Farbunkle

Having been born and raised in the North and living most of my adult life in the South I can appreciate the nuances of Northern gravy and southern gravy. One is meat based and one is coffee or tomato based. They are ALL delicious! As a totally food addicted person the only thing I can say here is ...don't argue the trivia...just enjoy the differences.

After sitting on the pier all night with friends.. catching blue crabs with string and chicken backs in Florida. Going home exhausted but with over 100 crabs. Cooking and cleaning those babies while someone whirled up the frozen Strawberry Daquries and someone else melted the butter. Then just eating and drinking until we couldn't hold another bite. Ahhhhh that was heaven!

Having worked in both the front and back of the house, I find this to be an interesting thread. 1. I agree totally that BOH is not all that interested in making the FOH look good. This depends totally on the type of Chef you are dealing with but the Prima Dona's of the food world can be taxing at best. 2. Unless the table has been served the entree and everyone is obviously enjoying their meal, 20 minutes without checking on the table is entirely too long. 3. Under time constraints...I would have asked the waitress to give me my $3.00 happy hour drink at my table...and proceeded with the ordering. 4. I would have left a tip...even if it wasn't a full tip.

Isn't it amazing how differently the sense of taste affects each of us? As for me....and I think I'm the only one who has this dislike...beets. I think they have a horrid taste and even the color is unnatural to me. I can totally sympathize with you Jade... I am a Personal Chef so the fact that I'm not a big fan of strong fish (and to me even salmon fits in this catagory) is a problem...so far none of my clients have complained about my fish-cooking skills though ! Organ meats and entrails are also not on my hit parade so that also rules out Pate and Foie Gras. I certainly couldn't be mistaken for a Food Snob!! This is an interesting thread.