According to the Kinsey report

Threatened the cinetrix with shepard's pie and hugs, and she promptly fled to the rep house. It is, for those Taming of the Shrew with no music purists, too darn hot. I wolfed down a slice in a Newbury St. izza bunker that I am always so astonished has not morphed into a shoe store, gallery, or Brazilian awning concern, that I get a slice before I remember the pizza is not that good. Evidently, LaD is made of sterner stuff. So courageous, like Willis Reed--and the Pasta alla Checca sounds like good eating too.  Also  props to Willis  Reed for not pimping for the devil right after his heroic, one -legged  playoff appearance.

Anyway. Bruni's complaint about being reminded of the work and sweat that attend fine dining, which ends

I hear a pot clatter to the floor or notice a steamy nimbus envelop a hapless sous-chef and I wish I hadn't been reminded of how much mess and error attend a pan-seared skate. Sometimes the best show of all is an illusion of effortlessness, an insulation from the smoke and fire.

reminds me of my proposal  that every patron of a fine restaurant over the age of eleven should be required to read Orwell's Down and out in Paris in London, and pass an exam on  its contents before being allowed to enter a dining establishment that does not require you to bus your own tables. That said, stop the presses: Frank may have a point. Grownups ought to  be aware that people work hard to cook the nice food they eat, but from the standpoint of the cook, like my man William Perkins says, the point of the art is to conceal the art. I've thus far lived in places where the kitchen is detached from anywhere guests might plausibly be, and I like it that way. In a limited context, like sushi, watching the prep is part of the deal, but there is a big difference between deftly slicing some toro, and hastily deglazing a pan. As a home cook, it is pleasant to do that while your guests are somewhere else, eating cheese, and listening to ambient Norteno electronica ors something.  In terms of putting a damper on bleeding, sweating, cussing, and listening to the Misfits and important pro chef things like that, the open kitchen seems to have sprung from the mind of the restaurant consultant, not the chef. For once, Frank and I are on the same page, along with punk icons, puritan theologians, Eric Blair, and a Knick. It must be the heat, or some rare disease.

Comments

[la_depressionada]

i love that book. my father gave me a copy of it and keep the aspidistra flying when i was like 11 or 12. and then he wondered why i was such a wild teenager. freak.

but to be fair to the old man -- i saw that amazon pairs them up too -- he was the avant-gardist and nonconform-ist guy i ever met.

[la depressionada]

crx: avant-garde-est and nonconform-est.