Tydel

Y'Irish Rachel?

For whatever reason, I'm of the belief that you can "burn the cold out," using spicy foods and hot sauces. It's probably bogus, but the pain of the spice takes your mind off what the rest of your body is feeling.

This is totally not what a hungry college student needs to read and/or see while trying to study for his finals. And this is just the beginning.

In no particular order: 1) Incredibly sharp, aged, white Cheddar. 2) Mozzarella 3) Boursin (I had it fried on New Years. Sweet hibbity bibbity, it rocked my world.)

I'll be honest, I've been reading this blog thinking "Well, the food sounds good, and the pictures look good, but is it really all that good?" My question was answered with a resounding yes on that last post. Lunch looked amazing.

I will never assume someone has done my prep for me. I will never look away when dicing chicken with my cleaver. I will never cut towards my left hand while cleaning a large piece of beef. I will never not pay attention while using a hand dicer. I will never use anti-scarring cream when I burn myself. I will never go to the ER 24 hours after I've done any of the above.

I go to Pennsylvania State University, in State College. Hoorah for college towns. And yes, I'm incredibly interested in the topic. I've been working in restaurants since I was about 15, and just love the whole thing. I'm also an HRIM major, so I plan on doing something related to it for the rest of my life. agbaber, That's a good point. The only way I can think to tie it into some of my previous ideas is to find a couple sample menus with seared tuna that focus on the fish, not something that might go with it (say, some type of pasta or rice). Did the "discovery" of seared tuna predate the lo-carb craze, or just coincide with it? Food for thought.

I am confused. So people go to Dinner Houses as opposed to what? Robyn He means there is a recent trend in America where people tend to equate "fine dining" with a chain restaurant like TGIF, the Cheesecake Factory or Olive Garden. (Right?) It's not necessarily a bad trend. These are just people who don't know any better. (*ducks from incoming*) Soba There are four "levels" of restaurants one of my HRIM professors gave to us: QSR-McDonalds, etc. Midscale-Shoney's, Denny's, etc. Casual Dining (Dinner Houses)-Outback, Olive Garden (Isn't restricted to chains though, just think about prices and the menu) Fine Dining-Le Bec Fin, etc. Although QSR is still raking in the largest percentage of profit in the industry, Dinner Houses are on the rise, probably because they offer better service, and depending on your tastes, better food. This is one trend that I could talk about for my paper. Another trend altogether is modern restaurants (which I define as any establishment that is actually open for business) responding to the trends in the dieting world. Specifically, utilizing new cooking methods and foods to please their customers who want low carb. In theory, these two are intricately tied together. There's got to be a reason that Casual Dining is on the rise, and it could be that it's restaurants are better equipped to respond to trends in the food world. Fine Dining, for example, really wouldn't have to fight against the dieting trends, it's patrons most likely do not care. People looking to diet probably won't go to QSR that often, and the same goes to Midscale, where lard is clutch. I've always hated using nothing but numbers in my papers, so I tend to use only what I need to reinforce a point I've drawn linguistically. The problem I've run into is that really, the only trend I can see with my own eyes, and draw comparisons for is the dieting trend thing, and I imagine it's overdone. But hey, it'll work out. Thanks for the pointers guys. *edit* Paul Mitchell, that's actually not a terrible idea. I wonder if I could find a restaurant that focuses on what GOOD tasting food without running the prices through the roof or sacrificing health. I mean, a restaurant that makes it's sandwiches with thick bread, uses lots of pastas, and throws the whole Atkin's fad to the wind, relying on people to be intelligent enough to know good food when they see it. Of course, this would be going against the trends I talked about earlier, but I could talk about how some people see the low-carb trend being reflected in dinner houses as a terrible thing. Hmmmmm.

By dinner houses, I mean anything. Olive Garden, Houston's, and independent groups, like C&D Brewing Company (Iron Hill Brewery). Thanks for the thoughts, guys. And thanks Soba, I found some good information searching the site, I knew I'd forgotten something.

I suppose I'm still in the "eat a full dinner, plus dessert" and still be hungry. Well, not so much hungry, as able to eat more. I also gather that's why I started exercising more frequently. Huzzah for logical trains of thought. Food looks delicious.

For one of my Hotel, Restaurant Management Classes, I'm required to write a 5 page paper regarding the field, I've chose to write about Trends in modern restaurants. From what I've read, seen here on the forums, and experienced first hand, I have a few thoughts about the trends. Any of you food buffs agree, disagree, or want to call me a heretic? 1) There is an increasing percentage of patrons and sales going to Dinner Houses (Casual and Casual-Fine Dining). Houston's, Iron Hill Brewery, etc. 2) New Diet. This one's fairly obvious, restaurants usually try to cater to the "in" diet of the time. A few years back, it was low fat. Now it's Low-Carb. I know at the restaurants where I worked, the regular menu didn't change much once Atkin's came to popularity, but the specials reflected it. Wraps were in, pastas and thick-breaded sandwiches were unfortunately out. Yea, that's about all I got. Can anyone reccomend books, magazines, articles, etc. that might have anything?

There's a restaurant being bebuted by Darden Restaurants called Season 52's. Every Sunday, they change the menu so they're using the freshest, most "in season" ingredients. Fairly interesting concept and if it's done properly, it could be great.

I recently started exercising (couple weeks ago), and decided that eating healthy and burning more calories than I intake is the way to go. I came to this decision because, quite frankly, I love food. LOVE it. I love the way a big slice of well-cooked pizza can cure the soul, or how a perfectly done steak can melt in your mouth. LOVE. At any rate, I was talking to someone about it, and they told me that I had to cut Breads, Cheeses, and Fruits out of my diet if I wanted to lose weight. I just smiled and nodded. Those three things are some of the world's greatest gift to Chefs, Family cooks, and food-junkies world-wide. How could I just ignore them? That said, my best friend was able to lose over 120 pounds in a year by eating properly and exercising everyday. One of the things he utilized was low-carb dieting. The allure of a "quick fix" diet is good, I'm sure, and I've heard it can work wonders. However, No amount of ignoring breads, pastas, beer, and alot of basics in cooking, will get you thin. I remember in middle school, on the wrestling team, we were told to eat a great big bowl of spaghetti for dinner the night before a meet, so we'd have lots of energy for it. It's a good thing we were working our butts off in practice, or that "great big bowl" would have gone straight to my thighs.

Andre Tanneberger, Robert the Bruce XVII, Ewan McGregor, Logan Foster. Comedy option: Nietzsche, Confucious, Kevin Sorbo, Lucy Lawless.