Deconstructed fish sticks and half a crouton
Marching my honey bun army to every Eat'n Park this side of the Mon
I don’t often start a newsletter with this, but it feels right today, so …
1. Worst game of culinary Clue EVER
Let’s start with the thing that angered me. Lit the flames of rage in my cheeks, my heart … my ears. I’m already mostly deaf; I can’t afford to lose any more hearing due to the insufferably arrogant actions of high-horsed tweezer-chef Kevin Sousa.
I’m glad I had a week. I’m glad I had time to calm down, to not immediately pound into my poor keyboard every shred of ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW until I was spent of indignation and Mint Milanos. No. I publish on Wednesday. I will wait until then. So I had a week. To think. Walk. Ponder. Read. Empathize. So here I am, one week later, all the other hot takes already given by other Pittsburghers, sitting at my keyboard, and guess what? I’m still mad. But I am going to express it more calmly. So that you’ll know, that he will know, this isn’t hasty or spontaneous or ill-thought-out. No. She spent a week. She means every single word. This is deliberate. These written arrows aren’t fired into the sky; they are aimed with intention.
Kevin Sousa and Megan Sousa have left Mount Oliver Bodega, now known as M.O.B. The restaurant and wine bar opened in October. “RE360 hired us to open a restaurant — and that we did. While we would have liked to have remained on board with this project beyond just opening consultants, the relationship between our vision and RE360’s were no longer aligned,” Megan Sousa wrote in an emailed statement.
“Opened in October.” I know time has no meaning, but, yinz, we are in early December. Do you need help with the math? You can do it on one hand. The answer is two. TWO. A new record for a Sousical (noun — the act of opening a wildly overpriced trendy restaurant in a distressed neighborhood, racking up debt, then leaving others with the bill while deflecting all blame).
Let’s unpack this. First, he had his wife give the statement then declined public comment. You know why? Fear. Fear of backlash. Fear of ridicule. Fear of incredulity. He will deny this. He will say, “I’m not afraid.” That is a lie. He is a coward. No one should have given that statement but Kevin Sousa, but Kevin Sousa doesn’t take responsibility. Kevin deflects, blames, makes excuses, and pouts and looks outward when the situation achingly calls for maturity and introspection.
Second, now that they’ve left another restaurant, he and his wife are trying to paint themselves as having been merely “opening consultants.” THE. AUDACITY. Luckily, I have receipts. Let’s look at them.
The Mount Oliver Bodega is a collaboration between Mr. Sousa, his wife, Meg, and longtime friend Chris Clark. It is the first project under the banner of their new Tribute Hospitality Group. “For the first time, I’m getting emotional about food,” he said. “I smelled a pizza that I made last night, and it was the first real ‘Ratatouille’ moment … Suddenly, I’m a chubby kid again, mad at my mother because she made me walk to Church of the Mother of Sorrows in the rain to get pizza, and that smell was like that pizza.”
“I spent six weeks packing my life away and moving out here, specifically because I believe in it,” he said. …. “I stepped foot into the space on the first day and we started comparing notes and everything was almost line for line, the same ideas. That's what coming home feels like.”
I’m over myself. Fifteen years ago I still felt like I probably had something to prove, I wanted to (have) a special occasion restaurant,” he said. “I want people to feel like they can celebrate here, but I also want people to feel like they can stop in and grab a slice of beautiful Sicilian pizza … and get on with their day.
Where? Where, Kevin, do you tell us you’re just the opening consultant? Nowhere. It’s you. Yours. Your place. Your home. Your restaurant. Your passion for your ancestors’ food. You’ve taken possession via possessives over and over again, but now that you’ve walked away from the project two months later, it’s suddenly theirs. Them. Not me. I was just the opening consultant. I never planned to stay that long. Deflect. Excuse. Vomit verbal garbage and hope it smells like toasted cinnamon foam on top of half a crouton.
Eventually Kevin broke his silence.
“Currently laughing at your frustrations.”
Whew. That is when my eyebrows spontaneously combusted and my face caught fire. Not an appeal for empathy. Not a reminder that we don’t know the whole story. Not an explanation offered to those whose continued support he takes advantage. No. He’s laughing. At you. At your anger, your frustration, your questions. He’s laughing at everyone who knew this was coming and everyone who gave him another chance.
He goes on:
He immediately pivots to love but does so in condescending fashion. Do you know what this is? You do, but you’re having trouble putting a name to it. Your finger is searching for the word so you can tap it and say, “Oh. There. That’s what that is.” I’m going to tell you … manipulation. Classic manipulation and its life-partner gaslighting. It’s not me; it’s you. You’re confused. I didn’t really do anything. You’re mad over nothing and I’m laughing about it. But I love you, I do. But you’re crazy. You’re the problem here, not me. I love you but I’m mad at you for being mad at me over the bad thing I did.
He is that which many in our divided culture have increasingly become. When an action or expressed thought receives pushback or anger, don’t apologize; claim it. Say, Hahahah. I love angering people. Look at all the angry people LOL. So predictable. So triggered. You know who does that? Twitter politicians. Abusers. Manipulators. Gaslighters. Racists. Wendy f—king Bell. That’s who Kevin Sousa has become, or rather, that’s who he always was and we are just now putting the label on it.
It has to end here. No more money. No more community goodwill in the hopes he’s about to create something good for a neighborhood whose better days are behind them and want of new prosperity in front of them. No more failing upward just to push the blame outward when the fall happens downward. No more community money. No more Kickstarters. We are no longer playing this game of Culinary Clue to see what he will do next in what distressed neighborhood with what trendy old-timey misnomer serving what overpriced food.
Kevin Sousa with a “Speakeasy” in Blawnox selling 40-dollar plates of mac n’ cheese.
Kevin Sousa with a “Saloon” in Homewood selling 35-dollar deconstructed fish sticks.
Kevin Sousa with a “Thermopolium” in Larimer selling hundred-dollar gold-dusted fried tater skins.
I hope I didn’t just give him three ideas. No. It’s time for Pittsburgh to tap out on him. There are other chefs who deserve money and chances. Other culinary masters who have too long toiled in his media-darling shadow. Take away the descriptors — “Famed.” “Acclaimed.” “Renowned.” “Star.” They are no longer his. It’s time for us and the media to lift up other chefs and make them our new stars. Kevin’s light here has now burned out and not even the smoldering embers of his empty promises are worth the hope for warmth they once provided. Leave him where he is. Leave him to his laughter. Because as he himself admitted, it’s us he’s been laughing at all along.
2. Let’s sing Sweet Caroline at the Acropolis
I’ve become a bit obsessed with my father’s alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh. Yes, it’s partly due to my new volleyball obsession and yes, it’s partly due to Kenny Pickett (Hello, bandwagon, I am here; let me on. I have giant margaritas.), but also, it’s the story. The history. The lore. While deep in the archives, hunting down pics of classes and students in action back when it was still Western University of Pennsylvania (not to be confused with the new stupidly named Pennsylvania Western University), I stumbled upon this new-to-me but probably familiar to some of you, vision of what the campus was to become. Behold, the Acropolis Plan:
Holy. Forking. Socratic. Shirtballs. It’s so much. It’s the most much that ever muched. It’s like much had sex with more and more much was born. This plan by Palmer and Hornbostel was chosen in 1908 after a committee considered over 60 campus designs submitted by architecture firms. (Palmer and Hornbostel also designed Soldiers & Sailors, several CMU structures, and the City-County building.)
The plan, chosen unanimously, was to sit on a 43-acre site (up where the Pete is) and take twenty years to build at the cost of $20 million — over half a billion in today’s dollars. The highest building in the center was to house the administration offices and an assembly hall. I did my best to understand where everything was set to be based on an April 14, 1908 article in The Pittsburgh Post:
The plans called for a moving staircase/funicular (drink!) that ran under the buildings from the engineering school to the admin building, with stops along the way. How cool. Obviously, this plan was never fully realized, partly due to cost and partly due to unstable land undercut with old coal mines emitting smoke from fires that still burned. The only buildings finished were Thaw Hall (1910), Pennsylvania Hall (1911), State Hall (1909), and the Mineral Industries Building (1912). Only Thaw remains.
As the plan was gradually abandoned, the students became crowded into too-small space, and plans for a new building were born via the old Alumni Hall (Eberly) and the Cathedral of Learning. An aside: when the Cathedral plan was unveiled in 1924, it wasn’t immediately named the Cathedral of Learning; it seemed to merely be a metaphor used in a speech by chancellor John Bowman, that just stuck: “The building is to be a cathedral of learning, a great symbol that makes the heart leap up and understand Pittsburgh.”
Well, gosh. Put that on a pillow for me so I can give it to my dad.
3. Sometimes being a whiny little bitch pays off
Guys, we did it!
Good news arrived Friday for fans of Kennywood’s Kangaroo ride, which will return to the park in 2022 after being refurbished. Last November, the park had announced it was retiring the ride along with several others, citing availability of parts and costly maintenance.
Well, praise be to the Wizard of Parts and the Warlock of Maintenance for the miracle they hath apparently wrought, because all of our whining and complaining to Kennywood worked. As in, they admit we pouty bitches are the reason for bringing the ride back:
“It was a lot of loud vocal response from people that was one of disappointment and sadness,” Paradise said. “Certainly, you know, it resonated with us.”
What a nice way of saying, “Please stop your incessant whining and we will give you back your toy.” They opened a vote to determine the new branding of the ride and I’m pleased to tell you that the better vintage theme won out.
Now the lesson here is obvious: when you don’t get what you want, whine loudly and ceaselessly until you do. I’m going to see how this works on getting Eat’n Park to bring back honey buns. Would you like to join my honey bun army?
4. Speaking of whiny little bitches
The newly elected school board members of the Norwin School District, who ran on an anti-CRT and anti-masking platform, had their first meeting this week and it naturally went exactly how you’d expect:
Do you see who is writing that tweet? Students. This is the student newspaper calling out adult board members for their masklessness. I just want to point out to these adults who are supposed to be role models for the children that they are sending the very clear message that it’s okay to only follow the rules you agree with and the rest can just be ignored. Just do what you’re told? Hell no. Just do what you want. Let’s let the students run with your set example for like five days and then let me know how that works out for you. Please, look inside your skulls, find your brains rattling around in there somewhere, and put them back into service. Maybe they’ll even grow.
5. A hammier ham via the chipping of the ham
Found on Reddit!
Chipping ham makes ham hammier? Good to know, Mr. Jag Mullet. Whoever made this ad sign is my new hero. It’s truly yinztastic.
6. Imagine the size of the swab
Some news out of the zoo:
Two tigers have tested positive for COVID-19 at Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, according to the zoo. The initial results came from a rapid antigen test and was later confirmed by voluntary nasal swabs gathered from the cats.
Voluntary? VOLUNTARY? As in THE TIGERS volunteered? I’m going to need someone to explain to me how tigers show consent to a nasal swab. Is the fact that the test-taker survived proof of consent? Did Carole Baskin do the swabbing? I need to know how the hell you swab the nose of a freaking tiger because the only way I’d do it is with a ten-foot grabber or on a tiger put to sleep with enough tranquilizer to knock out Kevin Sousa’s ego.
Hey-oh!
7. Out of space, out of time, out of words, out of Milanos. Have a great week. Be better role models. Wear a mask when the rules say wear a mask. Come see my new band The Pouty Kangaroo Bitches. But most importantly, if you work at Eat’n Park, please send me the honey bun recipe.
And as always, email me kudos but send your complaints to 1-866-GET-BENT and choose option 2 for “nobody cares.”