Rachel Maddow: D.C. to N.Y. Meat Mule

Usually gourmands bring food from Manhattan to D.C.

But Wednesday morning, there was Rachel Maddow shlepping a foil-covered platter onto the 9 a.m. northbound Acela.

Call it the Pork to New York run.

But don't expect the MSNBC host to be happy about it, making quite clear her pique at playing culinary mule, during a brief Union Station chat with Jan Rothschild, a Sotheby's Art Institute veep.

"I asked her if she was taking food to a bar mitzvah, and she said she is actually taking a large platter of pork from Washington to New York. I asked her why, and she said that someone gave it to her and asked her to deliver it. And because she is a 'self loathing person,' she is actually doing it," Rothschild reports. "So I said it must be a good friend, and she said 'good friends don't impose.'"

Maddow had no comment about this deliciously ridiculous good deed when I phoned Alana Russo, MSNBC's senior director of communications, which is too bad because a few questions still cry out for answers.

Rachel, what exactly were you transporting: A scratch-made eipcurean delight or just some artfully rearranged leftovers from a benefit, private dinner, or secret restaurant?

Who sent and who received the cumbersome platter (what, no Ziplocs?). Were both parties sufficiently grateful for your heroic efforts?

Finally, haven't you heard the most useful rejoinder when asked an irksome favor by someone yanking your self-loathing chain?

It's a simple, elegant, no explanations given "Thank you, I'd rather not."