Carrot Top

Okay. One last thing to say then I promise to quiet down. This just came to mind and it shows how really sad this boondocks dining thing can be. My daughter's birthday was the other day. I asked her where she wanted to go for her birthday dinner "out". We went through a list of a number of places - the most "upscale" ones first (which are not really upscale but moderate, they are just the most upscale thing around here) then working our way down through others that we had enjoyed once or twice. Each place was vetoed after thinking of them in specifics, for each one of them had shown such inconsistency (ranging from a decent meal one night to something very strange several weeks later) that none of them are really worth trusting for any occassion of importance, to our minds. Now granted I can be picky and have things to compare these places to. But this is a fifteen year old kid who has not been to any temples of gastonomy in her lifetime yet. The easiest answer to this is that this is a college town and based on that, this is what you get. I have to live here (or at least, I am living here). That answer is no longer good enough for me. We do not have reviews that are critical for the most part - we have reviews that are guides, speaking of location, history of staff, what's on the menu, and decor. Not even that too much for we have no major "city" paper but rather a section of our own in the larger newspaper of the city that is closest to us. I don't think being small means being lesser. But this is how it is played out in actuality. No focus on the action equals no performance by the players. The critical eye does not rest here where I live and eat. Only my own does, and those of others who live here. So we gripe, and live with what we are given to eat. And so it goes. Having thoroughly exhausted myself, I'll post no more on this but rather wait for the intelligent answer to it all to be given. Would reviews that are criticism, written with a critical eye to quality (not style, goodness knows that would be too much to ask) improve the standards of restaurants in this place? (Oh. As a P.S., no this is not something I would like to do myself, write critical reviews. So my diatribe is not shaded by that particular thing. )

Tell you what, though. I'd bet you that when New Orleans dining culture comes back in full swing again that it will again be one of the most respected in the country, just as it was before. Why? Because the culture and the people there expect it. I'd say that if I'm wrong I'd eat my hat but that might be more rewarding than eating some of the things I've had to eat here lately.

Let me expand upon this a bit further. Yes, I know I am ranting. I will now expand this down a notch to a trip we just took to Burger King, because my daughter wanted fast food. I placed the order, we drove up to pick it up, and the guy said "Anything else?" I said, yes, some ketchup please. He said, it's in the bag. Of course it was not in the bag. Why did I expect it to be? I've ranted on before about fast food drive throughs where nine out of ten orders are wrong in some way, some how. The counter-argument presented to me was that I should not expect the idiots (it may have been phrased in a more kindly manner but I am not feeling kindly) who work at fast food places to know how to do their job right. I should expect things to be wrong and accept it. Sort of a joy of idiocy concept. So we drove back around and waited there at the window. He was mopping the floor and of course kept mopping the floor for two minutes till he decided it was clean enough to pay attention to the customers. I said "There's no ketchup in the bag." He said, "I know. If you had shown me the bag, I would have known." I said, "But you said there was some in the bag." He said, "I needed the bag back so I could get ketchup for you." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because I have to walk all the way over across the counter to get ketchup, and I have to put it in the bag." I said, "Can't you just walk over there and grab some packets in your bare hands?" That obviously was something he had never thought of or heard of, but he did it. Walking about five feet, he grabbed some ketchup and finally carried it all the way back and handed it to me. Fast food place or not. This is, too often, the level of thinking that I see going into the most simple tasks in the most basic (though not always inexpensive) places to eat. I don't think it has to do with anything except people not respecting their jobs. Therefore not respecting themselves. Therefore not respecting the people they serve. Therefore creating a culture of crap. Ho ho ho. Let's see what happens next time I dare try to eat somewhere. Maybe Remy from Rattatouille left a dropping or two in the soup? Nah. He's animated. ........................................... My point being, would the shame of ongoing media exposure as a standard that reamed this sort of thing alter anything? Or do people who perform like this simply have no shame as long as they can stay in business?

Here's what I mean. I live in a small (very small) city, a college town. Most everyone here is very well educated, the income level is not low. There are lots of restaurants of all sorts. Now I am not talking about "taste" or preference I am talking about quality. That is measureable to some extent, even given variations of style levels. In the past several weeks I've been to a new restaurant (now open three months) that lots of lots of money has been dumped into for an upscale look and dining experience and had ridiculously poor service and been served a rotten french fry to boot. Then I went to a new barbecue place (now open six months). The one mention of it I saw in the press fawned over how wonderful it was to have it as a new addition to the dining scene (whatever that is, I say, snotty ex-New Yorker to the core). I was really excited to go try it too, and I did, and got (for my own personal dining pleasure) served a rack of ribs that was steamed with no outstanding features, rather less in fact, limp french fries, and baked beans that appeared as if the original batch made did not last through service so they dumped in some kidney beans to stretch it. The soda was even watery. Today I went out to get a salad - a grilled Asian chicken salad. It was okay for the price but for any price I really do not expect to find bad lettuce, rotten lettuce, limp yellow sickening-tasting lettuce. Other recent experiences have involved Asian food that turned out to be murky sauce with some overcooked veggies and a few tiny chunks of meat here and there and a "fine dining" place where the food that was designed to be placed on the plate instead was lumped on the plate like a bad-looking sloppy joe with worn-out garnishes. Then there was the upscale burger served close to closing time that was completely raw with french fries cooked in bad oil to savor alongside it. All these things are manageable. This is not a question of taste. It is a question of performance. It seems to me (and I am not the only person I hear groaning about "no place good to eat" here) that the level of dining in many places is not only mediocre but just plain bad. It is appallingly stupid in my opinion, for there are things that could be done both BOH and FOH to correct these lacks (or really, not lacks but crimes against nature and humanity ). Why don't they do it? Why does this continue? How does one get excellence in the dining experience? One can demand it as an individual but if there is not a culture of demanding it will it happen? As someone who is accustomed to be the one providing the food and service my feelings about criticism is of course mixed to say the least. I tend to pull for the restaurant. But with what I am seeing time and time again out here, I can not continue to pull for the restaurants, for I am utterly disgusted. Then I look at the reviews of places in local papers and have to wonder if the editorial goal is to print things that are more community-boosting rah rah's rather than to print things that might hint that things are not as fine and lovely as one might wish them to look. Then I think about if there were actual critical reviews about these things (if someone dared to write in that manner, and if the editors decided to publish it) would it after all make any difference? Or is this performance at this level something innate to our culture anywhere except big cities? I really am very cranky about all this.

Eh. Big or small doesn't matter in the least bit to me, Todd. I'm sort of questioning processes that affect quality in an overall sense in the public places we eat, in my mind, to try to sort out what counts, what matters, or if indeed there is anything that does that can be pinned down. * That must have felt great. Do you know how the shop developed afterwards? Was the improvement consistent or did things slip after a while again? * In terms of having long-term or lasting effects upon reaching excellence, that is.

Some people might say Velveeta, Holly. I bet some would say white bread, as in the Wonder Bread sort. I think there's a thread around here somewhere on that, too. Others might say Nutella? This is beginning to sound like the lead-in to a song from a Broadway musical to me.

I did that one year too, but I think by the time it was made the die was set for I'd already eaten so many berries trying to like them that their raw personality carried over into their cooked, in my imagination Here's another though: A persimmon not allowed to soften completely.

Mulberries. Though goodness knows I try to persuade myself the mushy vapid things taste okay.

I did forget to mention that we have another library in town attached to the university, which any town resident can use (though it is rare that they do). I'll take photos if there is interest, but it's simple enough to post the contents (cookbooks) as they are listed online. It's a wonderful collection. Just wonderful. There also is a "special collections" section in a separate part of the library for the "Peacock Harper Culinary Collection" which holds rare and historic cookbooks. I hope someone else will post about their library's cookbooks. Otherwise I might have to take to travelling to different towns, taking photos of stacks of cookbooks in libraries. Maybe it will be a new career: Library Cookbook Reviewer. One never knows.

Well then, why don't you post this in the Restaurant Life forum so more people will read it, Busboy? It's certainly a subject worthy of discussion. Not that it affects me at all where I live. I assure you.

Can anyone tell me of a specific instance in which they were certain that a critical review impacted the food or service of the restaurant reviewed? I ask not with my ex-chef's hat on but with my diner's hat on.

We ate at the barbecue place tonight. I'm not going to say too much because it was the first time I ate there, but the rack of ribs I got looked steamed though they had been "pit cooked". The baked beans are half kidney beans half navy beans which is . . . unusual. My daughter asked how I liked it. I said I wished it had been more. She said more? More what? More better? I said yes. Worth a try again sometime with hope in my heart, maybe it was an off night.

Maybe. What're you offering, sweetie? .......................................................... Okay, here's more articles from this issue: "Kills a Body Twelve Ways" (bread fear and what to eat) (looks worthy of interest to me); "Policing Pleasure" (food, drugs and politics of ingestion) which asks and maybe tries to answer the question "Are we entering an era when government will define certain foods as unhealthy and therefore, illegal? And if so, how do we feel about his future healthy-food-only world?" (Hah! Illustrated by Bosch's The Seven Deadly Sins! ) From there we go to Tequila, Mexico then on to "Labor, Migration, and Social Justice in the Age of the Grape Boycott" then "Can't Stomach It" or 'How Michael Pollan et al. Made Me Want to Eat Cheerios' (ya gotta love it ) which has some lovely color photos of big tummies and behinds as decor to the article; then on to Vertical Farming which shows a vertical farming tower, very high-tech-looking, which is something about medical ecology. "Understanding Receptivity to Genetically Modified Foods"; "Growing Resistance: Food, Culture and the Mo' Better Foods Farmers Market" which speaks of food justice and racial empowerment; "Risky Food, Risky Lives" on the 1977 Saccharin Rebellion; " 'Saving' Soul Food" (accompanied by Milton Bowens Southern Patterns and Rituals No. 2). Yes, there's more. "A Heretic in the Church of Food" a personal essay about a guy who opens a restaurant which ties food ideas into religious concepts; then Ken Forkish (ha ha great name for a chef!) writes about his artisan bakery in Oregon. Books in review include (this is not a complete list) "The Gospel of Food", "Omnivore's Dilemma", and "Market Day in Provence" by Michele de la Pradelle, "The Big Oyster", "Black Farmers in America" by Ficara/Williams; "A Baghdad Cookery Book"; and "Real Food - What to Eat and Buy" by Nina Planck. Finish up with our dessert in lagniappe by jocelan hillton, which is a Happy Meal entitled "Happier Meal" a tiny handful of a tray with happy meal foods all out of felt.

The question of why more people don't post in this topic is interesting. It doesn't look like there's a lot of discussion going on in the other digests either though. Maybe the perception of the digests is that they are reference tools, to be read but not commented on or discussed? That would fit in with the fact that the Gourmet topic I posted separately simply because I wanted to post my story has developed into a really interesting ongoing discussion of things that go on and with and in Gourmet. I think I fell into posting here myself sort of by accident, but it proved to be a happy one. It depends on where your head is at as far as this stuff goes at this moment. Life will obviously go on and you probably won't make some terrible faux pas at a cocktail party (do those things still exist? ) if you don't read this issue. On the other hand, there are articles here that do have a spark that is not found in the same way anywhere else. If indeed everything is art and then there is good art and bad art, then in the realm of food magazines, Gastronomica is better art than not. If there were a dividing line between things that are art and things that are not in terms of magazines, then I don't know that I'd put any other food magazines in the category of art besides Gastro, regardless of the parts of it that I personally have to walk past because of personality quirk or level of capability in terms of being able to read things that edge towards the academic. If you are interested in "food politics" though, I'd say this issue would definitely be of great interest. My own level of interest in food politics is moderate. I have great difficulty in dealing with any form of politics that say they are politics. I prefer to follow and think about the ones that are unnamed and free-floating. SB, I completely understand what you are talking about with the politics thing as opposed to food clear of it. I almost thought they were from your earlier reaction. I expected to find hidden agendas (which of course I am good at ) and partisan politics shaded as other things. So far, I have not. Thank goodness. Carolyn, I looked at the website and noticed that the Summer Issue is not listed with table of contents yet. I'll post the rest of what's in this issue a bit later. And do take up SB on his offer to send you the magazine. It will make him happy, and we do need to have that happen tout suite. He tried to pawn off some issues on me last month in a PM and really I think he just wants to clean the house but feels guilty about getting rid of perfectly good reading matter.

I just realized that every single real country store I've ever seen is within sighting distance (or else otherwise it's just around the bend) of a church, usually Baptist, that has a big sign in the front warning to pay attention to it "or else". I wonder if that's true everywhere or whether it's something that just happens to me.

The Twain article must have made you cranky enough to read really quickly, SB, for there is a reason for what you write above. On a sweet little black ribbon like the wrapping on a box of chocolates, cuddling up to the right hand lower corner, are the words. "The Politics of Food Issue". It is subtle, this title, with only the word "politics" in red, the other words in white. Darling, really. Looking through, we find a bit on a food historian; lots on farming; "Weighty Words" in orts and scantlings which I like: Fun stuff about words, gender, race, and social standing. That sometimes turns out in real life to be not so fun. Articles on sugar, pomegranate, food provenance and history . . . "The Disappearance of Hunger in America" with a stunning photograph by Jacob Holt of a young child in front of a refrigerator which looks to be full of trash but which is the family's food . . . articles on the American farm and on the economics of empire and plants . . . here's one coming up that I really like: "Angels and Vegetables - A Brief History of Food Advice in America"! I'm halfway through a general perusal of the journal (or not even) and do see many things I'll take a longer gander at. How can one not read something titled "Angels and Vegetables" I ask you.

I sort of doubt it. But anyway, what a wonderful opportunity to think of a good title for the piece while you approach the date. You've already come up with one excellent title in the topic line above, just imagine how many more possibilities there are. If there were a contest for it, I'd submit: Suffering (With a Smile)

Those geese are adorable. The ring is, too. Happy Birthday, suzi! (My daughters' was two days ago. You Virgos are okay folk. )

Mmm. This was the first time I've seen any of the past winning chefs. I personally was quite pleased with their individual brands of ego-centrism. They did it with such a sense of assurance that the quirks of the current chefs simply could not compare in terms of really seeing ego stand firmly. God bless 'em all. Plus they knew how to work better together, seemed to show a higher level of professionalism, and all in all had a sense of simply knowing what they were doing. The feel was altogether different.

I've never done this before - bared my (public) library shelves for all to see. But emboldened by suzilightning's having done exactly that in her foodblog this week, I found a camera and decided to give it a try. Here is where it all happens: The shelves are rather close, the aisles not too wide, so as you see while you can not view the entire batch of stacks there is that marvellous sense of privacy. Here's a section that has Asian and Indian cookbooks. I was pleased to see that at least one of the books I requested the library purchase was checked out (Washoku by Elizabeth Andoh). There are a total of twenty-three shelves of books. This includes food literature, wine, and desserts. It does not cover books focused on dieting-with-fad-diet-names, though it does include books that focus on healthy ways of eating that may include the word "diet" in their title. Here is a section that attracted me . . . some big guns there with a little guy cuddled in between them. Who was it? I wondered. Turns out to be "The Pat Conroy Cookbook" by who else than Pat Conroy whom I've never heard of before. (But of course I gave myself my screen name not having heard of the awk! comedian guy who stole the name from redheads world-round just for his own tawdry purposes, so what do I know.) The intro says that Pat Conroy is America's favorite storyteller, so I better take out the book. The first recipe I turn the page to is: Scottigilia. Fabulous. Undoubtedly the book was just waiting there for me. I do hope my show and tell will make you want to do the same.

My "go-to" book for referencing the eating of things generally considered oddities (ha, ha I just typed that as "oodities" ) is Strange Foods by Jerry Hopkins. Chappie, you'd love this book. I've never been disappointed yet in it. Here are some brief excerpts from the chapter "Snails and Slugs": The text continues to relate the history of dining upon sea slugs, which are quite a bit more popular around the world than land slugs are. The sea slugs have several rather amusing stories attached to them about their supposed ability to "enhance male virility". It's a shame we're talking about land slugs, for otherwise I'd have to relate those stories. The author concludes his discussion of land slugs with this comment: The chapter is illustrated with two photographs: one of a Laotian dish of apple snails with sticky rice, and the other of (yes, finally) creamed slugs on toast.

Interesting topic title you've penned there, Rogov. But it is not the end that Hooter's is all about. Or so I hear. I daresay you will find things you enjoy there. I do have to wonder though, whether your review will be published in the Arts and Leisure section, the Dining Out section, or whether there will be a new section created called "Plastic Arts" that covers just this sort of thing.

--"Maize of Glory" in Gourmet, 67 (September 2007): 95.The recipe appears in the section of the magazine devoted to recipes entitled "The Seasonal Kitchen" as opposed to one of the many articles credited to authors selected because of their expertise in a featured culture and/or city in the country with relevant demographics. ← A lot of knowledge and thought was put into that recipe, based on the fruits of your most valuable and excellent scholarly research talents, Pontormo. Ruth mentions other specific ingredients used in this issue of Gourmet in this NPR clip in the Arts and Culture section. Aside from the notes on tamale dough above, she speaks of lard, banana leaves, and non-tradtional tacos. If you're up for more, she is again featured back in 2004 in another NPR piece. Oh. If I haven't said it lately, let me do so now. You rock, Pontormo.

Ruth Reichl in an article posted today to Reuters on this subject.

Briefly: Cultural identity and therefore the foods one chooses to cook and eat can be affected by the social styles of the times one lives in. There have been times when the general trend has been to meld into what was called "the melting pot". And there have been times when the trend has been not to. That was my basic thought. The only reason I removed it from the post was that (as I had it written) it had too many words with too many syllables to be easy to read, and it was not really all that important to say. (Actually I decided to remove it right after I read one of those quote things they put on the homepage I log into. It said: "Never invest in any idea you can't illustrate with a crayon." ) Glad it made you think that I put more thought into it than they have, Rancho Gordo. Personally I doubt it. I think the editors and writers of Gourmet think just fine, quite thoroughly, and probably with more clarity than I often can summon. So I will agree to disagree. ....................................................... Reichl lived in LA for some number of years, before she became part of the NY publishing world, didn't she? And I would assume that Miraglia Eriquez put some thought into what went into that issue too.