Philanthrophobe

Has anyone been to the SW Steakhouse at the Wynn Resort yet? The menu looks killer. (I'd add a direct link were one available, but just go here and follow the prompts. The site's a bit pokey.)

Why, when I saw the commercial, a violent shudder of shock and dismay caused me to drop my whole bowl of TaterTots! thereby ruining my copy of People Magazine! What does Appleby's need with Tyler Florence? I think he ought to mosey on over to IHOP: they need the help.

Excellent article. I live in Las Vegas. I've said this before and I'll repeat it: we're the Mall of America of the restaurant industry. We're also the Disneyland of gluttony. And all of the money Steve Wynn throws at the latest celebrichef won't change that. We're all about pretense and artifice and bright shiny objects. --which is great if you like that sort of thing. The real test of any city's praise-worthiness regarding its cuisine should be "Can I get a decent tomato within city limits without having to shop at Whole Ass Foods?" I'd give my firstborn to live within range of the farmers' markets, produce stands, and the fishing/crabbing sites I had available to me when I was a kid. [sob]

The trick is to buy the spices from an Indian source, not your standard supermarket--there can be substantial differences. My local Indian grocery has tons of different spices, specialty produce, and lots of Bollywood DVDs. --which I'm a freak for. This was another remarkable episode, and such a relief after Pivenfest. I didn't scream, "GET THE HELL OFF THE CAMERA, PIVEN!" even once.

Yes, yes, yes!!! I bought the new JoC and almost tossed the old version, but when I realized that the new version didn't have the squirrel recipes I changed my mind. --Not that I have ever eaten squirrel, nor been in a position that required that I disassemble one. (I have White Trash Cooking I and II for the same reason. Because someday the world could blow up and one might be reduced to eating possum. Or something.) Right there with you on this as well! I bypass coffee table-style cookbooks: I don't need the photos which are probably visible from space, I need information. I'm always afraid of cookbooks with a celebrity chef's name attached to it--or, in fact, celebrities of any stripe. I tend to get these as gifts from my food-impaired friends sometimes--I eventually swap them for something else. (the books, not the friends. Heh heh.) And because I have a seriously stupid amount of cookbooks, I'm trying to weed out the one-trick ponies, so I guess the old Joy of Cooking really should go...

Unsalted fries are just wrong, and I don't care that one serving has 1378% of my daily allotment of sodium. If I wanted healthful food, I wouldn't have asked for fries in the first place.

The Wei-Chuan series are loaded with photos, as are the Quick & Easy series published by JOIE, Inc./Japan Publications.

I see I changed my .sig quote just a bit too soon. (It had been a quote from Jane Jacobs, recounted in her obituary: "The most awful thing is when you go to a city and it's like 12 others you've seen.") For better or worse, no one can say that about Las Vegas. It is to urbanism what hip-hop is to music. It serves up recognizable samples of other cities as part of a larger fantasy. It should be only natural, then, that the city extended this practice to other cities' fancy restaurants--and that chefs in those cities willingly played along. ← Las Vegas has worked hard to bill itself as the place where the middle class can be naughty (and maybe spy a drunk idiot like Paris Hilton doing something tiresome). In the process, we've become the Mall of America of restaurants. (--well, that and the place where anemic old rock groups go to die. Anyone up for a little Air Supply?) Great article, jayrayner!

Here's the discussion thread link to Memphis Championship Barbecue. They have three locations in the Las Vegas area. They have a cookbook that got nominated for a Beard Award. Unfortunately, the book didn't win. But the ribs are great!! And they don't boil their ribs, thank God! joiei, it sounds like you are very focused on one thing, ehh? ← Thanks, rjwong!--especially since my link is screwy! John Curtas, the food critic for our local NPR station, thinks they're the best in the city. I think he's right.

Why does Target even have mayonnaise anywhere near hot dogs? Frankly, it took me some time to get used to the Eastern habit of putting mayonnaise where ketchup should go. ← Eastern? Eastern? Listen, I grew up on the east coast, and I also worked at a hot dog stand in high school (impressive, yes?); I never saw anyone put mayo on hot dogs until I moved to Detroit and hosted visitors from Ohio. I just figured it was part of the whole white gravy phenomenon. And I think I remember reading somewhere that people in Utah are excessively fond of mayonnaise. (-- and Jello.) Oh, and I add Claussen's sweet pickle relish to the mustard/ketchup mix!

We really like Memphis Championship Barbeque! (But don't you live closer to the real deal?)

"It really should have been up to the newer party"---are you serious? Or do you really expect absolute strangers to intuit your own notions of personal space? (Although I have a sneaking suspicion that Maison Rustique wrote this with tongue planted firmly in cheek, I still have to ask...) I've known a few delicate rosebuds who feel that an experience will be "ruined" if the outcome is not just so. The characteristics that contibute to this sort of personality include outsized feelings of entitlement; insanely high expectations (perfection is always just beyond grasp); control issues (expressed as a need to impose one's own values on others); selfishness/lack of regard for others; and the inability to compromise or tolerate disappointment. And I have no idea why they behave this way because it just puts people off-- they're forever cycling through new batches of friends.

Spouse and I are introverts; we take this into account when we venture into the world of Other People. We KNOW that we're the weirdos with personal space issues. So, we either ask to not be seated directly next to other diners--nicely, and if the restaurant is mostly empty (which we largely accomplish by going during off-hours). Otherwise, we deal with it. We have the choice to not eat at a place that won't accomodate our oddness; to impose our issues on an entire establishment is patently ridiculous. So, what, exactly, is this guy's problem? That the server didn't read his mind? Oh, wait, I get it: his poor communication skills are the restaurant's fault. If I were Tom Sietsema, I would've blasted this precious little assmonkey into the stratosphere. --but that's just me.

I was on, like, a second date with an MIT student whom I wanted desperately to impress. We went to a Japanese restaurant. He ordered for me. Raw fish and bits arrived; the restaurant was a sushi place. I was thoroughly confused: I'd fished all my life, and I knew bait when I saw it. I surreptitiously asked the server if I might have my fish cooked. She was shocked, and my date was incredulous. I've never felt like such a rube in my life.

Well, sure : this episode showed that Mexicans are, gasp, people! --instead of an evil, cunning sea of brown seeping across our border! --hell-bent on exposing white folks to the horrors of Spanish grammar! --right before they steal all the migrant worker jobs from white college graduates! How dare you!!?? Damn you, Travel Channel!! We cheered. Loudly. You and your crew have achieved Stephen Colbert status in our house. Oh yeah, and the food looked amazing.

I caught both of those. The Freeman one was good only for one single reason -- there was a very brief shot, that shows Freeman with a facial expression that made him look as if he was thinking "Jesus, is there a VOLUME button on this woman?" when she was having a particularly spastic moment... ← I saw that!!!! It was priceless. Ah, memories. And I'm completely with you re the P&T episode. The producers could've subbed in Steve and Edie Gourmet and no one would've been the wiser. ← Correction: It's Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. Yes, kids, it's true: drinking while typing produces curious thoughts and random spelling. But back to Rachael Ray....

I caught both of those. The Freeman one was good only for one single reason -- there was a very brief shot, that shows Freeman with a facial expression that made him look as if he was thinking "Jesus, is there a VOLUME button on this woman?" when she was having a particularly spastic moment... ← I saw that!!!! It was priceless. Ah, memories. And I'm completely with you re the P&T episode. The producers could've subbed in Steve and Edie Gourmet and no one would've been the wiser.

Papa Murphy's pepperoni pizza, tarted up with any kind of brown mushrooms, pickled peppers, pine nuts, olives, and fistsful of extra oregano and fresh garlic.

Exactly! Besides, if you want to try out new anything, what are you supposed to do? Wait until others decide "oh, okay, we guess we'll go"?? That's just crazy talk. (I used to go solo to opera performances years ago when I had access to such things.) And I've never had even the slightest problem being treated as anything other than a paying customer. It's always been a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

D.B., are you thinking of her "Celebrities I Can Get" show? I can't remember the real title, but one episode featured Morgan Freeman, and another Penn & Teller.... How many shows has she had, anyway?

This borax-based liquid works well too, but not such a good idea if pets and kids have access. But we've used it for years with excellent results. The Gardens Alive site has some great stuff.

Add me to the list of women who don't care for chocolate. I don't hate it, but I don't care for it all that much either. I also don't like anything sugary; other flavors have to be present to balance or counteract the sugar. I love carrot cake, for example. But buttercream frosting? GAAAAAAAAK. And any sort of mealy fruit is revolting.

I disagee. At least, that's not how I would interpret the terms. To me, the term "ethnic market" has always meant, very simply and just as the dictionary would seem to imply, a market that specifically caters to a particular group of people associated with a particular geographic derivation or ancestry. That would include, for example, the local Italian or Armenian or German or Polish or French (or whatever) markets that are largely run by, and cater to, caucasian persons. I've never understood "ethnic market" to mean "market catering to nonwhites," and I don't think that most other people do either. ← Although I absolutely understand that "ethnic" might be misunderstood as "non-white," I too equate it with "having roots more closely associated with other cultures." When I say "ethnic markets" as I did in my post upthread, I was specifically thinking about the Korean market, the Indian market, the Lebanese market, the Russian market (I forget which country), the two pan-Asian markets, and the Latino market I go to. (I actually have a route and hit them all on the same day.) And additionally, we're lucky enough to have a huge store here called International Marketplace: half the store is pan-Asian, and the other half, everything else not-U.S. So, yeah, I do use the phrase, "ethnic markets," but only to my husband when I tell him where I'm going. However, if I do use language that offends others (including my mom), I'd like to know about it. Ethnocentrism is a sneaky SOB. But back to the question of unkempitude, most of the shabby/dirty markets I've seen were either A) in impoverished neighborhoods, or B) run by people occupying the lower end of the economic range. I've seen some pretty filthy 7-11s.

This thread touches on a lot of very interesting issues. I'd like to return to the question of "cultural prejudice," because I think it is both important and in need of clarification. It strikes me that a number of responses to this question interpret the idea of cultural prejudice as straightforwardly pejorative, and I take issue with this. If one holds an evaluative stance (either positive or negative) towards a type of state of affairs and associates that type of state of affairs primarily with certain cultures that are identified as "ethnic" or "not generic", then it seems pretty obvious that cultural bias is involved. The conventional Western terms "ethnic" and "generic" are culturally biased, because they are meant to distinguish between things that are "not white" and things that are "white." HOWEVER, this does not mean that anyone who uses these terms is a bad person. My opinion is that we would be better off if Westerners didn't divide the world up into "ethnic" things and "generic" things. But I am no less guilty of doing this than most people (and I am not white). Moreoever, I don't think that experiencing aversion to the conditions of some "ethnic" markets makes one guilty of racism or some other equally horrible moral crime. The really important question seems to be whether the aversion is unwarranted. One way to approach the question is to try to discern whether or not "our" standards of cleanliness are better or worse than "their's." I think this is a mistake. A person may be able to change his or her current standards to some extent. But if that person has tried to be open minded by is still really disgusted by things like bottles leaking their contents, and continues to be enculturated in a society in which bottles leaking their contents is typically deemed unacceptable, changing one's own (or possibly someone else's) standards is going to be a pretty frustrating task. Another way to approach the question is to try to discern how the aversion affects one's attitudes and behaviour towards the people associated with the aversion. Does the seemingly dirty market make the people associated with it seem dirty, less civilised, backwards, etc.? I think this is a more fruitful approach. I really hope that this post does not offend anyone, because that is not my intention. I think the question of cultural prejudice is extremely important and difficult, and I also think that it is extremely relevant to those of us who want to discuss food culture thoughtfully. ← Whoa. Awesome post!!