FaustianBargain

I dont know any book on it but having recently indugled shamelessly on chaat, i think it will be a great idea for replacing 'fast food'..this is truly fast food and not that artery clogging...yea..i just saw supersize me...you can supersize chaat and it wont kill you.

I like the ones with the sesame seed and jaggery filling

Thanks for the link, Jonathan. Restaurants where you can have food 'to-go', i.e. you dont have to sit down to eat, has lower tax...less value added. It has been 5.5% for a while now, iirc. This was the reason I asked for the source url. There was much trashing of this issue by French restauranteurs and chefs during the American Food Revolution at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir some months ago. Also, right now the govt restricts workers to 35 hours/week. Does increasing it to 39 hours/week make a lot of difference? It is an open secret that restaurants pay their employees 'under the table' when they work for more than 35 hrs/week. Sir Terrance Conran bemoaned the fact that his restaurants in France barely make past the red line and noted that it is quite impossible for restaurants to make a profit in France if they follow the laws strictly. I never understood, even then, how VAT affects the restauranteurs as its a final consumption tax. Whether it is 5.5% or 19%, it is still the burden that the final consumer bears. Maybe the restaurants will gain more customers with the lower vat, but it would do little to improve their figures through volume sales. The 35 hours/week was a little more worrying. 39hrs/week doesnt make much of a difference, does it? But its good, nevertheless. Odd, the whole thing. However, I have to add that from all accounts I have heard, the French deliver more value for money across the channel than in London, for example. And that it is more affordable.

hi robert, is there a reference for the changes you mentioned? like a url or something?

I vaguely recall someone telling me about breaking their Ramadan fast..fasts broken with 'light' foods. Liquid..fruits..and then moving up..finally ending with biriyani..lamb or mutton...i think the idea is to ease food into the shrunken stomach..it does shrink, you know...its true... never heard of fasting during diwali..thats the one thing people dont do on diwali...thats probably the one day when most people dont fast...the fast is on the day before diwali, perhaps?..there are enough gods in hinduism to assign a fasting day for each deity...people fast for full moon days..new moon days..there are fasts before eclipses..before religious ceremonies..before one gets married...death ceremonies..birth ceremonies....and the fasts vary..liquid fasts..no liquid or solid food fasts...bland porridge only fasts...fruits only fasts..fasts when only 'pure foods' are consumed..i.e. no onions, potatoes, root vegetables produce that excite the carnal nature(!!) etc...days when one doesnt consume rice/grains in the evenings before monthly death aniversaries..a strange concept, i know...its something based on the lunar calender and on one of these days, there is a direct line to your ancestors when you send you respects to them..why there is no rice dinner that day, i dont know tho'..there are even no salt fasts..never heard of a no sugar fast, tho'...in india, hindus have a strange relationship with god...its always on a transactional basis...(grant me good grades, i will visit the temple everyday> fine print: for a week.when my daughter get married , ill get you a new roof.i'll feed a hundred poor people, forgive my sins.let the litter of my pet cat survive, i'll break open 108 coconuts for you..you get the idea) i never got it because i couldnt imagine a god who would want me to starve...even as a transaction...but my mom had a list of days on which she wont even drink water...there is a little green book, the hindu lunar calender and there are certain auspicious fast dates...there is even a fast day that guarantees you a shortcut to heaven. now..fasting is not just for food. depriving yourself of the other senses is also a kind of 'fast'. cant do the no-breathing thang, of course. that would be fatal. not that i wouldnt try to convince certain characters to give it a shot. but hey! never heard of anyone stuffing their ears. but some do not utter a single word for an entire day. silence for an entire day. bliss. this used to be my absolute favourite fast. i especially liked it when certain people adopted it. even if only for a day.

flavoured oil? flavoured sugar?

1.First we have the 5 'Mother Sauces' aka leading sauces. Leading sauces are Liquid + thickening agent. At LCB, they stress upon the three important Mothers; Bechamel, Veloute and Espagnole. The fourth significant sauce is Hollandaise, the butter sauce and finally, the stepchild among the leading sauces, Sauce Tomate. From these Mother Sauces you derive 'small sauces'. Small sauces are leading sauces + flavourings. Secondard leading sauces are derived from the Mother Sauces and these inturn are used to create small sauces. Totally there are 6 secondary leading sauces and 36 small sauces. So from 5, we get 42!! How can one not love sauces?! 2.Greens are cheaper than fresh vegetables. Also, salads dont even require cooking! I suppose it just boils down to costs. Although, I do feel that it is not right to present a HUGE bowl of salad and keeping the meat portions small. Consistency is class.

CarrotTop, a freudian analysis of my sauce dream would be scandalous. scan-da-lous. chromedome, do tell more about the brandied cherry sauce with pate filled pork loin? Why this fascination? I dont know. At school, we are also taught how to make 'light jus' instead of starch thickened sauces. I have to say that thickened sauces appeal more to me. I took some time thinking about this so I can come up with a smart and meaningful reply, but I could only come up with this. 1.I like thick sauces than 'light jus' because I like the way a thick sauce coats a piece of meat. The 'thickener' acts as a 'glue', I suppose. I dont think they should be completely abandoned. They should make occasional appearances so people dont forget. 2.All of us love watery chicken soup, but we love thick soups more. I generalise, of course. Maybe thickened sauces, as soups, give us a feeling of wellbeing as they are mostly instant carbs. At the risk of sounding like one of George Carlin's most derided foodlines, it is 'hearty'. Anything that feels silky and smooth inside the mouth is desirable. It probably 'sticks' and lingers longer inside your mouth/tongue than light jus'. 3.Sauces grab me because we are kinda discouraged from making thick sauces. Light jus are more modern and healthy. It even looks good on the plate. There could be an aspect of venturing into the forbidden zone. Well, not forbidden..you know what I mean. 4.Blabbering aside, reading about sauces made me appreciate the fact that the juices of the meat that are essentially lost during the cooking process are basically saved by these sauces. The flavour juices would otherwise be lost entirely. Another random, useless, out-of-the-ass generalisation> I like to think that most of us relish the idea of being frugal. We dont even waste the liquid that seeps out of the meat! How wonderful is that! On top of it, we even improvise and creatively make something complementary to the dish! How clever is *that*? 5.Escoffier style classical sauces, regardless of whether or not they have been deemed obsolote, I think they are absolutely wonderful because by the time you run through the entire list of the 'classical sauces', you pretty much master the technique. And as any good chef will tell you, technique is *everything*. Thats what I figured(and quite recently too) from the past two Cordon Bleu terms. It doesnt matter what you cook with what. It doesnt matter how 'creative' you manage to become. All that will come later. But you cant get *anywhere* without mastering technique. The only way to master it is to do it again and again. And again. I hope this new, although late, revelation will help me with the rest of my term.

I am reading the Sauces chapter in my Professional Cooking book. I even had a sauce related dream last night(I kid you not. vrai.) I am *so* loving it. How do you match the small sauces with various fish/fowl/meat dishes? is there a french standard for this too? Have you created your own sauce? Did you name it? p.s. let me share the joy. an excellent sauce matrix.

good grief! the south indian coffee! aka filter coffee.. i believe the south indian roast is special because of the addition of 'chicory'*...i dont do the brown stuff, but i have been told by people who enjoy coffee far more than i tolerate its wafting smell that its the addition of copious amounts of chicory...the ratio is staggeringly higher than anyother type of chicory coffee blend...i am not sure its healthy(but then again, is caffine really healthy for you?), but the adds much to the flavour. chicory is a root and related to the radish family. not to be confused with chicory, the salad green..aka endive in europe..endives in north america is called chicory...to make things more confusing, chicory in north america is also a little known 'roadside, rank weed'. chicory root has been a substitute for coffee and also as a flavouring...the root is dried and ground as a powder...chicory, the root of a herb is completely different from the chicory, the salad green...chicory, the coffee flavouring herb is native to north america... edited to add: there is nothing special about south indian coffee except the roast and the chicory content...ground coffee+hot water > percolates to coffee..south indian coffee is always had with lots of sugar and rich milk(read that as full fat)...the south indians have perfected the art of drinking cloyingly sweet coffee topped with foam...and wax lyrical..ad nauseum..some say that serving the coffee in silver cups enhances its flavour. i am positive that such claims are exaggerated.

wont the lemon juice be the 'water' in the oil and refuse to mix?

wine as marinade serves the purpose because of its acidity. maybe a bit of the wine flavour too? i dont think alcohol serves any purpose. burning off the alcohol makes the wine 'smooth' which i have always thought to mean that the wine has been 'mellowed' ..i.e. lower acidity...which defeats the purpose of marinading in wine, of course..i imagine the alcohol content in the wine imparts to the meat the alcohol's flavour? hence retarding the effect of the wine's flavour itself? i am only guessing here, of course..interesting, tho'..i shall try it in the kitchen..who am i to disagree with thomas keller anyways...

The most direct way to flavour a oil is to add the flavouring ingredient to the oil. I have seen garlic oil made in a kitchen...also basil oil. basil oil was a weird green colour and wasnt that convincing...thats about it. which oil is best? someone mentioned that flavoured oils should be refridgerated. huh? oil in the fridge?? i have purchased bottled flavoured oils(colavita, iirc) earlier..lemon, tarragon, rosemary, basil and chilli, of course..these are quite 'clear' and bloody expensive... i can think of ginger and most of the herbs as flavours in oil..any other flavour suggestions? tips?

or English.

..the fifth is 'appam'..not to be confused with the paper thin kerala style appam..this involves jaggery at some level..munching through it as i am typing this.. p.s. mom adds that grandfather read 'narayaneeyam' not 'bhagavadam'..and i am mentioning this only because she is right behind me..looking over and giving instructions....ignore her..because unlike me, you are all free..

well..i can remember salt and jaggery 'cheedai'..tricky one, cheedai...it tends to be rather hard if recipe is followed right..there has also been episodes of the 'exploding cheedai'..c'est vrai...much fun was had sitting outside in the courtyard and watching the kitchen explosions. it is celebrated in the evening, for some reason..and it wasnt a school holiday, iirc...i remember coming home early afternoon...the floor would be washed and cleaned..ready for painting krishna's feet...quite simple..clench fist..you know the pinkie side of the fist?...thats dipped in the rice flour mix...make impression on floor...the toes can be painted with a piece of cloth dipped in the same liquid rice flour kolam mix...apparently, the footprints belong to little krishna's...he comes to your home, you see...and leaves behind the proof of his visit... ..childhood...i was willing to buy any story thrown my way anything as long as it was followed by something sweet and edible.....my earliest memories of gokulashtami was following 'krishna's(white) footsteps' on our rather ancient house's red oxide floor... back to the edibles...i think there was a count of five...salt and jaggery cheedai, of course...and murukku, thattai and i forget the last one. the most important offering is 'aval'(rice flakes?) with jaggery..sometimes with added coconut....the *actual* menu is a different story...urad dhal vadai, *very* rich and creamy payasam with the usual suspects...my grandfather would recite from the Bhagavadam...the deity is the young version of krishna...you know..the crawling krishna dipping his hands into a pot of butter..and speaking of butter, it makes a special appearance on the puja platter...there will be a huge plate with betel leaves, plantains..a *lot* of fruits..a nice round ball of butter..curds, milk...the neighbourhood ladies make their rounds visiting each and every house..another excuse to gossip and show off their saris...its not a 'strict' holy day..because the day celebrates the birth of krishna(iirc) and there are no orthodox rules..the kids especially get a free rein..our filthy hands have unrestricted access..there was pretty much nothing to do after that...except eat, of course..and oh..other than the food..i remember the fragrance of jasmine...its always jasmine altho' i am sure there were other flowers of different shades and fragrance...but i can only remember the jasmine. i can look up the recipes if you cant find them online...cheers.

chappie..i completely agree with you...in priciple..but we *really* dont know much about whales..the exact numbers..their migrating patterns..yea..we know more than we used to..but we still dont know enough to say that if we kill x% for our table...it will keep the whale population in balance...having said that, i am not saying that the people who do rely on whale hunting for their sustenance should be denied their rights...although i might take issue with what the faroese do..for the continuation of their cultural heritage..or as my dear faroese friend says..'the grind'...i wanted to stay away from this thread for many reasons..but alaska has been on my mind lately..i dont know about the japanese or the norweigians..but i'll be damned if anyone accuses native alaskans re whaling..due to the strange phenomena called 'life' and what it throws on our way, i had to turn down the invitation to spend my seven week summer vacation in alaska...alaska is my little secret...my very first night in alaska, i was granted a gift...the aurora borealis..not rare in those parts, i'll admit..but it was wonderful for me...it is the place where i go to inside my head when i need to feel safe or happy...its where i will retire when my hair turns white, my hands become gnarly and when my flesh goes southwards...because of pure dumb luck, i have had the fortune to keep bumping into people who have made the hostile arctic region their home and i am not exactly a dreamer and i am pretty sure that i am a hard core realist..but the great frozen northern wastelands keeps bringing out the dying romantic in me....as wonderful as it is, nome and esp barrow are desolate, dismal, bone numbing regions of paradise where life can be pretty bleak...and like beans said, there are indeed parts of alaska that lack basic facilities like indoor plumbing...a friend who spent the last few months in nome fishing king crab returns a tad tame..nome and the bering sea can do that to you...it humbles you..makes you yearn for the things we take for granted...it makes you long for human touch and company...i hope he snaps out of it and reverts back to his usual bastard mode that i find greatly endearing....my relative who makes frequent trips to barrow speaks often about the great injustice that has been committed against these people..first by taking the children away and placing them in boarding schools and subsequently abandoning them when they return as strangers to their own land...with no skillset in a hostile landscape that relies much on ..well.. the whale ... tragic stories of these children returning as adults and unable to connect with their traditions...the stunningly heartless theft of a people's identity and their self worth...worst of all, the wresting away of their means of sustenance..their occupation..their heritage..whale hunting..barrow is a fishing/whaling village that is above the arctic circle...yes, it is cruel to ask these people to wolf down sam's choice?.....neither here nor there, the returning younger generations are out of touch with their culture..alcoholism is rampant..and suicide rates are high..domestic violence gets ugly...an entire generation of people have lost the traditional art of sustenance through whaling....the situation is much better than it was before...it is true...but alaska is still the Final Frontier...it is not 'our' world...'our' rules dont apply..as they will readily tell us, the 'outsiders'. respect, everyone deserves it. recently, when the makah of seattle(who literally gave away their land to the US govt for their right to conduct whaling...the last one was in 1999...seventy years since their last whale hunt..[btw..they have since changed their methods of hunting..replacing primitive harpooning methods with quicker and more humane ways to kill the whale]...which ceased because of a scarcity of the grays because of *commercial* whaling...hmmm...) were finally allowed to resume whaling and eat whalemeat...the sustenance of their anscestors before they landed in reservations..much fanfare ensued in the media about their endless list of recipes for the gray whale..apparently, the female tastes better than the male... pickled, pan fried..stewed, stuffed..or as steaks, fillets, ..and then there is the (in)famous whale popsicle...frozen whale meat dipped in rendered whale blubber..lovely, i am sure..

Azteca in Independence Blvd used to be my favourite..i used to bring home tubs(32 oz even) of their salsa verde...twice a week!...the best mexican food i have had on this side of the sierras.....i was a vegetarian at that time...my choices were limited and my trust level with any kind of meat anywhere was kinda on the low...but i have heard very good things from my carnivore friends...avoid azteca @woodlawn rd..very claustrophobic... i thought i had a vietnam hole in the wall..turns out that its a neat little thai place...thankfully, i cant remember my charlotte dining days...a drive down w.t.harris and university area should throw a lot of casual dining places..i am suspicious of anything that advertises itself as 'fine dining' in charlotte tho'.. p.s wasnt the j/w catering school going to revolutionaise the charlotte dining scene..whats going on there?

i have to add something else. I am guessing this is probably because live entertainment invites entertainment tax. makes perfect sense. this bit is the one that intrigued me most. even thought i dont work in indian kitchen, i did spend a fair amount of time trying to memorise sections of the central excise act as a student in a past life. i knew for a fact that the excise officers have no interest in what happens to that bottle of liquor after it leaves the bonded warehouse. they have absolutely no jurisdiction. they issue and regulate liquor licencing and collect excise duties....thats it....the following sentence was confusing even though it had nothing to do with excise. so i made a phonecall. indian made foreign liquor is basically fake liquor. supposing the IMFL is vodka, it is not *real* vodka and it is not processed the way vodka is made in liquor factories abroad. indian liquor companies have the right to sell IMFL vodka which they manufacture by adding the 'flavour' of vodka to a liquid which will contain the exact same percentage of alcohol as in real vodka. this attracts excise duty and even though excise officers have no business questioning what happens in a kitchen...IMFL simply cannot be allowed as a cooking liquor. now does it make sense why you cannot use IMFL in cooking? the idea of cooking with wine is to retain the flavour of the wine while burning off the alcohol. the flavour of IMFL is a chemical and rest is pure alcohol. having said that, i am not aware of the existence of IMFL wine altho' hard liquors like gin and vodka can be IMFL. phew! now, i can sleep.

some restaurants have restrictions against casual attire... altho' i have to say that its a bold woman who chooses to bartend in a not-so-upscale bar in india...have things changed recently? my views are probably outdated...

yo gingerly..I dont know anything about the indian hospitality industry..but somehow..the highlighted bit along with the badly researched article tells me to take this 'journalist' with a mountain of salt.. if i were to quiz the author of this piece, i'd start with.."name *the* law that is mentioned ad nauseum in the article?" if indian women want the joy of dispensing booze *that* badly..let them file a case to repeal this "law"..just like google tells me that others have done elsewhere in the past..somehow, i feel that there would be little interest.. if i were an indian woman living in india, a loose "law" banning women serving alcohol would be at the very bottom of my list titled "anti-woman atrocities that occur in india".. but first..even with my sparse knowledge of the central excise act, i'd question every single statement made in that article..

lcdm, I think you pretty much summed it up. we dont expect a crouching waiter and a hidden smilie in a swanky starred restaurant...but at low to mid price ranged restaurants where the key is 'casual dining'...'homeliness' strikes points...when its raining outside and all you want is a piping hot bowl of soup and a chunk of garlic bread to mop it up, you dont go to a place with valet parking...when you want to treat your friends and get pissed, you want a place that will 'understand'...in other words...there are places where you want to whimper 'thanks, mommy', burp, rub your tummy and kick off those shoes to wiggle your toes after a filling meal...and then there are places where you rent-a-butler for the day to feel good about emptying your wallet for a quality meal...if you dont expect sumptuous meals, quality and a feeling of wellbeing from both places when you leave, i am not talking about you...non verbal communication greatly aids your subconscious to reconcile your environment with your expectations.. also consider this..there is a feeling of entitlement re service in high end restaurants....we actually feel slighted if we are not treated like royalty. I'll never forget a snippet from this old guardian article when michel bourdin retired from the connaught...i actually bookmarked it.. That sums up consumer psychology, I think. edited to fix posting boo-boo

going to hooters for the food is like buying playboy for the articles. imo(and it might as well be outdated) is that those brave souls(indian society is kinda hypocritical...the males have always had their 'live entertainment' venues..and they always operate after dark) and young men who'd venture into a Hooters eating joint will probably not care whether there is an indian element to the food. why not simply retain the original hooters menu. it is ridiculous to insist on desi fare. surely, hooters is not going to enjoy the success of a mcD or pizza hut indian franchaise. not that i dont know fine indian men..but does hooters really expect the visiting populace to respect the 'dont touch..only look' policy? indians will probably find buffalo wings a novelty...something new and different..i doubt if the guys and gals will flock hooters every saturday night...now if hooters also offered beer..that would be a different story..call me a prude and a kill joy, but i am not sure you want to have boobs and beer parading in the same room(not just in india..but pretty much anywhere)..unless you have already hired a bouncer... re the french accepting starbucks onto gallic soil...well..they also have disney..doesnt mean that *they* actually visit it....from my own observation..subways and starbucks in london are not exactly slumping with their sales figures..but i'd bet that most of their customers are american tourists..i rest my case. and oh...chippendale? not bloody likely?

err..i think these gestures work on an unconscious level..regardless of whether or not you like people crouching next to you...at some subconscious level, mimicing body language, posture..maintaining eye contact do increase affinity..

Hooters costume is nothing compared to rain soaked bollywood lassies...AS IF!