Joisey

The only thing I can figure is that with the FoodTV culture of the last ten years, the Chef is increasingly a public figure. I've always regarded my kitchen as a sovereign territory and it IS defended from interlopers. I also stay out of the FOH as much as possible unless I'm specifically requested. There's a great "Sopranos" episode where Tony advises Artie Bucco to spend more time in the kitchen and less time annoying customers.

Phaelon, I've got a GREAT one for you because you'll know who I'm talking about: You remember a family owned restaurant, I can't say the name of the family but they had a nice "Stereo". Their restaurant was a "Landmark". Anyway, when I was working at the Sheraton in the same city, we fired our F&B director because they were paying him too much. Coincidentally this "Landmark" restaurant was closing its doors for good. Suddenly the patriarch/owner of the place is our new F&B director, except he has a new title, "maitre d'hotel" to avoid having legal issues with the former F&B. Also not coincidentally, our liquor room was suddenly full of all these great wines and top shelf booze by the case. The hotel GM not only hired this guy but paid him under the table for his liquor stock from the closed restaurant. Great booze at discount prices, NO TAX PAID ON IT...such a deal!

Yeah, I've heard 26 Brix is very good, too.

Sorcha, he could have done a spot at the Gresham Fred Meyer and you'd have him up for a Cable Ace. Come on, Rachel Ray did the "Shanghai Tunnels" thing a year ago (and many people think that story isn't even true), and how many people have done the Fish Market thing in the last few years (Paula Deens goofy sons even beat him to it). The pizza segment was cool, as was the bit about Salumi in Seattle and the Razor Clam thing. OK, there's three cool things in the span of an hour. I guess they couldn't find him any indigenous anus to eat (unless Voodoo Donut has a special one for that, too).

Go get some beef chunks for your roomate and tell him to have at it. Come back in an hour and see how far he got. Great tool, you'll never use a mixer for small batches of potatoes again.

The Pac Northwest show was kind of lame too. I realize that it's on a different network now and not all about the food, but come on. THAT'S all LA has to offer? I've only lived in Portland for 3 years and I can tell you that there is more interesting stuff going on than he showed.

Bakhoum is catching a lot of flack for her new venture, which amounts to a reservation-scalping operation in NYC. There is one blog, can't remember which one, that seems to have daily updates on her. Her husband is a chef, also. I think Mo Rocca has to be the worst judge on that show. If they need a court jester, they should just have him come out and perform rather than judge. Incidentally, I thought Bowles had won easily judging by the comments from the panel. It also seemed like there was some genuine tension between Flay and Steingarten, I could tell Bobby was holding back a little bit when Jeffrey was critiquing him.

I'm sorry, but that "East Meets West" Ming Tsai comment made me laugh a little.

It's amazing the culinary innovations you come up with gakked out of your mind.

Hide from my kids. Get my mental mise en place ready for going back. Hopefully it's summertime and I can fire up the grill and do some beer research.

Teri..you hear horror stories about stuff like this all the time. I've worked for places that have reused certain things (made bread pudding out of unused pastry/bread from functions, things like that). Or high end items like shellfish, cocktail shrimp, etc. I've heard about, but never seen reusing bread and butter from tables (or melting down unused butter from tables into clarified). Most of the food in that situation either gets chucked or descended upon by the waistaff/dish crew.

I'd be more worried about someone using a paper shredder to make fettucine than tortilla strips. Some things are worse than others. Hollandaise from powder? LAME. Demi from a base? I'd need to know what the facility and staff situation is before making that judgment. Cake/muffin mix? No problem, not everyone can afford to have a pastry chef/cook. Premade specialty ravioli? Great, not everyone knows how to make pasta well and some of those products are pretty good. However, if you try to pass that shit off as your own, reap what you sow. Sometimes the truth is the best option, I haven't heard a lot of grumbling about Keller using Sysco fries on his Steak Frites at the Bouchon locations.

40 dishes and 30 of them poor? .250 makes you mediocre in baseball, even if you do hit a few home runs. Same thing for a restaurant. This implies to me that the kitchen stumbled across a few good dishes and maybe their menu is too big. Probably the easiest to help of the three choices. A restaurant with one good dish and the rest suck? Forget it. A restaurant that's hit and miss on everything? I'd be more wary of this than the first one, someone isn't paying attention in the back. A crap shoot at best, and at NYC prices and time gambled, not worth it. This is all from an analytical standpoint. Who the hell knows what an innocent bystander is going to like or dislike?

Agree 110 Percent. If I had a place to stow the commercial sized dispenser I'd have one at home. As far as bagging on the slide cutter, anyone that's ever ripped their flesh to shreds on a commercial (it's not a cut, it's an open gash) will gladly take a slider any day.

I bought one of those used for a small commercial kitchen, paid 30 bucks for it almost new. It lasted about a month and started doing the same thing. I've got a suspicion that the temperature probe is getting gunked up and causing it to shut down and/or give readings that are WAY off.

For 8 freaking brownies I'd give her a box of Duncan Hines. I used to get people wanting their pasta cooked fresh to ensure al dente. OF COURSE THE CHEF CAN THROW A BIG POT OF WATER ON IN THE MIDDLE OF A SATURDAY NIGHT TO DO SOME FRESH ANGEL HAIR. There are some people that need a little reality-based education. Then there are some that will never know either way. I'm happy to accomodate either. With some nice fresh pasta from yesterday.

If you're talking about chains that are still around but have grown legendary, White Castle has to be near the top.

--I live in a town with an abundance of Italian-Amercian red sauce style restaurants. So - why is Carraba's so popular here? It's because the food and service is better than 90% of the independents in the area.-- You're from Syracuse, right? When I was there in the mid 90s I used to lament to my friends "how many f'ing bad Italian joints does one town need?" The last straw was a place called "Paysan's" opening...we decided that we were going to open a place called "Goombah's" and do the cliche Italian thing to glorious excess. Sad thing is, it would have been succesful.

A&W and its counterpoint/knockoff Lud's. I remember traveling in the midwest in the late 70s and eating at Stuckeys restaurants off the interstate a few times.

This show is entertaining, but I can see it rapidly going the way of "American Choppers"...same characters, same personality quirks, different products. Hopefully Duff gets the same merchandising profits as the Teutels....

--Caprial and John's kitchen, which is on PBS too. I think it's local, I'm not sure though. -- They filmed all those shows in Portland at their restaurant/cooking school...that show gets a little awkward to watch, they're not the best pair on camera.

It's just like any other chain concept in whatever market you look at: Convenience, Affordability and Consistency. The food chains aren't going anywhere, they will just subtly shift their target demographics and themes to put themselves into whatever market they can make a buck in. I was told there are three test markets for new food chain concepts: Phoenix, AZ; Nashville TN and Syracuse, NY. When I was working in Syracuse, me and a buddy were the first people in the country to try Zima Malt beverage, the distributor we work with was casually giving out samples and asking opinions.

Reef..an old friend of mine just took a gig with NCL as their corporate Pastry Chef. He works out of Miami and will be going out on the boats once a month. If you ever run into a guy that looks like Richie Cunningham, give him a hard time. Great guy and a serious talent.

Maybe.

That's a really nice effort, congratulations. I'm thinking about offering those on special dinner party menus at my establishment. I'd only seen it done once before, but it didn't look like it would be impossible to pull off. As an FYI, they make special cones for them, I've seen two sizes and they aren't prohibitively expensive..maybe thirty bucks if I remember correctly.