Jinmyo

Chef, thank you for participating. How important is it to you that your food be delicious?

Some great looking pork. Thanks, Jason.

Jinmyo, I hate to disagree with you but this is simply not true. As much as I like to complain about my countrymen, the one thing I do like about the US is the openness to many different ethnic cuisines. And I'm not talking only in big cities...in a "Heartland" town of 100,000 I can personally count 7 Korean places, 3 sushi places, two indian, at least 3 (real, non chain) mexican, at least one transcendantly good Italian place, 4 thai, 2 vietnamese, 2 middle eastern, the usual complement of chinese, good and bad....Some execute the cuisine better than others, but all these places are visited by both the recent immigrants and locals alike. Try finding that in a town of 100,000 in europe, or the middle east, or heck, even asia. ← That's great. I lived for a time in the U.S. in Philadelphia and a few places in Florida but that was decades ago. I'm glad to hear that things have broadened so. And now that I think of it, Italian towns tend to be horrified by food from towns only twety miles away. edit: Ahem. "Twenty".

But a dreamy hack.

Balance, depth, roundness, fullness, subtlety. The proportions will always vary because the ingredients always vary though they are always the best. We hand-shave our own dried bonito, use the highest quality kombu, artisinal miso pastes, filtered or spring water, fresh silken tofu made that morning, huagu mushrooms and so on. Most restaurant miso shiru would be the 1st attempt. The best housewife miso shiru I've had would be the 75th, most about the 20th. This partly has to do with the quality of the ingredients but mostly has to do with commitment. I love miso shiru and each bowl served simply must present it at its best.

A few years ago, a cook did a bad leg of lamb. I pulled it from the oven and dumped it. Egad, the stench. I threw up. For a few months just the thought of lamb made my stomach twist. So I cooked (and ate) quite a bit of it until that nonsense stopped. I love lamb and refused to be denied using it because of some misguided primordial fight-or-flight response.

I'd disagree. I think that Americans love the already known. When I lived in the U.S. most of the people that I knew cooked perhaps ten things (not counting items such as toast). Ten menus. Which they repeated week after week interspersed with take away and ready mades. Then there were the Turkey Times such as Thanksgiving. I have never encountered as narrow a bandwidth of interest in anything beyond the already expected as in at least some areas of the U.S.

Egad. This is so much worse than I had thought when I had only heard "he" was selling frozen pizzas. Still, Wolfie, if getting down to your lonesome and rolling in cash makes your dough rise then go on, lad. It's yours to do with as they'll let you. Sad, though.

I use panko for any application that calls for breadcrumbs when I do not have a supply of in-house toasted bread crumbs (from dried baguettes etc cubed then shattered in a food processor).

I think this is where we need to take a look at the experiences and knowledge base that we use to make our determinations about what is and is not 4 (NYT) and 3 (Michelin) star cuisine. It's as with miso shiru, one of the simplest soups in the world to make. It takes cooks I train around a hundred attempts before they produce something I would eat let alone serve.

Oh my. Would you mind providing a bit more information? As to the main point, there might be as well be a biological factor in addition to cheapiosity and status issues. Some people simply do not have much of a sense of taste (or smell, which amounts to the same thing). I have one cook whose palate was utterly unpredictable to me. She would like this or that but for reasons and with associations that seemed fundamentally skewed to me. She also liked to overuse salt. A few months ago she told me that her mother had no sense of smell. Which of course shaped how the mother had cooked. And of course the cook as a child had grown used to salting everything heavily so that it had some definite flavour. (I believe that the American fondness for ketchup derives from similiar influences but this at least partly a joke. I really have no explanation for it.)

Grammercy Tavern?

Ellen, another wonderful photo essay. Thank you for taking the time.

I think Thomas Keller would have a hard time producing a 4 (NYT) or 3 (Michelin) star meal in his home.

I believe it is illegal, at least in most parts of the U.S., to serve raw fish that has not first been flash frozen. It's all frozen fish, folks.

There's certainly no reason not to try to create the best dish that one can with every dish one makes. In fact that's what I always try to do. And there's nothing wrong with trying to reproduce some dishes or an entire meal from a (NYT) 4 star or (Mich) 3 star restaurant. One can certainly learn a great deal and have loads of fun. But it won't be 4 (or 3) star and it's a mistake to try to make it so. So make it anyway and get your jollies.

Congratulations. Oh, and on the engagement too.

I don't really understand why a chef would want to run a four-star place, anyway. Three or two are much more fun and the challenges have more to do with actual food than the linens and such. As Russ said, home cooking is the foundation. All great cuisine originally comes from there. Now, my Welsh/Italian mother's cooking in England during the fifties and sixties was one thing and my aunt's cooking in Normandy during the same timeframe was most sublimely quite another. Compared to some home cooking other home cooking looks four-star. But it's not. It's good one or two or even three star stuff. (NYT stars, not Michelin three star.) Being inspired by Keller is one thing. Learning how to incorporate the techniques another. Trying out some of the dishes yet another. No one should ever beat themselves up for being Thomas Keller or any other great chef. By the way, I'm glad to know that Keller has Bouchon to go to. I remember Michael R's story about Keller sitting in his day's whites outside The French Laundry eating a ham sandwich late at night before going home to a shower and bed.

Yes, NulloModo, if there is something unusual or contrary to expectations then it should be mentioned. An exception though is a bit of a sense of humour as long as it is actually funny.

Menu descriptions should be concise. The customer can then enquire for more detail about dishes they are particularly interested in.

Russ, I'd eat at Bouchon every night too if I could. The kind of food that chefs create for a "four-star" meal are part of a dining experience as a whole. The kind of food chefs and pro cooks want to eat tends to be, well, offal. Or roast chicken. Or steak frites. Or sushi and miso shiru. Or in bourdain's case the eyeballs of squirrels on toast. I think it is possible and reasonable for home cooks to try to create elegant yet earthy two-star meals. And perhaps the occasional three or four-star dish.

Soba, SpecialK is, well, a special case. He and chefette are incredibly skillful and inventive pastry chefs. edit: (I also note that the risotto was done in the microwave but I won't go down that dark path.)

I agree, Sam. And the thing is, one star food is delicious. No one should feel that there is something "wrong" with their preferences. But there is a reason for trying to, however unsuccessfully, rank different styles and levels of cuisine. And that is to know what we are referring to.

That's one of the best articles on eG I've seen.

Sandler's hard enough to watch but on Leno? Feh. But it's to his credit that he recognizes Keller's stature. 6 foot 1 or 2?