Vadouvan

It is a curious balance of power that bloggers have attained if someone of the stature of Sirio has to kiss AG's behind. I suppose it's a matter of opinion that if you expect bad treatment, you will get it but there is no reasonable scientific basis for that or the vice versa would hold true as well. I expected great service at Perse....no bueno. Bad service at AdNY.....bueno. I think its just a roll of the dice, not so much expectation but people can actively encourage bad treatment. Life isnt about pulling out the big guns and blasting your way to what you want, it's about carefully nudging people where you want them to be with a smile and the right language.

1 punnet of raspberries (driscoll) 2 stalks tarragon Put both in a glass or plastic container Pour over 2 cups of Japanese seasoned Rice vinegar. Cover. Refrigerate for 72 hrs. Strain. Use this to dress your salad with mild olive oil, salt and pepper. This obviously has no emulsifiers like eggs and mustard but it is a vinaigrette with excellent raz flavor without killing the greens.

Dude, your tax dollars hook you up with so much free stuff it's silly....... http://nihseniorhealth.gov/problemswithtaste/toc.html and if that doesnt answer your question..... E maill Marci Pelchat for advice at..... http://www.monell.org/faculty_h.htm scroll down on the left and look for M. Pelchat. Toodle oo......

I personally know everyone who has ever run the bass except Lee.... Barshak, Ternay,California Allison, Feury.... Feury was the most on point. If Liebrandt is there, it wont be a "servicable" meal. Almost every restaurant in philly cooks variations of what could be sublimated into essentially the same food, just depend on how fancy you want to dress, how much you want to pay and whose wine you want to drink, yours or thiers. Bass under Lee was cooking delicious but safe food.....but more importantly different. Just avoid that silly cheeseskate and the tuna with shortribs they served all summer. Lieb's cooking is much more interesting.

I will take you up on that, or perhaps a drink at a neutral location. cheers

Thanks for the Answer Paul. Mentorship is one of the important aspects of cooking today and I applaud you as regards "sir snack". I would like to wish you good luck in your next project but luck hasnt a whole lot to do with it, preparedness does..... as does flexibility.......so I wish you inexpensive roadblocks..... There are always roadblocks. Looking for restaurant space I am finding out is worse than buying a car, even with excellent credit. Cheers I actually wasnt suggesting the mad scientist characterization, in fact the food at gilt was pretty transparent regardng the use of moder structural ingredients. It was more of a question of a growing trend in the cooking youth.

Paul, some questions for you and observations about Gilt. My initial meal at Gilt was quite good, probably the best among 3. I ended up recommending the restaurant to quite a few of my clients of whom cost was a non issue. Removing $$$ from the equation, the main achilles heel of the restaurant as reported to me was that most felt the serving style was too tiresome. These were quite food savvy people who have dined all over the world so it wasnt so much perception as being overwhelmed with what in thier opinions were too many flavors in rapid succession.....such as dishes like the "flavors of winter". The first question is how do you balance the complexity of the communication of "deliciousness" combined with creativity ? Where do you draw the line when it's too much in the sense of titration ? Do you define words like "delicious" and "sublime" as your perception of the dish as it leaves the kitchen or how important is it that the diner agrees ? Certainly once you have communicated your vision on the plate, the diner could be a complete philistine who doesnt get it, how important is it to win them over...? A lot of questions of Philosophy and vision have been asked, do you think food should make an attempt to communicate an intellectual point or should it simply rely on baseline "deliciousness". Also, you came from the MPW/Gagnaire old school in which there was no Methocel, Activa, Gellan Gum, Pacojets and other fancy gadgets, though you are clearly a visionary who continues to push on, how important is it to you to counsel young cooks to be solid in the basics before trying to be a Paul Liebrandt or a Wylie dufrese ?

. we're not quite open yet. we just passed our fire dept inspection today. we're shooting to open around november 15th. the restaurant is located in chelsea at 138 W 25 st, between 6th and 7th. there's a big poster in the window, you can't miss it. anyone, is free to stop by and get a quick tour if they want, we're there everyday. we're going to seat about 50 people. there's a lounge in the front, as well as a 30 foot tasting bar with about 75 wines by the glass. there will be a champagne cart for the dining room, with about 7 or 8 different grower champages to choose from. the elements of the restaurant are dark wood, metal, and lots of glass installations. let me know if you need more info. thanks, jordan. ← Good Luck Chef, I will be living in chelsea 2 days a week starting november 1st. Not haven had the opportunity to try Alinea, I am looking foward to trying your stuff. I had one of stupaks desserts last week at the bar, delicious.

Striped Bass appears to be without an official executive chef, at least no announcement has been made regarding a replacement. It however seems to be coasting along on autopilot (remember Dan Akyroyd from SNL...the Bassomatic...... ). It has the quite talented paul liebrandt as a "consulting chef" so the kitchen is certainly in good hands. Would be much better if they serve lieb's real food though. Dined there 3 weeks ago with 3 people, everyone seemed to like thier food but no one seemed to be wowed by anything for the price. I did not taste the other people's food but i had a relatively flavorless tomato soup with a copious amount of baby greens and a rather inventive scallop dish with a lobster emulsion, sweet corn and I believe either cocoa nibs of coffee......That was tasty Still at the end of the day, the $$$$$$ X-axis Vs Deliciousness Y-Axis graph falls precipitously that for me it is money best saved for top end New York Dining. Should you go ? Absolutely....the room is fabulous, the food is good enough and the servers fawn all over you. Just depends on how comfy you are swinging the dollars. Edited to add : It was just vastly different from my 3 meals at Gilt. see: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=78174&st=30

Otto is solely at fault not because he intentionally took the lychee but he realised the error outside the store. He should not have opened himself up to that kind of questioning of his intergrity in the competition. He had a second opportunity to take charge and inform Colicchio himself. At least that would have communicated intrinsic honesty and the fact that it was a mistake. OF COURSE....you know someone is going to rat you out. Certainly the girl who ratted him out could have given him that opportunity but he put himself in that position, he should know better.

Yeah i knew that all along, Stylish Philly style Magazine. Still doesnt make you right in this case.

Ok Rich, whatever you say. For being so opinionated, it seems you may not be aware of how the magazine world works. National Mags farm out some of thier stories. In this particular issue, the story research and interview locally was done 3 months ago by Francine Maroukian (writer for GQ, Esquire, Travel and Leisure, Town and Country) ......who personally went to Ansill, had lunch and interviewed the chef. I am not trying to convince you, my point is lists happen randomly and expecting one's favourite local restaurant to make a particular list solely on one's own appreciation is shockingly naive. It doesnt mean amada isnt a good restaurant, it's a very good restaurant......but prasing one restaurant should be seen as that and not a negative slight at unmentioned places. We should celebrate the city and anyone who gets good press not use it to breed acrimony on the part of another restaurant.

But the point is Rich...... All these lists are meaningless, there are 52 states and several hundred new restaurants. Some make gourmet's list, some make Mariani's list, some make Food and Wines list......and the end of the day, who cares....its all about PR and politics and availability. Amada is 1 restaurant in 1 state, we have to be realistic about these things and realise it isnt about content and more of politics. AND............the real reason Amada didnt make the list isnt about the food. They didnt want to. I actually had lunch with the person who came to philly to scout out the article and gave her recommendations including Amada but she was irritated that a number of restaurants would not call her back to arrange interviews with the chef because "the chef was busy"...she called repeatedly......so she moved on to other places. Food writers work under deadlines. If they feel they are chasing people around, they get annoyed and move on. Not my opinion, just the facts.

That may be a bit of a stretch......Amada is a good restaurant but they arent doing anything novel in a national context. The bar is different in what's hot in philly as opposed to what garner's national attention. I ate with Philadining last night and ansill's food had personality and was rocking good. That was duck egg and smoked trout ...Phil...

You hydrate the gelatin in cold water and then add it to the warm mixture. Zupon... Gelatin captures particulates. Freezing breaks down the strucure of gelatin. Defrosting releases the liquid. Remember.....the particulates have been captured by the gelatin. End product....Clear Liquid.

Any thoughts on the fact that Harold from last season seems to have taken some media training lessons ? Seems more confident.......sorta like the frat boy who was a freshman last year.....

I agree.....and black folks arent walking around trying to start sh*t. we just want to eat, pay for our overpriced drinks just like everyone else and leave.

They arent bad experiences for me, bad experiences are IRS audits and Identity theft. I consider that people behaving badly. As to the element of suprise.....i dont even consider it racist, and its quite frankly irresponsible going around accusing everyone who slights you of being a racist. It's just provincial thinking which exists in all facets of American society. Nothing should be a suprise in america anymore, check out the census. Once you reconcile those numbers with the fact that driven people regardless of ethnicity can be accomplished, you will get it. Edite to add.... Russ are you asking the percentage of Black customers ? May have something to do with it.....but I think your point is early exposure to food and dining. Most of the role models young black kids are looking up to arent chef's, most would rather be Allen iverson or Barak Obama on the other side of the scale.

AND to add, it isnt a black white issue, the problem with the perception in the food world is one of romance and not race, most people associate certain images with the word chef. There are lots of people from France who arent nearly as creative or qualified as some young american chefs (black or white) but simply because you have an accent and your first name is Didier or Jean Michel.........YOU ARE HIRED.

Internet discussions dont do these nuanced conversations justice..... For the record doc, I think Marcus S is a great chef, I love his restaurants and my intent wasnt to trash him but rather point to the fact that every few years, the publishing world decides "black is the new black" and promptly after that, nothing for 10 years. Bill of course Americans can accept people of leadership of color, my statement wasnt specific enough, for clarity, what I am saying is that a lot of people in the food industry and in some portion of society in general seem suprised when the encounter a black chef who actually isnt working at TGI fridays....and a lot of those peole are in the food business. the food world is a small microcosm of American society but we dont go around taking issue with everything people say. In fact I laugh most of the time, you would not believe what perfectly nice well meaning people say. I kid you not.....just last week I am cooking for a client in an apartment on the west side above JG's Perry street restaurant and a guest walks into the kitchen and tell's my assistant how fabulous the food is and asked where he trained..............my assistant is a supertalented young white kid who wants to go to CIA.............and then after he points to me she was like.....Ohhh....where are you from....I said Africa....... But seriously this happens all the time. That's what DOCSCONZ call's indirect racism...........but it isnt even racism, its just dumb people saying dumb Sh*t. What do we do, we laugh and move on. BUT it happens in restaurants, food distributors, bank deposits, virtually every facet of running a restaurant when I was in charge and you know what, it's annoying. I know people are complaining that the thread has gone off track but you seriously cannot bring up a sore topic like this and not expect tangential experiences and perception and to diminish or minimize them is part of the very problem.

Thats my point...that the media does not make that clarification........more and more, details dont matter. Belive me I couldnt care less who decides to adopt whom from where or what celebrities do, its the media aspect. nuff said..

Just laziness.... I think it's quite odd that folks in these undeveloped countries seem to have no problem figuring things out with little or no access to public libraries or the Internet. But in any case.....not to get off topic, my point is that Samuelsson's cookbook is embarassing for anyone who claims to be "African". The motivation without clarification is suspicious and can just be sublimated into a marketing ploy by some clever book agent. Look at all these celebrities adopting "African" babies.......do they even specify where the kid is from ? Its just disgusting and the media isnt sophisticated enough to see through that.

Completely absurd. my thoughts. 1 Immigrants move to the United states *specifically* seeking a better life, economic wellness or flight from opression. Shola considers himself a transplanted expatriate who has lived in several countries and frankly race hasnt been much of an impediment in his career thus far. There is hypocrisy on both sides, first of all the Black american elite tends to be the least open minded of any social group if you arent a doctor or lawyer but it's ok to be a rapper or basket ball player with zero education. They place no value on highly trained people in the technical filed of cookery. 2 The James Beard House should feature more black chefs at times other than Black history month not to make a point but to level the playing field....in fact they should do the same with other groups, asians, hispanics, women. Look at Gourmet's recent lame list of 50 best restaurants, we all know there are chinese and japanese restaurants in America that blow away at least 20 of those places. 3 Everyone .........even black people are narrow minded when it comes to the context of the perception of food in Africa. I have lived there, there are several countries.........my point exactly....no one ........let alone a black chef should conceptually publish anything called an "African" cookbook thus compressing over 50 countries and 300 ethnic groups into 75 pages. Marcus samuelsson may be a good chef, but is no authority on African food. We dont have "european" cookbooks.....and Asian cookbooks tend to include the horrible westerneized food you see at buddakans and china grills. 4. At the end of the day, a lot of "well intentioned" americans just still cant seem to process that a black person can be in charge. Just continous condescension....at trade shows, professional organisations ect ect. 5. If The food network has any interest in seeing black faces on air, there would be more of them on. What they will say as an exit strategy is that the people in middle america want to see "all american" faces like Rachel ray and tyler florence. Unfortunately someone forgot to remind them that while "all american" used to mean white......alll of america is no longer white....and has it ever been ?

Probably..... 1.Gelatinise by standard liason method. 2.Freeze Solid. 3.Defrost over colander lined with coffee filter. 4.Suspended particulates captured by gelatin. 5.Dripping clear liquid retains flavor of base ingredient with clarity. I used this to improve yield of tomato water, makes a fantastic "no heat" dashi.

You can find that tea in any Asian grocery......