Carrot Top

There is only one Great One in the world of canned spagettis. It has the ultimate in gooey disgusting messy sweet tomato-y goodness. No, no, these Spagetti-O's will not Do. They went all wrong with the silly notion of twising a perfectly good sauce-flecking piece of wet soft spagetti into a circle. Wrong, wrong texturally. It is vital to be able to slurp and swallow. And Chef Boyardee is always all about meat. Meatballs, meat bits, meat flavor. How to taste the sugary tomato sauce when it is embellished with hearty meat? Pah. The Great One. Is France-American Spagetti. Plain, simple, pure. The ultimate mess.

You show great talent at these matchings, GG. Are you ready for our second business venture? "Tasting Menus a la 50's". Small diner-like places with jukeboxes and booths, waitresses on roller skates, and formica-topped tables where we will serve prix-fixe tasting menus of these sorts of items. Low food cost....lots of upscale entertainment value....we can charge an arm and a leg. Absolutely no nutritive value so the customers will break out in zits therefore requiring them to visit our shop next door, "Soup on your Face". Gosh, I just love you. You are a business-idea generating mensch. Must go. Hairstyles to consider. Bouffant? or ponytail....

When a customer sits down in a restaurant, they expect a lot. They expect to be cared for, hopefully to be catered to, to have a good meal that is to their tastes and liking including all food prejudices and loves, and to be understood in what they want and like and then to get it all at a fair price. On the customer side, people are as varied as they are in real life. You will see the same amount of cheapskates...the same amount of people who want to 'put one over on someone' (and my goodness this group seems to be growing, in my opinion!)...the same amount of just plain nice people....and the same amount of people who are incapable of speaking up for what they want, thereby never really managing to get it. And they of course, expect to be served by a person that is well-trained. Not only in carrying food to the table...which is the physical side of the job....but also in the sorting-out of what their personal desires are...which is the emotional or psychological part of the job. And who...are generally our servers in the US? And how well...are they usually trained? And...is the art of providing good service (with the implicit fact that providing good service to someone involves a bit of sublimation of self) admired in a person...in this country? And is the job of waiter/waitress one that is held up to be something admirable in itself...or is it something simply one might have to do to get through college.... Our servers are mostly young people. They are working their way through college...or working while they figure out 'What it is they really want to do' because this job is not commonly considered a profession in this country. They are generally taught how to deliver the food to the table, but are often not taught or trained in the least, as far as personal dynamics or the finer points of pleasing at table. They are not generally respected...in the ways that other professionals are respected here. And then we wonder....why? Why so much mess in the area of service to the customer. The art of service....and the job of being a server...will not improve until it is given its due respect. It is at least a two way street...and more likely it is a crossroads, this situation. Hidden extras are one very small part of it. The whole thing, overall, is very aggrevating and not a happy one for anybody.

But Soba, have you tried them with a can of Spagetti-O's ever-so-gently warmed to perfection then poured over the top? Even Darth Vader would love to sit down to a meal of this...heaven...sheer heaven.

Oh please...do go off on a rampage later in the form of a different thread.

There is a savor to a personally handmade book that is the same as the savor of a personally handmade meal. I find the idea completely entrancing. If there is just one to make, and you have the time and desire to do so...well. Wow. Yes.

That was rather sickeningly marvellous. I say sickeningly not because of anything you posted but for goodness sake. I am totally jealous. What's up for next summer...Europe by mini-bike?

Those boys from 'Almost Heaven, West Virginia' really can swing a mean saute pan when motivated, huh Susan?

Great stuff, chrisamirault. My children have been brought up with most of this in place since the beginning (but for the fact that I just can't take the sight of TOO much chocolate cake on the face and will send the do-er off to get cleaned up! but I understand the initial issue here is not food but the control interaction between child and parent...the constant power struggle....that if once engaged in, increases! - P.S. I am searching for a 'tired', very tired, smilie face here but find none -) In my opinion, I've seen the idea you present work, both here and the few times I've seen someone try to take the time to implement it in schools. Problem is, often there is not a lot of supervision while the children are eating 'nowadays' in the way of being at table together. I actually see more kids being put on diets by their parents who are also on the same diets. Which seems to last about a week or two. It is really sad and rather stunning, this nationwide obesity problem. But as you stated about children, it is the same with adults. They also have control over what goes in their mouths. And there is certainly enough education out there. But of course it is often conflicting, too. And then the human mind wants to go for the 'quick fix' and I can't say that that helps either...does it? Is there a 'quick fix'...for lots of real problems? jgm brought to attention the fact that many Americans have forgotten how to cook. In my children's schools I see this every day, when I go to volunteer or offer a cooking class that interacts with the curriculum. The most recent experience that I had was with a group of forty-two 6th Grade students of whom only twelve had ever held an ear of fresh corn in their hands in their entire eleven years on this earth, to shuck it. This is serious disconnection from food, from the earth that produces it, and finally from real and good, tastes. Food feeds us in many ways and lots of these ways are ephemeral. There is a sense of reality...a sense of connectedness...a sense of worth and of pride...that comes from good tasting food fresh from the earth and not from a can or a box. This has been lost, here...now...to a lot of people. Of course the final problem in all this is even finding decent, full-tasting fruit, veggies, even meats and poultry in the average grocery store. But that's another whole issue, isn't it.

Great rant, jgm. I am in agreement with you.

Tater Tots, Schmater Tots. Lightweight appetizers at best. Let's hear you talk some potato KNISHES now, guys. Then I'll take you seriously.

It's a good kind of hurt though, right? ← Oh well. I'll let you believe that if it makes you happy... All I can say is...generally I can eat as much junk food as the next guy (the next guy who will admit it, anyway) but right now I REALLY feel the need for a very very green salad! Even reading this thread is making me burp. That certain sort of fatty fast food burp. Phew. Help. I must exit.... Keep this up and you'll turn me to tofu and edamame. That would be a crying shame.

You guys are making my tummy hurt.

Mr. Tutor is a she, by the way.

Here's a new variation on the meal giveaway situation. Slightly off-topic, but the topic has wandered in this direction, so there go I too... There is a popular independent pizza place in town here...which the children enjoy. Big place, lots of college students, quite active. Great service, by the way. College-age waitresses that look like they major in phys ed wrangle through the crowds with huge trays of pizza and beer...and they deserve every penny of their tips...they are fast and happy and helpful. We had our pizza etc...and the owner came over to the table and held up a coin. "Choose heads or tails!" he hollered out..."You win, you get your pizza free." Well...lots of fun of course. Very theatrical, exciting. And we won! The waitress brought the bill and there I was, ready to write in the tip...on a much lower amount than the original bill. It was noisy, the kids were bouncy...unthinkingly I wrote in 20%...but then a bell went off in my mind, for it seemed...small. I crossed it out and guessed at what the original bill would be and tipped on that. On the way out, I ran into the waitress and asked her, if her tips were being affected by the owner's new 'game' that he'd invented as a way to increase business (a competitor had opened next door, and he wanted to keep customers here...and not going there...). She said "Yes...most people don't even think of what the original bill was." She was not happy. I don't blame her. Food Tutor...you may add the owner of this place to the List. And I do have to say...it was confusing reading nwyles post earlier...for I really thought it was YOU writing. Twins, separated at birth, fer sure.

Add a slather of marrow poached in broth and wine, and I will be crying too...

Yes, you are very generous to share your dinner descriptions with all. The Shabbos dinner may be something that not many people do have...but still it is a vital and interesting part of food culture (besides being mouthwatering in real-life food 'fact' as you present it!) and here it is...all encapsulated in a thread to read and know. Look at it this way. You are actually placing a very nice plate of your Shabbos dinner out for someone (anyone, anyone at all that happens upon then reads this thread) to dine upon, virtually. Many do, and are enriched in many different ways by it, bloviatrix. The plate is cleaned, the last drops licked off, and the unknown diner walks away quietly...with a bit of nurture, a bit of knowledge. Sometimes 'thank-you's' are forgotten in the quickness and blank spaces of cyber-life though...but surely many silent 'thank-you's' are there, nonetheless. Thank you...for many fine Shabbos meals.

I just love this idea, Katherine. It has a sort of heroic aspect to it...sort of like Johnny Appleseed spreading the bounty across the land...

Personally I was terrified to even post an entry....after reading that marvellous swagger around town, so full of life. Please, reverendtmac, if you're gonna continue to write like that...wait till the deadline to post it? Fearsome, it is...your writing. Thanks for a great story!

Mmmm. Yes...I love them too. The total lack of pretension. The solid reality of one thing done well, and in a small personal way. And the seredipity of happenstance when one runs across them by chance, that says "In life all is possible...let me surprise you with something nice". ......................................... On a more philosophic than direct level, one of the things I "expect of a chef" is that they/their art or product....be someone or something I would like to spend time with. As with reading a book that one finds pleasure or not in...eating a meal is highly personal. If you enter into reading a book, the experience is of spending time with the author. I like it to be someone that interests me...that has quirks of personality showing in the work that will make me think or feel in either comfortable or in expansive ways, but someone who has something to say in a clear sense that is their own...and not just a "knock-off" of someone down the street. This can translate to such small nuances in food. But it is there, this 'read-ability'. And as with authors, it can say "I want to keep reading, and then to find another book quickly by the same person!" or....it can say...."Well, alright...but there are better ways to spend time than this", or "Okay, I've done it once, so I can say I've done it, but I am not sure what it was all about..." So...just in a personal sense, I expect that a chef would be someone that I would like to experience more work by, and again and often....someone that makes you want to 'go back for seconds', you know. Not just a flash in the pan.

Amazing. It does not matter which forum you are writing in, Redsugar...even in scanning quickly through, your posts are immediately recognizable even if I am not focusing in on 'who or what' precisely is landing in the thread. What a fine touch with food...and what depth of knowledge. I am constantly impressed. Really and truly. Thanks.

Curried egg salad with diced apples and celery is nice, topped with alfalfa sprouts and served on a fresh soft whole wheat or wheat berry bread (or even in a halved pita with shredded romaine, for that matter....)

If you are short on time (or lacking the real desire to mess with computer stuff, as I am ) Kinko's or one of those other 'office' places can do a lot of this for you, fifi. And usually Barnes and Noble has some good selections of journal/binder thingies....

Hmmm. Here's another question. Where to stay? If one wanted to book a hotel or pensione (depending on what was available) in a 'neighborhood' that retained the character of Rome as its inhabitants live in it....rather than land in a big hotel or tourist hotel stuck in the middle of the city, which neighborhood would you head for to find such a place? A sort of place that didn't need to be luxurious, yet possibly could be...or possibly not. But it is mostly the neighborhood I'm talking about. Where...when you walk out the door, the 'real' Rome is there. With foods and restaurants and stores for the cities natives, not its visitors. Which neighborhood would you head for?

Last spring, my ten-year old son...inspired by a Eat-a-Bug cookbook he had been reading....grabbed a small beetle that landed on top of his desk at school. Popped it into his mouth. Ate it. His classmates nearby either slightly giggled or looked shocked, depending on their personalities. The teacher (who it turns out, is seriously bug-phobic) ran across the room semi-shrieking and grabbed him (by the way, this is a quiet happy kid, good grades, never gets in trouble) by the collar and hauled him down the hall to the principal's office. She called me in semi-hysteria, insisting that I 'talk to him'...for 'she had NEVER seen such a thing in her entire life'. I asked him what was going on, and he told me. I asked him why he ate a bug. "It tasted good, Mom" he replied, "It just tasted good." That answer was good enough for me! The teacher's final comment while ending the phone call to me, was that overall, she was glad it happened, for she would now turn the occasion into a 'Teaching Moment' to warn against such dreadful things, that very afternoon. Sigh.