José Andrés Just Shaded Dr. Oz In The Best Way
We can only guess that politics was on top of mind for Pennsylvania senatorial candidate Mehmet Oz when he chose to share a video of himself on Twitter going grocery shopping because, as he put it, "my wife wants vegetables for crudité." With the camera rolling, Oz proceeds to pick out a head of broccoli for $2, some asparagus for $4, and a $4 bag of carrots, before reaching for pre-packaged guacamole and fresh salsa. He proceeds to complain about paying "$20 for crudite — and this doesn't include tequila."
The comments drew barbed comments from Oz critics, some of whom called out the senatorial hopeful for using a fictitious grocery name ("Wegners" instead of "Redner's"), per Twitter, as well as for adding a huge markup on the supermarket price of broccoli. As one social media user remarked: "I pulled up info on a random Wegman's store in PA. The carrots he picked up were a 5 pound bag of organic carrots....5 pounds for crudité? The broccoli crowns are about 85 cents each. I stopped there. More lies from Mehmet," per Twitter. In response, Oz's opponent John Fetterman trolled him for seeming out of touch, tweeting, "In PA we call this a ... veggie tray," (per HuffPost).
Andrés weighed in on Oz's supermarket picks
But Mehmet Oz might not forget getting into the crosshairs of humanitarian chef José Andrés, who tweeted at the candidate, shared the clip, and added a caption saying "I'm inviting you to come with me and shop together! Buy the avocado+tomatoes you can make the guacamole+salsa for 2$ and you can make great vegetable fried rice for 12 people! Less than 1$ per person! #LearnToShopBipartisan."
Andrés' followers continued to poke fun at Oz, with one noting "I have had my share of veggie platters over the years..and I can't remember one with raw asparagus dipped into salsa. Must be a New Jersey thing." A second wrote: "I'm from NJ and we never had salsa and would never dip raw asparagus in anything," even as a third commented: "Stop blaming Jersey. We don't want him either." Even legendary actress Lynda Carter took the chance to add her two cents to the conversation as she tweeted: "Knowledge is knowing what crudité is. Wisdom is not putting salsa on it." While asparagus might seem like a veggie tray outlier, Pillsbury recommends blanching the stalks first before serving.