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Atmosphere/First Impressions
The Steve Descends
Food Review: The Raw Edition
Disposition: All Good Trays Go to Heaven
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I had barely sat down in the Caffe Mac patio, when who should stroll by but The Steve himself. My sushi and salad samplers would have to wait, as sighting The Steve in his indigenous habitat (as opposed to, say, on the stage at Moscone) is a rare event. If you’re absolutely intent on reading about food in this “food review,” you can jump to the next section (Food Review: The Raw Edition). But for now, let me provide some details on my brush with Steveness.
First, let me report The Steve was still looking exceedingly trim; probably still recuperating from the health problems (surgery- and bug-related) that plagued him just prior to the iPhone 3G launch. Now, I’ve said this before within the confines of the Mac|Life office, but now I’ll make this declaration publically: I’m not comfortable with Steve at this weight. I think he’s taken this whole vegan/macrobiotic/breatharian thing too far. It’s time for Steve to go middle America. Pork rinds. Bags and bags of them. That’s what The Steve needs.
I wanted to reach out and grab him, and ply him with high-calorie sushi rice and mozzarella balls (both of which were on my Caffe Mac dining tray!), or even the stuff they feed sumo wrestlers to bulk up, because surely Caffe Mac offers that too.
But I resisted the impulse to reach out and touch The Steve. I resisted the impulse, because (a) The Steve knows his dietary needs better than I, and he doesn't need some wise-ass "blogger" giving him any advice, and (b) it’s almost certain that armed security men, robust and full of burl, would have sprang from surrounding foliage and gang-tackled me—ending my meal short, and thus kaiboshing the review you’re reading now.
If it’s not a part of the Apple Employee Handbook, it should be: No one touches The Steve. Let’s repeat: No one touches The Steve. No one removes lint from The Steve’s sweater, no one play-punches The Steve’s arm, and no one gives The Steve one of those brief, awkward two-handed shoulder pinches that say, “Hey, if I knew you better, I’d give you a proper back rub, but I don’t, so the warmth stops here.”
No, I did not touch The Steve. But if I had touched him, it would have been perfectly reasonable for my lunch partner -- the individual who sponsored my entrée into Caffe Mac -- to pull a knife and slit my throat before the foliage-dwelling security guards ever made their move.
Indeed, one would have to surmise – nay, hope -- that all Apple employees are issued a special quick-kill knife, and have a binding responsibility to immediately dispatch all attackers in the event The Steve is ever threatened in their vicinity. (First Law of Apple Employees: An Apple employee may not injure The Steve or, through inaction, allow The Steve to come to harm.)
At any rate, by the time I got my iPhone out and began snapping photos, The Steve was already some 40-50 feet away. He was on a walk-talk with someone I didn’t recognize. I can only hope they were discussing complete and enduring world domination.
freyutss
December 10, 2008 at 11:04am
I am tired of hearing about fast-food. When I was busy dealing with some frigidaire parts. I had an awful disease at my stomach and I don't want to eat not even a little piece of this type of food. Fresh vegetables and fruits are the best.
sj.erickson
August 29, 2008 at 9:19am
After reading this article and all the comments and really thinking long and hard about everything, the ultimate and final result is that I'm now hungry. Thus, today, I've decided to eat a quality lunch, though almost certainly not at the same level as experienced by Mr. Phillips. -Scott Erickson in Beaverton, Oregon.
ChristianSchilling
August 28, 2008 at 10:12am
>>>>>>Jon, you are such a loser. >>>>>expierence your mind gettier sluggisher<<<<<<<<<<<<< It's humor you twit. What's next? Writing Johnathan Swift to decry his proposal for the Irish to eat their poor children if they were so hungry and suggesting that bean sprouts would be a welcome alternative? Great Article Jon and funny!
Ben
August 27, 2008 at 7:32pm
Just creepin' around the Apple campus, huh?
:)
It's a good light-hearted piece.
Anton Caramelloli
August 27, 2008 at 6:14am
>> "It’s time for Steve to go middle America. Pork rinds. Bags and bags of them. That’s what The Steve needs."
Jon, you are such a loser.
You just know nothing about living healthy and I could imagine that you're the kind of guy who even has to base some parts of his idea of manhood on this stupid "eating much meat" thing.
I bet I would beat you in any physical discipline. now or in at most in a year even if you've been doing it for a long time.
and if you think "physical" is not your thing then i hope you will sooner not later expierence your mind gettier sluggisher and see how your body is one unit.good-bye
Anton Caramelloli
August 27, 2008 at 12:08pm
i have to apologize for calling you a loser since this is in some imminent respect incorect.
i got upset.
knowledge and achievements in one area though doesn't give you the right to write such stupidities about food.
and i ain't even speaking for the damn pigs. i just want to put a little effort against propagation of willingly holding unaware what's good to eat.
you may be one beeing able to afford such eating behaviour but shifting something like heavy meat-eating away from norms towards luxury (not even has to be in the monetary sense but more in a sense of healthfulness and recognising impact of food on the organism) could result in a healthier earth.
JonPhillips
August 27, 2008 at 1:03pm
Anton, thanks for the follow-up reply, and please don't ever regret speaking your mind. (That's my unsolicted advice, at least. I think as long as people actually attach their real names to what they write, then pretty much anything is fair game.)
As for the pork rind reference, I know what you're saying. One of my sisters teaches raw food preparation classes, and partly as a result of this, I'm pretty well-versed in how energy-inefficient a meat-biased diet can be. (Though, FWIW, I heard a very interesting story on NPR about a farmer/rancher who has an amazingly cunning and efficient system for nurturing/harvesting food and livestock at just the right times, in just the right mutually beneficial ways, as to have a near perpetual machine of energy-efficient food production.)
Regardless, the main point I'd like to make is that my entire "food review" was pretty much a humor gag (successful humor? you be the judge), and I wouldn't ascribe too much import or relevance to anything I wrote. I.e., I don't advocate that anyone eat a bunch of pork rinds.
smokeonit
August 27, 2008 at 4:56am
in the photo of steve an a coworker he looks still VERY thin...
i hope steve is getting better!!!
get well steve jobs...;-)
dallas2dc
August 26, 2008 at 9:58pm
One day you will grow up to be a real journalist who understands that getting the facts right lends credibility to your reporting. It's Cafe Macs, not Caffe Mac. All you had to do was look at the sign or your receipt.
JonPhillips
August 26, 2008 at 11:07pm
(1) If you think the story was a piece of serious reportage that demands incontestable "credibility" then you need to look up the word irony, and ask yourself if you have any sense of it.
(2) Before the story was posted, various Apple sources (i.e, run-of-the-mill employees) told me the place was named either Caffe Mac or Caffe Macs. Their recollections varied. All sources were quick to point out the first part of the name has two Fs, but there was no consensus on whether the second part of the name has an S. The takeaway here? The takeaway is that the exact spelling of the name is so damn irrelevant to the daily comings and goings of "real life," not even Apple employees could definitively recall the exact spelling. Nonetheless, if we're to take any of their words to heart, it would seem the cafeteria name doesn't has a single F, as you claim.
(3) I didn't pay for my lunch, thus no receipt. Good point about the sign, though. Next time I'll keep my eyes open.
(4) If you're going to come at me heavy, attacking my journalistic bonafides with such aggression, then please have the integrity to use your real name and not hide behind a handle. If, say, I knew you were a real journalist with a real resume, I'd still think you're an asshole, but at least I would be a bit embarrased for not fact-checking even this most ludicrous of stories (and for you, I think, my embarrasment would be mission accomplished). But if I were to find you had no journalistic legs on which to stand, and were simply one of the 20 million or so people who use the Internet to lash out at others behind the protection of anonymity, then my only reaction would be pure satisfaction -- satisfaction in knowing that I'm right in my belief that a broad cross-section of Internet "social-media" users are inherently fucked.
Ray Aguilera
August 27, 2008 at 9:28pm
Bravo Jon. Well-played. The internet kiddies would say "Jon FTW!"
jacquesass
August 27, 2008 at 8:06am
This comment is actually the best written piece within the whole story. Bravo, Jon!
(Allow me to heap praise on you from behind an anonymous handle.)
Michael Simon
August 26, 2008 at 10:53pm
Actually, it's Caffe Macs (with two f's and an 's' at the end).
JonPhillips
August 26, 2008 at 11:09pm
Thank you, Michael. A voice of reason. And much less irascible than I.
