The folks at Red Pearl Kitchen are fighting the good fight by offering 25% off the entire meal to all WGA card-carrying members. It's a bit of holiday cheer for those wearing themselves thin along the strike lines as well as some good publicity for an embattled restaurant that's been on "deathwatch" in some circles. 

We don't know if the special is offered for the length of the strike, the holiday season or whichever comes first, but nothing says Christmas like a sale on (inflated) goods or sipping lychee cocktails and noshing on Asian tapas in a red-lit, chinoiserie-lined dining room.

Take a look at what 25% off could get you:

—Jiyeon Yoo

Happy post-gluttony. How's the cinch of your waistband treating you today? 

As it isn't the holidays with some good old-fashioned grinchiness, I've already had my share of unfavorable retail service. My woes started with Thanksgiving dinner. No turkey this year, but my sister and I do a fantastic côte du boeuf—a recipe from NYC's Balthazar—if I do say so myself. We finish off the slices of beef with a sprinkle of gourmet sea salt, which gave me a perfect reason to crack open a tin of fleur de sel from NapaStyle that I had received earlier in the year.

As I broke the plastic ring, I knew something was wrong. Lo, this is what I found.

Ew. That black stuff seaping around the rim is either rust or an alien symbiote with Topher Grace's mug trying to creap out of its bourgeois-gourmet prison. 

The top of the lid didn't look any better.

And the inside even worse.  

The salt itself had a faint enough yellowish hue that we entertained the idea of bumping up our iron intake for the meal. Don't worry, we didn't.

I won't bore you with the details of the back-and-forth e-conversation with NapaStyle, but let's just say that the "style of Napa" doesn't include proper packaging of its very expensive products or taking responsibility for something as egregious as this. As I was told by Luana, Kimberly, then "Anonymous" and another "Anonymous," the fault lies inside my very cool, very dry spice cabinet. Merry effin' Christmas to me. 

—Jiyeon Yoo