FabulousFoodBabe

Mike Harney, you kill me! I will vote for you for Potentate, any old day. I think this thing with Debra Racicot may be another sign that the apocalypse is upon us (apologies to SI). And as Diva said, there are a lot of people who can't tell the difference, which is yet another sign that the apocalypse is upon us. Fun Fact: Non-dairy whipped *creme* topping has a half-life of 250,000 years.

If I could have the same life I have now, I might regret a few things. Definitely, believing that women who love everything about food, from mundane prep tasks to quantity cooking to a beautiful final product, are destined only to be housewives with enormous families (don't yell, people, I come from a very weird place in the world). When I meet young women with that type of interest and focus now, I really encourage them (and their parents) to consider a culinary career. I doubt I'll ever be a great chef -- I'm not sure how many more years I want to spend on my feet -- but I haven't ruled it out. I just remembered this -- I had a nice-sized catering/gourmet to go business many years ago. I regret not learning how to cost recipes properly! Within the first few days of Culinary Math at the CIA, I realized that I'd been making a calculation incorrectly, which probably cost me 1.5-2%. I literally yelped when I realized that!

just for the record: that's a badly edited quote. ← And that's the understatement of the year! Ugh, sorry. I fixed my post upthread.

Do you honestly think someone like D.P. can take Zakarian down? I'm curious, not being snarky (that will be my new tag line). I can't imagine DP ever having any real influence in the restaurant business. [edited because the first edit was not done properly and attributed the quote to someone else ...]

There's a big difference between being the "best cook in [the] kitchen," and being a Chef.

Adding a bit of tomato gives the stock its reddish color. You'll want to add it after your aromatics are cooked the way you want them (caramelized or merely soft), let the tomatoes brown (takes a couple of minutes), and go to the next step. And Luckylies, if you didn't roast the shells first, that may be what makes it bluish. I'd always learned to do lobster stock by first roasting the shells with a little bit of oil. I do this when making shrimp or crawdad stock, too. Curious: How much and what kind of acid did you use? And was the final product more grey than blue?

I replied to Debbiemoose via PM; the class I'm taking is not an eG class. Anyone else want to know about it, I'm happy to share.

... I wonder how much harder it is to prove that you've been slandered if your name is changed in the account. ← Maybe instead of suing, they'd rather just spend their time on their own lives, and $$$ on eating out? I don't know why someone would change a name in the book if they are telling the truth. I'm only interested in hearing more from Psaltis if he wakes up one day, slaps himself on the forehead and yells, "Man, that was NOT cool!" and starts trying to make amends. Like a culinary version of "My Name is Earl." -Fabby, who is not so much a "circle-and-dart" type, than a "I have other stuff to do than this" type.

We just got back from a quickie trip to Durham, and saw Cheerwine on the menu at some restaurant. My husband tried to get the kids to try it, but once they realized it wasn't really wine, they were not interested. I wonder if you can get it, or those popsicles, anywhere up our way?

This gets my vote, too. Wrap them up -- like pillows -- and hold the plastic packets over warm water. Make them with a ricer or food mill to keep the spuds from being overworked, so that if you need to do more than give them a stir before serving, they don't glue-up.

I often feel that way when I read about Jewish delis (not a Jew myself, nor a native Northeasterner). timothycdavis, I answered this in a PM to you. To everyone else, you betcha!

O-M-G. Busboy, your post was, is, beautiful! Hey -- did you take a breath when this masterpiece was flowing from you?

Mario Batali was quoted in the Times piece saying, in effect, that Dan Barber doesn't rip off recipes. Has anyone insisted that he back that up with facts that he himself experienced? Just curious, not snarky. I mean it.

I think you're onto something! I think that with the proper desire and resources, anyone can learn just about anything. I used to believe that being immersed or raised in a culture helped a person understand the food and food customs. I still kind of believe that's true with Asian cooking. But Southern food? I always doubted that. One difference could be bean cookery. How could someone who's been raised with green beans 'n' fatback, understand a crock of baked beans simmered for hours and hours with lots of pork and sugar. That's what they serve in Boston, and I doubt anyone will be supping on Fenway beans for another six months.

Um, the "all in good fun" was the Alabamans shrieking (yes, they were!) about how it's just wrong to have a NYer write about southern food. They did not believe that the same limitations existed for Southerners writing about Northern regional food or restaurants, and it really was a funny conversation. No one else in the class agreed with them, btw. And they were sure to tell us that nothing personal was meant (no one took it as such). I think people tend to see stuff through the filter of their own experiences and insecurities ... like not thinking that Yankees are, in fact, superior. Everyone wants to be a Yankee. The only things Yankees suck is other teams into their dust.

LOL -- actually, it started with a discussion about pulled pork. The problem seemed to be that they really didn't think "northerners 'get it' about Southern food." Which is why I posted this here. They really couldn't say more than that.

I'm taking a great food writing course and this topic came up. We were dissecting a piece about a barbecue restaurant, and a couple of my classmates, who are from Alabama, were outraged that a Northerner was writing about Southern food. It was all in good fun, but the Southerners in our group were adamant! (None of them felt the same way about their writing about bagels or brisket). I wonder if anyone here agrees and if so, why. BTW, the piece wasn't condescending or stereotypical in any way.

I made my statement based on the conclusion I jumped to immediately, that "Peter" is Dan Barber. I guess it's my bad. Psaltis has never said, to my knowledge, that Peter/Dan are one and the same. Perhaps other facts were changed, to protect whatever else needed protecting. I said that he said some lousy thing about Thomas Keller. He did. I don't care if they're true or not. Biting the hand that feeds, or fed, you is not a smart move. And being offered jobs doesn't mean anything. Doing them, doing them well, does.

I'm still shaking my head over this book. What a damned whiner, and what lousy (and largely untrue) things to say about Dan Barber, and Thomas Keller as well. It struck me that this book sets up the blame for any failure he may have in his own business: If writers don't like his food, or other chefs don't flock there, or cooks leave, it will be because he stood up against "The Establishment." Yeah, I wish Doug Psaltis a whole kitchen full of lots of little Doug Psaltis's (Psaltii?).

And you did it very well! The issue with the questions is mine and honestly, I almost never stop to think about why I'm doing what I'm doing. I heard that a dining critic wanted to leave his post and literally pulled every string I could find to get the publisher and editor to give me a tryout. If I made enough money cooking and writing about food to cover this shoe habit, Mr. FoodBabe would be even happier for me, it's been necessity that turned me into a freelancing maniac. I've lived in seven places in fifteen years, and as I mentioned in another thread, have a day job as a corporate wifey-type and mother of sons and a senile dog. So I grab the opportunities as they come, because I got used to not knowing if I'd be around to develop one area. I've always believed that it's a life that chooses you. I wonder if there's a thread about peoples' epiphanies -- the "aha" moment or moments. Hee hee. I am almost about writing as I am about food: If you don't pay me, I don't do it. But I did start a little blog that I keep thinking I should actually write in. Since I'm going back to finish school in a few weeks, and in the process of gutting and redoing my kitchen, and finishing a food writing class with Alan Richman and trying to get a cookbook at least looked at by an agent, I do have a lot to say. However, I don't want to "phone in" anything that I do -- so blogging is at the bottom of the list. I used to be asked to write about homes and entertaining, which were okay, but they didn't flow quite so easily for me. Once I was asked to write about architecture. Actually, the magazine insisted on it. I liked the people and their kitchen and their cars (he owned a BMW dealership and was very interesting himself), but I didn't care too much about who designed their landscape.

Naw, not at all. Just a lot of questions! Really quick -- I knew when I was a tender babe of 25 that there were two things that came naturally: food and writing. I bullied my way into a food writing assignment, never had a byline before then, and the rest is history. I've been a dining critic, feature writer, columnist, and at one place, specialized in converting chef's recipes to something that home cooks could do ... which turned into some nice consulting gigs. Funny, I had a reputation for being thorough and completely going nuts with research, and after spending one week at the CIA, knew that I had an awful lot more to learn. Novels with food themes ... have you read The Epicure's Lament?

Breakfasts are always fun: scrambled eggs, muffins, french toast (let her try to perfect the one-handed egg-breaking that the big chefs do!). When my nieces visit, we have breakfast for dinner.

Does anyone else here "blind bake" or parbake the pizza crust before putting it on the preheated stone?

I can't stop thinking about the scene in Brave New World -- where the embryos get dripped with alcohol to form an underclass/working class. An ounce of wine to an infant ... oy. that said, my sons had their first wine experiences at Bar Mitzvahs; they proclaimed the wine 'nasty.' Their palates are pretty sensitive and wine is too much for them, though we let them have a taste when they want it. And after a long day of dirty, hot hard yardwork, the boys can sit and have a beer. With us. Usually 2 sips is all they want, and they know they can't drink and leave the house. My family was off-the-boat Italians, and I used to get anisette from my favorite uncle at all the family gatherings. My grandfather made his own wine and that stuff was about 90 proof. All the kids got a little bit in their glass when they got to be about 10-11; we usually pretended to like it. It was no big deal, but we had to find other things to do in secret that my parents would have gone nuts about. By contrast, my husband's parents dont' drink for religious reasons. He and his siblings all were getting hammered at the age of 14-15. Any family gathering is still focused on the absence of alcoholic beverage, but at least his mother doesn't cringe any more when she sees me with a martini.

I don't know if he's quite an exaggeration ... there's a lot of that going around these days. I'd love to see one of the newbies in the kitchen say, "I didn't spend $___ to become a trained chef, to come here and sweep the floor!" And you don't have to tell me about former CIA boys. --Fabby, a CIA girl herself