paulraphael

I've wondered about that a lot, especially since the chef is on display while working. Makes me wonder if the inspectors look the other way under certain circumstances.

To a religious person I think that's like saying "Well, if you don't agree with your parents then why did you choose them?" I wish more people behaved as Jenni imagines ... challenge their beliefs and informing them with reason and skepticism. But in my experience they more often behave as Rob describes. Challenging dogmatic beliefs with a rational argument is like trying to motivate a frozen mastodon with a riding crop.

If the place is a disaster, sure, but there are little things, like putting on gloves. In NYC the law says that you have to wear latex gloves to handle food that's ready to eat, but you never see anyone in a higher end restaurant kitchen using them. At that level people just wash their hands religiously. It's customary, I think, for everyone to slip into gloves when the inspector is walking down the hall.

The issue is that aluminum has to be welded to aluminum, and aluminum handles are a lousy idea on most pans. Too conductive. I have a big commercial stockpot with aluminum loop handles. In this case they work fine. They're attached with big spot welds.

Your point is based entirely on conjecture. Wonder all you want about B's position on Italian Grandmas and pho, but he says nothing explicitly about it. His only example of different rules for different people involves religion, and we've already hammered on this problem.

Sure, and this why I enjoy the piece and even agree with it mostly, in spite of problems with the argument. And I think those problems can still merit a discussion, because they're relevant beyond the article. Bourdain has raised some important questions without having resolved them.

I think you're getting to the most problematic idea in Bourdain's piece. That it's not ok, as he puts it, to "take your beliefs on the road." It's an easy idea to swallow when you're dealing with beliefs presumeably grounded in nothing more than economic privilege, and ones concerning issues like whether or not to eat pho. But taken more broadly it's a troubling concept. As I read it, it could be seen as an endorsement of ethical relativism, and all the ugliness that lurks down that particular rabbit hole. Ideas like, "child labor is wrong back home, but it's perfectly ok here, because their culture accepts it. So I'm going to buy this cool cheap handbag!" Unfortunately the alternative, taken to it's logical extreme, means acting like an activist and a scold at every opportunity ... a good invitation to the Italian grandma to kick your hippy ass (and comfortable shoes) to the curb.

My calphalon pans have aluminum rivets. They're all old; not sure if the company still does this. All my others have stainless rivets. I've seen loose handles on riveted pans, always at restaurants, always on unclad commercial aluminum. I suspect it's the holes in the aluminum wearing, as Slkinsey says, but I'm not sure. The high heat and abuse probably make this more likely in a restaurant setting. At least with a worn out riveted handel the handle doesn't actually fall off and dump hot food and grease all over you.

I think you're making some excellent points, although diagnosing Bourdain as "self-loathing" goes a bit far ... I'd say it's reductive in the same manner as Bourdains own arguments that you're critiquing. It's worth remembering that the chapter in question is a rant, not a philosophical treatise. He characterizes it as "sputtering indignation," and this is what he delivers: broad strokes and a lot of passion. There are holes in his argument that you could drive a truck through, but I believe much of it is defensible. Kudos to you for critiquing his actual book and not some imagined version of it.

Just an observation that there's generally less trouble when you push against secular beliefs than religious ones. I wish it weren't true, but it seems to be. In this sense I disagree philosophically with Bourdain's giving special privilege to religious belief, but I respect the pragmatism of it.

I agree with this completely. I find it troubling when religious beliefs are somehow privileged over other types of beliefs. My personal bias is in the opposite direction: a belief based on evidence and reason should trump one based on inherited ideas and denial of reason. I have much more respect, say, for someone who refuses to eat meat because they've struggled with ethical ideas than for someone who refuses on the basis of scripture. However, I understand (unhappily) that beliefs of the inherited / unquestionable variety tend to more deeply seated and stubborn than ones based on reasoning. An ethical vegetarian can likely weigh competing ethical concerns better than a vegetarian whose afraid of hellfire. Butting heads with someone's religious practice is generally a recipe for trouble. Making a hippy eat Pho? He'll get over it, however comfortable his shoes. On your point about the quality of Western vegetarian food ... yeah, great examples exists. But in my experience they're not especially common. Meanwhile even run of the mill Indian vegetarian food tends to be delicious in comparison.

Would be interesting to do a side-by-side. I think the pre-blanching method offers definite advantages for color, but I've never had a chance to compare flavor and texture. Even some cheap solutions can freeze ice cream quickly. My kitchenaid attachment freezes a batch in 8 to 12 minutes ... plenty fast. It's the lower end compressor machines (or canister machines that aren't cold enough) that seem to suffer in this regard. Pastry chefs tend to use ingredients that are uncommon in most home ice cream recipes: most significant are stabilizers, nonfat dry milk, and alternative sugars like dextrose and invert syrup. These make a huge difference in texture. This doesn't represent a fundamental difference between home and restaurant, just a common one. High end gelato machines and hardening cabinets represent a fundamental difference, although I think that their importance is minor when you're just making a quart or so at a time.

The New York City Health Department now requires restaurants to display a summary of their inspection score (A, B, or C) in the front window. Today's Times ran an article on challenges to its fairness. Here's the health dept.'s page where you can search for current and past inspection details. I'd be curious to hear reactions to the new system from diners and restaurant workers alike.

Well, that's not a fundamental disadvantage. It's not based on inherent limitations of a restaurant (like being able to serve a perfectly roasted and rested goose, for example). It's a choice ... just a reflection of priorities. I've had great coffee at restaurants. In some cases it was made to order in individual press pots. In others they had a high end espresso machine and gave the waitstaff barista training. And in others I have no idea what they did backstage. Of course you don't see this kind of attention everywhere, because it's labor intensive. But so is everything that goes on in a good restaurant.

I think mcohen has a point. Torres and Payard are successful, but are they known outside the extreme food geek community or outside their immediate neighborhoods? It strikes me as a cultural difference, even if the difference is likely to diminish over the next several years.

Oh, good god. It's also a symbol of economic privilege. Which interpretation makes more sense in this context?

Ok, maybe you could quote the passage in question. At first I was wondering if we'd read the same book; now I'm wondering if we live on the same planet.

I doubt it. In the new book the vegetarian rant is part of a chapter in which he revisits old ideas. Mostly to modify or retract. But he says the vegetarian issue still raises his ire.

I think you're just mischaracterizing his position. Bourdain attacks ideologies that present themselves as morally superior, but which don't acknowledge the enormous degree of privilege (mostly economic) that makes them possible. He may invite misunderstanding, to a degree, by using the blanket term "vegetarians" ... when what he really means is vegetarians who bring their ideas stubbornly and self-righteously into contexts that are inappropriate. Yes, there are many vegetarian cultures in the world, and many in which meat is optional. There are others where meat (or fish, or dairy, or whatever) is a matter of survival ... and to refuse it based on ideas you brought with you from the Land of Opportunity or the hippy commune, is just plain arrogant. I'm pretty sure Bourdain has travelled enough to not be constrained by simplistic ethnocentric ideas. And I seriously doubt he cares a bit if you abstain from Burgers while in Northern California. This would have been a well thought out argument. But this isn’t the argument TB makes in the book. No where near it. In all actuality I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly extrapolate this relatively well thought out, though poorly presented, position from what is actually printed in the book. Though it is a bit unclear exactly how vegetarianism comes from a position of priviledge, given that meat is truly the food of the weathly. "I don't care what you do in your home, but the idea of a vegetarian traveler in comfortable shoes waving away hospitality—the distillation of a lifetime of training and experience—of, say, a Vietnamese pho vendor (or an Italian mother-in-law, for that matter) fills me with sputtering indignation." "I guess I understand if your desire for a clean conscience and cleaner colon overrules any natural lust for bacon. But taking your belief system on the road—or to other people's houses—makes me angry. I feel too lucky—now more than ever—too accutely aware what an incredible, unexpected privilege it is to travel this world and enjoy the kindness of strangers to ever, ever be able to understand how one could do anything other than say yes, yes, yes."

I'm not sure if it's because of goals. But I think vegetarian cultures like the Hindus have many centuries of experience on their side. They've figured out the delicousness part and have encoded it into a deep tradition. And a living tradition ... it continues to be passed down to new generations of home cooks year after year. Vegetarians in this country more often inherit ideas from short-lived trends, from cook book authors who are forever in search of a new hook, or from opportunistic packaged food manufacturers (veggie bacon! Tofurkey!)

I think you're just mischaracterizing his position. Bourdain attacks ideologies that present themselves as morally superior, but which don't acknowledge the enormous degree of privilege (mostly economic) that makes them possible. He may invite misunderstanding, to a degree, by using the blanket term "vegetarians" ... when what he really means is vegetarians who bring their ideas stubbornly and self-righteously into contexts that are inappropriate. Yes, there are many vegetarian cultures in the world, and many in which meat is optional. There are others where meat (or fish, or dairy, or whatever) is a matter of survival ... and to refuse it based on ideas you brought with you from the Land of Opportunity or the hippy commune, is just plain arrogant. I'm pretty sure Bourdain has travelled enough to not be constrained by simplistic ethnocentric ideas. And I seriously doubt he cares a bit if you abstain from Burgers while in Northern California.

No, it's entirely reasonable, since many of the opinions are revisions of ones expressed in his most popular writings. I would assume that anyone bent toward dismissals of Bourdain will not have followed his every interview and essay and tv appearance. If your ideas about Bourdain come from Kitchen Confidential and The Nasty Bits (as mine have), you'll find different ideas here. Which isn't to suggest you'll like them, just that you don't yet know what they are. Straw man argument. Criticize Bourdain all you want. Just don't criticize a book you haven't read.

Half-sheet pans plastic mis containers in a few sizes side towels spoons!

I'd be more adventurous if there was a longer list of fish that were available, fresh, sustainable, and affordable. The last one has been a bigger influence lately. My fishmonger has fish ranging from around $7 / lb to over $30 / lb. Anything approaching the high end is going to be more of a special occasion purchase for me. My list lately has included trout, black bass, sea bream/dorade, and occasionally arctic char. For a while I was buying tillapia, but the quality was inconsistent.

A ceramic steel will chip a knife every bit as easily as a metal one. The questions are how thin is knife's edge geometry, and how brittle is its metal. Global knives aren't particularly thin or brittle, so chipping isn't much of an issue. Ceramic steels work a bit differently than metal ones; they're abrasive and actually grind the blade slightly. They're coarse compared with fine stones, so you want to avoid them if you polish your blades with anything higher than 2000 grit or so. People complain about sharpening difficulties not because the steel is hard (it's fairly soft by Japanese standards) but because it's gummy and doesn't let go of a bur. If you don't get rid of the bur, you end up with a wire edge ... the knife can still be extremely sharp, but the edge will be fragile and short-lived. It's likely that most cooks use knives with wire edges and don't even know it. I personally find it very difficult to get the last remains of the wire off of my chef's knife, and it's made out of much friendlier steel than the globals. To put it in perspective, Dave Martell of Japanese Knife Sharpening said he's given up on sharpening globals on stones; he uses a belt sander just like he uses on German knives. I assume this means he hasn't found a workable solution to the wire edge issue with global's metallurgy.