Fat Guy

"American cheese" isn't any one thing. It can range from processed cheeses and "cheese foods" like Velveeta, Cheez Whiz and Easy Cheese, to cheeses that I think taste pretty good like the Borden Deluxe and Applegate Farms American cheeses (the Applegate contains only "Cultured Milk, Salt, Enzymes, Cream, Sodium Citrate, Salt"). Today I bought a pound of sliced Muenster cheese from the deli counter at the market where I usually shop. It was $3.99 a pound. I asked to see the block and the ingredients were just milk, salt, enzymes and annatto which I suppose is for the orange exterior color.

There are a lot of factors that can explain increases in disease. A big one is that when people live longer they get more diseases. Another is the "epidemic of diagnosis," which identifies diseases earlier and at lower thresholds than ever before. And I'm not ready to pin the puniness of 19th Century man entirely on malnutrition -- unless you want to define malnutrition as the diet Pollan recommends. Middle class people were also smaller and weaker well into the 20th Century. As long as we're making lists of required reading, let's add Gina Kolata's July 2006 New York Times piece, "So Big and Healthy Grandpa Wouldn’t Even Know You."

The problem with avoiding the issue of physical activity (and one might ask, along the same lines as Pollan asks with respect to food, when physical activity became "exercise") is that whatever supposed success traditional diets had surely didn't occur in a vacuum. Whatever it is that peasants ate in Europe was part of a matrix that included the fact that those peasants were out working the fields. It's nonsensical to recommend their diet without recommending the other essential components of their lifestyle.

People will pay pretty much whatever Per Se charges, for either type of menu. The tasting is up to $250 now. There's obviously some theoretical price they could charge for the non-tasting menu so it wouldn't be a money loser. Whether that's $190 or $249.95 I don't know, but there's no economic reason they couldn't price it for profit. The issue is that Keller's style of cuisine is, in Keller's opinion, better appreciated in the long tasting format. I happen to agree with him.

Per Se has more people working in the kitchen, at a higher labor cost, than any restaurant I know of. Those tasting menus are incredibly labor intensive. I believe Keller when he says he switched to an all tasting menu format to give the customer a better experience of his approach to cuisine, and I see nothing wrong with that. Having spoken to at least a hundred people who've dined at Per Se, the overwhelming preference I've heard articulated is for the tasting menu. If you owned a restaurant, and 1/4 of the customers were choosing a certain menu and 90% of them were walking away less happy than they'd have been if they'd chosen the tasting menu, would you leave the other menu on just for the 10% who'd have preferred it? Chefs have to make choices, Keller has made his, it's fine with me. And, no, having that occur at one restaurant in the city doesn't alarm me, especially since I like tasting menus just fine, but even if I didn't it wouldn't bother me. I fail to see why it's such an affront, such a big deal. Maybe those who don't like it just aren't the customers Keller is going after. Not every restaurant is for everyone. That's life. As for those signatures at Jean Georges and Nobu, as far as I know they're on the menu every day all year round. They were almost certainly on the menu when you ate there five years ago. You may not have had the information that they were signatures, or you may not remember them, but they were probably there.

I've made it through the whole piece. While well written, it contains little insight. Indeed, it appears to embrace most of the notions it criticizes -- just at a higher altitude. While critiquing modern nutrition studies, the piece ultimately supports the same dietary advice being peddled by various nutritionists who recommend a Mediterranean diet, or any other traditional diet. The omission of physical activity from consideration is more than just a choice of battles. It's a cop out. In addition, the assumption that the way people used to eat is superior to the way they eat now is not self evident. Viewed from today's perspective, a hundred years ago people were short, weak and died young. Advances in medicine can't solely be responsible for those differences, because advances in treatment tend only to intervene at the disease or illness stage. Those advances wouldn't make us taller and stronger. It seems that something about 20th Century nutrition wasn't so bad after all. I'm just as suspicious of Pollan's self-consciously moderate advice as I am of any other advice. For all I know, if I feed my kid a diet mostly of leaves he'll grow up to be a weakling straight out of the 19th Century. So, forgive me if I stick to the diet rich in animal protein, white flour and corn that has coincided with historically unprecedented improvements in quality and quantity of life.

The evidence for the proposition that "choice seems to be disappearing" is scant at best. There are only a handful of restaurants I can think of in all of North America where tasting menus are the only option. In New York, is there a single restaurant besides Per Se that requires eating in this manner? I suppose Masa requires omakase, but that's a different species of restaurant and I can't think of another Japanese place that operates that way. (Neither Per Se nor Masa is an indigenous New York restaurant, by the way.) Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Daniel, Bouley, Gramercy Tavern, even the avant garde WD-50 -- all these places have either a la carte menus or prix fixe menus with many choices per course. Ducasse never limited choice in this manner. I think it would be premature to call mandatory tasting menus a trend. More like a choice. So there are a couple of restaurants here and there that operate in this manner. So what? If you don't like tasting menus, don't go to them. The thing is, plenty of people absolutely love tasting menus. They want to taste as many things as possible in an evening. It's a legitimate preference -- I can't see the point in calling tasting menus "the scourge of serious dining." Find me one great chef in the world who believes that. Every top restaurant I can think of offers a menu degustation, with pride. The people who order such menus aren't idiots. Nor am I convinced that tasting menus are labor saving devices. While it's true that having two or four people at a table eat the same food can mean less cooking per course, tasting menus typically involve 2-3 times as many dishes going out to the table. There may also be more than one tasting menu available, so a four-top may order a 2x2 tasting, say two seasonal tasting menus and two seasonal vegetarian menus. Moreover, signature dishes are alive and well. That modern naming conventions don't support the notion of quaint designations like "Peach Melba" and "Caesar salad" doesn't change anything -- it just means that current tastes don't run towards naming dishes after people, places and things. But if you go to most any top restaurant you'll find signature dishes aplenty. Let's list a few: Jean Georges: "Young garlic soup with thyme, sauteed frog legs with parsley," "Sea scallops, caper-raisin emulsion, cauliflower" Daniel: "Paupiette of black sea bass in a crisp potato shell with tender leeks and a Syrah sauce" Cafe Gray: "Herbed risotto with mushroom fricassee," "Braised short rib of beef with soft grits and meaux mustard" Per Se: "Oysters & Pearls," "Macaroni & Cheese" Nobu: "New style sashimi," "Broiled black cod with miso" So what if Daniel Boulud doesn't call his paupiette of black sea bass "Sea Bass ala Fred"? It doesn't change anything. It's still a signature, it's still great, people remember it, they come back and order it -- it's just not named after Fred. Big deal.

Presumably they call to cancel. It's no skin off their backs to do so. Also, since most restaurants already assume a percentage of no-shows and overbook accordingly, and since a random customer may also hold a table and not use it, it's not likely this service could contribute appreciably to the no-show problem anyway.

Teitel Bros. on Arthur Avenue has the best price I know of on good Reggiano. I buy a few pounds there a couple of times a year.

I think it is surely derived from couvert. The couvert refers to the place setting, not the actual person in the seat, and in formal language cover also refers to the place setting (from Encarta, "a place set at a table, e.g. in a restaurant; covers laid for 16 guests"), however cover in current restaurant accounting-speak refers to a customer count.

When we were juniors in college my friend Bob and I would take turns bringing lunch to school. Bob was a master of the cheese sandwich, and he worked part-time at a bakery so he always had interesting breads around. This being Vermont, we had access to a lot of pretty good, cheap cheddar. Many of his sandwiches were variants of what you're describing, for example thick sliced multigrain bread, a big slab of cheddar, mayo, lettuce, sprouts, cucumber slices. My primary contribution to the venture was to try to convince Bob each morning, "No, I think today is your day to bring lunch."

Over the past few years I've mostly switched over to Cambro for plastic storage. It's so much better than consumer level stuff, and it's cheap. I just order it from BigTray. I use the Camsquare containers in various sizes for flour, sugar, even dog food. The square design is very space efficient, and you can stack different capacity containers. The construction is incredibly durable and the lids stay on tight. I also use the Camwear black plastic food pans as storage bins. Three of them fit side-by-side on top of my refrigerator (which is also black, so they're barely noticeable) and I use them for onions, potatoes, that kind of stuff. Vollrath hotel pans are great, and not just for food. I use 9-pans (technically known as "Steam Table Pan, 1/9 Size, 4" Deep, S/S") to hold miscellaneous stuff in my cabinets, like oven thermometers and corkscrews. (Hotel pans are referenced by their size in relation to a full-size hotel pan, which is about 12" x 20" give or take a little depending on the lip and manufacturer, and can come in various depths with the 4" depth usually holding 15 quarts and the 6" depth usually holding 22; a 1/6 size hotel pan is referred to as a "six pan," etc.) BigTray also sells a brand called Update International, which cost about half as much as the Vollrath ones. I've also got several cheapo aluminum half sheet pans (a full professional sheet pan is 18" x 26", a half sheet is 18" x 13") that I use for many purposes. The standardized sizing ensures that a half sheet Silpat fits right in. There are so many kitchen smallwares and tools that are better and cheaper in their professional versions. It always pays to look on BigTray or one of the other restaurant supply sites for the professional equivalent of whatever it is you think you need. You may find that you don't have to settle for poor quality, or overpay for non-utilitarian materials and design.

Can't say I noticed that!

Today I visited a local pizzeria that served a pretty good NY slice, called La Traviata, on Columbus Avenue in New York City. They actually had three condiments out in bowls on the counter, all of which seemed Latin in derivation: the first was a standard chimichurri, or at least what I think of as standard; the second was a spicy light-green paste of some sort; the third seemed to be just red pepper flakes in oil. I mixed all three. Made for a great slice.

Papaya King on 86th and Third has chili and all manner of toppings and sides (coleslaw, sweet pickles, "tropical relish," curly fries, etc.). I'll have to check the next time I walk past, but I think the special was about $4.50 last time I got it. It's Gray's Papaya that has more limited toppings and a lower price point.

And Demeyere guarantees that it will, with a 30-year guarantee. The company has been in business since 1908, so I've got to assign some credibility to that guarantee. Likewise, both Sitram and Demeyere (not to mention the welded Matfer/Bourgeat lines) enjoy widespread professional use. I don't know what the market statistics would say, but anecdotally I see Sitram in more serious professional kitchens than pretty much anything else. The ultra-luxe places with showcase kitchens may be using Bourgeat, but once you get to the next level of kitchen Sitram is pervasive. So, while theoretical arguments are all well and good, the real-world testimony of the community of culinary professionals, as well as folks here who have worked with high-quality welded cookware, is that welding works very well indeed.

Today for lunch I had a cheese sandwich: cheap supermarket deli counter sliced so-called Muenster cheese on peasant bread with lettuce and mayo. It was delicious. It seems to me that in the foodie rush to celebrate the ever increasing quality of available cheeses, especially in the US, we may sometimes lose sight of the utility of cheap old-school supermarket cheese: those big rectangular blocks of Swiss, Muenster, American, etc., cheeses, thrown on to a deli slicer and sold by the pound. No, they're not the world's best cheeses. But on a sandwich, they serve a purpose. The mild flavor and basic creamy texture are just what some sandwiches need. They also tend to have excellent melting properties, so they're great as grilled cheese, or in an omelette. They're also good entry-level cheeses for kids -- our 17-month-old son turns up his nose at cave aged gruyere, but wolfed down three slices of supermarket Muenster today. I think in order for these cheeses to be good, for the most part you have to get them from the deli counter. The little packets they sell in the dairy aisle, where the slices are separated by pieces of paper, seem to be inferior.

I find this absolutely to be the case. ← I wouldn't be so sure about that. Not everybody wants to be on the receiving end of gastronomic evangelism. There are a whole lot of folks out there who aren't particularly interested in "being shown something new." They'll politely consume a superior cocktail, and they'll offer genuine-sounding praise, and then they'll get on the phone afterwards with the other guests and say "Why can't he just give me a damn martini?"

Okay so I'm looking at my one piece of Demeyere stainless. I don't know what line it's from -- on the back it just says "demeyere 18/10 induction." It does, as you suggest, seem to be spot welded. Specifically the handle goes into a plate/sleeve, and that plate/sleeve seems to be welded to the pot wall in four places. However in the various catalogs there's reference to "round sanitary welds" on other lines, which I imagine are more like bicycle frame welds.

Todd, if your goal is to be able to provide your friends with the cocktails they like, why don't you start by sending an email around to the folks you usually entertain in your home, asking what their three favorite cocktails are? I mean, none of us can tell you what your friends drink. It's possible to use general data collected from bartenders to say X, Y and Z are the most popular drinks. But for you, it all depends on your friends -- how old they are makes a big difference, for example. So then let's say your survey comes back and you get more votes for martinis than for all other cocktails combined. Well, then you know you need to start by learning to make really good martinis. Maybe your friends are cosmo drinkers -- then you need to learn that. Many of the answers you get may just be combinations of ingredients -- Scotch and soda, gin and tonic, vodka cranberry -- in which case you want to have those ingredients handy. Do you have a good cocktail shaker and other basic equipment, like a lemon/lime juicer? A few tools are essential.

We're huge fans of vintage fruit crate labels. We bought a few on our honeymoon, in the Pacific Northwest, and have occasionally added to the collection. With nice matting and framing, these labels make for a fine display, and they're great pieces of Americana. We recently used four of them to decorate the nursery. Our favorite is a label for Diving Girl California Apples. We later found out that the lithograph is part of the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco: http://search2.famsf.org:8080/mygallery/vi...ml?record=18672 There are several websites specializing in these labels, such as: http://www.fruitcratelabels.com While some rare labels can get expensive, you can still get some really nice, pristine ones (they're still discovering caches of unused labels in old warehouses) for ten or twenty bucks. So they're a great way for folks on limited budgets to acquire some attractive, and different, art.

Having worked a lot with bicycles in college, I've got to say that the claim that you can't get good strength from a weld is hard to swallow. Now it's true that cookware gets heated to temperatures in excess of what bicycles endure, but in terms of lateral force no cookware is ever going to experience the stresses of a mountain bike used in competition, yet these bikes, which can be made from steel or aluminum (among other materials) are (or were at the time) TIG welded and extremely strong at the joints. (TIG, which I think stands for tungsten inert gas, is a type of welding where you push all the air out of the system with an inert shielding gas so you can get a really good weld with no atmospheric contamination.) Frames are in my experience as likely to break in the middle of a tube than at a joint -- the theory at least with TIG/GTAW welding is that the weld is stronger than the metal itself, kind of like supergluing two pieces of paper together -- and if they do break at the joint it's often due to a manufacturing defect. I don't think I ever saw a frame come apart at a joint. And we're talking about thin tubes -- as thin as .7 mm, though usually more like 1.5, which is in any event thinner than most pot walls (Demeyere professional is something like 4.5 mm thick, which is thicker probably than any steel bicycle tube wall). The ends of the tubes are butted, meaning the thickness increases near the joint -- that too shouldn't be any different with a pot handle. As an empirical matter, Demeyere and Sitram are two excellent brands and both make many welded products that are used in professional kitchens. I think there may be a psychological component, that people believe intuitively that three rivets must be stronger than a weld because the rivets, well, you can see how they hold the thing together. However, when you think about the joint, a weld can join around the entire circumference of the joint, whereas three rivets put all the stress on three small points. If one rivet comes the slightest bit loose, the jiggling of the handle over time can easily pull the whole thing apart. I mean, I'd love to see a bicycle frame fastened with rivets -- I wonder how long that would hold up. Three minutes on a Vermont ski trail? Welding, done right, is very strong. I've seen plenty of rivets come off cookware. I haven't yet seen a quality piece of welded cookware come apart -- cheap crap made in slave labor camps, yes, but not Demeyere or Sitram. I'm going on something like 12 years with a Sitram saucier that I use for a ton of different types of cooking. Demeyere, for its part, uses a 7-ply material on some of its lines, but the welds still seem to hold. I'd actually love to see the inside of a Demeyere weld, because it doesn't seem to be a straight tube-to-wall weld. The handle seems to go into a square plate of some sort that's fastened to the pot wall. I wonder what's fastened where and how. The one thing I can see as a possible problem is the welding of specific materials, especially unlike ones. So maybe copper isn't a good candidate, and I guess cast iron to copper seems like it would be a difficult weld, though I know GTAW is used on copper alloys all the time. But if we're talking stainless to stainless it's hard to see a theoretical problem with that.

Hey I think Republic sued a client of mine once. Ned, when I was there yesterday the fries were not shoestring. They were approximately 1/4" frites. The burger I had wasn't really comparable to the Shack burger. Shake shack makes a fairly small burger, whereas the Stand burger is a 7-ounce patty on an oversize bun.

I'm not aware of any New York regulation that requires beef be cooked to a certain temperature. I know they have such regulations in some places, but there doesn't seem to be one here. Or, if there is one here, it's widely ignored. After all, you can get steak tartare at hundreds of restaurants, and various raw beef dishes at Korean, Italian and other types of restaurants around town. As long as you don't put any trans fats on them, you're fine.

Returned to Zoma tonight. We ordered two of the sampler platters. The first contained Tibbs Wett (the aforementioned beef chunks, which are the best thing I've tried at Zoma), Doro Alitcha (slow-cooked dark-meat chicken on the bone, with a hard-boiled egg, in an herb sauce), and Gomen Be Siga (collard greens with chopped bits of beef, onions, peppers and a few mild spices -- amazingly good). The other was the vegetarian sampler. It says on the menu that you get four vegetables in the sampler, but they sent out six of the seven listed on the menu. The most interesting was Shiro Wett, which is a mixture of chickpeas, lentils and peas that has been powdered and cooked with berbere. It's served cold. All the other vegetables were also superb. We went early and there was only one other table seated, so service was quite attentive. Somebody walked in and seemed to be getting takeout at one point -- I imagine this food travels well as it's mostly stew-like.