Fat Guy

Why is anybody assuming the Beard judges ate at the restaurants in question, or that their decisions had anything to do with food quality? Is it because that's what a legitimate, ethical awards process with standards would involve? The Beard restaurant awards are all about politics and reputation. And by taking them seriously, one lends support to a bad process. That said, the Modern is an outstanding restaurant. Those who are underwhelmed by the reports may very well be listening to the wrong reports.

Editors and publishers are embracing blogs, as are readers. Julie Powell, Karyn Bosnak, Dana Vachon, Jessica Cutler . . . all these bloggers have entered into lucrative book deals with traditional publishers. Look at the newspapers: bloggers are constantly being written about, and in many cases are driving news and opinion. The major print publications are adopting blogs as a tool for increasing readership. And of course feedback from readers is the lifeblood of the blog. The train has left the station. Blogs have not only demonstrated their viability, but have also changed the face of traditional media. And despite complaints about there being too many blogs to keep track of, which echo every complaint about "information overload" stretching back now for decades, the fears are never realized.

A couple of posts upthread indicate confusion regarding one point, so just to make it totally explicit: both Staub and Le Creuset pots have enameled interiors. Le Creuset "French ovens" and Staub "cocottes" -- also known as Dutch ovens (the companies, not being Dutch, refuse to use the term people would be most likely to understand) -- are both examples of enameled cast-iron cookware. Many people look at a Staub pot and assume the interior is "naked" cast iron, because it is the color of cast iron. That's not cast iron you're seeing, though. It's enamel. As referenced in several other posts upthread, it's black matte enamel. Were it plain cast iron, you'd be paying a lot for something you could get from Lodge for almost nothing. So the difference between Le Creuset and Staub is not that one has an enameled interior and the other doesn't. Rather, it's that the interior enamel on most Le Creuset pots (except for the ones lined in black matte enamel) is a light cream color and very smooth, while the interior enamel on Staub is black and has some texture to it. That to me is not a particularly relevant difference. You can brown just fine in either, and neither is easy to clean. I'll probably never buy a Le Creuset pot again, however, because the handles are so bad. It's beyond my comprehension why such a poor design remains so popular and successful -- then again poorly designed cookware has dominated the consumer cookware marked forever. When braising in the oven it's not like you're going to grab the handle with your bare hand anyway, so why bother to use a phenolic resin that breaks so easily? You shouldn't have to replace the handle on a pot every few years. Staub pots have metal handles, as they should. Although the price differential is minor, in the restaurant world Staub is definitely considered the higher end product. All the places at the Ducasse level that I know of use Staub not Le Creuset. Even though Ducasse signed his Benoit crew on to do the Le Creuset cookbook, if you go to his fine-dining restaurants you'll see all Staub. If you want a seriously versatile Dutch oven that works as well for risotto as it does for braising, you'll skip enameled cast iron completely and go for something like the anodized aluminum Dutch oven I use for all my braising. The one I use has the advantage of a glass lid, so throughout the cooking process you can see exactly how your braising liquid is bubbling. Have a look at the Truth About Braising workshop in the eGCI for more information.

This is great to hear. Thanks for the report. Do you recall what the prices were like on any of the above-mentioned chocolates?

I think of Boar's Head as the brand of choice at good delis, but not at the best delis. Boar's Head is probably the best producer of a widely available full line of deli meats, however for each category of deli meat there are some better mass producers -- for example Citterio is better for all the Italian cold cuts and is what I expect to see at the next level up of deli. At the very top level of deli, though, you shouldn't see any of the big commercial brand names. You should see unlabeled and often misshapen salume, and the things like roast beef, turkey and pastrami should be actual roast beef, actual turkey and actual pastrami -- as in made on premises or by a local operation that makes the stuff fresh. Also I'm not sure I agree that Boar's Head is superior across the board to D&W. I'd have to line all the products up and compare. I think Boar's Head is probably better in most categories, but for example I think the D&W cheeses may be better than Boar's Head. Again, I'd have to do a side-by-side.

Are you all familiar with Del Monte Fruit Naturals? They're a pretty high-quality, refrigerated fruit product. Inspired by Dave and jsolomon, I arranged some avocado slices on a plate with some of these grapefruit slices and dressed with lemon juice, coarse salt and a Pugliese olive oil. This olive oil definitely worked better than the Tuscan, but I'm still not sold on the pairing. I think I'm going to try some different oils tomorrow: sesame, walnut, grapeseed . . . or it may just be that for me the avocado has the right amount of fat on its own.

I wouldn't be so quick to generalize about blogs. Not all blogs are created equal. Sure, as with most any other form of literature, almost all of what's out there is garbage. But, at the same time, some of what's out there is brilliant. I see no harm in having everybody who wants to blog blog, and letting the various filtering mechanisms of the online world push the best stuff to the top. After all, while the technology for blogs as such is relatively new (at least in its mass market form), the idea of writing a personal journal for publication -- such as a travelogue -- has been around for ages. And for ages the same thing has been true: most suck, and some are great.

I didn't have everything on hand to execute Jesse's recipe faithfully, however I did something close: I had a sherry vinaigrette left over from a couple of days ago, and I added some finely diced red onion. I had some Eli's multigrain bread (this is one of the better breads available in New York), so I toasted two slices. The avocado I had was too ripe to slice, so I scooped out half of it and split it between the two slices of bread, spreading it around with a fork -- it made for a nice 1/4" coating on each slice (the slices from the Eli's multigrain loaves are small and square-ish). Drizzled a very small amount of the red-onion-enhanced vinaigrette on top. Garnished with chopped tarragon and fleur-de-sel. Enjoyed immensely, while Googling "Cinco de Mayo."

This sounds right up my alley. Can you elaborate on the shallot vinaigrette? Is this just vinaigrette with finely diced shallots in it?

Now that the exhibition is open, the Cooper-Hewitt has launched a "sitelet" for the Feeding Desire exhibition. You go to the exhibition page and click "Visit the Website." This will take you to the sitelet, which has all sorts of great stuff about the exhibition: a timeline, a lot of photos and more than a dozen mini articles about different themes (all illustrated). Soon they'll also be adding a tableware quiz. I think that's supposed to come online later today. We'll be posting several photos to illustrate the foodcast soon.

This morning I did lemon juice, olive oil and coarse salt in the "well" and ate from the half with a spoon. I thought it was missing something -- maybe it needs a little heat, but in what form? I also can't seem to grasp the olive oil and avocado pairing -- it doesn't seem to flatter either ingredient.

I've recently been contemplating the uses for avocados. If I may set a ground rule: I'm not interested in recipes to which avocado can be added. I'm looking for dishes where the avocado is the main event. I've already heard of guacamole, as well as consumed enough of it in my lifetime to kill most people. Let's also skip over "Just squeeze lemon on it!" -- I know that one. What else?

There's a wonderful new exhibition opening tomorrow at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City called "Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table." I was able to preview the exhibition today and spend some time with Darra Goldstein, the guest co-curator of the exhibition (and also the founding editor of Gastronomica), during which we recorded an eG Radio foodcast/walkthrough of the exhibition. You can listen to the foodcast here. The exhibition opens tomorrow, the 5th of May and runs through the 29th of October 2006. It's well worth attending. There are several presentations being given in conjunction with the exhibition. Of particular interest is the event on the 20th of June, a panel discussion entitled "Presentation: The End of the Plate?" On the panel will be José Andrés and Katsuya Fukushima of Minibar in Washington, DC; Homaro Cantu of Moto in Chicago; and Grant Achatz and designer Martin Kastner representing Alinea in Chicago. They'll be discussing "experimentation and iconoclastic new ways of presenting food." Darra Goldstein will be the moderator. There's plenty more information on the Cooper-Hewitt's website. The purpose of this topic is to host discussion of the exhibition, the related presentations and the foodcast, and it will also be a place where we'll be posting some supplemental information, for example photographs to accompany the foodcast. We'll also add several of the exhibition-related presentations to the calendar soon.

The latest eG Radio foodcast is now online.<BR><BR> Click here for the 4 May 2006 eG Radio foodcast.<BR><BR> (Clicking the above link should initiate a download of an .mp3 file, which is a recording of the foodcast; you can then play it on most any media player such as Windows Media Player, or you can transfer the file to an iPod or portable device).<BR><BR> In the latest eG Radio foodcast, recorded on location at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, we talk to Darra Goldstein about the new exhibition, "Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table." Steven Shaw ("Fat Guy"), conducts the interview.<BR><BR> The discussion topic for eG Radio foodcast 003 can be found here. Join us.<BR> <BR>To subscribe to our foodcast feed, just click the appropriate button...<BR> <A HREF="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=134732732"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with iTunes" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/itunespodcastbadge.gif"></A> <A HREF="http://yahoo.com"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with Yahoo! Podcasts" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/yahoopodcastbadge.gif"></A><BR> <A HREF="http://www.podnova.com/add.srf?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/egsociety"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with PodNova" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/podnovapodcastbadge.gif"></A> <A HREF="http://odeo.com/channel/79696/subscribe/"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with Odeo" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/odeopodcastbadge.gif"></A> <BR>Or subscribe to our foodcast news feed with any of the following services...<BR> <A HREF="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://feeds.feedburner.com/egsociety"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with Bloglines" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/bloglinesnewsreaderbadge.gif"></A> <A HREF="http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/egsociety"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with My Yahoo!" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/yahoonewsreaderbadge.gif"></A><BR> <A HREF="http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/subext.aspx?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/egsociety"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with NewsGator" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/newsgatornewsreaderbadge.gif"></A> <A HREF="http://client.pluck.com/pluckit/prompt.aspx?GCID=C12286x053&a=http://feeds.feedburner.com/egsociety&t=eGullet%20Society"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with Pluck" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/plucknewsreaderbadge.gif"></A><BR> <A HREF="http://www.rojo.com/add-subscription?resource=http://feeds.feedburner.com/egsociety"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with Rojo" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/rojonewsreaderbadge.gif"></A> <A HREF="http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/egsociety"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="Subscribe with Google" SRC="http://www.egullet.com/egradio/images/googlenewsreaderbadge.gif"></A><br> Members can also click "Track this topic" at the top right of the topic view page in order to get automatic email notifications when new foodcast announcements are added to this topic.

If at all humanly possible, I'll join again this year. I'll start watching the airfare deals now.

Without going off on a huge tangent -- we could take this to another topic -- I'd like to note that I disagree with that statement. Newspaper restaurant reviews, based on visits immediately after opening, are by their nature based on a combination of what the reviewer has experienced and what the reviewer's experience says will naturally occur at the restaurant over the course of the next year or so. Given their track records, you can be sure that if Jean-Georges Vongerichten or Mario Batali opens a restaurant the reviewer will have the confidence to break to the higher star because it's predictable that minor glitches and imperfections will be addressed over time, whereas a newbie or limited-experience restaurateur won't get cut the same slack. Likewise, one's gut is a good guide to these things. Sometimes you can walk into a restaurant on day one and understand that, despite problems, this place is going to be in the top echelon -- it's possible to be wrong but over time your accuracy gets extremely good. Some restaurant reviewers will insist they review based only on the food in front of them, but it's not true -- you can read their reviews and easily demonstrate that the opposite is the case. And there's nothing wrong with that. One has to take into account all the information available, and one has to be aware that in most cases there will never be a re-review -- so you go out a little bit ahead in the hopes of giving your review a bit more longevity.

One of our alumni forum hosts, Matt Seeber, is the executive chef at Craftsteak in Las Vegas (interesting that it's one of the few -- only? -- restaurants ever to launch in Las Vegas and then open a New York branch). In my conversations with him, he's indicated that Craftsteak is very aggressive about purchasing (or what some insist on calling "sourcing."). His analogy was that Craftsteak is to most steakhouses as a sushi restaurant is to most seafood restaurants -- they're just operating at a different level of product integrity, and the cooks on the line are exceptionally skilled. I've always felt the ingredients at regular Craft were a cut above -- not that you can't get X ingredient somewhere else but that few places are assembling X, Y and Z ingredients (each the best of their class) in one place and preparing them in a minimalist fashion calculated to show those ingredients in a relatively pure form. The downside is that I've always felt Craft is overpriced. Oakapple, in terms of what they do with the rest of the animal, that's just how fine restaurants buy meat. They (as well as Japanese importers and other exclusive purveyors) buy the premium cuts from the best cattle and the rest goes into various lower levels of the distribution system.

There are lots of reasons to invest in a business other than to make money on that business. Often it's a loss leader -- it may be a money-losing operation but it may bring prestige and ultimately revenue to the property it's associated with. Or it may be a necessary service -- something that has to be offered otherwise people won't use the profitable services. Sometimes it's just fun -- if you have billions of dollars, you may just enjoy owning a really great restaurant. Occasionally someone even believes in something.

Perhaps there just wasn't a suitable location. The Passover store concept depends, it would seem, on there being a vacant storefront of a certain size, in a certain range of Upper West Side blocks, at the exact time of Passover, with a landlord willing to rent it out for just a few weeks. Or perhaps whatever organization is behind the Passover store had some sort of issue this year, or they didn't make enough money last year to justify doing it this year. I'd love to know the real story.

I've had the soft-shell crab BLT four times. The first three times, it was one of the best sandwiches I'd ever had -- I couldn't stop thinking about it. The fourth time, I think I had the same sandwich as Tupac. I didn't record the dates, so I'm not sure if it has to do with seasonality (if so, they should only sell it in season), or with Starwich's expansion (I'd expect some, hopefully temporary, quality dips from expansion), or with something else (a change in supplier, etc.). I'll try another one soon.

I can't believe it was February of 2002 when I went to this place for the first (and only) time. That's more than four years ago. New York has such an embarrassment of riches when it comes to good steakhouses, and good restaurants in general, that it's impossible to stay current on all of them. I'd like to go back, but when?

There are a few. The best place to start is probably with Ellen's photos of Pepe's (here), and from there you can follow the links to her photos of Sally's. There are other discussions here and there as well.

Not for lack of trying, but I haven't.

In terms of Sally's v. Pepe's, my opinion based on eating at least a hundred pizzas at these places is that you should go to Pepe's (or the Spot, which to me is barely distinguishable) if: - You want a clam pie (and Pepe's hasn't run out). The clam pie at Pepe's is made with fresh chopped top neck clams. The clam pie at Sally's is made with canned clams. There is simply no comparison. - You want lunch. Sally's is open for dinner only. Pepe's has lunch hours some days. - You want a shorter wait. For the most part, the wait at Pepe's is shorter primarily because Pepe's is bigger and can handle more volume. - You want better, more egalitarian service. While both establishments favor their regulars, Sally's is extreme about the proposition. And you should go to Sally's if: - You want any pie other than the clam pie, because everything else at Sally's is substantially superior to everything else at Pepe's. The crust is better, the cheese is better, the sauce is better and pretty much all the other toppings are better. The craftsmanship at Sally's is also better, because every Sally's pizza is personally made by a member of the Consiglio family. At Pepe's its much more of an assembly line situation with employees doing the work. Both places are excellent. I'd choose a Pepe's pizza over any other pizza I've had, except a Sally's pizza.

He was from 1872 to 1877. See, e.g., The House of the Hanged Man. Not that it changes the argument.