russ parsons

well, admittedly, i am in an extremely privileged position. i would be the last to deny that. and without belaboring your metaphor, that's not quite how things work for me. it's more like i either come up with things that i want to do or my editor says "would you like to do this?" and i either say yea or nay. granted, story edits are rarely much fun, but i really shiver at the thought of my words being loosed on the public without the benefit of someone else taking a look first. i am neither a poet whose prose cannot be touched, nor so supremely confident that I must have the last word on everything. as painful as edits might be, i've had far more stories improved than damaged--and if i think a suggestion would hurt the story, i'm never shy about speaking up. Granted, as I'm sure FG is itching to point out, mine is not a typical experience. i have been doing this for 20 years with some success, so i have more freedom than a freelancer just starting out. and, frankly, before that I was usually a one-person food section so I could write pretty much whatever I wanted, too. this isn't to brag, just to point out that there are alternative experiences to the porn star metaphor.

hey not bad: you got two of out of three names wrong.

i guess it works differently for different people. personally, one of the great blessings of my vocation (journalism) has been that i've always been able to work my avocations into them. there is no separation between what i do for a living and what i do for fun. for me, this makes an ideal life.

the quartino is one of the best trends to hit restaurants lately. unfortunately, it seems to be the one that's getting the least pick-up.

I'm curious as to how that statement might be translated . . . i.e. did she mean that folks in foodwriting just stuck to one particular topic that they knew in food? Or did she mean that they wrote the same story over and over just in different words (in that the timbre of the story was the same but the facts fit to the timbre?) or that they stuck to one writing discipline rather than expanding into others that might do similar things in different ways? ← if i may speak for ruth, what she meant was that too often people mistakenly believe that what fascinates them necessarily fascinates others. in some cases, this is true (and i'm sure, the internet being the internet, that there is probably at least one fascinatee for every fascinater). the problem is if you want to move beyond just writing to hear yourself type. and i think that's where a lot of blogs fall down. as a professional food writer, i'm lucky in two ways: 1) i'm a reporter, so I don't have to rely on my own experiences for all of my stories; 2) i've got tough editors who do not fail to let me know when I fail to fascinate. as someone wrote the other day about "citizen journalists": it'll be a great day when they actually do become journalists and not just opinion writers. my problem with most blogs is that so many of them are not about anything more than daily journals made public. the appeal of reading someone's inner thoughts varies with the quality of those thoughts. when writers actually do venture outside their own heads and report on things, I almost invariably find that more interesting than "here's what I love about/hate about..." but hey, i'm old school.

ruth reichl used to say that everybody had at least one great food story to tell, the biggest problem in foodwriting was the folks who didn't realize they had only one.

so now we know what octaveman does when he goes to friends' houses for parties. kind of a knife geek's twist on the old "checking out the medecine cabinet"?

gosh, i think the word wasn't even invented until 1997 or so. i think the nearest equivalent would be food newsletters, which are notoriously underfunded. in that category, I think John Thorne and Ed Behr are probably the longest lived that i'm aware of.

i have been remiss in doing this publicly, but welcome aboard casey! he's a very good guy, not such a great bocce player, but his grenache is one of the single most distinctive red wines i've had out of california. it is absolutely delicious. and unfortunately i'm not the only one who seems to think so as it is almost impossible to find.

What is work to one may be pleasure to another. ← i'm afraid of being misunderstood on this point, so let me clarify: i still take a great deal of pleasure in writing (check my eg post count). and considering how fortunate i've been in my career, it would be unseemly for me to complain. but the reality is that i've been writing about food for 20 years now and i'll tell you for sure that there have been times when i was staring at a blank screen and knowing i had to fill it that i would happily have chucked it all were it not for the fact that i have no other compensible skills. writing for fun is one thing, but the burnout rate without that financial carrot is pretty high (and perfectly understandable). hence the short-lived nature of so many blogs. i'm just sayin'.

i'm amazed that there still are as many as there are--and some good ones. i always check "wednesday chef" and "mouthfuls" among the non-professional blogs. I still can't get over the fact that someone would go to all the work to write write something when there's no paycheck at the end. that's a joke, kind of, but i do think that's an issue. as someone who makes his living writing, there are times when i think i can't make another deadline, but it is amazing how the thought of getting paid at the end of hte week pulls me through. if my only reward was a warm feeling, i'd probably go sit at the beach.

funny, my complaint is usually the opposite. trying to be generous, restaurants fill wine glasses nearly to the rim, making it impossible to swirl and sniff without spilling all over myself.

it depends on what you mean by "visible". in my jug, the bacteria are present as a sort of scum on the surface. that doesn't sound very good--maybe "film" more than "scum". yes, i just went to look at it. it's a slightly dried out film. i don't know what the difference is: i do know that most references describe the cellulose sponge part as a byproduct of acetobacter activity, not the source of it. because i keep my jars pretty busy (i've got one for the rough conversion; then i transfer it to another to settle and finish), i've never actually seen the bottom of the jar, so it could be i've got a cellulose mass there.

well, not wishing to question the sainted wolfert ... to tell you the truth, i've never had the mother sink before. but that's mainly because i haven't had a recognizable mother in this batch of vinegar, which is now going on its fifth year. my assumption is that if it converts without it being there at all, sinking shouldn't be a problem. but that's just my assumption.

i think the edgepro ($185 for the whole kit--three stones, polishing tapes, etc) probably will only go safely to 15 degrees. so there is a reason to hand sharpen! the norton combination waterstone was about $50. you can lay it on a damp towel and you don't need the rack.

i'm doing a piece on learning to sharpen right now. it's actually turning out to be about the edge pro,which really is an amazing set of training wheels. i'm working on hand-sharpening, too, but that is a process that takes a while to master (you can pretty much begin to master the edgepro within a half-hour or so). if you really want to hand-sharpen, i also recommend the norton stones. i bought a combination 1000/4000 and am pleased with it (hand-sharpening is like making your own bread ... i'm not sure it's worth the effort over edgepro, but it is pleasing work). i also second octaveman's recommendation of the korin video. that is really a great lesson. i also picked up murray carter's video. there's great stuff in it, but it is absolutely deadly to watch (picture an earnest canadian speaking off the top of his head for three hours).

man dallas must be one rockin' town where even the mother's have wine-stained condos! i think that sounds a lot more like fort worth.

i wouldn't worry about it elie. that's not really the "mother" anyway. that's the mother's condo. the real mother is a form of specialized bacteria; the rubbery thing is a cellulose byproduct that frequently--but not always--shelters the acetobacter.

twice in the last 3 days i've cooked a big platter of jumbo asparagus as a main course: peel fairly well (particularly down toward the base), steam 5-6 minutes and then while they're hot, bath them in a shallot-y vinaigrette. yum.

yes, you're right on the border with that temp. i usually cook them at 325 to 350.

one thing with baked beans--the molasses really stops the softening dead. try this: cook the beans until they're soft before adding it. Add the acid and cook as long as you want. the beans won't soften much more at all.

sorry you had trouble. my guess is it is one of two things: altitude or excessively hard water. this seems to be a sporadic problem. i know when i lived in albuquerque, there were times when i couldn't get even split peas to soften.

i was just in SF last month and had a really good traditional NM meal at a restaurant I'd long forgotten about--tortilla flats on cerrillos road. it doesn't look like much--the last time i ate there, more than 10 years ago, it was a newly re-purposed chain restaurant and looked like it. they've expanded greatly since then, but it's still not swank. really terrific enchiladas and very, very good carne adovada. sopaipillas were really fresh and hot, too. also had good calabacitas and even their table salsa was fresh and good. very bargain priced, too. place was packed with "real" new mexicans. made a nice companion to the "other" santa fe we enjoyed so much at breakfast at cafe pasqual.

another great post Kent! i have a particular affection for La Espanola since they are only about 20 minutes from me. they offer a really outstanding product at really reasonable prices. i almost always have some of their chorizo on hand, particularly the chorizo sarta, which includes smoked paprika.

sounds like a case of too-high expectations based on too many media reports. as the guy who wrote the profile of kazuto, i probably share part of the blame. i really like beacon, but that said, it's a cafe. it's not a fine-dining restaurant. go furniture shopping at the Buttercup complex next door, then stop in Beacon for lunch and you'll think you've found a miracle. Drive in from LAX expecting to find the French Laundry and you'll be really disappointed. without wishing to speak for my friend Patric Kuh, the Los Angeles magazine rankings are for new restaurants, which means that context is everything (what else opened that year?). and like all such ratings, they are somewhat whimsical. my guess (and it's just that) is that Patric was rewarding Beacon for doing what it does so well--offering very stylish, delicious food at prices that are far less than normal fine-dining; in short, offering a near-fine dining experience that you can enjoy every day. i don't think anyone--including the owners--would ever claim that it was the best restaurant in the city.