markk

What the hell was Paula Dean doing at Jean-Georges? Does she even recognize any of that as food? Or did she sit there recoiling in horror from the whole meal? And who let her in there?

I just googled your hotel, and you're going to be right near a restaurant that's very dear to my heart - Le Cave di Sant Ignazio. Although I haven't been there in many years (let's call it 17), I recently have corresponded with them online, and the now-grown family children are running the place, and according to the website, the restaurant seems to be going strong. I've probably had 50 dinners there (starting in the early 1970's) and have just the fondest memories of the place. If you're one of those people who can read the "vibe" of a restaurant by strolling by, you might consider stopping by to check it out - the tiny Piazza di Sant Ignazio (which the restaurant front forms one side of) is well worth seeing at night anyway. They told me that the parents are still there and remember me, though I don't know if Sabatino Sr. is still cooking. But if whoever is cooking is carrying on his tradition, you would be in for a great meal and a great Roman experience. The restaurant has obviously expanded tremendously since I was there. I remember vividly that when the outdoor seating would fill up, the waiters would carry tables and chairs out to the empty parking spaces in the piazza and you'd eat in a parking space in a piazza that was dead-quiet except for the sounds of revelry from the restaurant, watching the facade of the Church of Sant Ignazio. I also remember that for as many nights as I was there, we were the only non-Italians, and after we had returned the third night in a row (we once did two weeks in a row, not counting their night closed, on which the chef sent us to his brother's restaurant) they "took us in" and made us part of the family, which meant there was no ordering from the menu - you sat, and they fed you until you were so full that you got up and walked away until they got the message and stopped sending food.

I had never cooked anything until my sophomore year in college when I moved off-campus to an apartment. I remember one morning getting the idea to try to make lasagne for that night, and putting the noodles up to boil, and then just as they were about done, remembering that I had to get to campus for a class. So I turned the flame off, and figured that the noodles would keep in the pot until I got home 8 hours later. Shortly after that I got the brilliant idea to make a cake from a mix, but I had no cake pans and decided that that was stupid - I'd just bake it all in a large bowl and cut it into layers later. So I filled a giant pyrex bowl to the brim with the batter and put it in to bake. I guess it was after those that I decided to start taking this thing seriously.

I also think that a lot of it is conditioning that “white meat is better”. When I met my S.O. 37 years ago, he was the world’s pickiest eater – worse than a finicky child. He ate only boneless chicken breasts, steak, pork chops… and that’s about it – he ate no seafood whatsoever, and certainly no game, no offal, nothing! Over the years he has learned to eat, and now his favorite foods are foie gras, sweetbreads, duck breast and confit, (but mostly when he can’t get squab for the thighs), and frog legs, and he eats no end of crabs and mussels and things that he once wouldn’t be in the same room with. So recently we were at somebody’s house that only had cooked chicken parts from the grill, and they asked what part he wanted, and he said automatically “a breast”. So I stared at him and said, “the man whose favorite foods are duck thighs and pigeon thighs – you want of all things, a chicken breast ??!!” and he said, “oh yeah, make that a thigh and leg”. Of course he’s had no reason ever to taste those, as I practically never make chicken, but still it’s interesting what conditioning does to you.

We ate here last night with just okay results. We were in great moods as we were headed to the first NY preview performance of "Young Frankenstein" which is why we chose this place for its proximity, but our good moods undoubtedly contributed to the favorable slant we felt towards the restaurant, which is very pretty, and whose people are very nice. The lighting was really too low for acceptable photos, but as there aren't that many on this thread, I thought I'd include them anyway for reference. We started with a Tarte Flambee that was quite good, and a very accurate-tasting rendition of the genuine article: Then we had the Foie Gras Torchon: and the "Fricassee of Frog Legs and Chicken Oysters": The Foie Gras was pleasant; not the worst we've ever had (that distinction may have gone to Landmarc a few weeks ago), and not the best either, but very enjoyable. The fricassee was pleasant, though too mildly flavored, and not nearly as good as other fricasses of frog+ that I have had. It certainly needed more aggressive flavors or seasonings. Then we ordered the "Canard aux Figues" - Roasted Breast and Braised Leg of Duck. We made a big point of ordering the breasts rare, and they arrived overcooked. The server later apologized and said that he had completely forgotten to specify rare when he ordered it. The braised thigh was just a very, well, unfortunate thing to have been served. We kept the one order that had a little bit of pink in it, though it was cooked past the point that a duck breast is enjoyable.: and exchanged the other one for the Duck Confit, which was good: Dessert was an Apple Napolean which was enjoyable: The service was a little strange. We were there with a full two hours (plus) to spare before showtime, so there really wasn't any need to yank our Tarte Flambee plates out from under us when the Foie Gras and Fricassee arrived a moment later. And though the table next to us ordered wine at the same time as we did from the same server, they got theirs and we practically had to beg for our wine to have with the first course. All in all we left in good moods, but if I wasn't seeing a show within a very few blocks of the place, I would not return for the food alone.

I'm highly in favor of them. When they're my own photos, they are wonderful souvenirs of meals I have enjoyed in my travels. When they're somebody else's photos, they're the next best thing to (the metaphysically impossible) going back in time and place and enjoying the meal with them. And to top it off, my own experiences taking food photos in restaurants have led to lasting friendships with chefs and fellow diners. So on all counts, I am in favor of them!

So now, with all due respect, I am thoroughly confused. I was reading the pictorial thread about the restoration of a 300 year old village house in Zanco di Villadeati. There we see an endless (endless) string of photos showing the exterior and interior of a 300 year building undergoing renovation: the ceiling, the old light fixtures, the bare walls, the stones, the old chairs, the old pipes, the floorplans, the support beams, the pipes, the new light fixtures, the chimney surrounds. the new stones, the countertops, the scales, the new espresso maker, the chimney tubes, the exterior stucco, the views of the surroundings, etc. etc. But So why are we being shown these things? Can a photograph substitute for us being flown there to experience the real thing with you? Is it any different to see photos of it than to be invited there and witness the transformation in person? If we only read about it on paper and see photos of it, can we possibly care about it then? Or is it the case that when it's photos you took of something that you care about, or want for a documentation or a remembrance, that it's the most wonderful thing in the world, and when it's photos of things that other people took for the documentation or remembrance of something that they care about, it's meaningless, pointless, and useless? Why is it the case that if you want a photo album of every nail and every inch of tubing that went into your house, it's valid, and if somebody else wants a photo album of every dinner they ate on their vacation, it's stupid. Is this all about what matters to you? This was in no way intended to be a personal attack; I was just noticing the hundreds of photos that you posted, and wondering if your own postulations about the meaninglessness of photos only applied to those that others have taken?

Was there ever anyone stupid enough to consider them a substitute for the real thing? Do you think people take food photos to eat them later? ← Indeed! Nobody, but nobody, was considering them a substitute.

At her restaurant Michy's, in Miami, chef Michelle Bernstein makes a Peach Financier Cake with Roasted Peach, Yogurt Ice Cream, and Basil Syrup that's delicious:

On behalf of a friend who is starting on the drug Coumadin, for which constant levels of Vitamin K are crucial, I'm asking if anybody knows what the Vitamin K content of Foie Gras (duck liver, goose liver) are. It seems to be known that beef liver is high, but there's not much information on duck and goose liver and what there is suggests that it may be low - so if anybody has access to this information, that'll make one foie gras loving friend very happy (or maybe not ) Thanks!

Frankly, I think we're getting a lot of nonsense from the anti-photo people. Nobody has the right to tell me what happy memories my photos cannot evoke. When I look at a photo of a dish taken during one of my 36 years of gastronomic travel with my partner, and it causes a total recall of the excitement of that dish, of having discovered that particular restaurant, the conversations we had with the people sitting near us, and our experiences with the chef, how can anybody on a message board tell me that the photo is meaningless. I'm with the poster who says that if my food photo is meaningless, then by those same standards, your wedding photo, or the photo of your child's graduation is similarly meaningless - photos evoke floods of memories, and nobody's got the right to tell me that because mine is of a plate of food that it doesn't, and because yours is of a group of people that it does. Now, I've told lengthy stories of having taken flash photos in the fanciest of starred restaurants in France, and having people come over and tell me how wonderful they think it is that I'm passionate enough about my food to want a photo of it. And I've been encouraged by star chefs and their staffs to photograph my food at the table, and then come into the kitchen and take more photos there. Still, I've worried that for all the people in the restaurant who tell me how wonderful it is, there might be one person whose meal it diminishes, and I've taken great measures to make sure that doesn't happen, which is why I now travel with cameras that don't require a flash. But I'm not hesitant, or tentative about using them, and I don't apologize for it one bit. What I do at my table is my own business - it's nobody's right at another table to voice an opinion about which hands I hold my silverware in, or how many times I chew my food, or what I do at my table with a camera that doesn't send a flash invading their space - they shouldn't be watching my table at all. We've got photos of all the food we've eaten in our 36 years of traveling, and no end of stories about discovering the restaurants that serve them, and the chefs that have invited us into their kitchens and homes as a result, that my friends tell me are fascinating, and though I may indeed some day try to turn them into a book at their urging, I don't feel that I need to have this as a goal to justify my photos and the floods of happy memories that they trigger. If you don't happen to like photos of food, by all means don't take them, and don't look at them when other people post them!

I once subscribed to the premise of this, but I no longer do. Instead, I try to speak to the owner, or the chef (by sneaking into the kitchen) and asking them to recommend what they think is their specialty, their best dish, and I usually test them with that. If it's great, I'll come back and try something else. If it's terrible, and it's their pride and joy, they'll never see me again. Mind you, this doesn't rule out their recommending something extremely simple, if they feel they do it well. But a lot of places have things on the menu because people demand them, and while they may make them well, what's the point, if the chef has other strengths? I want the chef to tell me what he thinks is his best dish, and let me judge him on that. And I say this after many, many, (many) years of thinking that I had to test out a restaurant by how they made a particular standard. But if the chef's strength is a light and deft hand with seafood, or an amazing skill at grilling, I'm going to miss that if I arbitrarily choose a dish that isn't his forte. I don't know if this will make sense to anybody reading it, but it makes sense to me.

So I was directly replying to that. As you write, your point is not to make a styled photo, or to make it acceptable for publication. And since they are very good even in those conditions, I was pointing out what would have been missing from them if they had to be used for professional use. Which is very little. (One of your pictures, actually, is missing nothing to be of professional quality — the fish with the cinnamon stick. The balance of light and shadow and the definition are very good in this one.) But going back to the subject — in that perspective, there is a difference between the white balance such as you want it to be, or as I would want it to be, and the white balance such as it would have been set for a book or a magazine picture. ← Thank you, and thank you again! After I posted my original reply to you, I did have occasion to read Daniel Rogov's question again, and I guess I think that it's a matter of apples and oranges to have asked it here. What I mean is, I do know all about commercial photography of food. So I know that the ice cream in a dish will be replaced by something else like margarine, and the whipped cream will be replaced by shaving cream, etc. etc. - so when I look at commercial food photography, my mind's taste buds invariably ask "what I am looking at, anyway?" and I don't find them so appealing knowing what they probably are. Yes, I realize that there's an art to finding artificial substances that will hold up to bright lights while the beads of moisture are applied to the "food" and the plate is tinkered with, but that's just not an art that I'm looking to imitate in the first place. As far as the white balance, you're right that somebody publishing a magazine photo of that dish would've chosen a different white balance. For fun, I went back and re-set it to the one we had discarded when we worked on these, so forgive me if I repeat the original one here so that the difference shows up better... The second one affects the colors of the food very little, as I see it again. But something about it just doesn't recall the moment for me. But as I said, making a studio perfect shot was never our intention, even if we can come very close by lugging the "big" camera and gear. It's about capturing the moment, for us. As far as turning the plates, it's something we try to remember, and sometimes we do, sometimes we don't- remember that is. Part of the game is to eat the food while it's hot ( ). And the wine that's part of the meal sometimes has an effect on the photographic checklist (and boy were we grateful for the woman at the table next to us that time we were about to devour a dessert and she screamed "stop - you didn't take the photo!") On another thread completely unrelated to this, I needed to show a pasta photo from the town of Modena, Italy, to make a point, and I went digging through the photo archives for it. By the standards of this thread it's going to be a lousy photo, so I warn you... But do you know... it's from 1974 (!!). We were taking photos of what we ate even back then - years before people even gave birth to the people who'd become "bloggers" . But in those days, all the vacation photos our friends took were of churches, and statues, and the like, and ours were of "here's what we ate on the first night, and here's what we ate on the second night..." and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Those are indeed Photoshopped (all low light photos need to be), and fine-tuned to be exactly to my liking. Photoshop's white balance on the first one makes a photo that's just too cool and loses the warmth that's a necessary part of remembering that dish, so I intentionally adjusted the white balance to warm it up. The second photo, too, is exactly the way I want the white balance; Photoshop erred on the side of slightly too cool and lost the spirit of the golden sear for me. It's a personal preference, but I care more about the color temperature of the food, and not so much about the gigantic white plates that are now all the rage. I let it cool the asparagus photo, because thatseemed to me in keeping with the colors of the food. A reflector is simply not relevant to this discussion, as these are available-light photos. I generally experiment in Photoshop and re-expose the photo several different ways to see what I like best before I start fine-tuning. And with all photos that start out so dark that you can't even tell what's on the plate, those gigantic white plates will always be slightly overexposed, which is fine with me. I actually like the effect. I can grab only the food on the plate and re-expose it, but it results in a less honest-looking photo. The photos were taken with a Canon 700IS. I had the new FujiFilm Finepix F50 with me for several of those photos, but felt it didn't do as good a job as the Canon. But they obviously fooled John. As far as styling the food, that's just not what I'm after. I want a photo of exactly what was served to me, exactly as the chef styled it before it left the kitchen. Warts and all, though with the dollar what it is today, in some restaurants, there's a supplement for warts these days. But I don't want the perfectly styled studio photo, I want a photo that recalls exactly what I was served. As recently as a few years ago, I used to travel with a digital slr, the Canon EOS, with a flash that bounced into a reflector hood, and a few white cards that we'd hold up on the sides of the table at the moment the photo was snapped... And possibly because of my great luck, those were in restaurants in France where the chefs gave us their blessings to take all the flash photos we wanted, and even invited us into the kitchens to take more, and more importantly, where other diners would hand over their plates so we could shoot them. But with the advances in cameras today and Photoshop for post-production, I'm extremely pleased with the original four photos I posted above taken with only the camera that fits in a shirt pocket.

Why don't you tell me, (please?): These are all photos taken in restaurants, without flash, or fanfare, with a camera about the size of a 1950's cigarette lighter:

I pretty much judge olive oils by how they do sauteeing vegetables, which of course in turn flavor the oil. Things like onions, mushrooms, etc., either in combination, or separately. My house oil is the Arbequina from Fairway, because I find that things sauteed in it simply become delicious. (I am very curious, though, to try the two oils that you mentioned, FG.) And I have found that for some things, a sautee in a blend of their Arbequina and their Kalamata Pelopnnese, like when tomatoes are involved, does the trick. So just a suggestion that you try your oils on a batch of sauteed onions and mushrooms, and see how they fare with those. Of course I add garlic and fresh thyme (or other herbs) to what I sautee, but I've noticed over the years that sauteeing with these oils elicits a lot more "oohs" and "aahs" from people than you might expect.

Well, I've tried Jean-Georges twice before the opera, and it's really a mad-rush through your meal. And once when it was clear that we wouldn't make it, they suggested that we come back after the opera for dessert. The J-G in two stages meal That was for a 7:30 curtain. But even for an 8 PM curtain you have to start eating the moment they open, and it's too rushed for that meal. I also tried Telepan once, and while we may have hit it on an off night, we had, basically, airline food. And of course, the recent TWC Landmarc was a disappointment. I was once at Fiorello's on an especially good night (the exception rather than the rule), and as it was a 7:30 curtain that we were rushing to make, we decided to miss the first act of the opera. But the norm there is not great food by any means, though the convenience factor is high. And Fat Guy won't let me go to Nougatine. So that was why I asked about the Grand Tier. I remember it as mediocre as everybody else does, though the convenience, combined with the thought of a new operation, tempted me. I wonder if anybody (hint to Fat Guy) has any idea why they closed the Top of The Met restaurant? It was reasonable enough that one didn't expect great cuisine, and if you drank too much, they were able to pour you directly into your seat in the opera house at five of eight. Then many years ago, it mysteriously closed! But I thank you (I forget who) for the Compass suggestion - that will be the next place I try for sure.

Since I asked the question in the first place, I have to say that I would never judge a restaurant by the average age of its clientele, and I don't think this is a valid barometer. Or, I might take it to mean that if people old and wealthy enough to dine there choose to do so, it must be great. Or that they opted for the convenience, which is considerable. I was asking if anyone has eaten there since the Patina group took over and installed a new chef. And though it's completely off-topic, if the baritone Sherrill Milnes was in the cast of an opera that I had tickets to, I can assure you that my seats would go empty the entire evening. So if those ladies left and headed to a restaurant, it would signal to me that they had exquisite taste and that the restaurant was probably wonderful.

Not so! It was after this sorry pre-opera dinner at Landmarc that I started this thread in the first place!

How were the cantaloupes? And, where were they? (I didn't see them when I was there the other day, but then again, I couldn't see my hands or my feet for all the people.)

FG, that meal looks amazing!

Thanks. But I think that the crunch gets all the credit. People are people the world around, and just like when you're on eGullet you know you're in a community of food-loving people, the same is true when you're in a gastronomic restaurant, especially if it's one that's off the beaten path requires a bit of an effort to get to. I think you can assume that everybody's made the trek for the same reason. And though it's probably one of the greatest "social no-no's", I can't tell you how many times in great restaurants somebody has leaned over, or come by my table, to ask, "May I ask what that is that you're eating?" or "May I ask if that's a good as it looks?", and it's not unusual, if a server proposes any specials they might have that night, for people at a nearby table to chime in with "and you simply must have that!" I don't know that it's chutzpah, really. Traveling for culinary reasons is really an adventure waiting to happen. I've gotten involved with people on all sides of me at great restaurants and gotten great recommendations of were else to go and not to go, sometimes involving many tables joining in, and I've been in fancy restaurants where people several tables away, hearing that there's a bit of a language problem, perhaps a local word or phrase not understood, have called out the translation. Unusual by social rules? Sure. But friendly and helpful and greatly appreciated by me and understood by other diners? Indeed. But gastronomes and gluttons are a friendly bunch. I've got many new e-mail pals from just such situations. And all from having my camera at the table and using it.

I certainly hope that after reading the happy stories in this thread, nobody will be afraid of photographing their dinners in France. And speaking of happy stories, here's one that involves taking movies of the food. It's at the place I already described... As I say, it was rather an elegant place: But the greatness of the food led to a comraderie that's actually not unusual in starred restaurants - I have found that in places, no matter how formal, if the food is great enough, strangers will talk to each other about it. But I digress. We had marveled at every dinner we ate there at the flakiness of the pastry crust in the apple tarte, and we wanted to capture the sound of it with a video. So we asked the Belgian couple at the table next to us, who had become fast friends, if they thought there was any hope of it, and they assured me there was. And of course, as I looked around the dining room, I realized that most of the people there had proffered their dinner plates for photos at one time or another. So I stood up and tapped my glass with my knife to get everyone's attention, and announced in French that we wanted to take a video of cutting into the apple tarte to convey the crunch of the pastry, and wondered if everybody would go silent for a moment. Of course, those farthest from me couldn't understand what I was saying, so my request got repeated around the room, as everyone nodded in agreement and the room turned completely silent. And then we shot this: cutting into the Apple Tarte at Restaurant du Faude I'm not suggesting you try this at a 3-star establishment, but I would, and I think I'd get the same happy-to-cooperate result. I think the answer is that nobody at a temple of gastronomy minds if you love your food enough to want to photograph it.

Doc, I realize that you're not arguing against the classics. I'm just being Archie Bunker here. It's a thankless job, but somebody's got to do it.

Yes they are, and we were just telling a friend about them while debating whether that meant that we should try the restaurant for dinner.