On Monday, the Trump National Hudson Valley Golf Club’s Twitter account tweeted a picture of a plate of food with a caption that read, “When your Mom said ‘eat your vegetables’, we heard her loud and clear!” If that uncomfortably Freudian directive didn’t make your skin crawl, just wait until you realize how weird the plate of food is.
We’ve got pea shooters wrapped in what appears to be a transparent sheath of shingled-together root vegetable shavings. We’ve got loose corn kernels, lightly grilled. We’ve got a dollop of hollandaise, glassy cherry tomato wheels, and, to top it all off, what looks to be a very long plantain chip (?), which I guess you’re supposed to dip in the hollandaise (??) sauce.
The Trump National Hudson Valley Twitter account has since deleted the tweet, but screen shots of the cursèd wrap remain.
The image baffled the Jezebel staff. “What the fuck is this shit?” asked staff writer Ashley Reese after I dropped the tweet into our office Slack channel. “Is this culinary trolling,” wondered deputy editor Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. “The lil corns are lawless,” said senior writer Maria Sherman. “No, seriously, what is that?” worried managing editor Megan Reynolds.
In an effort to find out what the fuck we were all looking at, I called up the Trump National Hudson Valley, one of many businesses that the president of the United States continues to profit off of, and that’s when shit got really weird. “Thank you for calling the Trump National Hudson Valley,” a pre-recorded woman’s voice greeted me. She then listed my options for what I could do next:
For golf, press 1.
For the Grille Room, press 2.
For membership, press 3.
For accounting, press 4.
For the pool, press 5.
For the locker room, press 6.
For our directory by name, press 7.
For all other calls, press 0, or stay on the line to leave a message. Thank you!
I pressed 2 for the Grille Room. I figured that someone who worked at the Trump National Hudson Valley’s restaurant would probably be able to tell me what this food is and whether I should respect it. But, save for a mash-up of two women’s pre-recorded voices thanking me “for calling GRILLE ROOM,” no one ever picked up. The phone just rang and rang and rang and rang. So I hung up the phone and dialed again.
This time, I pressed 1 for golf. “Thank you for calling GOLF,” said one pre-recorded woman and then another. Just as before, the phone kept ringing. So I hung up the phone, dialed again, and pressed 3 for membership. I reached a staffer’s voicemail, so I hung up the phone, dialed again, and pressed 4 for accounting. I reached a staffer’s voicemail, so I hung up the phone, dialed again and pressed 5 for the pool. “No one is available to take your call,” said a pre-recorded woman’s voice. I was starting to get worried. I hung up the phone and dialed again, this time pressing 6 for the locker room. Again, no one answered, so I hung up the phone, dialed again, and pressed 7 for the directory. “Please enter at least the first three digits of the person’s last name,” directed a pre-recorded woman’s voice. I didn’t know the name of anyone who works at the Trump National Hudson Valley—I was starting to doubt whether anyone who isn’t a pre-recorded woman’s voice works there at all—so I hung up the phone, dialed again, and pressed zero for all other calls.
“Thank you for calling the Trump National Hudson Valley,” said the pre-recorded woman’s voice as she looped back to begin again. I wasn’t sure if I’d pressed the wrong button, so I tried zero again. “Thank you for calling the Trump National Hudson Valley,” said the pre-recorded woman’s voice once more. With only one option left, I stayed on the line to leave a message and then hung up.
What’s……happening? Does anyone work there? Did the food tweet the photo of itself? Is this what food sees when it looks in the mirror? Would this mean food has good self-image or bad self-image? I literally can’t answer any of these questions, but they will haunt me, unanswered, until I fucking die.