JohnL

Tannins can be fine or coarse grained--the impression on one's palate. They can also be green hard, bitter and unripe or soft, ripe, round, sweet. this has to do with the overall physiological ripeness of the grapes ( fruit, skins and pips et al). Wood aging has a definite impact all its own on a wine's tannins as do vinification techniques. Microbullage, racking, fining, filtration etc The Australians have developed a "mouth feel wheel" that covers the sensations that one feels from wine. (i have one somewhere. Anyway--as with most wine related issues this is complicated and often vague! For the average drinker, I would recommend focusing on a wines flavors. If the astringency gets in the way of that, then put the wine in the cellar for a few years or move on to a "softer" less tannic wine.

Curious, what reviews are treating tannin as a "negative property"? Also-- I would say that tannins are "felt" more than tasted. In other words more a sensation--astringency-- than an actual "flavor."

actually there is an even more regional Beef on Weck divide. in Buffalo it is hot with jus. 60 miles southwest in Fredonia you have the same weck roll but served cold with the thin sliced beef, swiss cheese, chiffonaded iceberg lettuce and thousand island dressing. i like 'em both... ← Beef on a Weck shares a lot of similarities with the "French Dip" which I believe was "invented" on the west Coast. The key difference is the bread--the Weck is unique to Western New York I believe.

Interesting story. One thing stands out to me. Why did you not engage the owner and let her know that her wine list was lacking. People often seem to agonize over things and even seek support on line rather than talk to the establishment's owner or management, something that has a possibility of actually remedying the situation.

While it is fun to get suggestions here, I would suggest you engage the wine person or sommelier at the restaurant. I often find that discussing a wine choice with these folks often leads to a pleasurable meal and drinking experience. It lets the restaurant know you are interested in food and wine and often leads to a selection that you would not normally experience. I would also forget about looking for a bargain. The key factor is how much you are willing to spend. The important goal is to find a wine on the list that compliments your food and your own preferences leading to a nice experience within your budget of course--priceless.

The peanutbutter and jelly sandwich corn on the cob virginia ham bearclaws hot fudge sundae and/or the banana split buttered popcorn

Most savory dishes use chocolate like a spice. As such, chocolate often adds a bitterness element as well as a richness. pairing a wine IMOP requires knowledge of each dish--the protein, the other ingredients and the cooking technique. How much the chocolate flavor is present in the taste of the dish is important--often it is very subtle. I just believe there are no easy answers or generalizations here as there are with chocolate used in deserts for eg.

The critters will remain isolated in small plastic slots at the Portland store until they are purchased, at which point they will be electrocuted for people who want their lobster cooked in the store. Customers who leave with live lobsters will be given a card outlining a humane preparation method, they said.

I see a problem in the comparisons in this thread. I think most would agree that there are good chains and bad chains, good independents and bad ones. However, we seem to be creating an ideal situation and applying it to small independent restaurants. That is a restaurant run as a stand alone endeavor where the owners are dedicated to offering high quality, locally produced, fresh ingredients skillfully prepared at reasonable prices etc. The truth is most of these restaurants do not fit this description. The large majority of independent restaurants that could be compared to national or regional chains are not the perfect places we seem to be envisioning. To be fair, one should compare MacDonald's or BK to the typical local hamburger place (not the ideal one). make that comparison against one of the better chains (maybe Fuddruckers or Fat Burger etc) and the typical local joint starts to look even worse. that's the other problem--most want to compare that paradigm small independent to the worst chains. To be fair try the comparison to the best of the chains! I would suggest that quality, price and consistency involve trade offs but do not have to be mutually exclusive. If anything, there is room for local restaurants that do offer better fresher products and better cooking etc the trade off will usually be price but if reasonable these places should (and do) thrive. The chains aren't "choking" off these operations. I also do not see the point being made about Syracuse and Nashville these are test markets because their demographics represent those marketers are seeking nationwide. Columbus Ohio is a key test market among others, I am not sure what additional criteria a fast food or chain marketer requires. I know Syracuse is a test market for a number of products (not just fast food). Show me any country of 300 million people and equivalent geographical size with a vast highway system and the constant movement of large numbers of the populace and I will show you a country with a well developed fast food/chain restaurant system.

← I believe this advice was addressing "cooking" wine vs table wine. Cooking wine was/is a product wherein cheap wine is flavored and contains additives. I believe it is still around. Someone can probably do a better job of describing it.

Australia also happens to be one of the few markets in the worldf where Starbucks closed a significant number of stores within the first five years of having opened them. I think it was roughly 10 out of 35 that they shut down due to poor levels of revenue. There are dramatic cultural differences between the US and Australia and I think an awareness of the value of locally grown foodstuffs and independent businesses may be among them. ← Am I missing something? Australia has some 32 fast food chains which originated there in addition to all the international chains. KFC alone has about 600 outlets which given the fact that Australia has one of the lowest population densities in the world is pretty interesting. The facts seem to belie these conclusions.

Most recipes I use involve a small amount of wine added to the sauteed rice and onions etc before adding the stock. The alcohol is burned off and the wine is reduced under high heat. I drink the rest of the wine. I believe the wine adds a little complexity to the dish but I wonder if two samples were tasted side by side--wine vs no wine most people see a big difference--if at all. i use vermouth in cooking quite a bit and it works nicely in place of basic white wine.

The worst Italian restaurant I ever ate in was in Columbus Ohio. It was not a chain. I think that it is pretty clear that the chains will usually lie somewhere in the middle. That is, they are rarely the worst places but they usually will not reach the top levels. I also fail to see any valid argument that chain restaurants are destroying the mom and pop businesses. In fact, I would argue that many mom and pop businesses have gone out of business due to factors unrelated to the growth of chains. I recently posted about a situation in Westchester County (north of NYC) where a local chef with a very successful restaurant opened a fast food place next door. He is offering all natural high quality ingredients--hot dogs, burgers, quesadillas etc and so far has been quite successful. this in the face of competition from every fast food chain as well as other stand alone places. I can list other small stand alone fast food operations that thrive around the area. The best burger place in Detroit (maybe in the US) is a local place that has been open for decades and continues to thrive. This flies in the face of claims that small start ups are being quashed by the big guys. I believe that a conventional wisdom has developed that big is bad (wrong) small is good (also wrong) and anything that can be labeled big, chain, corporate, industrial is immediately deemed evil and not good for America. And god forbid anyone opens up a place with the intent to make a profit! let's at least acknowledge that one great thing about a capitalist system is profit motivates and spurs competition and actually serves to get rid of bad producers or bad operators and poor quality. ask anyone who lived under other economic systems about food quality and choice. yes, it can perpetuate mediocrity and foster some bad practices but, again, nothing is perfect. Really, chains and small places can exist together. there is probably more diversity and more quality food available today than ever before. We have Purdue and Tyson but we also have D'atragnan and Eberly, and Murray's and.... In fact, if I want a chicken I probably have more places to go today than in the history of chicken farming in this country--so where is it that the evil empire has squashed all the little high quality start ups? spices? Penzy's is thriving in the face of the big boys (McCormack etc). there are hundreds of hot sauces out there. Cheese--has Kraft taken over the market? No--today there are literally hundreds of small local artisinal cheese makers all over the country that did not even exist ten years ago. There are better processes to flash freeze food items and better transportation to deliver items to places that don't produce things locally. there's the internet and mail order so people from all over can order more things. Mass production has a lot of benefits--even in the area of food--that can not be overlooked. Is it a panacea? No is it perfect? No. Can it be improved? Yes (and it has been for decades). Do we benefit from small producers, local, sustainable --absolutely. each can learn from the other. we all, benefit.

I read a review of Tad's once with the following: "...you don't need to salt your steak, the chef sweats on it!" Childs Pancake House. (proving a house is not a home) Ditto another poster on the Orange Julius outfit. how about Schrafts?

Markk. I still believe your whole premise is wrong. I think when you are more specific you make some good points. But that's my point. I just don't think you can generalize. I also think one needs to look at things in perspective. Are we talking fast food? Airline food? Upscale chains? Let's take your HoJo's clam strips--I would argue that: Clam strips freeze and travel pretty well and if reheated or cooked properly can be very good--they are real food (whatever that is). Are they as good as the clam strips prepared in a local sea food restaurant neat the ocean? Maybe--if one discounts the various lousy local seafood places near the ocean. Given that HoJo's are serving them in many different states far from the ocean (though I believe HoJo's food operations are going out of business--which by the way, runs counter to your theory that these places are dominating the food scene), clam strips (a regional dish) are available/introduced to people who live far from the ocean. Is this a bad thing? Now those clam strips at Legal Seafoods or the Summer Shack are even better (but right now these places are not located west of the Atlantic seaboard). Some foods travel well others don't. I would also argue that the Wolfgang Pucks and the California Pizza spots in airports are a hell of a lot better than you give em credit for and while I am in, say O'Hare, I can eat at one of them or I can get a Chicago dog from a cart. (or I can go to a McDonald's). Fast food and convenience food is getting a lot better due to technology not in spite of it! I am not sure what you are calling "real" food. I just think things aren't so bad. I still recall that horrible local mom and pop place in Virginia and if I could do it over again I would have preferred a McDonalds (which by the way, is at the bottom of my chain quality list).

I havent been to any of these choices you offered up as "very fine" but, Tony Roma's is rather poor, I would offer Corky's for a good chain BBQ experience. But I do agree in theory with what you are saying.. I just havent been to many chains that are all that good..Popeyes is good, Cluck U Chicken, and Gino's East out of Chicago is good.. Nothing else comes to mind..(Does Legal Seafood use frozen fish for everything?)But yes, because its a mom and pop, it doesnt mean its good.. And because its a chain, it doesnt mean its going to be bad..There is a better chance of finding something made with care and love at a mom and pop and almost no chance with a chain.. Chains are certainly not destroying America, its just making us fatter and less creative.. ← When they first came to Manhattan i thought Tony Roma was pretty good. I admit I haven't been to one in a while. Legal Seafoods uses mostly fresh fish. They buy a huge amount of the daily catch in New England. I would say they are probably at the top of the chain--chain as far as what a chain can attain! (yeeesh). The original family who started from a thriving fish market in Boston area are still very involved (I don't know if they have ownership). They are in our area--Paramus I believe as well as White Plains and the Palisades Mall. They also have a fairly creative and reasonable wine list. I agree that in most cases, small individually owned and operated places are more likely to hit the peaks--I think they are also more likely to hit the valley's though. I would disagree with your last statements -- I sense your tongue was firmly planted in your cheek! There is a case to be made that chains are actually adding to the diversity (creativity) by introducing foods into areas where one would not find them. They also offer financial reward to those who can take a good idea and expand it. The obesity part--they add to the temptation but I believe we are making ourselves fatter by giving in! as a final thought. Could some very successful chefs like Puck, JGV, Keller, Ducasse, Palmer etc be on the brink of chaindom? I believe Puck is there already. Is Las Vegas the first stop on the superhighway of high end restaurant chaindom?

I think that there are a lot of misperceptions here. First, chain restaurants are not inherently good or bad so to start with a premise that these operations are somehow evil or detrimental is IMOP wrong. There are good chains and bad. Regional and national. Lumping them all together under the rubric of "chain" to paint them with a broad brush doesn't work. Secondly, assumptions about the so called mom and pop or local non chain restaurants being inherently good is equally as wrong. A lot of these places whose passing we seem to be lamenting were awful. By the way, the worst places I have ever eaten at were small local places-- I remember the worst, a cute quaint looking local place off the interstate in Southwest Virginia! As one poster noted--the development of the highway system probably had a lot to do with the rise of chains offering uniformity etc. They also mean that someone traveling through unknown territory does not have to get off the interstate and drive around looking for a place to eat that may or may not be any good and risk getting lost, wasting time or finding one's self in an unsafe area. Of course, if one wants to do this, then there are still plenty of local mom and pop places--their proliferation may have diminished but maybe, just maybe those that remain are the cream of the cop so to speak. Competition is good for the most part. Let's not forget that this is an ever evolving scene--remember McDonald's started as a mom and pop operation. Some regional chains are much better than most of the mom and pops they are supposedly replacing. I would offer Legal Sea Food's, Fuddrucker's, and Jasper White's Sea Shack's as evidence of very fine chain operations. Haagen Dasz operates chains--is this not a very fine product? Also--Auntie Annie's pretzels are offering a wonderful product. I believe that chains sometimes offer mote diversity into an area (these incredible pretzels were probably not available in a lot of the areas before Annies showed up). How about the myriad barbeque chains? Tony Roma's is pretty damn good. Starbucks has its minuses but here in NY at least it has offered an alternative to the mostly awful stuff served at deli's--the deli's haven't disappeared they are either serving better coffee (a good thing) or losing some of their coffee business. In fact, I would venture that Starbuck's is introducing a lot of areas to not only better coffee but espresso and capuccino etc. Is it the pinnacle of quality--no--but it ain't bad and it is probably better than what was available before they entered the market. Here in the NY area there are hundreds of local non chain diners. I would say that very few of them are all that good--in fact--most offer the same menu items and the same level of mediocrity that one could lump them all together and call them a "chain." The premise that chains are destroying America is just a tad over wrought IMOP. There are thousands of local joints of varying quality. Yes, thousands have disappeared over the past decades but to attribute this solely to the rise of chains is too simple. I also not someone here is actually blaming chains for obesity. Really, let's start putting the blame for that on people! I would rather have options. If I make the wrong choices that's my problem not McDonalds. So, like everything--chain restaurants have good and bad sides to them. Interestingly, I see more and more chains I also see established chains offering better quality --but I also see better quality local operations too. Those fresh taco trucks ands stands in Southern California (the mecca of fast food chains) are also increasing in number and popularity--I wish we'd see more here! (maybe one will franchise itself out!!!).

By the way. I would nominate Gabriel's (in the shadow of the TW center (though I haven't been in a while). Also Gino's on Lexington Avenue--this place is a throwback to the fifties and sixties (hell the forties) --good Southern Italian and old NY atmosphere. Patsy's mid town as well and the place on 116th with the same name. also The Shun Lees and Chin Chin still doing pretty good "gourmet" uptown Chinese. and China Grill in the CBS building--kinda fusion-- this place has been around a long time.

You make some very interesting points. i think that regardless of income, people into food (foodies) seek out establishments that excel in quality and will travel to experience this. I agree there are probably two rather distinct categories divided by what they are willing to spend on a meal (more important IMOP than HH income) for that experience. There are also those who see and appreciate both categories and will travel for inexpensive meals as well as expensive. I do agree that attempting to apply a standards and rating system that accurately assesses both categories--say from fast food to local and inexpensive ("ethnic" cuisine establishments) and so called High end or "Haute" establishments is fraught with problems. I believe that as with wine ratings any system must apply ratings (stars, toques, points whatever) based on peer group comparisons and standards. Al restaurants are not equal and the paradigm by which they are assessed shouldn't be either.

Thanks for all the info. My reference to Cobbs Creek parkway was more a reference to the general area. Most of the places I recall were on Woodland Avenue and side streets in that area. As my father was from Philly, I had relatives there and spent summers in a row house adjacent to the cemetery! I agree that with sandwiches the bread is critical as well as the construction technique--these are IMOP often more important than the ingredients inside. It seems to me that Philly gets this right--most of the hoagies I have had (we're talkin quite a few) had great bread and were constructed so as to be lighter and tastier overall--there was air in the way the meats and cheese were layered etc. There was definitely something about the food in Philadelphia--the Hoagies and cheese steaks and soft pretzels and Tastycakes and Breyer's ice cream (before they were bought and sold) scooped from a bulk container and all this with the Phillies game on every neighborhood radio in the background!!! --sort of "Rosebud" for me!

How often do these "not especially well-off by city standards" people go to such restaurants? If they go more than occasionally, they are well-off or perhaps in danger of going bankrupt. The average New Yorker isn't a wealthy stockbroker, lawyer, or businessman with an expense account. The average New Yorker either makes prepared foods or cooks dishes made with ingredients bought in the supermarket, or goes to cheap chains, diners, or so-called "ethnic" restaurants most of the time. Your "mainstream" is skewed toward the upper-income half of the population, at least. I sure don't know many people who regularly go to places where entrees are $25-30. In fact, I'm not sure if I know ANY such people offline! ← Of course it's skewed toward the upper half! Income stratification is a fact of life. People with college and graduate degrees hang out with people with college and graduate degrees. Something like 25% of Manhattan residents make 100K plus. probably another 25% make 70K plus. And generally speaking, people in the upper 50% of Manhattan socialize with same. I have friends in the arts who make less than me....but most people I know make more...and I don't socialize with too many I-bankers. There are probably at least 500 restaurants in the city where the entrees are in the $25-30 range or more. Its not foodies and the very wealthy that's keeping these places in business. It's the middle class in general. ← The 2007 Zagat's notes that the average meal for one person is $37.61. The top twenty restaurants average meal cost is $112.49. Since this is for dinner with one drink and tip it obviously is lower than the actual check given the alcohol consumption is probably a lot higher. I would guess that if one were looking at all New Yorkers a lot of folks are going to MacDonald's et al as well as neighborhood places: bars that serve food, pizza places and ethnic establishments and cooking at home a lot. What is important to note are millions of tourists who support moderate to high end restaurants as well as fast food places including a lot of folks from the surrounding areas coming in for a night on the town or theatre etc.

Some thoughts and questions: If small sustainable local pork producers are the way to go please explain how these folks will provide the pork and pork products to a nation of three hundred million people? (let's even set price aside). Where in the New York City or Cleveland or Los Angeles or... areas will these small LOCAL pork producers be located? Will local residents welcome these operations? If a large operation is caught breaking the law (environmental or otherwise) they are fined (as was the operator cited in the RS piece). How will we police all the small operations, who might violate regulations?-- on a smaller scale, of course. After we resolve these and other issues re: pork, we can move on to poultry and then beef then produce then..... Seems to me that large so called industrial operations can exist with some smaller artisinal producers offering consumers a wide range of choice at different prices. Larger (and smaller) operations will benefit from improved production methods as well as lesser negative environmental impact. in fact, it seems to me that environmental impact may even be lesser (more manageable) with pork production more centralized/larger among fewer operations than were pork production to be spread out among thousands of small local operations. remember to stay true to the small and local is better philosophy we would have to take beef and poultry and dairy and produce production and spread them out to many many more less efficient and smaller operations throughout the entire US. I don't know--but something just doesn't make sense here.

Thousands for the processed stuff you mean? Or did you mean for thousands of years we've eaten bread? Bread, yes a long long time. White bread no not so long. Hundreds of years might even be an exageration. ← I guess a distinction must be made between white bread and bread that is white. My "thousands of years" comment referred to the traditional breads, which obviously were not made from whole grain flour, for otherwise they would be darker in color and have a sweeter and nuttier flavor. You are correct that "enriched bread" -- the stuff most of us think of when we use the term "white bread" (often as a pejorative) -- is a 20th century invention. And, of course, the process of "enriching" it is what I referred to in that earlier post: Adding back what was removed in processing. Though I must wonder where this variety of wheat that produces a white or off-white bread without removing the hull from the grain comes from. (This variety is the source of the flour used in those new "whole grain white" breads.) Moving back to the larger topic: I think the basic problem that has some people exercised in this discussion cannot be solved without a far more sweeping and radical transformation of society than is possible to discuss in this forum or maybe even conceive as actually happening. That is because you cannot address the needs and desires of large masses of people with small-scale methods. Unlike with computers, where you can harness millions of microprocessors in tandem to perform the work of a single huge supercomputer, it seems that millions of small, independent organic farms cannot feed billions of people adequately, and they certainly can't at a level people in Western societies have become accustomed to. On second thought, maybe the computer analogy is not totally inapt, for what it seems has to happen is that farms are not only consolidated, but networked--individual farmers contract with large processors/distributors. The point remains that many of the other values some in this discussion have advocated are of necessity diminished or discarded as the quantity of people served rises. Put another way, unless we broke up the United States into several hundred small countries, Earthbound Farms was inevitable. Another thing I think people have missed is that even the industrial revolution in food production offered benefits as well as disadvantages. I'm currently reading a book Pontormo generously sent me, Secret Ingredients: Race, Gender and Class at the Kitchen Table, one of a spate of books in which (mostly feminist) scholars look at literature about food and cooking and discover all kinds of social ferment buried among the recipes. The first chapter of the book makes a claim that I think many will find startling: Convenience foods were a steppingstone on the path to women's liberation. Articles in women's magazines praising the time savings these new canned and processed foods offered stressed how they freed women to pursue other avenues for (self-)development; readers who might have felt guilty about the lack of creative input their preparation involved could have that guilt assuaged through recipes incorporating the new convenience foods into other dishes; and finally, books like Peg Bracken's bestselling I Hate to Cook Book struck a blow against the tethering of women to home and hearth, a move those new foods made possible. Those of us here who are pursuing artisanally produced and/or organic foods for their virtuous qualities are IMO still a minority of all cooks and consumers, and even those of us who pursue them because they are higher in quality and taste better are still a minority, albeit a larger one. The great bulk of us are looking for ways to get dinner on the table with a minimum of time and hassle for whatever reason, and because of this, we get such absurdities as Slow Cooker Helper and Crock-Pot Classics, products designed to save even the minimal prep time involved in cooking using an appliance that saves time for the cook by doing the cooking while the cook's doing other things. Unless and until this changes, Pollan's admonition that we all "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" will have to make room for things that he--and many of us--probably wouldn't regard as "whole." John Mackey recognizes this and has gotten rich by squaring the circle as best he can. ← Good points! I find Pollan's views to be rather simplistic and elitist. As such they are not practical. I do find them to be valuable as one person's ruminations, much as i find a great deal of philosophical thought of value. Interestingly, if Mackey simply offered artisianal food based on quality and taste only, I wonder if he would be as rich as he is? i do believe he would be less tortured in trying to resolve the dilemma of reconciling good tasting with wholesome. Finally, I am usually pretty suspicious of those who are looking at a subject in search of a socio political conclusion.

Good points Sneakeater! L'Atelier is not a place where one is going to find bargain priced wines. let's remember bargain and fair etc are relative terms: one man's bargain is another's rip off etc. L'Atelier operates in a rarified atmosphere--the vast majority of the clientel are not looking for a "bargain."--while they are not necessarily unconcerned with costs, they are not price conscious in the way many of us are. That said--one of modest means can chose carefully from both the menu and the wine list and dine extremely well here without a second mortgage. Wine aside--one can easily spend a few hundred a person on food alone.

Russ Good points. Without getting into specifics, most auction houses claim to perform due dilligence in verifying the provenance of the wines they offer. I would say most do but there are some who are--let's say--a bit lax in this area.