92 replies to this topic

[mamster]

Jinmyo, you raise an interesting point, probably worthy of an XXL thread all its own. I'll start it on General.

edit: I did it

[Wilfrid]

I read the Mario piece last night. I thought the substance of it was very interesting. I didn't know anything about Mario's background, and was amazed that he'd worked in a London pub kitchen with Marco Pierre White. Conjures quite a picture.

But I didn't like the extended episodes about the author, Bill Buford, doing the George Plimpton thing in the Babbo kithcen. I know that the amateur in the professional kitchen is something of a recognized genre, but he could have beenin any kitchen anywhere. It felt like the article had been padded, and I ended up skipping most of that.

[Fat Guy]

I notice on the New Yorker Web site there's a bit of a food retrospective at:

http://www.newyorker...819fr_archive01

"To accompany this week's Food Issue, here is a selection of food-related pieces from The New Yorker's past, from Lillian Ross on frozen dinners, from 1945, to Nora Ephron on doughnuts, from 1997."

Some of those older pieces might be worth reading, given that the New Yorker has been in steady decline since before I could read.

[Fat Guy]

I'm slowly making my way through the online-available articles in this typically mediocre issue of the New Yorker (the less you know about the subjects the New Yorker covers, the happier you'll be), and just finished with Nora Ephron's piece on Langer's, where I came across this statement:

Pastrami, I should point out for the uninitiated, is made from a cut of beef that is brined like corned beef, coated with pepper and an assortment of spices, and then smoked.

My understanding is that traditional pastrami is dry-rubbed and smoked, and is not brined like corned beef.

The reason Langer's pastrami sandwich is not "the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world" or even a particularly great one is that it is dramatically, painfully, and hilariously (in a totally white and California-esque manner) underseasoned. Even when I visited at the age of 17 I knew enough to know it was bland by real pastrami standards. Indeed I've seen interviews with the Langers where they've said outright that correctly seasoned pastrami wouldn't work for the local audience.

[researchgal]

... given that the New Yorker has been in steady decline since before I could read.

It seems like many would agree with you about the New Yorker, FG. The interesting thing is that we all continue to subscribe to it, despite the fact that it can be so hit or miss. Why is that? I personally, wouldn't think of giving up my subscription, I've been subscribing for nearly 20 years, I started reading it as a kid because my father subscribed (and continues to subscribe now--he was first introduced in WWII and has subscribed since then). I work in publishing, so I'm curious, both professionally and personally. I would love to hear what others think.

[Wilfrid]

Almost finished the issue. There were some interesting observations about the treatment of customers at Babbo. No question that VIPs get extra-special treatment, and that you can get away with any kind of behavior if you're drinking a $475 bottle of wine. No suprises there, but the reported custom of the kitchen referring to a solo diner at the bar as "loser" left a slightly bad taste.

I thought the Trillin article, while amusing as usual, was desperately thin. Nothing of any interest or importance about wine tasting in there at all. I have a higher opinion of the New Yorker than Fat Bloke - I don't think you can expect a stable of general feature journalists to write for an expert audience - but the Trillin piece was a wasted opportunity. I'd like to have read Trillin's views about wine tasting proper, not about the silly red/white blind taste question - which I see prompted almost no interest on our wine board.

[Fat Guy]

I stopped subscribing about five years ago.

[cakewalk]

It seems like many would agree with you about the New Yorker, FG.  The interesting thing is that we all continue to subscribe to it, despite the fact that it can be so hit or miss.  Why is that?

It's the cartoons.

And because when it does hit, it really hits.

And because of the fiction.

[Jinmyo]

I read it almost all the way through, except for the fiction. In a small room.

[Fat Guy]

It's probably a variety of factors: 1) Cultural literacy among the set that reads the New Yorker, thus it's self-perpetuating; 2) No direct competition; 3) Inertia; 4) Doesn't look so bad viewed relative to the general decline in journalism; 5) Gradual declines aren't acute and few people bother to dig up New Yorker articles from way back in order to view the decline all at once.

[Stephanie]

Almost finished the issue.  There were some interesting observations about the treatment of customers at Babbo.  No question that VIPs get extra-special treatment, and that you can get away with any kind of behavior if you're drinking a $475 bottle of wine.  No suprises there, but the reported custom of the kitchen referring to a solo diner at the bar as "loser" left a slightly bad taste.

Yes, I thought that a bit insulting as well. I had heard that Babbo is a good place to dine at the bar if you're alone, but I may have to rethink my going there if they openly admit that they consider such solo diners that pathetic.

[Fat Guy]

Why should you care what they think of you, provided it doesn't affect the food or service?

[Jinmyo]

Please don't worry, that's just cheftalk. It keeps the staff amused and is usually much better than the epithets flung back and forth across the line.

[tommy]

Yes, I thought that a bit insulting as well.  I had heard that Babbo is a good place to dine at the bar if you're alone, but I may have to rethink my going there if they openly admit that they consider such solo diners that pathetic.

i didn't read the article.

i'm wonderng if "loser" is just a figure of speech, and if they don't actually think the solo diner at the bar is some sort of social misfit.

[Wilfrid]

Well, I think it's cheeky.

As for the New Yorker, I have been reading it since the latter days of Shawn's editorship, and I think its direction has not been one of steady decline. It did decline, signifcantly, under Tina Brown's editorship, but I think David Remnick has made numerous improvements. The one thing which seems irretrievable is its reputation for fact-checking. Every issue is rife with inaccuracies. However, as Fat Bloke can't help indicating, I don't know of anything even close to its equal in publishing intelligent, literate articles on a regular basis, and note that it does so weekly, not monthly like its closest competitors.

[stellabella]

roger angell made me thirsty for a martini, and john mcphee makes me glad i ain't a vegetarian.

[SobaAddict70]

I thought with the exception of the article on Mario B. and the Diane Kennedy/Mexican food story, that the entire mag was a waste of $4.00. I'm not sure which is worse -- the NYTimes piece on Greenmarkets or the New Yorker equivalent.

I felt the rag was long on ads and short on substance.

SA

[Bux]

I thought with the exception of the article on Mario B. and the Diane Kennedy/Mexican food story, that the entire mag was a waste of $4.00.

However, the yearly subscription rate for those who are eGullet members or happen to have a mailing address in the U.S., is $16.95 assuming rates haven't changed since my price list was printed. This is a professional rate and you will have to produce a business card or letterhead and order through Delta Publishing Group, 718.972.0900 or 800.728.3728. Rates on food magazines are equally as good and most subscriptions do not require a business affiliation. At well under fifity cents an issue, the magazine pays for itself in just the exercise I get lugging the unread issues to the curb for recycling. I'd didn't even have to like the Gopnik or Buford articles, or even get anything special out of them to get my money's worth and I haven't read the Kennedy article yet. What's the competition got to offer me to read?

[Wilfrid]

Subscriptions are indeed the way to go with any magazine you want to read regularly. I think I am getting Gourmet at $1 per issue. Vanity Fair, which I wouldn't pay the newstand price for, I get for $15 a year. Far from needing any kind of business pretext, I discovered that once I'd subscribed to a couple of mags, I started getting plenty of cut-price solicitations from others.

[Stephanie]

Why should you care what they think of you, provided it doesn't affect the food or service?

I guess I don't want to know that I'm being thought of as such, particularly if I'm dropping a wad of money.

[bushey]

BklynEats -- Think of it as a way for people who are working their asses off in a super-stressed environment to make their long shifts survivable. In just about every work environment people develop their own lingo and stupid in-jokes that say a lot more about themselves than anyone else.

[tommy]

it's, um, humorous.

that is not subjective.

[Bux]

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Of all the things said about Mario Batali and Babbo, that phase to denote a single diner at the bar may be one of the most innocuous of all. Given the way that slang arises and the way that most of us can mock ourselves, I didn't even see it as necessarily pejorative. I mean if you want the kitchen to pay extra attention to you, you can get a high priced hooker to keep you company at a table. A propos of Mario's rather populist appeal and the threads on eGullet about getting a shot at reservations, service and food on an equal basis with others, I would have thought the comments about his attitude towards VIPs might have offended some. It's also curious that his attitude towards not being in the kitchen isn't a topic of discussion here. I'm one of those who judges a chef's talents on his ability to train a staff to perform flawlessly when he's not there, but so many others like to know the chef is in the kitchen cooking when their food is being prepared.

[tommy]

It's also curious that his attitude towards not being in the kitchen isn't a topic of discussion here. I'm one of those who judges a chef's talents on his ability to train a staff to perform flawlessly when he's not there, but so many others like to know the chef is in the kitchen cooking when their food is being prepared.

that seems like another thread altogether. i am one who doesn't care if the chef is there (at places like babbo anyway). although, mario does seem to do a fair amount of "cooking" and he does seem to be involved, i wouldn't say that his approach is common as far as head chefs go.

[Suzanne F]

5) Gradual declines aren't acute and few people bother to dig up New Yorker articles from way back in order to view the decline all at once.

Speak for yourself, FG. I just spent 17 vacation days reading articles going back as far as the mid-1980s -- including the one by Mark Singer on the Chinos, as well as several by Jerome Groopman that relate closely to the very recent one on testosterone. In any case, you are, once again, the master of the obvious but unnecessary: true, gradual is the opposite of acute. So what? Those of us who have been reading the magazine for, oh, 40 years do, in fact, notice the changes. Those who do not read it probably do not. What source of pride is it to say one has not subscribed for 5 years? Snotty, is all I can say.

And no, there has NOT been an issue totally devoted to food before. Although there have been issues about food: remember the McPhee piece about the mythical Otto, who used white pepper to "preserve" the quality of the meat in his mythical restaurant?

[pjs]

What the fuck is a "dye cut"? pp40.

[Suzanne F]

A misspelling of "die cut." Oh dear, how the mighty New Yorker has fallen in its obsessive-compulsive editing.

[Bux]

The New Yorker is not what it was in the fifties and sixties, (nor am I) but the decline hasn't been consistent or steady. I have stopped my subscription at least once or twice out of protest or conviction, but in the end I decide that a couple of article a year justify the price and it's always good to have something around the house to grab to that's new to read if I need it. Several times it's occurred to me that the New Yorker is not what it was and I've looked to find the magazine that is what the New Yorker was. I then realize I was not a there for its formative years anyway and that no magazine will ever again be to me what the New Yorker was when I first met it, if only because I will never be that age again those who are that age live in another world.

I enjoyed the Trillin piece. I've always loved his work, but I often suspect others hold him in much higher regard and I sometimes wonder if he hasn't reached mythical proportions in their minds. He debunked an urban myth and he told his story in an engaging manner. Pure enough, if not the best, Trillin for me. It's just a periodical, not a compendium of the best writing of the decade. I have to say I found Jane Kramer's article interesting and maybe touching. Perhaps there were only a few lines I found thrilling, but all in all it moved me to at least continue reading. My basic hunger for words and phrases is not as great as it is for food, but there are dishes that didn't move me to finish them.

[Bux]

What the fuck is a "dye cut"? pp40.

Off hand I suppose it sounds as if you're reading a hand lettered sign in a beauty salon.

[srhcb]

The New Yorker is not what it was in the fifties and sixties, (nor am I) but the decline hasn't been consistent or steady. I have stopped my subscription at least once or twice out of protest or conviction, but in the end I decide that a couple of article a year justify the price

ditto

My parents have subscribed since 1946. I've "read" the New Yorker since before I could literally read. I've also canceled my subscription on several occasions, but always returned.

I've actually let nearly one year's worth of issues pile up without even lifting a cover until my Mother alerted me to the Food Issue. Once again, I guess I will be re-subscribing.

There really is no alternative publication available, although if I'm not going to read them, any periodical (Hot Rod, Hustler, Field & Stream) would serve as well.

It's hard to explain. Like why you contribute to the same charity year after year.