Fat Guy

So I think what we've decided to do -- not entirely based on my preferences, but, rather, in consultation with the group that's eating the food -- is make two frittatas and serve them room temperature. One is going to be spinach, broccoli, mushroom and tomato with chives; the other is going to be sausage, swiss cheese, potato, onion and thyme. We'll have those with the pancakes and a green salad. I'm also going to make a ginger-apple compote type thing with crystallized ginger and the dozen or so deteriorating Macoun apples in my fruit drawer, and maybe some raisins. For dessert, chocolate chip cookies. And for an appetizer, I'm probably going to do a cold zucchini soup. Personally, I'd have preferred one of the pork or chicken options, but this crew doesn't seem to want big pieces of meat. Don't let me stop you all from continuing to brainstorm, though.

Nope, no crock pot. I actually work at home, but today I'm going to be out until three.

We do not seek a professionals-only or professionals-dominated membership. As we explain in the eGullet Society's statement of purpose: "Professional cooks and passionate amateur cooks, professional producers and hobbyists of food and drink, professional food and beverage writers and passionate amateur writers each have something special to bring to the table. The conversation is richer and more interesting when the worlds of the professional and the amateur are brought together." http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=53063 I promise this will be the last time I say we try to strike a balance. We have numerous constituencies here and every individual member has a different experience, a different interpretation of what we are. We're doing out best not to let any one constituency drown out the others or set rules that favor certain preferences. We're trying to be as ecumenical as possible without collapsing under our own weight. The ways in which we approach pseudonyms and disclosure are designed to protect many different, often conflicting interests.

Not bad. Four years, one person fooled.

Impossible, even with using canned beans. ← Spoken like a true Yankee!

One of my original thoughts was Aidell's chicken-and-apple sausages. There are also two excellent wurst shops near where I live: Schaller & Weber and the Yorkville Packing House. So maybe something in the non-breakfast sausage category. Hmm.

Really like the chili idea. I kind of suck at making chili, but if anybody can tell me how to do a really good chili in less than three hours (I'll be home at three and need to have dinner on the table shortly after six) I might try to tackle that. The smoked meat idea is interesting too. I'm not necessarily committed to cooking everything myself, and I'm having lunch at Grand Sichuan International in New York, so maybe one thing that would work would be to bring home a tea-smoked duck and serve that with the meal.

Hmm. Macoun apples and crystallized ginger. Could work as an appetizer or dessert.

The fried chicken idea is very much along the lines of what I was thinking about. I see waffles as a bit heartier, or at least sturdier, than pancakes, so I was thinking maybe a variant, like chicken schnitzel or Buffalo-style chicken wings. Or I could just get a bucket of Popeye's and call it a night.

These are all great ideas, and I wouldn't wish to prevent more of them from being expressed here. I'd love to keep hearing about these ideas. Let me be more specific about the needs of the group in question this evening, though: We're going to be eating the most normal, garden-variety pancakes as they are eaten in the Northeastern United States: white-flour-based buttermilk pancakes of medium thickness, with maple syrup (from my family's farm in Vermont -- yes, we have farmers in the extended family) and butter. That is going to anchor our meal. What I'm looking for are accompaniments -- the things to serve alongside these pancakes. With, not in or on. (Edited to add: As in "fried chicken and waffles" per Jason's example). Any more ideas there?

I see it as akin to the development of most any art form, such as the development of painting from representational to impressionistic to abstract. Food is, at the beginning, about nourishment. At some point, somebody figures out ways to make it taste good in addition to being nourishing. Then we get to dishes that simulate nourishment but are really about flavor. And finally we get into pure flavor. When you're dealing in pure flavor -- dishes that have nothing to do with nourishment and are purely for intellectual enjoyment -- there's no reason to have more than a few bites. The enjoyment and fulfillment of a large portion of cassoulet comes not from sustained intellectual interest but, rather, from its nourishing, hearty, rustic aspect. Without that aspect, small plates are best. There's another factor at work as well. A small plate allows for more risk-taking. The observation that appetizers are more interesting and creative than entrees holds true not only at particularly creative restaurants but also -- perhaps even more so in some cases -- at restaurants that are not all that creative. In your basic uncreative restaurant, the problem is that most every entree will be structurally the same: a large piece of animal protein with a sauce, accompanied by some number of vegetable and starch garnishes. Appetizers, however, are not held hostage by that piece of protein. They can come as soups, wraps, rolls, salads, piles, parfaits, whatever -- and it doesn't require much in the way of creativity to make them interesting; you just have to read some magazines.

We're having pancakes for dinner tonight, at the request of some friends who are just wild about pancakes. What are some good accompaniments for pancakes? Let's dispense with the obvious breakfast foods: bacon, sausage, ham, eggs. What else?

You are going to Grand Sichuan International Midtown today at noon, with seven other people, none of whom has been to Grand Sichuan before. It is a mix of adventurous and not particularly adventurous eaters. The budget is, effectively, unlimited. Place your order here.

Nor is the phenomenon limited to motive, Jamie. Some people, unfortunately, just can't deal with the reality that other people disagree with them about anything. They believe those who disagree with them -- even on matters that are clearly questions of pure aesthetics! -- are either ignorant, have ulterior motives or are just plain immoral. And they're going to prove it. We see it all the time here, which is one of the reasons we discourage argumentation ad hominem. Member A believes a restaurant is fabulous, member B believes it's terrible. Either or both members immediately shift into ad hominem mode. And by that I don't mean they start hurling insults. Rather, they believe they're doing anything but. Some typical examples: - Member A decides member B doesn't like the restaurant because member B must be unqualified to make the judgment or - Member B decides member A's dislike of the restaurant represents a moral failing or - Member A decides that, since nobody could actually not love the restaurant, member B is motivated by revenge or - Member B decides that, since the restaurant is bad as a matter of universal truth, member A must have an undisclosed conflict of interest, or that a disclosed potential conflict, such as "they sent me out an extra dessert," is solely responsible for member A's position regarding the restaurant Such inanity, if left unchecked by the moderating team, proliferates both vertically and horizontally. Vertically, as the topic expands, more and more members get drawn into the hunt for ulterior motives, the claims of expertise and ignorance, the talk of good and bad faith -- the original subject is lost. Horizontally, the cast of characters has encounters elsewhere, on other topics, each of which is tainted by the original conflict -- it becomes impossible for the participants in the original conflict ever to treat one another with respect.

Particularly in response to Mr. Bear's comments, but also in general, I would certainly make a distinction between argument and opinion. An argument, as in "X is true and Y is true, therefore Z is true," is not particularly subject to motive. Perhaps one's choice of argument can be influenced by motive, but ultimately I think motive is irrelevant to an argument. Arguments are right or wrong, won or lost, compelling or not compelling on their own strength and the skill with which they're presented. I don't think it's particularly persuasive or meaningful to demand motive-related disclosure when someone is making an argument. Indeed, the demand, or the conclusion that someone's argument is not credible because of some sort of relationship or other claim of motive, is essentially an ad hominem argument: an attempt to attack the person as a means of avoiding the need to answer the actual argument. An opinion, as in "The fish tasted good," may be more subject to influence by motive: a person may love a particular chef so much that he thinks everything that chef cooks tastes great, even if it tastes like crap to most everybody else. Fair enough, but there I think we face the question of what disclosures, what motives are and are not relevant. What we try to do here is discourage the search for motive and try to focus conversations on reasoning, explanation, description. Yes, I'm sure everyone can agree that it's relevant that the owner of a restaurant is the owner of a restaurant if he's posting about how great the fish tastes. But as soon as we get one step removed from that extreme, there's a lot of room for difference of opinion about whether a particular thing is or is not relevant. For example, the person posting is the owner of the restaurant but is only posting the restaurant's hours of operation. Or, the person is friends with a friend of the owner. Some folks feel that would make a huge difference, some folks couldn't care less. There's no fully satisfactory resolution to that challenge. But we can say a few things with confidence based on our experiences here as well as in moderating online discussions elsewhere (many of our moderators have done this before; Ellen Shapiro -- fulldisclosureshe'smywife! -- and I both hosted forums for the New York Times Online for years; Rosie was a long-time host on Prodigy; etc.). First, we can say that it is the kiss of death when a discussion becomes motive-centered rather than argument-centered. Second, we can say that the notion of "full disclosure" is a laughable impossibility: there is always more to disclose, in most cases the disclosures are more of a distraction than anything else and there's always someone out there who thinks there needed to be more disclosure, sooner, more often, with greater specificity. Third, that when Mr. Bear says "withholding identifying information . . . does make me inclined to give less weight to their arguments and opinions" he's making a representation as to something that is, without a doubt, his prerogative -- but if he hypothetically started saying it all the time, in response to every post by every pseudonymous member, it would create an absurd situation. So while we encourage all members to decide for themselves how much credibility to assign to all other members, we believe that's a decision each member should make privately.

Apparently it is a centuries-old tradition in Japan to eat sushi off the body of a completely naked woman. Known as "body sushi," this practice has popped up, in modified form, in Chicago of late. The Chicago Sun-Times, in a story by Janet Fuller on November 4, writes, "At Kizoku, the woman -- a belly dancer and friend of Pinto's from Las Vegas who goes by the name Tabitha -- wears a G-string, some cellophane, a few strategically placed seashells and little else. The sushi is placed atop bamboo leaves arranged on her thighs, stomach and chest area. None of the food touches her skin, Pinto said. Soup or salad and dessert are included." ( http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-sushi04.html ) The other thing I'd point to is the ubiquity of sex in most every area of advertising. Given those two observations, why would we single out this particular sushi restaurant in Vancouver for disapprobation?

There's a fine line between literary criticism and literary stalking. As one of Frank Bruni's most outspoken critics, I appreciate some of the content of the blog, and we're clearly looking at the work of a highly intelligent, quick-witted, funny woman. But as a human being, I think it's a bit scary -- a demonstration of the dark side of blogging. I hope it doesn't become a widespread phenomenon.

I'd personally like to thank everybody on both sides of the pseudonyms issue for a lot of thoughtful and respectful input. I hope everybody has at least developed respect for the policies we pursue here, even if you don't agree with all of them. But now this topic, like many others where the subject is Society management and policy, is starting to lose focus and stray into absurdity. Jason could just as easily log in as Test Member such that nobody but an administrator could see it. The notion that something nefarious is going on is risible. If this topic is going to turn into a bunch of impertinent and scandalous accusations of fraudulent conduct, it's not worth continuing. We've taken great pains to respond to member queries comprehensively, at a cost of several hours of our time that we could be spending on tasks that other members are complaining we've been too slow to complete, but we are not going to waste our time answering this sort of drivel. Nor are we going to rehash the history of why any individual member's post was deleted or why we chose to take a given moderating action in one instance or another -- this topic is not to be used as an end run around our system of administration. The topic on the table is the use of pseudonyms. We're happy to let that conversation continue.

Our mission is not to reassure Russ Parsons! It's to provide services to thousands of members in a manner that works. And while you may feel we haven't taken a strong enough stance on moderation, we have countless members who think we over-moderate. You want to know more about our members, our members don't necessarily want you to have that information. What we have to do every day, and what we've tried to do for several years, is strike a balance, and we constantly refine that balance. We think we do an okay job, better than most do or would, but of course we always try to improve. Sorry if it all isn't up to your standard, Russ, but if you'd like access to personal data about our members you're just going to have to apply for a staff position (I can personally assure you that I'll expedite your application and argue for your inclusion), sign our confidentiality agreement, go through training and work your way up to management or a spot on our membership team. Then you can look at our members' names and addresses to your heart's content, though I'm sorry to say that you'll be disappointed to learn that there's no conspiracy here.

Forgive me, although I was replying to your post in general, I was not specifically talking about you in those examples -- I was referring to the lecturing tone we often hear in discussions like this one, often from people who haven't taken the time to read our policies, give much thought to the issue or gather basic facts and information before telling us what we absolutely must do in order to survive or be taken seriously.

Pseudonyms are not used exclusively in conventional literature. The Federalist papers were written under pseudonyms ("Publius," et al.), and we periodically see hybrid literary-political books like Primary Colors, by "Anonymous." Yes, there's certainly a difference between literature and news reporting. But probably 99% of what we do here is not news reporting. It's discussion of people's opinions about the best way to cook a duck or whether they like the food at Per Se. The eGullet Society webspace is an umbrella source, covering many species of information: news, opinion, criticism, biography, literature and just about anything else the human mind can think of. We try to maintain standards appropriate to the issues of who is posting and where. In each of our segments, for example, we have rules. If you publish something in the Daily Gullet, you have to do so under your real name and you have to submit to traditional editorial controls. If you submit a recipe to RecipeGullet, there's more flexibility. If you're part of our staff, you must always post under your real name. That includes our eG Specialists, who provide much of our news content. This system doesn't plug every hole. On occasion, people make inappropriate use of their pseudonyms. We handle that not by public witch hunt, but quietly, behind the scenes -- remember, the management team knows who our members are, so it is not accurate to say they're anonymous. Members alert us all the time to situations of suspected disingenuousness and we look into them as best we can. Sometimes we find that the member under suspicion is totally legitimate; sometimes we uncover disingenuous conduct and we confront the member; sometimes we can't figure out what's going on -- such is the nature of the medium. As you suggest, Rob, people's relevant biases and conflicts of interest are far more, well, relevant than people's names. Needless to say, this opens up another can of worms regarding what needs to be disclosed, when, how and how often. It's pretty clear that if you own a restaurant and you're posting about how much you love it you should disclose that. It's less clear how relevant it is that you met the owner at a party last week. And over time, what we've learned by moderating thousands of topics here is that, while people tend to obsess about issues of motivation and who knows whom, these issues are often red herrings -- distractions and, worse, substitutes for substantive arguments. So we don't permit witch hunts and lynchings and we don't allow topics to descend into irrelevant accusations. We try to strike a balance, and we are constantly refining that balance. We give a lot of serious thought to these matters, so, you know, when somebody says "you'll never be taken seriously unless you do X," or "the death of eGullet is imminent if you don't immediately adopt my personal opinion as policy," we have a little trouble taking that kind of statement seriously.

I know it's meant in jest, guys, but I can assure you that most stalking incidents are not the least bit funny to their victims.

Requiring full names would be a great way to make this into an all-male organization. The sad fact is that the preponderance of stalking incidents -- and yes, we have had to deal with several in our more than four year history -- are directed at women. A full names requirement is not going to happen here, and shouldn't. In any event, it is not exactly accurate to say we allow anonymous posting. We allow pseudonymous posting. We know who our members are. Our members are required to provide us with name, address, phone number and other personal information. We use various systems to confirm this information, and we probe deeper at the slightest sign of trouble with from a member. We also have technological records, such as IP addresses, that aid in identification. While there are some members grandfathered under the old system, where they were not required to provide as much personal information, they are allowed to do so only on good behavior. We do allow the use of a single pseudonym for each member. We know who our members are, but we don't require that they post their real names on a publicly viewable website that gets three million plus views a month. That would be irresponsible. Everyone is entitled to make that personal choice until such time as he or she joins us as staff. Pseudonyms are a time-honored tradition in literature. Mark Twain isn't the guy's real name. Likewise, most actors, singers and the like use pseudonyms. The important thing is that there be one real person per pseudonym, as we require. That way, "Chocokitty" becomes an identity, a character. We don't care if Chocokitty is actually named John Smith, do we? If I told you Rocketman's real name, let's hypothetically call him Bill Magruder, what difference would it make? What difference would it make if he signed his posts that way? It would only matter if Bill Magruder was an identifiable culinary figure. In this case, he is not. Were he an identifiable culinary figure, we'd be leaning hard on him behind the scenes to disclose that. Now, if it's Daniel Boulud using a pseudonym, we have a different sort of issue. But we accept that provided the pseudonym is not used disingenuously. Nor does the use of real names seem to deter trolls and flamewars. A preponderance of our most toxic members ever had no problem at all making asses of themselves while posting under their real names. Likewise, we have many long-standing pseudonymous members who have been wonderful contributors. Most of our staff posted under pseudonyms without identifying information in their signature lines until the day we made them staff. The real name issue just doesn't hold up when examined. Take my wife for example. Say her username is "Sea Turtle" but she has to change it to "Ellen Shapiro, New York, NY." Assume she is not a "public figure" -- in other words she is not the author of any books or articles and doesn't work in the food world; she is, say, a legal assistant at a large New York law firm. Let's look her up in the phone book: E. Shapiro New York, NY 10001 212-249-5772 E. Shapiro 120 Fdr Dr New York, NY 10002 212-362-0874 E. Shapiro 484 2nd Ave New York, NY 10016 212-679-9850 E. Shapiro 343 E 30th St New York, NY 10016 212-679-0621 E. Shapiro 36 W 75th St New York, NY 10023 212-787-2732 E. Shapiro 150 W End Ave New York, NY 10023 212-769-0903 E. Shapiro 101 W 81st St New York, NY 10024 212-580-5191 E. Shapiro 350 Central Park W New York, NY 10025 212-866-5957 E. Shapiro 353 E 83rd St New York, NY 10028 212-249-0214 E. Shapiro 75 E End Ave New York, NY 10028 212-570-2366 E. Shapiro 333 Pearl St New York, NY 10038 212-233-2029 E. F. Shapiro 280 1st Ave New York, NY 10009 212-533-1248 E. K. Shapiro 315 W 106th St New York, NY 10025 212-866-5948 E. M. Shapiro 324 E 52nd St New York, NY 10022 212-832-9691 E. M. Shapiro 180 W End Ave New York, NY 10023 212-580-0578 E. S. Shapiro 150 E 37th St New York, NY 10016 212-889-8040 E. V. Shapiro 350 Bleecker St New York, NY 10014 212-645-0930 Ellen Shapiro 150 E 32nd St New York, NY 10016 646-825-6326 Ellen Shapiro 550 Park Ave New York, NY 10021 212-888-3555 Ellen Shapiro 98 Riverside Dr New York, NY 10024 212-580-4412 Ellen Shapiro 315 W 106th St New York, NY 10025 212-864-1039 So which one is the real Ellen Shapiro? Actually, none of the above. Like a certain percentage of the female population of the United States, she has no telephone listing because the phone is in her husband's name. But why are we looking up her phone number and address anyway? Is this what people will do if they don't like a members' posts: look them up and call or visit them? Is the idea that if people use their real names they'll be deterred from engaging in misconduct by the threat of harassment and violence at the hands of other members? Isn't that the theory under which prisons are administered? People have names of varying complexity and uniqueness. There are a lot of E. Shapiros and S. Shaws in the New York phone book. There are probably not as many Michael Ruhlmans in Cleveland. There is also varying value to knowing a person's name. As Jonathan Day explained above: If a person is a private individual, there is no value whatsoever to knowing that person's name. If a person is a movie star, there is plenty of interest but little actual value for the purposes of our organization. The only time it probably matters is if the person in question works in the food business or writes about it, yet those are the cases in which the arguments for concealing names are most compelling: if we can't offer pseudonyms to servers in restaurants, we won't have very many of them posting here. The problem, as has been observed already, isn't the lack of use of real names. It's member conduct in general. The name issue is a distraction. It's also inappropriate to badger any member about using or not using a real name. We've set a clear rule and that rule says people are allowed to post under pseudonyms so long as they are not anonymous to management. This tiered system of identification is the most sensible one we have been able to devise, and we think it's a good one. The current plan is to keep pushing that system to be more airtight, and to work on member conduct problems in general. And, having set the rule, we can't then allow ad hominem arguments based on use or non-use of a real name in public posts. We can't allow members to say to other members, "Your argument has no worth until you tell us your name." It's harassment and we have to delete all such posts. Nobody even gives the pseudonym issue a moment's thought until a member gets aggressive or disingenuous. At that point, some folks mistakenly attribute it to the pseudonym, when it's really a conduct problem. Michael Ruhlman started this topic by suggesting that "I wonder if [eGullet's] moderators ought to begin functioning a little more like conventional media editors in how they manage information, and its posters ought to behave more like contributors to conventional media." While I can understand why some print journalists, who function in a certain world all day long, might suggest this, it's clear from the comments of most of the rest of our members that the idea just wouldn't fly. And we certainly have no intention of trying to make our forums mimic conventional media. We have a journal, the Daily Gullet, that is appropriately similar to a traditional print publication. The forums are a new medium, one that we, as one of the premier discussion communities out there, are helping to shape.

Wikipedia confirms this: "Dan dan Noodles (Chinese: 担担麵; pinyin: dan dan mian) is a classic dish of Chinese Sichuan cuisine. It consists of a spicy ground peanut and sesame sauce over noodles, usually very garlicky, and often served with cold sliced cucumbers." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_dan_noodles

Every time I have such a deadline I tell myself this time it's going to be different: this time I'm going to plan ahead, I'm going to prepare some good stuff and keep it on hand, I'm going to block out small but usable chunks of time for real meals . . . . And every time I fail. Rock bottom for me is when I just eat cheese. It's alarming how much cheese I can eat, unaccompanied by anything else, while typing furiously at the computer. I can easily eat a pound of mozzarella without even noticing. That's probably why my keyboard is such a mess and my space bar make a weird groaning noise every time I push it with my right thumb (it sounds fine if I push it with my left thumb).