ScoopKW

It's simple really -- if problems are the result of the kitchen or bar, and not the server, you tip the full percentage. For me, that's 20%, sometimes more. If the server is doing his or her best, but mistakes happen, knock off a little if you want. I don't. The the server gives you attitude, ignores you, or otherwise makes your dining experience less enjoyable, ask for a manager and then either don't tip at all, or leave a small amount. Many times, the mistakes aren't your server's fault. Your "dressing on the side" salad was picked up and brought to the wrong table by a different server; and now everyone waits while a two new salads are prepared. This happens ALL THE TIME, EVERY DAY around here. I know who the biggest offenders are, and I'll stop it if I see a server pickup up the wrong plate. But my eyes are usually on what I'm doing, not the pick up window.

I drink both, in roughly equal amounts. I suppose that makes me bi-caffeinated. But there's nothing wrong with that.

Ahh... I don't know why anyone would open a restaurant with a name that's hard to pronounce. The day I open my own place, it's going to be easy to say, and easy to remember, and guests will know EXACTLY what goes on. (Along the lines of "Pork and Beer" -- that kind of name.) Why make things harder for yourself as a restaurateur?

Is Xai Xai some strange way of spelling the word for "Thank You" in Chinese? If so, then "shy-shy" is way off. It's more like "sche sche" where the "e" is the same "e" in "shed." In fact, just drop the "d" from shed and you're most of the way there.

Blasphemy! It's not all that hard to select a pineapple. Just pull on the leaves - out and a little up, not sideways. If they give way with a little effort, the pineapple is good to go. If it smells sweet, it's likely over-ripe. I only get Hawaiian pineapples here in Las Vegas, because we're basically the ninth Hawaiian island. Seriously. A LOT of Hawaiians live here. So they showed me how to select a pineapple. Works for them. Works for me.

We're still affected. Now our foie gras has to be FedEx'ed from Upstate New York. It's not a horrible imposition. But I really liked driving/flying to NorCal, buying wine, buying livers (and cheese and rillets, and confit, and damn, now I wanna go on vacation) and drinking wine and eating livers. Just something I enjoy. Something I enjoy enough that I pack pink salt for vacation. TSA has no idea what to make of THAT. Usually, I'd pick up the foie at Oxbow Market in Napa. And I always looked for the Artisan Sonoma label. It's not something I eat often, but I sure as hell enjoy it when I do. And since I advocate voting with one's wallet, I intend to. I'm going to buy 10 kilos of Grade-A before Thanksgiving. I just wish I could afford MORE.

They throw it the bin. In my particular case, the leftovers all go to a pig farm in the city.

Suisin

I should just move to Brittany. I can't stand the fact that I live in a country that is making foie gras illegal, yet this abomination is allowed: Paula Deen Butter-Flavored Lip Balm

I believe this falls under the vague umbrella of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness", which is spelled out. Provided of course, that you aren't hurting anyone else directly... That's in the Declaration, which is not our governing document. And while I agree that California has the right as a state to enact whatever laws it chooses, I also have the right to vocally disagree with those laws. Even though I won't move to Napa and start a duck farm anytime soon. And the "we know what's best for you" types WILL keep chipping away at our rights, as long as we let them. Don't doubt that for one minute. This is about more than just fighting over duck livers, as was mentioned upthread.

It's certainly possible that you're a prodigy. It's also possible that your usuba isn't sharpened to the bevel angles that are standard for this knife. I do know that my friends who have trained with Japanese chefs have pretty consistently reported weeks of practice before they could get reliable results without chipping. Or perhaps because one of my hobbies is woodworking, and you learn quickly to hit things square and flat.

But soon I will no longer be able to eat Foie from Artisan Sonoma Foie Gras, which is one of four producers I'm comfortable with purchasing from -- and the only one even close to "local." Soon, I'll have to ship it in from New York -- that doesn't make any sense to me when I can drive to Sonoma in a day. We're going to have to agree to disagree on the concept of "rights." I have the right to eat. I have the right to eat what I want, so long as I am not contributing to extinction by doing so. I have the right to choose where my food comes from. It may not be spelled out in the Constitution, but they are rights nonetheless. And I find it sad that on a food site, more people aren't posting something to the effect of "don't ban my food."

There was only one California producer of foie and he wrote a letter to Schwarzanegger asking him to sign the bill: http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/farm/foie_gras_972004_california.pdf I will admit, this letter is a fairly weak endorsement, but it does ask that the Governor sign the bill. "Please sign this bill, so maybe HSUS and PETA members will stop making my life miserable." Quite the endorsement, there.

Read the law. The law bans the practice, not the foie gras itself. If you want to "discuss the BAN," none exists to discuss. How is halting and criminalizing production NOT a ban? They're trying to chip away at our rights, this is just another example.

From the same interview with Marc Caro, author of "The Foie Gras Wars" Do you think the ultimate goal of the anti-foie gras movement is to turn everyone vegetarian? That's their dream. The people running the Humane Society and PETA are vegans and they don't believe in exploiting animals for human uses. Period. It's not like most of these people have illusions that we're about to become a vegan country. But they can make their little dents over time in a long-ranging battle. It's a bigger issue than just people fighting over duck livers.

Well, I must be doing SOMETHING right, because I've yet to chip my usuba. I don't find it very hard at all to hit the cutting board flat, with a strong enough force to cut the vegetable, yet light enough not to damage the blade.

From "The Foie Gras Wars" by Marc Caro: "Imagine if somebody put a pipe down your throat and filled you up with food. You would be gagging, falling over. But ducks actually breathe through the center of their tongue." As for where I live, you are correct. I live in Nevada. I regularly vacation in California. So the ban does affect me, just a little. And as for the other recent posts (I really dislike the quoting feature here, it takes the wisdom of Solomon to multi-quote several embedded quotes): 1) I am all for the production and sale of horse meat. Horse tastes amazing. 2) I am also all for the production and sale of unpasteurized, non-homogenized milk. I am against banning food, except in the case of threatened animals like abalone, chilean sea bass and conch. And even then, we can import these animals from places where they AREN'T threatened, if that's an option. As for "reasonable discussion on the ethics, without being branded as terrorists" -- look up at the topic title. It says, "Farewell to Foie Gras" not "Let's question the ethics and morality of Foie." I'm trying to discuss the BAN, not the practice. The vegetarians are falling over themselves trying to explain why they're against the practice. But not a word on the subject of banning food. Perhaps because banning food is akin to banning books. My point is, was, and always will be -- If you don't like it, don't buy it. Show your distaste of foie by not purchasing it. But don't make the choice for me.

At least the chickens are eating it. I don't consider that a waste at all. We do the same with things that are slightly "off." Not a lot, but it's a good trade for eggs. EDIT -- And Linda, we live in Las Vegas, a fairly dense urban area. And my mother in law keeps chickens. Despite HOA rules against them. Luckily, the hens aren't very vocal. The leftovers go to the chickens. The guano goes to the garden. The eggs are eaten. And the shells go back to the chickens. Nice little eco-circle.

Always, if there's anything left worth taking, that is. And if it can withstand an evening in a to-go container. I paid for the food. It's mine. I'll take it with me and enjoy it for breakfast. There are starving people in my town, let alone in Biafra. I don't throw perfectly-good food away. Seems selfish. Especially if some animal died for my dinner. That seems a senseless waste to me. That being said, I try to order so there aren't any doggie bags involved. But sometimes I am overwhelmed by portion size. So I eat the things that aren't going to keep well, and take the things that do.

Often a sharper angle, depends on the blade and how its sharpened. And cleaner cuts. One side is dead flat. The other side does the cutting. There is a "pull" as the blade wants to travel at whatever the angle the bevel happens to be. You learn to compensate. It's kind of like the difference between playing a six-string guitar and a 12-string guitar. The 12-string is harder to learn. But once you learn it, you can do things on it that no six-string can ever do. And there is a big speed increase. And I find the knives to be easier to tune up. Just sharpen the one side. Then hold the knife flat against an 8,000 stone to remove the burr. I was once asked to run a few dozen tomatoes through the slicer. "Why, chef? I can knock this out in half the time with a knife, and then I don't have to clean a million tomato seeds out of the slicer." Chef was skeptical, but I showed him. I did the last one horizontally, showing off. Now I'm stuck prepping veg any time I'm working under that particular chef.

I'd leave the usuba out of the discussion, because it really has nothing in common with either of these knives. The usuba is a wonderfully specialized knife that does some things better than any other knife and other things not at all, and which is only useable by someone who has trained with it. It's easily the most challenging knife to use properly. The nakiri is just a western style Japanese knife with a stubby blade. I don't believe that you or anyone can cut garlic or parsely faster with a nakiri than someone who's well trained with a gyuto. A 270mm gyuto in well trained hands is ferociously fast and precise. I would challenge anyone in that contest, and I'm not even a pro. I would not make this challenge against a Chinese cleaver or an usuba. There are some things that the gyuto does better than these knives, but the person wielding the cleaver or usuba would switch knives for those tasks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but an usuba is just a nakiri with a single beveled edge, right? If so, than I think the learning curve is a single bevel. Once that's mastered, it's no harder to reach for your usuba than your single-bevel gyuto, or your single-bevel sujihiki. All my knives are beveled for left-handed use. Not all of them STARTED that way. But months of sharpening has got them to where I want them. Once I learned to compensate for the pull of the bevel, it became second-nature to use any of them.

Well, that personal decision is being made for us by people who think they know better.

Have you read the reporting of what goes on in Foie farms in the Hudson River Valley? It's on another food site, so I don't know if I'm allowed to link it. Just Google it. The farmers allowed a team of reporters and bloggers to tour their facility, top to bottom. No locked doors. I learned some things. First of all, ducks breathe through their tongues. So shoving a tube down their throat -- while not pleasant -- isn't painful. And while they don't line up for thier gavage, they don't run away, either. The ducks are very well cared for, because that's how the farmers get class-A foie. Stressed out, abused ducks aren't going to produce class-A, and therefore all that effort and money yields a lower return. And while I'm sure there are industrial foie farms that savagely abuse animals, just like CAFOs and battery eggs, I don't buy from those places. And YES, for the umpteenth time, there are TWO SIDES (or more) to this. There is the side that wants to ban food because they find it ethically questionable, and there is the side that doesn't. I'm on the latter side. If any vegetarians want to join us in the struggle to keep the food we like from being criminalized, all the better. But I don't see a mad rush of vegans demanding that foie remain legal. I would LOVE to be proven wrong on this point.

SkoopKW, that's really very impressive. I put out two 75L bags of trash a month and often remind my neighbors now how easy it is (without being a knob, I think). I'm considering a low-tech old-school root cellar in the yard where I'm pretty sure I can maintain 5-10C year round. As Dave the Cook pointed out, refrigeration can be costly. Are there things like this in the desert? No, we don't have root cellars. It's very unusual for anyone to have a cellar, basement or any other below-ground-level space. The ground around here has the consistency of badly-mixed and set concrete. So, most of my $1,000 annual electricity budget goes toward refrigeration -- got two of them. While I can leave a package of crackers open on the counter for a month and they won't get stale (no moisture), the dry air does not help fresh fruits and veg. Even things that normally prefer a root-cellar environment do better in the 'fridge. There's more moisture in there. The ambient air in the pantry is not unlike a dehydrator.

Some people like the compact size of a nakiri. It's a popular style among Japanese home cooks in very small kitchens. Think of it as the precursor to the santoku. It does nothing that you can't do with a gyuto, and it does nothing better. The reverse is not true. The lack of curve in the blade makes it ideal for many applications -- batonnet, dicing, mincing parsley down to the atomic level, etc. I prefer the single bevel of the usuba, but the shape is the same. So I'd say that this style actually does some things better, or at least faster. I can whack out paper-thin slices of garlic much faster with an usuba over a gyuto. And mincing parsley is much, much faster with an usuba than a cleaver. And, of course, whenever I have free time and a daikon, I practice rolling it out in sheets. Just 'cuz. It's a thin, fast knife which I like immensely. If I could only have ONE of the two, gyuto of course. Luckily, there's room in my bag for more than one knife.