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spqr

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Everything posted by spqr

  1. I agree to an extent with Jinmyo. I would take issue, however, when a menu states that diver scallops are for sale and what I am buying, and paying a premium for no doubt, was not harvested by a diver. Given the huge pressure in the restaurant industry to sell sell sell, I have a very high base level of skepticism about such things.
  2. Where did this notion that chefs are artists, or should be aiming to create "art" rather than a good meal, come from? A chef, even a brilliant one, is a craftsman, not an artist. What is wrong with achieving excellence in anything? Those chefs who can legitimately claim to have achieved excellence are few and far between, I would surmise, and being consistently excellent at anything is a very big accomplishment.
  3. There is nothing in my post to Bourdain that implies that I think he sold his soul to get on TV. I don't. There are indications in Kitchen Confidential, and in some of the other things he's written that suggests he is comtemptuous of at least one or two TV star chefs, for whatever reason, and of the scramble for TV stardom among chefs. I asked him for his insider's view of food TV because I am interested in what he has to say on the matter beyond casting aspersions at this or that individual or making the odd sneering crack about it. That's all. As for the "irony, humor, ...and dignity" part, I'd need more specific citations before I could agree.
  4. Let me cast the first stone.
  5. Yes I am kidding, but only partly. I really would like to know what the FoodTV biz is like from an insider's point of view. And your perspective would be particularly interesting and valuable because you seem to be the perfect anti-starchef.
  6. So Tony: who does your "voice"? What basic training did you have to submit to when you were trying to sell your Cook's Tour show? Can you give us a little peek at the inside of the FoodTV biz? Please?
  7. In today's Washington Post: click me
  8. I haven't seen the one in "the mag" yet, but this recipe is different from the recipe that Mario cooked in that episode of Mario Eats Italy. In the TV show, he and that buffoon Rooney are in Bologna, and they go to city hall and take a Polaroid of the "official" recipe for Bolognese sauce. Then they go back to some local's kitchen and make it. THAT recipe used concentrato di pomodoro (tomato paste) and not the canned whole tomatoes he specifies in the website recipe. Does it make a difference? I've made Mario's recipe both ways and I like the tomato paste version better.
  9. spqr

    Fried Chicken

    Sloppy Joe Chicken
  10. spqr

    Emeril's

    Okay, done: click me now
  11. This was a post of mine on the topic of Emeril. Wilfrid suggested I start a new topic on this theme. Okay, so I did. I realize that all TV programs, even cooking shows, play to a certain, and often shrewdly calculated, audience, and that it seems self-evident that the audience targeted by a TV star chef on his program may not be the same audience for whom he cooks at his restaurant. I'd like to know, from all you restaurant goers out there, what your preception is of the difference, if any, between the star chef's TV food and his/her restaurant food, and what you think the underlying game plan is. Thank you for your consideration.
  12. spqr

    Emeril's

    What's cooking at Emeril's today: Bam!
  13. spqr

    Emeril's

    This is quite the interesting thread. I am only familiar with the TV Emeril, and his TV food for the most part strikes me as deliberately vulgar and gross (Emerilspeak: kicked up a notch). However, Wilfrid's list suggests something different about the food you get at his main place. I wonder if this holds true for the rest of the pantheon of TV star chefs. How does Mesa Grill and Bolo food compare to what Flay cooks on TV? I know Mario's TV cooking tends to be focused on Italian Italian cooking, with emphasis on authentic preparations, while Babbo does something else entirely. But Mario candonowrong in my book, and his food always seems to make sense.
  14. In which alternate reality?
  15. Would someone translate this chefspeak for those of us who don't speak it? Thanks.
  16. I thought we settled this already. Yes, "taste" is entirely subjective. I said everything I need to say on this subject on that other thread, but you can see how obviously attitudes about this pervades most other food topics. There are those who think that there is an objective standard as to what is good to eat. Not surprisingly, these people think that what they eat is, objectively, the best possible. And there are those who realize that people everywhere and at all times past and present developed their own standards based on what was possible in their social/cultural/ecological context. On what objective basis can we compare the cuisines of, say, equatorial Africa with those of India, with those of Maylasia with those of France with those of France in the, say, Middle Paleolithic? There are always everywhere people who are self-appointed arbiters of what is good to eat. They are, almost by definition, snobs (NOT merely, appologetically, "discerning"). For them, it is a way of defining an "in" crowd and an "out" crowd. Not surprisingly, snobs always classify themselves as being in the "in" crowd. But the game is fixed because these same snobs are the ones setting the rules and making the judgements. And, as LML has pointed out, having a pot of money allows one to indulge him/herself in a way that is not practicable for most of the rest of us. I believe it's true that one can eat well without having to spend huge amounts of money, but this takes a kind of education in cooking that is not generally available or practicable for the rest of us. And there are some, my physician among them, who view food merely as fuel, and don't understand at all how or why people take pleasure from eating.
  17. I say: fuck France and the French. Their hegemony on all things culinary in the Western world should be overturned. It's long overdue. But I would be very interested to have you elaborate your point John. Particularly your observation on the coexistence and co-equality of haute cuisine and peasant fare and the implications of this. I seriously doubt that we in the US have anything that is the equivalent to the peasant fare of Europe you refer to. Our native cookery, since the 40s at least, has been based on industrial innovations in food technology, particularly canned soup and gelatin. A century ago things were different, and as the Hess' point out, not only did we enjoy an abundance of real food but we were also fairly knowledgeable in preparing it.
  18. Yes, it's a matter of opinion. Plain and simple. And if you would lower your apparently well-moneyed nose from the stratosphere a moment, you would realize that plain truth. I think that the fact that you can enjoy cote de boef from whereever is a good thing. However, I suspect that most people who eat cote de boef at wherever and then brag about it are more into having other people know they eat at exclusive joints than they are into basic enjoyment of the food. This is the essence of snobbery, and the prime diagnostic of a true poseur, as I said in my earlier post. As far as chipped beef on toast goes, I recall Pierre Franey relating a story in his biography of the time when he was in the army and he was able to transform shit on a shingle into a very palatable dish through the simple application of good technique. Your attitude toward shit on a shingle betrays much about you. Apparently you think that chipped beef on toast is "bad", while the food you eat, and the food you can afford to eat, is "good". How simple- and narrow-minded!
  19. Where I live, a small (pop = 4200), rural, west central IL town. our tap water comes from the local manmade lake. Every year it seems the water from the lake violates EPA standards in one way or another. But the one thing that made me switch to bottled water is the fishing exhibition at our yearly summer fair. There's a big tank filled with fish from the lake and periodically some Mighty Big Fisherman throws in a baited hook to demonstrate superior fishing technique (and how to bring a little misery into the lives of those poor fish). The problem is that all of the fish in the tank exhibit all kind s of boils and welts and other deformaties that obviously come from the poluted water. Ever since I first saw this I don't do anything but wash my dishes in tap water. All water I imbibe is bottled.
  20. By what right do you judge me or anyone else? Employing "discernment" in choosing and structuring your own diet is one thing. Thinking less of someone because he/she does not share your own food values is sniffy snobbery in its pure, naked form. And I suspect that much of this attitude is a prime diagnostic of a true poseur.
  21. spqr

    Pork Pie

    Tortiere is indeed an old French Canadian recipe, and it has nothing to do with a "pork pie" as known to the Brits. My buddy, who grew up in Vermont just across the border from French Canada, has a soft spot for tortiere. I, however, would really like to get a good British pork pie recipe....
  22. spqr

    Pork Pie

    Best pork pie: when I was a child my parents used to take us out for a meal once in a while to a fish and chips shop in Fort Erie, Ontario (we lived in the Buffalo, NY area, across the river). The place was run by an old English couple, and their pork pies were made fresh every day and they were super (with a little HP sauce on the side). I'd like a good recipe too, now that this topic has summoned the memory.
  23. No effing way! You think I want to get bounced from this board? But seriously, folks...I don't take seriously most of the things I read about food by people in the food writers club. I suspect, but I have no proof at this moment, that many are shills for one or more industry special interests, or that they are cheerleaders for this or that trendy new thing.
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