Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'essays'
Tweeting vs. Blogging
On February 5th, 2004, I wrote my first Tweet. This was before Twitter, so it wasn't an actual Tweet, but it may as well have been: I'd just gotten the news that CNN was coming over to my apartment to do a segment about my Janet Jackson Breast Cupcakes. I wrote a post called BREAKING NEWS!!! that said: "CNN IS COMING OVER TOMORROW TO DO A STORY ON MY JANET JACKSON BREAST CUPCAKES! THIS IS NOT A JOKE! I REPEAT, CNN IS COMING OVER TOMORROW! THE STORY WILL AIR MONDAY NIGHT!" Granted, this was 32 characters too long to be an actual Tweet, but the spirit of it was certainly Twitteresque. In fact, the spirit of my blog, in general, before Twitter was so Twitter-like that now that Twitter's here, it's hard to know what's blogworthy and what best belongs on Twitter....
What Makes A Great Steakhouse
1. It must be dark, like you're underground. The consumption of red meat is such a primal, bodily act that darkness--like darkness in the bedroom--opens one up to experience pleasure with reckless abandon. 2. There must be a piano player with a bad toupee singing Neil Diamond songs or a cheesy duo of guitar player and female lounge singer doing their best cover of K.C. and the Sunshine Band. Even Edmund White, in his classic "A Boy's Own Story," describes such a figure when his family takes him to a steakhouse, "a place where the overweight ate iceberg lettuce under a dressing of ketchup and mayonnaise, steaks under A.1. sauce, feed corn under butter, ice cream under chocolate, where a man wearing a black toupee and a madras sports jacket bounced merrily up and down an electric organ while a frisky couple lunged and dipped before him in cloudy recollections of ancient dance steps."...
The Food World & The Theater World
The James Beard Awards were last week, this week the Tonys. It's often occurred to me that theater geeks have much in common with foodies and now I'd like to make a list of how the theater world is similar to the food world and vice-versa: * The food world and the theater world are both often seen as elitist; * The parts of the food world that aren't seen as elitist (the Food Network, fast food, movie theater nachos) are considered by the elitists to be lowbrow just as populist theater (jukebox musicals, movie-to-stage adaptations) are frowned upon by theater elites; * Still, both worlds are niche worlds with communities of passionate people who follow the ups and downs of their industry with fierce fascination; * Restaurants fear Frank Bruni the way that producers fear Ben Brantley; * New voices are celebrated to the point of exhaustion--David Chang meet Stew; * Newish voices take a while to be noticed but once noticed are also celebrated to the point of exhaustion--Wylie Dufresne meet Tracy Letts; * Older voices get their moment in the sun after long careers of hard work--Jean-Georges meet Patti LuPone; * It's expensive to eat at James Beard award winning restaurant; it's expensive to see a Tony-winning play (or any play or musical, for that matter); * Both communities have lively message boards: foodies have chowhound and eGullet; Theater geeks have All That Chat and Broadwayworld.com; * If you make it in theater, you often flee to Hollywood to do movies and TV (see: Cynthia Nixon, Mary Louise-Parker); if you make it in the food world, you often flee to "Hollywood" by way of Food Network, the Home Shopping Channel, the frozen food aisle, and restaurant franchises (see: Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali); * Las Vegas: both restauranteurs and theater producers go there to offer watered-down versions of "high" culture; * Modern American food culture owes a debt to gay men (notably James Beard & Craig Claiborne) just as modern American theater owes a debt to gay men like Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and Stephen Sondheim; * People turn their nose up at foods they consider weird (offal, for example) the way that audiences walk out of plays they consider weird ("Top Girls," for example); * People don't dress up any more to go to the theater much like they don't dress up any more to go out to dinner; * Some save menus, some save Playbills; * Celebrity chefs fill restaurant seats just like celebrity cast members fill theater seats, (despite frequent bad reviews, Julia Roberts); I'm sure I can go on and on, but we can leave it at that. Thank you for indulging my desire to point out how the food world is similar to the theater world. Carry on, designers. (Oooh, that leads to the fashion world... but that's another post.)...
Food Tastes Better When It Has a Good Story
We ask many things of our food. We ask that our food is clearly identifiable (anything strange and murky immediately turns us off); we ask that our food is reasonably healthy--even if that means laying a redemptive tomato on a greasy, heart-crushing 5-pound burger. We ask that our food is prepared in a clean kitchen, we ask that our food is served hot, or at least reasonably warm. We ask that our food is tasty, that it is filling, that it has good value ($20 for two scallops does not a happy customer make). Mostly, we ask that our food fills that very primal need for gastronomical satisfaction. What we don't often ask is for our food to have a story. What did you have for lunch today? Where did you get it? Ok, you got it from the sandwich shop, or you made it yourself, but what went in it? And where did that come from? What's its story? The plate you see in the above photo has a fantastic story. If I told you it's just ribs and coleslaw, that might be enough for you--in fact, that'd be enough for most people. When I was growing up, a special treat was a trip to Bobby Rubino's (A Place for Ribs) where the ribs and coleslaw were plentiful (and relatively cheap) and anyone who asked, "Do these ribs have a story?" would be socked on the head. I'm sure the ribs at Bobby Rubino's have a story, it's just not a story you'd want to know. But the story of the plate above is a story that should make you happy. Let me tell it to you....
The Night I Let Friends Cook For Me
Psychologically speaking, I'm a Jewish mother. I smother those I love with attention, worry, enthusiasm, judgment and, most of all, food. The food bit is a relatively recent development--I wasn't smothering my high school friends with food--but now that I do cook and cook quite regularly, I have an almost compulsive need to feed others. I love having people over to dinner. Like you, you look hungry. Have you been eating? You're too skinny. Can I offer you some leftover pasta? A semi-stale brownie? Let's put some meat on your bones. The consequence of this, however, is that I'm rarely eager to have others cook for me. It's not that I'm ungrateful--the gesture is much appreciated--it's just that, well, I'm a control freak. When you go to someone's house for dinner, who knows what they're going to cook? What if their pasta is gummy, how could I stand it? Or what if their food is undersalted? Can I sprinkle on some salt when they're not looking? Keep some salt up my sleeve for that very purpose? What if they frisk me at the door? This problem is amplified now that my food blog is basically my job. People KNOW that I take pictures of food and write about it--that's my whole M.O.--so will they expect me to photograph what they cook and write about it? Will they be nervous and hushed as I take my first bite? Or will they go overboard, spending way too much time and money on a dinner that I may not even write about?...
Food Negation Theory
I have a theory. If you make spaghetti cacio e peppe for dinner, inspired by "Lydia's Italy" on PBS--a dish of what is, essentially, spaghetti, pecorino cheese and pepper--you can undo whatever nutritional damage this does to your physique and/or health by eating a tub of green beans at the same time, as illustrated by the picture above. This theory, which I'll call Food Negation Theory, also applies to entire meals eaten in succession. For example, if you eat a braised pork belly for dinner on Tuesday night, you can undo its effects by eating sushi for lunch the next day. The sushi effectively negates the pork: this is Food Negation Theory. I've yet to expose this theory to the rigor of full scientific exploration, but I am confident that my own personal application of this theory--an application that occurs on a daily, almost hourly basis (chocolate brownie 4:00; carrot stick 4:15: BROWNIE NEGATED)--should suffice to convince you of its merits. May Food Negation Theory serve you well....
People Who Eat In
Yesterday on Grub Street, Josh Ozersky called Bon Appétit magazine "the most boring" of the food rags, "an ad-packed Nembutal calling to mind the 'women's pages' where newspapers used to publish their party recipes." It was his ultimate conclusion, though, that really caught my attention: "Once a magazine is a repository for recipes, it stops being exciting, unless someone figures out a way to attach it to the outside world. Bon Appétit is for people who eat in. No new typeface is going to fix that problem." Ozersky's statement is certainly incendiary--the comments on his post reveal a spark of outrage. Personally, I see some truth to what he's saying: cooking at home isn't as exciting as going out. Sure, there's the excitement of "oh, I almost burnt my house down" but you're not engaged with the outside world the way you are when you wait two hours in the cold for your table at The Spotted Pig. I rarely spot celebrities at my kitchen table, but today at Brooklyn Fish Camp I saw Maggie Gyllenhaal eating with her mother. At home, you can sink into complacency--why sit at the table when you can eat in front of the TV? Out to dine, you're on your game: chatting with the host, charming the waitress, discussing the dessert options with the next table. I get why going out is exciting. And yet it's not nearly as rewarding as cooking at home. Given a choice--home cooked meals forever, or only dinner out--I'd absolutely choose the former. There's nothing that beats the joy of removing a slow braised pork shoulder from the oven while your friends await it, forks aloft (even if there's melted plastic in it). Home cooked food at its best is infinitely more intimate, infinitely more loving than anything you can get at a restaurant and that's as it should be: at the end of the day restaurants are businesses, they want your money. A home cook, on the other hand, just wants to make you happy. And that's why the recipe blogs I read, which comprise 90% of the food blogs out there, feel so sunny and warm and why the restaurant industry blogs that I read often feel so hostile and snarky. These are two worlds: the world of eating in, and the world of eating out. These worlds aren't mutually exclusive and I certainly straddle both. But as my blog moves away from restaurant reviews and focuses more on cooking, it's grown less exciting, sure, but it's also grown more happy. I used to get the nastiest comments when I reviewed restaurants, now that I don't the comments are almost entirely positive and constructive. And that's a key word, "constructive": cooking is a constructive act, eating out is passive. It's easier to be reactive than proactive and that's why, I think, food industry blogs are so sensational whereas home cooking blogs are often more honest, feeling, thoughtful and, ultimately, more human. Which isn't to say that industry blogs aren't fun (double negative!). I love me the snark, I love me the gossip the same way that I love sneaking a peek at the People and the Us Weekly at the checkout. I simply wanted to offer a retort to Ozersky's dig at "people who eat in." You may not find us in the glossy pages of New York Magazine, but you will find us at our kitchen table, laughing with friends, and digging into a slice of homemade apple pie. I don't know where you'd rather be, but I know where I'll be tomorrow night. I'll get my recipe from "Bon Appétit."...
Bagelworks, Boca Raton
Comfort of comforts--the white fluorescent lights, the angry senior citizens shoving in line--is there a taste more sweet than the taste of a Bagelworks bagel, shmeared with lox spread and whitefish salad, topped with sliced tomato and onion and washed down with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice? Welcome to Bagelworks in Boca Raton, the locus of my happiest eating from ages 11 to 18: from middle school through high school, with several visits between college and now. On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I asked mom to take me here before going to my dad the dentist for a cleaning. The past flooded into the present as I entered that sacred space: a space that knew me as a gawky teenager, a first time driver, a failed candidate for student council president. There among my people--New York Jews transplanted to Florida--I can eat the way I was meant to eat: with my hands, unafraid of bad breath, wiping cream cheese off my lips with a napkin and eyeing the waitress to refill my water. When I'm at Bagelworks, I'm at home....
My Dinner with Frank Bruni
[Note: Frank Bruni did not pose for that picture.] The dinner was set for Monday, October 22nd, and the e-mail came on Thursday, October 18th. It said: "We're going to check out ___... at 8:30 p.m., reservation for four under surname ___." (E-mail's been censored for obvious reasons.) Then, on the 21st, another e-mail came with the subject: "Monday night location and slight time change." A new place was named for 8:45 and the instruction was given: "They don't take reservations, so first person there should just check in and give a name, any name other than mine." Me being an anxious, obsessive person, I arrived at said location 15 minutes too early and was stunned to find that the place was closed. How could this be? Did I get the place right? Were there two places with this name and was I at the wrong one? What if I got the night wrong? The time wrong? I did all the research I could on my cellphone and concluded that this had to be the place and that I was, indeed, here on the right night at the right time. As if on cue, Friend of Bruni #1 arrived and introduced herself. She too was surprised that the place was closed but assured me that we were in the right spot. The street was a bit empty and soon a man came walking across the street and Friend of Bruni #1 called to him. "Is that Frank?" I asked. "No," she said. "That's (Friend of Bruni #2.)" "Oh," I said, embarrassed. But what did I have to be embarrassed about? Isn't it Frank Bruni's job to be unrecognizable? I met Friend #2 and then, a few moments later, another man came walking across the street. "It's closed," called Friend #1. The man laughed. By process of elimination I knew who he was but I almost couldn't believe it: he seemed so young, so calm, and--dare I say it--skinny that I couldn't believe this was the food critic for The New York Times. I put out my hand. "Hi," I said and then added, unnecessarily: "I'm Adam." He smiled and shook. "I'm Frank," he said, also unnecessarily, and with that I'd officially met the city's most powerful critic....
My Critical Condition
In the introduction to John Lahr's 1996 book "Light Fantastic: Adventures in Theatre" he writes, "Criticism, of course, is a kind of performance, but with this difference: the artist puts his life on the line, the critic only his words. This is not to minimize the significance of the activity, but to place criticism in its proper context. Criticism is a life without risk; and, therefore, it behooves the critic to honor the craft." This quote, which I recently discovered, comes at the perfect moment for me. I'd been trying to think and re-think my position about reviewing restaurants on my blog, and Lahr's quote fully articulates my conflict. There's no question that restaurant reviews are a big part of what makes my blog popular: you can see a huge archive of them in the menu bar above you. But now that I've written a book, I'm suddenly in the position of having my own work out there in the public eye. And, as Lahr says, my whole life feels like it's on the line: if a critic were to trash my book in a big public forum, calling me a first class idiot, I'd be ruined. On the other hand, if Michiko Kukutani calls me a genius in the Sunday Book section, my career will be made. It's all so unnerving....
Bones
They say charity begins at home. They also say that "no good deed goes unpunished." But I have a new aphorism that I hope some day catches on: "Donating your clothes to the Salvation Army leads to goat curry." After a week of cleaning out the closet, making room for Craig, we had four giant garbage bags of clothes we didn't want anymore. Instead of throwing them out, I volunteered to bring them to the Salvation Army which, in Park Slope, is on Atlantic Avenue, west of where we live. I'd only ever been to the Post Office on Atlantic Avenue and so, in my journey to Salvation Army headquarters, I discovered a whole new world of eating I never knew existed. In particular, a placed called "Stir It Up: West Indian Cuisine." After dropping off the bags to grateful Salvation Army workers, I decided to pop into "Stir It Up" for lunch (especially after reading a nice review of it from The New York Times taped to the window.) Of all the items on the menu, two jumped out as dishes I should try because I'd never had either before: (1) ginger beer; and (2) goat curry. The ginger beer was dynamite: literally, my mouth lit up with the heat that comes from chopped, uncooked ginger. I really liked it. The goat curry was pretty great too and what made it great is the subject of today's post (it took me a while to get there): bones....
How To Make Your Food Blog Popular
I received a touching e-mail this weekend from a reader who finds herself in the same situation I was in three and a half years ago: namely, she's a third year law student, she hates the law, and she wants to be a writer. She's just started a food blog and wants to know how to make it popular. "How did you become so widely read?" she asked. I told her I would answer the question on the blog, and it'll probably echo many of the points I've made previously in this post and this one. But it's always good to re-explore a subject, and especially after this weekend's coverage in The Wall Street Journal, it's as good a time as any to offer advice. And so, without further ado, here's my take on how to make your food blog popular....
My Top Chef Prediction
It is 9:56 PM and, like all of you, I'm about to watch Top Chef. Here is my prediction for what will happen: the final two will be Casey and Hung. Casey will win the whole competition. Let's see if tonight's results support my theory... UPDATE: Click ahead to see my reaction to the episode (don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it.)...
Seasonal is the New Pink (An Essay with Visits to BLT Market, Park Avenue Summer and Blue Hill Stone Barns)
Can you imagine going to a restaurant 10 or 15 years ago, sitting down at the table, glancing at the wine list and enjoying the surroundings, only to have the server set down a plate--no, not a plate, a wooden box--with spikes jutting out and on the top of each spike a tiny tomato? That's precisely what happened last night to Craig and I at Blue Hill Stone Barns, now officially our favorite restaurant. "I've never been to a better restaurant," Craig declared halfway through our meal. "This is as good as it gets." Tomatoes on spikes as good as it gets? Were we out of our minds? What happened to cooking--good old fashioned cooking--where ingredients matter far less than technique, execution, saucing, plating, style? Is this seasonal food movement just a fad, the new "pink," a craze with as much staying power as slap bracelets or Tickle Me Elmo? Without question, seasonal has become trendy: we saw Katie Couric at BLT Market when I went there with my family last week; and Park Avenue Summer, where we had brunch on Sunday, seems more concerned with the farm as a design motif than a philosophical conceit. Check out this bowl of fruit that came with my "seasonal" brunch: Sure, peaches are still in season, and figs are too, but were these grown locally? The strawberries look supermarket plump and the taste made me think that some of these guys had spent the night before in the fridge; compare that to the tomatoes in the top picture and you can see how a concept travels from pure expression (fresh farm tomatoes, picked that morning) to empty posturing (a sad, flavorless fruit bowl). Is this what's in store for the seasonal food movement? Disingenuous branding that taps into a collective need to return to the earth?...
Soupy Sushi Salads and Ice That Costs $1
Comrades! The restaurant revolution is here. I, your fearless leader, Amateuriov Gourmetovich beg of you to consider the following two cases, both which threaten our peace and prosperity as well-meaning restaurant goers. The first is the case of the soupy sushi salad: Recent visits to two of my local sushi joints have produced salads like the one you see above. These salads were not unlike salads I've had at sushi joints all across the country: one part salad to two parts sticky, gloppy dressing. Let's ignore the iceberg lettuce for this discussion and concentrate on the matter at hand: why are sushi restaurants drowning us in dressing? Hypothesis 1: Sushi became popular in the last decade because Americans are more health-conscious than they were previously; as a corollary, Americans appreciate a salad along with their "healthy" sushi lunch; Americans like sweet, gloppy food (see: ice cream sodas, banana splits, Marie's creamy Italian); sushi restaurant managers, in an effort to appease American health-consciousness while simultaneously stimulating the American palate, concoct a sweet carrot dressing that they dump over a pre-sliced, pre-washed mix of lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. Goal: minimal cost, maximum impact. Result: Americans drink sushi salads with a straw. Hypothesis 2: This is an authentic pre-sushi salad, much like the pre-sushi salads you see in Japan. The excess dressing symbolizes American imperialism; the iceberg lettuce symbolizes karaoke. Don't ask about the cucumber. And now for the second case. Please study this bill from brunch at The Stone Park Cafe: Some might be alarmed by the $12 grits, but those grits had shrimp and cheese and were pretty excellent. No, we're here to discuss the first and second items on the bill: the price discrepancy between the iced coffee and the coffee. As you can see, coffee costs $1.50 and iced coffee costs $2.50. Why is that? Diana, who ordered the iced coffee, said it was just coffee on ice. Perhaps they'd brewed coffee earlier and refrigerated it? Was that coffee more special than the hot coffee poured into my mug? We decided to ask our waiter. "Dear waiter," I said. "Why is it that my hot coffee costs $1.50 and my companion's iced coffee costs $2.50?" The waiter, Robert V, shrugged and said, "I honestly don't know." Then he walked away. Comrades, these are troubling times in the world of dining. We must rise up and save our salads from sloshing, we must demand fair prices for iced coffee beverages. Who's with me? Who'll challenge the status quo? No one? Ya, that's what I figured....
It Matters
Frank Bruni told a story on his blog the other day about ordering iced tea at a restaurant only to have the waiter say they'd run out. "How do you run out of iced tea?" he queried. "I ask that question not snidely but earnestly, because I know that this blog has readers in the restaurant business, and I’d be curious for an answer." The answers he got were vicious. "Its so hard being a privelidged [sic] customer at an upscale restaurant," wrote Jason C. "Oh, that I had these problems," wrote Anna. "If the restaurant has run out of whatever, just order something else and get a life," wrote VG. The thrust of these arguments can be summed up by Wanda: "If you want to be in serious debate, read the front page." The front page, presumably, is filled with things that matter: soldiers dying in Iraq, terrorists plotting attacks in Germany, Senators seeking sex in bathrooms. These readers are outraged that Frank can be so frivolous: why raise a stink over something so minor? Who cares if the restaurant runs out of iced tea--there are more important things happening in the world! It's logic like this that explains why so many people in America eat so badly: "Who cares what I put in my stomach as long as I eat?" It's a means to an end, a bodily function--food goes in like it comes out--and it's not a thing to be taken seriously. Hence the outrage on Bruni's blog. But what are we fighting for when we fight for freedom? What are we protecting as we sniff out the terrorists? Is it just a matter of life and death? Or is it something more? Aren't we trying to preserve and maintain the things that make living life worth living? Sure, whether or not a restaurant runs out of iced tea seems minor in the grand scheme of things, but isn't that true of anything that's not a matter of life and death? Isn't it more a question of which pleasures we deem important and which we don't? For example, I bet many of the people raging about Bruni's lack of perspective had strong opinions about the final episode of The Sopranos. Maybe some of them wrote a blog post about how David Chase ruined the franchise, didn't deliver the proverbial "iced tea" if you will. Isn't that just as irrelevant to front page news as anything else? Don't we spend most of our days worrying and thinking about the little things--what to wear, where to eat, how to get there--than we do thinking about the big things? And isn't that ok? I think it is. I think these things matter because these are the things that give life substance. If it were your last meal and you were craving iced tea and you went to a restaurant and you ordered it and they didn't have it, you'd be pretty upset. You'd wonder the same thing Frank wondered: "How do you run out of iced tea?" And then you'd shrug, order a bottomless martini and drink yourself to oblivion....
Going Back
I've defended food blogs many times in the past--I'm practically the Alan Dershowitz of food bloggers--and yet, lately, I've become more and more sensitive to a concern that's often raised about food bloggers and our practices: namely, our tendency to review restaurants after only one visit. Obviously, food bloggers don't have the resources that professional critics do. We don't have a newspaper picking up the tab when we go out to eat, it'd be impossible for most of us to eat our way through a menu without spending half our savings. So we go, our cameras in tow, and snap pictures of the two or three dishes we consume at this one meal and then scurry back to our computers to write it up. If you click "Restaurant Reviews" in my menu bar you'll see I've done this well over 100 times. I'm begining to understand why this isn't the best way to go about things. This occurred to me when I returned to Chiles and Chocolate in Park Slope for the third time a few weeks ago. The first time I wrote it up, I praised the flan, shrugged over the quesadilla and dismissed the mole as too bitter. The place, I reckoned, was pretty good but not great. Then I went back for lunch and had the chile relleno which I really enjoyed. Not only that, paired with the watermelon agua fresca, the fresh pico de gallo and tortilla chips, my lunch was significantly more enjoyable than it was on my first outing. Plus, the service was incredibly attentive: they asked me if I liked the music, they replaced plates and silverware with zeal. It was a rainy day in Park Slope, but it felt like a sunny day at a four-star restaurant uptown. Then I went back again. And I gave the mole another chance and you know what? I hated it. I hated it more than I did the first time. Its bitter qualities totally overwhelmed the sweeter components; it paled in comparison to the mole I had at La Carta de Oaxaca in Seattle. PLUS--and this is what really did it in--the waitress had asked whether I wanted dark meat or white meat. I chose white meat--stupidly, I admit--and the chicken breast that the mole was served on top of was way overcooked, painfully dry, a horror show. What do these three experiences have to do with food blogging? Well, if that third time had been my first time at Chiles & Chocolate in Park Slope, I would have written a savage review. If the second time had been my first time, I would have written it a love letter. But since my first time was my first time, I gave it a half-hearted nod and that's the review that remains in my archives. That's a problem. Those three experiences add up to a fuller picture of the restaurant. Now I know that Chiles & Chocolate is inconsistent--a word that professional food critics use all the time. I know what stands out on the menu: the agua fresca, the chile relleno, the flan. And I know what to avoid: anything with chicken breast. If I were to write a review now, it would be more thoughtful, more measured, more complete and ultimately more useful. The truth is that I often re-visit restaurants and have new reactions. Like Stand, the Union Square burger joint that I two-starred back in May. I went there recently with my friend Jimmy and we had a great experience: the burgers were perfectly done, the buns, this time, weren't too daunting. I liked it way better than that first time around. Other times, going back reconfirms what I suspected the first time. Like this place in Park Slope that I don't want to name because it's truly adorable and the people behind it seem like really good people, but God help me if I don't think it's the biggest rip-off joint on the block. The sandwiches cost $9 and they pile mediocre chicken salad on to seedy multigrain bread, top it with a mealy tomato, and put it in a plastic container. It's bad and it was bad the second time I went there. Going back confirmed that. Where does that leave us, then? Food blog restaurant reviews are still defensible in that they share the average person's experience at a particular restaurant on a particular night. As I told Michael Ruhlman for an article he's writing for September's Restaurant Hospitality Magazine: "The average customer doesn't return to a restaurant if they have a bad first experience, and I think that's why food blog reviews are important. At their best, they offer very thorough accounts of a first impression of a restaurant and, for many people, that's useful.” It's useful, but it's not ideal. And I'm starting to recognize that. Food blogs will never displace newspapers because of the newspaper critic's capacity to be thorough--to go back several times to a restaurant, to sample all of the items on the menu, to examine how a restaurant changes on different days of the week, at different times of the day. Maybe the aptest metaphor is sexual: a newspaper critic gets to sleep with a restaurant over and over again; the food blogger critic gets one shot. So when a reader asks, "Is the restaurant good in the sack?" both perspectives are valid--the food blogger might describe the experience with more gusto, there might even be pictures--but the newspaper critic can answer you much more assuredly. And that, I shall admit, gives the newspaper critic the leg up. Literally....
The Hell's Kitchen Finale
Young chefs, take heed: reality television offers you two glimpses, this summer season, of chefs who have fallen so far off their pedestals it's difficult to believe they were ever taken seriously. Rocco DiSpirito's visit to Top Chef Season III was thankfully limited to one episode, but there he was shilling for Bertolli, his face strangely waxen, maybe from all that cat food he's testing? His dress, his face, his hair, his voice, are all so presentational you can see the crux of his career crisis right there in his pixelated visage: he's too in love with his own image to stay in the kitchen. The kitchen is for the Howies of the world and Rocco wants the limelight. Only that limelight will fade, as it always does, and then what? "All right, Mr. Demille, I'm ready for my Bertolli frozen pasta dinner"? Yet Rocco's disgrace is tame next to that of Gordon Ramsay. How can a man who held three Michelin stars appear on a show where the two finalists--the supposedly BEST chefs from the entire season--serve a three course meal that would embarrass the lowest chef at a T.G.I. Friday's? Did anyone see this? I mean, I don't watch Hell's Kitchen, we were desperate tonight so we watched the finale and it was shocking. The food was so sub-par that the fact that anyone could believe that these "winners" are the best at anything, let alone cooking, is deeply disturbing. In particular, the blonde woman's food (I forget her name) was laughably bad: her signature pasta with shrimp looked like it came out of The Idiot's Guide To Olive Garden Cooking. And her dessert? A chocolate covered strawberry and some cookies. I'm not kidding. This show has as much to do with fine dining as "America's Top Model" has to do with brain surgery. And yet, "Hell's Kitchen" does do something that "Top Chef" doesn't: it tries to recreate the dynamic of a "real" restaurant kitchen. Sure, "Top Chef" does that in the finale, but that's what "Hell's Kitchen" does all season and it showcases how social skills and leadership skills are so essential behind the scenes. And that's about all the praise I can muster for the show. Back to Chef Ramsay. Look, money talks, I'm not an idiot. He must be paid up the wazoo for his volatile personality, his mad-dog antics, his showboating sadism. But at what cost? And the same goes for Rocco. What's your price, young chefs of America? At what point are you willing to become a corporate shill, like Rocco, or a fuming cartoon character like Ramsay? If fame and fortune in the food world are what you seek and you want to maintain your integrity, there's only one model you should follow and that's the Anthony Bourdain model. I'm not sure how he does it, but he traverses the world of popular entertainment and the cultish world of foodiedom with ease. One day he's on "Top Chef," the next he's writing on eGullet. Study his example, young chefs of today, and avoid the pitfalls that were so depressingly demonstrated this summer on TV. Now I have to shower for 12 hours to get the stank of "Hell's Kitchen" out of my hair....
Objectivity, Subjectivity and Food (a discussion)
Last night I wrote a big essay about objectivity, subjectivity and food and then--perhaps ironically--Safari ate it. Maybe, though, that's for the best. It was a bit long-winded. The truth is that I'd rather have a discussion with you, my readers, than rant and rave like a loon. The prompt for the essay was a story out of "The United States of Arugula"--the story of Dean & DeLuca. Young Giorgio DeLuca's high school A.P. history teacher, Jack Estrin, said that beauty and truth were not subjective but objective. "All us kids went, 'No, no! Art is not objective, it's a matter of opinion, a matter of what you like,'" recalls DeLuca (on pg. 199). The teacher said he "didn't know what we were talking about." Later, when DeLuca met Joel Dean--his highly cultured upstairs neighbor--it was Dean who confirmed his teacher's message. "I told him what Jack Estrin had told me," DeLuca continues. "Dean was the first person to say to me, 'That guy knew what he was talking about. Art is objective. Beauty is objective. Otherwise, you couldn't agree on who all the great artists were through the ages.'" Together, then, they translated this philosophy into their eponymous food store: "A lot of this was in reaction to the processed food that America was starting to live on: the Swanson's TV dinners, the Tang, the fucking WisPride cheddar in a crock," DeLuca concludes. "Americans were losing their ability to taste. I wanted to show that some things are better than others. Americans are taught just the opposite: 'Whatever makes you happy. You like Coca-Cola and this guy likes fine Burgundies? You can't say one is better than the other!' Can you imagine the absurdity of that? But that's the underlying philosophy that Americans are brainwashed into." I find this subject fascinating, especially because I spent two years in graduate writing school being taught that there were objective qualities to good writing that we should all seek out for ourselves: character, conflict, an escalating structure. All of our teachers pointed to Aristotle. And yet some of the worst writing came from those who tried to cobble together what should have been "objectively better" plays--with schematic, diagrammable plots--but plays that were incredibly uninspired. Objectively, all the elements were there: subjectively, though, they were tortuous to sit through. A good example of this conundrum is Hung on "Top Chef." He's got the objective criteria down pat. Did you hear him last week when he paired berries with something creamy, "Because sweet things and creamy things go well together." He said it like it was a hard and fast rule. And when the judge criticized his dish for not working, Hung was outraged: "So you're saying that sweet and creamy don't go well together?" he snapped back. I'd say more but I have to head out. What do you think, A.G. readers? Can food be measured objectively? Or is most of it subjective? What will you be drinking with lunch: Coca Cola or a fine Burgundy?...
"Ratatouille" & Jewish Assimilation (an essay, with spoilers)
The key moment in "Ratatouille" is not the creation of the title dish, a layered circle of sliced zucchini, eggplant, and tomato perfectly rendered by Pixar's animators and lovingly sauced by Remy, the film's protagonist. It's not the climactic scene of judgment by the film's primary antagonist, the food critic Anton Ego, voiced by a droll Peter O'Toole. It is, instead, the moment when the father rat, Django--voiced by Brian Dennehy--takes Remy to the surface to show him what humans do to rats. Remy looks up and sees a giant store window filled with rat traps and, more horrifically, his dead brethren strung up with cold, calculated indifference. Taken along with the scene where Remy, in a sewer, overhears a woman complaining about "filthy vermin" the movie becomes--at least for me--a powerful metaphor for the 20th century Jew's attempt at assimilation....
