Welcome to another installment of Shrimp & Grids, the column where we dissect the meals of Instagram’s most followed. Why would we subject ourselves to such scrolling? Because whether we like it or not, the influencer economy is shaping what we buy, wear and yes, eat. Let’s dig in!
ANOTHER ONE (superfluous dining option)!
DJ Khaled: producer, social media enthusiast, oral sex non-recipricator. The Grammy-winner is an absolute fiend on social media, and his constant Snapchatting in the mid-2010s—he live-streamed his son’s birth—turned him into a living meme of sorts. (Also, there was the time he got lost on a jetski at night and, of course, Snapchatted the whole ordeal.) It’s fitting, then, that such a ridiculous man would have such a ridiculous number of plates on his dinner table at once.
Behold: two men, seventeen dishes. DJ Khaled clinks a glass of red wine with Steve Stoute, former record executive and current marketing CEO, apparently celebrating some deal they’ve made, who knows. Even if DJ Khaled had just been named President of Music, it would be secondary to the embarrassment of dishes on this dining room table. This isn’t a commentary on the amount of food they’re consuming, rather, the number of options. Can you imagine sitting down for dinner (a business dinner, even!), and being faced with the entirety of the Cheesecake Factory menu prepared in front of you? Surely, this is meant as a flex: “You can have whatever you like,” etc. But being tasked with deciding what to eat with so many options seems...overwhelming! I’ll keep this in mind for the next time DJ Khaled invites me to dine with him.
Are we influenced? I don’t even know what this question means in this context. So, I think no.
JWoww’s hangover in a glass
Did you know that JWoww—yes, JWoww from Jersey Shore. Let’s try again. Did you know that JWoww from Jersey Shore: Family Vacation—yes, that’s the most recent season of the Jersey Shore franchise, currently in its fourth season. Ahem, again. Did you know JWoww from Jersey Shore: Family Vacation has an Instagram series called Cooking it Up With JWoww? It’s really, really okay if you don’t! In the recent past, JWoww has posted cooking tutorials for banana nut bread, “Funfetti Protein Cookies” (?) and keto-friendly cheddar biscuits. Her most recent installation, though, feels vintage JWoww: a drink she calls the Devil’s Margarita.
First things first, this is not a margarita. It does, though, contain, per JWoww, “two of my favorite alcohols: wine and tequila.” Here’s the recipe:
- 1½-3 oz. white tequila* (any kind)
- 1 oz. lime juice
- ¾ oz. simple syrup
- ½ oz. cheap, sweet cabernet (uh-huh!)
*JWoww pours about what looks like 7 ounces of Siempre Plata.
Does this cocktail sound good to me? No, not at all, not even a little bit. Does it sound like an efficient way of getting very, very drunk? Yes it does. “I feel like this might be my new summer cocktail, a.k.a. Banger,” says JWoww, “Because I feel like one of these, and I’m gonna be banging my head against the floor.” Sounds about right, JWoww!.
Are we influenced? To never drink again? Absolutely.
Death, Taxes, and teens eating pizza
Have you thought about David Beckham and Posh Spice’s kids lately? Well, here’s one of them eating pizza. Specifically, it’s Romeo Beckham, 19, eating pizza at Gordon Ramsay Street Pizza in London. Folks, what we’re looking at here is a classic teens-eating-pizza situation.
We’ve got slices of classic Margherita ’za. We’ve got Romeo; his girlfriend, Mia; and his best friend, Tilly Ramsay, shooting the shit over said slices of classic Margherita ’za. We’ve got their casual, local pizza joint, a.k.a. Tilly’s world-renowned chef dad’s restaurant. We’ve got a cool-ass kid wearing sunglasses indoors. We’ve got the Beckhams and the Ramsays, two broods of rich and famous Brits, as family friends. We’ve got Gordon Ramsay forbidding his children from dating the Beckham kids, all but ensuring an illicit tryst sooner or later. And then—then!—we’ve got Tilly commenting, “Bestieeeeee” on Romeo’s post, raising questions of who is, in fact, the third wheel here. They might have bleached hair and millions of followers, but folks, the teens stay bringing their best friend who may or may not be in love with them along to pizza dates.
Are we influenced? To have famous and well-connected parents? Yes!