anyway, if I had to pick the five most offensive parts of this article (which is difficult because it is short, and also if I say “all of it” then I’m stuck with four blank spaces), it would have to start with the duck sentence.

1. (Seriously, with no context whatsoever):

Michael Stipe added, “Once, a duck she was cooking caught fire, and she threw it in the pool.”

2. Mary Elizabeth Williams’ piece about the hot new trend of stick-thin actresses getting idealized as some giant food processing machine is definitely embodied here: 

“She eats like a truck driver,” (Mario Batali) said of Paltrow. He recalled being in Valencia, Spain, and “watching her eat an entire pan of paella as big as a manhole cover.”

3. Christy Turlington knows what will happen if she speaks ill against the Paltrow/Martin family:

“They do everything themselves, including the killing of the lobster,” she said. “It’s not the boiling-in-the-pot-and-screaming lobster thing. It’s a different, faster approach. I could never do it.”

“You smack it against a tree or something?” Batali asked.

“You stick a knife through the head,” said Turlington, who seemed suddenly troubled.

4. Why would anyone give quotes like this to the press?

Wendi Murdoch, sitting nearby, had said that she is a reader of Paltrow’s blog: “Only one thing comes to mind — healthy and organic.” She listed her favorite recipes: “Pumpkin soup, grilled market vegetables. It’s good. I get my chef to cook it.”

“But you’re directing the chef,” Kelly Behun, a friend of Murdoch’s, interjected.

5. And, of course, no party at Gwyneth Paltrow’s is complete without the slavish groveling:

Jessica Seinfeld made a toast … she turned to the assembled guests. “And you are all so lucky to be part of Gwyneth’s world. Because this is the real deal. And she’s invited all of you good people in here. I would never do that.”

Emphasis hers, naturally.

“As Jessica opened the jar, I saw her immediately. She was literally lying there staring back at me,” Wesley told The Telegraph, making no bones about the fact that he was trying to cash in on Middleton’s upcoming marriage to Prince William. “Given that the royal wedding is only a few weeks away, we hope to make a few pounds out of it by selling it on the internet to a collector.”

So far, the jelly bean hasn’t been listed up on Ebay’s site yet, despite my constant refreshing of the auction’s page. My theory? The queen just found herself the perfect wedding present for the newlyweds.

“The point is to learn to control everything at the coffee bar — the beans, the roast, the right grind, the water, the timing, the machine — everything. So part of that means learning how milk behaves, and how to control it,” says Ken Nye, owner of Ninth Street Espresso, and the man many credit with popularizing latte art in New York City.

And controlling the milk means, in short (because it can get very, very long), to 1) heat it up, which brings out its sugars, 2) “stretch” and infuse it with air, inflating it like whipped cream and 3) “roll” it to pop all the bubbles. If you get it right, you have a “microfoam” of thick, sweet, glossy milk that can hold its form when poured into espresso, allowing the barista to shape and stream it into lovely, graceful, whimsical designs. Well-textured milk tastes like magic, creamy but light. It has a visible sheen and makes a splat, like oil paint, when spilled. It’s miles away from the stiff, dry foam that floats on top of many a chain-coffee cup.

“It’s really not easy,” Nye says. “It’s a good first sign for your drink, because the barista’s taken the care and effort to learn the skill.” (“But,” he’s quick to add, “it’s one point of a complex process. It doesn’t really tell you anything about how properly made the coffee itself is, or how the drink is going to taste.”)

A CONTEST FOR YOU, WITH PRIZES!

To celebrate this aspect (yes, it’s just one point, but it’s a fun point!) of the coffee arts, we’d love for you to show us the handiwork of your favorite coffee slingers. Snap some pictures of your favorite baristas’ latte art skills and send them to us. We’ll pick our favorite shots, and the top five entries will win fabulous prizes from Bodum, makers of super-sweet, design-y coffee gear.

Four winners will get a set of Canteen insulated glasses, made of wonderful-to-hold, super-light borosilicate glass. (No, I’m not shilling; I just date an architect whose geekiness about materials rubs off.) One super-extra winner will get the Canteen glasses and a classic Chambord French press. And, if you’d be so kind, please go and “Like” Bodum’s Facebook page. Yes, I am shilling now, but they’re kind enough to hand out some sweet prizes for our goofy little contest, so why not? Winners will be chosen purely based on the subjective whim of our staff judges!

HOW TO ENTER

Take a picture — or several, or many — of latte art, and email it to: coffee@salon.com. Please include the name of the coffee shop, date, and time you took the picture, and, if you’d like, the name of the barista who created the art. (Don’t you like to see people recognized for their work?) By sending us the photo, you grant us permission to publish it on Salon.

Photos must be 400 x 600 minimum size, 72 dpi, but bigger is better. Please put “Foaming at the mouth” as the subject line of the email. And please know that by sending these photos in, you’re agreeing to give us permission to publish them on Salon.

All entries must be received by 1 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, April 6, 2011. Winners will be announced Monday, April 11.

Francis Lam

Latte art by Trey Wrange / Ninth Street Espresso

Francis Lam

Latte art by Trey Wrange / Ninth Street Espresso

Francis Lam

Latte art by Trey Wrange / Ninth Street Espresso

Ross Satchell

Latte art by Ross Satchell / Naidre’s Cafe, Brooklyn

Even after a month he was energetic and spry, with remarkably lower cholesterol, but, as you might expect, matters of the body and matters of the mind are not so simple. That is to say, he was going bonkers from eating nothing but seven pounds of potatoes each day, desperately finding no-calorie ways to flavor them and hitting bottom when he stole a co-worker’s packets of Taco Bell hot sauce. He posted on his blog distressing cries for help like, “One of those days where you really wonder what the heck you’re doing. While I know I love potatoes, it was hard to keep eating them. I hung in there but I was the star of my own little pity party yesterday.”

And what did we do? Sit back and enjoy his descent into madness, of course! And now, enjoy part two of Chris Voigt’s trip to gustatory purgatory.

10/26

I just got back from my first trip away from home while on this diet. Must remember to prepare better! Nearly starved! I broke into a small emergency stash of instant potatoes I had with me for breakfast, had 3 small bags of chips and 1 baked potato for lunch, and an order of fries at McD’s for dinner.

Ah yes, travel, when you see the breadth of the world, when you stretch the boundaries of your imagination, when you immerse yourself in other cultures and live and breathe and taste the way they see the world. Or when you cash out your emergency stash of mashed potato powder.

10/28

It was career day at my son’s school yesterday. We talked about how plants grow, where potatoes originated from, and we cut open a bunch of different varieties to show them what they looked like inside. When my son is asked about what I do for a living, his response … “He eats potatoes.”

A few days before this, Voigt referred to his son as his “little spud,” and I worried for the boy, figuring it must be a hint that he intends to eat him. People laughed at me. But look at this contemptuous resentment! This is a proud, crazy-proud man, and his son denigrates him so. You won’t be laughing when you read the whole shocking story in the paper, people.

10/29

I want to move to Ireland! If anyone knows how to speed up plate tectonics so that we can get Ireland closer to the Pacific Time Zone in the US, please let me know!

OK, maybe he’s given up on travel completely.

10/29

One of my co-workers has this incredible mom who brings in all sorts of goodies. Today it was Halloween treats for all, even me! Thanks Sandy for the Spuds! I held a cupcake to my nose while I ate my potatoes to see if I could trick my brain.

I remember once, when I had a headache — the kind of headache where all that exists in the world is throbbing pain, where it feels like your skull is about to split open and maybe you’d prefer it that way — I thought about punching a wall to distract myself from the hurt in my head. I decided not to, because it would have been stupid. But it would not have been nearly as heartbreakingly sad as this.

11/3

The meeting planner went out of her way to make sure the banquet staff provided me potato dishes that were acceptable to my diet. LOL, it took them a little while to figure it out. Their first try was a potato quiche, told them I couldn’t eat it so they next brought out mashed potatoes made with butter and milk. Already starving and unwilling to wait for another round of something I probably couldn’t eat, I said, just throw a bunch of spuds in the microwave and bring them out. They happily complied.

 Yes, but probably not before they spit all over your lunch.

11/19

Just in case I’m subjected to a lie detector test at some point, I have to come clean on 3 incidents. There were 3 separate times in the previous 50 days where I was making my kids lunch, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and without thinking, it was more of a reflex move, I licked clean the peanut or jelly that had gotten on my fingers. Its been bugging me so I needed to share.

OK, so my excuse is that I was out of the country with family when he posted this, but for all the people who have been reading his blog: How did no one put this man on a suicide watch? Is this not a “now I lay me down to sleep” moment?

11/22

Tomorrow is a special day at our little office. My co-workers have decided they will join me for one day of eating just potatoes! This moral support will help me as I head into our Thanksgiving holiday.

The first rule of Potato Club is: You do not talk about Potato Club.

But later, in the comments, he notes:

Maybe we’re rushing to judgement on the supportive attitude my co-workers have in my office. I thought I smelt a latte on someone’s breath!

The first rule of brainwashing is: You demand absolute purity.

11/23

Not sure if you noticed, we posted a new video. I can’t say who’s in it because of the restraining order, but I think you might recognize him from one of the past Olympics or maybe as the winner of Dancing with the Stars.

OK PEOPLE, HE JUST TALKED ABOUT A RESTRAINING ORDER.

11/24

Many folks are wondering what I’m going to be eating for Thanksgiving. Well, the obvious answer is potatoes. But with a twist! Instead of a juicy tender turkey, I will be eating mashed potatoes that were shaped into the form of a turkey by my two kids. We will then brush the fake turkey with some oil and put it in the oven so that it will have a nice brown crisp skin, just like a real turkey. And of course my vegetable of choice will be mashed potatoes with fake gravy. We will be making fake gravy out of a bouillon cube and will use potato starch to thicken it up. And for dessert, fake pumpkin pie! We’ll take some mashed potatoes, again, and color it orange with food dye, add some pumpkin pie seasoning and put it into a pie pan. Yummy!!!

Presented without comment.

11/29

Staying up late tonight, the last night of my diet. I’m doing several interviews, a couple for the BBC and one in Ireland. The diet will end in about 20 minutes. So I’m thinking about what tomorrow will look like … a return to other foods. And all of a sudden I get this weird vibe … like I’m not going to be able to break away from my potato diet! Kind of like a version of the Stockholm Syndrome where I have bonded with the captor I’ve had for the last 60 days and I can’t leave him … or maybe its a her … doesn’t matter, the point is I’m not sure I can stop. It reminds me of the quote from the Kevin Costner movie, Bull Durham, “A player on a streak has to respect the streak”. I have a 60 day streak going. Its going to be a little weird to break it. LOL, instead of a physical exam today, maybe it should have been a mental one!

Presented without comment.

11/30

It’s funny because I still have yet to eat something else besides potatoes. I’ve been a little busy this morning so I wasn’t able to pack a lunch or breakfast. But the fridge in our office still had a couple of my potato only dishes. So guess what I had for my first meal at the end of the diet. Potatoes! Hopefully that will change later today. And I bet there will still be potatoes tonight, but with something on them or with them!

Presented, finally, oh my God, without comment.