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Steve Klc

eGullet Society staff emeritus
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Everything posted by Steve Klc

  1. But that was the genius evident in your initial post Gordon--there's alot here and it exists on several levels. As chef, as home cook, as consumer--there are conflicting perceptions and realities of time and circumstance. Thanks for opening the door.
  2. Oliva--how important is price in your criteria--I mean you mention "quite reasonably priced" as opposed to "high or highest quality?" Do these make your list primarily because of the cost--or is it a quality issue as well, i.e. the same high quality products can be found here as in higher priced markets or sources? Because, for instance, I shop at the Lebanese Taverna Market store on Lee Highway in Arlington alot--it's close by me, a clean, bright and attractive place--there's a very engaging chef on site supervising and cooking all day. A large prep staff. All the middle eastern foods and prepared items are impeccable--and there's turnover so stuff doesn't sit around. It may be more expensive than some of the markets you listed (I don't know) but the quality is so high I don't care. (The place is amazingly clean. A big plus for a chef, as I am.) Have you shopped much at the Landmark Mall bakery, for instance, and how does it stack up against this Lebanese Taverna--say for the baked goods and things like halawa and lebne and bulk stuff like pine nuts and mahlab? Is the quality the same? Do they make and stretch their own phyllo like Abdul does at Lebanese Taverna? I ask this not to challenge but to get more specific about your criteria--and to learn more about what it is you appreciate about these locations. You also didn't mention the Italian Store in the Lyon Village shopping center also off Lee Highway in Arlington. Have you ever been and how does Via Reggio stack up in your opinion? And again, back to your criteria--is the buffalo "cheaper and just as good" at Sutton or just just cheaper than at Via Reggio?
  3. Steve Klc

    Freezing foods

    I'm late to this thread--but has anyone addressed the legality and restrictions of bringing foreign goods back into the country? What you are and what you aren't allowed to bring back--and ways you can possibly circumvent these restrictions?
  4. Did they really print the dash line in the web address as "e-gullet?"
  5. Let's expand this a bit--here are a few things I use regularly. I wonder if any of you feel I'm cheating or being duplicitous--and this speaks a bit to what Shaw was saying about possible illusions among diners and foodies and pros: Frozen fruit puree. I use it all the time--it's sometime, sometimes, better than the "real" thing. It is certainly more consistent--it saves time--more efficient because it is already strained and comes in convenient 1 kg packages. It can be of a very very high quality--picked at the peak of freshness and flash processed and then frozen. Now--am I cheating? This isn't to say I ONLY use frozen puree and NEVER fresh fruit in season--and some frozen purees are better than others, even within a brand, say Boiron or Ravifruit, I have my favorite for coconut or for passionfruit. Often I layer fruit flavors--fresh, caramelized, roasted, dried, frozen. Here's another--I buy these cherries already in brandy, called griottes. Cheating because I don't pick and "can" my own? I don't use them often but every now and then, in a frangiapane tart or with pistachio creme brulee, ummm, they're so good. Almond flour. I buy it rather than "grind" my own from whole almonds because flour has the oil pressed out of it and you just can't do that yourself. You just can't grind it that finely at home or in a pro kitchen because the nut oil gets in the way. And gound almonds (with all the oil) just don't perform the same way in recipes--especially for baking--as flour does. Now, I would never think of this as cheating but is there a perception I am cheating if you heard of some baker who said they pick and grind their own almonds? One product that I think would fall into the category of cheating/duplicity would be something called "confectionary glaze" or coating chocolate--which is kind of a faux-chocolate product that has had all the cocoa butter extracted from it, rendering it this this kind of greasy dark pretend chocolate. I don't use it but some pros do--you don't have to temper it, since it doesn't have cocoa butter in it it is less expensive than a fine chocolate--this is the junk usually on all those ubiquitous "chocolate" dipped strawberries you get from caterers or on bakery sheet cakes or commercial pastries that looks like chocolate but then you taste it and dreckkkk. Would you find this culinarily duplicit? (I would.) What about something like a Duncan Hines box cake mix? There are pro versions of this--"Gen mixes"--for all kinds of things like genoise cake, pastry cream, muffins etc. That's in part why so many of the commercially baked goods tastes exactly the same everywhere--huge 50# bags of these powders are delivered by the Sysco's of the country to commercial foodservice outlets--we know this goes on and we know it is a convenience and cost issue--but are we prepared to pay more to lessen the reliance on these products? Would you pay more for a smaller muffin, made completely from scratch, with less sugar and better dried fruits? And many pros have quite a bit to reveal. It isn't competition holding any of us back. As a pro you never get to the point where you stop learning from others or stop challenging yourselves. As soon as you disengage, you become less vital.
  6. Well, here's one illusion in this thread--that butter and/or cream in modern dishes are overdone by inexperienced or younger chefs. that may be true, but sorry,not exclusive--to my palate, eating around, a heavy reliance on butter (and fat) is modern cooking's open secret and many of the best and best known chefs still use it freely, especially at the high end. where do you think all these young sous chefs are learning it? top chefs use it by choice--not because they're unaware of alternatives. Now with outsourcing frozen puff--if it is a high quality, consistent product then to me, it's no different than bringing in any other ingredient--especially if as a chef you have the skill to use it properly and the detectable difference between what you make yourself and what you buy is negligible. Jacques Torres used great frozen puff at Le Cirque 2000--if he can, any pastry chef can. It's an illusion to try to claim higher moral ground by making puff yourself. Especially if you can't tell the difference on the plate in the finished product. Not to mention the fact that the frozen puff could be of an even higher quality than the dishwasher could make who you've just promoted to "pastry chef" and asked to make the puff by hand. Now if you can tell the difference--the choice is alot more dependent on your margin and price point and what you stand to gain--which are all variable for each person and situation. You wouldn't make your own chocolate or your own marzipan--and if you tried you couldn't do it as well as the manufacturers with their specialized expensive equipment. With many things it just doesn't matter whether you've made all the components by hand--it matters that what you produce is the best it can be for the price you charge. We've discussed this on lots of other threads and in other contexts--which is better or more preferable: that Heston Blumenthal and his inexperienced pastry chef try to make their own average, basic chocolate candies to serve as petit fours or outsource his chocolates, made with his guidance and recipes, to an accomplished, skilled local artisinal chocolatier and have them come out superb--as a diner which would you prefer? I don't see choosing the latter as a cheat or duplicitous. I see it the same way as outsourcing bread to the best local artisinal breadmaker--a valid and worthy choice. (If only espresso could be outsourced.) Sometimes I wonder if it is easier to focus in on whether you made it from scratch, with organic local ingredients, by hand, when you don't trust your own palate and don't have the taste, experience or awareness to tell the difference.
  7. Was science or molecular gastronomy mentioned in the context of Shaun Hill?
  8. Thank you Cab. I haven't read the issue yet but Ed might be digging the hole a little deeper on this. Keep going--is Ferran Adria mentioned at all or is the passing reference to "experimental French and Italian chefs" HE knows it? How about the requisite nod to "molecular gastronomy?"
  9. FM--I'll try anything once but I'd need more to go on then that; NYFP--you can buy almond milk just like soy milk in supermarkets now but I prefer home made--just simmer ground almonds or almond flour in water, infuse for awhile, say overnight, and then strain. There are some more complicated versions but that's basically it. Depending on which you use--ground nuts or flour--you get a slightly different end result: since nut "flour" has had most of the nut oil extracted or pressed out of it. Not better or worse, just different. I like the flour since the flour is ground finer than you can grind your self. Don't add rose water until cool. Add sugar and lemon juice to taste. Sprinkle ground pistachios--especially bright green Sicilian pistachios on top if you really want to get daring. I'm not clear from your soy milk comment but if you can't drink almond milk (which doesn't actually contain any milk--it's all nut) then it's probably not worth making the drink as is. With soy substituted you might want to explore a few different flavor profiles rather than rose--but I haven't worked with soy, so go for it. I find almond milk delicious and first worked with it in Medieval recipes--where many dishes had to be adjusted for religious dietary restrictions. Good almond milk rocks--and I'm planning on doing an almond milk panna cotta for an upcoming restaurant project because it just seems to go with so many other flavors of this region. The main idea is to avoid the trap Suvir mentioned earlier of drinks which overdo the sweetness and rose flavor and/or use an inferior quality rose water or essence. Start by thinking of rose as an elusive perfume which you have to be half way through eating or drinking a dish before you realize yes, this is rose! When you are more comfortable with it, push more.
  10. kfo--keep posting like that and, well, your audience will surely grow. welcome. so, it's your sense that there are very good products and raw ingredients up there--just not enough reasons to draw more professional culinary talent? or more an audience lacking in either awareness or appreciation to support such talent in the kitchen? or other factors?
  11. Cab et al--you might enjoy reading the Ed Behr interview, with Behr's thoughts on fusion, on Steve Shaw's site. I wonder who or what is dragging Ed into culinary modernity--this is the money-quote as far as I'm concerned: "I saw his food as uncompromisingly earnest, the result of a personal quest to understand taste. Blumenthal wants to amuse, and he wants to challenge, but in a good-natured way." Can a positive review of Paul Liebrandt be forthcoming? (That is, if Liebrandt convinces he's as uncompromisingly thoughtful, earnest and good-natured as Blumenthal.) I'm sorry, but I just don't trust Ed's ability to critique form and substance at the high end as I trust his ability to ferret out the significance of artisinally produced goat cheese or get me to appreciate Sauternes in a different light. Where "The Art of Eating" has been aiming recently is...interesting. Meet Ed Behr, courtesy of Steve Shaw, here: http://fat-guy.com/article/articleview/20/
  12. do you recall her technique FM?
  13. I'm afraid I'm not much on Vermont--lack of experience--but can vouch for the frozen flatbreads since my local Fresh Fields/Whole Foods Markets have carried them for years--and I enjoy them tremendously. Also, I was one of the first diners at the Flatbread Company restaurant which opened in North Conway, NH--a different, but related, venture--and can say without hesitation it immediately became the best restaurant in town. It's based on several of the precepts and recipes from American Flatbread. Simple concept, excellent execution and taste. Yes, the decor and mythology is a bit hokey/kitschy but the food was fantastic. Link to the restaurant site, with oven pictures and kitsch, here: http://www.flatbread.net/Page_1x.html Next weekend my wife and I are doing a wedding cake in NH--and I can't wait to eat there again. Perhaps more than once. And Shaw--good catch--that was a nice, unpretentious piece of food writing.
  14. I'm glad Ed is up on where to go. Of course, Andy Lynes began talking about Shaun Hill here on eGullet back in August, which eventually led to Shaun sitting in for an eGullet Q&A in May. Cab--was there anything about the Behr piece--and specifically his writing with respect to Shaun Hill--that added significantly to what ground we had already covered here? (Which also pre-dated the above-linked June Burros/Times piece "An Astonishment of Riches in a Tiny English Town" as well.)
  15. Indeed not homogeneous Wilfrid--most of the sources cited in this thread treat haute vs. bourgeoisie/grand mere as each on its own parallel track--evolving separately--until a "Point" in time post Escoffier (yes, I'm sorry for the pun) when a coterie of French chefs started re-evaluating--and blending--both tracks. John--thank you for alerting us to Colin Spencer's forthcoming book. This might hold the key to an answer for you Wilfrid, when you speculate that "Anyone cooking at these clubs - in those days - would have been cooking for society's opinion-makers. The presence of French cuisine in such settings would have helped it become accepted by a wider society. I had overlooked this, because in the twentieth century such clubs had a reputation for the dreariest of British cuisine." I'd find it interesting whether the French-trained and influenced chefs cooking at these UK clubs altered or dumbed-down their food for their audience--if at all--from what was being cooked contemporaneously in Paris and France.
  16. Cab--this is completely off-topic and reply to me with a PM if you prefer--but are you aware of any professional critic or writer, anywhere, in any language, who has given Hiramatsu less than a gushing, glowing review?
  17. Suzanne--on this issue you and I simply exist in alternate planes of reality.
  18. Let me try again Cake--but I'm with Shaw on this, sincerely see this as an opportunity to educate--because everything I've said is gender neutral and applies equally to men and to myself. It's about reality, expectation and self-delusion. We're not talking harassment here but simply being approached--being hit on--and obviously most individuals in a public, social context are not businesses. The reason the analogy works for me (not speaking as a lawyer since I'm not) is just because you're in a bar and don't want to be hit on--you are choosing to go into a public place where there is an expectation someone else might talk to you (unless you're putting out the killer vibe) just as when you open a restaurant there is an expectation the public will come, eat, pay and return. Don't get hung up on the transactional element of this--I don't see that rendering the analogy invalid. To deny the reality of either premise--is to deny rational expectation and is self-delusional with respect to accepted Western urban societal norms. The only way a restaurant or an individual going into a bar can opt out or self-select out of the expected societal interaction--is not to open a restaurant in the first place and create a private membership supper club instead--or go to a bar with bodyguards as a celebrity might, or ask for a private room. Otherwise, just sitting at a bar taking a drink--male or female--you accept the probability someone might nudge your arm and say "hey, haven't we met before?" That's why a restaurant being included in a guidebook and the individual getting hit on in a bar--both work for me. Both parties are free to feel aggrieved--the restaurant owner wishing never to be covered in the media nor included in the guidebook and the individual in a bar wishing never to be hit on. It's just an unrealistic and self-delusional stance to take.
  19. Leslie--do you still have your very first piece of published food writing--do you recall when and where it ran, what you covered and how much you got paid? Does it still hold any special significance for you? Have you announced what your next book project will be?
  20. OK--I can't let this pass without fishing for a few comments from others--this guy was a chef, no longer attached to a property, but working as a restaurant consultant in the area AND he's reviewing restaurants? Shaw--I know you're big on anarchy and re-evaluating conflict of interest and anonymity of restaurant critics--but this is a first. Where do you stand on this, if it were indeed true? Nick--would you prefer to be reviewed by a chef who has a vested financial interest in your competition? Would you take it any better if the identity of said reviewer were shielded?
  21. Suvir--the rose petal jam recipe I've come across that seems like it would work best is Claudia Roden's in "The New Book of Middle Eastern Food." One pound (red) petals, juice of 1.5 lemons, 2 C sugar, 2-3 T rose water. Simmer the petals in water with juice of 1/2 lemon for 30 minutes. Drain then make a syrup by boiling 2.5 C water with the sugar and the remaining juice for 10 minutes. After cooling, she adds the petals and allows to macerate for 24 hours. Then she returns the syrup and petals to a boil and simmers for 20 minutes, adds the rose water and then pours into a glass jar until cool. I haven't tried it--but the author notes "I have not been able to make a good one with the roses from my garden. The petals remained tough under the tooth." So clearly the rose species plays a part--and perhaps adding a little science and French sophistication with pectin and different liquid sugars might help.
  22. Suzanne--sorry I didn't address the getting hit on analogy--but here's an attempt: You're in a bar. You get hit on and decline interest. "Getting hit on" in this context is precisely equivalent to a restaurant getting listed in a guidebook--when you go to a bar or open a restaurant you accept the possibility--indeed, even probability--of this occurring. Wishing it wouldn't occur is just not realistic because, well, you are in a bar. Now if you absolutely positively don't ever want to get hit on--you don't go to a bar. You stay in your room, hire bodyguards, etc. And if you don't want to get reviewed or mentioned in a guidebook--you don't open a restaurant and serve food to paying customers. Your larger point--about a frisson between those who "do" and those who "write" about those who do--is particularly interesting to me since I do both. I think the potential yin/yang between chefs and food writers, professional athletes and sportswriters, artists vs. critics vs. teachers permeates alot of what we talk about here on eGullet--I'm sorry that I just don't see how it applies in this case. (And nothing I've written has anything to do with knowing the identity of the restaurant in question. It's just principle. For the record--I do think Shaw's "disclaimer" from a few threads back about how he plans to handle this, is spot on.)
  23. Ditto Rochelle, ugh, Somchet Jr.
  24. FM--let us know how your experiments work out. But the Crisco thing was not a win--there wasn't any competition. It's just sometimes companies and manufacturers reach out to chefs to get their advice and feedback. They offerred, my wife and I accepted, and took it as a challenge to our palates and our sensibilites--which are decidely French. And following the kpurvis lard/freezer suggestion--we try to keep our butter in the freezer as well. By the way--fascinating link to an article on trans fats--Crisco, shortening, margarine--here, courtesy of Margaret Pilgrim: http://forums.egullet.org/ibf/index.php?s=...&f=2&t=9057&hl=
  25. Suzanne--I admire your taking the side of a supposedly aggrieved parties everywhere, seeking the comfort of anonymity--but really, the subjects we're talking about here are not aggrieved parties, and are not being exposed to harsh, illegal or even unethical activities. When you make or sell a product--when you are a chef or restaurateur--or a food writer for that matter--you are in the public eye and you become an object of the consumer's eye. It's not like media figures are excepted from this. No one is forcing any of these people to do what they do. Our commenting on an Amanda Hesser article--and critiquing the job Amanda did covering her subject-- is as fair game as this guidebook "listing" this restaurant. Neither get to opt out of life--to opt out of the reality of the marketplace--since both are choosing to exist in the marketplace. This restaurant could become a private club and Trillin could control the rope line--letting all Chowhounders in and then deciding who else gets in and who doesn't. I wouldn't care less. But as long as it is a restaurant, I find your stance and argument is a little surreal. Businesses don't get to play in an ideal world by their own rules, instead they have to deal with all sorts of publically imposed constraints when they offer a product for sale or get paid for their services--like health inspections. Who wouldn't want to be able to say to the heath inspector--sorry, I don't want you to check the temperature of the creme anglaise sitting over there on the counter and shut me down? To compare this to stalking papparazzi stretches credulity as well--it's the difference between a public business and personal privacy. We're not even talking about a review--a subjective opinion--but if we were, I wouldn't feel any differently. The answer to Wilfrid's question is no, unless you can provide a reason better than "I don't want you to." In the case of a restaurant--it's commonplace for a chef or publicist of a new restaurant to call a reviewer or critic and say "can you wait a few more weeks to come by, we're not quite ready?" but the critic isn't under any obligation to wait if the doors are open and customers are paying for goods and services. Now Suzanne--your business card example is an interesting one--and much more complex than this guidebook example, which I'm afraid is open and shut. I'm assuming this is hypothetical but it seems your best choices--as a known professional within an industry-- would simply have been to say 1) I'm sorry but I don't have any business cards with me or 2) to give your business cards out politely and professionally, then say something like "But I'm not accepting any new clients at the moment" and then choose not to followup if you really see no benefit. That way your reasons stay your own, there could be no perception of rudeness or hurt feelings and you control the dissemination and exchange of information. But if you have a business card--if you have a public business identity--then you are roughly in the same boat as a restaurant which has been written about, is a matter of public record, etc. You both have a public identity and can choose how you do business and who you do business with--but neither of you have the right to limit what others say about you as long as what is said is correct and legal.
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