Fat Guy

This Monday through Friday, 20 through 24 February 2006, we’ll be welcoming Spiro Baltas of Starwich for an eG Spotlight Forum Conversation. Although the official start is on Monday, you may begin posting questions and comments for Spiro now. Pomegranate chicken, one of Starwich's specialty sandwiches. Photo courtesy of Starwich. Starwich, now with four stores in Manhattan and two more on the way this month (the Upper East Side store, at 84th and Lexington, is opening this month), wants to revolutionize the salad and sandwich business with upscale, high-quality ingredients (soft shell crab, lobster, Wagyu beef and even shaved black Perigord truffles in season) and diverse options (there are typically more than 150 ingredients available). Spiro will be here to discuss the Starwich philosophy and business model in what promises to be a lively conversation. A little bit about Spiro Baltas. His first job out of college had him working as the morning front desk manager at a Marriott hotel near his home town of Boston. Not being an early riser by nature, however, he jumped on an opportunity to move into a management position at the hotel’s restaurant, at night. He threw himself into learning the computer systems and models behind a successful modern restaurant and later parlayed his expertise into a position at La Familia, an Italian family-style restaurant mini-empire with two restaurants doing a combined $5 million a year in the Boston area. Two years later, he had transformed La Familia into a five-restaurant group generating $20 million in sales annually. He quickly became a sought-after restaurant industry consultant. After a stint at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston, where he learned the wine side of the business, he came to New York in 1998 as restaurant and wine director of the legendary Tavern on the Green restaurant. Later, he worked for the Sbarro restaurant group (which, in addition to the shopping-mall Italian eateries it operates worldwide, also runs fine-dining restaurants in New York) and the BR Guest group (operator of Blue Water Grill, Fiamma and other popular New York restaurants). Spiro and his team were recently our guests for an eG Radio foodcast. You can also read an excerpt from my book, Turning the Tables, about Starwich: “A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Starwich,” reprinted in the Daily Gullet. We've also published Ride of a Lifetime: the Starwich startup story," as told by Spiro. For existing eG Forums discussion and information relating to Starwich please see Starwich Salads & Sandwiches: Reviews & Discussion. The flagship Starwich store on 42nd Street in New York City. Photo courtesy of Starwich. ←

Amazon has the occasional amazing deal and often you can get free shipping and some bundled extras. BigTray definitely. Also, check out A. Best Kitchen -- excellent stainless stock pot bargains www.abestkitchen.com

Half-assed backsplash renovation Exhibit A. Lord knows what we tiled over there. I don't even want to think about it.

Half-assed remodeling should be on my business card. Half-assed is the only way I ever remodel. I am a half-assed expert on the subject. Tile is extremely forgiving. You can put it over just about anything that will hold it. Were I in your situation I'd definitely tile right over whatever backsplash is there. You may want to prepare the surface by roughing up the laminate with sandpaper and stripping away any hanging or loose pieces. Then spread a thick, smooth layer of tile cement and lay your tiles in there. You'll probably want to use spacers. It's also nice to use a tile with some surface texture so it's not as obvious when your plane isn't perfectly flat. You'll also need a cheap tile cutter if you have a space that doesn't exactly fit a whole number of tiles.

Chris, is it okay if the stuff in the scrambled eggs is eggs? I've recently noticed a few dishes in different books -- most recently Jose Andres's tapas book, and also in some books of Mideastern recipes -- that are variants on this theme: you cook some scrambled eggs and then towards the end of cooking you crack some whole eggs over them. This creates not only a dramatic presentation but also you get the curdy scrambled eggs and the gooey texture of a fried/poached/soft-boiled egg at the same time as the yolks run all over the scrambled eggs.

You're assuming there's a reason. But it's more like, "Because." The liquor laws in New York, and many other states, are absurd: a tortured mishmash of political, economic and religious concessions that make no sense. You can't get beer in a liquor store here either. You can't get wine in a supermarket but you can get beer in a supermarket. That way children will be sure to drink beer instead of wine.

As I commented above, in my opinion once you become so wedded to a hypothesis that you devote yourself to proving it rather than testing it you stop being a scientist. I'm not suspicious of scientists at all. I'm suspicious of people who call themselves scientists but aren't. I'm equally suspicious of science writers, lobbyists, policy-makers and the various other groups that are collectively responsible for our often irrational responses to supposed scientific findings. All this prion stuff may turn out to be right. Certainly the bulk of the findings, even the probably impartial ones, are pointing in that direction. It is far from a closed case, however, and the political aspects of so much of the research should cause us to take everything we hear with a grain of salt. What I've been trying to show here is that there are several reasonable positions on this issue, as opposed to the monolithic position that is presented as truth not only by the press but also by many in the scientific community.

Certainly, there are mountains of studies that support the prion theory and contradict competing theories. Each one I've ever seen has been called into question -- where I've understood the contrarian reasoning I've presented it above, though I'm not familiar with every single study so can't do so for each. But the larger question we as observers need to ask is how much credibility to assign to those studies. Are they untainted by agendas, are they being done in a context where competing theories are also being studied as aggressively, are the studies designed to test the theory or are they actually designed to prove it? Based on what appear to be the answers to those questions (no, no and no), I think we need to be skeptical -- actually, in this case, I'd say we should be downright suspicious given the particularly blatant politicization and agenda-mongering in the prion community.

The folks at Consumer Reports are brilliant when it comes to rating things like child car safety seats. They design expert tests and administer them ruthlessly: they have sophisticated crash simulation devices to which they attach the safety seats and they reveal all sorts of fallacies in various manufacturers' product claims. And who can resist the temptation to cheer when the fancy $300 European model favored by Upper East Side snobs turns out to be not nearly as safe as the $59 product everyman can get at Target? This is what Consumer Reports is good at. When it comes to comparing food products, however, the Consumer Reports team lacks competence. The comparisons tend to be poorly designed from the outset, and the tasters rarely seem to have any real expertise or experience. The comparisons in Cook's Illustrated are on the whole a lot more compelling. The tasters are at least experienced enough to identify the products that will most appeal to American middlebrow tastes. But there doesn't seem to be a publication out there that has a consistently reliable mechanism for identifying the food products that will most appeal to educated palates. There's the occasional tasting panel put together by the New York Times or one of the good food magazines, but these are so sporadic they're hardly worth mentioning. In this regard the wine people are way ahead of the food people. For better or for worse, there doesn't seem to be a food-products equivalent of Wine Spectator or Wine Advocate.

The arrangement we have works really well: our range had the option of a stainless steel 8" backsplash bolted to the back of the unit. This catches most of the grease, looks pretty good and cleans up well (although stainless is harder to keep looking really nice than some folks assume). Behind and above that, we have glazed ceramic tiles. The trick here is not to use white grout. Once you go with gray or any of the darker grout colors, you're fine.

I don't think you need service, customer support or a metalsmith. I think this is more a question of accepting the limitations of your range. You probably had limitations with your electric range -- you may not even have realized all of them because everything may have become ingrained -- and now you've got a different set of limitations. Don't worry. Millions of people cook with great versatility on ranges just like yours.

Two recent titles of note that I've enjoyed: Jewish Food: The World at Table, by Matthew Goodman -- this also happens to be a very attractive book. The Mensch Chef: Or Why Delicious Jewish Food Isn't an Oxymoron, by Mitchell Davis -- Mitchell is the director of publications at the James Beard Foundation and is a very talented cook and extremely well-traveled gourmet; his recipes meet a pretty high standard and I've had the pleasure of tasting several of the dishes prepared by him at events. Interesting that these are both written by men. The older titles seem to be overwhelmingly by women.

You're all heroic. Your cooking, your personal journeys and your willingness to put yourselves out there are inspiring. Great work; good luck!

We're very pleased to present the eGullet Society's annual report and public filings for the fiscal year beginning 1 October 2004 and ending 30 September 2005. These documents are available for download in the eGullet Society Policies, Guidelines and Documents area, and also on the eGullet Society's GuideStar.org information page. With the generous support of our donors, the tireless efforts of our volunteer staff and the enthusiasm of our members we've been able to accomplish a tremendous amount in our first year as a not-for-profit organization. We successfully incorporated and gained status as a tax exempt 501c3 public charity. We established the eG Scholarships program with three culinary scholarships, each a $5,000 cash grant: one for a culinary student, one for a culinary writer and one for a professional chef. We created an emergency humanitarian scholarship, also a $5,000 cash grant, for a victim of Hurricane Katrina to attend culinary school, as well as a program of information and cooperation with other culinary nonprofits engaged in relief efforts. And of course we pursued and strengthened our ambitious program of online services including eG Forums culinary discussion, eG Spotlight special appearances, eGullet Culinary Institute (eGCI) online learning, the Daily Gullet literary journal and more. We'll need your support again this year in order to continue our current programs and increase our philanthropic commitments. With your help, we can expand the eG Scholarships program to repeat the previous year's three scholarships and the humanitarian award, and to add an additional scholarship for a total of five recurring scholarships. We can expand, in addition to all current online services, our new audio service (eG Radio) and we can stay on the leading edge of online community technology. And we can hire our first paid employees. We have many other exciting projects in the works. For example, this year we plan to establish an advisory board composed of members of the culinary, business and technology communities. And we project the Society's volunteer staff will grow to 100+. If you have never made a financial gift to the Society before, please consider signing up for a Society donor membership at the $50, $100 or $250 per year level (note: you must already be an eGullet Society member in order to upgrade to a Society donor membership; if you are not a member please join). These annually recurring donations are the bedrock of the Society’s finances. Society donor members receive, depending on which package they select, increased personal messenger storage allotments; increased ImageGullet storage; additional features, including personal messenger with carbon copy and attachments, unlimited searching without flood control, and priority access to new features upon release; and exclusive gift items. We've also just added a priority tech support service for donors. If you are already a Society donor and would like to make a supplemental gift, please follow this link to make a secure supplemental gift in any amount. For support in excess of $500, or to design a customized program of giving, please contact the eGullet Society fundraising team: giving@eGullet.org or 212.828.0133. Thank you for all your support: past, present and future. With relish,

So long as people insist on their fantasies -- the farmer grew my vegetables, the chef cooked my food -- there will be businesspeople willing to indulge those fantasies. As soon as people wake up, realize and accept that we live in a world where sometimes factories, wholesalers and importers provide the best example, the only example or a less expensive but still good example of a product on any given day, the deception will end.

I'm not sure I agree that high-end restaurants are embracing induction in any serious way. There are a couple of places that have made heavy use of induction, but they're not mainstream. If you look at the unlimited-budget restaurant kitchens that have been built in the past few years, gas dominates the cooking suites. There may be an induction burner off to the side here and there for keeping stock at a simmer, and they use induction burners in the pastry kitchens when they don't want to generate a lot of heat, but the norm is tons and tons of very powerful gas powered flattops, planchas, open burners, grills, etc.

There's a report in today's New York Times about the conflict between Del Posto and its landlord: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/11/nyregion...r=1&oref=slogin The posturing seems to be getting serious, with eviction papers being served on Thursday (though only for part of the space) and a surprise closing of the restaurant on Saturday on account of electrical work scheduled by the landlord. In summary:

In Canada, or at least most of Canada, they have fries.

I doubt there's anything wrong with your range. This is a standard problem with the single-ring sealed burners you see on a lot of the mid-level gas ranges. The sealed burners have the gas jets aimed outwards and sort of under and around the burner cap (this is how they make them immune to spills) so they create a big ring of about 6" or more in diameter. This is why a lot of the better ranges use unsealed, concentric-ring designs (star-shaped burners are also a choice). I don't know what you consider to be a large utensil. Certainly this shouldn't be a problem on an 11-12" skillet or a stockpot with similar diameter. But your burners will kind of suck for high heating of a 2-quart saucepan or a 7" omelet pan. You'll need to use a heat diffuser for good performance with such utensils, but heat diffusers ruin the quick responsiveness of gas.

The three items they have at most Costcos in this region that aren't necessarily up on the board are soft pretzels, hand-dipped ice cream bars and the chicken Caesar (which I see is on the board at Hackensack). You're not going to find much variation in this region. Costco divides the continent into several regions and, within region, there's not a whole heck of a lot of variation.

Has anybody eaten a meal at this place?

They shouldn't be able to. The issue with the studies I've seen that use those deomposing chemicals is that they then inject the end result into mice that are predisposed to get mouse-vCJD or what ever it's called. This is why John Collinge said his research group stopped using those mice. Granted, in the study we spoke of above, there was a control group given sugar water, but there wasn't a control group given any sort of toxic agent to see if general stress would trigger the TSE symptoms.

Can you show a single example of tranmission of spongiform encephalopathy via eating beef?

The last thing I read on the subject was a piece in the Wall Street Journal that said that Ebringer was having trouble securing funding to find that out:

Eating a Costco lobster roll in Moncton, New Brunswick, 19 June 2002: