Carrot Top

An addiction like that requires some serious lashings of fresh veggies applied inbetween to avoid a tummy ache.

Sigh. You, Mottmott, yes. You, Susan, yes. And eGullet in general, yes. YOU want good restaurants to succeed. But the world is not always this same sort of pleasant and good-willed character that "you" are. I am sure that you and "you" know this. The original post asked about chefs running scared. Perhaps it was the wording that set me off. Perhaps it was meant to sound as I took it, perhaps not. . .but say "chefs running scared" to me. . .then detail the way in which it supposedly has happened, (the London website), and then add something like "Strangely the article goes on to say how few chefs are concerned. . .or are they feigning indifference?" and you (no, again not YOU but the other you's) are going to see one pissed-off ex-chef. Reviews and discussions on the internet can be a tool, no doubt, to any chef who cares to look and listen. The best tool for a chef, though, is what is left on the plates at the end of service and the looks on the faces of the people who actually just experienced that meal. That is a more direct method. And in that method (which of course has been used since the beginning of time not only by chefs but by mothers looking at their children at the table) there is less room for misunderstanding or game-playing for whatever reason, and nobody saying (or we would hope not!) "Be afraid. . .be very afraid. . .for I. . .am Power." If there is power in the ways of the internet that is in the hands of people who might not be using it in the nicest or clearest or most ethical ways that could be (and I believe this to be true just from watching human nature for many years) . .then surely it should not be glorified. . .as I felt was the case in this situation. All these things are informational. But start using imagery of it as a weapon that "I" or any chef should be "running from" and that starts a different ball game. Edited to add: I just looked over on the "Potato Salad; Eggs or no Eggs" thread. A simple thing, potato salad. Yet look at the way people approach how they think it should be made. . on one. . . single. . . parameter. Eggs or no eggs. Pleasant and entertaining conversation. But it shows the great variation in how people think things "should be made". Take this to an extreme. . .and then flip it into a different mode for the purpose of telling chefs they should "run scared"? Think about how you would react as a chef to these conversations. What would you take back to the kitchen with you? Would it be right to impose that you should be "running scared" from it? ( ). And,

To get a recommendation from one's brother, (or a warning that the place will not suit) is one thing. . .and that seems agreeable to me. One knows one's brother very well, probably, therefore the information can be taken, assessed, and understood. To get a bit of gossip or advice from the person in the supermarket line is okay too. It is one opinion from one member of the human race. And one opinion from one member from the human race on any given subject that they are familiar with in undefined various amounts is worth whatever value one wants to personally place on it. In these cases, one has to take a leap of faith in serendipity though, and that is okay too. But neither one's brother nor the guy in the supermarket is setting themselves up in any formal sense in the mass media that reaches untold numbers of people, as an expert. There is something different going on the moment one decides that their opinion is worth enough to the world to post it on an internet site. It involves a bit of assurance on the part of the person posting that they are "right" about what they think and it involves a bit of ego in thinking that they should have the right to approach the subject of discussing something that involves a subject that likely they may not be professionally intimate with. There are also no formal controls set in this venue as there would be in a reviewer's writing, which would involve the media being somewhat responsible for the veracity of what is written. Assuredly there is good food reviewing going on in the media of internet. There have been people who have set out to do this in a way that would reach a professional level that would assure their reliability to those who read them, and their veracity in terms of who it is that they are as a person (i.e. not just someone being careless with what really does end up to be public opinion on someone elses business. . .a restaurant. . .that has some sort of reputation and some amount of employees to support.) What bothered me yesterday in posting was two things. The title of the thread which seemed rather presumptous. Chefs need to do one thing. Run their restaurant well. Or that is how it should be. To think that they need take the time to respond to websites is rather disturbing to me. If a customer has an unhappy experience, it would seem right that that customer deal with it at the time. And it bothered me that there was some assumption that chefs SHOULD be "running scared" of their customers. No. They should not. They should (and usually do) take a great number of hours during the day to try to make those customers happy. Food, however, is a thing in which everyone is an expert in ways. At least they are to their own selves. But to assume that what they think is right for the world, is wrong. It is hubris. Is the act of formal criticism to be accepted in any given field based on the fact that someone thinks it so? Or should there be some sort of proof of the pudding asked for in the critic. . .just as the critic is demanding proof of the pudding in the thing he is discussing? Has the world become one big grocery store line where everyone has equal voice and demands equal respect for that voice, whether the voice comes from an idiot or from a savant? Perhaps. And that scenario, makes me want to leave the grocery store line and go home. For it seems rather loopy. To put it mildly. It is also somewhat disturbing how very popular the food thing is just as a cultural phenomena. People pick it up and bandy it about seemingly to give themselves an aura of "classiness". Everyone wants to talk about chefs and restaurants, everyone wants a piece of it. It seems sometimes as if they want to eat the chef, the restaurant, and vicariously the life of running a restaurant as much or more than they want to eat the food itself. It is all so fascinating. Yes, it is. But first of all, to the restauranteurs, it is a business that they must run every day. They are not there to entertain the crowds. Or they should not be for if they are the focus has changed to move away from the food. They are there to do the best job possible. And that job should not involve answering to every Tom Dick or Jerry that thinks he has the right and the power to affect their business from behind the curtain of the blank internet screen. Put yourself, in your own business, in the shoes of these chefs. How many hours a day could you effectively spend "answering to" whoever wanting to post an opinion on the internet? How many hours a day could you do so and survive. . .either business-wise or emotionally? Would you want to? There seems to be a turning-upside down of the Golden Rule here. And although I am not religious, it is distasteful to me. Particularly when the people doing the upturning seem to have nothing to lose on their sides. . plus an assured attitude that they are the experts. . ."just because".

Can I vote twice? Once for each side? The usual potato salad, yes. A bit of egg here and there for texture and color. But my favorite potato salad is made with red potatoes (skin on), fresh green beans in 1" pieces, and bacon, also in about 1" strips. No eggs on that one or there would not be room to eat anything else but the potato salad itself in any one sitting. Let's face it, Mayhaw Man is from the Deep, I say Deep. . . South. They do things a mite different down that a ways. Edited: Fifi just proved me wrong on that last line. Therefore it must not be the Deeeep South, it is just him.

Finally, it must be a choice between whether the family connection or the taste of the food is more important to you. Isn't there some sort of saying about how "relatives are people you would never have anything to do with unless they were your family" (?) While true that some meals can be absolutely dreadful. . .at the same time if you start to cut the family bonds in terms of foregoing holidays together. . .then time and distance can start the edge towards loss of that "family" thing. I know lots of people with lots of family who consistently drive them crazy. But ask yourself. . .would you rather have the craziness. . .or would you rather be like some people and have no family? Family. . .you can not buy. Nor can you create it often, even if you wish to. If you have it, you might want to consider it a blessing. Unless it definitely is not. That happens sometimes too. But that, should not be based on a meal choice, in my opinion. An aggrevating blessing that makes you go through the process of putting food in your mouth that you don't like sometimes. . .but nonetheless. . . And there is always the option of cooking exactly what you like to eat the day before or the week after. . .and inviting friends for a post-holiday holiday celebration. It really is not the DAY that matters. It's what you choose to do with your time and how creative you can get. . .to try to fit the many good things in life, into life.

Rachel. . .there is one thing that worries me about your setting up to do this in the hotel room. If they are "bringing in" a small fridge to your room, two thoughts come to mind. First is that it takes time for the fridge to get to its correct cooling temperature. . and if you are going to be working within a certain close time frame, the thing may just not get itself to temp quick enough. Second is just the idea of using this small (possibly rarely used) piece of equipment in the first place. Who knows if it will even work well. This can often be a problem in "catering" type situations which is sort of what you are doing. . .that the equipment sometimes just is not too great in terms of doing what it should do. I would think that Varmint's little extra kitchen would be easier and "safer" in terms of potential results. But if you do decide to do it in the hotel, be sure that they test the fridge and set it up ahead of time for you. . .

Mmm. But I can see what he said from his viewpoint, too. Agreed that the satisfaction of the customer is the final analysis of whether a restaurant will do well. . .as in every business. The buck stops there. But again, someone that has taken the time to learn the ways of many sorts of restaurants as a professional and who has their own reputation at stake when they write a "review" is going to have to consider the entire experience a lot more carefully than someone that just went out for a meal and who is writing of how they experienced that one particular meal. Both ways are useful in terms of analysis. But finally, the decision must be made by the potential customer whether they will make their determination of whether to spend their money and time somewhere based on the "man in the street" reports or on the professional reviewer's reports. To each his own. Egon. . .having survived since 1957 as a restaurant reviewer, seems to be doing something right in his own way. So the ego does not bother me.

This was an interesting comment from that article: . . . For some, though, nothing can replace the expertise of the professional restaurant critic. Egon Ronay has been reviewing restaurants since 1957. He is astounded to hear that ordinary restaurant-goers are posting reviews on the web. "It is of no greater use than someone venturing an opinion as you wait in the queue at the supermarket," he declares. "Or somebody saying that they had a very good dinner, while you are both sitting in the doctor's surgery.". . . Seems that paragraph alone could warrant a thread solely on its own merit.

http://www.1000-islands.com/tours/dressing.htm I started to look it up, because though I know the simple recipe, it seemed in my memory that there was a more complicated one. It included what was listed above plus Worcestershire sauce, finely diced onion, and some chopped fresh. . .(something. . .tarragon? Thyme? Can't remember. . .) along with several other ingredients. Anyway, didn't end up with the recipe (yet) but thought this was rather fun!

The usual tone I encounter is an accusatory one. Since I am young and working a night shift, that simply don't care about anything. People make that initial misconception and it carries over to the products on display. Then they proceed to tell me how when they were "kneehigh to a grasshopper," they grew watermelons, cantaloupe, head lettuce, etc. and it never looked that "crappy". Why do customers incorrectly assume that because they grew a watermelon in their back yard it automatically makes them a farmer. "Oh, I grew up on a farm..." That's the most popular phrase I hear in my line of work. Just because you grew cucumbers and tomatoes in your back yard doesn't mean you're the Green Grocer. God that annoys me. You would think that a customer would gladly appreciate advise you can give them, but instead they see it as an opportunity for an argument to commense. The experience is similar when I worked for a butcher. Once in a great while, when I do encounter a customer with the decency to listen to what I have to say, I thank them for the opportunity to educate them on whatever it was they asked about. Yes, I understand. It is unfortunate that the place where people take themselves to eat is often the place where people decide to let out whatever it is that is bothering them in the form of strange comments to the service staff. With older people, often this can just plain be loneliness which then expresses itself through being cranky and difficult rather than being open. (Edited to add: probably the same thing can happen with young people but then the attitude seems more snotty than cranky often. . .as in the apocryphal 25-year-old "Know-It-All".) Food. . .can carry so many other things along with it, each day. It is common to all of us, and therefore open to comment by all of us. Which is both an absolutely wonder of a thing and an absolute problem, sometimes.

I just wrote a long elegant tale of how the search at the Farmers Market today for the Holy Grail of moonshine jelly turned into a sordid story of loss and inequity. Then I hit the wrong button and erased the thing. Anyway. The moonshine jelly turned out to be a hoax. There was nary a moon or a shine to be found in it but for on the pretty label. It was clear apple jelly with a fancy name stamped upon it to gather those Northern tourist dollars, I guess. I guess we should be grateful for the poetry of it. .............................................................................. As I am still on your list for the "Viennese-style" desserts, I will then get to work on them. There is always one foreign sort of person with strangefoodstuffs at any Pig-Pickin' I've been to. (And strangely enough, sometimes it is not me!) Usually the Baptists make a point of shipping them in to make some sort of point. Big cooler coming in with them, too, for beer or whatever. I do hope you find a goat to cook. . .

According to Waverly Root, "the theory that the cabbage originated in Northern Europe is borne out by the direction in which it seems to have spread, apparently southward and eastward into the Mediterranean basin." and [. . .] "Besides being one of the oldest cultivated vegetables, cabbage is one of the most versatile."

The dining experience is definitely an interactive one. It is sad that some people enter into it with these sorts of attitudes. For they will never have a really great meal. It just reflects themselves back upon themselves. .................................................................................... Once, when I was dealing with a very difficult person that continually gave me "you-know-what", day after day after day, someone gave me some good advice which I've never forgotten. . .and which I still have to remind myself of when situations occur that make my temper rise. The advice given me was to look at the person and say (either out loud or if that is not possible, as when it is a customer, internally): "I am not going to let your problem be my problem." If you can do this re-direction, it truly is a wonderful thing.

Although I must add that the tone of voice and manner used in saying it is important, too. That line could have been made as a joke. And the server might not have taken it as a joke for whatever reason. Lots of times people take things in negative ways personally that were not meant to be taken that way. . . It's best to take it with a grain of salt, perhaps. After the initial blood-boiling hypertensive reaction.

Really, words do not suffice at these times. It is good to remember how to use deep breathing techniques for "relaxation". And then remembering that there might be some chicken breasts that require immediate flattening with a mallet and a strong arm can help, too.

Tell you what. I actually saw some moonshine jelly at the Farmer's Market the other day. So rather than feel guilty about totin' in the furrin stuff, thereby unbalancing the purity of your menu, Varmint (I understand this) I'll bring some jars of this along instead. And that is something I won't have to worry about keeping cold during transportation, too, which will make me an easier-going person. We'll give it a taste test and how it goes with the biscuits. Might be the next great addition to the breakfast table of the South. Or maybe it is already the great addition. . .(and I just didn't know it). . . and that's what makes everyone talk so sweet and slow.

If that's the direction y'all are headed in (settling down with the moonshine), we just might as well forego the cardoon fritters and I'll bring along a loaf of salt-riz bread that you can set right down with to scoop up the dip for supper. Has anyone committed to bringing pecan pies yet?

Darn. I am so totally flattened. And here I was, ready to offer up my new recipe for Old Cardoon Fritters in a Moonshine-Cornmeal Batter with Okra-Jalapeno-Hoop Cheese Dip. Oh well.

Now that I think of it, sous-vide would be the way to go. Old Cardoons Sous-Vide. (My ex-mother in law used to gather cardoons year round, till the things looked like a Green Giant ad. Peeled them and braised them in beef broth with herbs. A squirt of lemon at the end and a handful of Parmesan. Bitter. . .but real.)

Hey. I tried. Anyway, this is a Pig-Pickin'. Forget blanched new growth. In the best tradition of make-do, we could just use tough old stems. Good as a dentifrice, you know.

Betcha if you take a walk up the road to a nearby North Carolina overgrown field (if there is such a thing in the area ) you'll find some uh, quite local cardoons. Well who knows. Start up such a foraging trip among eGulleters and you might just find eighty people wandering along the roadside poking at the weeds. . . . What a sight for the neighborhood. It's a weed. Not a gourmet food. Or you might say it is a gourmet food that is a weed. . .anyway. Don't be so exclusive-minded. Modern Southern folk eat more than pigs and dress in more than the drawing room drapes. Or so I've heard. Guess we'll allllll find out.

Agreed with the idea of the memory being as valuable as the thing itself. (Though God knows, memory is a strange and fidgety thing to count on. . ) .............................................................. As to your comment above. . .don't you think that the circumstances of the meal have as much to do with the experience of how the food is appreciated as the food on the plate itself? Granted, the food on the plate is the star of the show. . .but where would the star be without the surrounding bit players (so to speak). Up to and including the bit players that are such ethereal things as a "real" smile from the person at the door of the restaurant. . .and taking this further. . .even including whether or not one approaches the table in a mood of good anticipation or in a mood of wanting something proved to them about the experience? Personally, and in the past in my role as chef, it always amazed me how much the personality and "mood" of the person that was dining had an affect on how the food really tasted to them. And how that stretch of measurement could be as wide as human nature is. If that makes sense.

And it is tension that makes any story worth telling (or worth writing) worth hearing or reading, too. Music and math. They both have ways of doing something with the area of the brain that measures or sorts out "time", don't they? And food. . .well. A meal is here just now, then gone. Poof!

Very interesting response, Behemoth, and I find that I agree with you. It was never the "eating", the "tasting" that gave me the rush with food, it was the creating of it. . .and possibly sensing the hints of underlying beauty. . .that was not just of the simplest external sort. And probably that was the genesis of where my boredom with being a chef started, when I decided to leave the field. There was simply something "more" on a deeper level for me that was calling out for exploration. An alternate metier. The thread that ran through the seams of the thing. Not that the study or creating of food is not as deep as any other metier. . I think it is possibly deeper than some, indeed, even moreso once you factor in the human connections that are so intense in the thinking of food and "what it is and does" beyond simply filling our tummies.

Adam. . .if you could. . .I wonder if you would "re-start" us again on what the original question was. I think that there are so many ways to "take" the question that you first posed (and I know that I certainly did take it so many ways. . .and we seem to be wandering all over the place, which is rather wonderful, but I'm not sure if it's "to your point"! )