Carrot Top

That is a lot of food. . .! Beautiful food too. . .and obviously a lot of care and time went into preparing it. Will there be a gathering of family to eat it? What is the protocol for eating it, if there is one? You've taken some lovely photos. . .thank you for sharing with us.

My very first kitchens were all in NYC and were very much like the ones described by Arthur in his article and by alacarte in her post (by the way, very nice new link to her website!). These very first kitchens were never cooked in too much. I was young. . .teenage years. . .and honestly I can not remember too much what I ate except that it was New York and my idea of a great meal was a hot dog and a drink from Papaya King! The smallest and most demanding kitchen, however, was the one on the boat I lived on for two years shortly after that. . .I was about 19 years old at the time. The boat itself was a Sparkman and Stevens 1938 classic 36' wooden sloop. You would walk down the stairs which were like a small steep ladder into the cabin and there was the kitchen. It had an icebox (a real one, the kind that you'd buy iceblocks to put in) to the right that also served as workspace (it opened up from the top so whatever you needed you'd have to take out first), and I remember it being about 28" wide by 24" deep. . .this was the only countertop. . . and a tiny stove/oven to the left. Nestled in behind the stove under the deck, sort of almost behind the stairs, was the tiny sink. The stove ran on propane. . .the tank was up on deck in front of the cabin. It was important to keep an eye on the gauge so that the propane would not run out in the middle of roasting a chicken ! The water had to be carried in, in five gallon containers then poured into the tank that distributed it to the sink(s) and bathroom. Washing dishes with only five gallons of water (that would have to then be replaced by yourself with lugging the stuff all the way from the marina to the boat and pouring it into the holding tank) left me with a habit of caution with my water use for years afterwards! (And also with an appreciation for the idea of hot running water, because in order to wash the dishes in hot water, the water had to be heated in a pot on the stove. . .) The cabin that this "kitchen" was in was probably about ten to twelve feet long, with a bunk on each side. The width of the space was somewhere between eight or nine feet. If it had been designed to be any wider, the boat would have been "beamy" and would not have had the beauty of design that it held. . . There were small windows (portholes) lining the portion of the cabin that lay above deck all along the cabin. Funny. . .I remember making "shades" for these out of white cardboard cut from poster board, folding it accordion shape so they could be pushed together to open and tied flat or pulled out and tied to a (I think it was, anyway) a decorative thumbtack!? that I'd put on the other end. Heh. We had very little money. I remember that we (myself and Husband #1. . do I sound like Charlie Chan. . . ) had $28. for food for the week and also remember that we ate very well. There was a "thrift store" down the street, in City Island where we docked the boat and where he worked building the America's Cup boats. . .that had old copies of Gourmet Magazine. . .which I scarfed up by the bundle. So. . .I cooked from Gourmet and I cooked from ideas that his Italian mother gave me. We had "Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic" (that old standby) and we had Pigs Feet in Spicy Tomato Sauce with Penne and many other good things. At that time, it was rare that I cooked the same recipe twice. . .although I do remember making a pasta sauce with squid more than once due to great demand. . .and my god do I remember the time I dared to make it "differently". Major marital discord occured at that meal! There was a small table that was built into the boat in that main cabin that unfolded somehow. . .strangely enough I can not remember where it unfolded FROM though! And one would sit on either side of it to enjoy the feast. . . That is the first kitchen I took to cooking rather seriously in.

There was a story in the news ( somehow I don't think it was The Washington Post or anything like that. . .but even though I don't remember where I read it I KNOW it wasn't the Enquirer) about a man (some ex-sports guy) who at the age of 38, decided he wanted to be a baby. To be an infant forever. He had all the hair removed from his body and took to drinking bottles of milk as his only sustenance. He lives with his mother and uh. . .girlfriend. This is actually the second woman he has lived with since he decided to make this change, although he says he has been celibate since making this "life change". It has been ten years or so since he has taken to being a baby. His biggest problem has been to be able to. . .do what has to be done. . .in his diapers (which is what he wears all day) without "deciding" to do so. His ultimate goal is to be able to do this "naturally" as a baby would. To this goal, he takes some drugs and is working with a hypnotist. Well. I am not sure how this fits into akwa's food blog! Just more "fodder for ideas", anyway.

The way he's "talking" is actually making more sense to me, and is more understandable too than the op-eds each day in the newspapers on politics and politicians. THAT stuff makes no sense whatsoever no matter how you sort it out. Listen (or rather read) as if you were reading poetry. Don't try to understand it. Just hear the sound. Close your eyes and see what appears in your imagination. Oh. Yeah, have another bourbon too if you want. It's all understandable. The only question I have in my own mind is whether he is winking at us as he says it or whether the aura is solemn.

That "concept" is even better with Velveeta mac and cheese tossed with seasoned cooked ground beef and a generous spoonful of salsa. If I need an excuse. . .the kids were babies and I had the flu. . .

As I look at your own avatar in this moment, prasantrin, I would say that it probably is "just you". But cheese never made a kitty go bad, now. . .did it! Silly humans. . .

I am sitting here stuck in the Orlando airport. Apparently this is a very common thing as it is always thunderstorming here. But to my point: On the drive to the airport, I saw a restaurant out of the corner of my eye. A Vietnamese restaurant. Quite a nice one, it looked. I pulled off the road to get closer to see the name. (This post is about a restaurant, not a food. . .but anyway. . .) It was. . . Pho Hoa Heh heh. Now why on earth did I think of eGullet when I saw that?!

The thing is. . .that indeed it is a sort of privilege. A privilege one pays for, certainly. But at the level of the "Per Se's" of the world, it truly is not supposed to be about expense. It is supposed to be about the best of what is available at the highest of quality levels. And sometimes it is about art. . .in a way. You do not find the Per Se's on every street corner, and these sorts of restaurants have been created by people that hold very high creative talents in a variety of areas. If one's home looked and felt like Per Se. . .and if one could be served the same level of meal, including all ingredients with the same level of technique displayed in the cooking, without doing it oneself. . .and if one could be served with the same pinnacle of unobtrusive service. . .while also enjoying the theatre of people-watching that one would find at Per Se. . .then why go dine at Per Se? The bottle of wine is part of the overall experience. It is in a context of many other things that have been created and tweaked and managed and perfected. . .just to allow the diner a wonderful, care-free enjoyable meal. Yes, it's a privilege. But nobody has to buy that bottle of wine if they don't want to. And nobody has to appreciate the act of pouring a bottle, whether it cost ten dollars or a hundred dollars, either. But really. . .they are missing out on something if they choose not to. They are missing out on something that is being done for them, for their appreciation. Not just for their money. Usually. In the best of places. ................................................................................ What makes me curious about some posts in this thread is that there have been comments made that the idea of having a service charge as opposed to "tips" is somehow being used at Per Se for the purpose of somehow supplementing the kitchen staff's salaries. . .so that their compensation can be raised without it coming from the owner's pocket. I don't think that this can be said with any surety without looking at the overall concept of how their cash flow "runs". . .there are many different ways of setting up things on any given budget that has a number of line items, as Per Se's obviously must. And really, I don't consider that part of my business to know. All I want to know is whether I trust the place or not. That should be enough. Per Se is an expensive place to dine. It is an expensive place to operate, too. But they seem to be doing well. Why must one assume that there is "finagling" going on. . .rather than assuming that this is being done out of the desire to make things work even better? ...................................................................................... The reason that comes to me in answer to this is that somehow it might seem "wrong" to some people that there is the amount of money to be made in this field by some few top runners that there is, to be made. "It's only food", one might say. . .and "It's only service". But there has to be something about it that will make people pay for it, no? The same way they will pay for other luxury items if they have the money? Dining at this level is a luxury item. Generally these things are not open for a lot of negotiation in terms of allowing customers to set their prices or define how to best run their businesses. They don't need to. . .because their judgement has been proved to work quite well for them (as is proved by their successes) and their judgement has provided their customers with a great deal of happiness all along the way, or it just plain would not have "worked". . .the "whatever it is they are doing" at "whatever price tag". And although it may be unfortunate that not everyone has the financial ability to dine at the Per Se's of the world, not everyone can afford many other luxury items in day to day life. This has always been true. If anyone knows a way around this, please let me know. I have a Lamborghini and some fine art pieces on my wish list, and I'd like to take a look at buying Ron Perelman's house he's getting rid of for $70 million dollars. Heh. But in the meantime, I'll be happy with whatever "luxury" I can afford, even if it happens to be a fine cheese from the Farmer's Market. Finally, it does not worry me whether someone doles out an extra hundred dollars or so on a meal at Per Se or if they are worried about how their extra "service charge" dollars are being spent within the context of this fact: If they can walk afford to walk in there in the first place, and they make the choice to do so, then they can afford to pay for it somehow. Hopefully they will do so without the idea of critique in their minds, but instead with the idea of enjoyment. It is the relativity of taking the time to consider places like Somalia (or others) where enormous numbers of human beings on any given day are not getting enough food to eat to stay alive. . . that places this "problem" into a very different category of "problems", in my mind.

What can I say, rich. It's a jungle out there.

If a person lives in Manhattan, they don't need a car, do they?

Slightly off-topic, but it was a trip to Greece that made me finally decide to leave the corporate life. Everyone looked so totally ridiculous when I went back to work. . .rushing around in tight expensive clothes, pushing memos at each other as if the world would end in a split second if "something" was not done about. . .what were really nothings. It felt as if I had entered the Land of the Insane.

That time it sure wasn't, zilla. These are things that managers need to focus in on and sort out, and often enough they just don't. The business of feeding people wonderful things would not survive without the true love of cooks for making wonderful things. The money alone simply does not cut it, often enough.

There is a difference between "dining" and "eating". (*) And when one goes to a restaurant (of a certain type, but one would hope that all restaurants would strive to be of this type no matter what their category of cost or style) . . .it might be assumed that one has gone there to "dine". Dining is not just about what you put in your mouth and how it tastes. It is about being cared for through the "medium" of food. The level of care can be tasted in that food. Indeed, the level of care starts way before it reaches your mouth. It starts with how the place of dining has been planned to work. Has the physical space been designed to provide comfort and pleasure for the diner as well as providing a physical space that "works" for the people that are employed there so that they can perform their tasks in a way that flows easily? It moves on, into the planning of the operations. Have all the details been covered in terms of what is expected of staff so that confusion does not occur. . .so that everyone is on the same page? Has the menu been designed so that the diner will approve and be pleased? Will the menu be "doable" with the kitchen equipment that exists, or will it be difficult somehow. . . When the raw ingredients are purchased, care must be shown and this is a neverending process. Everyone knows by now, (I would assume) that if there are bad feelings in the kitchen it is likely to influence the food that reaches the table. So care must be shown there, in management of people and things each day. Finally the food is ready to come to the table. And here, each nuance of the person that serves that food is important. Their way of service and of being can make the diner feel as if they were experiencing a "nothing", or a negative, or. . .they can make the diner feel very. . .very well cared for. This is what we seek when we approach the table. Feeling cared for. And if. . .we approach that table where there are delightful things to taste and warming feelings to experience hopefully waiting for us. . .with a sense that we are there to "judge" the experience and then place a price on it (at least directly in terms of tipping for service, and indirectly in terms of the menu prices). . then there is a distancing from this feeling of allowing oneself to be well cared for in the first place. A wall has been started to be built. Dining. . .is about the generosity of the table. It is about experiencing one of the best sorts of care that one human being can show for another. Therefore, when I approach the dining table. . .I make sure I can pay the bill. . and I also make sure that whether it is a twenty dollar entree or whether it is a two hundred dollar bottle of wine. . . that I can feel ample generosity to leave a twenty percent tip, for I. . .would like to feel as generous and caring towards those that served me as hopefully they have felt towards me. Oh. P.S. Although I did come from the "yuppie" generation. . .I am neither "neo-liberal" nor "pinko". And I don't eat "health food" either . So my thinking on this can not be put down to those. . . things. (*) A nod to Rogov upon using these words. . .I believe he said quite the same thing recently.

It might be worthwhile to consider the fact that though wine is "marked up" at a higher percentage than food is. . .sometimes the profit from those bottles is used to subsidize the restaurants food cost on their operating budget, which makes it possible for some restaurants to provide perhaps a greater variety of offerings along with offerings that cost the restaurant more to make. . . to their customers at a better price than if the wine were not marked up. Wine markups are a part of good menu engineering.

Hey. Steven. Whether the irate waiters think you are a pinko or not, it is quite likely that they will go out now and spend some of their tip money on your book. You can be happy about this for the reason that *that* in itself is an exercise of capitalism and free markets that will benefit you and yours. . .or you can be happy that they might read a bit of you and decide that you are not so bad a guy after all. Either way, it is a good thing, no? All's well that ends well. And if it ends really well, well then write a rap song called "Waiters Call Me Pinko" and sing it all the way to the bank. . .

I know a lot of teachers and a lot of professors. In today's world, they do not disdain money as something crass. Most of them would be very happy to make more and indeed, some of them have either quiet depresssions over the fact that they don't or loud complaints that they don't. It is a completely different economic environment in reality and in the philosophic sense to most people*now*, than it was before the Eighties hit. And in the best places, the best restaurants, places like Per Se, money is not the only thing being held out as important to the servers or anyone else there. There is a sense of higher calling (which in this case would be immaculate service and stupendous food. . .choreographed to create a wonder of a moment in a guests mind and heart and memory) being used as incentive. And it is a real thing and a good thing.

Yeah, we definitely should get the thesaurus out on this one. What strikes me is that this is even "beyond" the traditional dinner table where, as you say, families learn so much about each other if they are lucky enough to be able to share the time, and when the parent(s) define that the time should be spent together. This is in "public". This is in a sense, on a special occassion. Does this in any way provide the children with any of the instruction in manners and "how to behave in public with other people" that they supposedly will need later in life to succeed and survive and do well in public places on public occassions? Urgh. Definite disservice to the children.

This is very sad. There's a definite attraction for people to disconnect from whatever is really going on in life into the world of electronic entertainment of all sorts, though. Just look at the amount of people walking around talking on cell phones about totally inane things while life is walking by in all its glory right in front of them. And for sure, kids are hard to turn into polite pleasant beings. They always have been. This is an easy straw to grasp for tired parents. But really, how terribly sad. P.S. I just scanned down just before posting this and saw GG's post. Same word. She used the same word. Yes, sad is what it is.

It really startles me to hear this, for it seems to me that a guaranteed salary to the staff would be one of the best tools that a manager could have in terms of "motivation". If their salary is secure and of a certain level, they should be expected to perform at a certain level. There can be no softness there in terms of them saying, "Well I just don't make *the money* here". It is what it is, one must assume they understood the salary when they took the job, and the service standards are what they are. And if the service standards are not being met, then that is a management problem that rather hints at lacksadaisical-ness (if that is even a word. . . ) on the managers part. Even at "only" 17% of the bill, they likely were taking in more than many of their counterparts who work at places with lower check averages. Plus they were getting a pretty good reference on their resume. That situation could be improved by better management or hiring practices.

For goodness' sake. I am not sure whether to exclaim, "Only in Scotland!" (due to the fact that I imagine it filled with grouse and salmon and the fellows in various sorts of caps stalking about that catch these things) or "Only in the World of Adam Balic!" Stag tongues. Well. It is good that I know someone that knows stags and their hunters, for now I can ask, what do they taste like? I do like a bit of tongue myself but have only had them from American beef and lambs. (Yes, it is difficult to write this without bursting out laughing. . .) Stags tongue. . .how is it? Seriously.

Tell ya what, though. I can't remember a single time within the past year that I've gone to a "family" style restaurant with my children where I didn't do just that, in lieu of finding a service person that knew what they were doing. I know where the napkins and silverware are in each of these places. (Not that we go often, even, perhaps once every two months.) And I know where to go to tell the kitchen that it left off part of the order, too. Because I am unwilling to sit there for ten minutes fiddling my thumbs trying to get a server (or even a manager) to pay attention, while the food is cooling and the children are understandably getting cranky. Why do I go back? Because sometimes that is the standard. . .one will simply not find better in the area.

Yeah. . .I just noticed that! Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention! Quite an interesting compositon there. Hmmmm. But aren't those TWO tongues? Bold, you are. Or else it is some historic Medieval recipe I've just never read up on. . .

Would not bother me in the least either, though it would not be something I'd "like" initially. But then I remember how good we have in the US on so many prices of things as compared to other places. Many people would be very unhappy with paying even the least bit more for their food, though. I recently was approached by a group in town here trying to get signatures for a petition to not allow a tax increase on restaurant sales within town limits. The petitioners could well afford to pay the tax increase. . .they seemed to all be well-heeled youngsters with their college debit cards loaded to the brim with dollars from Mom and Dad. It is just that they resented being asked to pay more for their pizza and beer. After all, one does need to buy those hundred-dollar blue jeans, too. (I am not sure whether to put a laughing smilie here or a shocked one or what. . .) I asked them if they knew where the additional taxes were going to be used. They said no, they didn't. I then explained that the taxes would be used for education, to ensure that the children in elementary schools would not have to go from having 18-20 in a classroom up to 30 in a classroom with one teacher. Did they care? Nope.

I have been trying to resist this temptation for an entire day and can do so no longer. Lovely banger you've got there! .................................................................................. Okay now that that's done. . . What surprises me about your blog is the sense that you have such a complete and burning interest in food in such a variety of ways. The history of it, the mechanics or science of it, the cultural connects of it, and most of all, the actual dealing with it hands-on. I remember being like this before entering into the profession of chef. There really was nothing else I could do. . .the thing just pulled me in. And although finally, it dissipated enough so that my passions went elsewhere "career-wise"(the idea of anything being as interesting as food being blaspemy to some eG'ers perhaps ), it still was absolutely the best thing to do. . .to indulge myself by making a career of it. I wonder. . .will you do so, Adam?

Then again, it could be an excellent management tool. And I am quite sure that people will, just because of the way things "feel" when they are given above-average service, tip over and above whatever the service charge is. Good hospitality pays.