Fat Guy

A dynamic, interactive online discussion is not an index. It can be indexed, but it isn't one. In a well-chosen list, guide or index, the criteria for inclusion are many, generally involving merit in food, surroundings, service, etc. In a free-wheeling discussion format, the primary criterion for inclusion is whether there's something to discuss. Discussion-worthiness can certainly overlap with merit, but not necessarily. While discussion of the mundane can be interesting when held by interesting people, overall for most discussions to be interesting they have to focus on interesting things. And of course exactly the opposite of merit can also make something eminently discussable. For me, the interesting question, when looking at a restaurant that is good, maybe popular, but not the subject of much eG Forums discussion, is why isn't it the subject of much eG Forums discussion? There may be several types of reasons: First, there are the random statistical occurrences. Since the eGullet Society doesn't have 1,200 (I pick this number because it's commonly used in polling to establish a tolerable margin of error) active, knowledgeable, New York-based members who dine out all the time at a variety of places in all five boroughs, it's statistically unlikely that our membership will post evenly about every interesting or otherwise worthy restaurant. Our organization has a commitment to quality over quantity, and therefore among other things we require a membership application process that weeds most people out. I hasten to add, New York restaurant discussion of the review-and-comment variety is a small part of the overall content of eG Forums discussions. Our members can be found all over the world, discussing far more than restaurants. We do have plenty of ecumenical, diverse members who are interested in just about everything that goes on across the eGullet Society's webspace from cooking to the literary essays in the Daily Gullet to various regional food discussions that have nothing to do with dining out, but many of our members focus on a limited slice of content (e.g., New York restaurants) and then identify that selective bit as "eGullet." Second, there's the psychological barrier to initiating discussion. Our members, overwhelmingly, are more likely to reply to posts than they are to start topics. This of course enhances the statistical anomalies, because it gives the small subset of members who regularly start topics and initiate discussion a disproportionate say in the content of eG Forums New York discussions. Third, there is the reality that some very good restaurants just don't provide that much fodder for interesting discussion. So, maybe they got discussed by our members in 2001, 2002, 2003, or 2004, and if someone goes to look at the topic in 2007 there's just not much to add. For example, if a restaurant's menu never changes, there's only so large a share of the discussion real estate that it can occupy without something else happening (e.g., a murder at the restaurant, a media controversy). Fourth, often there needs to be a catalyst for a discussion to get going. A well-publicized opening, a celebrity chef, a restaurant review in the New York Times, a member having an incredibly great or terrible experience -- without at least one of these occurrences, it's possible that nobody will bother to post. Fifth, there's the matter of reputation. So many people have heard it repeated so many times that eGullet Society members are all fine-dining snobs that many of them believe it. So the ones who are already members don't bother to talk about anything else, or they take that discussion elsewhere, or they don't join up here in the first place, even though we explicitly welcome and encourage that sort of discussion every chance we get. It's particularly irksome when the views of a few members or staff are misconstrued as official positions, when of course they're not. Our official positions are carefully documented (for example, the very first belief listed in our statement of purpose is that "Good food doesn’t have to be expensive or esoteric – just good. Good food and drink aren't exclusive to the rich and well-traveled."). The rest is opinion. And often that opinion is misunderstood. Taking the position that Sripraphai deserves no stars is not a litmus test of whether you like Sripraphai or interesting ethnic restaurants in general. I go to Sripraphai often, and not as a masochistic exercise, but I think it deserves no stars. Perhaps the distinctions are too subtle for the soundbite era, though they seem clear enough to me. Given all that, and I'm sure there are more issues, I think the question for eGullet Society members who are interested in improving the range of restaurants that are the subject of eG Forums discussion is: what are you going to do about it? Are you only replying to topics that other people start? Are you going out to lots of meals but not reporting on them? Do you realize that the discussion is whatever you make it? I learn new things every day from my involvement with the eGullet Society. Perhaps one of the most satisfying revelations of late has been on account of the terrific posts of Leonard Kim on the subject of New York Times restaurant review history. Pretty much any tidy generalization anybody has made about the history of the New York Times restaurant reviews has been thoroughly debunked by Leonard's careful research. Those discussions are great examples of the folly of blanket assumptions and hasty generalizations. They're also a microcosm of the fallacies evident in many other discussions, especially the meta-discussions about what happens in eG Forums discussions. I can't claim to have read every eG Forums post for the past five years (the late Matt Hassett may be the only person who ever has), but I've read hundreds of thousands of them. Whenever I see hasty generalizations, and indeed fundamental misunderstandings of what the eGullet Society is, I'm sorely tempted to correct them, Leonard Kim style, with a hundred examples from the written record. But then, that task would fill all my available time. Bearing in mind all of the above points, I still can't figure out why Esca doesn't get more play.

I figured for the purposes of this experiment, where most of the subtlety of a given spirit will likely be lost, the Canadian Club is close enough to Bourbon. It's also a corn-and-rye spirit, I believe. I also wonder if people just think Bourbon will go well with vanilla because there are vanilla beans out there called "Bourbon." I don't think there's any real connection between Bourbon the spirit and Bourbon the vanilla. In vanilla, Bourbon referred to the Bourbon Islands, now called Reunion and the Comoros, and that's not even where Bourbon vanilla comes from anymore -- it can come from anywhere. In whiskey, it referred to Bourbon in the United States, which was a region and then a place in Kentucky. Both are named for the French royal family, presumably, but that's the only connection I know of.

Hooray! Maybe somebody's contribution to the experiment can be to do a side-by-side where one batch has whole beans and the other has split-and-scraped beans. Presumably the big difference will be the speed of extraction, but who knows?

The experiment begins.

I recently asked my fellow eGullet Society members where I could get the best deal on vanilla extract. This inquiry was quickly redirected: several members extolled the virtues of making your own vanilla extract. So, I went ahead and procured some vanilla beans from Vanilla Products USA, which has an eBay store. They sell a variety of types (defined by place of origin) and grades of vanilla beans. Since I'm using them to make vanilla extract, I got "Extract Grade" aka "Grade B." The ones I got are from Tahiti. They're available in 1 lb. packages -- yes, a pound -- for less than $10. They are described as: 1 LB Extract Grade B Tahitian Vanilla Beans 6"~7". I got two pounds. I've never before seen so many vanilla beans in one place. There are literally hundreds of them in my house now. I'm guessing there are about 150 beans in a pound, though I'm too lazy to count. I'm also really quite shocked at how cheap they are. I'm accustomed to seeing just a few vanilla beans (like, six of them) packaged in a test-tube-like jar and sold for as much as Vanilla Products USA charges for a pound. And the beans seem quite nice. They're pliable and have an incredible aroma (I have no idea how else to judge them right now). I may at some point try to use a couple in recipes to see how that works out. Theoretically they're extract grade, but they seem nicer than many vanilla beans I've seen sold for regular use. I decided to experiment with three different spirits for the extract: vodka, rum and whiskey. Here are our raw ingredients: (As you can see, they included one fancier vanilla bean in the order.) I had three Mason jars (two actual Mason jars and one jar of some other species) of roughly equivalent size available. I thought maybe I'd take a pound of the beans and divide them evenly among the jars, but they would have barely fit. So I used 20 beans in each of the three jars (60 beans in all, which is less than half of one of the packages). I know that seems like a lot of beans -- most people seem to recommend just a few beans in a jar -- but I have so many of them and I'd love to produce a really great, concentrated extract. I didn't split or do anything to the beans -- I imagine by chopping them up and otherwise disassembling them one could speed the extraction process, but I'm in no rush. Then I topped off one jar with Bacardi 1873 rum (plus some other dark rums, because there wasn't enough 1873), one jar with Stolichnaya vodka and one jar with Canadian Club whiskey (they call it "whisky."). (I labeled each jar by spirit, and indicated Mar 07.) The jars are now in the back of a cabinet. I'll try to check on them every once in awhile, agitate them a bit, and report back. Would anybody like to join me in this experiment?

It doesn't taste like goat cheese. It does taste sweeter and richer. I think it may, objectively, be sweeter and richer.

I confess I was not aware of this. I thought kosher salt was by definition coarse salt. I understand, of course, that ALL salt is kosher (unless it is somehow mixed with unkosher ingredients or processed on unkosher machinery), and most salt sold in American supermarkets bears kosher certification, but I thought the term "kosher salt" always specifically referred to coarse-grain salt.

Is anybody seriously contending that putting calorie counts on menu boards will cause people to lose weight? Incessant threats of death, destruction, humiliation and hospitalization across all media don't work, but putting calorie counts on menu boards -- that'll do the trick! Information won't make a damn bit of difference. If there is an obesity epidemic (a questionable proposition), it has occurred exactly in sync with increased availability of information about calories, nutrition and weight. So the question becomes, when information fails -- and it will -- to cause people to slim down, what will be next? How much coercion are we as a society willing to accept in pursuit of the goal of making people thin?

The beans have arrived, from Vanilla Products USA. I now have TWO POUNDS of "Extract Grade B Tahitian Vanilla Beans." I've never seen so many vanilla beans in one place. Now what the heck do I do?

Momo-Ssam's menu evolves for various reasons: seasons, chef's inspiration, etc. The brussels sprouts are seasonal. According to the guy I spoke to there, they were cooking a similar dish this summer with cauliflower. The big evolution in the menu, however, came when the restaurant started serving its full menu for the entire dinner service. Prior to that, only the more rustic ssam/wrap menu was available prior to 10:30pm.

I was at a restaurant the other day, sort of a Frenchified version of a tapas bar. (It's called Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, aka JLOB, in New York's East Village, aka the EV.) One of the small plates on the menu is Coho salmon tartare with Cape Cod potato chips. The accompaniment of Cape Cod potato chips sounded remarkably uninteresting to me. As much as I like Cape Cod chips (probably the best mass-market brand), I don't expect to be served them at any restaurant above the level of a sandwich shop. But check this out: at JLOB they have a big pail of the chips, and they keep a toaster oven running all the time nearby. Not sure of the exact temperature -- maybe 375 degrees? Whenever somebody orders this dish, they take a couple of handfuls of the chips and put them on the toaster oven tray in the toaster oven to heat for about three minutes. When they come out, they're amazing! They taste almost like they were cooked fresh right on the spot, and are certainly much better than chips straight out of the bag. Try it. You'll be blown away. I bet it would work just as well with any other brand of premium kettle-cooked chip.

Yes, I would suggest that you resign yourself to eating a lot of bacon for the next few days. It's a great seasoning tool. My concern, however, is that there may be something else going on here. But, assuming you've got a piece of cast iron there with no visible rust and a freshly sanded surface, I can't quite figure out the problem. Your method should have worked. Not necessarily all that well -- the oven-baking method of seasoning has never been particularly effective for me -- but well enough. I guess I can't figure out what's causing the flaking you've described. It may be that the newer pan was already seasoned well enough and that you were really just shoring up the seasoning not actually doing it from scratch (so to speak) on a freshly sanded pan. It may also be that you're not cleaning the pan thoroughly enough after each use (I find that a lot of people take the "never wash cast iron pans" thing to an extreme that causes all the food cooked in the pan to taste terrible and have carbonized spots of gunk on it). Or maybe you just need to repeat the seasnoning process over and over until it takes (without any sanding between attempts).

John, I agree with pretty much everything you're saying about Frank Bruni, but still see no real problem with calling him an "investigative restaurant reporter." It seems relatively accurate to me. As you know, I'm not a fan of Frank Bruni's restaurant reviewing. But I try to maintain some perspective. Not everything he does is wrong -- only the things that are wrong. Not every silly thing he writes is a crisis of ethics in journalism or a harbinger of the death of print. Making those distinctions is what separates reasonable criticism from having a chip on one's shoulder.

I must concur. First-rate knives are wasted on people who don't want them. I'd suggest going to Target and getting a set like this: http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=1-...asin=B00014B9ZA You'll get a lot of decent-quality stamped knives for $59, they'll seem like the greatest knives in the world to most home cooks, and you can buy another gift with the remaining money. Surely she needs some pots and pans too.

I fail to see what's inaccurate or funny about Frank Bruni calling himself an "investigative restaurant reporter." The term has no formal definition (try Googling it in quotes -- zero results), so it's not really possible to misuse it. Frank Bruni does happen to have better credentials as an investigative (Pulitzer finalist, etc.) reporter than everybody posting to this topic combined, times a thousand, but he's not even saying he's an investigative reporter -- he's using a different construction. In addition, most people are going to know what it means: that it's a matter of style and approach, and that Frank Bruni feels it's his job to investigate and report on the dining scene. So what? It made for plausible ad copy.

A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I bought a quart of goat's milk (from Coach Farm in New York). I don't know what I was expecting, but I was surprised upon tasting it that I liked the flavor of goat's milk far more than cow's milk. I bought another quart a week later. Why isn't goat's milk more popular? I should say, why isn't it more popular all over the world, because there are surely places (e.g., Greece) where it's plenty popular. At US$3.99 a quart, it's not particularly competitive with cow's milk at 89 cents a quart in these parts. But it's better, and I'm sure with expanded production the price gap would narrow. Are any of you fans of goat's milk? If so, what can you tell us about it?

We actually know a couple of people who report that their kids will only eat the Tyson nuggets. I've tasted them and, while they're not terrible, I can't see why they inspire such loyalty. I suppose that may be our fate. If so, at least it's a convenient fate.

Montrachet certainly was a restaurant of its neighborhood, and also of its time. It is not possible to generalize from that, however, to a rule about all restaurants needing to conform to some notion of "neighborhood vibe." Some restaurants embrace their neighborhoods, and others don't. Not to mention, some neighborhoods don't really have a vibe that's relevant to restaurants. I mean, what's the neighborhood vibe at the Time Warner Center? In what way does Per Se accommodate its neighborhood's vibe? Jean Georges? Le Bernardin? Popeye's? Any restaurant with multiple locations (e.g., Nobu)?

Right, the point is not to provide the information to people who want it. It's to force the information on people who don't care enough to seek it out. This kind of approach goes beyond simple sharing of information. So it's not really a situation where you can say "If you're opposed to the CSPI's plan you're against information." Although, of course, those who advocate for such a plan will say that over and over.

It may be that if, in 1975, Paul Bocuse came to America and started serving Soupe V.G.E. and other nouvelle cuisine in a topless bar, the New York Times would have either 1- ignored the story, 2- taken a totally literal, humorless approach to the story, or 3- buried the story on an interior page and shown a photo of the soup. And that's why the Times is, at least in this limited way, a better newspaper now than it was in 1975. Because it would be wrong to ignore the story, pathetic to treat it in a humorless manner, and just plain wrong to bury it. It's also worth noting, again, that Frank Bruni is a serious journalist. He was a Pulitzer finalist for his work at the Detroit Free Press, and he held several prestigious positions at the Times (he also, long ago, worked at the New York Post, but the unfair swipes being taken at the Post are for another topic in a different forum). He knows plenty about serious journalism. He's not some clueless kid -- he made an informed decision to treat this particular subject in a particular way, and it worked for many of us.

If the restaurant wants to defraud you it doesn't make a difference whether or not the bottle is presented, because you can just bring a bottle with the wrong wine in it. If the restaurant is honest, presenting the bottle is a non-issue with respect to preventing fraud, however it can help prevent mistakes.

Pouring wine from the bottle does not prevent willful deception. It's just not that hard to fill an empty bottle with any old wine. So I think this part of the justification is not compelling. Displaying the bottle can insure against mistakes, though. It's also a good way to let the customer sample the wine before committing to the sale -- and that's just good customer relations. (The purpose of the taste, in a by-the-glass scenario, is not so much to detect if the wine is corked, oxidized, etc. -- it's more to see if you like it).

I'd also not be so quick to write the dining section off as non-serious. It contains a range of content, from hard news pieces (Kim Severson and Marian Burros write many of these) to lighter fare to, of course, restaurant criticism. More importantly, a non-food equivalent of Bruni's piece would have been just fine in many different sections of the paper.

There are many problems with the Times, as well as with the dining section, but these claims of tabloid journalism and sensationalism are, at best, out of touch. I mean, I'm looking through the archives, and here's a 1956 article titled "HIGH AIDES' SONS IN SOVIET 'ORGIES'; Moscow Stirred by Report of Sex Scandal Involving Top Official." It begins "This capital is atwitter with the reverberations of a sex and crime scandal attributed by Komsomolskaya Pravda to spoiled teenage children of some leading Communists." Here's a piece from 1977 by Lois Gold about promiscuity, double standards and taboos at MIT that begins "Casanova would have hated it. Don Juan would have thought it was sick. Frank Harris would suspect it was somewhat exaggerated, and Aretino would have said he told you so. As for me, I thought it was historic." And of course we can make the rounds of the other top newspapers today -- Wall Street Journal, Washington Post -- and find plenty of what could be labeled (incorrectly), by the same standards (if you can call them that) that are being presented here, sensationalism and tabloid journalism. That line of argument is just totally off base. What we're talking about here is a simple editorial choice to feature something funny and entertaining. It's not a crisis of ethics in journalism or the death of the Times.

I think the primary issue is that many restaurant owners object to being forced to put nutrition information on the actual menus and menu boards right next to the dish names and prices. There's an illustration on the CSPI website: Were the proposed laws simply requiring that the information be made available, there would perhaps be some resistance but it wouldn't be extreme, I don't think.