Kit

I'm totally with whoever mentioned waiters asking if you want change when they come for the check. It's *SO* rude.

I've joined a gym and will stick with it. Heh, after working all day in a bakery, I can walk in there with the best "perfume". I resolve to choose the wine I drink more carefully and not just have what everyone else is having. Also? I want to see if I can get away without eating at any fast food or Friday's/Applebee's/Outback etc. all year, and force my friends into more interesting eating. Most of the time I end up there, it's because no one has a better idea and it's close, and I regret it every time.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I read some of the comments as Rachel Ray = bad food. Perhaps I shouldn't have used such a charged word. As for the Americans, the article was about getting rid of French *people* unless I read it wrong. It seemed like what was upsetting was getting rid of the people, and that the people equaled the food. You're right, I did say that if they don't replace these people with quality professionals (whatever thier nationality) they are dumbing down the food. They are. I just objected to what I saw as French chefs = good, American chefs = bad. I must have been mistaken.

When did Rachel Ray become the AntiChrist? She's just someone trying to make the American public cook. Anything. Isn't it better that someone is showing audiences how to cook simple things quick? Isn't that better than getting take-out or frozen meals all the time? I mean, if she gets people started then when they graduate, other chefs can take over to teach people more complicated things. And on that note, do those other chefs *have* to be French? Are Americans not allowed to cook French food with any degree of skill? I know, I know... They're not replacing these people with skilled professionals. They're dumbing down the food. I just wanted some pet peeves cleared up.

I think something that makes a big difference in how we view these people is whether or not this is thier first trip to where they're going. Chances are, people who have the cash to go eat in every fabulous restaurant in say, Paris, have probably been before. They might have already seen the other stuff. They might not care. Would it upset people if someone wrote and article about how I'm basing a future trip to London to visit the sites that were in a book I read? They happen to be historical and I'm dying to visit everything Sir Christopher Wren built, but if it wasn't in the book, I probably won't see it. It's kinda the same thing. I'm sure there's people like the article described out there, just doing it 'cause they want to say they ate at such-and-such place; just ticking off boxes as someone else said. The people I feel sorry for are the ones that are going to go plan culinary tours of wherever because that's how they want to experience the place and then get labeled snobs because they're associated with the people in this article.