Tess

Oh, speaking of baking disasters, I was once told to bring a cake to a party. I did a chocolate cake, probably from Nigella or something. My Kitchenade went crazy in the middle of mixing the batter and started running like an outboard motor; it had stripped a gear. The cake came out in two layers, the top looking like it was mostly egg white. I just broke that layer off and frosted the bottom one. People ate that cake, even though it looked lumpy and weird and was very dense. People will eat anything chocolate I guess.

I once brought a fruit tart to a dessert potluck. Nobody touched it, and I didn't blame them, although I cannot tell you why. There was just something very weird about that tart. It looked tired and sort of as if the cook (that would be me) had been sweating all over it or something. No idea why. I am not a super baker but people will normally eat my desserts. This was just one baneful tart.

Heh. All my older female relatives are museum ladies! The restaurant in the Art Institute (Chicago) is always full of them. I love 'em to pieces but they must drive the servers crazy. At lunch with two of my aunts recently, they kept complaining that the food was too "spicy." (It was not at all spicy; no idea what they were on about unless they were trying to fool people into thinking they still had taste buds.) The waiter responded by bringing them free ice cream. What a saint. I would have been telling them to stuff it.

Yes, websites are great especially if they are clear (e.g. you don't need to guess where you are supposed to click to get information) and fully up to date. One of my local restaurants has a site and also sends out emails with lists of specials and events, which I appreciate getting. I do wish people would cool it with the pdf files on restaurant sites, particularly when it's not clear that clicking will activate one. Adobe Acrobat hangs up some computers. The files are often not all that legible. Why do that for a menu that's one or two pages?

And conversely, a lot of times an appetizer-sized plate is not something you would want to eat if it were larger for a number of taste and content reasons. Sometimes they are more intense, salt or fat intensive, whatever.

I'm kind of sorry that the topics were combined to include restaurants as well as coffee shops. (That happened before the merge, I guess.) I think coffee shops, at least in the US where you don't have to pay extra for a table, have a special problem because people expect to be able to camp out there all day while buying and consuming (if they want) very little stuff. At least in a restaurant with table service, a meal comes to an end at which point people are expected to leave. Also, you have a lot more problems with groups of people taking over a coffee shop. These can be people with kids, teenagers, retirees, whatever. But people who are inclined not to supervise their small children are going to be worse in coffee shops than in a restaurant, I think, especially when the restaurant becomes a home away from home that you can resort to to get relief from the pressures of being home alone with small kids. I do feel for coffee shop owners. I don't know what you're supposed to do when you start to get a critical mass of regulars that are a pain and driving out the people you thought you were running the business for. Play a kind of music they're apt to hate at a little louder volume for a while? Move to another neighborhood?

Exactly how I feel. I also suspect that a large percentage of the shills, trolls and people with special axes to grind are a) very obvious and b) able and willing to circumvent any regulations about identification and screen names. In fact, they'd take glee in doing it. When these people pop up on this board, I've seen members respond with something like, "People can judge your statements by your posting history." Isn't that pretty effective?

Me too. I don't want to be posting my whereabouts, comings and goings on the internet. "I'll be going to a three-star restaurant tomorrow! Please come over to my house and rob it/kidnap my kids while I'm out!" You think these fears are extreme until it happens to you or one of your friends. I think people who are shilling or coming on the board specifically to jump into one particular controversy for personal interests usually are pretty obvious, aren't they?

Megan, I'm not sure but I think it's a bit of both. I find putting up a sign in (I guess in this case, outside of) a restaurant to be a dodgy idea, but not an absolute no-no below the level of fine dining. People who put up signs like "no substitutions" in sandwich shops know they're being gruff but it's worth it to them for the saving of time and aggro. Signs in stores saying "please keep your children with you at all times" seem like an OK idea too. (When I had a retail store I used to just ask people to watch out for their kids when needed but they may have felt they were being singled out, and maybe they would not had there been a sign.) But in a restaurant setting there's an idea of hospitality that I think is violated by having a sign telling people what to do and not do. Communicating with signs rather than talking to people creates more of an institutional atmosphere. Also, it gives every customer a first impression of "someone's got a problem here." It reminds me of a bed and breakfast we stayed in where there was a bloody sign on everything. A lot of the stuff they were telling you not to do was along the lines of "Who would ever think to do that anyway?" It seemed like they were going out of their way to imagine problems and thus possibly creating them. I don't think the wording of that particular sign helps at all if I understand its purpose. It really does sound like it's about kids (that's how most people are taking it, too) and the "of all ages" is more or less a dodge. He's got problems with kids specifically. Is there a way to say that that doesn't sound like you're a little bit prejudiced? I don't know. I'm trying to think of alternatives, but things like "We welcome well-behaved children," albeit less coercive, sound about as phony to me as the original sign. I'd be interested to learn whether or not signs like that are effective. Maybe he just wants to drive a certain group of people out and maybe it will work. Then again, it may be that the people who are the real problem-- those people who really refuse to take responsibility for their kids-- are so thick-skinned and/or determined to to have their coffee break while the public babysit their children for them, that a sign isn't going to deter them at all. If they even notice it, they'll just think you have some kind of chip on your shoulder and that you've got this problem with all kids and you deserve to be ignored. It might be better to go up to those people and ask them individually to take charge of their kids, or go up to the kids and ask where their parents are. Some people do get bent out of shape if you talk to their kids, but if they are not anywhere near there kids, that's their problem in my view. Edited to add: Megan, our posts crossed but I see that our interpretations of "of all ages" differ. You may well be right, but I think if he really just wanted to ban loud and obnoxious behavior, period, there wouldn't have to be any language about children at all. But I think the sign probably wasn't that deeply thought out so it's not worth pressing it with the interpretations.

I think the level of support is kind of surprising. I really don't think the sign is a good idea.

You know, I think the wording of that Andersonville sign is unfortunate: By "indoor voices" do they mean the voices most people seem to think are appropriate when talking on cell phone? Plus, telling customers what they "have to" do seems a little presumptuous. I tend to think that when you choose to communicate with your customers by means of signs you need to be very careful. I'm sure there is some room for improvement with this sign.

That article is kind of a mishmosh of different issues. As far as coffeeshops, I think places like Starbucks have created a problem by adopting an image of the coffee shop as a place to camp out all day. Kids, cell phones, whatever-- people feel like they can behave as if they're in their own home. There's a Starbucks in my area where every time you go in, it's full of the same group of older guys talking loudly across tables. In another neighborhood, it's moms with their kids. I prefer the moms; at least they don't all turn around in concert and stare at you when you come in, like you're intruding on their private social gathering. I doubt whether that setup is good for moving expensive drinks and snacks so I'm not sure why they do it.

I was thinking of mentioning this too but was worried about the hit or miss business. Thing is, about the pastries and cookies, as a pro you'll probably have some idea what to stay away from just by looking. They often have samples of the baked goods out. Most cookies are pretty good I think. I also love a few things in their prepared food line, including fish quesadillas and some of the diet foods with Weight Watchers and/or carb data posted. They also have a nice little selection of candies. (I'm always having to send care packages of gummy worms to my sister in LA.) It is definitely a fun place to browse. When I'm near that Central Street location I always go there and to the Spice House, which is right across the way and is even more fun for browsing. If you go in Spice House, get some of the new Ginger Nibs; they're amazing.

Tom Yum soup. Also, hot and sour soup with tofu in it. (You need some protein.) Miso soup is very good too.

I think the North Shore (right by the lake more so than say Northbrook) is just in a bad position. People who want a significant dining experience and/or good value can go downtown or just stay after work, and they don't mind going west to Arlington Heights, Northbrook or Milwaukee Avenue either. When they want to eat near home, they usually just want a place they can take the kids and they don't really care that much about the food (and Thai or something probably is not what they want to have on those nights). Plus I think a significant number use their country clubs to entertain. (If the food at my father's club is a good example, some of these people are in a pretty serious rut as far as taste goes. Not to run down the country club cooks; the food always seems pretty well prepared but it is always the same.)

Swingers in LA has a funny huge menu. I like that in a diner although I always have to drink at least one cup of coffee before I figure out what to eat. I don't like certain kinds of build-your-own menus. Choosing components of a meal is fine but I generally don't want to be given a choice between several sauces for each type of fish or meat. I'd rather think that the kitchen has chosen a sauce for each dish with some kind of thought.

Baxter's canned soups are made in Scotland and are quite expensive in the US, but I keep a few cans around for emergencies. They have regular, lower-sodium and "healthy choice" (vel sim.) varieties. Adding a splash of marsala, madeira or white wine, or balsamic vinegar, does seem to cut the canned taste. Cream cheese is nice melted into tomato soup, and parmesan rinds simmered in vegetable soups. My main use for these soups is when I have the flu or something and don't feel up to cooking at all, so that's about as much as I do to them. In those same situations miso soup packets do the job also; I sometimes add cubed tofu to those for nutrition.

I would say that Chinese and Korean definitely sound promising. You might want to check out this blog. He reports on a wide variety of food and gives prices for everything.

Depends on the pizza and beer. Fly the pizza in from Italy, and you're good to go.

Well, a man who pays for dinner automatically gets laid. I mean, that's his right. ← No, it's my right. I expect an expensive dinner *and* I expect to get laid. Otherwise he's history.

Thanks, ingrid. I tried to read that article but my eyes kept skidding off the page.

It wouldn't just be hypocritical; it would be blindingly stupid. If you ever meet a woman who takes that position, you might want to address it with her.

I'd say it's about as sexist as the "women can't cook" one. I mean, it's really idiotic to complain about things like men not paying for dates. Women should be equal, period. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with everybody being generous and helpful. I'm a woman; I hold doors open for people if it seems like it will help and I pay for people's meals. It's my pleasure to do it.

Not to stray off-topic but a friend gave me some pink sea salt from HI and I was surprised by how not-salty it was. It wasn't bad or anything...just had to put shovel-fuls in/on food to even notice. How 'bout yours? If anyone else has comments on this, I will open a new thread. ← Interesting-- just off the top of my head I would say maybe Maldon, which is our default, has more bite to it, but I hadn't thought of the Hawaiian salt being not-salty. In other salt news, I just acquired some Fumee de Sel as a Christmas gift for a salt-loving relative. It's (surprisingly enough) a smoked salt and I found the flavor quite intriguing on taste test. Not sure what I'd do with it. Hopefully the person who gets it will think of something.

In addition to some of the others already mentioned, Marcella Hazan. I also find the original authors of Joy of Cooking very amusing. Nigella is fun too although sometimes I think she tries a little too hard to be enthusiastic.