johnsmith45678
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Posts posted by johnsmith45678
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Well, if the experts are to be believed, the consensus seems to be that saturated fats = cholesterol, which clogs the arteries. But in moderation... I also remember reading that butter has a lot of good and healthful compounds in it, can't remember what they are though.
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I have worked FOH and BOH in various positions, dishwasher, short order cook, buffet line, busser, and waitress. Defintely the crappiest, nastiest, most demeaning part was dealing with customers as a waitress (mostly drunk as I worked late night shift). I'd much rather take the burns, cuts and scrapes (had plenty of scars for many years) than deal with drunk bastards at 2:00 a.m. that want you to sit on your lap (and actually drag you down onto it) or want to put the tip "directly into your pocket" wink wink. Blech.'
Heh, yeah, I've always thought that being wait staff (hostess too) would be one of the most demeaning and boring (though usually much more lucrative) jobs in restaurants. Which is why I've never been a waiter. But I was a busboy for a summer at a country club, and it was pretty demeaning - you take abuse from wait staff, customers, cooks, and it's incredibly boring and monotonous.
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I don't recall ever hearing about a study like this before - two diets identical in calories, but different types of fats. I was surprised by the weight and obesity differences.
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Just curious - what are some of the crappiest, nastiest, most demeaning jobs/tasks/situations you've experienced working in restaurants?
Some of mine, off the top of my head:
- Digging through big trash cans full of trash to fish out silverware thrown out by customers at a banquet.
- Working for 12 hours in a refrigerator truck making 1500 baked Alaskas.
- Chipping up kitchen tile after closing at 10 after working an evening shift just so the owners could save money. (Actually I snuck out after half-an-hour since I had tests the next day - heard they were there until 2 AM
.)- My entire short (three months) employment as dishwasher at a a low-end restaurant chain very early in my cooking career. Sole dishwasher during the shift, never-ending crushing amounts of dishes, cleaning all the floors/mats for the vast expanse of kitchen after closing late at night.
That's about all that sticks out in my mind, none of which is really bad. I have various other experiences like working in 110-120F kitchens during the summer, 18 hour days, painful burns, etc. etc. etc. I'm sure there are far worse stories out there
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And drinking lots of beer is good for the prostate! Coffee in the morning, beer in the evening. Ah, just like my college diet!
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Do you know ANYBODY in real life who swears every single sentence? I don't.
Most every military drill instructor up unitl the new Army.
What Ramsay's doing is akin to the first third of old military basic training, back when there was a draft. Taking a group with all sorts of diversity and skill levels and breaking them so that he can rebuild them in his image. Yelling, sleep dep, manhandling. All part of the breaking down and weeding out process. Not that it's necessary. But that's the best comparison I've come up with.
No doubt. Bourdain talks in Kitchen Confidential about how kitchens are usually run akin to the military. It's the most effective way when you have to get a lot of things done as fast as possible, and the stress is high. But in a recent interview, GR stated that he's only a mean SOB when things are going "pear-shaped" - if everything's running smoothly, he's fine. In my experience in kitchens, the ranting and raving occurs when bozos are screwing things up. In a well-oiled kitchen of professionals when the heat is on, talk is pretty minimal, unless they just feel like blowing off steam and talk shit (often directed at the wait staff
). Taking abuse (hazing, really) is an unwritten part of the job description in kitchens, primarily for the the rookies (it rolls off the back of the seasoned). But you're always just one screw-up away from having to wash dishes or some other humbling shit job (like being "donkey") . -
Amazon Grocery recently launched. Not that it appears that it would be one of my favorite online food stores...
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That must apparently be in season two, which I think is about wrapped up (wow, then GR flies to LA to shoot Hell's Kitchen). In season one, GR has a wine critic - or maybe it was the show's resident food critic - taste several wines. IIRC he blew one or two of them.
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I recently read that saturated fats are easily converted into artery-clogging cholesterol.
And to expand on your examples, the French are famous for their diet of fatty foods while not suffering adverse effects from it. Drinking red wine is the supposed antidote, in their case.
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If this is the second season, what happened to the winner of last season's show? Do they have a restaurant?
Nope, see here.
As for the show, yep, Heather's probably the strongest candidate. She seems to know what it takes to work in a kitchen. Except she's too much of a cry baby. She grabbed a hot pan for an instant and had to go to the hospital? Jeez, I've been burned worse and never had to go to the hospital, kept on working, and don't have any resulting scars.
It's really hard to imagine how people can't get a single appetizer out in less than an hour and a half.
And Larry getting in the hot tub to hit on the ladies...ha ha!
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Yeah, but I think the fast food industry still has a long way to go before they're ever considered healthy.
I think "Saturated vs. Mono-Unsaturated Diet" would have been a more appropriate title, but, yeah, that's not as attention-grabbing.
Anybody know of other foods that are high in saturated/mono- poly- unsaturated fats?
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MSR Whisper Lite stove, Mountain House dehydrated packages, instant oatmeal. Yep, I'm lazy, want to eat quick, and don't want to pack a lot of bulky stuff.
We once went camping for a weekend with a CIA grad. He made us pack a lot of raw ingredients, which he used to make pretty good, somewhat labor-intensive meals (we got to help as prep cooks of course). I was kind of amazed we had managed to cook so much with a bare mininum of equipment.
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Quite a difference!
Monkeys fed a diet rich in trans-fats – commonly found in fast foods – grew bigger bellies than those fed a diet rich in unsaturated fats, but containing the same overall number of calories. They also developed signs of insulin resistance, which is an early indicator of diabetes.After six years on the diet, the trans-fat-fed monkeys had gained 7.2% of their body weight, compared to just 1.8% in the unsaturated group. CT scans also revealed that the trans-fat monkeys carried 30% more abdominal fat, which is risk factor for diabetes and heart disease.http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=...line-news_rss20
What foods have trans-fats? From the article: fast food, baked goods, processed snacks. Isn't margarine trans-fat?
What foods are high in mono-unsaturated fats? Olive oil...
Then there's poly-unsaturated (AFAIK - good) and saturated (AFAIK - bad).
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The contestants on HK aren't much different than people actually working in real kitchens found in KN ;P. Just go watch the Bonapartes episode to see truly horrifying and comical incompetance.
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Are you renting an apartment or staying in a hotel? The former generally very economical, though shorter stays not as much, and it makes eating at home in the evening very simple.
For about how much can an apartment be rented? For what time periods?
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Looks like almost all of the contestants work in the food industry, so they should be somewhat more clueful than many of last year's.
Yep - Kitchen Nightmares is GR at his best. OTOH, Boiling Point - and Beyond Boiling Point - is GR at his absolute meanest, cruelest, and most unlikeable. GR is like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde - and he's almost always Mr. Hyde in his own kitchens.
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On another front... how many CUT their lettuce with knives as opposed to tearing by hand?
For salads, I tear; for "shredded" lettuce for topping burritos, etc., I cut.
As for the wood cutting boards and hot pans, I bet Bobby Flay would do it, and Morimoto most certainly would not. ;P
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Cash/card is my emergency food item.
Well, that's important, too, but when you live in Montana you make sure you have what you need in the car. Some drives take us past nothing but fields, mountains, and cows. And they don't like sharing.
That's much more hospitable than, say, west Texas, Death Valley, stretches of southern Arizona, and many, many other areas! Still, I can't think of anywhere in the US where food is ever more than maybe 2-3 hours away by car, at most. In such places, it's much more important to ensure that my car has its emergency food items (water (well, for me too), oil, etc.).
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According to Google Answers and elsewhere, tomato leaves and stems are poisonous. But it appears severe gastrointestinal distress is the extent of it. Similar to potatoes. Tomatoes, interestingly enough, are members of the nightshade family, and were apparently thought to be poisonous for a long time until peasants in Italy were so short on food they tried their fruits, after which numerous tomato dishes ensued (according to Wikipedia).
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I am surprised by the number of dishes that are surrounded in foam. Seems a little overused to me. Did you think the meal was value for money or more of a theatrical play with food as the main character?
Yeah, while looking at the pictures I was reminded of Bourdain's "foam dude" remark. Foam doesn't seem like it'd be too satisfying of a food element. I think the foams just provide "essences" of foods. but several of the plates don't have much else. I hope there are a lot of courses - none of the plates look filling!
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Cash/card is my emergency food item.
If I'm going on a road trip, I fill a cooler with sandwich stuff, fruits, and whatever else; then refill as needed. For breakfast I pack instant coffee and instant oatmeal (and a water heater). I usually buy dinner. If camping, I load up on Mountain House meal packages.
When flying, I take no food. But if I can find a small water heater, I would probably do the same breakfast routine.
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So, how much did it cost to eat at El Bulli?
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I don't buy that. Automotive engineering has improved a great deal, and continues to do so. They've learned, refined, and perfected a great deal from earlier cars. Cars today can be expected to last 100K, 200K, 300K miles and even more (approaching 200K myself). Even oil change intervals are longer. I have a car that's about ten years old and I've replaced many standard things that have been around for years - brake pads, alternator, belts, battery, thermostat, oil, etc. Never had a "black box" go out. I've also had and driven many older cars (60's - 80's) and with most of them, the likelihood of breaking down somewhere was definitely increased.
The biggest advances in reliability have been in the fuel delivery and ignition systems, which is probably the most likely thing to cause a "break down" in older cars, so I see your point. I wasn't thinking of 60s to 80s cars when I was talking about "older cars", I was thinking 30s to 60s...the 80s was probably the worse decade for automobiles, especially for U.S. models.
Most "modern" engineering has been around since the 30s and 40s (i.e. overhead cam, disc brakes, forged rods, insert bearings, etc.). Much of it didn't hit domestic production here until the late 60s or 70s though. As far as durability, there is no reason that an older car cannot get more than 200k or 300k miles. We have had some older Mercedes and Volvos that have passed the 500,000 mile mark (50s and 60s models). Our '71 Datsun 510 has so many miles on it we're not even sure how many. Older cars may require more maintenance, but can be just as durable or more so than modern cars. Now that I think about it, we are confusing reliability and durability in this discussion. I am referring to durability. So I will agree with you that modern cars are more reliable, but I beg to differ that they are more durable. The items you mention replacing aren't either reliability or durability issues in my mind, they are just regular maintenance for a car from any era.
Oil change intervals are longer mainly because of the improvements in oil, not improvements in the engine.
My husband is a mechanic and will attest that there are many electrical or "black box" problems. I'm glad you haven't experienced any. Of course, if your vehicle is nearly 10 years old it doesn't have the more sophisticated control modules that are now required with OBD III (OnStar...where someone can remotely turn off your car...that scares me). I think we will soon reach a tradeoff point for diagnostic capability/engine control vs. reliability with the ever increasing complexity.
Since this is all terribly off topic, that is all I will say on the subject. Please forgive me, moderator, but this subject is near to my heart (I used to race cars and built my own engines, made my own performance mods, etc.)
Based on my own experience, I disagree
. Growing up, my friends and I, and our parents all had older cars (60's - 70's) and none of them were expected to last longer than 100K miles or so. Beyond that, you'd pretty much need a new engine. I can't remember any of us having many fuel/ignition problems either, except for coils going out and a ruptured diaphram in one of my side-draft carbs. Cooling system problems seemed to be more common. And just general mechanical failures - like timing gears disintegrating. That's not to say SOME older cars can't last a very long time - Toyota trucks are famous for 300K, 400K, 500K miles.As for longer oil change intervals, I think it's also due to improvements in metalurgy resulting in much more durable metals. I do think newer cars are more reliable AND durable than older cars. Everything seems to hold up better, and last longer.
The basic concepts of car engineering hasn't changed much, but the improvements to all the components has. Similar to computers - still using the Von Neumann architecture, but computers today are vastly better than those even twenty years ago.
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I believe the correct way is on a gold plate on a stone altar inside a temple consecrated by Escoffier.
What type of stone?!? Marble, slate, granite, ...?!?
Whole Foods stops selling live lobsters
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
What happens to them?