russ parsons

perhaps, or maybe just different tastes. i think their beef is really outstanding and their pork is pretty great, too. whether it is worth the bump in price is another question (i serve them for special meals). the main point, as megan pointed out, is that niman does raise their animals ethically (this isn't the only difference--the beef is slaughtered on average a full year later than normal and has, to me, a much deeper flavor). As for Chipotle's beef and chicken -- i don't think they have them. the one near me is pork only. it's also a model of efficiency, really ingenious. they have (IIRC), pork prepared three ways (carnitas, barbacoa and grilled), you can choose it in a taco, a burrito or in a salad, it comes with three salsas. as you walk down the line, you make the choices at each stop and by the time you get to the cash register, you have good, hot, freshly made food. the efficiency expert in me is dazzled (and the eater is usually pretty happy, too).

the thing that interests me most about this discussion is everyone putting crystal in teh dishwasher. what kind of crystal are you using? one of hte banes of my dinner party existence is facing a counter full of wine glasses the next morning. i use spiegelau and reidel and i can break these quite easily hand-washing. do they really stand up to a dishwasher? i do have a friend who is a winemaker who found commercial glass trays (those big plastic ones) that fit his dishwasher. he screwed little dishwasher wheels in and uses that to replace his bottom rack.

my guess is that you're doing the roast at too high a temperature. i know you're a guy, but take it down a notch. the sear will give you the browning you need, let the roasting be gentle to cook the meat through. And i heartily agree with tim upstream, use rib chops, not loin chops. loin chops are mainly useful for pounding into schnitzel.

while i don't agree with him about the foie gras ban (and several other issues), this kind of ethical purchasing can work on a large scale--look at chipotle. all the pork comes from niman ranch and they seem to be doing a pretty good job with it.

rose, there is something about those old vineyards, isnt there? i'm sure casey knows the vineyard just east of ukiah (mcdowell valley?) where they've documented vines planted at least before 1880 (if memory serves). old head-pruned grenache and syrah, i believe. like gnarled small trees. and probably the best zinfandel i've ever tasted came from hartford court from a small 100-year-old vineyard called dina's vineyard. i'm still tracking down remnants of a 100-year-old vineyard in southern california. most people don't realize it, but at one time the biggest vineyard in the world was down here ... also the home of Pierce's Disease.

and, to the point of the thread, condemning a restaurateur because she's happy with the filtered water she gets from the tap. I, too, buy bottled water. I live in a '30s house in a '30s neighborhood and the pipes are loaded with minerals. fine for cleaning and not bad for cooking, but the taste isn't as good as it could be. thank goodness for the sparkletts man.

the last strike was a colossal miscalculation by the groceries involved (IMHO). they lost millions of dollars, alienated their workers, in some cases were slapped with hefty fines for cheating, and drove many of their loyal customers into the arms of their competitors (TJ, WF, Bristol Farms). when it was all said and done, they did get a two-tier benefit system, but that is far short of what they were aiming for.

if you'll use a good dab of dijon mustard, it goes a lot easier. mustard is already an emulsion (oil from the seed and vinegar), and it's easier to start an emulsion from an existing emulsion.

i think that if you had an honest conversation with most restaurant critics who have been doing the job for more than 2 or 3 years, while they might stop short of Charles' extreme position, would readily acknowledge that writing a good restaurant review is extremely hard. it's not the eating out so much, or even the judgement. it's the writing, which is about as tightly programmed as anything outside a game story on the sports page. the way almost all restaurant reviews work, you've got 2-3 grafs to set the mood and hook the reader, you've got 6-8 grafs of "here's what i ate" and then you've got 2-3 grafs to exit the stage. translated, you've got fewer than a half-dozen grafs to write anything more creative than finding another adjective for delicious. given that straitjacket, that some writers are able to write consistently entertaining, informative reviews is really close to a miracle (and i would certainly consider my colleague S. Irene Virbila among the few who can do that).

i was in this situation for a couple of years--writing restaurant reviews under a nom de fork--and it was uncomfortable. the editors of the papers felt it was necessary because our last critic had been blatantly un-anonymous (she was married to the president of the restaurant association for chrissake). so to emphasize the fact that i was dining anonymously, they decided i should not write under my own name (it was a small city and i'd been covering other beats there for a few years, so it might follow that some people would recognize me). it let to several uncomfortable situations where I would write something and then not be able to stand up for the criticisms that followed. and, following a restaurant critic whose motto seemed to be "pour me another one", there was a period of fairly intense criticism until restaurateurs realized that i was taking dining seriously (and my readers were taking my reviews seriously).

based on my reporting, it depends. as i said, the farmers must get more than normal commodity prices. but that doesn't mean they have to make as much as they would selling at farmers markets. there are a lot of expenses involved in markets--time, employees, gas, insurance, etc. one of the things farmers markets have accomplished is making some (mostly specialty) produce wholesalers realize that people are willling to pay more money for good produce. and so the wholesalers are too. they seek out good farmers and then pay them a better-than-going rate for their fruits and vegetables (a bonus which they then pass on to retail and, of course, eventually to you). in this way, farmers markets are improving the farm economy even for those who don't sell there. a couple of years ago a local farmers market farmer who has succeeded in crossing this divide and now sells at both wholesale and at farmers markets opened their books to me ... well, mostly. but they said that the cost of selling at farmers markets was probably 75% to 80% of what they made. because of higher prices and because of no middle-man, that still works out to a premium over selling conventionally, but not as large a one as you might expect. they also said that selling to specialty wholesalers they often received HIGHER prices than they would at farmers markets, even before costs were figured in (these wholesalers seem to be less sensitive to pricing than home shoppers). but they also said that though they had cut back on the number of markets they were attending (many of them ended up being money-losing propositions when sales didn't cover the costs of attending), they'd never get out of markets altogether, because it was the presence at the markets that helped them keep their "street cred" as high-quality farmers (which they surely are). this is a very exciting and curious time to be involved in fruits and vegetables. old models are collapsing and new ones are just being invented. and I think WF--whatever you might think of them in general--is really on the cutting edge of an interesting idea h ere.

just for the record, i wasn't the one implying this was a new practice, though i'm sure whole foods doesn't pre-date chez panisse (were they even around in the 1970s?). on the most important point, i wholeheartedly agree: the opportunity to sell to a store like WF, provided they are able to do it at better than normal commodity prices, can be an immense help to small farmers--would you rather sell to one WF, or at seven farmers markets?

i like this method for rice salads--you don't have the starch coating so the rice isn't sticky. the grains stay separate.

uhm, actually Pollan appropriated that word from Chez Panisse, which has had a "forager" on staff since the early '80s. At first, things really were foraged--they'd visit neighborhood gardeners looking for fruit and herbs and places they could grow salads. gradually it expanded to include seeking out small farmers who were doing great food. As I understand it, that is the intent of the Whole Foods forager. While it may be ridiculous that nobody has done that until now, i have a hard time throwing stones at Whole Foods for trying something interesting.

my guess? eat there 2 or 3 times a week for 5 or 6 years. not that that would be such a bad fate ... eta: so this is how the '60s ends, huh? with contraband bottled water instead of all of the other things that used to be smuggled into the restaurant.

i've made it a couple of times the original way. it's a wonderful, simple recipe. I don't know whether you'll think it's foie gras, or the very best chicken liver terrine you've ever eaten. does it matter?

how is this different than a chef choosing not to serve Chilean sea bass. i know, this is an outdated comparison, but it is valid. chefs (and other business owners) every day make decisions about how to run their businesses. shouldn't they be encouraged to make decisions they believe are moral? And sorry Eli, I do think the Puck comparison is apt--the difference is one of degree, not of intent. of course, customers then have the right to patronize other businesses if they disagree. personally, i'm happy to see one chef who doesn't fall back on the excuse: we'd love to do that, but the customers wouldn't like it.

i would like to propose a new thread: alice waters bans twinkies. after all, they already have a pastry chef on hand. why do they need to serve twinkies?

sorry, alice waters gets up my nose as much as anyone else's, but this whole thing is silly. in what way is a restaurateur choosing not to serve something AT HER OWN RESTAURANT, the same as banning it? doesn't that imply forcing others not to serve it? personally, i think bottled water is a huge scam in most restaurants. In the first place, the mark-up is extraordinary--$8 or $9 for what you can buy in teh store for $1. it makes wine pricing look reasonable. and it is a strong "push" sell: "do you want still or sparkling," like there wasn't a third choice (a choice which I most pretentiously order every time). In the second, even in places (like southern california) where the tapwater can be iffy, most restaurants have filtration systems installed. Yes, it is the same water the dishwashers use ... it's also the same water that's in your soup.

corked wine will work as long as it is within bounds. so will overly tannic wines, as long as it's not TOO bad. but brett (barnyard) does not cook off so readily and ethyl acetate (nail polish) really doesn't. there are flaws and then there are flaws.

this is certainly true in burgundy, where the arrival of wine artistes is fairly recent. as late as the early 1970s, the vast majority of burgundy was blended by negociants. certainly, some of these wines were very good, easily the equal of anything we have today. but many of them were less elevated. and ALL of them were much, much cheaper. again, i argue that the adage applies not to choosing great wines over good wines, but good wines over those that are flawed (and no, john, i'm not talking about rusticity ... i'm talking about chemical taint).

no, john, in those cases, i do believe it was spelled "terror". they sure tasted scary anyway.

does anyone remember what happened to cuisinart? they made one very simple, very reliable, very perfect appliance. and then once everybody who was going to buy one did, they nearly went broke.

i know most of you are way too young to remember, but there was a time when there was a LOT of bad wine on the market--not cooking wine (which was heavily salted to discourage drinking), but wines with significant chemical flaws. in fact, i'd say that the greatest advantage wine drinkers today have is that technological advances have pretty much eliminated these from the marketplace. even wines that were once notorious (reds from teh south of france, certain italian whites ... most anything from california's central valley), are now clean enough to drink. as for $2 chuck, i don't think that's a contradiction to the "wine you wouldn't drink" rule at all. it's a perfectly clean, simple wine. there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. one might not CHOOSE to drink it, but one certainly could. eta: in the piedmont, in my experience, risotto al barolo was made with lesser wine (not all barolo is created the same). i do think the use of a conterno single-vineyard in cooking would be not just ostentatious, but sacreligious.

jim's book is really good. there's also a new one coming out in the next couple of months by Paul Johnson, owner of Monterey Fish and supplier to most of the best restaurants in teh bay area. it does a good job of covering fish available on BOTH coasts (there are distinctly different varieties on the Pacific side). Also, for left-coasters, there's an old book that is still findable written by Johnson and Jay Harlow called "West Coast Seafood". This is indispensable; my go-to reference.