Red Meat

Mitt Romney isn't a naturally eloquent man. His stump speeches are nearly content-free. They combine exaggerated denunciations of President Obama ("a pessimistic president," "the great complainer") and ardent professions of patriotism. "I love our country," Romney announces at every stop. "I love our national anthem.... I love it dearly. I love putting my hand over my heart. " He often closes speeches by reciting lines from "America the Beautiful. " When he claimed victory in Iowa on Jan. 3, his syntax crumbled into Sarah Palin-like fragments.

Since pork producers are successfully marketing their product as "the other white meat," duck producers might do well to launch a campaign for "the other red meat." The resemblance to flank steak, for example, isn't obvious when duck is served whole. But sliced duck breast, fanned out on a plate, is very appealingly meaty-looking. When duck is well browned outside and rare at the center, it is every bit as succulent as a beef steak. Better supermarkets carry or will order duck breast.

Eating red meat increases the chances of dying prematurely, according to a large federal study offering powerful new evidence that a diet that regularly includes steaks, burgers and pork chops is hazardous to your health. The study of more than 500,000 middle-age and elderly Americans found that those who consumed the equivalent of about a small hamburger every day were more than 30% more likely to die during the 10 years they were followed, mostly from heart disease and cancer.

The columns by Alexander Cockburn ("Inevitable Consequences of Eating Meat," March 28) and Ken Vorisek ("Lessons on Survival From a Jackal's Dinner," March 29) certainly stimulated my thinking enough for a response. Cockburn obviously doesn't like to eat red meat (especially from cows). After the news from England regarding the "mad cow disease," he will, no doubt, be joined by many others in that preference. I don't agree with Cockburn, however. I like red meat. If I were a hunter in days of yore, I would probably eat red meat from some wild animal as Vorisek suggests, because, for better or worse, I am a carnivore (as well as a herbivore)

It is truly commendable that smoking at outdoor school sports events has been banned in Santa Clarita. Does that mean huge fans will be installed every 50 feet at outside auditoriums to protect the athletes from breathing the smog? And that smog-spewing vehicles will not be allowed anywhere near the stadiums? A relentless campaign continues to deny tobacco users their right of choice, while Washington goes right on paying subsidies to that industry.

James Ellroy's untied bow tie lay lifeless around his neck. As he approached film-critic-turned-novelist Helen Knode, the firmly set features of Los Angeles' most morbid son dissolved into the solicitous look of a husband. "It's past my bedtime," he told his wife, running a hand over his bald pate. It was 11 o'clock on a Thursday night and new people were still wading into the Pacific Dining Car, a decades-old joint crouched on 6th Street in the shadow of the L.A. skyline.

Younger women who eat red meat regularly appear to face an increased risk for a common form of breast cancer, according to a large, well-known Harvard study of women's health. The study of more than 90,000 women found that the more red meat the women consumed when they were in their 20s, 30s and 40s, the greater their risk for getting breast cancer fueled by hormones in the next 12 years. Those who consumed the most red meat faced nearly twice the risk of those who ate red meat infrequently.

"Red Meat" takes its title from a group of guys who meet one Sunday a month to "work out, eat red meat and talk about girls." When the film opens the group has dwindled to two, a callous, womanizing attorney, Stefan (John Slattery), and a nerdy would-be screenwriter, Chris (Stephen Mailer), who has failed to score with women ever since his divorce nearly a year earlier.

No restaurant provides more reading material about itself than the new Clearwater Cafe in Pasadena. The people who planned this restaurant--the University Restaurant Group, which also runs Ocean Avenue Seafood, Pine Avenue Fish House, the Water Grill, 555 East and I Cugini--want you to understand that a lot of thinking has gone into both its food and environment.