russ parsons

I'm putting together a mini-tasting of whites from alsace and i'm trying to get past the "usual suspects." i know zind-humbrecht, hugel, trimbach. i'm hoping to get some weinbach, schlumberger, deiss, beyer, josmeyer... is there anybody i'm mising?

that's a great book on a specific region (his book on liguria is also good, and i'd also recommend matt kramer's book on the piedmont). but they won't do for a general overview, as i understand this question to be posing. take a look at claudia roden's book on italy. she's very serious and writes good recipes.

in my experience, the artusi book offers a good look at what a very narrow segment of italian (well, tuscan ... maybe florentine?) society was eating at the time it was written (turn of the last century). but it's not really something to cook from. on the other hand, let me second the mention of kyle phillips' work on about.com (also, he has some kind of list associated with his italian wine newsletter (sorry to be so vague, but i can't find a copy right now ... check at about.com). i really love these dispatches from italy ... kind of like the new yorker's "letters from" series, they give a real sense of what is happening in contemporary italy both food and non-food.

what a cool idea: so you make a "sock" with glad wrap, say, and put the shelled egg in that, then you twist the top and poach it? is that how it works? i'm afraid i missed what y ou had written aabout the slow-cooked soft-boiled egg. where can i find it? it's not in the new one is it?

try braising them. take them down to trimmed quarters (this is best with "baby" artichokes, or at least less than hubcap size). Put them in a skillet with about 1/3 cup of water, a couple cloves of garlic and a good hit of olive oil. Cover and cook them over moderate heat until the artichokes are tender. Take off the lid and raise the heat to high. keep tossing them while they're cooking. the water will evaporate leaving behind a thick glaze of reduced artichoke juice and olive oil and the artichokes will brown slightly in this. so simple but totally amazing. and there are about a zillion variations.

i always try to have some kind of poached dried fruit on hand in the winter. if nothing else, just sweetena little yogurt and use that for a topping. i find a light syrup is about right (half as much sugar as water). today i did some dried blenheim apricots and montmerency cherries in a syrup with some allspice, a stick of cinnamon and a dried out vanilla bean i found in the back of the cabinet. poached dried fruit is also great on crepes and as a topping for waffles of different kinds.

me too. it's one of the better kitchen toys i've ever bought. i do find that chickens don't come out as crisp as they do in the oven, though. probably the flame isn't hot enough. but they are remarkably moist.

john, you've obviously never eaten my cooking.

i think amy's right and everybody needs to stop making excuses. anyone should be able to write like jeff steingarten. i mean, you've got words, you've got grammar... how hard can that be? another thing i don't get: why can't everybody cook like thomas keller? you've got a pan, you've got a fire .... and while i'm at it, anybody watch the nba all-star game yesterday? why can't all centers drive the court like shaq? it's just bouncing a damned ball.

1) it's instructive that thomas opened bouchon in vegas, not another french laundry. bouchon is bistro food that is almost by definition reproduceable by any talented chef. 2) it's impossible to separate chef/artisan from businessman. any chef who is not a businessman is no longer in business. 3) the need for expansion is not just personal restlessness. people who haven't worked in a restaurant line probably can't appreciate how physically strenuous it is. it's not like the nba, but it is like other forms of manual labor, involving being on your feet for 12-14 hours a day. i know thomas has had two knee operations and i know other chefs have had the same. thomas has to tape up before hitting the line. as someone his age who is fortunate enough to make a living sitting down, i certainly appreciate his desire to move into a situation where he is more of a coach than a quarterback.

you're right richard, that was vague. for a critic, i would recommend not socializing at all (of course, there are times when it is unavoidable, but in general). as a feature writer, i'm talking more about true friends. i don't want to be in a position of writing about someone when because of our friendship i know things about them that they might not want known. in that situation, i would either have to soft-pedal the truth, or opt-out. in 99% of the cases, i'll opt out (and that does go for writers as well as chefs ... i won't review my friend's books and i won't review books that have been edited by my editor).

i think tony's perspective is right on. as one of the "thomas agonistes" over the last year, i'll add one more perspective: the thing that's driving him in new york is the same crazed pursuit of perfection that makes the french laundry the restaurant that it is. you can't have one without the other. you can only wish him well.

fat guy, i know all the theoretical arguments, believe me. everyone finds their own way and some lessons are best learned on your own. i'm just trying to give you the perspective of more than 20 years of doing this. i am neither an ethical hard-liner nor laissez-faire. i'm telling you where i have run into problems and where people i've known have run into problems. you can take my advice or leave it. do me one favor, though: print this out and if you are still a critic in a couple of years, let me know what you think then.

Do you believe these rules should apply to all critics vis-a-vis their chosen disciplines: art, music, books, etc.? yup. it just gets too dicey. 1) it's awfully hard to be fair when you're dealing with people you know well. you tend either to be too hard or too forgiving. 2) in general, critics should resist the urge to think of themselves as "part of the community." undeniably what you do affects the community, but you represent the readers, not the industry you're covering. this, i find, is the biggest failing with most food writers. let's face it, restaurants are sexy, fun places to be around. it's great to get special treatment. but you do a far better job for your readers by staying an outsider. note that i'm commenting strictly on restaurant critics. there is room for general feature writers to get "inside" the building, but even then one must be really wary. i have only developed what i would consider to be real friendships with a few chefs and those have always had tensions because even though they might have understood intellectually why i couldn't write about them very often, it still pissed them off when they saw other chefs being written about. it's a tough balancing act.

two points came to mind while reading this and i think they're important enough to mention: 1) a good restaurant tries to please EVERY customer. certainly, they do not always succeed. but i've been in a lot of restaurant kitchens and i've never detected a hint of "who cares about this plate, it's not going to anybody important." this is certainly not to say that all restaurants succeed, it's just that they're trying as hard as they can. which is not to say that you should then be satisfied paying $250 for an average meal just because they were trying hard (this is why i rarely eat out anymore, except at the tried-and-true places I know are capable of giving me my money's worth). 2) anonymity is overrated, but impartiality is not. while i think it's silly for reviewers to dress up in disguises, i do think it's important that critics not be perceived as being part of the "restaurant establishment." critics should do everything they can to stay separate from chefs and owners. they should not go to restaurant parties. they should not go to dinner with friends who are chefs. they should not have friends who are chefs. in my opinion, this is where the real bias sets in: not in being recognized at the last minute, but in being chummy and giving breaks in reviews because "you know what they really can do."

as someone who has had the bad (or good) fortune to dine with most of the big city restaurant critics in this country, i can say that in the great majority of cases they have been meals that have been saved only by sparkling conversation. i don't know what it is, but i suspect that when a critic is in the house, everybody goes into brainlock (and don't kid yourself, in a decent restaurant, the local critic is ALWAYS recognized ... the really cool places just don't let on).

all white truffle oil is not a fraud. 15 years ago i bought white truffle oil in the alba street market that was basically olive oil with about 1/4 inch of white truffle shavings (peelings more likely) in the bottom. i've seen similar products since. most white truffle oil (but not all) is actually "flavored" ("odorized") with a petroleum ingredient. but you have to ask what is a fraud? if something smells enough like white truffle to satisfy you, and the price is fair, what is the harm? personally, i find the regular dousing of food with white truffle oil at fine restaurants to be pretty repellent. on the other hand, thomas keller uses it from time to time. do you think he can't tell the difference?

i should have known you'd be way ahead of me. that must be an incredible treat, matching michel's food to wine. i remember working with him at citrus years ago for a special lunch for henri jayer, when he fine-tuned the sauce for the entree to the exact wines that were being served. what an amazing man.

sliced raw celery, vinaigrette with shallots and walnut oil, crumbled blue cheese, chopped toasted walnuts. raw celery cut in matchsticks, vinaigrette with olive oil and lemon juice, salt-cured anchovies, briefly refreshed. let's not be closed-minded.

mark, have you guys ever experimented with set menus matching wine and food, all-inclusive? say $250 a person. at that price you couldn't offer first growths (or even fifths), but you mght be able to give some exposure to the rest of the list and broaden some horizons.

i prefer to think of it as a case of preventing less-than-wonderful writers from making horses' asses of themselves.

i'd like to hear mark s' thoughts on putting together a well-priced list. unlike many, apparently, i don't have any problem with restaurants overcharging for petrus or caymus. good as those wines are, in a restaurant context they are "sucker wines". the only people who are going to order them are those who are trying to show off or have more money than sense. to me, a really well-priced wine list is one that acknowledges the economic necessity of gouging those customers but uses some of the profits to underwrite the discounting of some lesser-known wines that they're really crazy about. charge $200 for the caymus cab if you want, but then have the sinskey carneros merlot for $40 or $50.

oh hell, i use the first person all the time. well, often, anyway. and of course i've never been accused of a shortage of ego. i was just trying to make a point, one that is probably inherently biased by years of editing bad first-person writing. (i sometimes think there should be an apprentice period for writers, during which they are allowed no self-glorification. if they last, there's plenty of time for that afterward). and, yes, when you write "the salsa was wimpy," there is an implied first person. my problem is not with boldly (or baldly) stated opinion, my problem is with the sloppy use of the first person. to my taste, saying "i found the salsa wimpy" is the same as "the salsa is wimpy", except that it is softer and less direct. if you're going to express an opinion, just say it! i also find that writing in the first person tends to take the reader out of the story. write in the third (even in a wildly individual--no, egocentric--third) and the reader is put in the place of the writer, experienceing things for themselves without the distraction of an intervening character. write it in the first, and the whole thing is happening to somebody else, not to him. as for john's neo-victorian suggestion: "Upon tasting the disgusting mess on the plate, one might have wished to stick one's finger in one's throat." i'd suggest the more yankee-ized "the mess on the plate was so disgusting you wanted to stick your finger down your throat." unless, for some reason, the point of the story is that it is YOU wanting to stick your finger down your throat, rather than the reader at large. (careful readers will note that this was written entirely in the first person: one effect of the voice is of softening criticism: "i think this, you may reasonably think otherwise". i find this especially effective after a long rant. and let me be clear, once again, that this is not aimed at robb (or at john thorne or jeffrey steingarten). if everyone wrote in the first person as interestingly and as engagingly as they do, i might have to revise my opinion. heaven forfend!)

first person is the gaudy crutch of the insecure. here's the deal: when you write in the first person, you are making yourself an actor in the story. if you are going to be an actor in the story, you had better be pretty damned fascinating and pretty damned irreplacable. most first person constructions are both self-indulgent and wish-washy: "For this reviewer's palate, the salsa was insufficiently piquant." well jesus christ, whose name is on the damned story anyway? why is that better than flat out saying "the salsa was insufficient piquant" ... if you were going to say such a mushy-mouthed thing anyway ("the salsa was wimpy" is so much more elegant). there is the approach, favored it seems, by frustrated novelists, to write everything in the first person. "I walked through the door, talking to my friend. we agreed that our boyfriends ... then i spied the menu." who cares? here's a rule of thumb is: write it in the third person. if it doesn't work, write it in the third person again. if it still doesn't work, ask yourself if you really need to say it. then if there's no other way, write it in the first person. (and careful readers will notice that that rant, highly personal though it was, was written entirely in the third person. try inserting "I think" in ever clause and see how it weakens the delivery.)

boy, that's a real tough one since i try to be influenced by everyone and no one. it took a brief but embarrassing infatuation with the mfk fisher style to learn that lesson. when i think about the writers who have influenced me most, they're the people i've actually worked with. right now, i'd credit charlie perry, who taught me to apply to food writing the kind of intellectual rigor that is expected in other fields, and ruth reichl, who taught me not to be afraid to go beyond the obvious story. i've also learned a tremendous amount from my buddy matt kramer, who thinks he's a wine writer (but so much more), and merle haggard, who remains the shining example of how to write a simple sentence that works.