Daily Gullet Staff

<img width="310" height="285" align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1127641774/gallery_29805_1195_23289.jpg">by Andy Lynes Author, journalist and broadcaster Michael Ruhlman was born in 1963 in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Duke University in 1985 with a BA in English Literature and worked for the New York Times for two years as a newsroom copyboy. After a period of travel, writing, and odd jobs, he returned to Cleveland in 1991 to edit a local magazine covering the city's cultural scene. An article for the magazine about the headmaster of a local private boys' school grew into Ruhlman's first book, Boys Themselves (1996). A devoted amateur cook since his youth, Ruhlman proposed to the Culinary Institute of America, the oldest and most influential professional cooking school in the country, that he be allowed into its kitchen classrooms in order to write a narrative of how the school trains professional chefs. The school agreed, and The Making of a Chef (1997) was the result. Further books about chefs and cooking followed. The Soul of a Chef and The French Laundry Cookbook (with Thomas Keller) were both published in 2000, and A Return to Cooking, written with Eric Ripert, chef-owner of the Manhattan four-star restaurant Le Bernardin, appeared in 2002. Bouchon, also written with Keller, was published in 2004. Ruhlman has worked as a line cook and wrote a food column for the Los Angeles Times for two years. Although arguably most famous for his food- and chef-related writing, Ruhlman's work is wide-ranging in its subject matter. In February 1999, Ruhlman moved his family to Martha's Vineyard in order to research and report on life at a yard making plank-on-frame boats for the book Wooden Boats (2001). In October 2000, he began work at the Cleveland Clinic's Children's Hospital for the book Walk on Water (2003). His most recently published book, House (2005), tells the story of how Ruhlman and his wife Donna renovated a century-old house in a suburb of Cleveland. His book on charcuterie for the home cook, written with Brian Polcyn, will be published in November. In addition to presenting the PBS show Cooking Under Fire, Ruhlman is finishing a third book about the work of the professional chef. The subject of food, chefs and restaurants is something you come back to time and again. What is the reason for that? What is it about the subject that attracts you? The world of the professional kitchen is endlessly fascinating to me. There's an honesty to it that I find almost nowhere else. It’s a lot like the operating room, only people don’t die in the kitchen, which is quite nice, and an asset to the work as far as I'm concerned. You can't lie in a kitchen -- that’s what I like most about it. You're either ready or you're not, you're either clean or you’re a mess. You're either good or you're bad. You can't lie. If you lie, it's obvious. If your food's not ready, then it's not ready. If you're in the weeds, its clear to everybody -- you can't say that you aren’t. So I love that aspect of it. I love the immediacy of it, the vitality of it. I love the people that work in the professional kitchen, from knuckleheads to literary folk who just don't get along in a literary world and prefer the world of the kitchen. I love the camaraderie of a kitchen. I love working with my hands and the physicality of a kitchen. I love being around food and working with it and cooking it. I never get tired of those little mundane chores that you need to do. I love taking the germ out of garlic; I love to pick beans. What I didn't like about being in the kitchen was when I was in the weeds personally. That sucked. That's one of the worst feelings in the world -- when you're getting your ass kicked and you're falling apart. That’s really humiliating, and something that I hated about working a line cook's position. The immediacy, the honesty, the camaraderie the physicality, the sensuality of it - all of those things keep pulling me back to the kitchen. The chefs you write about -- Keller, Ripert, Polcyn -- are all trying to achieve perfection. Is that what interests you about them? It does interest me, because the work is so damn hard that even to do it with mediocrity is difficult. It's hard in a way that nobody really realizes until they actually do the work themselves. So those people are pushing to create excellence everyday, which is extraordinarily hard, and it's fascinating to watch someone working so hard. And you know, who wants to hang out with someone that just wants to be mediocre? Is perfection something you aspire to with your writing? No, I do not. I can always be better. I think I get close to absolute clarity sometimes -- every now and then -- with a little help from grace, but it's rare. And it's not always the goal -- in writing, the goal is clarity, not perfection. And a greater understanding. There can always be a deeper understanding of what you're writing about. Writing is really an attempt to understand the chaos of this life and what it all means. There's always a deeper level of understanding to go to so it can never be perfect. This is probably an impossible question to answer, but of all the chefs you have worked with, is there one whose style you particularly favor or who you like working with? Keller has meant a lot to me. I learnt a lot from all of them, but Thomas was really instrumental in my understanding of great cooking and what it was all about, and so many little notions of finesse in cooking. But also, we were simpatico in terms of personality, and how I understood the world of cooking. I'm fascinated by the basics of cooking rather than extraordinary ingredients; he's a fanatic about basic ingredients. I'm fascinated by how to make a perfect stock; he loved the idea of perfecting those basic things. That made it very easy to work with him and talk to him and write about him and write from his point of view. It was very efficient. I've got to the point now where 75% of the time I know his answer to just about any question, food-wise. If I don’t, it only takes him a couple of minutes or a sentence or two for me to be able to elaborate on that in prose form for a book, so it's very efficient working with him. But I love all these chefs. I wouldn't work with them if I didn't like them, and I admire them all enormously. You seem to prefer working with "haute cuisine" chefs. Why is that? I'm fascinated by haute cuisine because there's complexity in it - its reliance on level after level of basics. But I'm just finishing writing about Masa Takayama for the sequel to Soul of a Chef, and he's a completely different kind of chef. He has a completely different sensibility. He's the antitheses of Thomas Keller, and that I find fascinating. Also in this book, I spent time at Primo with Melissa Kelly, who's very much a family style of chef. She cooks the kind of food you'd want to serve at home, only she does it beautifully, and with the very finest of ingredients. So I love all kinds of cooks. In fact, I felt most comfortable in Melissa's kitchen. It was a comfortable, wonderful kitchen she ran. So all kinds, but they've got to be doing it well, and they've got to be passionate about it, and they've got to really care about what they're doing. Do you have a title and publication date for the book? It's tentatively called The Reach of a Chef, and its going to be published in about a year. I'm just finishing it now. Can you tell us more about which chefs and topics the book will cover? I return to the CIA, where my life as a cook and a writer about food began. It will also follow up on Keller, and where he is and what's changed in his life and the new restaurant. I spent time with Grant Achatz at both Trio and Alinea. There's some television stuff, about Emeril and Rachael Ray. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on those two! Well, I admire them and they're unusual and original in their own right. And they're pros at what they do, and I always admire that. So that’s where I stand on the Emeril and Rachael thing. I don't judge what they do or the American public for adoring them as thoroughly as they do. I'm just fascinated by it. You’ve written a number of books with chefs. Will you ever fly solo? Will there be a Michael Ruhlman Cookery Book? I'd like to do a book about ratios -- a sort of anti-recipe cookbook. I've always been fascinated by ratios. For instance, how many yolks per liter or quart of liquid will give you the perfect custard? If you always knew the ratio, it would make cooking that much easier: the consommé ratio, or the mayonnaise ratio -- one cup per one yolk of egg. Once you know these basic ratios, you have real freedom to cook well anything you want. So I'm fascinated about exploring that whole idea. Your next book due to be published is Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, with chef Brian Polcyn. Who came up with the initial idea, Brian or yourself? It was my idea. I've always been fascinated by this kind of cooking -- by the craft of terrines, confits and sausages. It really started with my fascination with confits; something that was so good, so delicious to eat was originally a utilitarian dish. That it was done to preserve the food and that we still did it because it tastes so good -- I was fascinated by that. I wanted to explore the various parts of the charcutiers craft, and I needed somebody with more knowledge than I in the actual cooking of it to do that. So I called my friend Brian Polcyn, who's been teaching it for 10 years and is really good at it and loved it, and said, "Brian, do you want to do a book together?" and he said, "You bet." and that’s how the book came about! I explore my own passions for the food in each of the chapters, which cover confit, salting , smoking, pates and terrines, sausages, dry-cured sausages, and condiment and sauces. Did you do much of the cooking for the book yourself, or was it down to Brian to do that side of things? Brian did most of the recipes, and I would test them, and then we'd talk about them if something went wrong or something was unclear. He'd send them to me in "chef-speak" and I would re-write them in the form they are now in the book, in a more user-friendly way. Our aim was to make this stuff more accessible to the home cook. It’s the kind of cooking in America that’s rarely done anymore, and we wanted people at home to feel more comfortable with it. But our aim was also not dumb it down, either, so that it was valuable to working chefs. In the kitchens that I've been in, pate making and sausage making are not well-understood among chefs. There are ways to perfect the sausage, there are ways to perfect a terrine, and I wanted to explore those things, so that’s why we did the book. I guess during the process of writing the book you ended up eating a lot of terrines and pates and sausages? I ate a lot of pork fat for the past couple of years, a lot of sausage. I'm a sucker for confit pork belly and I'd eat deep-fried pork belly -- deep-fried confit pork belly -- and it's fantastic. Is there the same tradition of preserving meats in America as there is in France and Germany, for example? Not in the same way as in Europe, but we do have frontier cooking, and that's where our so-called charcuterie techniques come from -- salting and smoking mainly. The key here is that America's food traditions, for the most part, happened after all the technology that allows us to preserve food had taken hold. Our food happened after refrigeration; we didn't need to preserve this stuff in the way they did for centuries in Europe, so that’s why we have less of a charcuterie tradition here in the United states. There are some frontier recipes in the book. Beef jerky is a great one from America, but its also done in many cultures. Just the idea of salting food to preserve it, salting a duck breast or salting a venison loin, that was done as a matter of course by American pioneers or they didn't survive. They just didn't last. So people had to know how to smoke and salt food. It was critical to their survival. Once you started writing the book, were you surprised by how much there was to write about the subject, or had you anticipated that it would fill 400 pages? It turned out to be incredibly hard. I had no idea what I was getting into. So much harder than either Brian or I had anticipated. And then it became even harder once our editor asked us to include metric measurements as well, because they don't translate directly, and it's a real pain in the ass. Plus, salt is a critical component in so much of this cooking, and different types of salt weigh differently. Brian was using Diamond Crystal and that weighed five ounces per cup, and I was using Morton's kosher, and that weighed eight ounces per cup, so it was a big headache. There's so much more nuance to this cooking than I ever had imagined. There aren't many books on charcuterie. Could this one become the standard text on the subject? I hope so. We're getting some nice blurbs from folks like Judy Rogers at Zuni Café who are thrilled that there is a book on charcuterie out there now like this. There is really very little out there. There's stuff for the professional cook. The CIA has a nice book on charcuterie, and there's Jane Grigson's well-known book from the 1970's, I believe, but there's nothing modern and there's nothing for the home cook. That’s why we were able to sell the idea of a book that is essentially a love song to pork fat and salt, which is not exactly a love of most Americans, no matter how much they devour their McDonalds. You mentioned during your eGullet Society Q&A of 2003 that you were working on the screenplay for Making of a Chef. Is the film out soon? The screenplay is a finished product and there's a director who's interested in it, and as soon as he finishes his movie with Hilary Swank that he's doing, he'd like to do Making of a Chef next. We have to get it set up with Paramount or someone like that for it to be viable, but there is a script out there and good producers who are excited about it. How faithful is the script to the book? It uses cooking school and the basic opening premise of Making of a Chef as a launching point for a story of a man in crisis, who finds himself through cooking and actually turns his life around by becoming a cook. You're taking part in an eGullet Society Roundtable event on the future of dining. What is the restaurant scene like where you live in Cleveland? It's fair. There a few really talented cooks, but it's nothing like the restaurant scene in New York or Chicago or SF or the Napa Valley. I wish that it were, but it's just too hard to lure talented cooks here, and the dining scene is rather unsophisticated, so you tend to get a lot of chefs complaining that they can only serve a certain type of food and that they have to serve heaping piles of it because midwestern America just wants quantity rather than quality. So it's a frustrating place for chefs. Someone like Michael Symon helps to educate people -- turn people around -- and there's a handful of chefs in Cleveland that are of that caliber. I've just finished reading your most recent book House, where you examine your reasons for wanting to settle in Cleveland. Was there ever a time when you thought that you would have to move simply because there weren't enough good restaurants in the city? No, certainly not because of the restaurant scene. I do enough traveling to get to the restaurants I want to get to. We don't go out much when I'm here because when I'm home, I'm home, and I want to be with my family. You spent some time working as a line cook. Did it ever cross your mind to open your own restaurant? In moments of gross desperation and financial panic, yeah, but ultimately I'm not a business man. I'm a terrible business person, and ultimately it’s a business you're running. I was trying to figure out some way to be in the business -- somehow part-time in a business sense that would also allow me to continue writing and reporting. But I haven’t quite found that niche that would allow me to actually work in the industry. I'm too old to be a cook. It's too hard for me now to do it physically. I'm 42 years old, just, and you know, I couldn't do it anymore. It's too fuckin' hard. With Cooking Under Fire, you've broken into TV. Is that something you'd like to do more of? I'd love to more of it because it's physically very easy and fun to do. It could pay me something in addition to what I make writing and I always need that. And I see that there's an actual audience for it. I love the idea of TV and reaching more people through it, but I'd be more of an educational person than an entertainer, because I'm not that really entertaining on screen -- and to do TV, you've got to be entertaining. Does your TV work distract from your writing, or is it complementary? If it doesn't take up too much time, it's wonderful. This recent series took a total of three weeks out of my life. I learned a lot, I met a lot of great chefs, saw some cities and restaurants I hadn't seen before. So I got a lot out of it. It was very quick and paid me decent money and I had a ball, so it was awesome. Finally, I'd like to ask you what you think about the eGullet Society, and how you use and contribute to it. It’s a hell of a way to procrastinate when I'm at home working, and that’s a really regrettable feature of it. I find it very hard not to, every now-and-then throughout the day just sort of check out who's on and what's being said. But seriously, I enjoy it. I enjoy the intelligence of the people on it and their candor and their thoughtfulness. I really like the media section that often alerts me to articles I never would have seen otherwise, or known about, and that’s a really valuable part of it for me. It's fun and it's nice to be a part of this community that loves food and cooking. I really like and admire the Society. Michael Ruhlman will be a panelist on the upcoming eG Spotlight Round Table on The Future of Dining, 26 to 30 September 2005 <i>Andy Lynes is a freelance food writer based in Brighton, England. His work appears in </i>Restaurant<i> magazine, </i>Caterer and Hotelkeeper<i>, </i>olive<i> magazine, </i>Square Meal Trade Brief<i>, </i>The Guardian<i> and other publications. Andy sits on the committee of the UK's Guild of Food Writers and edits its newsletter. Andy was a founding affiliate of eGullet.org and is a former Dean of the eGCI. He is currently the UK forum host and sits on the editorial board of the Daily Gullet. Andy lives in Brighton with his wife Gill, children George (12) and Alice (7) and Lulu the German Shorthaired Pointer.</i>

The Daily Gullet is pleased to present the second of three excerpts from the just-released book The Seasoning of a Chef: My Journey from Diner to Ducasse and Beyond (Broadway, 2005). Part one is here. by Doug Psaltis with Michael Psaltis What made me realize I was in the right place [Alain Ducasse New York, aka ADNY -- ed], and that I would fight to stay there, was the kitchen itself. It was levels ahead of any I had ever been in. In just about every other kitchen I had worked in at least part of the accomplishment was stretching to overcome physical limitations. There was no creative rearranging to overcome design shortcomings, and no corners were cut in creating this kitchen. It was not nearly the biggest kitchen in New York, but everything from the hundreds of pen-tip size fiber-optic lights that would provide light above the stations to the hand-crafted stove was designed for excellence. It was clear that the cooks wouldn’t be challenged to exceed the limitations of the kitchen, but to reach the level of excellence it made possible. When you entered from the dining room, the kitchen’s automatic swinging doors opened to reveal a dazzling black tile floor and gleaming stainless-steel equipment. It was an open kitchen with a large window that overlooked the main dining room, and there was even a private dining room in the kitchen. The massive stove took up much of the kitchen. It had three flattops and one plancha, a mirrorlike metal griddle. All of the stations would work around the stove. The pass would be on the side closest to the dining room. The chef would stand between the stove and an island (the servers’ pass), and the servers would pick up plates that he put onto the island. The dishwashers would be in a separate room off the kitchen, and the front of the house would have a separate room for its own preparations. It was hard not to appreciate the stylish side of the kitchen. It is as much of a show kitchen as those on the Food Network, but this one is truly functional. As a cook, I appreciated the details more than anything. Attention to detail is what Ducasse is all about. The thought that went into everything was incredible, and this wasn’t just regarding the kitchen. The day after we unpacked the pans, we started moving in the products—dry goods, produce, and meats. Also on the scene that day were some of the staff for the front of the house. Part of their day was spent being fitted for their uniforms, which had been specifically designed for the restaurant. The uniforms, custom designed for Ducasse, were both elegant and stylish. The front of the house would also have a second set of custom-designed uniforms that were to be worn when they were setting up. For a restaurant to purchase uniforms for servers for preservice work was unheard of. These weren’t just aprons. They were full outfits, nearly as fancy as their serving attire. The first two weeks at ADNY were a blur. From the very first day, though, everyone knew his place in the kitchen. There was a solid chain of command, a rigid order. The positions in Ducasse’s kitchen are based on the traditional French model. There was, of course, Alain Ducasse at the top, then Didier as the chef de cuisine, then Olivier as the sous chef, then there was a chef de partie of each station: the entremetier (in charge of hot appetizers in Ducasse’s kitchen), the gardemanger (cold apps), the poissonier (fish), and rotisseur (meat)—the pastry station, which also baked all of the bread, was separate. On all of these stations, the chef de partie was the saucier (in charge of the sauces) and the manager. He was truly the chef of the station, responsible for everything and everyone, from ordering, receiving, and evaluating the principal products for the station, to the dishes we sent to the pass, to how we cooked and dressed. Then there was a demi chef de partie, who did most of the actual cooking during service, and then there were a few commis—the lowest-level cook, who did whatever was needed. Everyone knew his position, and everyone answered to the man above him and for the man below him. A lot of kitchens are focused and competitive, but this was more like the marine corps than a restaurant. We were there to do a job and to do it absolutely perfectly. It didn’t matter if you were good buddies with the guy working next to you or if you absolutely hated him. All that mattered was doing more than was expected of you. The first time I heard the sous chef yell in his harsh broken English, “What the fuck is this! You insult me with this shit! This is shit!” it was over a broken sauce, in which the elements hadn’t emulsified correctly. It was a scream of incomprehension, something that you might expect from someone who had just watched a stranger walk up to his mother in public and slap her. This was in the middle of the day when we were only cooking through the menu and plating the dishes so that we could understand them and perfect them. The recipient was a French cook who was the chef de partie of the station I was working on. He hung his head a bit but kept working. The restaurant wasn’t open. We weren’t even serving special guests. I didn’t know much more than oui and merci when I joined ADNY. I had started at the bottom of the kitchen, as a commis, but after just a few weeks I was moved up. The French guy who had been our chef de partie was suddenly moved off our station. Now I ran the station as the unofficial demi chef de partie, even though I didn’t know French and that was the only language used during service. For the first few days running the entremet station, I’d hear Didier call an order and I’d have to pause as I tried to figure out what he said before reacting. Olivier stayed near me most of the service to translate. “Hey, homard, lobster, vas-y,” he’d say. I was constantly behind, almost unable to keep up. I had to pick up French right away -- à la minute -- or I’d be gone. So, I took one of the first printed menus home. I translated as much of it as I could (mostly by calling Greenie, who had returned to Los Angeles after giving up on a small restaurant in the West Village that he helped run), and after the first service I had learned at least the main ingredient in every course that I was involved in. I went back to work the next day ready to listen for homard, petits pois, poularde, and more. But the menu had changed and only a few of the words I knew remained useful. I was back to memorizing in the time between work and sleep. + + + + + Halloween 2000 was in most ways like every other holiday for me: I was working. What made this day different, though, was that by midnight we’d be certain of our fate. I knew by the time service was over that night, when the New York Times was first available on the newsstand, we’d either be celebrating or facing changes. I’d been in charge of the entremet station for a few months, even though I still hadn’t been given the official title. Just before service that night, while I was working to finish the entremet station’s mise en place, Didier came by the station. “En place, Doog?” he asked. “Doog” was how all the French guys said my name. But I didn’t mind, as it was a lot better than “dog,” which is what they thought my name was for the first two weeks. “Oui, chef,” I replied. At ADNY just as the service began, while all of the cooks were checking over every little detail, the kitchen’s lighting was changed. All day the room was brightly lit, but for service only the lights that were necessary were used. The lights accentuated our focus. Hundreds of little fiber-optic bulbs shone in the precise locations where we would work while the rest of the space was unlit. All of the distractions were removed. The stage was set, the show was about to begin. Didier began to call out the orders—no one else spoke—and we all moved. First just a few of us and then everyone. There was little noise, except the sounds of cooking. The level of focus in the kitchen that night, as on most others, was extremely high. I was managing all of the orders we had coming in to our station and what we were sending to the pass, and I realized that we were running out of ravioli. As soon as I recognized that, I had Brendan (“Soda Pop”) start rolling out dough. It would take only a few minutes to get the dough rolled out and cut, so we wouldn’t miss a beat in the service. But, while running the dough through the machine, Soda Pop mangled it. A pasta machine has several settings, with the highest number being the largest space between rollers and the lowest number being the smallest space. When you first start running the dough through the pasta maker you start with the highest number. Then, as the dough is being rolled out and thinned by the machine, you decrease the setting. The process is gradual. If you start by rolling the dough through a low setting, you will likely shred it. When you’re done, you must always turn the dial back up to the high setting so the next person doesn’t ruin his dough. No one had done so on this machine and Soda Pop was left with a mess of green dough. Having no more spinach dough to make the ravioli with, Soda Pop started rolling out the egg dough. Within a few minutes, he had enough ravioli to get us through the night. I knew that Didier had seen what was going on; he didn’t miss anything. When I sheepishly sent the first egg dough ravioli to the pass, Didier immediately yelled out to me, “Doog, qu’est-ce que c’est cette merde?” (Doug, what is this shit?) He pushed the plate with his hand and nearly knocked it off the pass. His face was bright red. Just then Ducasse, who was with us in the kitchen that night, started yelling his name from another side of the kitchen. I had gotten used to hearing Ducasse yell “Didier” rapidly about ten times whenever he was unhappy with something. That was his way of calling him over to fix something, which could be anything from how a cook was searing a piece of meat to how something was being stirred. The new ravioli were reluctantly used and we were off the hook. They weren’t spinach dough ravioli, but at least we had some and we hadn’t lost more than a beat or two. What Soda Pop couldn’t have anticipated -- mostly because I was keeping track of the order tickets for the station -- was that we were about to run out of spaghettini as well. So, when he used the egg dough for the raviolis, he had closed the door on making new spaghettini. Telling Didier that we had no more spaghettini for the night, as Ducasse stood right behind him, was easily the hardest thing I had yet to do in that kitchen. I knew nothing about tension before I stood in front of the two of them as they exchanged several heated words in French. I stood there waiting for a verdict. While I hadn’t been directly involved in the pasta fiasco, I was running the station and so this was my fault. A handful of painful minutes later, an alternative was found -- we would stretch each portion of pasta that we had and add more veg to the dish -- and we moved on. After service that night, Brendan was very apologetic and thanked me for being in the middle of the fire. I understood what he meant, but all the same I told him his thanks weren’t necessary. We had withstood the heat, so it really didn’t matter as long as we did better the next time. Regardless of how hard you try, how much work you put in, everything can’t always go as planned. Later that night, when the newspaper came out, the news we were awaiting only confirmed that fact. + + + + + This is the second of three excerpts. Part one is here. Doug Psaltis is the Executive Chef of Country Restaurant, which will open soon in New York City. He has cooked in some of the world’s finest restaurants and with some of the most acclaimed chefs. Michael Psaltis is a literary agent in New York City. He works with both fiction and nonfiction authors through his own literary agency, and also heads up a division of Regal Literary that is dedicated solely to food writers and cookbook authors. Copyright © 2005 by Doug Psaltis and Michael Psaltis. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

by Ya-Roo Yang "There isn’t a person in America who hasn’t fantasized about having a business that involves food," Clark Wolf tells me over the phone. "The first thing people do when they make a lot of money is to think about buying a bed-and-breakfast, a vineyard, or trying their hand at a cheese-making place, or running an artisan bakery. Americans do value good food. People want to have something that relates to them, and nothing is more important than food." He should know. As a food and restaurant consultant (Clark Wolf Company) with more than 25 years of experience under his belt, Wolf has worked with a wide range of clients, from institutions such as the California Milk Advisory Board to restaurants like the legendary Russian Tea Room and megahotels like Caesars Palace and Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. "As Americans, we try to pretend that food is cheap and easy to get, and we rely on it to make us feel safe," Wolf says philosophically. "We realize the value of a good meal across a warm family table." Perhaps this sounds a bit esoteric. Then again, Wolf is not your average food and restaurant consultant. He’s sharp and howlingly funny. He writes for several magazines, including Food Arts, Sante and Forbes; designs a line of tableware with Fortessa, and is working on a book about American-made cheese. For someone who has garnered such accolades as the "slam dunk, hit city food consultant" and the "Merchandising Maestro," Wolf seemed to me more like a renaissance man. "In ancient times, you'd study classics -- basic pieces of knowledge -- to become a refined, complete person," Wolf suggests. "The study of food could be the core of a new classic course of study. Through food you can study history, anthropology, chemistry, biology, sociology, economics, and politics. Everything is connected. It’s the only place in the world where I believe in a trickle-down theory." While one can expound on theories, it takes a lot more than that to make a restaurant successful, so I decided to ask him about the practical aspect of the business. "There are several keys to being a restaurant consultant," Wolf explained. "I have to be able to help nurture a business, acting as if it’s my own and never forgetting that it’s not. I help people learn and help them keep learning. Education allows you to succeed." Another key, according to Wolf, is knowing where to get good food. "Having grown up in California, I have benchmarks for what things taste like. Knowing that puts me ahead of most chefs and restaurateurs." "My mantra is: not simple, not simple, not simple," he declares. But, aren’t the best things in life the simplest ones? "Really good simplicity is hard to do," he clarifies. "Simple emotional experience -- that I believe in. Once you have that plate of food, it should be a clear, straightforward experience." Wolf believes that much of the food and restaurant business is common sense. "If a food comes in a package that looks like it should hold tennis balls, don’t eat it! It probably tastes like a tennis ball," he said emphatically. "When I go to a natural food store and see labels that say "conventional" produce, it’s not. It’s industrial food! People get upset about paying two dollars for a peach. I tell them that that two dollars will save you and your family hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs later in your life. That two dollars and a brisk walk will save you a bundle. He’s also of the opinion that there are no hard-and-fast rules to success. "The industry has guidelines, but they're never gospels," he said. "Sometimes redoing something is a bad idea, but sometimes it’s right. It depends." Going beyond their own sphere of experience tends to happen away from home. "Americans like to learn about new food and drinks on vacation," Wolf says. "And since 9/11, vacation has been closer to home. This has fueled some really really good food in Vegas. It used to be that in Vegas, 90% of money went into gambling. Now it’s 40%. People are spending money on shopping, shows and good restaurants. It’s practically a political act to do a restaurant in Vegas." I muttered something about Vegas being an arena for celebrity-chef egos. "I prefer to work with chefs in their post-jerk phase," he stated unequivocally. "When they get more confident, and when their other testicle descends, they tend to be better people. I do not need to give my money to talented jerks. Cranky is fine, impatient is fine, but you've got to be kind to people." Are there any clients he refused to work with? "I have fired a few clients," he replied. "I don’t take clients unless I believe in them. In a few cases, people I've walked away from went on to be successful and I am still glad that I wasn't a part of it." That raised the question of what inspires him to be a part of a business. "Recognizing magic," he answered definitively. "One of the jobs of a consultant is to recognize and promote alchemy. The whole has to be more than its parts. Consulting is not just about the present. It's about connecting with the past and approaching the future. I feel very fortunate and I work very hard. I love doing stuff that has an impact." Clark Wolf will be a panelist on the upcoming eG Spotlight Round Table on The Future of Dining, 26-30 September 2005 Ya-Roo Yang (aka Bond Girl) is a New York forum host.

<img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1126454164/gallery_29805_1195_14466.jpg">by Brooks Hamaker<br><br>It’s not very pretty, no matter the brush used to paint it. Somewhere in the neighborhood of one million people have been displaced from greater New Orleans, and by greater New Orleans I mean not only the parts that many of you think of -- Jackson Square; the Moonwalk (which in typical New Orleans fashion, has nothing to do with the moon, but everything to do with a politician who helped get it built); Royal Street; the Garden District; Uptown; Treme; Faubourg-Marigny; Bywater; Carrollton Avenue; City Park; the Fairgrounds; St. Charles Avenue; and many, many other places that tourists have occasion to visit -- but also Chalmette, Algiers, the Northshore, Metairie, and Kenner, which are just as much New Orleans as the CBD. Ask anyone who lives there -- they’ll tell you right quick, Cap. Tonight, I watched one more endless video stream “live from the mean streets of New Orleans.” It occurred to me that, unless you happen to be from New Orleans or have spent a whole lot of time there, there is no way that you can understand what it’s like for natives to watch these scenes unfold. We’re scattered across the country, but we scan the same images, looking not for dead bodies or the occasional looter, but trying to identify where in the hell the cameras are pointed. New Orleans has many, many identifiable neighborhoods. In a flash, a native can figure out what part of town is being shown. St Stephen’s Church? That’s Napoleon and Magazine. Wagner’s Meats (You can’t beat our Meat!)? That’s Claiborne (Claybone) Avenue . Those cars all up and down the street? People moved them to keep them out of the water. It usually works. You just move your car to the neutral ground, wait on the water to go up and come down, and go get your car back. Well, this time the water got a little high, and it’s taking a while to go back down. The owner may be miles -- or states -- away, or not able to ever come back to get their former pride and joy. This time, sadly, there may not be anyone to go back and reclaim the car. I’ve spent a great deal of my life (not to mention money) hanging around New Orleans in the thick of the food-and-music scene. So when I see shots of neighborhoods, I think of clubs, restaurants, and bars. Maybe it sounds cold, but the first thing that I thought of when I heard that the water was rising fast in the industrial canal and flooding the Ninth Ward (that’s Nint Wahd, to locals) was not the lives that were in danger (well, not entirely) but what would happen to the Saturn Bar, St. Roch Cemetery, and the Captain’s Houses. When the 17th Street canal broke, I heard about it on local radio station WWL. Loyal and attentive listeners were told that the canal had broken “right behind Deanie’s on the City Park side,” and that “Sid Mar’s had washed through the hole.” A foreigner listening to the radio might not make much sense of that, but if you were from New Orleans, you knew exactly where they were talking about. It was a great way to describe the location, considering that this is a town where directions are often a combination of “Uptown, Downtown, Lakeside, Riverside.” Another long shot of Rampart Street: the cameras cross over Treme, going for one more long, too-often repeated shot of the Vieux Carre. Look down and see the Municipal Auditorium, WWOZ, Peristyle, Mama Rosa’s, and the Funky Butt. All of these places have gotten my time and money over the years. I saw Van Morrison, The New Orleans Brass, and Harrah’s Temporary Casino in the Auditorium. I remember when Oz was on top of Tipitina’s at Tchopitoulas and Napoleon, and when it moved to Armstrong Park. I listened to late-night shows with back-to-back appearances by J Monque D and Ernie K. Doe (one of the wildest nights in regularly scheduled radio history. The tapes are still traded among those in the know.) I remember (though not very clearly) stumbling down St. Louis Street from the Funky Butt after a long night of real jazz with Astral Project, or the Dozen, or any of dozens of the unsung and underpaid heroes of the New Orleans music scene. As the water rose, many of us mentally checked off the streets that held our favorite restaurants and clubs. Not only would we be very unlikely to be eating there or listening to music there any time soon, but we wondered what was going on with the people that had worked there. With the exception of a lucky few, most people in New Orleans have been born and raised living hand-to-mouth -- including the owners of many of the funky little dives that tourists often fall in love with. And if the owners aren’t getting rich, think about your waitress, or the guy who washes the dishes, or parks your car, or carries your bag. These folks didn’t live where tourists often travel, but they had homes just like you and me, and the areas that they lived in have been among the most severely affected. Many of these people have left New Orleans for good -- but the ones that return? Man, will they have some stories to tell. Epic tales of long trips, hardship, strange customs in stranger lands, and finally of their triumphant return to the City that Care Forgot (no moniker could be more accurate at the moment). That’s what I am waiting on. Those stories. I’m waiting to drive in on Friday afternoon, weary from a long day at work but not so tired that I am willing to pay the parking thieves for one of their little spots. I will circle around on Esplanade, make the turn onto Chartres, and head back to Frenchman Street, looking for a free spot in the block behind Doerr Furniture, just past Santa Fe Restaurant. I’ll grab my stuff, double-check to make sure I didn’t leave anything in the car that I might ever want again, and stroll off down Frenchman: past Snug Harbor, Café Brasil, Mona’s, the Praline Connection, a cool tattoo parlor that tempts me every time I go by it, and finally out of the Faubourg past Checkpoint Charlie’s. I’ll cross Esplanade and make a right. On down to Royal Street and into the Quarter, past the block of residential property, past the Golden Lantern (Home of the Mr. Leather Contest, where I was once the celebrity “straight” judge), Bennachin African Restaurant, Mona Lisa’s, and into the Verdi Mart. I’ll get a newspaper, a quart of milk, a couple of bottles of club soda, a couple of Hubig’s pies (lemon, thanks) and a pint of whatever Ben and Jerry’s looks right. I’ll go outside, walk across the street, unlock the door, and walk into the courtyard, marveling as I always do at the fact that it’s been there so long and looked so much the same all these many years. Once I put my things up, I’ll head back, tripping down Gov. Nicholls to Decatur and through the French Market. Over to the Moonwalk, all the way down the river, past the Aquarium. There, I’ll walk over and ask where my son’s brick is (I never can remember where that damn thing is). Once I satisfy myself that it’s still there, I’ll walk a few blocks down Canal and make the right back into the Quarter onto Royal. I’ll probably check in at the Monteleone, just to make sure that the Carousel is still going ‘round, and then I’ll go past the Supreme Court Building (formerly known as the Wildlife and Fisheries building, formerly known as the old Supreme Court Building -- this is a very complicated structure), past the folks lining up for dinner at Brennan’s that evening, past the antique stores, the cool old gun shop, the Rib Room in the bottom of the Royal Orleans (maybe they will enlarge the rooms, finally, as they redo it), and then, just before I get home, I’ll stop in at P.J.s and get a large iced coffee to go. A real iced coffee, made the way that apparently no one else in the Deep South knows how to make it -- big go cup (not syrofoam --cardboard or plastic), ice, dark roast coffee (no chicory, no cow, thanks). And then, I’ll go back home and put my feet up and watch WWL as they report on the latest Saints disaster. One thing is for sure, though. When I take that walk -- one that I have taken for years -- you can bet on one thing, that no matter where I am, I’ll be walking on the sunny side of the street. Many of the places I have mentioned might be unfamiliar to you, but if you have ever been to New Orleans -- even once -- others were not. I know you pictured those landmarks, along with what were once unremarkable places, and you remembered that trip. You might have a photo on your wall of you and some loved one standing in front of General Jackson with St Louis Cathedral in the background. Or maybe, on some shelf, you have a hurricane glass from Pat O’s filled with change. Maybe it’s a string or two of hard-earned Mardi Gras beads hanging from a rear-view, or a couple of Carnival doubloons tucked into a dresser drawer. A ticket from the Superbowl or the Final Four pinned behind a Superdome magnet on your fridge. No matter the souvenir you chose to keep from your visit, one thing is sure, you left part of your heart in New Orleans. We can’t wait until you can come back and try to find it. Brooks Hamaker (aka Mayhaw Man), is a lifelong resident of Louisiana. He lives with his family and razor-sharp wit in Abita Springs, Lousiana. Brooks is a regular contributor to Chile Pepper Magazine, the Daily Gullet, and anyone else with ink, money, and the ability to deal with someone who is consistently late where deadlines are concerned. Art by Dave Scantland, aka Dave the Cook.

<img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1126156051/gallery_29805_1195_5320.jpg">The Daily Gullet is pleased to present the first of three excerpts from the forthcoming book The Seasoning of a Chef: My Journey from Diner to Ducasse and Beyond (Broadway, 13 September 2005). by Doug Psaltis with Michael Psaltis<br> LaMotta’s, a seafood restaurant in a wealthy town on the north shore of Long Island, had both inside and outside dining areas. The deck dining area looked out to the marina and wrapped around the building. The last table on the deck was only a few feet away from the kitchen’s back door. During my first few weeks working there, I spent a lot of time staring out that back door watching people enjoy themselves. I couldn’t help but wish I was out there, too, eating steamers and drinking beer. But I’d pay a price for this daydreaming, on a busy Thursday afternoon during my third week on the job.<br> We were in the middle of lunch service and I was shucking oysters by the dozen, crushing ice to serve with them, and then back to shucking more oysters. I grabbed the first of a new dozen and laid it on the counter. The palm of my left hand pressed the oyster to the counter as the oyster knife in my right hand pushed and jerked its way into the shell’s opening. It takes a lot of force to open an oyster shell and I’d gotten a lot of little cuts when I paid too much attention to a boat passing by or another rich girl sitting down for a mid-week lunch.<br> As I’m opening the next oyster, I watch Ronbo (which is what we called Chef Ron Labo) at the grill. Darrin is helping him -- and working the deep fryer -- but they’re buried in orders. It’s an unusually busy Thursday afternoon, and true to form LaMotta’s owner, Guy LaMotta (or GLM, as he called himself), is on the scene. Whenever we are really slammed with orders, he comes into the kitchen to ask us to make him something special. This day he’s coming in and out of the kitchen in his aviator sunglasses making sure his table gets whatever they want. <br> From what I can see, the outside deck is filling up with what looks like a college graduation party. There are several cute girls out there. Then I look down to see blood flowing around my hand. I don’t feel much pain, but I can see a tear in the side of my left hand. It’s a deep cut and I almost get sick looking at it. I rush over to the sink with a towel pressed to my hand. There’s still no pain, but there’s lots of blood. Chris, another cook, comes over to help me. Chris is almost always sweating and nervous during service. He gives me more towels and then yells to the chef that I cut myself. Ronbo looks over his shoulder quickly, but he barely has the time to make a grimace before turning back to the grill.<br> “It looks bad,” Chris says. “You should probably get to the hospital.”<br> I remove the towel and look at the cut. It’s at least an inch long and deep, but the bleeding is starting to slow down. GLM comes up behind me and Chris disappears. “Let me see,” GLM says and I show it to him. I don’t know if he even looks at my hand before leading me out of the kitchen and toward the kitchen office. He starts searching around the office, looking, I assume, for the first aid kit while I stand in the entrance waiting for him to tell me how to get to the hospital. Then he turns to me and takes my hand in his. He removes the towel and starts wrapping duct tape around my hand. He’s taping my hand up tight. Around and around, he wraps the tape. I look at him to see if he’s serious -- his weathered face is expressionless. He keeps wrapping the tape around my hand. Then he stops and grabs my hand firmly. “How does that feel?” he asks.<br> I look at my hand, and twist my wrist back and forth. Besides the tape being a bit tight, it feels: “Fine,” I say.<br> “Good, let’s get back in there,” he says, patting my shoulder and leading the way out of the office and into the kitchen. And I’m back to shucking the oysters, except now I have to catch up with the orders I’m behind on, and putting any force on my left hand hurts. I know there’s no way to stop doing my job without walking out the door for good, but that’s not even an option -- actually that thought has never entered my mind. I made a mistake, but I definitely wasn’t going to quit because of it. The cut -- and any pain that goes with it -- is just incidental: a small complication to getting my work done.<br> <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1126207539/gallery_29805_1195_7908.jpg">After the lunch service died down, Ron surprised me by being mostly upset with GLM. While he warned me about being careful and told me to use a towel wrapped around my left hand instead of just using a bare hand when shucking, he didn’t think duct tape was the best way to take care of the problem -- even if I didn’t need stitches and my hand would end up being fine. As I leaned against the deck outside of the kitchen, Ron smoked a cigarette and told me about the many times he’d gotten cut or burned. With the cigarette dangling from his mouth, he stuck his hands out to me. They were thick and rough -- battle scarred. “You’ve got to remember,” he said, “you’re here to help the restaurant, but the restaurant isn’t always here to help you. You have to take care of yourself, because sometimes no one else will.” <br> I didn’t just stop daydreaming after that; I changed my whole reason for being there. I had taken the job at LaMotta’s because it seemed to be as good a job as any other, but I quickly realized that it would take more than just being at LaMotta’s to ever really cook in that kitchen. The clearest of all separations in most kitchens is between the cooks who are there to learn and to be a part of something and the cooks who are there just to work. I wasn’t satisfied doing prep work all day, but I was sure that GLM would have been content if I had just clocked in, done that work, and left. That’s mostly what I’d done at the other restaurants I’d worked in, but I wanted more. I wasn’t there just to work. <br> I realized that if I wanted to cook there, I’d have to do more than check in and stare out the kitchen door. I was determined that when something was being done in the kitchen that I had never seen before, I’d be among the first in the kitchen to volunteer to help out. And, if I got hurt because I wasn’t paying attention, my distraction would be something in the kitchen -- not a passing boat or beauty. <br><br> <i>Doug Psaltis is the Executive Chef of Country Restaurant, which will open soon in New York City. He has cooked in some of the world’s finest restaurants and with some of the most acclaimed chefs. Michael Psaltis is a literary agent in New York City. He works with both fiction and nonfiction authors through his own literary agency, and also heads up a division of Regal Literary that is dedicated solely to food writers and cookbook authors. Copyright © 2005 by Doug Psaltis and Michael Psaltis. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.</i>

<img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1124243374/gallery_29805_1195_3626.jpg">by Margaret McArthur I’m old enough that the words “open bar” shouldn’t sing that siren song. I should be smart enough not to strap on three-inch heels, but I’m not. And I shouldn’t have danced that crazy tango with my sister, but, well, I did. I teetered at the podium, a tousled, tipsy toastmistress. For a woman who hadn’t delivered an important address since her high school valedelictory, I was damned confident. I beheld my audience, a beaming roomful of pilgrims who’d gathered at the Ottawa Westin on September 23, 2000, to celebrate fifty years of perfect romantic married love: half-century of wedded -- no other word for it -- bliss. My parents’ golden anniversary. I’m not waxing poetic, gilding the lily, or slopping the truffle oil. Despite a breadbasket brimming with health problems, frequent relocations, and four children whose combined escapades present the best possible case for free universal vasectomy, my parents’ marriage has that fairytale ending: they live happily ever after. A cousin held her girlfriend’s hand and sighed. “Gee, it’s tough being around Auntie and Uncle, knowing that no matter how hard you try, your relationship is never going to be as good as theirs.” Another cousin looked grim despite our frequent meetings at the bar. It’s hard not to be wistful at the shores of the sea of love when your marital lifeboat is about to ram the iceberg and sink without a trace. And I’d held the hair of an old family friend as she knelt on the marble floor of the ladies' room barfing beaujolais, and wondering, “Why can’t I feel married the way they feel married?” My parents’ passionate paradigm intimidates us lesser lovers, who can’t see the billets-doux for the bills. By the time I tinkled my glass with a fork still sticky with raspberry coulis, the room was mellow. The trio was on a between-set break, and all eyes were fixed on the septuagenarian lovers -- not, thank God, on the splat of sauce that accessorized the bodice of the frivolous purple frock I’d snatched from the sale rack at Banana Republic. They’re a handsome couple: a tall blonde in a Marlene Dietrich-style black evening suit and a fuchsia silk blouse and scarf she’d picked up at Holt Renfrew the same weekend I bought my second fridge. (The blouse rang up at six bucks more than the Kenmore, and it didn’t feature an icemaker.) If Harrison Ford is lucky, he’ll resemble Daddy when he’s seventy-three. But no matter how often Harrison struts the red carpet, he’ll never wear a tux with the insouciance of Ian McArthur. A series of preprandial Glenfiddiches guaranteed I wouldn’t remember much of the speech I’d composed on my pillow the night before while digesting the feast my mother had provided for the welcome of the Oldest Child, and metabolizing Daddy’s killer Old Fashioneds. I’m sure I was fulsome, sentimental and over-the-top -- no snide daughterly jabs or Viagra jokes. I recounted their first date, engineered by my Aunt Char who thought her brother might take a shine to her leggy classmate. (That game at Mimico High was also the last time either of my parents has willingly sat through four quarters of basketball.) The courtship followed, featuring shameless necking in the stands of Varsity Stadium. I wended my way down Lover’s Lane, hitting all the romantic highlights: the wedding (my only quip: I noted that it was dry, to the general hilarity and disbelief of the audience), the honeymoon in Montreal, the move to Trois-Rivieres, the eager embrace of all the things that French-speaking people do better than we do. Summer holidays in the Pontiac station wagon, the trips to Europe, the time my nine-year-old-daughter caught them in flagrante delicto . . . I was rolling, peeps, more flowery than the chintz curtains in the guest bedroom or the Ontario ice wine in my glass. Like the silly endearments lovers whisper, nothing I said could sound sappy, because it was all true. I quoted The Rubaiyat, which my father had memorized to recite to his bride. I hit Sonnet Twenty-Nine, the mere mention of which makes their eyes well. I didn’t neglect to recite the wedding vows, explaining how my parents understand and honor them at a level most of us never approach. Daddy brushed away a tear with the knuckle of his right forefinger, and his wasn’t the only leaky eye in the room. It was time to ask the company to stand, and raise a glass. “To Marilyn and Ian, a couple that can swap spit with the big time: Antony and Cleopatra, Fred and Ginger, Pepe and Petunia . . .” “Bacon and eggs!” No one has better timing than my mother. To her, Romeo and Juliet were just a couple of rich teenagers who’d have eventually moved on to Tomasso, Ricardo or Lola. Bacon and eggs, now -- they’ll sizzle until the end of time. Unlike many of my girlfriends, I abandoned the struggle early and acknowledged that eternal truth: my mother is always right. Sure, we have differences about minor matters like religion, politics and football (Mummy loves it), but she is infallible on everything worth knowing, like why bacon and eggs belong in the pantheon of passion. I could wake up every morning with a plate of bacon and eggs. And toast. Let me explain what I’m describing here. “Bacon and eggs” means eggs sunny side up, fried in bacon fat. Scrambled eggs, poached eggs, eggs fried in butter -- even the delightfully smutty-sounding eggs over easy -- are pretenders on the plate. Bacon means streaky bacon, although we could work up a threesome if good back bacon is present, eager and willing. But lean Canadian bacon doesn’t sweat the sizzling puddle of hot grease required for cooking the eggs, so my guy on the side is American. The toast? A long thick slice of day old artisan boule makes the best toast on earth, but in a pinch I’ve substituted English Muffins, Wonder Bread and a two week old, soft-as-the-day-I-bought-it hamburger bun (after checking for blue fuzz). Rye bread, crumpets, bagels seven-grain loaf from the bread machine -- choose your carb -- anything that slides into the toaster slot. But know this: toast is essential. The saddest thing about the Atkins Diet is its cruel eagerness to let bacon and eggs lie naked and slippery on the plate. They need their crusty chaise longue. My parents eat B and E for lunch, their reward for the Puritan yogurt and shredded wheat with which they break their fast. I yearn for a bacon and eggs dinner at least once a week, but I’ve never broken sentimental tradition and given in to mere ease, economy and pleasure. I know, I know -- the matins of lapsed Episcopalians who observe the secular Sunday ritual of the New York Times must play out in a few hundred thousand kitchens every Sunday. But I won’t bother with self-examination, the meaning of ritual or spiritual sublimation. Week after week, year after year, I count on Sunday-morning bacon and eggs as the most reliably happy twenty minutes of the previous seven days. And much of the charm is that it’s the only day I luxuriate in breakfast. Winnie the Pooh had it right: <blockquote>'When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,' said Piglet at last, 'what's the first thing you say to yourself?' 'What's for breakfast?' said Pooh. 'What do you say, Piglet?' 'I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?' said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. 'It's the same thing,' he said. (A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner)</blockquote>And it is exciting to wake up on a Sunday and know you have eight ounces of bacon and an egg or two -- and seven pounds of newsprint lolling on the driveway. The stagger downstairs to turn on the coffee is less tortuous on Sunday. Still, retrieving the paper requires clothing, so I beat a retreat to the bathroom for a quick encounter with the toothbrush, soap and water, and whatever emollient has most recently suckered me into believing that it reduces the visible signs of aging. Besides, clothing isn’t optional when dealing with splattering bacon grease. (Gentlemen, don’t preen at the stove in your sixteen-year-old son’s drawstring pajama pants: graying chest hair is a brush fire waiting to happen. Ladies, the weekly cleaning bill for a splattered Victoria’s Secret teddy, prorated over twelve months, could better be spent on pedicures, a Le Creuset casserole or an orgy with a garden catalogue.) Sure, sweats are adequate, but admit it: you aren’t about to fish out a pair of pantyhose, tell him which tie to wear, then whistle up the kids for church. Would it kill you to pull on a pair of jeans and a shirt? Start with the bacon. A perfect world would provide a cast-iron skillet with a diameter that accommodates six strips of bacon, but even my twelve-inch Lodge flunks the test; half the strips are forced into nervous smiles, and their apprehension prevents them from cooking evenly. My alternative lets the bacon stretch out straight, and requires less attention. It also ensures that splattering is contained to my self-cleaning oven, and I don’t have to spend five minutes with a scrubbie and a bottle of 409, swabbing the walls, the stovetop and the back of the coffee grinder. Pull out your most disreputable sheet pan and deal those strips of bacon like the flop in a hand of Texas Hold ’Em. Put it in a cold oven, crank the heat up to 450, then fan the Sunday paper out on the table. Wait for the beep, which indicates the oven is up to temperature. This is very suspect science, but zero to 450 takes seventeen minutes in my gas oven: I have time to wish to that I could write like Maureen Dowd and memorize the salient portions of Sunday Styles before I tear myself away from the Vows story and heed the chime of the oven. I might have to turn a slice or three, but the bacon is usually flat, crispy and two minutes from incineration: -porky perfection. I drain it on three layers of paper towel -- on those rare Sundays it isn’t upstairs with the Windex it the bathroom -- otherwise, the business section does the job. The kitchen’s heating up. Pour the fat from the sheet pan into an eight-inch cast iron skillet, and fire up the flame -- make that fat sizzle! You have time to pull out a plate: a dinner plate. For years I squeezed and shimmied this feast onto a salad plate, a Calvinist crime; this spread needs to loll and languish, and the dishwasher doesn’t care what size the mattress is. Check for soft butter, and a spreader. Slice the bread, pop it into the toaster, and nudge the fridge door open with the left knee. Fumble for an egg. A kind foodie friend from cyberspace once shipped me two dozen eggs warm from her henhouse. In the hissing fat, the yolks stood up stiff, hard and perky as a starlet’s silicone, and they ran the orange of a Cadbury Crème Egg. The flavor was so intense and eggy that I moaned at the breakfast table. But I can’t hold to that ovoid standard every week. The egg from the Styrofoam carton is probably a week from its sell-by date, but the titty analogy wouldn’t be stretched to mention the considerable charms of a natural breast bestowed with the character that a few years rack up. Dude. It’s still sexy. Pick up a tablespoon and dip it into the fat. Baste the egg, with special attention to the white, so you firm what my brother called the “egg snot.” Ten passes with the spoon will firm the albumen and veil the yolk, as tenderly as tulle over the face of a dewy bride. God, the toast! It’s easy to forget when you’re trying to coax perfection from an egg sunny side up. Although cooking the egg is a matter of seconds, you must remember the raft, the couch, the mattress. Pull the toast from its slot, butter it, and spread it like a book on the plate. Plunk the egg on one page, the bacon on the other. Dust the egg with salt -- I love the crunch of fleur de sel -- and rub out three grinds of your Peugeot’s coarsest. Dip the knife into the yolk and watch it spurt, half onto the plate, half lapping the bread. Cut a cube of toast, dip it into the golden mess on the plate, and spear an inch of bacon. Close your eyes and savor the crisp and the soft, the salt and the suave. It’s not transubstantiation, conversion or orgasm: it’s yin and yang on your tongue. It’s holding hands across the real estate section, it’s kissing while you do the dishes. It’s hearing him whistle I’m in the Mood for Love through the window of your Florentine hotel room when he returns from the farmacia with your corn plasters in his pocket. It’s sustaining, it’s easy, it’s slippery and luscious and crunchy, as ageless and reliable as lazy love on a Sunday morning. Long ago I bowed to the likelihood that few will ever know more than a few moments of the sweet shared bliss that my parents seem to conjure every moment of the day. But a newspaper, a lover, and a plate of bacon and eggs? I might settle for that. It’s certainly worth a toast. <i>Margaret McArthur, aka maggiethecat, is host and Dark Lady of the Daily Gullet Competition Forum. She writes, cooks and tends her garden near Chicago. Art by Dave Scantland, aka Dave the Cook.</i>

<img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1123728243/gallery_29805_1195_1801.jpg">In the second installment of our three-part interview with Santi Santamaria of Can Fabes restaurant in Sant Celoni, Spain, Pedro Espinosa talks to the three-Michelin star chef about the impact of the guides on his business, the current state of Catalan cooking, the role of the media, and cooking as living heritage. Click here to read the first part of this fascinating interview. Watch for part three in the Daily Gullet soon. by Pedro Espinosa Pedro: Do dining and travel guides help? Santi: Yes, they do. In my case, guides helped me to publicize my restaurant. That said, I know of many establishments in the world, with great ratings in the guides, and with terrific media impact, that have ended up closing. Pedro: Guides give you the opportunity, but aren’t a guarantee of success? Santi: Exactly. You have to get something of a following; you have to persuade the public everyday. And when you’ve been in the business for twenty-three years, it’s wonderfully satisfying to see the restaurant fully booked. To me this is very important. To see that people come back, you see them once a year or maybe four due to the change of seasons. I don’t like to lose that contact. Pedro: You change your menu about four times a year? Santi: It’s not that I change the menu abruptly. I add something to it, I modify it. If you come, for instance, next Tuesday, you’ll find some rice, some tuna that I don’t have yet in the menu. As you’re living a cuisine, you’re adding dishes, modifying others, and there’s always, of course, seasonality. Pedro: This year you’re celebrating ten years with three Michelin stars. Santi: I hope we maintain them for some years more. I believe that stars last while thrill lasts. They last while you have the creative strength, you have a culinary discourse and you reach the aficionado. Then you maintain the stars. The stars are a judgment on a human work, temporary and immediate. When you’re at the top, you have to try to stay there as long as possible. But, undoubtedly, we all know that our work as cooks will eventually have a period of decline. Unless I have young cooks here to help me and they surpass me within my restaurant. Then the restaurant remains. But you’re not anymore the one who’s leading it, the others are. Pedro: Do you have anyone in the family to continue cooking? Santi: No, not my children. Well, you never know. I started at twenty-four. My son is twenty-one and my daughter eighteen. You never can tell. We’ll see. I hope they’ll do what they want, but do it happily. A restaurant is a difficult heritage, and cooking even more so. It’s a labor so personal that they have to choose it; you can’t impose it on them. Pedro: How do you see Catalonia’s cooking today? Are you interested in it? Santi: Of course I’m interested; how could I not be? (long pause) If we speak based on what’s reflected in the media, this is a complete dream world. If we’re self-critical and we truly analyze the restaurants, well, let’s say that we’ve covered a lot of ground, but the situation is far from being ideal. I believe in establishments that are extremely well-structured, with good teams, with good methods, which perform very consistently and with their own personalities in the kitchen. Finding people with personality -- cooks with personality -- is not easy. Very young people are giving all their enthusiasm. This has merit because they are working very hard, but they are cooking what they see, more than what they feel, as I said before. Catalonia doesn’t have great classic restaurants. In this country, restaurants die in the second generation, whereas in France you find the third and fourth generation in some restaurants. It’s very hard here; the industry is very young, which has a sociological explanation. There’s also an excess of Americanization in Spain’s society, particularly in the cities. Who would have imagined, for instance, that the La Brecha market in San Sebastian would have as its more emblematic establishment, when you enter, a McDonald’s? When today, it’s still one of the markets where you find the best fish, the best vegetables. But it has to share the entrance with McDonald’s signage, in San Sebastian! This has to make all us think long and hard. Pedro: Do you think that, in the media, there’s a certain degree of polarization about the vision of Spain’s cooking? Santi : It could be that a certain polarization exists in the media, but not among the public. I believe that the public is extremely intelligent and knows how to choose. It knows when an establishment has quality standards, where there’s cooking with character; and when people feel like having a given cooking style they go for it, and when they don’t, they look to other places. The attention given to chefs in the media is sometimes due more to a relative shrillness in what is done and said in the kitchen. It looks as if the most extreme is what sells the most, not only in food but in many other fields. That doesn’t mean that’s what the majority likes. Each year I serve sixteen thousand meals in Sant Celoni and a bit fewer than fifteen thousand in Madrid. That means there are around thirty thousand people that have the possibility of enjoying my cooking. I think that’s a dream for a cook. Pedro: You’ve recently promoted a manifesto. Santi: That’s correct. We’ve promoted a manifesto coinciding with Fórum 2004. It’s not that I want to become the Bouvet of culinary antiglobalization. I understand and respect changes in habits, that there’s a rather shocking transformation of industrial society, and that food is feeling the consequences of this impact. But today more than ever, we’ve been warned so much about the dangers of a bad diet. This week, I’ve seen reports which are devastating. Things that, if reported five years ago, would have qualified as crazy. Everybody accepts this as reality: people don’t cook at home; the kitchen would be removed from houses if it were allowed; incoming products are manufactured; at the supermarket, people buy more finished products than fresh products; the Mediterranean diet is a fantasy that doesn’t reflect reality at all. That is, we have some kind of problem with food and, evidently, the restaurant is not oblivious to it. This phenomenon has developed over twenty- or twenty-five years and, today, people like me have been taken by surprise. It shakes us up. Emotionally, it affects deeply us when we see these things happening. Pedro: You mentioned in one of your books the likelihood of restaurants becoming museums. Santi: This is the opposite direction. I believe that cooking is a living heritage, culturally alive. Since the very moment that you can’t have specific dishes that you’ve known and enjoy from popular cooking, either you cook them yourself, but you have to know how, or you go somewhere to taste them. I’m sure that local cuisines are going to be reborn. There would be those who will want to dig into them. I’m convinced. Because a time will come when people will get tired. I remember, years ago, when people who didn’t watch art cinema were treated as culturally ignorant. In the end, you went to the movies and watched absolutely boring films. Today, we see the same with cooking: there are people who are capable of going to a restaurant, paying 150€, not to enjoy what they’re eating, but because they feel compelled to say that they do enjoy it. Because socially, if they say they haven’t enjoyed that cooking, they will be labeled as ignorant. We’re not in that league. How do we, people who truly love traditional cooking, who believe in working with a cuisine of good products, that think modernity is not shrillness but an evolution in tastes and techniques -- how do we position ourselves in a market that it can be said punishes the formal, the correct, the well done? It’s not easy. The public doesn’t penalize us. To the contrary. But in the media there are things that are difficult to understand. There are cycles. We found examples of this in music: we have people like Jordi Savall, who is recovering music from the Renaissance and older, great prestige around the world. Nobody doubts his talent and creative capability. Today, if someone cooks a dish from the 13th century, or from the Sent Soví [the first Catalan cookbook and one of the oldest in Europe, circa 1324], he’s going to be treated as archaeologist -- as someone without imagination. Yet, you realize, medieval cooking has a tremendous richness of seasoning and variety. Socially speaking, of course, it wasn’t the common people who could afford the great meals. Today there has been social progress, and normal people can visit restaurants. Barriers have been broken, gastronomy has become accessible. People come into the restaurant without fear. If they have 150€, then they can enjoy it as much as the ones who have the most money. They, it’s true, can afford more visits. But there’s no class distinction at the restaurant. When I was a child, we passed in front of some restaurants in Barcelona and the possibility of eating there never crossed my parents’ minds. Why? There, in that room, there was a given class: financiers, politicians, but not the common people. Today this has been overcome. And it’s a very positive cultural phenomenon. It’s an immense step forward. Immense. Pedro: How would you compare Catalonian cooking with other cooking in Europe and Spain (Basque Country, France)? Santi: I believe that Basque cooking is quite limited. Extremely good, the things they have are amazing, but it lacks in product variety. Here, the Mediterranean sea is much more damaged, but also much more diverse. There’s more diversity. We also have a diversity of climates: not only do we have a Mediterranean climate, but also Continental and Alpine climates. Therefore, in a relatively small territory, we have incredible diversity of flora and fauna. <img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1123620128/gallery_29805_1195_11725.jpg">If you take a look to the map, Northern Catalonian cooking is very different from Southern Catalonian cooking: suquets cooking versus rice cooking. We also have Barcelona’s cosmopolitan cooking. We can talk of a cuisine of espadenyes, of pulpitos, a cuisine of miniature products, which drive Catalonians mad. We’re a people, curiously, mad about little things: fishes that aren’t very big . . . all this conforms a very particular cuisine, which along with the French influence (mainly from Provencal cooking), and the Italian cooks that came in the beginning of the twentieth century for the Universal Exposition of 1929 with all their pasta contribution, all results in a very rich and varied cuisine, which gets reflected in today’s cooks. Pedro: Is it that recent, the use of pasta in Catalonian cooking? Santi: Yes, it’s very recent. Eighty years old or so. These are traditions of recent vintage. Then we have to take into account all the migratory processes, which have left footprints in Catalonian cooking. The young restaurants, among which I include mine, are doing cuisines that have influences from all over Spain. For instance, years ago I started working with suckling pig (cochinillo). There was a relatively long tradition in Catalonia of working with cochinillo. Pedro: Oscar (Madrid Sant Celoni’s chef) cooks it very well. Santi: Yes, he does. The crusty cochinillo . . . But he has to, because he is from Segovia. When he came to Can Fabes, I already prepared it confited, then we evolved to sous-vide . . . Pedro: Perhaps pork is one of the products that define Spain’s cooking, if you think we can talk about a single Spanish cuisine. Santi: I’ve worked with pork a lot. A lot. I believe in Spain’s cuisines, in plural. Andalusian cooking is very different from Galician cooking, Galician cooking from Catalonian . . . the cultural and linguistic mosaics also have a reflection in cooking. In a different way from other places in Europe, cultural identities have been preserved. In France they’ve also been rather well preserved. Surprisingly, language has been greatly homogenized, but culinary traditions are being preserved: Brittany, les Landes, Provence, Haute Savoie. They have a very important mosaic. Pedro: Do you think that having a cuisine like Catalonia has, a strong and deep-rooted traditional cooking, helps creativity? Santi: I do, it helps me a lot. I go through cycles, but many times I get inspiration from medieval cooking treatises. I love it. I read the Sent Soví at least once a year. At least. Reading these books acts as a cleansing therapy for me. Let’s see, the origins, the essence. I say it meaning that today it’s better to be a meeting point than a departure point. Catalonia’s Regional President said something along these lines about this new stage: we’ve got to preserve the cultural phenomena, but cultural phenomena in pure state don’t exist. We are what we learn, and a melting-pot culture is essential. What occurs if you become reduced to stereotypes without believing in what you’re doing, without training, is that you get a global cliché that has no value at all. I believe more in the personality of each cook and each country. (His sous-chef comes to say goodbye. The two of them review the tasks to prepare service for dinner). Coming back to the question, I do believe it helps. We also have to understand that after the Civil War, all Spain and specially Catalonia was at none to zero. Very bad situation. With democracy there’s been a process where everyone has grown. (He signs some books) The issue is that we get such an incredible amount of information: the number of gastronomy magazines, television programs, books. People, cooks, are so stuffed that they end up not assimilating. The information doesn’t leave a trace. This is the problem that I see in gastronomy, and not only in Spain. I realize all the things I do every year: I go to Asia, to America. Things that many people haven’t done in their whole lives. And you wonder, at the end of the day, what have we assimilated? Passing our lives as tourists? This is the risk, ending up doing a cuisine for tourists: some Chinese, some French, some Italian, some Catalonian. What’s left in the end? Pedro: A cooking of juxtaposition, not fusion? Santi: A hodgepodge that could be here, that could be in Australia. When we talk about Europe, this is of great importance: there are many centuries of knowledge and wisdom. It’s like saying: we are tired of Romanesque churches, they’re horrible, they don’t sell anymore, we’re losing some tourists who don’t visit us, we’re going to demolish all these old churches and let’s build some ultra-modern churches. We’re doing something similar in cooking. (Some customers want to see him and ask him some details about a recipe. He comes back still boiling over.) This is not a question of self-esteem. Self-esteem is something we all have; sometimes we allow ourselves to be carried away by this current. Pedro: Nowadays maintaining any tradition requires an effort in almost any field. Santi: I’m aware that if I include three or four strongly traditional dishes on the menu I’m going to be heavily criticized. I have to modernize them, elaborate them more, give them a new dimension. It’s a pity. Pedro: Does this occur in France? Santi: No, it doesn’t happen in France. I think it’s a pity because, coming back to what I said before, not everything that has to be said has to be unprecedented or unknown. There is contribution in tradition, there’s creativity. What’s creativity? When you’re cooking, you’re creating. But from the moment when you make a mold, it’s not creation, it’s industrialization. There are cuisines that have become excessively industrial. I see it with the youngsters: they come to the restaurant and they don’t know how to cook, how to season, how to cook meat a point. It’s very sad. Very sad. They go to a restaurant, they spend three months there, maybe six. They want a change of restaurant three times a year. They pass the time doing silly things. All day doing gominolas (candy). Pedro: I thought that there had been advances in training. <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1123620128/gallery_29805_1195_25860.jpg">Santi: Sincerely, I think not that much. What is culinary education? As we said, there’s a handicraft component, of skill, that we mustn’t forget. It’s a discipline and requires practice and practice. Discipline in a good sense. Not as exaggerated as in Japan, where your father has to spend his whole life with the same type of fish, cutting it always in the same way, then after I don’t know how many years you can take his place. There’s a middle ground. The youngsters that come into a kitchen have to have the strength of mind of thinking everyday, that when you’re repeating a recipe, actually you’re making it new each time. It’s like Antonio Gades, the incredibly talented dancer who recently passed away: as if anytime he danced Bodas de Sangre he would have had to start from the scratch. He’s been performing Bodas de Sangre for many years. No. The thing to do is to improve and improve and improve. And in this improvement, there’s creation. And you sense it when you see it. You notice when you’re really cooking a dish, when you’re reaching sublimation, when you have control of the fire. To be capable of understanding this. There there’s creation. Creation is not saying: I’m going to cook this chicken with ginger, with cardamom, I’m going to stuff it with who knows what. That’s already in the script. Creativity lies in mastering how you can sublimate that chicken from a raw state to make it sublime to a human being. And when they find it sublime, they will acknowledge creation. The simplest thing can be the most exquisite. From exquisiteness to vulgarity . . . Pedro: There’s a short distance. Santi: This is the true magic of cooking, I’d say. The true magic is that a very simple thing can become something magical. And the same product can be equally boring. Pedro: Santi, perhaps we’re taking too much time from you. You haven’t even eaten yet. Santi: It’s fine with me. I’ll go to the mountain with Angels for a picnic when we finish. I enjoy it very much when we go for a picnic. One or two times a week, I go up to the mountain, we walk about nine kilometers. I’ve located a vine, we have our butifarras . . . This is the second of three parts. Part one is here. <i>Pedro Espinosa (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=10675">pedro</a>) is an eGullet Society manager, and host of the Spain and Portugal forums. Pedro wishes to thank Víctor de la Serna (vserna), Steven Shaw and Andy Lynes for their help with this interview. Lead photograph by Ellen R. Shapiro. Other photographs copyright 2005 Can Fabes Gastronomic Leisure Center.</i>

<img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1123477915/gallery_29805_1195_3595.jpg">The Daily Gullet proudly presents the fourth of five exclusive excerpts from Steven Shaw's upcoming book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060737808/egulletcom-20">Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out</a></i> (HarperCollins). Find part one here, part two here, and part three here. -The Editors. Special to the Daily Gullet, by Steven Shaw Few people outside the restaurant industry have ever heard of Richard Coraine. Yet he is one of the most important people in the business. Coraine directs the operations of the Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG), which owns five (and counting) prestigious New York restaurants. In the Zagat Survey’s 50 most popular New York restaurants, the number 1 and number 2 positions belong to USHG’s Union Square Cafe, and Gramercy Tavern. Two other USHG properties are in the top 20: Tabla and Eleven Madison Park. It probably won’t be long before the group’s latest venture, Blue Smoke (a high-concept barbecue joint and jazz club) breaks into the elite group as well, at which point 10 percent of New York’s fifty most popular restaurants will be operated by a single company. <br> Not that you could tell that the individual restaurants are part of an empire. Each is an independent operation, looking to the USHG entity for support and management. As a result, five very different restaurants have excellent service, enjoyable surroundings, and a much higher degree of culinary consistency than is the unfortunately low norm. <br> If you are a reader of newspaper food sections, you may have heard of Coraine’s business partner, Danny Meyer -- a restaurant industry icon and the father of enlightened American hospitality. Meyer is the public figure, the spiritual leader, and the voice of the USHG. Coraine operates quietly, behind the scenes, to make everything work.<br> In a business where most ventures don’t survive their first year, how can one company so consistently succeed? Moreover, what is the business behind the restaurant business? And what is the restaurant industry’s place in the larger context that makes up a community? In an attempt to answer these questions, I shadowed Richard Coraine (everybody calls him ‘RC’) through the labyrinth of behind-the-scenes USHG goings-on, and I had to set my alarm early to do it. <br> At 6:30 A.M. on any given day, you’ll find RC in his office halfway through a pile of newspapers, surrounded by desk artifacts ranging from bottles of wine and sample takeout drink cups to a fax machine and an iPod. He’s not only reading the food, lifestyle, and entertainment sections from newspapers across the country, but is also zeroing in on the business sections. He’s learning about his customers, many of whom will be in the newspaper on a given day and most of whom work for companies that are frequent players in those pages. We begin with an inspection of Eleven Madison Park. RC believes that, standing just inside a restaurant’s front door, an experienced observer can tell everything about how the restaurant will perform. “My job is to read the restaurant, and make editorial changes before problems arise.” <br> At 7 A.M., the restaurant is already active, even though there will be no customers until nearly noon. The USHG’s assistant florist, Z, is inspecting the floral arrangements and talking on his cell phone to the head florist, Roberta Bendavid, about which stems will need to be replaced. They speak with the seriousness of corporate lawyers planning a leveraged buyout. <br> RC walks to the podium and activates the reservations computer, quickly scrolling through the names of every customer with reservations today. Any names he recognizes, he pulls up customer notes and often adds to them. At one point he asks me the name of the friend I had dined with at another USHG restaurant a few weeks ago. “Ken Matthews,” I tell him. He pulls up my friend Ken’s record and adds a notation: “Dines with Steven Shaw,” linking to my customer notes. <br> Today, Eleven Madison Park seems ship-shape to me, but RC is uneasy. “I don’t like what I’m seeing today,” he says. When I try to get him to clarify, he points to seemingly picayune issues such as the bearing of the managers and the speed with which the employees are walking around the room. “We’re going to need to check in here again before lunch,” he warns. <br> On the way out, RC notices a smudge on the wall peeking out from behind a chair stored in a hallway. He pulls every chair away from the wall to reveal a longer smudge where the chair-backs press against the wall. Summoning one of the maintenance staff, he asks that this part of the wall be repainted that morning. “The color codes are on file at the Janovic paint shop around the corner,” he adds. <br> As we walk toward Union Square Cafe, RC goes over his to-do list. A valued employee is getting married that coming weekend and USHG is providing the facilities. In addition, the USHG is building a “Shake Shack” in Madison Square Park, where during the summer they’ll sell gourmet frankfurters, hamburgers, and frozen custard. The shack will be staffed mostly by interns from the Culinary Institute of America and various restaurant and hotel management schools. “A hot dog cart or a food kiosk is a very pure expression of the restaurant business,” RC explains, himself both an MBA and a culinary school graduate. “It’s a great place to learn the fundamentals that hold true no matter how high you go in the industry.” On top of that, USHG is in the process of constructing a fine-dining restaurant, a café, and a food kiosk in the Museum of Modern Art, to be timed with the museum’s reopening after a long renovation. And in two weeks USHG will be hosting the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, bringing together America’s top pitmasters with great jazz musicians and thousands of hungry, curious New Yorkers. <br> At Union Square Cafe, Christopher Russell, the restaurant’s beverage and service director, is in the wine cellar with sales representative Yoav Sisley, tasting wines from the Admiral Wine Merchants portfolio. The amount of effort Russell puts into building the Union Square Cafe wine list, maintaining the inventory, and training the staff is staggering. Every day, for what most people would consider two shifts, he’s tasting, meeting, teaching, counting, and typing. As I watch him go through the process of creating purchase orders and tasting notes just to add one new wine to the restaurant’s list (getting onto the Union Square Cafe wine list is tantamount to getting into Harvard or Yale; of all the wines the sales rep showed Russell today, he purchased only one), I think about the often-heard objection to restaurant wine prices. <br> I’ll be the first to agree that most restaurants charge too much for uninspired wine selections, serve them at improper temperatures in poor stemware, and do not have staff members who adequately understand wines and their relationship to food. At the same time, I fear there is a degree of reductionism in the argument “why should I pay double (or triple, or quadruple) for the same bottle of wine in a restaurant that I could buy in a wine store and drink at home?” I think that the bottle itself creates a conceptual fiction, that because the wine is sealed in that bottle the restaurant cannot add value to it the way the kitchen can add value to a piece of meat. Interestingly, this objection is rarely heard with respect to cocktails, which on a cost basis are more heavily marked up. <br> But wine is transformed in other ways, some of them contextual and nearly intangible. For one thing, there is a cost involved in being able to choose the right wine for what you decide to order at any given moment. For another thing, there are all the costs of storage, glassware, insurance, and the like. But most importantly, at a great restaurant there is the cost of knowledge. <br> At Union Square Cafe, for example, there is a staff wine tasting every single day. At family meal, Russell or one of his assistant managers pours tastes from a bottle from the restaurant’s wine list. And these are not just the $30 bottles. Every single wine on the list goes through the tasting rotation, so that eventually the servers have all tried, discussed, and compared every wine -- even the ones that cost $300 or more. <br> <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121034075/gallery_29805_1195_11679.jpg">Later, RC, Christopher Russell, and the restaurant’s general manager, Randy Garutti, hold their weekly steering-committee meeting. On tap for today: several upcoming announcements that are likely to anger the waitstaff. A new accounting system will delay receipt of tips and possibly divert more money to the IRS, but the restaurant feels it is the fiscally and legally responsible move. In addition, the restaurant plans to increase the size of its waitstaff, which can potentially mean less in tips for each individual waiter. Although, the hope is that the restaurant will be able to serve more customers and sell them more add-ons, like dessert wine, thus ultimately increasing tips. They settle on their pitch to the waitstaff, though nobody is really looking forward to that particular staff meeting. Throughout the meeting, RC polishes some of the restaurant’s glass shelves. <br> RC spends all of five minutes at Gramercy Tavern, which I have found to be the most reliable of the group’s restaurants. It is here that I first begin to understand the phenomenon of being able to size up an entire restaurant from the front door. Gramercy Tavern, as soon as we enter, gives off a bright, confident feeling of everything being in its place. After chatting with the manager on duty for just a minute and scrolling through the reservations (which he does at every restaurant), he says, “Let’s get out of here. All I can do is distract them. They’re on the ball and don’t need my interference.” <br> At Blue Smoke, the USHG’s barbecue restaurant, we enter through the service entrance and almost step on a pig. “This entrance is a mess; we need to get somebody focused on it.” A holiday weekend is coming up, and several managers are on vacation. But after meeting with the assistant managers who will be running the restaurant for the weekend, RC is satisfied that, with a little direction, they’ll run a tight ship. <br> Before we enter Tabla, the USHG’s contemporary Indian fusion restaurant, RC notices an eight-foot piece of plywood leaning up against the entrance. “Not a good sign,” he says to me. Just inside the door, there are four cases of beer that have been delivered and seemingly just abandoned near the podium. RC goes upstairs to find the chef, Floyd Cardoz, who it turns out is busy giving an interview to a reporter from Gourmet magazine. “Okay, that explains it,” says RC. He grabs a manager and they quickly make a list of what needs to get fixed up around the restaurant. On the way out, RC grabs half an egg sandwich from the staff meal table and eats it as we walk the half block back to Eleven Madison Park. <br> As RC had predicted, the scene at Eleven Madison Park fifteen minutes prior to opening is a bit chaotic. There is no music coming out over the sound system, and he goes to remedy that. He selectively raises his voice with a few of the managers in order to motivate them to crisp up their performance (each time he does so, he winks at me to indicate that it’s all really an act). As the first customers arrive, RC retreats into his office and begins an afternoon of transactions and meetings. <br> By the time the dinner rush gets going, RC is home. “Once they start serving food, my job is done. It has to be done: smooth service is all about preparation and getting up that critical level of momentum. Once it starts, if they still need me, they’re doomed.” <br> This is the fourth of five parts. Part one is here, part two here, and part three is here. <i> Steven Shaw (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=1">Fat Guy</a>) is executive director of the eGullet Society. He has been known to do other things on occasion. Art by Dave Scantland, from a photograph by Ellen R. Shapiro. Copyright 2005 Steven A. Shaw. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and HarperCollins Publishers.</i>

by Andy Lynes <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1122484662/gallery_29805_1195_21231.jpg">You can often find Journalists rummaging through the dim parlour of human misery, searching for an everyday tragedy to hang a few thousand words on. As a food writer, I'm spared that indignity. I am free to concentrate on the celebration of my chosen subject, which doesn't mean I'm above ransacking my own sordid past for the sake of an idea or two. Why not dredge my childhood experiences as a Jehovah's Witness in order to examine the subject of religious dietary restrictions? The Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) organization dates back to the late 19th century, when Charles Taze Russell set up a breakaway sect of the Christian Congregationalist church in Pennsylvania. It's an extremist religion, with "distinctive" beliefs and teachings. Although mostly harmless (there are no JW suicide bombers for example), the religion has many of the characteristics of a cult, and has been accused of brainwashing its followers. I managed to avoid becoming a Christian automaton, but that didn't stop me from being the one thing every school child dreads: different. As the sole Witness in my school, I alone remained in my seat as everyone else filed out for the morning religious assembly which, conducted along Church of England lines, was akin to satanic ritual in the eyes of JWs. My classmates were endlessly curious as to why I didn't celebrate Christmas, Easter or my birthday, but I found it was best to avoid getting into details about my beliefs. It was difficult to remain popular, or indeed healthy, and explain that I was going to live forever in an earthly paradise while the best they could hope for was a prolonged skinny dip in the lake of fire in Hades. Looking back, eternal life in return for a enduring a few hours a week of sermonizing and hymn singing in the prefabricated gloom of the local Kingdom Hall seems like a pretty good deal. But in 1975, the year JW's had scheduled for God's Kingdom to come, I was only ten years old -- and not quite ready for such a major change in circumstance. Besides the sheer inconvenience that Armageddon was bound to cause, there was the small matter of being one David Carradine short of a complete set of "Kung Fu" bubblegum cards, and a new Led Zeppelin album to look forward to. My mother's preparations for the impending apocalypse weren't much more advanced than my own. They consisted entirely of filling a cupboard in the living room with tinned York Ham and baked beans. The plan appeared to be that, while God was busy removing wickedness and suffering from the face of the planet, and humanity perished all around us, we would have and a nice supper of cold meat and Heinz’s finest to see us through. Jehovah's Witnesses have many bizarre beliefs, but their most controversial teaching is that "taking blood into body through mouth or veins violates God's laws." For me, that simply meant that the meat I ate as a child had to be well done. No blood could ooze onto my plate for fear of incurring the wrath of the almighty and scotching my chances of entering the new Eden. It also meant that it was not until my 20's that I first tasted black pudding. Hardly an enormous sacrifice, especially when compared to a less fortunate member of my local congregation. Her family's refusal to allow her a transfusion during the emergency surgery that followed a car accident had rather more dreadful consequences than a boudin noir-free diet, the most serious of which was death. It was perhaps this incident above all that turned me off not only Jehovah's Witnesses, but the idea of organized religion itself. As I approached my mid-teens, the rules that governed my existence as a JW became intolerable. As much as I tried, I could make no sense of the restrictions placed upon me, and I simply rejected them all. I went from faithful to faithless overnight. Don't steal, kill or shag your next door neighbour's wife I can live with (you should see my next door neighbours wife), in fact I'm broadly in agreement with Christian values as a moral code by which to live one’s life. But the restrictions on diet imposed by the world's religions are unfathomable to me. Is it really logical to imagine that an all-powerful being that regularly ignores genocide, famine and plague could care a stuff about what we put in our mouths? If history tells us anything, it's that if there is a deity up there, non-interventionism is its by-word. If we accept that God created the world, and that he put all creatures on the earth for a purpose, it doesn't take a genius to work out what the majority of the animal kingdom is for. Giraffes I grant you are a bit of a puzzle, but a pig is an altogether more straightforward matter. Can you ride it, plough a field with it, put it your lap and stroke it? No, you can't. Can you ram a spit up its arse, out through its mouth and roast it over an open fire? Why, it appears to be just the right size! Then there's cattle. Hmm, seems to be rather a lot of them doesn't there? We've put some of the stupid ugly brutes to work, but what can we possibly do with all the rest? Seems such a waste to have them just standing around. Well, we could try tanning their hides, I suppose, but then what would we do with all that left over flesh? I think I'll have a plate of chips and bearnaise sauce and think about it. So what could possibly be the cause of this petty-mindedness in the omnipotent one? Revenge for nailing his only begotten son to a piece of wood, perhaps? Or maybe he derives some sort of twisted pleasure from watching humanity wrestle with the conflict between their appetites and their beliefs. After all, everyone needs a hobby, especially if you are a being without beginning or end stuck in eternity (which would explain why Ken Barlow is a druid in his spare time). A more likely explanation for the existence of dietary restrictions is that they are purely a construct of religion, a simple way to help delineate one faith from another. Despite their apparent random nature, they enable followers to demonstrate their faith, in a practical way. on a daily basis, to advertise their devoutness to others and to reinforce it in themselves. As an agnostic, I choose to worship at the church of gastronomy. As luck would have it, it has no restrictions on what I can consume. I celebrate the glory of creation by eating as much of it as I possibly can, in all its varied delights. My church is broad, as are its people. Despite that, there is room for everyone; all creeds, colours and cooking abilities. Our bible is the cookbook -- any cookbook (except of course those with the words "Ainsley Harriot" written across the front) -- and every recipe is a revelation. When we cook, we give praise to the Gods of nourishment, and when we eat, we commune with the eternal. Pass the bacon sarnies and let us pray. (We're thrilled to see a new Mashed column from Andy. It was a mainstay of the old Daily Gullet. Be sure to check out previous entries here. -- the Editors) <i>Andy Lynes is a freelance food writer based in Brighton, England. His work appears in Restaurant magazine, Caterer and Hotelkeeper, olive magazine, Square Meal Trade Brief and other publications. His first restaurant review for The Guardian newspaper will appear in August. Andy sits on the committee of the UK's Guild of Food Writers and edits its newsletter. Andy was a founding affiliate of eGullet.org and is a former Dean of the eGCI. He is currently the UK forum host and sits on the editorial board of the </i>Daily Gullet<i>. Andy lives in Brighton with his wife Gill, children George (12) and Alice (7) and Lulu the German Shorthaired Pointer. </i>

<img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1122249024/gallery_29805_1195_5420.jpg">The Daily Gullet proudly presents the third of five exclusive excerpts from Steven Shaw's upcoming book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060737808/egulletcom-20">Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out</a></i> (HarperCollins). Find part one here, and part two here. -The Editors. Special to the Daily Gullet, by Steven Shaw Security is tight at 630 Fifth Avenue, one of the mega office buildings in the Rockefeller Center complex. Since 9/11, visitors have had to wait in line, check in with security, show a drivers license, and carry a bar-coded visitor’s pass that gets scanned upon entry and departure. Every move is tracked. According to my security pass, I arrive at the headquarters of the Starwich Corporation at 9:58 A.M. Starwich is a projected six weeks away from opening its first sandwich shops—four of them almost at once—in New York City. The business plan calls for quickly following those openings with a dozen additional New York stores, plus branches in Boston, Providence, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. Sitting in their office, surrounded by experimental coffee-cup lids, electronic smart-cards, Starwich baseball caps, and piles of spreadsheets, Spiro Baltas (the CEO) and Michael Ryan (the president) tell me the Starwich story. They had the same kind of thought that so many food lovers have: Why can’t we get a decent sandwich anywhere? They wished for a quick, casual, convenient restaurant serving high-quality sandwichy, salady food in a comfortable setting at a reasonable price—like Subway, only better. But instead of just wishing, which is the stage at which I usually bow out of things, they actually did something about it. By the time you read this book, there may be a Starwich sandwich shop on every major street corner and mall food court in America, right across from the Starbucks. The similarity in names is no coincidence: Starwich hopes to be the Starbucks of sandwiches and salads—if the company has its way, “Starwich will redefine the sandwich shop as Starbucks has redefined the coffee house.” Or, Starwich may fail. Most new restaurants do. But I have a good feeling about these guys, because I like their coffee-cup lids. All good restaurants need to serve good food, but sometimes it’s the little non-food items that put them over the top. The inadequacy of coffee-cup lids has been a pet peeve of mine for years. My wife, Ellen, and I between us must have a dozen pair of ruined trousers from coffee spills in the van—New York City is full of potholes and we put in a lot of time driving around exploring every nook and cranny of the city. The lids with the little oval-shaped holes don’t work because the coffee can fly right out through the hole if the van hits a pothole. The lids with the little flaps that peel and lock back don’t work for three reasons: I usually destroy the lid when separating the flap, the lock-back mechanism of the flap is prone to fail, and therefore the flap hits me in the nose while I drink, and all this requires so much attention that it’s impossible to drive safely while going through the machinations. Starwich, in conjunction with the Solo cup company, has devised a solution: beneath this new specially designed lid is a rotating plastic disc insert. The lid has a hole, and the disc insert has a hole to match. A little lever-like toggle— almost like a sliding dimmer on a light switch—causes the insert to rotate back and forth. When the holes line up, you can drink. When the holes don’t line up, it’s like the cylinders of a lock falling into place: the coffee stays in the cup even if you hit a speed bump. It’s a totally reliable one-handed operation: the answer to my coffee-cup prayers. It’s the sort of innovation that gets a restaurant noticed, and earns repeat business. The coffee also needs to be good. Bizarrely, I recently had learned that my grandfather Arthur Shaw was a pioneer of insulated coffee cups. But he never, the family history runs, figured out how to make the lids (his problem was that he tried to make the lids out of the same material as the cups). My mother even has his original shares of the now defunct Insul-Cup Corporation. I guess I come by my fixation honestly. Baltas and Ryan vie for my attention as I spend about an hour playing obsessively with a coffee cup lid while fantasizing about how a successful Insul-Cup Corporation could have given me a life of gentlemanly leisure. “We can give you some of those to take with you,” they hint in an attempt to refocus me, “and over here we have our five corporate principles . . .” I’m not sure what those principles are, because when I left the corporate world I swore I’d never read another business plan, but the general idea is that Starwich is all about the details: making sandwiches and salads isn’t rocket science, but it needs to be done just so. Starwich’s plan is to issue each customer a “smart card,” a small plastic credit card–sized device with an embedded computer chip. The Starwich smart card remembers your name, your three favorite sandwich combinations (right down to special requests like “extra mayo”), and your last ten orders. Customers can also access their profiles online, where they can add money to a virtual account that lets them pay for sandwiches with the smart card (if you add $50, you get $55 worth of credit). Both gentlemen, now in their mid-thirties, are veteran restaurant employees and managers. They met when they both worked at BR Guest, Inc., one of New York’s largest and most successful restaurant groups—if you have ever been to New York City and dined at Blue Water Grill or Ruby Foo’s, you’ve been to a BR Guest restaurant. Over time, each revealed to the other a longstanding ambition to open a high-quality sandwich shop. Starwich is the result of the combination of their visions. Just about the last thing a middle class parent wants to hear is that the eldest son has decided to work in a restaurant or hotel—and not as the chef or owner. It’s almost as bad as learning that he’s going to become a janitor or, worse, a food writer. “I was the black sheep in my family,” says Baltas. “No one in my family considered running restaurants a ‘real’ job.” Yet many restaurants are multimillion-dollar businesses, as complex and “legitimate” as (and now it turns out as likely to stay in business as) the most cutting-edge computer companies. Baltas’s family came around after watching him orchestrate the operations of several large restaurants and restaurant groups. “It was an eye-opener,” he says with obvious triumph, “for my family to see that the restaurant industry is very much big business.” Baltas’s first job out of college had him working as the morning front desk manager at a Marriott hotel near his home town of Boston. But, like me, he can’t stand getting up early in the morning. So he jumped on an opportunity to move into a management position at the hotel’s restaurant— at night. He was hooked. <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121034075/gallery_29805_1195_11679.jpg">Like many outsiders coming into The Life, Baltas was particularly surprised by the amount of technology and advanced business modeling behind a major restaurant operation. He threw himself into learning the computer systems and models and later parlayed his expertise into a position at La Familia, an Italian family-style restaurant mini-empire with two restaurants doing a combined $5 million a year in the Boston area. “They may have gotten more than they bargained for. I catapulted them into the twentieth century by installing computers, establishing service standards, and introducing promotions. They believed in me and encouraged me, but at first I know they were thinking, ‘who is this guy?’ ” Two years later, Baltas had transformed La Familia into a five-restaurant group generating $20 million in sales annually. He quickly became a sought-after restaurant industry consultant. After a stint at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston, where he learned the wine side of the business, Baltas came to New York in 1998 as restaurant and wine director of the legendary Tavern on the Green restaurant. Later, he worked for the Sbarro restaurant group (which, in addition to the shopping-mall Italian eateries it operates worldwide, also runs fine-dining restaurants in New York) and the BR Guest group. That’s where he met Michael Ryan. At age sixteen, Ryan took his first job baking pizzas at a local pizzeria in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. He made pizzas there for seven years, paying his way through college in pursuit of a degree in advertising. In college, in addition to his pizza duties, he managed a fraternity-house kitchen and did stints around town as a waiter, cook, and assistant restaurant manager. He became a restaurant-business junkie—he never did pursue that career in advertising. Instead, he joined a small team of entrepreneurs to start up a fine-dining dinner cruise ship company called Odyssey Cruises in Chicago. This eight-hundred-passenger vessel had, in its first year, sales of over $13 million. In 1997, Ryan became regional operations director at Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. Founded by industry legend Rich Melman, this company built restaurants such as Shaw’s Crab House, Mity Nice Grill, and Vong Chicago, which together generate more than $25 million annually. Three years later, Ryan moved to New York City to become director of operations for BR Guest, with restaurants that collectively gross more than $100 million a year. So why, with all this background at the high end of the industry, would Baltas and Ryan want to open a chain of sandwich shops? For one thing, sandwiches are currently a $150 billion business—one of the largest segments of the restaurant industry. There’s a lot more money in sandwiches than in fancy French restaurants. For another thing, both Baltas and Ryan felt something was missing— an empty niche existed in the restaurant business: a quickcasual, high-quality sandwich operation. And for still another thing, they themselves wanted a place to eat. “I was annoyed,” says Baltas, “that every time I wanted to take my wife and kids out for a quick bite I had to either overpay at a fancy restaurant or eat crap at a chain.” But more important, I think, is an emerging trend: many of the best people in the business are focusing on the middle and lower ends of the market. For example, chef Tom Colicchio operates three highly successful upscale restaurants: Gramercy Tavern and Craft in Manhattan and Craftsteak in Las Vegas. Yet his most recent restaurant ventures have been sandwich shops called ’wichcraft (with locations in Manhattan and Las Vegas, and more planned). Alain Ducasse, arguably the world’s preeminent French chef, has lately focused his attention on a chain of casual eateries called Spoon. Gray Kunz and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, two of America’s top haute cuisine chefs, have collaborated on the Spice Market, a restaurant specializing in the street foods of Southeast Asia. As the American consumer becomes more savvy about food, the demand for better food at every level rises, and the sheer volume and cost effectiveness of casual dining— no maitre d’, no fine crystal, no lovebirds taking up a table for three hours—make it the logical new market for the best chefs and restaurateurs. After all, good food is good food. Excellence doesn’t have to come in a fancy package. This isn’t the sort of business one starts with money borrowed from mom and dad. Starwich is a serious venture capital operation. In order to raise money, Baltas and Ryan needed to assemble a compelling proposal and shop it around to hundreds of venture capitalists. That they decided to undertake this effort in the middle of a full-blown recession, knowing full well that restaurant investments are considered some of the riskiest long shots in the venture capital universe, is a testament either to bravery, idealism, or insanity. <img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1122249024/gallery_29805_1195_16529.jpg">But eventually Baltas—who took the lead on making sales pitches to potential investors—got Starwich its first $50,000 check from an investor, and from there it was a steady crawl to the $2 million needed to open the first six Starwich stores. During that time, Baltas made ten or more pitches per week for nearly a year. Often during the early pitches, the larger, more experienced investors would ask Baltas questions to which he had no answers. “I didn’t even speak the language. But we locked ourselves in our office until we had the answers. Eventually, we had them all. We hope!” In the end, though, Starwich’s success will depend on the answer to the question “Where should we go for dinner?” Or, in this case, lunch. For the business to work, a sufficient number of people will have to answer “Starwich” to that question. Starwich hopes that everybody will love its sandwiches, but it is specifically targeted at two groups: the “corporate consumer” and “young, newly settled couples.” Still, Starwich will have to sell a lot of $9 sandwiches and salads to pay the rent, cover its employees’ salaries, and earn back several million dollars for its investors. “Sure, we’re taking a risk,” Baltas says. “But what’s the worst thing that can happen? We go back to our old jobs?” Finally, the first Starwich store opens. On my first visit I tuck into the Soft-Shell Crab BLT and breathe a sigh of relief: it’s excellent, and the store is as comfortable and hospitable as the Starwich partners said it would be. I think Starwich is going to make it. This is the third of five parts. Part one is here, and part two here. <i> Steven Shaw (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=1">Fat Guy</a>) is executive director of the eGullet Society. He has been known to do other things on occasion. Photograph of the author by Ellen R. Shapiro. Copyright 2005 Steven A. Shaw. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and HarperCollins Publishers.</i>

<img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121992488/gallery_29805_1195_23573.jpg">by Pedro Espinosa Characterizing a chef and his cuisine without falling into stereotypes is a challenging task. If the chef is Santi Santamaría of Can Fabes restaurant in Sant Celoni, Spain, we could say that he was the first chef in Catalonia to receive three stars from the Michelin guide eleven years ago; we could cite his belief that taste is the ultimate measure of a dish. We could try to establish links between his cuisine and the gastronomic heritage of Catalonia. But we would learn little from such broad statements. Behind the apparent simplicity of Santi’s propositions lies an elaborate and emotional cuisine, rooted in well-reasoned theories. In July 2004, after a meal in Can Fabes’s casual dining room, Espai Coch, preceded by a dinner at Can Fabes, we had the opportunity to talk at length with Santi Santamaría and experience his passion for gastronomy. Presenting the results of that session is a much better way for you to understand the foundations of Chef Santamaría’s cuisine. Pedro Espinosa: How did you start cooking? After all, you have a technical background in industry. Santi Santamaría: It was a subject of interest at my parents’ home. I’m an only child. Both my father, who passed away four years ago, and my mother cooked very well. To me, seeing a man cooking was normal at home. My mother worked in a textile factory, and my father worked the land. My mother had a more rigid schedule, whereas my father had more flexibility. So, sometimes, my father cooked lunch for me. Even when I grew up, starting to go by myself to Barcelona and moving in circles where the political and cultural views were strong, Sunday was a special day. It was a day when I had lunch with my father and my mother: the three of us in the kitchen, talking a great deal about cooking, about dishes. That is, cooking has always had a very important role in my family. So important that -- imagine -- I went through my youth without a TV until I was twenty. At home, TV comes from sheer absentmindedness. It was a fantastic atmosphere. My father, for instance, took me to the Cine Fórum when I was fourteen. I saw all the films by Saura, Buñuel, Hitchcock -- the complete retrospectives. We even subscribed to magazines written in Catalan, which was quite unusual at the time. I was very familiar with all Catalonia’s intellectual culture. And cooking was a natural piece of this environment, something to share. I had an important disappointment during the Transition, having become very tired of working in a corporation. I didn’t enjoy my technical career; my thing would have been studying art, to study at the Massana. But when I told my parents they got frightened: that wouldn’t bring home any income. This kid, they thought, an only child, if he goes to art school we won’t see him anymore. I had to earn some money. The option, thanks to a relative, was to start working as technical draftsman apprentice. I studied at night, I majored and I started studying for quantity surveyor which I didn’t finish. I was doing very bureaucratic work at the company, with lots of people under my supervision -- sixty people. All this made me extremely tired. I couldn’t take it any longer, to the point that I talked to Ángels, whom I’ve been dating since we were fifteen and who was working in a kindergarten, and to my father, who was very ill and paralyzed by a thrombosis. This building, the family home for two hundred years, was in ruins. So I told my father, “We’ve got to do something, this house is falling over us. We’re going to take out a mortgage on it and start a restaurant.” My father did it, which was something uncharacteristic for his way of thinking. We started the restaurant with a very unrealistic mentality: we’re going to cook, I’m going to have time for writing, to read, to paint. Our friends will come. Pedro: Very idyllic. Santi: The first year was a brutal economic failure. People came, always. I’ve always had the public . . . well, except when I made my biggest change, from the popular Catalonian cooking I started with -- what I had seen in the family -- when I removed the daily menu. It was a 2.1€ menu (we’re talking about 23 years ago). When I made this change, I went through a very difficult time: we removed the daily menu, the restaurant got empty, I wasn’t used to seeing just two tables. Before, you had fifty people eating the 2.1€ menu and it was glorious to see the restaurant, but you did the math and it didn’t work. Ángels and I said, we’re going to take this seriously. And that’s how the story began: we started to travel a lot, to study how the restaurants in Europe were. We got technically educated . . . Pedro: So you’re self-taught, aren’t you? Santi: Exactly. I’ve never worked in any other restaurant. Not even as a stagiaire. I’ve learned from people who’ve worked with me. From each and every one of them I’ve learned something. But above anything, I love to eat. I’m passionate about gastronomy. And that’s how I started. Today, after twenty years, there are things that are very academic: how to make a consomé, how to clarify it properly. Pedro: There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Santi: Sure, you can’t reinvent, each day, a series of foundations that lie on a set of technical principles, almost scientific, many of them. You have to learn them. This learning process, when you’re self-taught, can take you as long as five years when it could have been learned in two. I remember when I started to make foie gras: I wasted tons of foie due to the bad results I got, until I made friends with a French cook, Philippe Serre, who came here for three months. Three years ago, he spent a year and a half with me. I realized that I hadn’t learned what a liver was, how it evolved with cooking times, what its melting temperature was, how I should remove the nerves -- things that are explained in the books. But you realize that in cooking there’s a component of handicraft, of craftsmanship, that has to be learned. There’s an essential theoretical component. I do believe that you should learn theory, but undoubtedly handicraft too. You have to learn both, and there are things that must be taught to you. Otherwise, we would have as many good cooks as good cookbooks. Pedro: Santi, how would you define your style? Santi: Well, it’s Santi Santamaría’s style. A cook who is inspired by what he eats, by the great all-time cooking classics, whether medieval cooks, French cooks from the Revolution until now, or great contemporary Japanese cooks. (T)here’s a capability of wanting to learn and transmit, through cooking, the sensations of pleasure that I receive. Pedro: And tradition? Santi: Tradition. It’s complex, because we internalize a lot of the flavors. I love to retain tastes I like. When we speak of traditional cooking, it’s the cooking of the past; it’s the heritage cooking; it’s family cooking; it’s domestic cooking; it’s local cooking. This local cooking -- it makes me crazy, and many times is what I like to eat when I have to cook at home (a cod fish with samfaina, a stew of veal with mushrooms or some simple cannelloni). This cooking is not what I like to offer to the customer at the restaurant, because I believe I can make more contributions to the customer’s enjoyment. There are many contributions that can be made to traditional cooking: new doesn’t only mean unprecedented. I think that believing this is a mistake. To think that we take some ingredients and we mix them for the first time . . . Well, for the first time here, maybe it’s already being done in Tahití for some time, or in California, where they’re doing fusion cooking in which anything goes . . . Unprecedented doesn’t necessarily mean new. In principle, it’s unknown. What can be done is to renew. The word renew is beautiful; renew the cooking from an ethical, human behavior. Based on what we put on a dish, we build an environment, we build a society. Based on how we manipulate ingredients, we’re stating something. I don’t use any product that is not natural, which hasn’t been elaborated by me. Well, excepting products like sugar or butter, but I control what I serve. I don’t work with manufactured products that come with ingredients I don’t know -- things with preservatives and stabilizers. <img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121992488/gallery_29805_1195_24967.jpg">We start from a product in its purest state, and what I like to do with this product in its purest state is adapt it to my preferences and adapt it to enable it to transmit pleasure, without betraying what in essence is the product –- so that you can recognize what you’re eating, so that you don’t have to go through an intellectual exercise each time you eat. I don’t think every time you eat you should have to wonder what you’re eating. There’s an instinctive point, a natural point. There are too many traffic lights, too many zebra crossings in life. Should you be in this mood when you go to a restaurant? At the end, there’s also an intuitive part that I defend. I defend something that is essential to me: the transformation of the elements, passing from raw to cooked. As Cunqueiro said in Occident’s Christian Cooking, we’re people more of cooked than of raw, even when we can add small things in the context of our work, of our cooking. But essentially, the transformation of raw elements to cooked ones is what I like. Clearly, this is not the application of an industrial method to a craftsman cooking. This is to stay in the craftsman stage. Because each day, each dish is a piece. In every dish you have a tremendous margin of error. That’s why it requires you to be in the kitchen everyday, correcting constantly: a bit more salt, cooked a bit more, a bit less . . . We’re not automatons, we’re orchestra conductors who have a whole ensemble that has to sound how the conductor feels. To me, when the conductor is an automaton, the music -- or the cooking -- disappears. It becomes this music that bothers us so much with things that have nothing to do with the instrument or with the magic of the cooking point, of the control of fire, of cold, of knowing how to season well. Pedro: You’ve said that cooking is emotion. Santi: Cooking is emotion for yourself and for others. Of course, cooking is emotion, but you can’t deny that each person has a different background. Cooking is so subjective that the emotions that each person receives can be enjoyed by some and not at all by others. What is beginning to concern me a bit is the reason why people want to know so much before going to a restaurant. There’s little room for surprise. Why do you have to know so much about a restaurant before visiting it? All that remains is for you to eat the dish, because you even know the recipe, you’ve seen it photographed a thousand times. Doesn’t a lot get lost, aren’t many sensations lost when you know so much about a dish before eating it? I wonder. Pedro: Could be. But regular customers -- Santi: [interrupting] No. That’s the thing. Here is one of the beautiful aspects of cooking. Why do restaurants, including ours, have to change the menu so frequently? I mean, when you find a really good dish, why do you have to change it? Why novelty just for the sake of novelty? Why are we denying a customer who has enjoyed a given dish the possibility of having it again? Because there’s no capability of discovery? I don’t think so. This is like refusing to listen to a given piece of music. When you like something, you want to feel it again: a folk singer, whatever . . . Cooking is the same. You want to enjoy those emotions again. Pedro: That’s true. I still remember a roasted kid I had here years ago. Santi I can’t stop doing that kid. Then we have the technique issue. Techniques must help you to improve dishes. You’re not making cuisine simply because you’re doing constructions with ingredients that resemble sculptures or architectural pieces. Cooking is more about sensing than seeing. Now it seems it's the other way around. People need much more seeing than sensing. When we were kids, and we were told not to eat with the eyes, it referred to the quantity of food: “I would eat all this!” Now, you have to eat with the eyes, but this doesn’t refer to quantity. You have to see extremely beautiful things. But those beautiful things are very relative. Beauty in cooking is also very subjective. Pedro: You’ve mentioned the products before. Santi: Well, now is the hardest season for me. The cooking I’d like the most, which gives me more strength, is that of fall and winter. Also spring. All the seasons where I have many wild ingredients. I like mushrooms, I like truffles, I like game. Ingredients where man hasn’t taken part. This is fantastic, a privilege. The ability to interpret nature and present it in a dish. When you have some wild asparagus, some mushrooms, it’s culinary poetry, it’s knowing how to distinguish the nuances. You see these creative cooks, and you see tuber melanosporum in summer, or boletus edulis when there aren’t any in the market and they aren’t in season in your region, and you taste them and they haven’t any taste. They come from Poland, Hungary, Central Europe. Like the rovellons (lactarius deliciosus) that come from China. Finding nuances in cooking, in the flavors of products, requires from both the one who’s cooking and from the one who’s eating a certain degree of complicity, not only with what’s going to be eaten, but also with the environment that’s being visited, along with some knowledge, some culture we could say, about ingredients and sustenance. Pedro: You’ve said that you wouldn’t use some products. Are there any techniques that you wouldn’t use? Santi: No. You should be open to anything. What happens is that you have to have some rigor. Always the same commonplaces: working with fresh products, working with seasonal products. I never tire of this. Never. Seasonal cooking, which was defined in its day as the cooking where you buy each day what’s best and serve it to your customers; being able to say the next day: last night ended with the fridge almost empty. What’s going to come in this morning -- what is the best -- is for the customer. And tomorrow, we’ll again buy what’s best. And so on. And make this effort -- the effort of emptying your cold storage room of everything perishable. The longer you keep the corpses in the refrigerator the more they lose. They don’t get any better. Well, some do, from being aged a bit. But we know that a shrimp, a shrimp just caught, is not the same next day. And all this time that we could save to avoid ingredient deterioration is time that the cook must know how to master. This is very difficult. It requires a major effort. Because we don’t always achieve it. We have to be self-critical. This self-criticism is what helps us get better every day. That’s what we want, but can’t reach. As the song, we do what we don’t want. And I have the feeling that too many times we do what we don’t want. And I use the plural in here, too. Pedro: What kind of people come to Can Fabes? Yesterday (Friday night) we heard English all around, French . . . Santi: It depends. Today (Saturday at lunch) if you take a look around there are people from the country. I don’t know why, all over Spain I’d say, people like lunch better than dinner. People party more at midday than at night. The problem is that we dine too late: if you start dining at seven, you finish by ten and go to bed at midnight. If you start dining at eleven, you finish at two thirty and that’s terrible. That hourly dysfunction makes it so that we have one kind of public at lunch and another at dinner. We have 35% tourists from around the world. Gastro-tourists, I mean. Something between 15 and 20% from other regions of Spain, and the rest are Catalonians. <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121992488/gallery_29805_1195_13409.jpg">Pedro: So, almost half of your customers come from Catalonia? Santi: Yes, almost 50% are Catalonians. Years ago, the percentage was even higher. But it was higher because I served fewer meals. I’ve increased the volume of international customers and of customers from other regions in Spain while maintaining the number of local customers. This hasn’t been from one day to the next -- it has taken several years. The number of customers sharply increased thanks to the rise of Barcelona after the Olympics. Pedro: Did the Olympics have an effect on the restaurant? Santi: Yes, they were terrible. Everybody stayed in Barcelona. But after the Games, Barcelona became a global tourist destination. People with culinary interest, when they decide to visit Barcelona, they look to the map, they consult the guide, they see an establishment 50 kilometers away, and they travel to it. This is the first of three parts. <i> Pedro Espinosa (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=10675">pedro</a>) is an eGullet Society manager, and host of the Spain and Portugal forums. Pedro wishes to thank Víctor de la Serna (vserna), Steven Shaw and Andy Lynes for their help with this interview. Photographs copyright 2005 Can Fabes Gastronomic Leisure Center.</i>

<img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121826086/gallery_29805_1195_1221.jpg">The Daily Gullet proudly presents the second of five exclusive excerpts from Steven Shaw's upcoming book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060737808/egulletcom-20">Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out</a></i> (HarperCollins). Find part one here. -The Editors. Special to the Daily Gullet, by Steven Shaw “When David Burke came up with the Bronx Chop, nobody in the industry knew what the hell he was talking about.” Philip Mosner, representing the middle of three generations of Mosners in his family’s veal-packing business, grabs one of several dozen veal legs suspended from the ceiling on stainless steel hooks, hefts it onto his shoulder, brandishes a foot-long, curved butchering knife, and gestures for us to follow him to the cutting table. In an attempt to avoid being struck by the arcing leg as Mosner turns, I back into the front half of a veal carcass. It feels like a firm pillow, or maybe I just wish it does: I got up before six in the morning to make this meeting. Mosner moves rapidly and I scurry to keep up for fear of getting lost in the 700,000 square feet of refrigerated meat lockers at the Hunts Point Cooperative Market in the South Bronx. The invention of a new cut of veal—the “Bronx Chop,” a signature dish at chef David Burke’s New York restaurant davidburke & donatella—may not immediately strike the carnivore community as significant. But in the meat business, it’s one of those seemingly unattainable achievements, like cold fusion, perpetual motion, or the fountain of youth. Veal Dish, the veal industry newsletter published by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, devoted an issue almost in its entirety to Burke and Mosner’s collaboration. In the short time I spend in Michael Mosner’s office (Philip’s brother, Michael, is president of the company), a call comes in: it’s a chef (and Veal Dish subscriber) in Pennsylvania asking about the Bronx Chop. As Chef Burke and I lean in to watch Philip Mosner carve the Bronx Chop out of the veal leg, a group of other butchers gathers around to observe. I’m a bit excited as well, so much so that I briefly forget how cold my feet are: it’s 36 degrees in the Mosner Veal facility—a piece of data that hadn’t been provided to me when I set up this appointment. The butchers are wearing insulated boots and down coats under their white aprons; I’m wearing a cotton sweater and Sperry Top Siders. “Every time I see a veal leg,” enthuses Burke as Mosner puts the leg through a series of contortions designed to remove a softball-size piece of meat from near the hip joint, “I notice this great piece of meat right at the top. And it’s totally wasted: most places just cut it up into cutlets.” Mosner pulls a hunk of flesh out of the leg and holds it up like the triumphant father in The Lion King, while I marvel at his ability to be so upbeat at seven in the morning. He then takes it over to a band saw and starts cutting away the extraneous bones and fat. Finally, the Bronx Chop emerges: it looks like a colossal filet mignon, but with a primeval bone attached, reaching for the sky. There’s only one Bronx Chop per veal hindquarter—two per whole calf—and Burke serves 180 of them in his restaurant each week. “People are going to eat this at my restaurant,” predicts Burke. “They’re going to remember it, and they’re going to come back for it.” <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121034075/gallery_29805_1195_11679.jpg">Philip Mosner and David Burke aren’t the only people toiling silently to bring you that Bronx Chop. The tender veal they butcher, distribute, cook, and serve is a result of careful breeding and agricultural research. The specific calves used by Mosner are raised on a farm in Quebec, where a group of small farmers in Charlevoix are pioneers in the humane raising of excellent quality veal. The calves have room to move about and interact with one another, they are fed no hormones or sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics, and the care with which they’re treated is evident on the palate—the meat isn’t cheap, but it’s worth it. The calves are processed (a nice way of saying slaughtered) at the Abattoir Bellerive, also in Quebec, at which point they receive a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection stamp—USDA inspectors are on hand to certify meat that is destined for cross-border shipment. At this point, the logistics industry enters the picture, moving the veal carcasses overnight by truck to Mosner’s receiving room. Mosner’s multistage operation begins with whole carcasses and, step by step, breaks them down into the various cuts of veal a restaurant or local butcher shop might buy: shanks, shoulders, top rounds, 5- to 8-bone racks, whole breasts, tenderloins, and, of course, the Bronx Chop. Mosner has its own fleet of delivery trucks, but it sells most of its meat to “jobbers,” which are small delivery fleets that service local restaurants and butchers. Once the meat reaches Burke’s restaurant, his on-site butcher further trims the Bronx Chop into two portions: the large, dramatic piece that will sell for $36 on the dinner menu, and a smaller boneless cut that will be served at lunchtime. By the time a waiter carries the Bronx Chop to the customer’s table, it has passed through two different cooking stations and in the process has picked up some pistachio ravioli, wild mushrooms, and a sauce. This is the second of five parts. Part one is here. <i> Steven Shaw (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=1">Fat Guy</a>) is executive director of the eGullet Society. He has been known to do other things on occasion. Photograph by Ellen R. Shapiro. Copyright 2005 Steven A. Shaw. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and HarperCollins Publishers.</i>

<img align="left" height ="300" width="243" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121665566/gallery_29805_1195_9029.jpg">by Rachel Nash Perlow Anthony Bourdain is a hard man to pin down. A Jersey boy turned chef, writer, and TV host--he's made his mark in the kitchen and in multi-media. He's both a contributor to, and a commentator on, the culture of food. A talking head on TV who is now being portrayed on TV by an actor. Outspoken -- often to the point of outrageousness -- but thoughtful; a horrible speller, yet an eloquent and effective writer, Tony is a mass of contradictions. The lines have become sufficiently blurred that even he confesses that "I really don't know what the hell it is I do for a living anymore." On the website for his new show, he's referred to as a "gastronomic Indiana Jones," but he laughs that aside and says that "I'm just a guy having a really good time." On screen he certainly appears to be enjoying himself, blurring those lines even further. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, a semi-sequel to his much-lauded Food Network show, A Cook's Tour, premieres Monday, July 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on The Travel Channel. In concert with that change in networks, the spotlight of the show has also softened a bit. It's "longer, bigger budget, and because it's for The Travel Channel, the focus doesn't have to be relentlessly on food in every scene, which is something we struggled with on A Cook's Tour. A lot of what's interesting about travel is what happens between meals." In an effort to unravel his many contradictions, Tony chatted recently with Daily Gullet correspondent Rachel Perlow about No Reservations, the Fox network's upcoming sitcom Kitchen Confidential, and his future plans. Opening R: Hello Tony! How are you doing these days? What are you up to? <blockquote>A: I'm doing pretty good. It's hectic these days, but good. I just got back from Las Vegas, chasing Michael Ruhlman around the desert for a TV show and for an article. That's the last thing I did. Let's see, about four days ago, I jumped out of a plane with a flying Elvis, and now I'm headed to Brazil. </blockquote><img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121665566/gallery_29805_1195_14448.jpg">R: Speaking of Michael Ruhlman, is it true that he is pitching PBS hard to replace Ming Tsai with you as host of Cooking Under Fire for the second season? <blockquote>A: (laugh) I have absolutely no idea. I just spent a week with Michael and he said nothing about it at all, so I tend to doubt that. Michael's not that conspiratorial . . . I'm dying to see Cooking Under Fire. I haven't been able to see that yet. I want to see that evil Ruhlman do his Simon Cowell routine. I hear he's the bad guy. </blockquote>R: You need to get TiVo, Tony. <blockquote>A: You're right. I even have TiVo, I just need to set it. </blockquote> R: We both grew up in New Jersey. Tell me about the episode of No Reservations which takes place in the Garden State. <blockquote>A: The show I did there focused a lot more on stuff I remembered as a kid, and maybe the Asian Invasion, which I see as a really important New Jersey thing. On the fine dining end? I don't know, you tell me!? There's some really great things in Jersey and I tried to highlight them. </blockquote>R: I was curious, because you said returning to France during A Cook's Tour was going back to your roots, where you tasted your first oyster and had a food epiphany. Were there any gastronomic epiphanies growing up in Leonia? <blockquote>A: Uh, I don't know. I mean it's always a joy to go back to Hirams [see Battle of the Fort Lee Dogs], and eat a burger or hot dog. You know, one of those deep fried hot dogs? I have a real passionate connection to that place. </blockquote>R: How is No Reservations different from A Cook's Tour? <blockquote>A: Longer, bigger budget, and because it's for the Travel Channel, the focus doesn't have to be relentlessly on food in every scene, which is something we struggled with on A Cook's Tour. A lot of what's interesting about travel is what happens between meals, who's cooking and stuff like that. It was really difficult to show those in A Cook's Tour, we had to edit those out for Food Network. Travel Channel is a wider brief. It's about travel and the journey to the meal as much as it is about the meal itself. </blockquote>R: So is the focus more on travel or is the emphasis on food? <blockquote>A: I think you could not call it a food show, though it would be very comfortable in a food format. But if something interesting happens between lunch and dinner on a couple of days, and it's as interesting as the food, and sometimes more interesting, we went with that too. It's a travel show whose point of point of view is relentlessly that of a chef and a cook. I mean, it's my point of view, my focus, my way into every culture, every place I visit. Almost everywhere I go generally the fastest, easiest way into the culture is food. So in that sense, it still corners the show, but there's not food in every scene. </blockquote>R: I was just wondering if it is as much about travel as the World Poker Tour [the Travel Channel's most popular show] is? <blockquote>A: (laugh) The Travel Channel is very well aware of what they've gotten themselves mixed up with in me. They've been pretty supportive of us doing whatever we want. That's been really nice. They've given us a real wide berth and a lot of freedom out there. So in that sense, it's been a lot of fun. We're back to the days of I can go anywhere I want, pretty much whenever I want, and make the shows I want. Me, Chris [Collins] and Lydia [Tenaglia] working together, that's a dream situation. I've waited a long time for something like this. </blockquote>R: How were the destinations chosen? <blockquote>A: I pick them using the same formula I always use. You know, cool places I saw in movies or heard about, or places I see as having some interest to me, personally. </blockquote>R: Are there any places you still have a burning desire to visit? <blockquote>A: A lot of them are on the list for this year. Uzbekistan… </blockquote>R: Wait! How is Uzbekistan on a "burning desire to visit" list?! <blockquote>A: Oh, I have a friend in Samarkand who has promised me a great time. During summertime it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities, and it should be different and exciting. Though I've been to India, I haven't done a show about it. And, we could easily do at least eight shows on mainland China. So there are a lot of places left in the world I'd like to go.</blockquote> <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121665566/gallery_29805_1195_942.jpg">R: What was the closest you came to death while making No Reservations? <blockquote>A: I'm thinking when I jumped off a cliff in Sicily. It was a really high cliff over the Mediterranean, into surf of indeterminate depth. Oh! I think it was probably rolling the quad bike over myself in New Zealand, that was pretty cool. I went up a dune. It looks like the "Evil Kneivel at Caesar's Palace jump" gone wrong. It's a pretty impressive roll down the dune, in a painful embrace with a quad bike. </blockquote> R: Ouch! Did you end up in the hospital? <blockquote>A: No, actually, I emerged unscathed -- to the shock of everyone who saw it. We caught it on film. I mean everyone who saw it was even more traumatized than me. But the most important thing is that we got the shot. </blockquote>R: Was there anything especially humiliating? <blockquote>A: Everyday. My crew loves to film me sleeping -- on a plane, in an airport, or wherever they can catch me -- especially if I'm drunk or snoring. </blockquote>R: You have a reputation that you will try anything, food-wise. What's tested that limit? <blockquote>A: I'm not a big fan of that putrefied shark in Iceland. That was really unpleasant. I mean, I've done it. I just don't want to do it again. </blockquote>R: So, is that something you've refused to eat? <blockquote>A: Yeah, my second and third pieces of putrefied shark. The first one I have to try. I feel compelled and always will. But the second and third times to be polite at functions, it was just… I finally said no. I'd had enough. </blockquote>R: You've often talked about your favorite cuisines. What's your least favorite? Would that be Icelandic? <blockquote>A: I don't know. This was a very traditional dish that's part of a yearly celebration, so it's not something they eat year-round. The worst? I think America has the very best and the very worst. It's something I wrestle with everyday, comparing us to other cultures. I think if you're going to find the very very worst in the world, you'll find it in the U.S. </blockquote>R: What is the single best food discovery you've made in the last year? <blockquote>A: The joys of Sicilian food in Sicily. I was really surprised how much fun I had there and how good the food was there. I mean, I knew it was going to be good, but it was great. I think there's this terrible, unfair assumption that Sicilian food and southern [italian] food is a little simpler, rustic, less refined. I didn't expect cooking at such super high quality. And food production and the ingredients were really just astounding. </blockquote>R: You mentioned that you just returned from Las Vegas. Tell me about your trip. <blockquote>A: We did a show that I think is an examination of the morality of cooking as much as it is about the food of Vegas. You know, the sort of moral struggle that chefs must go through when they decide to open up in Vegas. You’re opening an outpost of your life’s hopes and dreams. It’s the classic struggle in all our souls. Las Vegas. Is it selling out to the forces of evil? Is Vegas the ugly-shorts heart of darkness? I think a lot of people have to wrestle with that before they go out, and it’s something I wrestled with eating out there. </blockquote>R: You've obviously been traveling a lot for the show. Got any advice about air travel? <blockquote>A: Oh man, avoid all American air carriers. They're the worst. I mean, it's a shame how far we drag behind other countries. How good air travel can be, and how bad! </blockquote>R: So, what's your favorite airline? <blockquote>A: Singapore Airline and Cathay Pacific are both sensational. That's the way an airline should be run. </blockquote>R: Have you become proficient at getting upgrades? <blockquote>A: I'm getting better at it; God knows I have enough frequent flyer miles! When you travel as much as I do, you find yourself becoming an expert on a lot of things you'd never imagine you'd be good at: timing of laundry, upgrades, which airport you can smoke in, packing bags in sequence. These are all skills I never thought would sneak up on me. </blockquote>R: On this trip, you're going to Brazil, then LA, then Uzbekistan, have you packed separate bags for each leg of your trip? <blockquote>A: Yes, but fortunately there's going to be some overlap between LA and Uzbekistan climate. Otherwise, I would have had to have someone meet me at the airport in New York with clean clothes. That's how tight my schedule is. </blockquote>R: So what's planned in Brazil? <blockquote>A: It's a literary festival in a little village called Paratin. Bloomsbury, my British publisher, they have a literary festival there every year. I've never been able to go in the past, I've always been doing something else. So, I made sure I was able to go this year because all my friends at Bloomsbury say, "it's great, you're going to love it." </blockquote>R: Are you going to do a show there? <blockquote>A: There'll be a meeting and do some press, but I'm not going for No Reservations. This is a small literary festival held in a rural beach community on the coast of Brazil. Sounds like a murderous assignment! (laughs)</blockquote> No Reservations R: In 2003, on raintaxi.com, you said: "[You've] been accused of being more interested in chefs and in the lifestyle, than in the food, [that you're] more interested in the tribe of cooks, and their customs [and] attitudes." So, does No Reservations explore this so-called tribe? <blockquote>A: No, because I don't really shoot a lot of professional cooks. I mean, you see them, they pop up. They are often the people showing me around in the show. But there aren't that many straight cooking scenes where it's a trained chef sending out stuff in a restaurant situation. It's farms, homes, markets, stuff like that. </blockquote>R: So you do you think there's another show for you to do about that aspect? <blockquote>A: I don't know. When we get lucky, it's nice when I can highlight people I know around the world who cook professionally. I hope to do that, and as the opportunity arises where I can explore that, I will. But it's not the focus of this show. It's more home cooks and street food, more than anything else, whenever possible. </blockquote>R: Who's doing it right these days? Who's got it figured out? <blockquote>A: I think it's impossible these days to not look at places like Malaysia and Singapore as being an ideal situation, where there's great food everywhere. Where every hawker stand has something really fantastic and a great cook who makes, you know one chef/one dish type operations -- Hainanese Chicken Rice or Fish Head Curry -- there's just so much good food out there. That's who's got it figured out, as far as a food culture. That's what been the focus of my interest these days. As far as which chefs have things figured out? I think Mario Batali's got it all figured out. If any chef does, he's got all of God's gifts. He's doing good work. </blockquote>R: I noticed the picture of the two of you shopping on the Travel Channel website [not the picture above], and the comments were quite interesting… <blockquote>A: You should see the show -- it's pretty wild! Let's put it this way, Mario gets to kill me in one of the shows. </blockquote>R: Since you're still alive, so I'll take that as a metaphor? <blockquote>A: No, it's a very disturbing scene! (laughs) The Food Network execs' are going to shit themselves when they see it. </blockquote>R: Sounds like Mario's going to be moving to the Travel Channel too? <blockquote>A: No, they're just going to be dismayed with their lovable matinee star. Mario had a real sense of humor to play along with the show.</blockquote> Hell's Kitchen R: What did you do for the Fourth of July? [this interview took place on July 5th] <blockquote>A: I stayed in and watched television. I had just arrived from Las Vegas via Long Island and I was in no mood to see fireworks, let's put it that way. Ordered in Thai food. I was very disappointed that Hell's Kitchen wasn't on, I was planning on tuning in. I've been watching every episode! I'm completely devoted to the show. It's just fabulous fun, hilarious. </blockquote>R: What did you think about [Hell's Kitchen contestant] Chris getting berated for calling himself an Executive Chef, since you're an Executive Chef yourself? <blockquote>A: As I almost always do, I agree with Ramsay. When he was explaining his decision, he didn't say "you're not better than Elsie." He basically said, "when you say you're something and you don't live up to it repeatedly, well it pisses me off." He fired the guy because he pissed him off.</blockquote> R: Who do you think is going to win? <blockquote>A: Well, I think Evil Mike is clearly almost the perfect restaurant animal, isn't he? He's treacherous, manipulative and extremely capable tormented loner. Sounds like chef material to me! </blockquote>R: Are you referring to his late-night talking to himself? <blockquote>A: Hey, nothing wrong with that! (laughs) Let's put it this way, that kid's got it! He's cold blooded and manipulative. Those skills will serve him well!</blockquote> Television R: Have you seen any advance episodes of the Darren Star/FOX series Kitchen Confidential? <blockquote>A: I've seen the pilot, yes. I think it's pretty funny. Let's see, there's a partial dismemberment, implied oral sex and drug use, all in the first half-hour episode -- I'm encouraged by that! </blockquote>R: Does it follow the book? <blockquote>A: You know what? I don't look at it like that, I mean, it's shocking when you see your name on TV in a character, but it's something else. I'm not sitting there saying "wait a minute, I didn't say that, that didn't happen, that's not in the book." It was not an expectation. </blockquote>R: Did you have any input at all, or did you take the money and run? <blockquote>A: I consulted on the show, I have a good relationship with the producer and the writer, for that matter. And, I'm told I might be chasing Bradley Cooper [who plays Jack Bourdain] around a kitchen at some point soon. </blockquote>R: Are you appearing in a cameo? <blockquote>A: No, no, lord no. I'm not going to his place, he's coming to mine. We're going to cook together. I want to see if he's got any moves. I thought it might be fun. </blockquote>R: Any chance of seeing it on No Reservations? <blockquote>A: Well, that would run into some really bizarre contractual problems. </blockquote>R: There's a "reviewer who is Jack's ex" in the pilot? Any reaction to that? Is there anything true to life about it? <blockquote>A: Oh, no, my god no. That's sort of one of the apocryphal classic restaurant situations, you know the chef with the reviewer. It didn't happen to me. </blockquote>R: What do you think about chefs and reviewers having a relationship? <blockquote>A: I think it's impossible to avoid. We all kind of swim in the same pool, so there's some overlap. I'm sure it's happened, but I don't see it as any more of an ethical problem than anything else. Food reviewing is a swamp, you know. </blockquote>R: So, more importantly: Will your TV special on Ferran Adria and El Bulli ever air in the US? <blockquote>A: I don't know. I hope so. Nothings shaking now, but it sold all over the world, just about everywhere but here. We're just going to sit tight. Ferran Adria is going to be at the South Beach Food & Wine next year, and I think we'll do an event with him. And I think it's very likely we'll be selling DVDs. </blockquote>R: What's the appeal of television? <blockquote>A: It lets me go places that I'd otherwise never be able to get to, and to pretty much do what I want. It's pretty amazing. </blockquote>R: Do you prefer it to writing? <blockquote>A: Writing is a lot more personally satisfying because you have total control over it. Whereas television, you have to pay homage to the television gods every time you point a camera. It makes things artificial, it changes you life, it's strange, and it has conventions that you have to live by. But at the same time, I've been having a lot of fun, probably because the three of us have had such freedom with it; I've been having a lot of fun doing it. </blockquote>R: Do you have another book in the works? <blockquote>A: Yeah, I'm working on a novel now and a collection for next year, and then a pretty big Vietnam and Asia book. </blockquote>R: Tell me more about the novel, is it another foodie detective kind of novel? <blockquote>A: There's always going to be a chef character and food involved. It's a crime novel. I try to do them after a non-fiction project, it's an escape for me. </blockquote>R: How would you rate sales of Les Halles Cookbook in light of your own expectations? <blockquote>A: It did really well, it did very well. It did better than my expectations. I really had no idea what to expect with a cookbook, I'd never done one before, so I never thought about it until I started doing it. So I had very modest expectations and it did much, much, better than that. </blockquote>R: With all due respect to your partners in the book [Les Halles owners Jose De Meirelles and Philippe Lajaunie], it really has your voice. Was that a problem with your publisher at all? Did they want it to be more of a cookbook cookbook? <blockquote>A: No, my publisher and I have a really close relationship, and they know exactly what they're getting. This is something I really benefited from. She knew exactly what she was getting and was excited about that from the very beginning, the whole concept. You don't expect a cookbook from me where I suddenly start talking like Martha Stewart. In a lot of ways, in pretty much everything I do, including television, I think I benefit from low expectations. I get away with a lot because of that.</blockquote> <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121665566/gallery_29805_1195_8605.jpg">R: In a 2000 interview with Restaurant Report, you said: "[you were] a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking." Have you changed since you said this? <blockquote>A: Yeah, I think so, I really try very hard not to disappoint people or hurt people or just go crashing through life thoughtlessly. I like to think I think about my actions and the results of my actions now, which is something I didn't really think a lot about back then. </blockquote>R: The Vietnam book you mentioned, is that going to be a cookbook? <blockquote>A: No, I'm just going to live over there for up to a year, maybe more. I'm hoping to head over in January or February 2006, and get set up in a place. </blockquote>R: What are you planning on doing while you're there? <blockquote>A: I just want to live fairly quietly, but observantly, in a small fishing community. Somewhere near Hoi An, is what I'm looking at.</blockquote> </blockquote>R: If you're just planning on being there for about a year, is it still "New York forever"? <blockquote>A: Yeah, I mean, of course. I don't know actually. Who knows? Anything can happen in Asia. </blockquote>R: You're still listed officially as the Executive Chef at Les Halles. How closely are you still involved? <blockquote>A: I serve almost no useful purpose at all there. I'll swing by and eat, hang out, do some events there fairly frequently. And I'd like to think there's still a job waiting for me when this all turns to shit! </blockquote>R: So you haven't ruled out returning to a professional kitchen someday? <blockquote>A: My feeling is, always be prepared for the worst. I think this comes from twenty-eight years of cooking. I think ruling out cooking again invites an ironic twist of fate. </blockquote>R: In 2004, on Askmen.com, you said: "A lot of what I love about this business is anathema to somebody like [Thomas] Keller. I like volume, okay, that gives me a rush." Is this related to addiction, do you think? <blockquote>A: No, I think a lot of chefs, once you've done high speed, high volume, like a big multi-banquet operation or hotel kitchen, feel that can be a lot of fun. The sheer joy of pumping out 500, 800, or 1000 meals, all in one night, and menus changing constantly, it's just very challenging. It's a game that's very exciting. It's a different kind of a rush. That's all I meant. And obviously Keller would never want to be a banquet chef, I don't think he ever had to. That is the antithesis of what he does, which is a controlled 85 meals.</blockquote> R: You then continued by saying, "Volume is bad for food. The more volume, the less quality . . ." Are you saying that you wouldn't eat at a place where someone like you cooked? <blockquote>A: No, I'm not saying that at all. I think I would say that when you eat my food, you certainly would not be going with anywhere near the expectations you would have of Thomas Keller, or Kerry Heffernan [of Eleven Madison Park] for that matter. I never claimed to cook at that level. I don't make three-star food. I think there's a really great and important place in everybody's heart for my kind of food and for two-star food. </blockquote>R: Of course, not every meal can or should be four-star. <blockquote>A: If you've eaten a lot of four-star, like I have, who'd want it to be?</blockquote> Food politics R: So, is it over for foie gras? <blockquote>A: I think eventually, yes, probably. I think we can look at Michael Ginor's strategy at Hudson Valley Foie Gras. He's supporting the anti-foie gras laws, he's basically resigned himself to the fact that within seven years, he won't be able to produce in New York, and maybe even sell. I think that tells you what you need to know about the future of foie, certainly in America. </blockquote>R: What do they think about this in France? <blockquote>A: I'm sure that somewhere they will continue to produce it, illegally. But I'm thinking, between the EU and attitudes these days and the way the world is politically, I think it's an indefensible position. It's a very difficult issue to defend for a politician. Who's going to say, "I am for the forced feeding of ducks and geese so that rich people may sup upon their livers"? You know, that's not a vote getter. </blockquote>R: Is Pamela Anderson an effective spokesperson for PETA? <blockquote>A: Oh, I don't know. Listen, there are a couple of things I'm really supportive of PETA for. I like their anti-fur campaigns, as long as they're not throwing blood on people. I think their print ads are really effective. I pretty much agree with them, although I'm hardly going to become an activist. But if it's delicious, obviously I'm going to eat it, so on that point, well, we differ. </blockquote>R: Yeah, because they think everyone should be vegetarian. <blockquote>A: I obviously don't buy that. But they have been effective in some areas. Where they've been smart. I think the fur campaign, they show you pictures and make you think about it. They show something being skinned alive, it makes you think, "is fur that important to me?" When they leave it up to you, that's where they've been effective. </blockquote>R: I thought you were referring to the "I'd rather be naked than wear fur" stuff. <blockquote>A: Well, all of that stuff. It can't hurt. I mean, how do you change behavior? I would use that same kind of campaign to get people off fast food. Basically shame, humiliation, alternate role models to make something look not hip to do. I think all of this has a place in advertising. </blockquote>R: What do you think about genetically modified foods? <blockquote>A: I'm not necessarily opposed. I'm willing to believe that there's something useful there. I'd like to see it proven one way or the other. I don't have a closed mind about it. It sure sounds good to me, if it works. I'd like to know if it does or not. Is it a good thing or a dangerous thing, or a bad thing or not. I don't have any ideological opposition to the idea of it. I just don't see it as threatening. It could feed a lot of people, potentially. </blockquote>R: What's your take on the organic movement? <blockquote>A: I think it's an important and positive sector of what's going on in food right now, especially if it's an artisanal product. By the same token, I'm willing to believe that a tomato grown in a green house can provably taste better than an organic tomato. It's an ideological thing. It can be annoying, but as a real world development, the fact that people are taking the time to try to raise good vegetables and produce, is a really positive thing. </blockquote>R: What about Slow Food? <blockquote>A: I think it's a wonderful idea that's attracted a lot of like minded people. It's influenced the way people eat and cook and behave. And I think focused on things that have been overlooked, so I think Slow Food is a really great movement.</blockquote> Wrapping Up No Reservations R: Let me get back to No Reservations for a minute, how many episodes of have been filmed? <blockquote>A: We've finished eight, and have four left to go.</blockquote> R: Are you planning doing a second season? <blockquote>A: They're talking about it already, sure. We already have a whole bunch of countries and places in mind that would be really fun to go to, that would make great television. India is way high on my list. We're doing a show on mainland China this year, and I want to do a lot more of them, and definitely India. A tremendous number of people watch my show in Southeast Asia and Asia. I'm really aware and happy about that, and I'm anxious to make as much as possible Asian-centric shows for Asian viewers. I know they're watching. A Cook's Tour airs on Discovery Channel all over Asia. Discovery Asia ran it almost from the beginning, right after it started airing on Food Network. </blockquote>R: Are A Cook's Tour repeats going to be running the US at all? <blockquote>A: They're airing at like four in the morning on Food Network. I'm terrified that they'll start showing them again during prime time, once [Fox's] Kitchen Confidential comes out. That's the sort of cynical, gutless shit they pull. </blockquote>R: I can see why they'd want to score on the hopeful popularity of the new show. <blockquote>A: Well, let's put it this way, if they suddenly start plugging the show and put it back into rotation, I will piss myself laughing. </blockquote><img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121665566/gallery_29805_1195_9791.jpg">R: Did it end because they didn't want to spend money on it? <blockquote>A: It was great for two years. The people who used to run it, for a while, were able to make those kinds of decisions at Food Network. One of them was Eileen Opatut, and the other was Judy Gerard, the president. I liked them. They let me get away with murder at that network and they were both really really proud of the show, and happy that they did it, and I really respected that. But these munchkins who came in later were clearly (pause) it was impossible from the get go. There was pressure for more and more domestic shows. Obviously, they wanted the budget to conform more to their business model and their important target viewership. This means I'd be doing barbecue shows every week (they get huge ratings spikes every time they show you a barbecued rib on that network). So it would be funny if they suddenly "rediscovered" those shows. We have a collection of quotes from various executives near the end at Food Network, as the old machine that we liked was going out and these new people were coming in. Some of them were really hilarious. [For example] "they talk funny, we can't understand them," was a comment on any show where there was anyone with an accent. </blockquote>R: Well that's just par for the course, according to many members of the eGullet Society. <blockquote>A: You know that foodies are not their target audience. They're about food as much as MTV is about music.</blockquote> Finale R: Organ meat or muscle? <blockquote>A: (pause) It's just so hard to pick. I wouldn't want to eat liver every day for the rest of my life, so I guess muscle. </blockquote>R: Food in Newark, New Jersey or London, England? <blockquote>A: London </blockquote>R: Rocco DiSpirito or Gordon Ramsay? <blockquote>A: Gordon Ramsay! Oh, no contest. </blockquote>R: McDonald's or starvation? <blockquote>A: McDonalds. </blockquote>R: What do you like there? <blockquote>A: Um, almost nothing. But if I'm in a really starving, stoned, self-hating mood, I can see myself eating one of their foul burgers. You know, you're happy while you are eating it and then you, literally, you stink, and you hate yourself afterwards. </blockquote>R: Is there any chain restaurant food that you can tolerate? <blockquote>A: Well, if I'm stoned, or even semi-stoned, and it's late at night, I don't mind The Colonel every now and again. I think he's evil, but I like his chicken. </blockquote><img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121665566/gallery_29805_1195_12481.jpg">R: Tums or Rolaids? Or Imodium? <blockquote>A: Imodium's great. It's a life saver, let me tell you. The whole No Reservations crew, we are well acquainted with Imodium. </blockquote>R: Any words of wisdom for the people of eGullet, who are your demographic? <blockquote>A: Jeez, I don't know. Try to get an upgrade whenever possible. Tourist class can be killer.</blockquote> Each episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations will air several times each week. Click here for the schedule. Want more Bourdain? There's "The Bourdain Identity," an article Tony wrote for the Daily Gullet in December 2002. Also, here's the eGullet Q&A with Tony Bourdain from June 2002. When Rachel Nash Perlow was a little girl, she wanted to be a chef, but a stint in a country club kitchen cured her of that notion. She helps out the eGullet Society with behind-the-scenes work and as a host, in addition to working on her vegetable garden and playing with her two poodles. This is her second interview for the Daily Gullet.<i> Rachel wishes to thank Jon Lurie for his invaluable help in editing this piece. Photos by Diane Schutz copyright 2005. Photo by Nari Kye copyright 2005.</i>

<img align="left" height="300" width="300" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121034075/gallery_29805_1195_6909.jpg">The Daily Gullet is pleased and proud to serve up this, the first of five exclusive excerpts from Steven Shaw's upcoming book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060737808/egulletcom-20">Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out</a></i> (HarperCollins). Called "pure crack for foodies" by Anthony Bourdain, and "a delicious read" by Mimi Sheraton, the unique expose/diary/diner's handbook comes out 16 August 2005. -The Editors. Special to the Daily Gullet, by Steven Shaw<br> Some would say I became a food critic to subsidize a restaurant addiction. They would be right. But my condition is probably genetic. Three decades before the current restaurant-architecture trend of “open kitchen” design (which typically allows customers to see a restaurant’s cooks at work behind glass), before Kitchen Confidential and The Restaurant reality show, and before Food TV was a gleam in its creators’ eyes, my father used to take me every weekend to the original open kitchen: the breakfast griddle at the local diner. We spent countless hours over a period of years watching the griddle man, and all the while my father delivered a ceaseless stream of commentary: “You see, son,” he would say, “he does the home fries the right way -- with baked potatoes. Now, pay attention while he does that big table’s order. He’s got to have all six dishes ready at the same time. Only the best cooks can do that every time. This man was a plasma physicist back in Russia, you know.” My memories of dining with my father have set the tone for my whole attitude toward and passion for restaurants. Dining with him wasn’t only about the food -- it was about people, about ideas, and especially about building an inventory of inside jokes. Once, a little old lady came into the diner and asked for liver and onions. “Cut it up in little pieces,” she demanded. “Cut it up in little pieces,” the Russian physicist/griddle man replied, with a bow. “Cut it up in little pieces,” added my father, gratuitously, from the other end of the counter. It became an inside joke for us that lasted twenty years. Even as my father lay exhausted on his deathbed, in the final round of his decade-long fight against heart disease, I was able to elicit a smile from him by whispering, “Cut it up in little pieces.” As he did with respect to all areas of human endeavor, my father had more than his fair share of theories about restaurants. “You can’t get good service in an empty restaurant,” he used to say, since vitality is crucial to a restaurant’s performance. A literature professor, he analyzed menus with the same intellectual rigor he applied to the great books and, through such analysis, was unfailing in his ability to select the best dishes. He was fond of saying, “I’d rather have the Stage Deli name a sandwich after me than win the Nobel Prize.” Even when eating a hamburger at midnight, an indulgence he permitted himself once a month, my father could be overheard quoting Shakespeare and Melville in his conversation with the fry cook. Waiters at the neighborhood restaurants called him “The Professor.” They would seek his advice on marital problems and ask him questions about the nature of being. My father treated the lowliest bathroom-mopper as an intellectual equal. I used to stare at him incredulously when he would try to explain Dostoyevsky to the Greek ex-con dishwasher at a restaurant on the corner of 69th and Broadway in Manhattan. “This man,” my father would patiently explain to me, “may very well be a descendant of Aristotle (or Confucius, or Leonardo da Vinci). Can you and I claim such honorable ancestry?” My father often spoke like he was reading from a book. At holiday time, he and I would walk around the neighborhood and, with great ceremony, he would present a crisp twenty-dollar bill to his favorite waiters at each of his regular haunts. The waiters would grasp the bills as though they were the crown jewels. It wasn’t the money they were reacting to -- it was the thought, the fanfare, the connection to a different era and attitude. He always called waiters by name and he always asked a million questions about their homes, their families, and their heritage. And he remembered every answer, because every answer was important to him. My father never managed to get a sandwich named after him at the Stage Deli, and he never won the Nobel Prize. Years after his death, however, a Greek diner on Columbus Avenue still offers “The Professor Salad,” and you can still order “Professor’s Special Lobster Cantonese” at a local Chinese restaurant. And I like to think that, somewhere out there, the Russian grill man is teaching physics at a prestigious university but still remembers how to make “Eggs Professor.” We were a family with a middle-class income—both of my parents were teachers. As a teen, my idea of a fancy meal was the monthly visit to Gallagher’s steakhouse in the Broadway theater district with my father and my uncle Paul. By the time I was a teenager, I was cooking dinner for my friends on the Stuyvesant High School debating team -- sometimes ten or more of them at a time. In college I was considered something of an oddball because I cooked so much of my own food and would walk an hour or more in the Vermont winter to visit the only good Chinese restaurant near Burlington, housed in what I think used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken in an office-building parking lot on a lonely stretch of Shelburne Road. I married the girl who always walked with me. It was in my second year of law school at Fordham University in New York that I discovered fine dining, courtesy of the many law firms that came to my school to recruit young lawyers-to-be for their summer associate programs. A half-day interview with several partners would be capped off by lunch at a fine restaurant with a group of the firm’s younger associates. The legal hiring process, overseen by an organization called NALP, allowed me to schedule fifty job interviews. Even though I planned to accept an offer from the first firm that had interviewed me, which had been my top choice, I kept the other forty-nine appointments so I could get the free lunches. Whichever fool said there’s no such thing as a free lunch never interviewed for a law firm job. My first assignment as a commercial litigator at a large midtown Manhattan law firm began the day after my wife and I returned from our honeymoon. My boss, Rory Millson, called the night before: “Shaw, it’s Millson. Come early tomorrow. Bring clothes.” The trial had me living in a hotel and working out of temporary offices in Wilmington, Delaware, toiling 24/7 for almost nine weeks. True to my nature, though, over the course of my incarceration in Wilmington, I sussed out all the best places to eat and, in what turned out to be the beginning of my next career, I wrote a short Wilmington restaurant survival guide, which became a bit of a cult classic around the New York law firm scene. To this day someone will occasionally e-mail me a copy and ask, “Hey, did you really write this? Your writing used to suck!” As an attorney I was well paid, but if you divided the number of hours I worked each year into my salary I was probably paid less than my secretary. My wife, Ellen, and I, who as students had become accustomed to 24/7 access to one another, now had to schedule “date nights,” and we had a standing Saturday lunch date at a favorite restaurant, the now-defunct Lespinasse. Lespinasse was one of my formative fine-dining experiences. Most of my fine dining at that time had occurred as a result of my getting involved in big law firm culture, so I was fairly new to restaurants like Lespinasse. Still, I had been to most of the big-name places by then and I thought I understood good food. That was until eight of us, including the head of the firm, went for dinner at Lespinasse, and my eyes were opened. It was an awakening. I was so astounded by the food, the surroundings (Lespinasse looked like a palace ballroom), and the service (I learned years later that our waiter’s name was Karl) that I barely participated in the dinner conversation and, instead, held a hushed dialogue with Karl about each dish, each glass of wine, and each utensil. I knew I would be back. <img align="right" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1121034075/gallery_29805_1195_11679.jpg">Over time, and with my meals at Lespinasse and many other restaurants in mind, I realized I was more interested in my business lunches than in my business as a lawyer. I started to write short restaurant reviews and food essays, and I sent them around to magazines and newspapers, hoping to get them published. After about a year of that, during which time I didn’t get a single thing published, I turned to the Internet. It was just around the time when, with a bit of effort and study, any crackpot with delusions of grandeur could create and maintain a basic Web site. This crackpot put fifty restaurant reviews online and waited. At first, only my friends in the law business, a few hardcore Internet junkies, and my mother read the site. Then one day the New York Times discovered my reviews and discussed the site in a food section article. Overnight, my site went from getting about twenty visitors per day to getting more than twenty thousand. I remember my Internet service provider e-mailing me that day: “We suspect your Web site may be under attack.” New Media outlets such as Salon.com and the now defunct Sidewalk.com picked up on my work and, later, so did newspapers and magazines. But working full time as an attorney, I didn’t have the time to hone my craft. So I made a choice: I gave up my career as a lawyer in order to devote my life to writing about food. Over a five-year period, I wrote more than five hundred restaurant reviews. They mostly followed the standard format: a discussion of the various dishes on the menu, plus commentary on the decor, service, ambience, and wine list. Ultimately, though, I found that restaurant reviews were a limited form of expression, because they answer only the most basic Consumer Reports level of inquiry: “Where should I eat?” And they answer it in the most generic way, from a reductionistic dish-by-dish perspective. I felt there were plenty of restaurant reviews out there, but that there was something missing. I began to focus my writing on larger issues, not so much where to eat, but how to dine. On my thirtieth birthday, Ellen took me to dinner at Gramercy Tavern in New York City, then and now one of my favorite restaurants. Our waiter, Christopher Russell, who went on to become the beverage and service director at the legendary Union Square Cafe, overheard bits and pieces of our conversation and finally asked, “Are you Steven Shaw, the Internet food guy?” It was the first time anybody had ever recognized me as a writer. The chef, Tom Colicchio—who apparently had also been reading my work—came to the table and introduced himself. My moment of glory was cut short, however, by a pronouncement from Colicchio. “You know what’s wrong with your writing?” he asked. “It’s that you have absolutely no idea what happens on the other side of the kitchen doors.” I blanched. I sputtered. I recovered. I challenged: “So what are you going to do about it?” “Come in Monday at 9 A.M. Ask for my sous-chef, Matt Seeber. I’ll order a cook’s jacket in your size.” That week in the Gramercy Tavern kitchen, in addition to being murder on my feet, raised my addiction to a new level. I dedicated myself to learning as much as I could about every aspect of the business, from the inside out: all the things one doesn’t see as a consumer. I hit up two other chefs -- Christian Delouvrier and Alain Ducasse -- for kitchen time. I shopped with chefs. I visited farmers and fishermen. I spent time with waitstaff. A lot of time. And not just in fancy restaurants. I’m equally fascinated by temples of haute cuisine and roadside barbecue joints, by the most exclusive Japanese restaurants and the local pizzerias with their “stick men” who manipulate the pizzas with long wooden peels. I’ve spent the past several years investigating every level of restaurant, from New York to Vancouver and from Chicago to the Southeast, from the special-occasion place to the business-lunch spot to the local frankfurter stand. Though restaurants are infinitely diverse, when viewed in an operational sense restaurants at every level appear quite similar. Like any two species of the same genus, the genetic codes of the highest and lowest restaurants in America have far more in common than not. <i> Steven Shaw (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=1">Fat Guy</a>) is executive director of the eGullet Society. He has been known to do other things on occasion. Photograph by Ellen R. Shapiro. Copyright 2005 Steven A. Shaw. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and HarperCollins Publishers.</i>

Submission guidelines for the Daily Gullet We want the Daily Gullet, the literary journal of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, to be the first place readers go for the freshest, sharpest and most savory food writing on the internet -- or in any medium. Our articles should jump off the screen: provocative, instructive and, of course, devoted to all things gastronomic. Here’s a short list of subjects we’re looking for: Fact pieces about food science and technology; food history; food geography; food politics; and the food business. Opinion, as long as it’s lucid, well-written opinion, about food-related topics. Travel pieces about food and culture (not day spas and room rates) that provide insight about how the world eats and thinks. Food and cooking pieces that we won’t see in the Wednesday Food Section of your local daily, but should. Food-oriented fiction. Memoirs, if you know that your memories will be interesting to a wider audience than your grandchildren. That’s the short list -- we’ll be delighted to read great food writing on any original subject. (Two subjects that don’t interest us are straight restaurant reviews and book reviews). But it must be original. If you’ve posted it in a blog, or anywhere on the internet, we don’t want it. If it’s appeared in print, we don’t want it. The eGullet Society is volunteer-staffed and non-profit, so we don’t have a crack army of dedicated researchers. We have to rely a lot on trust -- we will rarely be able to track down source material. We will not tolerate abuse of this trust. And it must be well-written. For writers both aspiring and professional, the Daily Gullet provides an unparalleled audience for your best stuff. In the future, perhaps we’ll have the financial resources to pay you -- right now we can provide you with tremendous exposure in a place that welcomes fresh thinking. We reserve the right to show your piece on this site for as long as we see fit and to use it to promote the eGullet Society in any way we can think of, but 90 days after we publish it, you are free to flog it elsewhere, with our best wishes. We're not like a print journal, where your work gets published and that's the end of it. Think of anything you write for the Daily Gullet as the beginning of a conversation: part of the deal when we publish you is that you'll participate enthusiastically in the eG Forums follow-up discussions. Since only eGullet Society participating members can take part in eG Forums discussions, you'll need to be a member in good standing. If you’re an experienced writer -- we hope you know who you are -- send a query and sample (links are fine), unless you are in the middle of a long fact piece. In that case, you might prefer to submit a detailed outline. First-timers should send manuscripts or detailed outlines. Length: Take 750 words as a minimum. If your article is just that good, we don’t have a maximum word count –- we’re not killing trees. Art: Please provide at least one photograph, if possible. If not, give us an idea of what sort of graphic you’d like to see, and a clue as to where we could find reference material. Style Guide: Make life easier for our hard-working editors -- follow this link to The Daily Gullet Style Guide. The eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters is committed to the “Letters” portion of our name and our mission. We look forward to reading your submissions at dailygullet@egullet.org.

by Janet A. Zimmerman <img align="left" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1115292522/gallery_29805_1195_13064.jpg" height="185">I seem to be going backward. Most people learn to cook from recipes, building their confidence before experimenting on their own. Me? I've been experimenting for years, but now I want to go back to following recipes. When I mention this to friends and fellow cooks they assume either that my sometimes compulsive nature would compel me to precision in following recipes -- and they're surprised to find out that I rarely follow them -- or they're puzzled why I'd want to go back when I've obviously moved past the recipe stage. So why am I set on going back? It started when I was at a friend's for lunch. She made an Asian chicken salad with red peppers and asparagus and a sesame-peanut dressing. I mentioned how much I liked it. She pointed to an open cookbook, and said, "It's from that -- I love the recipes in it." Okay, as epiphanies go, it was minor at best. But it wasn't exactly that book or even that recipe that sparked my interest. It was the process: summoning the discipline to follow someone else's instructions without automatically assuming I knew better. Maybe I could learn something. When I got home, I looked at the ninety or so cookbooks lining the wall in my kitchen (not counting the overflow that's taking over the spare bookcase in the hall). It struck me: it's been probably ten years since I've used them for the recipes they contain. I started to leaf through my old favorites, the ones I used to cook from. As I looked up the recipes I remembered, I discovered that in virtually every case, the ones I'd "followed" were covered with my changes. It was possible that I tried the recipes once the way they were written and then started experimenting, but somehow I doubted it. Scanning those scribbled-over recipes, I was sure that most were my experiments from the start. But there must have been a time when I regularly cooked from recipes. Finally, it hit me. The only time I followed recipes religiously-- in the sense of not substituting ingredients whenever whim called or necessity entailed, not combining half of one recipe with half of a second, not borrowing a technique from one and the flavors of another -- was when I bought the two-volume Mastering the Art of French Cooking. (Twenty-five years ago, give or take, but who's counting?) Mastering the Art of French Cooking was not my first cookbook. I'd been cooking regularly for several years by the time I got it, alternating between following recipes and just winging it. But my purchase of it coincided with two things: a lot of free time and a decent kitchen. For a couple of years, I spent endless hours cooking from it. Soupe a l'oignon (with several variations), potage veloute aux champignons, pate sucre and creme anglaise, Coquilles St. Jacques a la Parisienne. I made my first hollandaise sauce, my first beurre blanc, my first mayonnaise from the recipes in those two volumes. And it was fun. Perhaps I was naive; I was certainly fearless. It didn't occur to me, for example, that making croissants should intimidate me, so I just made them. I read the recipes, and did what they said, and if it sometimes seemed like there might be an easier way, I followed the instructions anyway. So: Why not return to that stage, at least once in a while? I'd pick a completely new recipe from a different book once or twice a week and actually follow it. I'd get some new dishes out of it, and hey! I could write about it too, and get double miles. I would make myself really follow recipes. I wouldn't allow myself to make alterations until I'd tried the recipe as written. I vowed to be very strict. Pretty strict, at least. I picked a book, not at random exactly, but neither with a definite purpose in mind, unless you count an unfocused but growing interest in New Orleans food as a purpose. I'd bought Palace Cafe: The Flavor of New Orleans a few weeks earlier on a whim -- it was on sale, I had no cookbooks from that region, the recipes made me salivate (here's some advice: if you're trying to cut back on cookbook purchases, don't read them right before lunch) -- and I figured it was as good a place to start as any of the others. I'd try one of the recipes that sucked me into buying the book in the first place: "Lyonnaise Gulf Fish with Lemon Beurre Blanc and Caramelized Onions." The beurre blanc and caramelized onions -- two of my favorite food groups -- had first enticed me, but the dish as a whole had promise. White fish fillets are dipped in an egg wash and then seasoned flour. Then a coating of shredded potatoes is pressed on over that and the coated fish is sauteed until golden brown and served with the beurre blanc and onions. I'd never had much luck with fried shredded potatoes before, so although I'd seen the technique in recipes, I'd never tried it. I figured it was time I got over that hurdle and learn something. This was the recipe for me. I looked up the recipe. In my past life, I would have skipped to the part about how to prepare the fish, because I know how to make a lemon beurre blanc and caramelize onions. But this was the new me, so I thought I should play by my new rules and follow the whole recipe. Problem One: the first time I'd glanced at the recipe, I'd completely missed the final step -- topping the cooked fish with a) poached eggs and b) Choron sauce (the recipe for which was included, but in an index section). Choron, I recently learned, is hollandaise sauce flavored with tomatoes (actually, Julia says it's bearnaise flavored with tomatoes, and my money's on Julia). I have it on good authority that it's worth trying, but lemon beurre blanc and tomato-flavored bearnaise (or hollandaise -- whatever) in the same dish? I love butter, but even to me, this seemed like overkill. The entire poached egg step, in fact, seemed superfluous. What was this supposed to be, breakfast? I decided that the eggs and Choron could quite reasonably be viewed as a variation, in Julia's terms, on the master recipe. So I could ditch it without actually breaking my rules. (Yeah, okay. The point was to follow the recipe. But come on, I'm already making a beurre blanc and caramelizing onions and coating fish with potatoes; I don't need to get obsessive.) But to prove that I can, indeed, follow a recipe -- or at least three-quarters of one -- I decide to use the sub-recipes for the caramelized onions and lemon beurre blanc. For the caramelized onions, I read that I need one large onion, julienned, and a half-cup of butter. Okay, stop. I can get past the "julienned" onion; even though I wouldn't use the term "julienne," I know what they mean, I think. But a half-cup of butter? For one onion? Which, when cooked, gets mixed into a butter sauce? I can't do this. I'll cut it in half; it still seems excessive, but I'm willing to compromise. The instructions tell me to cook the onion in the butter until "well caramelized." It's fortunate that I know what this means; there are no further indications given. It's dawning on me that this is an incredibly poorly written recipe. What sort of cookbook author would fail to mention a whole second sauce except in passing, by reference to another page? The same sort that would fail to explain how to "julienne" and caramelize onions, apparently. I can't imagine trying it if I weren't already an experienced cook. Julia's recipes may have been long and complicated, with frequently nested steps, but at least she was clear. But the problem is, now I'm hooked. I really want to make this dish (albeit without the eggs and Choron). It sounds so good, and I've promised myself. I'm going to do this. I persevere and turn to the sub-recipe for the lemon beurre blanc. The ingredient list calls for heavy cream. I stop again. I recall the chef character in Anthony Bourdain's novel <a href=” Bone in the Throat, as he consults Larousse on beurre blanc: "There is no, I repeat, no, cream in a real beurre blanc . . . You see any mention of cream in there? No . . . you put cream in there, it ain't a beurre blanc." If a cookbook author is going to cheat so egregiously, he should at least admit it. Still, I'm okay with this. I can add the cream or not, depending on timing. It will help if I need to keep the sauce; if I don't, I won't use it. The main puzzle about the recipe, though is this: "Three whole, lemons, peeled." I read the directions, and there's no further instruction before telling me to combine them with chopped shallots, a couple of bay leaves, half a cup of white wine and a few peppercorns in a saucepan. Falling back on the old standby, I check Julia's recipe for lemon beurre blanc, plus -- to be on the safe side -- two more from other books. They all call for lemon juice and one calls for zest as well. But none of them call for anything close to the amount of juice from three lemons. I'm confused; I even check the Palace Cafe recipe again to make sure I haven't missed anything. In the index, I find lemon beurre blanc listed twice, once from this recipe and once on its own in the "Et Cetera" section. I flip to that section thinking that maybe the other iteration of it will make sense. No such luck; it carries the same vague directions. The thing with the lemons is keeping me up nights. First, the juice from three lemons, together with the white wine, would make for so much acid that all the butter in the city couldn't tame it. And if it's just the juice, then why peel the lemons? Who "peels" lemons, anyway? You don't peel lemons, you zest them, don't you? Then I think that maybe I'm just supposed to strip off the peel and use that to infuse into the white wine. But surely, if that were the case, the recipe would simply call for the peels of three lemons, not three whole lemons. If it actually is the whole lemons, then I really don't get it. First of all, the image of three whole, peeled lemons lounging around in the wine and shallots like pasty vacationers in a hot tub is just too surreal; second, I can't believe the method would produce enough lemon flavor. So it must be the juice, or the juice and zest. But then I'm back to the beginning -- way too much lemon juice. And around I go again. As I'm tossing and turning, it occurs to me: maybe I'm supposed to pull the lemons apart, into segments. Or crush them. Wait! I know, now. Cut the peeled lemons up before simmering them in the wine mixture. This could be it. I check out my theory with a friend who knows about Southern cooking. "Of course," he says, "Cut them into chunks. It's common in Creole and Cajun cooking." (It occurs to me that I could have just asked him to start with, but that would have been way too easy, and totally out of character.) But I'm ready, at long last, to follow the recipe (except for the eggs and Choron, and the extra butter for the onion, that is. Oh, and the cream for the beurre blanc). Now, though, I'm thinking of the practicality of it all. The amount of beurre blanc I'm going to end up with is staggering: the recipe calls for a pound of butter (not even counting the butter for the onion). Yes, of course, I can cut it in half, or even by three-quarters, but when I start to do the math, it strikes me: I'm officially over this recipe. I haven't even made a shopping list -- okay, let's be honest here, I haven't even gotten to the main part of the recipe (the fish fillets and potatoes) -- and already I'm exhausted. Giving up on it wasn't easy, despite all its problems. I'm not a quitter. I swore I would follow recipes, and here I was, defeated by my first attempt. I wanted to apologize to Julia, and I needed to redeem myself. So I picked another recipe -- much simpler, perhaps, but it was a written recipe in a book I own, so it counted. It was "Roast Bone Marrow with Parsley Salad" from The Whole Beast, by Fergus Henderson, something I'd been meaning to try ever since I bought the book. My butcher always has marrow bones; I love them. The other ingredients, only a handful, would be easy to get; the instructions were simple (and delightfully written: "Meanwhile, lightly chop your parsley, just enough to discipline it . . ."). There were no sub-recipes or references to other sauces on other pages. [An eG Forums topic on The Whole Beast is here - Ed.] Forget the poached eggs and Choron sauce. Forget Lyonnaise Gulf Fish with Lemon Beurre Blanc and Caramelized Onions, for that matter. This was the recipe for me. At the produce store, buying the parsley and shallots, I saw bunches of beets with gorgeous fresh greens attached. I remembered reading a recipe for beets and their tops with a horseradish cream sauce. It had sounded great, and as a bonus, I thought that maybe if I actually followed two complete recipes in the same meal, it would help assuage my guilt over abandoning the Lyonnaise Fish. I felt better. Of course, I didn't have the beet recipe with me, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. As it turned out, when I found and printed the recipe, I'd done pretty well without it. I hadn't known I was supposed to sprinkle chives over the top, but I could live with that. And I ran into a minor problem: I was supposed to roast the marrow bones at 450 degrees and roast the beets at 350 degrees. Since I'm skeptical about the superiority of roasted beets, that didn't bother me. They're faster, easier and less messy in the pressure cooker, anyway. Other than that and the lack of chives, I stuck with the recipe. If I'd tried to make the dish without consulting it -- something the old me would have done without blinking an eye -- I'd have missed adding lemon zest to the sour cream along with the horseradish, which would have been a shame. And undoubtedly, I would have blanched the greens, rather than sauteing them in butter, because I've always started by blanching beet greens, whatever I end up doing with them. So I learned something. Cool. The marrow and parsley salad was a revelation. The bones are roasted. Crostini are made. The salad (the parsley, a couple of shallots, sliced, and a handful of capers tossed in lemon juice and olive oil) is prepared. Simple, straightforward, but so much more than the sum of its parts. Who'd have thought it could be so ethereal? (Well, besides Fergus Henderson?) Maybe this was a good idea after all -- trusting someone else's culinary sense once in a while. As I spread the last of the marrow on the toast and topped it with a pinch of salad, it occurred to me that I'd done it, in my own fashion. I'd followed recipes, after all this time, and it wasn't so bad. I could do this again. Perhaps even Choron sauce was in my future. Assuming, of course, that I could find the right recipe. <i>Janet A. Zimmerman (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=7258">JAZ</a>) writes about food and teaches cooking classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the dean of the eGullet Culinary Institute (eGCI) and co-host of the Fine Spirits and Cocktails forum. Art by Dave Scantland (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=6393">Dave the Cook</a>)

by Margaret McArthur I'm alone in a rowboat in a howling Nor'Easter, provisioned with nothing but a bottle of Molson Ex and a bag of marshmallows. Twenty years of cooking magazines are acting as ballast, but the boat's taking on water and I'm forced to jettison my collection. What goes over the bow first? As a recurring nightmare it can't compete with the one where I'm trying to catch a plane to Oslo to pick up my Nobel, only to find that my shoes don't match, my passport has expired, and I've forgotten my speech in the taxi. But faced with the laws of physics, the linear feet of available shelf space and the ever-expanding cookbook collection, I'm bailing out the boat at least once a year. Sorry, Martha, over you go, just from sheer weight. I'm sure you ace the swimming portion of the Iron Man, and my complete series of Martha Stewart Living has already been eroded, standing in for sand as the leveling agent under the patio bricks. I can find your recipe for piped peapods on the bookshelf or at marthastewart.com. Besides, I'm hanging on to you because I still yearn to craft a complete collection of State Birds entirely from pompoms. (Lest you think that burial under the bricks is a sign of masculine disrespect, my husband adores Martha, and would have served her five months in a flash had she put him on her calendar for an assignation featuring pumpkin carving. She's blonde, she can cook and after watching her tour Steinway and Sons, he's convinced that she can rebuild a nine-foot grand faster than even he.) Gourmet. Groan. Every other year a mutable pair of adorable nine-year-olds comes to the door, selling magazine subscriptions to raise money for Brownies or soccer camp or Missions to Mongolia. Sigh. Of course I submit, and choose Gourmet. What compels my caving? There's always that single irresistible recipe I want to save, so I add another month to the stack waiting for that rainy-day clipping party that never happens. Come to think of it, I can always consult Epicurious.com. Sorrow is cold comfort Ruth; you're going over the bow. I shake a dozen blow-in subscription cards from a random copy of Bon Appetit. Here again, Epicurious is my friend. Reserving a card to be inscribed later with a plea for rescue -- which I'll stuff into the empty Molson bottle -- I toss the rest, along with five years' worth of endless holiday tips, into the drink. For five years, we had unlimited access to the dumpster of America's leading importer of foreign periodicals. That was truly the Golden Age of magazine madness: piles of Paris-Match, Country Life and Madame Figaro obscured the coffee table, the carpet, and the tops of toilet tanks. The Italian cooking magazines were by mille miglia the most beautiful, and I saved (and still cook from) dozens of them. But: I cough into my saltwater-soaked hanky, channel Violetta in the last act of La Traviata, and watch Sale e Pepe, A Tavola and La Cucina Italiana sail away. Quel dolor. After the operatic catharsis, I manage to pitch a near complete set of Cook's Illustrated, senza lagrima. Thanks for cooking up the compilations, Christopher; the boat's another foot higher in the water. I nibble the last marshmallow -- and prepare to go down with the boat, the beer, and twenty-five issues of Pleasures of Cooking. I will go to my watery grave with Carl Sontheimer. The Man By now, I should expect it. Along with those other culinary crushes of mine, de Pomiane and Babinski, Sontheimer was a Science Guy first, a Food Guy second -- I gleaned most of his biographical information at the website of his alma mater, MIT. He was born in New York City in 1914, but spent most of his youth in France before heading stateside to go to college. He was a Mechanical Engineer, inventor and entrepreneur with a passion for microwave -- the frequency, not the oven -- and he sold a direction finder to NASA, who deployed it on a mission to the moon. As a tribute to his ingenuity, MIT has established the Carl G. Sontheimer Prize for Excellence in Innovation and Creativity in Design. (Don't confuse this with the <a href="http://www.ttnews.com/members/topNews/0002379.html"> Sontheimer Award</a>, which honors "The driver who best exemplifies all the attributes that make up the professional truck driver.") He sold his engineering company and could have spent the rest of his life bumming around La Belle France in considerable style, munching through every star in Michelin. You can take the engineer out of the country, but you can't take the engineer out of the rich retired gourmet entrepreneur. In 1971, Carl and his wife attended a culinary trade show in France. In a coup de foudre, he fell in love with the monstre mechanique of the French professional kitchen, the Robo Coupe. He bought a licensing agreement and tinkered with the bulky behemoth, downsizing it for home use. In 1973, he delivered its docile domesticated offspring, the Cuisinart. To paraphrase Carole King, the earth moved under our clogs. The Machine The Cuisinart is a fixture now, a standard item on the bridal registry, like a covey of canisters or an electronic foot spa. Typical is the daughter of a friend, married a year: she has yet to sully the work bowl with so much as a shallot, because the newlyweds rely on that other shower perennial, the microwave, for all their romantic dinners a deux. I weep for that flame set of Le Creuset, and the gleaming gaggle of All-Clad that will likewise remain virgin long past the Paper Anniversary. But, oh those heady early days! Sauce Maltaise in rivers. Mayonnaise every night, whether we needed it or not! Pate without cranking the clunky grinder that n'er cleaved to the counter. My weekly batches of quenelles, mousses, terrines and Anchoiade Nicoise rivalled the output of the garde-manger on the QEII, and we ate enough Potage Crecy to handle our lifetime requirement of beta-carotene. I worked at Crate and Barrel when Gordon Segal owned only four stores and flipped burgers for us employees at the company picnic. The cookware store jillionaire was mad for the Cuisinart; I julienned cases of carrots to the amazement of the nascent foodie class -- and for the personal enrichment of my boss. I used my employee discount to buy my own slice/dice/knead/puree miracle machine (Cuiz One), and replaced it for the first time only two years ago, 6,240 batches of pizza and seven cars later. Not because the machine didn't work -- hell, the motor still purred to life with a flick of the fingertip -- but it had become a wearisome chore to order the now- obsolete mixing bowl. We decided to blow some money for Cuiz Two. In non-culinary terms this is like replacing an '88 Honda never driven outside Southern California. I lugged Cuiz Two (a Deluxe 11) upstairs to the bathroom and set its squat booty on the bathroom scales. It weighs in at twelve and a half pounds before breakfast -- a food processor middleweight -- some of the Big Boys push twenty pounds. But that twelve and a half pounds is enough to prevent the machine from going walkabouts when it's kneading a pound and a half of bread dough, and its motor has never stalled or overheated. I knocked out a blender in the first twenty seconds of Round One without so much as a standing eight count; it stayed on the mat in acrid electrical meltdown while trying to shred tough artichoke leaves on their way to the compost heap. Cuiz Two doesn't break a sweat. The food processor's knockout punch is the s-curved stainless steel blade. Pureed chicken livers for all those terrines in about fifteen seconds, pate brisee in thirty, and bread dough in a minute and a half. It's the attachment that gets the most use unless you are, as I was, briefly, in the underground carrot cake business. That said, some of the happiest hours of my working life were spent wowing the world by demonstrating how to grate a zucchini in three seconds with the grating disk, or how to deconstruct a cabbage with the scary-sharp slicer. I don't pull out the plastic dough blade very often and I don't own the newfangled attachments like egg whips or fruit juicers; I don't need them. The basic kit has never failed me, although I've pulled stupid stuff. Hint: Do not puree large quantities of liquids, crepe batter for instance. To yield two cups prepare five, since three cups will ooze like thin sweet library paste over sixty square feet of countertop and floor when you remove the bowl from the shaft. But the blade will function perfectly, and it will be the work of thirty-five seconds. The cleanup will take a month -- two, if you have grouted surfaces. Trust me. Should you desire advanced guidance in feed-tube plunger pressing, or need specs for competitive food processors, I refer you to How Stuff Works. The Magazine After setting up Cuiz One for its virgin voyage, I shook the box and out fell a slim spiral-bound cookbook: <i>Recipes for the Cuisinart Food Processor</i> (James Beard and Carl Jerome), along with an invitation to join the Cuisinart Cooking Club. I felt as if I had been invited to join a cozy crowd of early adopters before the term had been adopted. Signing up would get me a subscription to the club newsletter, and a magazine called The Pleasures of Cooking. Assuming that my memory hasn’t been wasted by age and Maker's Mark, I remember that the first couple of issues were free, Little Girl. The heady contents of my first issue hooked me, and I would have considered a life of petty crime in order to feed my The Pleasures of Cooking jones -- if the magazine were available today, I'd turn to drugs, numbers and prostitution. Someone once told me that his collection of The Pleasures of Cooking was the only paper he bothered to rescue from his burning house. The edges of the survivors are black, brittle and redolent of smoke, but he still uses them. Should my house be set ablaze by an untended vat of duck fat, why would I rescue what my daughter calls "that really greasy sticky stack" of cooking magazines before I grab the family silver but after her hand-made Mother's Day cards? For one thing, they're damn near irreplaceable. Sontheimer published two cookbook anthologies: The Pleasures of Cooking Fruits and Vegetables (Maria Kourebanas, Editor, Carl Sontheimer, Editor Ecco, 1998) and Classic Cakes and Other Great Cuisinart Desserts (Carl G. Sontheimer, Cecily Brownstone, Contributor Hearst, 1994.) They're both out of print, and fine as they must be, they're mere single-subject compendiums. The Pleasures of Cooking was exciting precisely because the subjects were so eclectic. Here's the bill of fare from March/April 1987. "Eye Opening Weekend Breakfasts" (Marion Cunningham!)</li> "Bhutanese Cuisine" (Suzanne Waugh)</li> "The Waffle Makes a Comeback" (no author cited.) Ten glorious glossy pages of waffle recipes and photos. Hmm . . . Curried Waffles with Chutney Butter sound interesting…</li> "Seafood Specialties from Maine Chefs" (Sally Tager) Flambeed marinated salmon?</li> "A Wealth of Welsh Fare" (Fay Carpenter). Gee, I can't remember the last time I saw a long article, with recipes, about Welsh food; in fact, it's the one and only. A slice of Teison Nionod, anyone? (Hang on a minute here -- Bhutanese Cuisine?).</li> "Plenty of Polenta" (Mindy Heiferling) Think back, Dear Reader: In 1987 polenta didn't nestle in a cryovac tube next to the bacon at the Piggly Wiggly. The few Americans who knew what it was called it as they saw it: high-falutin' cornmeal mush. </li></ul> May/June 1982 gives us Roy Andries de Groot on "The Mussels of Brussels," and Florence Lin on "Baked and Steamed Chinese Buns". Cuiz One churned out hundreds of steamed Lotus Leaf Buns. Lin teaches us how to turn them into Bat Buns; I remember that I dipped the tip of a chopstick into red food coloring, then dabbed the bun twice. "Mommy! Bat Eyes!” In the September/October 1982 issue, Jacques Pepin butchers, ties and trims all sorts and sizes of game from quail to venison, then Cecily Brownstone offers us a piece of Applesauce Cake for dessert. Julie Sahni teaches a seminar about Indian flatbreads a la Cuiz; the grease stains on the page remind me that in 1982 I made Phulka and Aloo Poori. Left to myself, I would never allow a sweet potato through my front door. Not only that, but in 1982 I distrusted turmeric, had never touched a tandoor or tasted so much as a forkful of vindaloo. Completely ignorant of Indian food, I still felt seduced, impelled, inspired to puree those orange tubers with cinnamon, flatten the paste into discs, and deep fry them in three quarts of bubbling canola oil. It took a month to degrease the ceiling. The Pleasures of Cooking masthead included James Beard (from its inception until his death), Cecily Brownstone (Sontheimer's Number Two), Paula Wolfert and Jacques Pepin (for the entire run of the magazine). The photography was way ahead of its time, both seductive and instructive. No ads, of course, because the entire magazine was an ad, though forty per cent of the recipes don't require a Cuisinart. There's foodie arcana -- James Beard tells us that he breakfasted from a tray delivered to his bedroom every morning until he turned twelve. In rereading the sticky stack, I marvel at the space Sontheimer gave to Asian food, the charm of Susan Purdy's interview with Jeanette Pepin (May/June 1986. Hmm. Green Bean Salad with Cream Sauce,) and the poignancy of Jacques Mendes's piece about the late Bernard Loiseau in which Christian Millaut describes him as a "fundamentally happy man." (March/April 1986.) Even the reader recipes on the back page are consistently solid: Next time I'm in Oakville, Ontario I'll look up Barbara Gibson, and present her with my Key Lime variation of her Lemon Icebox Cookies, which rock on in the top ten of my Cookie Hit Parade. Sontheimer inaugurated a long hot series on Indian regional food by Copeland Marks that makes me want to go Goan tonight. Brownstone's series on Classic American Cakes nudges me into the kitchen, where I at last bake the Williamsburg Orange Cake I never found time for back when Jane Fonda and I worked out to Jimmy Buffett together. Here's Copeland Marks again, this time from Tunisia; I'll try that carrot salad with capers, mint, olives and hard-boiled eggs. In fact, I'll make it tonight! "I'll make it tonight!" Those four words explain why I'm still clutching those twenty-five issues to my bosom when the Coast Guard throws me a line. Of course, I try new recipes every time I pull a cooking magazine from the mailbox. Yeah, I find good, even great, new dishes in print and on line. Sure, Carl Sontheimer wanted us to fall hard for his machine -- and to buy one for Mom come Christmas. He knew that your girlfriend would head to Crate and Barrel and get one for herself when she saw you make child's play of zucchini bread. But the man's love of good food (frat house meals at MIT were a severe disappointment after a French boyhood!) and his pleasure in its cooking continue to inspire, one issue at a time. Within a four-day period this month, he inspired me to make Suzanne Jones's Beaten Biscuits, the Williamsburg Wine Cake, Basque Lamb Stew, Pickled Pears, and Oatcakes. Browsing Pleasures of Cooking for even five minutes can still, after all these years, turn me on, lift me from my chair and into propel me into the kitchen. I’m, excited, aroused -- lusting! -- to cook something new, something old, something exotic. Something wacky. Marshmallows I last toasted a marshmallow on the shores of Lake Massawippi, singing "Louie Louie" around a campfire with my fellow prepubescent Episcopalians. Commercial marshmallows are cheap and dependable, and my annual consumption is exactly one bag, to be melted into the obligatory No-Fail Chocolate Fudge at Christmastime. As my daughter now prefers costlier Christmas confectionery, I may have bought my last squishy sack. But Carl Sontheimer inspired me to make marshmallows. The March/April 1984 issue of Pleasures of Cooking included an article by Susan Smith titled "Many Many Marshmallows." I came upon it last month. Lingered over a full-page photograph (a wall of pink and white, chocolate-dipped, coconut-coated marshmallows.) I smiled the way the yearbook portrait of the guy I dated in tenth grade still makes me smile. (Sam was silly, sweet and sideburned.) "Many Marshmallows?" In 1984, I guffawed: Carl had finally lost it, meandered that meter too far on his road to show me the seductive features of Cuiz One. (I do remember making the Devilled Crab from "Jim Beard's Tray Dinners" on page 16.) This time I read the recipe. Hell, all the ingredients are pantry staples, and cheap ones at that. Boil corn syrup, water and sugar until it reaches 250 degrees. Dissolve some gelatin and keep it warm. Whip three egg whites with an electric mixer, dribble the hot sugar syrup, gelatin and vanilla over them and beat continuously, until the sticky stuff becomes cool and thick. Spread the whole mess into a pan dusted with powdered sugar and cornstarch, wait two hours, cut into squares, and it's magic time, folks. Marshmallows! Knowing well my struggles with confectionery in general, and hot sugar syrup in particular, I parted with four bucks at Target for a candy thermometer. The drive back seemed longer than usual, the red lights more frequent, the motorists deeply respectful of the speed limit. I did have the decency to mock myself: I was courting a speeding ticket hurrying home to make marshmallows! Three hours later, I dusted the cornstarch from my fingers. I beamed. Stacked on my best pedestal cake plate were tiers of chocolate-dipped, coconut-coated, pink and white marshmallows. Frothy fripperies, silly and sweet, made, come to think of it, with no help whatsoever from a food processor. I'd been inspired to cook something new, just for the fun of it, because a whimsical photograph, good writing and a seductive recipe reached from the page, wiggled a flirtatious finger, and pointed me straight me to the kitchen. That's the real reason I'll never part with Carl's sticky stack. Every issue reminds me of how I began to cook, shows me why I still love to cook and pulls me from my chair to cook some more. The title once seemed stuffy, stilted, even smarmy, but Carl Sontheimer christened it right. Sontheimer didn’t care if you flunked Pompoms 101. His magazine isn’t about restaurant reviews, collectible can openers or finding the best brand of baked beans. He was proud of his late-life Baby, the machine that revolutionized our kitchens, and he wanted us to coo over it, chuck its chin and contribute to its college fund. But above all, he wanted us to believe in the endless delights beckoning us to cook -- the classic, the cutting edge, and the exotic. The pleasures of cooking. Margaret McArthur, aka maggiethecat, writes, cooks and tends her garden near Chicago. Art by <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=6393">Dave Scantland, aka Dave the Cook</a>, after </i>The Lady of Shallot<i>, by John William Waterhouse. (1888, Tate Gallery, London)

by Steven Shaw <img align="right" src="http://egullet.org/imgs/daily_gullet/viewerslikeyou2.jpg">On the occasion of my parents' wedding anniversary, in the late 1970s, the nuclear family went out for dinner. Each of us was to pick a local fast-food establishment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for one course in our degustation. My mother chose the first stop, Bagel Nosh on Broadway and 71st Street, where I had Genoa salami (then considered exotic) and Jarlsberg cheese (then considered good) on a bagel nearly five inches in diameter (then considered radical). My father opted for the Chic-Teri on Amsterdam Avenue, an establishment serving chicken with preternaturally golden, crispy skin with a sheen that today could only be achieved by a professional food stylist armed with a spray can of polyurethane. We were full after the first two stops, but we pressed on. My sister had control of the third course, and chose Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips on 72nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam. I hadn't yet made my peace with fish at that time, but Arthur Treacher's, which I believe to be one of the finest fast-food chains in history, nonetheless made one of my favorite foods: the Crunch Pup. Having described the Crunch Pup to many nonbelievers over the years, let me be clear that the Crunch Pup was not a corn dog. It was a beef frankfurter enrobed in the same batter Arthur Treacher's used for its fish and fried in 100% trans-fatty hydrogenated tropical cholesterol shortening, which is out of favor now but will eventually be shown to make you smarter. I had the final pick and chose McDonald's on Broadway and 71st, otherwise known as my favorite restaurant. When we entered the establishment, the lights were uncharacteristically dim. As our eyes adjusted, it became apparent that on every table in the restaurant there had been placed a tablecloth and a stout red candle. We had stumbled upon a promotion known as Candlelight Dinner at McDonald's. As I consumed an alarmingly large pile of McDonald's fries (then fried in beef tallow), I was declared to have "restaurant karma." In the late 1970s -- prior to the acceptance of karma as a meme -- when you said karma, you meant it. That our food memories are about more than food -- that they are inextricably linked with family and other contextual apparatus -- goes without saying, or so I thought. It turns out, however, that what we need is the three-part PBS documentary, The Meaning of Food, which airs nationally on PBS on consecutive Thursdays (7, 14 and 21 April 2005 -- local air dates may vary; see note below), to explain the proposition. After three hours of video, and even if you spend another three hours reading the companion book (also called The Meaning of Food), you still won't know what the meaning of food is, but you will have been relentlessly beaten over the head with the notion that food definitely does possess a lot of very important meaning, and that said meaning is not just about nutrition. The Meaning of Food is more than worth the time it takes to watch, and is mostly great television, if a bit workmanlike in what has become the de rigueur PBS Documentaries for Dummies style. So entrenched and predictable are the many conventions of the PBS documentary -- the slow panning across historical photographs, the staged "impromptu" family moments, the out-of-touch voiceovers, the Woody Allen-esque soundtracks -- that the form now borders on parody. Though I'm guilty of participating in more than one documentary in this style, the next time I see a food documentary that depicts somebody eating something and saying "Mmm. It's really good! Ha ha ha!" I'm going to beat my television set to death with my Meaning of Food cookbook. The three episodes of The Meaning of Food consist of a total of some 20 culinary segments, assembled with the racial and cultural even-handedness of a Star Trek bridge crew, and narrated ("hosted," we are told) by Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised, New York chef-restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson. Unfortunately, Samuelsson, who speaks superfluously and awkwardly from a studio, does not appear to have been involved in the things he might have been good at, like the conceptualization of the series and the location shoots. The Meaning of Food can be riveting when it celebrates food, and excruciating when it tries to lecture us on food's meaning. The producers rightly chose to put the most joyous and enjoyable segment up front in Episode One: "Food and Life" (thematically distinguished, sort of, from Episode Two: "Food and Culture," and Episode Three: "Food and Family"). At the show's opening, after the “Viewers. Like. You.” message and a forgettable introduction read by Samuelsson, we're treated to Italian gourmet market owner Mike Piancone, who is frantically preparing several times as much food as can possibly be consumed at his daughter's wedding. We see him with a bathtub full of imported buffalo mozzarella, we meet his cake decorator, Iren, who is decorating a white-frosted chocolate cake for every table (21 cakes in all) with violet and purple flowers, and we get to see a real Italian-American wedding from the vantage point of the PBS Betacam, which probably wasn't all that much more intrusive than a regular videographer would have been. (Message: food isn't just about food; food is love). Few will be able to resist the charms of Shatreen Mashoor and her "Ramadan Diary." A Moslem-American triumph of the melting pot (Samuelsson says he prefers the metaphor "stew"), she's a cheerleader and thoroughly modern and assimilated. She speaks with the exact cadence of a distracted American teenager, which she is, but she's also fasting for Ramadan as a cultural thing. One of the most memorable moments in the series is a phone conversation between Shatreen and her grandfather (we only hear one side), with which every child or grandchild of immigrants who has ever tried to get a straight answer out of grandpa will immediately identify. (Message: since you don't eat when you fast, it must be about more than food). There's a segment focusing on customs agents at JFK Airport, memorable mostly for the sheer quantity and diversity of agricultural contraband they seize in a day. (Message: people like to bring back the foods of their homelands because food is about more than just food). We meet Brian Price, an evangelical radio host and former Texas convict-chef who prepared last meals for death row inmates. (Message: since you don't really need a meal right before you're going to be executed, food must be about more than nutrition). Geechee heritage (the Geechee, or Gullah, are descendants of African slaves in South Carolina) and the culture of rice are explored by filmmaker Julie Dash, NPR commentator Vertamae Grosvenor, and poet Nikki Finney. (Message: food is about all kinds of things, and not just nutrition -- it's about poetry too). And for those who missed it the first ten times around, we get a sympathetic telling of the poor Makah Indians' attempts to hunt a whale in the face of animal-rights protests. (Message: well . . . you get the idea). There are also some surprise vignettes, like Nigella Lawson reading an apropos passage from MFK Fisher (who arguably said all that needs to be said about the meaning of food), some tasteful images of breast feeding, some reactions of people to their first taste of durian and an awkwardly grudging and hurried acknowledgment of the hamburger as an iconic American food. Though she is silent in the television presentation, we hear plenty from series creator Sue McLaughlin in the companion book (there's also, for those who are interested or who happen to be teachers in search of lesson plans, The Meaning of Food website. McLaughlin regrets that Americans are so focused on "the physical details of what we're eating" as opposed to "whom we're eating with and why." (Of course, "Viewers. Like. You.," having demonstrated their sophistication by watching PBS, are not guilty of this mainstream commercial American ignorance, so one might wonder: why make a show for people who aren't watching?) When talking about the meaning of food, we learn, it's not enough for food to be delicious. It must have credentials. Meaning, even. (Without a hint of irony, though, the book contains numerous recipes). Thankfully, The Meaning of Food's television version doesn't press the point too far. Where it does, however, it displays the utter conviction that the meaning of food must be about anything but the food itself. It wouldn't be acceptable, in the PBS paradigm, to say, "I like vanilla ice cream because it's sweet, luscious and cool." That would be too American, too gluttonous, too focused on the physical details of what we're eating. We need an anthropologically correct justification: "When I eat vanilla ice cream it brings me closer to my hunter-gatherer ancestors." This is where The Meaning of Food gets tangled in the web of its own preconceptions. In three hours of documenting the meaning of food in America, paid for by Knorr (aka Unilever), precious few people are portrayed eating what Americans actually eat every day. Many more Americans, after all, have culinary memories revolving around McDonald's than have ancestors who hunted whales, or fathers who own Italian delis or cook last meals for death row inmates. And it follows that we have more to learn about ourselves from the former than the latter. But in the PBS universe, nobody eats at McDonald's save for obese hicks, and so (since I only possess one of those two credentials) my Candlelight Dinner at McDonald's story is as likely to be aired on PBS as <i>Extreme Makeover: Home Edition</i>. The primary casualty of this stew of agendas, though, is the food. So powerful is the imperative to avoid discussion of "the physical details of what we're eating" in favor of trumped up cases for meaning that the series overall becomes oddly muted. In the pursuit of the meaning of food, the food itself has somehow been left behind. Steven Shaw (aka "<a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=1">Fat Guy</a>") is executive director of the eGullet Society. He has been known to do other things on occasion, and is even the author of a book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060737808/egulletcom-20">Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out</a></i> (HarperCollins, August 2005). Art: Dave Scantland

<b>by Dave Scantland</b> <img align="left" src="http://egullet.org/imgs/daily_gullet/gully_key.jpg">Late last summer, we put the <i>Daily Gullet</i> on hiatus as part of the transition from eGullet.com to the not-for-profit eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The transition involved a complete institutional reorganization as well as major technology upgrades. That transition is now complete, and the <i>Daily Gullet </i>is back. When we went on hiatus, the eGullet Society executive team asked me to take over as editorial director of the Daily Gullet. My job started with a careful review of what had come before, using the experience and knowledge we gained in the first incarnation of the <i>Daily Gullet </i> to develop a new vision and plan. When founding Daily Gullet editor Steven Shaw launched the journal, he set out with the goal of becoming the <i>Slate</i>, the <i>Salon</i>, the <i>Wired</i> of food writing on the web. Almost two years later, with the impending shift to a not-for-profit model ahead, and considerable evolution and learning under our belts, I proposed to the team that we re-characterize the mission of the <i>Daily Gullet</i>. Instead of being the <i>Slate</i>, <i>Salon</i> or <i>Wired</i> of food, I suggested that we become something more akin to a culinary version of the <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/"><i>Washington Monthly</i></a>. It's possible -- even likely -- that you've never heard of this magazine. Compared to mainstream poltical periodicals, it has a small circulation, and it's geared, like the <i>Daily Gullet</i>, to addressing a population of hard-core enthusiasts. To give you some idea of its impact, the <i>Washington Monthly</i> is widely credited with the coining the term "neoliberal," as well as laying, inside the DC beltway, the ideological foundation for the election of Bill Clinton. More to the point, it launched the careers of writers like James Fallows, Gregg Easterbook and Walter Shapiro, among many others. Say what you like about its politics, the <i>Washington Monthly</i> has clout that counts. Like the eGullet Society, the <i>Washington Monthly </i> works hard and wields impressive influence in its market, despite modest monetary resources. It makes up the difference in exposure, integrity and nurturing. Because the <i>Daily Gullet</i> enjoys sincere, passionate backing and a committed editorial mission, we believe it can generate the same loyalty, authority and presence in the food community as the <i>Washington Monthly</i> does in political circles. What you will see here in the coming months is a new <i>Daily Gullet</i>, extending its original commitment to promoting new voices, but shifting its focus to high-quality content over quantity, with a front page that changes daily in details but is more sedate in the rotation of its major features. The new <i>Daily Gullet </i>functions as an editorially autonomous segment within the eGullet Society, with a distinct editorial mission and voice. While it is a unique service that the Society offers, it is not a Society newsletter. The <i>Daily Gullet</i> “lives” on the new eGullet Society portal page. From now on, the www.eGullet.org web address will take visitors to the Society portal, and from there to the <i>Daily Gullet</i> and other features of our webspace. The portal page and the <i>Daily Gullet</i> both will be much more integrated with the rest of the site, especially our eG Forums. We regret that we have not communicated very well about our plans and progress while we've been building the <i>Daily Gullet</i> and portal. Limited resources meant that we had a choice between doing the work or talking about it, and we chose the former. We hope you like what we've done with the place. Dave Scantland (aka "<a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=6393">Dave the Cook"</a>) is editorial director of the <i>Daily Gullet</i>. He also devotes an inexcusable amount of time to his paying job as creative director for a high-tech firm in Atlanta, Georgia. Art: Dave Scantland

<b>by Marlene Newell</b> <img align="left" src="http://egullet.org/imgs/daily_gullet/recipe_gullet_avatar.jpg">If you haven’t been a Society member for more than about six months, you might have missed the collaborative online cookbook <i>RecipeGullet</i>. Recipes range from larb to lamb, from jello to gumbo, and almost every one of them has been tested through extensive trial, error and thorough discussion. In many cases a spirited discussion provokes the entry, in rapid succession, of a number of recipes for the same dish. Debates can also spark cookoff challenges, such as the one that occurred recently in an eG Forums topic about pan-fried chicken. Each recipe is subjected to scrutiny, amplification and potential variation by Society members -- beginners, advanced home cooks, and seasoned professionals. Clear instructions, illuminating techniques and thoughtful ingredient lists are just some of the benefits that distinguish <i>RecipeGullet </i>from standard online recipe databases. <i>RecipeGullet </i>is also at the forefront in educating home cooks in the use of weight measures for solid ingredients. To make recipe entry as easy as possible, RecipeGullet features a powerful proprietary data entry algorithm that converts plain language recipes into formal ingredients lists. <i>RecipeGullet </i>went on hiatus late last summer when eGullet.com transitioned to the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting a broad spectrum of activities concerning the culinary world. Coupled with the simultaneous launch of the <i>Daily Gullet</i> and last month’s start of the eGullet Culinary Institute spring semester, the reopening of <i>RecipeGullet </i>represents the much awaited completion of this reorganization. The eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters hopes that you will include these revitalized features as part of your regular food-related reading. <a href="http://recipes.egullet.org/main.php">Click Here for RecipeGullet</a> Marlene Newell (aka "<a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=6080">Marlene</a>") is <a href="http://recipes.egullet.org/main.php">RecipeGullet</a> director, <i>Daily Gullet</i> managing editor and eGullet Society head of operational support. In her spare time, she runs a consulting practice and force feeds her family and friends. Art: Dave Scantland