TheFoodTutor

Interesting. I've noticed a lot of people eating their burgers sans bun, or sometimes they leave the sandwich open-faced and eat it with a fork and knife, just eating the bottom half of the bun. Some other restaurant folks have suspected that these people were doing it for a low-carb diet, but I'd always point out that many of them were ordering french fries, so that couldn't be the case. I find iceberg generally tasteless, but a wedge salad can be a decadent splurge once in a while. It's something I generally associate with steakhouses, so I don't feel like eating one at any other time. Other people apparantly don't have such a strong association for this item. When I worked in a fine dining Italian place, I'd sometimes ask if people wanted to add a salad to their meal, and many times people would blithely say, "I'll just have a wedge." The snotty part of me always just wanted to point down to the salad section of the menu and say, "Well, if there were a wedge listed here, I'd certainly be glad to get you one, but since we haven't a scrap of iceberg in the house, I guess you'll just have to choose between the salads we actually serve." The key to proper restaurant behavior is sometimes as simple as RTFM.

Anna, I love your blog and am most compelled by your meatballs to try some of my own. The leftover Frikadeller sandwiches look like the absolute bomb with the cucumber salad, as that would be similar to meatloaf sandwiches with pickles, only better. I have a feeling that my linehog would be thrilled to death to come home to that after a night in the restaurant kitchen, so I'm going to try to surprise him soon. All of your other food looks great as well, but your name prompts my brain to repeat the song by They Might Be Giants, Ana Ng. Ana Ng and I are gettin' old and we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence. Listen, Ana, hear my words. They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you. It's a good song, and a great blog. Have fun!

Unfortunately, the reference to fat in sushi is probably about the avocado. The Center for Science in the Public Interest people are very fond of warning people about avocadoes and nuts. What I'd really like to shove their face in is the final product of these doomsday warnings. This reminds me of the time that I was working in a bar and I decided to snack on a handful of the roasted nuts provided for patrons. The girl next to me clucked that she never ate nuts, not ever, because they're "too fatty." What's remarkable is that she was telling me this as she was eating her dinner for the evening, which was an extra large plateful of french fries. That's it. Nothing else. No protein. No vitamins. Just a big plate full of carb and fat-laden french fries for dinner. And she was picking on me for eating a few almonds. The world has gone mad, folks. Lock your doors before they get to you, too.

These genes are definitely related, and there's another one that's close to it: The gene that allows someone to decide that the eggs in the fridge are too old to use, go to the store and buy a new carton of eggs and place it on top of the old container, without throwing the old eggs away, of course. Man, I hate that.

It must be. I'm from Ohio, and I know what Malt O Meal is. I'll have to check the stores here in Georgia to see if they carry it, because I haven't had it in years. My mother used to make Malt O Meal muffins, which have a texture similar to cornbread. I can only imagine how tasty they'd be if they were chocolate, too. I'm glad you're blogging, Rachel, and ditto what everyone's said about showing anything that doesn't turn out exactly as planned. I would have probably added a little corn starch slurry, to make a thicker sauce if you wanted, since corn starch thickens so quickly, and it makes the sauce really glossy. But really, your finished product doesn't look bad at all. It's great that you're experimenting with curries, too. That's pretty adventurous for someone new to cooking. Great stuff!

Bravo! I had not seen this, and I'm truly amazed. I'm a very adventurous eater, and I prefer just about any kind of food to be cooked as lightly as possible. I could easily be talked into eating raw chicken, liver and brains, though gizzards sound like they might be a little tougher in texture. I have taken flak for my willingness to eat less-than-cooked-through chicken, even though I know it's more risky here than it would be in Japan. I am a healthy adult, though, and I haven't experienced stomach upsets related to food that would dissuade me from enjoying new delicacies. Even my one bout of food poisoning from oysters doesn't keep me from partaking of a dozen raw on the half. Honestly, up until now I thought I was the only person who'd thought it might be nice to try an imaginative version of chicken tartare. I think I really need to scrape together enough money to take a visit to Japan.

I agree that North Americans are paranoid about eating raw eggs. The risk of salmonella is negligible - something on the order of one in 100,000 eggs - and the benefit of having the texture of raw egg is great. As a lover of raw and barely-cooked eggs, I can't imagine being afraid to eat one. I love your blog, Kristin. I'm living vicariously through your daughter, Julia, since it's so beautiful for me to think of a pretty young girl living on the other side of the world with the same name as me. All these foods look amazing! Thanks.

I love the smell of bread baking or anything being grilled. Yes, there are dozens of things I love to smell in the kitchen. However, there are quite a few that don't smell good as well. My parents went through a phase where they ate many varieties of something called Budget Gourmet frozen entrees. They're very easy to make, since you just pop them in the microwave for a few minutes. After a while, I began to notice that all the entrees smelled exactly the same while cooking, whether it was chicken or beef, pasta or rice. At that point, I realized that I really didn't like them at all. And now I don't even like the smell of anything being microwaved, for the most part. So I don't have a microwave in my home, and therefore don't have to smell anything like that. Oh, and rotten beer smells very, very bad. A dumpster behind a bar is a terrible thing to be confronted with early in the morning. I'll never make a good garbage collector.

Pho is a good bet, but gazpacho would be another pick for me. Refreshing, cleansing gazpacho with lots of cucumber and tomato, plus some shrimp for protein. It's too bad it's getting cooler now, and it's almost too late to make it. Maybe just one more batch before late fall sets in.

Holy Cow! Whom have you been talking to? The Cheesecake Factory on my block is one of the busiest in the country, and their servers aren't pulling in anything like six figures. I have a friend in New York City who describes a particularly good job prospect as one that fetches $800 a week or so, which isn't a heck of a lot to live on in that city. For myself, I left fine dining when business got so slow that my income fell to around $300 a week. I just can't make it on that, so it was time to make a compromise. I make better money than a lot of servers in this area, but I don't make six figures, and there ain't no "easily" about it, when it comes to any serving job.

It depends on the size of the pepper mill. A 4 to 5 inch tall pepper mill fits easily into a to-go bag, and therefore will be swiped often. Clearing them before dessert is a great preventive measure, but people will steal them out of server stations, grabbing them off a shelf. They also take them off of other, empty tables. Is theft a huge issue? It depends on what you mean by huge. There certainly is a lot of it. I once saw a party of 5 take more than a dozen wine glasses, and they hadn't even ordered any wine. They had a private room for a pharmaceutical company presentation, and the room had been booked and set up for 15, but only 5 people showed, and none of them drank alcohol, so the wine glasses were removed and placed on a side stand. When they were done eating, they all asked to have small amounts of food wrapped up, and each of them requested a to-go bag for their little boxes of leftovers. I left the room for a moment, and when I came back, every wine glass was gone and they were all waving goodbye, bags in hand. But seriously, the single most stolen item in the restaurant is my pen. And people have absolutely no compunction about swiping it. They look me straight in the eye, hand me the signed credit card slip with one hand, while pocketing my pen with the other. God, I hate that.

Heh. I've seen customers walk out with: Salt and pepper shakers/mills, coffee cups, wine glasses, bottles of wine (swiped from display), a sugar caddy the size of a large softball and dozens upon dozens of the pens I purchase for work. The answer to your question is that there is simply no way to confront them. A simple query, "Did you happen to see my pen?" or "I wonder where that sugar caddy went?" will meet a response of anger and indignation, and will lose you any possibility of getting a tip from that table, plus you'll probably have to bring the manager over so they can explain that you're "the worst server ever!" There's nothing that can be done about it, from a server's aspect, without being fired. And the server's likely to be the one who will witness the theft.

Thank you, melkor, for bending to see some different points of view on this subject. I wouldn't say that the majority of restaurant workers in all chains are bright, hard-workers who care about the food they serve and the craft of serving well, but there are quite a few to be found in all walks. Some of the servers in my employ while I was a manager for Chili's were very smart, and it was a good position for them to have, working their way through college. But there were also some intelligent people working with me in fine dining, as well as some true dullards. The result is that I try very hard not to assume someone is a nitwit based on what their current employment is, as hard as that may be to do when faced with certain parking attendants and check-out clerks. I agree with Daddy-A that the flourish of the pepper grinder, which in my experience, is generally presented right after salads are placed on the table, is meant to give an impression that the establishment provides superior service. I don't really care that much for it, but I'll take one or two quick turns from the grinder. I think it's one of those things that gives a "wow" factor to the uninitiated, leaving some of them to think, "Gee. This place is so fancy they even have someone to grind my pepper for me! If I go to the restroom, will there be someone in there to wipe my bum, too?" Definitely overrated.

Markk doesn't have an obligation or a duty to inform management at the time of the meal, and no patron is obliged to do so in general terms when eating at a restaurant. However, my experience with eating in restaurants, working in them and writing about them on the Internet would have led me to speak up in this particular situation. At the very least, I would have called someone to the table and asked about, say, the mushrooms. I would have wanted them taken off my bill, frankly. The service, according to Markk's report, sounds horrible. I would be horrified to learn of that kind of behavior in any restaurant I managed.

Both, actually. More families have two incomes from both spouses working. And while my rent has doubled in the last decade, the cost of eating in restaurants - every level of restaurant from fast food to fine dining - has changed very little, and certainly not doubled. Restaurants have been very competitive in keeping their prices down, in response to the number of choices that the average diner has when it comes to spending their money. That's one of the things that makes restaurant work so difficult.

I think it must say something. I'm a "save the best part for last" type when it comes to most foods. What does this indicate? Willingness to delay gratification? Austerity vs. Hedonism? Somebody help me out. Oh, when I eat my favorite sashimi assortment, I get 3 pieces each of 5 kinds of fish. On these, I eat one piece from each selection in the order that I like them, from least to most-liked. As I'm nearing the end, if I'm eating with my boyfriend, I pick up one of the pieces from my most favorite variety and I give it to him to eat. Pretty sick, huh?

Ursula, that salad sounds delicious. Watermelon and feta cheese is one of my favorite combinations, and you don't need a lot of the cheese to get an enjoyable flavor component. Congratulations on losing 26 pounds! I'm not dieting, but I do read this thread and other threads about various diets, partly because it's interesting, and partly because some of my clients ask for classes that are catered to a specific mode of eating. You've all come up with some really good ideas. Thanks. <edited for typo>

I'm glad I'm not one of the ones afflicted with butt myopia. I saw Al's butt right away, and then I saw =Mark's butt, and then there was Snowangel's butt. Beautiful butts, all, and =Mark's butt even looked good after it was ripped to shreds. I'm going to have to go procure myself a butt so I can post pictures of my own. I'm just hoping people will be interested in seeing my butt by the time I'm through with it.

I also only like pickled okra, and that's even better when it's refrigerated, since the texture is lightly crisp and there's no sliminess. Other than that, I don't even like to eat around it when it's included in a dish, because of the slime.

At the restaurant where I currently work, we do not have printed children's menus, but we do have a short list of children's meals that we will make. I'm not a big seller of the kid's menu, and I tend to only rattle off a few items with the child usually stopping me after I mention the chicken tenders or the grilled cheese. I especially don't like selling a kid burger, since it's exactly the same as our regular burger, but it costs $5 instead of $9. Kid's menus are generally a financial loss to the restaurant, aside from being generally dull food, and so I fall squarely on the side of the people who don't like them. What I do find a bit ironic is that, our policy states that children's menu items come with a free beverage, but if the kid eats adult food, I'm supposed to charge for the soda they drink. To me, that kind of feels like I'm penalizing the people who are teaching their children better eating habits. So I try to take it on a case-by-case basis. If a young child is just drinking one small soda with his meal and eating a little bit of mommy's food off a side plate, I don't charge. If a 9-year-old girl, like the one I saw today, sucks down 3 large refills of Diet Coke in 10 minutes, then she looks like an adult to me. I don't know if I'm making the right judgement or not, truthfully.

Wanna know something that's really good? Goldfish crackers on a sandwich. Particularly a cheeseburger. There's a street vendor on my block who sells burgers and hot dogs on nights when there's a bar crowd, and he'll put all kinds of things on you're sandwich. Just for fun, he decided to offer Goldfish as an option for topping steak sandwiches and burgers. I don't know why I tried it, but it was pretty good, especially after a night of drinking. But I guess this thread isn't about fun things to eat while drunk.

I seem to remember reading about this event before, so it must have been going for at least a year or two. Now there's nothing wrong with venison, and rabbit is workable, but rattlesnake is particularly difficult and I just plain don't like turtle. Sounds like a challenging event.

I love street food. Any kind works just fine for me, actually. There's just something that feels special about walking up to a cart or a truck and getting a hot dog, or a taco, or especially one of those big, schmeary bagels in New York. I think the reason why you don't see ice cream trucks so much anymore is that kids were running into streets and getting hit by cars. During my childhood, legislation prohibited the trucks from playing their music until the truck was stopped, to keep this kind of thing from happening. I miss the orange push-ups and bomb pops. I suppose I could get some at the store, but it wouldn't be the same.

I was thinking of making the cake cone/communion wafer comparison, and you beat me to it. Calling them safety cones seems pretty ironic, since the grid of cross-beams in the bottom seems particularly unsafe to bite into if it hasn't been softened first with melty ice cream. Lately, I prefer my ice cream in the form of a milkshake. Strawberry cheesecake flavored, if possible.

I not only check eggs for broken ones, but if there are several cartons with one broken egg, I swap out a broken for an intact one, so that the broken eggs stay in one carton. I am an astute, but considerate, shopper.