Speaking of Maureen Dowd, a reader was perplexed by a line in yesterday's 5,000-word Magazine excerpt from her new book. (Yes, between New York, the Times Mag, and — oh yeah — her column Saturday, you could read 12,000 words of Dowdiana over the last three days.) He writes:

Since you are all-knowing and the like, I thought you might help me understand what Maureed Dowd meant when she wrote:

"Jurassic feminists shudder at the retro implication of a quid profiterole."

The profiterole part makes me hungry for dessert.

In truth, we cannot help. We know from context that she's talking about women's expectations that men pick up dinner tabs. But beyond that, we, like the reader, find the sentence itself utterly meaningless, perhaps a bit of Rorschach prose that raises only the question of what it means to you.

So, what does it mean to you? The commenters are supposed to be the witty ones, right? Take it away, then...

What's a Modern Girl to Do? [NYT Mag]

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