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Alice Admits She’s Ruth Bourdain, Ramada Inns Install Speakeasies, and Other Food-Nerdy April Fool’s Jokes

Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Though we refuse, on principal, to fake you out with any fictional April Fool’s posts ourselves (the blogosphere can get a little confusing on this particular holiday!), we’ll call your attention to a few chuckle-worthy items only a foodinista could love. First: LA Weekly shares the BREAKING news that Alice Waters has actually been on Twitter all this time, and she’s Ruth Bourdain! Har har. Quoth “Alice,” “I care about all of my causes so very much. I really do. But sometimes I just want to punch a hippie in the face and eat a big fucking Indonesian swordfish steak.” A bit funnier is the fact that Alice herself tweeted it.

Then we have Camper English at Alcademics going whole hog with a fake press release announcing that Ramada Inns are launching a test concept bar in eighteen hotels around country called SpeakEZ Prohibition Pubs. Speakeasies have jumped the shark, get it?! Among his clever details and design elements are “Bartenders and servers in mustaches, suspenders and bowties or flapper dresses; ‘Hidden’ restrooms behind sliding bookcases; Soda guns that look like Tommy guns and salt and pepper shakers in the shape of shotgun shells; Birthday party ‘police raids’ on special request.”

And last but not least we have this semi-funny satirical essay on KQED’s Bay Area Bites blog about an “extreme urban homesteading” outfit called Guerrilla Greens, which actually has its own logo and Twitter account, so perhaps the fun will continue. The joke is this: a foodie couple in Oakland who decide to be “ethical omnivores together” hear about an underground restaurant called Guerrilla Greens, via Twitter of course.

I hadn’t heard of them, but I figured they were probably part of the roving, ever-shifting band of backyard-chickening, rooftop-beekeeping, front-yard-chard-growers. They made me feel old, they were so earnest and gluten-free in their muddy Carharts, foraged lemons rolling around the back of their pickup trucks. But at least a couple of these types could usually be counted on to have worked the line at Ubuntu or done a stage at Saison. I signed us up.

But then the couple’s stove and refrigerator disappear during the night, their yard suddenly becomes a menagerie of animals, and they realize that this concept really is new. “We weren’t going to their restaurant. Their restaurant was coming to us. We were becoming their restaurant. Their restaurant was inside us.” Hilairs.

Guerrilla Greens: Extreme Urban Homesteading
[Bay Area Bites]
Announcing: SpeakEZ! Prohibition Pubs [Alcademics]
Breaking News from Alice Waters: “Yes, It’s True. I Am Ruth Bourdain.” [LA Weekly]

Alice Admits She’s Ruth Bourdain, Ramada Inns Install Speakeasies, and