THE GURGLING COD

Swings and Roundabouts

Ups and downs in the morning pixels -- on the one hand:

Once again, here are some notable eaters who answered the question: If you jump on a plane right now, all expenses paid, where would you go eat? And once again, we’d loved to hear your dining fantasies.

Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse, Berkeley, Calif.:

“I love the Ballymaloe House on the West Coast of Ireland and the cooking school there. They have been doing sort of what Chez Panisse has been doing.* They are just obsessed with these people making little sausages out of this pig or that pig and collecting wonderful eggs and going to farmers markets and getting lobster from the lobstermen.

99 times out of 100, questions like this give a chef the chance to make some gesture at their gustatory range -- Eric Ripert praises his favorite dim sum place, Daniel Humm rhapsodizes about the frites at some Alsatian roadhouse, etc. Instead Alice gazes across the Atlantic, and finds a reflection of herself immensely pleasing. If they did not invent narcissism in Northern California, they sure perfected it.

In better news, Lost City, via Eater, reports the presence of hard boiled eggs on the bar at Keen's. I am persuaded that each hard boiled egg on a bar postpones the coming apocalypse by at least 90 seconds.
*Let's hope not exactly.

Occasions

Alex Wichtel's Feed Me in today's DI/DO focuses on a small thing, but one that points in the direction of larger questions about just what the hospitality industry is:

WHEN it happened for the second time in two weeks, I paid attention.
The first time, I had called North Pond restaurant, in Chicago, to reserve a table for four during Christmas week. The chef, Bruce Sherman, is a big deal, and the place supposedly had beautiful views of the city from its location inside Lincoln Park. I asked for a table with a good view.
“Is this a special occasion?” the reservationist asked. “Are you celebrating something?"

Wichtel goes on to make the eminently reasonable point that for most folks, a meal in a quality restaurant is in itself a special occasion. While the question on the part of the restaurant is supposed to help them serve you better, it seems as if it might be better to assume that the special occasion is the rule, rather than exception. A different context, but the issue reminds me of Fessering when an absent student will ask if we did anything important in class, and I'm tempted to reply that no, it'd just been the regular bullshit.
By way of contrast, a young friend recently described a meal that shows how at its best, a meal in a restaurant can elevate a meal sought for solace after a long and sad week into a special occasion by its own bad self. If you weary of  keeping track of the doings at Bun, or the latest indignity foisted by Food Network, and need reminding of just how much, on a good day, the hospitality industry can contribute to human felicity, take a look.

Mistrial!

No need to lose much more sleep over that plagiarism kerfuffle involving Seinfeld's wife and some other lady. Sokolov of the WSJ checked out the receipts, and they both suck:

I tried Ms. Lapine's mac and cheese with a supermarket house brand that used precut lengths of tubular pasta and powdered cheese. Ms. Lapine accepts any such boxed product. The one I picked at random ended up dead and muffled in flavor. The very processed cheese bore little resemblance to normal cheddar's pleasant sharpness.

Ms. Seinfeld's low-fat, pregrated cheese was at least as insipid. Neither author's recipe calls for baking, so a child raised on this stuff would never know the joy of crusty, traditional mac and cheese. But such kids have been put through a kind of sinister culinary special ed.

In fact, these books promote gastronomic regression. With their occult purees, they re-introduce their targets' tastebuds to baby food. Indeed, Ms. Lapine actually recommends commercial baby food as a choice for parents too pressed to boil and mash a sweet potato. And even if you don't recoil at this infantilizing stratagem, you may wonder how the wee Lapines and Seinfelds are going to acquire their moms' passion for the life-sustaining value of vegetables, if all bright-colored plant food in their homes is spirited secretly into meals and never discussed in a positive and straightforward way.... These women treat vegetables the way Victorian mothers treated sex, with silence.

Ouch.

Is this the blues I'm singing?

The inbox suggests that the folks at the Food Net are at it again:

NEW YORK, January 28, 2008 – Beginning this March, Food Network’s new darling, Danny Boome, is “on call” responding to the pleas of viewers hoping to overcome personal culinary obstacles with his new series, Rescue Chef. These everyday cooks welcome problem-solving chef Boome into their homes and, most importantly, their kitchens. Boome offers simple, creative solutions and unique quick-fix ideas to save the day (and the meal)!

It appears to be like that show where Bobby Flay comes to your house, makes your gramma's sweet potato pie better than she can, then slaps your kids around a little bit, but this time the TV chef is on your side:

From The Big Apple to The Lone Star State, Boome will “rescue” viewers across America from culinary meltdown. Whether Danny’s helping a schoolteacher recreate her wedding’s short ribs recipe for an anniversary dinner or perfecting culinary delights like Grandma’s Mexican enchiladas, crispy southern fried chicken, and authentic Thai food – each episode will guarantee supper success. Danny also encourages recipe risk-tasking with inventive ingredients to give stale meals a fresh twist.

 

“It’s important to feel comfortable in the kitchen – confident that perfection and originality are attainable with every recipe,” says Boome. “With a straightforward, positive approach and an understanding of the basics, viewers will regard cooking – even their most problematic recipe – as a rewarding experience rather than a daunting chore.”

While Chris Kimball remains obdurately non-telegenic, it's interesting to see his food-as-problem ethos slipping into the Food Net 2.0 lineup. I can see how Kitchen Disasters for the home chef (with requisite cussing, one hopes) would sound good in the pitch meeting, but it seems a shame to have a program like this that will work to a) perpetuate the idea of cooking as a state of perpetual crisis, and b) frighten folks right out of their Danny Boomeless kitchens.

Bullshit Sundae Update

Long-time Codrespondent Rose's Lime checks in with an update on the Toscanini's situation.

Update. My offer was turned down (or more accurately did not receive a resoponse).* Despite my offer, Gus has raised his $25,000 and re-opened. Only in Cambridge.

How long till Gus starts the fund drive to raise the $8,000 he'll need to pay taxes on the $25,000 he's received so far in "donations".

I suppose you would have to pay taxes on the handouts you got to reopen your for-profit business after the state shut it down because of your failure to pay taxes. I can only say well... uh... yeah. If you want to feel good, write a check to a real charity, and hit up Christina's for a cone -- as a bonus, they run a kickass spice shop next door.

*In lieu of a handout, Rose's Lime offered $100 in exchange for $200 in store credit when the store reopened.

Blame it on Billyburg

Surely, if you are smart enough to open a Brazilian restaurant in Williamsburg, you are smart enough to come up with a better name than "Favela." Call me crazy, but I don't think you could get away with a soul food (or Polish) restaurant called "Ghetto." If Brueghellian illustrations of savage economic inequalities have become available as themes for restaurants, then I'm voting for Travis Bickle, or anyone else who can deliver a real rain.

The "V" in VIP stands for "Vegetarian"?

The cinetrix passed along the picture at right, and wondered if you could catch Hep C from greens. I am not actually a medical doctor, and as such am not qualified to make such determinations. I can say, however, that I do have several questions of my own. First and foremost, why? It is, uh, exposure for Pammy, but what aspect of the message of the folks for treating animals nice (hi, Google) do airbrushed cabbages on a Reagan-era starlet hurtling towards Wildensternian levels of plastic surgery represent? Does Pammy keep on offering to do these, and on one has the heart to tell her to stop? Even a cursory trawl of the internets reveals no shortage of vegans willing to go sans clothes to promote the animal free lifestyle (NSFmostW). There appears to be no rival web presence for those who favor multimodal carnality, as the first hit for "carnivore porn" involved Bruni and pork butts, and left me too discouraged to continue.

Cletus and Conde - BFF?

Not to be overshadowed by stablemate Bon Appetit's makeover, the powers that be at Conde Nast have decreed a stately online pleasure dome for Gourmet, standing apart from the useful but unstylish Dagwood sandwich that is epicurious.com. Gourmet.com looks good -- the online design has shed the stodgy serifs and country club script of the ink and paper namesake, and has an interesting blend of features, including a piece by the estimable Laura Shapiro on Peg Bracken, but the early feature getting the most love for Gourmet.com is a peculiar feature on cooking game, or "varmints" in Gourmet parlance. If it were closer to April, I'd be sure this was a hoax, and as it is it still plays about as sincere as a trucker hat with the Virgin of Guadelupe on it. I do not have ready access to a library that carries Gourmets dating back as far as the receipts they discuss here, but the rather telegraphic presentation of the receipts, and the peculiar BFAness of the taxidermy and wallpaper photos, have me wondering how seriously I'm supposed to take it all. At least they don't call for anything really weird, like cubes of brie.

Hot Saucing - West Coast steez

It's been weeks since our last look at the retarded side of the Williams-Sonoma catalog. But rest assured, with Super Bowl XLII fast upon us, the W-S elves are hard at work. Monday's inbox included an exhortation to "celebrate the big game with homemade hot wings." Fair enough. I've done the same myself. Usually, such W-S receipts involve some particularly outre vessel, conveniently available from the very same catalog. Somewhat more restrained this time, but perhaps even more foolish is the W-S Hot Wing Sauce. For those of you who find the idea of blending Tabasco and Frank's to your liking an intolerable burden, a solution -- for only $12 for a 12 oz. bottle. If you fall for this, you been hot-sauced, sure as if you were Lisa Welchel's redheaded stepchild.

Inevitable

But no less enjoyable for that.