Re. the Great CIA Grape Scandal: What would "Big Dick" Cheney have done about those "grapes"?

The Great CIA Grape Scandal: 
A Typographical Reenactment


How long do you suppose it took President Putin to find out about the CiA's grape scandal?

by Ken

Say, you remember the good old days at the CIA, when Vice President "Big Dick" Cheney, the man who put the "vice" in "vice president," used to hang out running roughshod over the boys and girls, knocking heads and breaking arms to make sure that all the "intelligence" and analyses incorporated "Big Dick's Favorite Fables," especially about Iraq? Man, those were the days, when lies were lies, and intelligence came out of Langley properly cooked.

Now CIA cooking has come into question, and Big Dick's bloated carcass must be spinning, or at any rate blubbering. That's right, the lid has been blown off the CIA cafeteria. Washington Post reporter Abby Phillip has the story, by way of the merry muckrakers at MuckRock. (Note that in Abby's original report the points from the FOIA revelations are accompanied by what appear to be reproductions of the actual comment cards. Because of their width there was no way I could reproduce them in our format, so I've worn my fingers to the bone retyping them. This is serious business.)

In the Loop
Russian menus, grapeless Jazz Salad and other top-secret cafeteria complaints from inside the CIA

By Abby Phillip

Ever wonder what secrets lie in the Central Intelligence Agency’s cafeteria? Of course you have.

It turns out that some of the nation’s top intelligence officers are aggressively insisting on quality control in their office cafeteria. Thanks to a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request  recently surfaced by the open-source FOIA experts at MuckRock, we now have a rare glimpse into what exactly life is like in Langley.

The FOIA request was for the “feedback” messages sent by CIA’s employees to cafeteria managers; the messages received in the government’s 2011 response were as good as you would expect. Names are, of course, redacted.

1. Attitude everywhere: In addition to the fact that the CIA’s Burger King doesn’t offer a “dollar menu” (the horror!), the employees at that location apparently need an attitude adjustment. “Why can’t there be nicer food handlers?” wrote one person. “Attitude every day.”

Subject: Burger King
Feedback: Why doesn't the BK facility here offer the "dollar menu" as the outside facilities. Why can't there be nicer food handlers? Attitude every day.

2. Bring back the ketchup: When you’ve got international terrorism to worry about, the last thing you should have to concern yourself with is the condiment situation in the lunchroom. One lengthy complaint laid out all the (many) reasons why individual ketchup packets are better than the “pump box” dispensers that they were replaced with.

“Please put back the individual packets of ketchup, mustard & mayonnaise,” wrote [name redacted]. “The large pump boxes of these items are not convenient to use, causing frustration & are not liked by many people.”

Subject: Main Cafeteria at Headquarters
Feedback: Please put back the individual packets of ketchup, mustard & mayonnaise. The large pump boxes of these items are not convenient to use, causing frustration & are not liked by many people. Two times this week I heard folks make comments about these pump boxes. There were no containers to put ketchup and mustard in. We have to find someplace to put down our food & drink, put the condiments in the container & put the lid on the containers. If people are taking their food back to their office they will need a bag from the cashier to juggle all these items. Comments have been made indicating this process is cumbersome, a pain in the neck & is causing frustration to some people. For those & I'm sure other reasons, it would be appreciated by many to put out the individual condiment packets. Thank you for considering this suggestion.

3. Locally brewed tea only, please: CIA employees have high standards for their iced tea. Really high standards. They will not tolerate this poor tasting “processed tea” flowing out of dispensers with “pipes coming out of the back.”

“Please consider reinstating the previous dispensers or with something that brews the tea close by.” Kthanksbye.

Subject: Iced tea in OHQ Careteria
Feedback: I noticed that the previous Brewed Iced Tea dispensers have been replaced with different dispensers with pipes coming out of the back. This new tea tastes terrible as does most processed tea. Please consider reinstating the previous dispensers or with something that brews the tea close by. Thank you. By and large the cafeteria does an excellent job.

5. Russia on the menu: Someone tried to be “cute” with the Russian themed cuisine in the cafeteria and it backfired spectacularly.

“First of all, to try to be cute with substituting a backward R, a ‘Ya’, for an R, is tacky,” wrote one employee. “Please recognize that many of us have really traveled to these countries and when you provide food like you did today, it causes me not to support this kind of cuisine in the future.”

Subject: Today's Russian Menu
Feedback: I had the Russian meal today and am disappointed. First of all, to try to be cute with substituting a backward R, a "Ya," for an R, is tacky. I feel that someone tried to "Americanize" the food so it is palatable to Americans. Please realize that many of us have really traveled to these countries and when you provide food like you did today, it causes me to not support this kind of cuisine in the future. I feel that for example Beef Stroganoff is more American than Russian.

6. A lesson in chicken portions: For those uninitiated, a quarter chicken portion must include the whole breast and the wing. Anything less is unacceptable:

Subject: Senor A's
Feedback: I recently purchased the 1/4 White Chicken Platter at Senor A's. However, I was surprised to see that the portion was not actually 1/4 chicken. I noticed that a portion of all of the breasts had been cut off and whole breasts were not served. As with the 1/4 Dark Platter being the leg and thigh, the 14 white should have been a whole breast and a wing. This needs to be corrected. Thanks!

YOU'LL NOTICE THAT WE'VE SKIPPED NO. 4

This would be the Great CIA Grape Scandal, which we've in fact seen at the top of this post. To refresh your memory:

Subject: Jazz salads in Cafeteria
Feedback: Hi - I've sent comments about the jazz salads being misadvertised before, but yesterday takes the cake. The Jazz Salad was supposed to be a Sonoma Grape and Proscuitto salad. This was advertised on the on-line menu, and on the sign above the salad (sometimes they are different). This is one of my favorites, so I stand in line and notice there are no grapes. Grapes are in the title of the salad. I asked about them, and the server pointed to the cherry tomatos, said they were red grapes. I said, "no, those are tomatos, sooooo should I just get grapes from the salad bar". She didn't really give an opinion - but I did get grapes from the salad bar, and I did tell the cashier about it (she asked me to write a note - I hope you got the note). I do not condone putting salad bar items into a Jazz salad (I have been known to get a separate container for salad bar items to add to my jazz salad) but felt justified in this case.

However, when an item is in the title of the Jazz Salad, please make an effort to include this item in the actual salad. Thank you.

This seems to me to raise any number of questions, which clearly need to be addressed in the interest of national culinary security. Just off the top of my head:

• "Jazz Salad"???

• With regard to the alleged history of misadvertisement of Jazz Salads, has there been any follow-up?

• The CIA advertises its salads online??? Where any commie muslim terrorist can access the information? (And while we're on the subject, with reference to No. 5, the CIA cafeteria is serving Russian meals? Maybe Mitt Romney really was right about the Russians. Does President Putin know about the CIA's beef stroganoff?)

• About the note that the writer claims to have left re. unilaterally adding grapes from the salad bar to the Jazz Salad: The writer writes, "I hope you got the note." Has any trace of this note in fact been found? (It could matter.)

• Were the grapes unilaterally appropriated from the salad bar in order to remedy the grape deficiency in the Sonoma Grape and Prosciutto Salad in fact Sonoma grapes? If not, is it known what sort of grapes they were? Does the Sonoma Grape and Prosciutto Salad in fact work equally well with other varieties of grape?

• Has "the Server," who you'll recall "didn't really give an opinion" about the unilateral appropriation of the salad-bar grapes subsequently been identified and interviewed? Has he/she now expressed an opinion?

• At the time of the unilateral salad-bar-grape appropriation, did the writer, in addition to writing the note specified by the cashier, turn in the counter-indicated grape-impersonating tomatoes?

Cherry tomatoes at left, grape tomatoes (big ones) at right

• Were the tomatoes in question really cherry tomatoes? Or were they perhaps grape tomoatoes? This might go at last some of the way toward clearing up the confusion.

And I don't know about you, but I'm pretty confused. One thing I know is, if there was any shot at embarrassing the president with the Great Grape Scandal, then Darrell "The Unembarrassable" Issa would already have issued one of his Mad Libs-style fill-in-the-blanks subpoenas.

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