leo

i assume you're talking about wayside market. it's still there. i get an elvis (peanut butter and banana shake with lowfat yogurt) and a low fat chocolate muffin every week. the elvis is great.

People's is terrific. I second your advice not to walk there. I try not to go even at night after the one time I thought I was going to get mugged on the walk around the building to the parking lot in back. One small quibble though -- wouldn't you say their yellow, mustard-based sauce is South Carolina style? I didn't even know Florida had a style but maybe it's something distinct in the rest of Florida, as opposed to South Florida, where I've found almost no barbecue places other than People's worth trying.

Sometimes the misrepresentation can become reality. For instance, I think pesto used to be, well, pesto (basil, pine nuts and olive oil, I think, although someone can correct me if I'm wrong). Now pesto has become a synonymn for any kind of sauce.

cell phones are now ubiquitous and people who are bothered by them need to get on board the 21st century. the real problem is that people with ordinary voices feel the need to scream at the top of their lungs. if people would talk on cell phones at ordinary volume, it would be the same as having a normal conversation and few of us would be bothered. also, people don't need to be slaves to their cell phone; many people i know would be stunned to find out that if i'm in the middle of something and my phone rings, i make a split-second decision about which is more imporant, the phone call or what i'm doing. it it's the latter, i let voicemail pick up. as an aside, i've never been able to understand why the attire of others offends people, unless maybe it's at a funeral or place of worship where you're paying homage to a higher power such as the dead or god. what you're wearing makes absolutely no difference to me unless you somehow smell or are rubbing up against me. that said, houston's is a place of business and it has the right to set the rules.

the owner was right but as a buffet owner in today's society, he has to know that - sadly and unfortunately - some people are lazy, sloppy, pigs. if he's worried about wastage, he should switch to a more traditional restaurant. i think unless the buffet posts a whole set of draconian rules, there will always be more waste than at a traditional restaurant. sure, he can try to change those people, but it's not the soundest business strategy if he wants to make money.

well, your defense of yourself is admirable but it seems to me that if you're worried about being made to feel like an idiot or indentured servant, then the fact remains that it's not the customer's fault that you feel that way. perhaps you need thicker skin if you want to thrive in business? sad as it is, there are a lot of jerks out there. but they have money and you're in this to earn a living (presumably), not to make friends. swallowing your pride for one or two jerks a day makes sense to me. you bend over backwards for your customers and that's great. but great customer service also involves bending over backwards for the difficult customers, not just the inconvenienced (or poor) ones.

well, you can't control your customers' reactions or emotions but it seems to me that it's not a sound business strategy to bring customers to tears. it's not very professional. i'm not in your business but i certainly have difficult customers in my business. it's really hard sometimes but i always act professionally and have never had anyone leave in tears.

i once heard lynne rosetto kaspar pronounce shallots as shu-LOTS. maybe i'm the one who gets it wrong, but i've always called them SHA-lits.

i just joined last month. it was surprisingly expensive - for a six-month membership, it came to about $145 (including shipping). my first box came last week and i'm still working my way through it. so far i've opened four of the packages and they've been ok. nothing too spectacular, however. not that i'm really complaining too much , but they send way too many for me to eat by myself. my fiance won't eat chips because she's too healthy.i thought they'd send those individual size serving bags. one of the brands has '100 percent lard shortening' as the second ingredient.

chocolate

two people have mentioned the egg and pepper grinder. i'm trying to figure this one out -- is it like a scrambled eggs and peppers thing on a hoagie/grinder/sub/sandwich/dagwood roll?

how important do you find the quality of the chicken? i once bought two chickens for $5 on sale from the supermarket and they were very stringy. not sure if that was because of my cooking or because the chicken was crap. usually i buy 'smart' chickens (which i think are grain fed?) or free-range chickens and they don't have that problem.

i'm somewhat new to this board so i hope i don't get in trouble for sort of taking this thread in a new direction, but can you guys tell me whether all-clad is a good idea to register for? i'm getting married in may and my fiance and i registered yesterday at crate and barrel and marshall field's. she doesn't really cook beyond occasionally stir frying some veggies and heating soup and doesn't care what the kitchen is stocked with, so i sort of went crazy registering for all sorts of cool stuff. i have to choose between a couple varieties of all-clad and calphalon. now we have what i think is a relatively cheap version of calphalon -- maybe the $400 8-piece set. it works fine. i want to make sure what we get will last 5-10 (or more) years and will be relatively easy to clean. i have never cooked anything on a pan that isn't non-stick. i don't do a ton of really fancy cooking, but use pots and pans pretty much every day. i am afraid that anything endorsed by a food network celebrity is garbage, designed to appeal to the mass market applebee's crowd. (not that i don't watch food network; i do, but somehow buying pans because they're endorsed by emeril seems like a questionable practice). any advice would be much appreciated. thanks.

i used to subscribe to cooking light. many of the things i made from there were delicious, but at regular intervals, something would end up being just awful. for some reason, it was hard to tell which recipes would turn out tasting terrible. i think it was because many of the longer recipes involve substituting this or that for unhealthy stuff and combining several healthier things to replicate the fat or sugar.

i hate just the opposite -- i have friends and relatives that eat so slow it's painful. i hate having a dirty, empty plate in front of me for half an hour or longer while they linger over their food.