The Pepper (uh) Grinder

One of my all time huge peeves is the restaurant pepper grinder. You know the one. After the plates have been delivered to the table the waiter or waitress shows up wielding this enormous implement, "Fresh ground pepper?". Or even worse, shows up with the plates and the implement tucked under the arm, like where the Right Guard goes. Makes me mental. I decline out of principle. I've finally settled on saying, "No thanks, I think I'll TASTE IT FIRST." Which is probably a more reasoned response than my other inclination which is to grab the thing and clobber someone. Hard.

In the first place, I think it is very rude and disrespectful to the dish's creator, to start throwing salt and pepper on something before you know whether you need it or not. Give it a rest. Why not taste to see what the chef has in mind, before modifying? So to offer it at that point is retarded.

Secondly, why should someone else be grinding this stuff (with this 2 foot long phallic symbol) on your plate. "Say when", they say. Well how are you supposed to you know when "when" is, when no one has even tasted the thing? If freshly ground pepper is so important to provide then why not put a pepper grinder on the individual tables along with the salt? Only a few restaurants do this and believe me, when they do, I notice.

Porfirio Rubirosa was a notorious international jet setting playboy, originally from the Dominican Republic, whose main occupation was bedding and marrying women of the seriously rich and famous persuasion. A big time player. Among his wives was France's biggest film star Danielle Darrieux and the uber-wealthy American gals, Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton. Doris Duke paid Danielle a couple of million to divorce Rubirosa so she could have him. He had affairs with Marilyn Monroe, Tina Onassis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ava Gardner and anything else that moved, although richer was better. These wealthy dames paid big bucks when the time came to get rid of him.

He was quite the party slut his entire life and died in 1965 at the age of 56 after crashing his Ferrari into a tree after an all night celebration in Paris after winning the Coupe de France polo cup.

So why this apparent digression?

Well, they say that among his charms for all of these women, was his anatomical endowment. Parisian waiters to this day call these oversized pepper grinders "Rubirosas". Now there's an image to come to mind the next time a waiter comes at you with the Freshly Ground Pepper.