Famous chef Mario Batali has released a letter stating an apology for past sexual misconduct, but oddly included a recipe for cinnamon rolls. (What?!) The internet surely will not let it go, including author and public speaker, Geraldine DeRuiter, who made the cinnamon rolls and published a perfect blog about it.
Batali was first accused of touching four women inappropriately in a post on Eater. The assaults spanned two decades, and three of the victims were employees of Batali. ABC asked him to step away from his show “The Chew” while they reviewed the allegations and have since fired him.
The apology read: “I have made many mistakes and I am so very sorry that I have disappointed my friends, my family, my fans and my team. My behavior was wrong and there are no excuses. I take full responsibility.”
But at the bottom Batali left: “ps. in case you’re searching for a holiday-inspired breakfast, these Pizza Dough Cinnamon Rolls are a fan favorite.”
Seriously?
But it gets weirder. Geraldine DeRuiter actually made the cinnamon rolls and wrote about it on her blog, Everywhereist. She did it to mock of Batali and other sexual assailants who don’t seem to take their actions (or their apologies) seriously.
“The glaring question is why?” wrote DeRuiter. “Was his PR team drunk? Is life suddenly a really long, depressing SNL sketch? Do these cinnamon rolls somehow destroy the patriarchy? Does the icing advocate for equal pay? I figure the only way to answer these questions is to make the damn rolls.”
She detailed making the rolls step by step, even claiming she made the dough from scratch because there are no shortcuts for women. Throughout the steps of making the cinnamon rolls, she writes about times men have harassed her, leaving a sobering note with the joke. She criticizes the recipe, and the cinnamon rolls end up turning out terrible. The ending is the most powerful:
“Batali’s another drop in the bucket. He’s not the first, he certainly won’t be the last (he already isn’t). The misogyny runs so deep that the calls now come from inside our heads. We blame ourselves. We hate ourselves. We wonder if our skirts are too short, if our bodies are too noticeable. If we’re asking for too much, or not enough. We don’t trust ourselves, even when we should.
We try to follow a half-written recipe and think it’s our fault when it doesn’t work.
We need to undo an entire humanity’s history worth of hate against women. Apologies are a good start.
Just skip the goddamn recipe.”
What started out as bizarre, actually turned out to be a heartbreaking, educational and powerful message against misogyny. DeRuiter takes Batali’s less than serious sexual assault apology, and makes a more than serious commentary on it. We can agree that she was spot on.