DI/DO Rodeo

In recent months, reading the NY Times Dining In/Dining out section has become more and more like a rodeo. How long can you hang on before you hurl the paper across the room in disgust? Increasingly, the mandate of DI/DO,  like the rest of the paper, is to celebrate conspicuous consumption by the power elite:

A Los Angeles couple paid $50,000 for Mr. Keller to cook a dinner for 12 last December. Steve Wynn, the hotelier and casino owner, hired Mr. Keller and seven other chefs for $500,000 to prepare a private dinner for his wife's birthday, Mr. Keller said.

<snip>

Mr. Murphy, a former owner of a health insurance company, said the cost of $2,000 a person for Mr. Donna to cook at his home "might sound like a lot, but the whole experience is so, I guess you'd say euphoric, you forget about the money."

He gave the party to celebrate his 20th anniversary with his wife, Virginia. "I knew she'd be floating to have Roberto cook for us and our friends in our home," he said. "You really can't put a price on that kind of thing."

Actually, they just did: $2,000/person. Hope they are not reading DI/DO in the madrassas. Or on the Gulf Coast. If you are in the spirit of holiday giving, why not just send a $65 pan of mac and cheese to someone less fortunate?
If,  to paraphrase John Fogerty, the trick is to ride and make it to the Bruni, you face this challenge:

Cookshop, you see, is selling more than Montauk squid, Catskill duck and a cornucopia of lettuces, legumes, root vegetables and fruits that dutifully obey their seasons. Cookshop is selling virtue, and it's suffused with it, even in ways that aren't bluntly advertised.

The tables, for example, are made of a type of American oak that Cookshop's proprietors chose over less expensive alternatives because those alternatives come from endangered forests. The menus, tawny and matte, use recycled paper.

So you can sip, sup and simultaneously congratulate yourself, all of which might be a bit much but for this: You can also have a merry, heedless time. With the exception of those chalkboards, Cookshop renders its call to conscience as a murmur, audible to anyone soothed by the sound and ignorable by those who just want to chow down.

Enough. Send in the clowns.

 

 

Comments

[la_depressionada]

you know i do cook for the poor, but i think you're wrong to be so irate about this. i mean i certainly don't want to read tedious articles about organic farming and what is that thing you guys advocate which is essentially "buy local" but has a catchier catch phrase or veganism for pete's sake. wouldn't you want to read about taillevent or careme? don't you love satyricon?

also i happen to love that you can rent a chef like daniel boulud -- sort of underscores the servants that chefs are really.

otoh, i have pretty much stopped eating at the haut (and even almost haut) places, after, i must admit, a good 25 year run. they're just too retarded. given me a good roast chicken. a SUBLIME roast chicken. like at taillevent -- the other one.