Fat Guy

The "where can I find Indian mangoes?" topics are starting to pop up in the US regional forums, however I think the overall most interesting thing about these newly arrived mangoes is that they're irradiated. I'm strongly in favor of irradiation as a food safety technology. I think it's great that these mangoes, previously banned from the US on account of pests, can now be subject to doses of radiation that kill or sterilize those pests without harming the fruit. Still, I suspect that once the information gets out there and various organizations wake up, there will be a consumer backlash against the irradiated mangoes. I haven't seen one of the mangoes yet, but I'm pretty sure the label says nothing about irradiation, so that sets the producers, importers and retailers of these mangoes up for accusations of deception. Even Madhur Jaffrey's New York Times op-ed celebrating the anticipated arrival of the Indian mangoes on US shores neglects to mention the irradiation issue. From the USDA news release:

On behalf of several generations of members and volunteers, I'd like to thank Mr. Brown for his contributions to the formation and development of the eGullet Society. He was instrumental in raising the level of discourse in our early years, always imbuing his posts with a higher purpose. There are few diners today who can speak with his level of experience, wisdom, knowledge and detachment. We look forward to whatever he has in store, and to his continued eG Forums participation.

The Oxo bag handles are such a great invention. I had never seen one until JAZ introduced me to them, and now I'm astounded at how difficult they are to find. They really should just be industry standard.

There's an interview/profile piece on Alfred Portale in this month's New York Restaurant Insider magazine. One of the bits of information worth noting here, because it tends to be forgotten, is that Alfred Portale was not the original chef (or the founder) of Gotham Bar & Grill. As the article explains the background:

Our Honda Odyssey has plastic bag clips in the cargo area. These would be very useful if we lived in the suburbs. One of the more unusual bag-related experiences for me is shopping at Costco, where they don't have bags. It's always interesting to see how much you can accomplish with no bags at all.

It will indeed taste better. As Julia Child said, "It will only be the better for a sojourn with its flavor elements." Gentle moist heat is the key -- the meat should be surrounded either by vapor or liquid. So either reheat in a covered vessel with enough liquid to maintain a moist environment, or completely submerge the meat in sauce for reheating (if you have enough sauce, this is a great way to go).

My apartment building's guidelines for tenants actually prohibit paper grocery bags, based on the infestation issue. We do sometimes use them for transport, but always take them to the outside trash right away. The other main drawback to paper bags (that they rip is a drawback, but not a unique one because plastic bags rip too) is that they're difficult to carry. You can pretty easily grab two or more plastic bags with one hand, up to your ability to bear the weight. Paper bags, the most you can really do is two bags with your entire body, assuming you're just making quick trips from a car to a kitchen without the need to open doors, etc. Needless to say, when it comest to New York City apartment living, that doesn't work out very well. The best bagging arrangement from a usability perspective is plastic over paper. This gives the structure of a paper bag, and the handles of a plastic bag. Plus, the redundancy makes the chance of tearing statistically insignificant. This only works in supermarkets that use good plastic bags, though. Here in the city, Fairway on 74th and Broadway has the good plastic bags and the default packing method is plastic over paper. But the Fairway in Harlem uses thinner plastic bags and defaults to the million-bags approach -- probably because the Harlem Fairway is more of a car destination. It's also worth touching on the paper v. plastic environmental issue. Just about everybody I know who's an environmentalist type is militant about choosing paper over plastic. But there seems to be good evidence that plastic is the better environmental choice. It has been nearly 20 years, I think, since ILEA put out its report on this, and the summary still seems to be the best piece on the subject: You can see a more detailed analysis here. Needless to say, the worst possible environmental choice is to use both paper and plastic, as I do.

With the disclaimer that I'm answering based on knowledge that's a couple of years stale, I think Tehuitzingo has much better tacos. Tehuitzingo is the only taqueria in town that I've tried that I think provides an experience on par with a decent taco place in a city like Austin. If you look at Sam Kinsey's photo report from Tehuitzingo what you see are nicely minimalist tacos with just the tortilla, meat, onions and a ton of cilantro -- and the meats are quite good. That works for me. The Super Taco truck on 96th and Broadway junks up the tacos with too much stuff, not all of which is good (a quarter-slice of unripe tomato -- give me a break), and the meats aren't on par with Tehuitzingo's. I don't think Tulcingo del Valle is as good as Tehuitzingo -- it's closer to Super Taco, though probably still a little better than Super Taco. Of course if you break it down item by item, each place is going to have some strengths and weaknesses. A few things that in my experience unify all the best taco places (using best as a relative term) in New York are 1- the tortillas are bad -- so bad that I usually wind up just eating the guts out of the tacos; 2- the condiments are bad -- this is one thing I really love about the good taquerias in the southwest and out west: they have amazingly vibrant, fresh condiments; 3- the offerings are uneven -- you buy four types of tacos and maybe one will be truly exceptional.

In a review titled "The Taco Truck that Delivers," Peter Meehan seems at first glance to be singing the praises of Super Taco, the nocturnal taco truck that parks at the southwest corner of 96th and Broadway. I had to switch from the 3 train to the 96th Street crosstown bus this evening, so I decided to grab a few tacos. I tried chorizo, al pastor, beefsteak and goat. They were all passable, better than mediocre, good even, but not great or in any way inspiring. So I went back to the review and read more carefully. Turns out, Meehan did reach the right conclusion: Good enough for a snack if you happen to be making a transfer at that intersection. Perhaps not good enough for 600 words in the Times. P.S. I'm sure Super Taco is one of fewer than ten places in history to be reviewed positively by the New York Times and not post the review.

I think it's helpful to work with examples. How about ice cream? Chocolate cake? Banana cream pie? Blueberry muffins? Corn bread? Certainly these are all sugary foods, high in fat. They may have some nutritional value, but it's incidental. Yet I don't think I have any negative gut reaction to organic ice cream. The things that I react negatively to on a gut level are things like "Glenny's Onion & Garlic Soy Crisps," "Lundberg Organic Sesame Tamari Rice Cakes," "Clif Nectar Organic Cinnamon Pecan Fruit-Nut Bars," etc. And it's not that I find any one of those items, standing alone, to be offensive. It's that when you go to so-called whole/natural/organic food shops or market sections today, you see stuff like this stretching as far as the eye can see, just like the Fritos/Cheetos/Doritos aisle in a regular supermarket.

The problem with the lunch desserts is that they're incomplete. At dinner, your dessert comes in four parts (on four square plates arranged on a square platter) and is always a really interesting and synergistic composition. At lunch, you get two parts (on two plates side-by-side on a rectangular platter) and it's just not the same level of experience. (That's why Johnny Iuzzini's forthcoming book is called "Dessert Fourplay.") I also agree that some of the best dessert work being done under that roof is being done for the Nougatine menu. I think there's more ability to use strong, rustic and offbeat flavors at Nougatine (pretzels with Guinness, etc.). The last two times I've been there Johnny has sent over Nougatine items for us to try, and they've been the hits of the dessert course.

If you walk into any random large wine shop in New York City, you'll probably see the Spiegelau glasses for $10 a stem, but they do go on sale and if you're buying the boxes of 6 they should be cheaper. But yes, the $7 a stem price (for the big Burgundy and Bordeaux glasses) is what you can get online.

We have a lot of chef members here. It would be great to get their perspectives.

To me the actual "organic" designation is largely irrelevant. For one thing, I've never seen a compelling piece of evidence that says my health or the health of my family will be improved by drinking organic milk instead of conventional milk. (It's particularly annoying when pediatricians recommend organic milk "just in case," like that's a statement with any medical/scientific validity.) For another thing, as I've mentioned on other topics, I don't like the fact that most organic milk is ultrapasteurized, shipped long distances, not pastured all that much, pumped up with vitamin A & D just like regular milk, etc. For still another thing, it doesn't taste better to me -- actually in many cases it tastes worse than the cheapest brand of milk because the cheapest brand of milk (if you're in a dairy producing area, at least) is usually local and has very high turnover. Finally, I'll always choose a local small-scale mostly-natural supplier like Ronnybrook or Rhody Fresh -- both not organic brands because they don't meet various technical criteria -- over some officially designated "organic" milk from a mega-industrial-organic cooperative 3,000 miles away from my home. Would a 50 cent or $1 change in price per gallon matter to me? Probably not. We don't drink enough milk to care. Maybe when our kid is drinking two gallons of milk a week we'll care.

I agree with John that the term "junk food" doesn't actually survive basic scrutiny. You look at an example like potato chips. Potato chips are emblematic of junk food, yet they're really more along the lines of a whole food. Most of the time potato chips are made simply from potatoes, oil and salt. Even the ones from the mega producers tend to have just those three ingredients. Then there are the flavored chips, which tend to depart into more of a gray area. Hamburgers? French fries? It really isn't clear what junk food is. (I should add, the distinction between organic and not-organic, natural and artificial, is similarly specious.) Still, the trend away from whole foods and towards foods that are exactly the same as the crap in a regular supermarket, but with organic ingredients lists, is clearly happening. It almost seems as though the organic designation has been sufficiently coopted that there needs to be another term to describe foods that are actually healthful and wholesome. Although, the distinction between healthful and un-healthful is similarly problematic, and probably depends more on quantity than composition . . .

Toliver, do you have any idea where those regulations can be found? I'd be interested in seeing how tough they are.

From the PR department . . . "Million Dollar Fried Rice" Seems that dbd is the latest restaurant to hop on the bandwagon of super-expensive dishes accompanied by PR campaigns to promote them. This one, the creation of chef de cuisine Eric Hara, who worked at Tao, is fried rice with Wagyu beef, caviar, gold leaf, king crab, lobster, etc., in a fancy salt bowl. The price is lucky $88 Here's a photo of the dish, courtesy of dbd:

Beer.

Successful restaurants often comp writers as part of their longer-term marketing and publicity efforts. Even restaurants that are full almost every night often strive to get more cred.

How fitting, and touching, that the series finale concludes with a private 5am breakfast at Luke's diner for Rory and Lorelai. You know it's good stuff if I get teary. I'll miss the show. It had its ups and downs quality-wise, and sadly it ended on a down-ish year, but it was still some of the best writing (and acting) on television. I just went back through this topic and was amazed at some of the vocabulary used on the show: "Alain Ducasse," "bouquet garni" -- you just don't get that on CSI: Miami.

Here it is. The restaurants recommended are: BRUCKNER BAR AND GRILL FEEDING TREE MO GRIDDER’S BBQ PRESS CAFÉ REAL AZTECA

Back when I was at a law firm, we used to entertain clients at Yankee games, and not only did we have great seats but also we were given plenty of cash to buy whatever we and our guests wanted. Even with the ability to get the outrageously overpriced ballpark food for free, I barely touched the stuff and opted for eating before or after the game. There was just a story in the New York times on restaurants in the Yankee Stadium area of the South Bronx. I'll try to find it.

I agree that chefs don't expect to be treated differently. Indeed, they tend to be less picky than the average guest. But it's not about what they expect. It's about me, as the host, wanting to do what my guests will most enjoy. It's like if you're a decent amateur pianist. Let's say you're in the habit of playing for friends after dinner, and of course they enjoy it. Then one night Alfred Brendel comes to dinner. Me, I'd skip the piano recital that night, or I'd alter it in some way based on Brendel's presence. I'm not going to make him listen to two hours of my hack piano playing, no matter how much he claims it's okay.

I've done this for my wife's elementary school's fundraisers. It's scary how much money people have paid to have me cook for them, given that I can't cook at anything near a professional level. I agree with BryanZ, and would emphasize that the unfamiliar kitchen is the main stress point -- not the people. I assure you, the people won't be a bother. What will be a bother is the fact that the stove sucks. My biggest issue was that I once had to jettison a potato side dish because it took like an hour for a pot of water to boil on the crappy stove.

"Oh, I just wanted to let you know, my date for your dinner party is Alain Ducasse." I spend a lot of time armchair quarterbacking the work of professional chefs. But once in awhile, a chef comes to dinner and I feel as though my bluff has been called. It occurred to me that, in this day and age, with food being so much a part of pop culture in so many nations, with culinary school attendance skyrocketing, and with food awareness generally at an all-time high (especially in the New World), a lot more people are probably finding themselves in this situation than ever before. I'd love to hear from those who have hosted chefs, and from chefs themselves, about how to deal with this situation. I may even get an article out of this, so I'll warn folks in advance I may quote them. My two cents: keep it simple. I know I'm not going to impress a real chef with any of the "fancy" food I can cook to impress regular people. Rather, I'll tend towards rustic, simple items like braised short ribs or brisket, potatoes roasted with olive oil and thyme, a tomato salad in season, fruit for dessert. I think this accomplishes two things: first, it avoids triggering the professional cook's critical instincts, and second I think a lot of chefs really just appreciate a home-cooked meal and nothing says home-cooked like braised beef and potatoes. Agree? Disagree? Any thoughts or experiences to share? P.S. I was just using Ducasse as a hypothetical. He's never been to my house for dinner. I've never had a Michelin three-star chef over, though I have had guests who've worked in Michelin three-star kitchens. By the way, they tend to be a lot less picky than normal guests. I've never once heard a special dietary request or a claim of allergy from a chef guest.