project

Craig: "From the sound of those two Barolos perhaps you should give Barolo another try as I don't think they would have given you an understanding of what Barolo was then and most certainly what is now. They certainly weren't good enough to get you to taste Barolo many more times." Naw, we thought that these two Barolo wines were terrific and that the prices were fine. Those two Barolo bottles were nearly as much fun as things from the Cote d'Or or Haut Medoc. In those years, we drank a bottle of wine maybe once each two months or so. Those two bottles are the only two we kept notes on; we drank more bottles of Barolo than just those two but not many more than a dozen. We just didn't drink a lot of wine. I still have a few bottles left from a case of Mosel I got before 1970! I hope Mosel keeps well! "Yes, while 'it is not so difficult to grow decently good wine' what is very hard to do is to make great wine - wine that is distinctive and that speaks clearly of the grape and vineyards where it was born. Barolo and Barbaresco are two of those wines. In only one little corner of the world does nebbiolo make great wine - wines far beyond and far more interesting than wines that are: 'not so difficult to grow decently good wine'. It is indeed difficult to grow and make fine nebbiolo wines." Sounds like we quickly got badly spoiled! It was easy: In the 1960s and 1970s, we were near DC, got Frank Schoonmaker, 'Schoonmaker's Encyclopedia of Wine', Hastings House, New York, 1968. and went shopping for wines in Georgetown and a few other places. So, we just took Schoonmaker to wine stores, flipped through the book, looked at the bottles, concluded that with food (except desserts) dry was better than sweet, that the Haut Medoc could taste too much like flint or licking dusty windows and preferred the reds from the Cote d'Or and Rhone Valley, also noticed the Piedmont and the Nebbiolo, some Chianti wines, and thought that wines were fun! I later read two of Wagner's books on wine making but concluded that just Schoonmaker had gotten us a good introduction to some good wines quickly. Could get a 1964 Pommard for $5! Got a nice case of Macon Blanc for the price of 11 bottles at $1.29 a bottle. Yup, we were spoiled! Now those wine writers have told everyone! Now the Cote d'Or and Piedmont will really set you back! Our view of what can be done with the Nebbiolo was likely a bit meager: Besides enjoying Asti Spumanti as a dessert wine, when we were drinking Barolo wines, we did hear that some were old and great. We may never have drank any of those. Still, we had enough from the Cote d'Or to have some decent idea what a great bottle of wine was like, and the better Barolo wines we had really were nearly as good. So, there were lots of complex flavors, lots of flavor in total, good balance of flavors, and some fantastic aromas after maybe 30 minutes in a glass. So, even the modern Barolo wines should be maybe more than 10 years old. Hmm! So, we were spoiled and can't take wines as good as Barolo for granted or expect that we will easily see something comparable from the Nebbiolo from, say, the former Yugoslavia, Georgia, South America, Australia, etc. Bummer! Thanks for your terrific detailed up to date guide to Barolo! I put a copy in a file in a directory I will have no trouble finding later! Your review of Barolo gave me another good reason to make a lot of money! eG and the Internet win again!

Gee, the last Barolo in our wine tasting notebook was from Antiche Cantine and Tenvte Galarey, 1964. We paid $2.69 for 24 ounces or so in 1970. We liked it. Although we have fewer details, we did have a Barolo from Clemente Guasti 1974. We drank it in a restaurant in 1983 and paid all of $13 for the bottle. We liked it. Too bad since then the rest of the world has also discovered Barolo. Okay, on the principle that in fact it is not so difficult to grow decently good wine and that there are many regions that can do so, what should we look to today for a good big red wine, dry, complex, not for the soda pop generation?

Ms. Burros: Thanks. Please do pass on to your editor. But, might want to be sure he (she) is sitting down first! badthings: Wow! Once again eGullet rocks! Wow! You understood, in more subtlety than I intended, and found a detailed reference. Wow! For part of what you explain, I did have a longer first draft with some of that in there, but that material tended to be provocative, pejorative, and negative; so I removed it. Or, in my post, I tried to be positive and concentrate on what I did want and not be negative and say bad things about what I didn't want. Thumper: "If you can't say anything nice, then ...." My explanation for Belasco's remark would be similar but a bit different: My explanation falls under my broad theory of the media. In this theory, the media -- in the educational backgrounds and personal interests of the people, in their values, standards, and norms, and in nearly all the work they do -- is part of literature as in 'fiction'. Although mostly the stories are to be factual, the techniques and intended reactions are to be those of fiction. Or, the goal is to be the smelly bait for the advertising hook; next, the tactics are to grab people by the heart, the gut, or lower still, nearly always below the shoulders, rarely between the ears. In this grabbing, the techniques are the same as in fiction -- communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion via vicarious experiences with personalities with passion, pathos, poignancy. Ah, it's just a first-cut intuitive guess at a theory, something hardly beyond 'Citizen Kane': Clearly anything so simplistic, irrational, and dysfunctional would have been criticized and excoriated decades ago -- but, it's the best theory I've got for now! So, how do we get to Belasco's remark? Well, one of the better succinct explanations of people is: Erich Fromm, 'The Art of Loving', Harper and Row, New York, ISBN 0-06-080291-X, 1974. where he explains that the greatest concern of people is getting security in the face of the anxiety caused by the realization that we are vulnerable to the hostile forces of nature and society. One of the best responses to is to join a group, be devoted to the group, and get support from the group. Well, style and lifestyle are ways to make a statement about membership in such a group, ways to be better protected by having stripes like all the other zebras in the herd. Then writing about food can emphasize elegant damask napery, redolent bouquets, rare old European wines, etc., and thus provide a feeling of security from a vicarious experience of membership in a desirable affluent group of emotionally sensitive, sympathetic, empathetic, and supportive people. I am guessing that this, then, is what Belasco called "lifestyle journalism". Rather than say that I didn't want such stuff (Thumper), I just said "I would like to know what is going on." I don't fully agree with Fromm: To me, there are three important sources of security he did not mention (1) money in the bank, (2) good health, and (3) knowing what's going on, and I do believe that these three are synergistic. So, I was trying to tell 'The New York Times' that in politics, economics, business, technology and also food, from them I very much want to know what's going on. E.g., Templeton make a killing shorting high tech stocks and then bought some bonds from Canada and Australia and did very well -- NOW we learn about it (currently in 'Forbes'). At times interest rates have been set by the Fed to be less than the rate of inflation (almost literally free money); sometimes I didn't learn about it until later. So, I want to know what's going on right along to see things coming. Lemons? Sure: I bought a bag, used about three, and have had to throw half of the rest away as they quickly shrank covered with some huge quantity of black powder from some disease. So, I'd like to know what the heck is going on with lemons, and for such a disease not as the only focus but just as one special case. E.g., is there an effective way to preserve lemon juice? I didn't notice this disease years ago; why now? I'd rather learn about lemons than have a vicarious experience with elegant napery while my lemons are rapidly shrinking and generating a huge cloud of black powder! For your: "The problem that I think you are getting at here is total conceptual divorce between the production of food (agriculture -- mysterious, foreign, and dirty), and its consumption (lifestyle 'choice')." Right. You did see this! Again, broadly, from the news media, I just want to know what's going on. I'm no more interested in a vicarious experience, with damask napery or anything else, than I'm interested in bathing in a pig pen. Ah, gee, it would be crude and outrageous of me to imply connections between porcine scatology (PS) and English literature, and I should be ashamed, I really should be! One reason is your: "What's been sorely lacking, Belasco says, is more incisive coverage of agriculture, 'which is the world's largest industry and yet virtually invisible for the most part.'" Right. It's huge, far larger and more important than damask napery! It really is "invisible", and, instead, for anything so important, I want to know what's going on. I've seen parts of it: My father in law was clearing $5000 a month raising chickens on 88 acres in Indiana in the 1950s (good money then); I have a friend that used to kill 5000 hogs a day (at times they could clear $10 a hog) in a small family owned operation. So, I tried to illustrate for Ms. Burros and her editor the huge opportunity there. One could spend six months just on lemons; nearly as long on limes; one could spend years just on the first pass for the base material and accumulate parts of an encyclopedia and, then, get a unique intellectual property franchise by continually bringing the base material up to date, and 'lifestyle' has next to nothing to do with my interest. Maybe I should hate to be sexist, but hate it or not, it may be a man, woman thing: Somehow I have to guess that the 'male hunter' really did want to know what was going on outside his cave, what caused those tracks in the snow, what that sound was in the night, what was going on over the next several hills, how the water level and flow rates were doing in the river down the hill, etc. Sometimes he was happiest hidden in a tree in the night just observing in detail everything that was going on (that's how he got his winter coat, from the too predictable actions of one unfortunate bear). He just wanted to know what was going on. It was a compulsion related to survival from seeing both opportunities and dangers coming and taking advantage of the first and avoiding the second. As a lone hunter, he was not trying to join a herd or even impress the family back in the cave or others in a tribe; he was just trying to make it from his own efforts. He wasn't interested in vicarious anything. It's the fundamental compulsion of the curious scientist that wants to understand what's going on; ignorance, mysteries, loose ends, things that don't fit, and sudden surprises are causes of lost sleep! And, he didn't give a weak little hollow hoot if his stripes matched those of the others in a herd! To me, those shrunken lemons and Tempelton's bond gains were surprises; I don't like surprises and want to be well enough informed to see such things coming. For 'style', well I should remember Thumper.

Ms. Burros, thanks for the Q&A. On food, there is a lot I would like to see in the media we are not seeing: Broadly, I would like to know what is going on. If everything seems okay, then I would like to be well enough informed to see this. If things start to drift from okay, I want to know this. If there is a big problem, then I want to know about it but very much will have wanted to have seen it coming. In what's going on, I'd like the point made clearly and supported mostly with numerical data supported with references to primary sources. So, there are fruits, vegetables, and meats. Under fruits there are lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit. Okay, take lemons. Tell us what's going on with lemons. What is the basic science of lemon growing, where is it done, and how is this science disseminated in the industry? Where and how do people learn the practical aspects of lemon growing and the rest of the lemon industry? What are the varieties, and how were they found? For a given variety, what are the characteristics including pros and cons? What constitutes a 'good' lemon? Where and how are lemons grown? What are the seasonal issues? What are the economics of lemon growing, e.g., in terms of a Leontief input, output model? How are the lemons stored and shipped? What is the 'supply chain' for lemons? What are the diseases of lemons and the responses to them? What are the main uses of lemons? What is the chemistry of lemons related to nutrition, flavor, preservation, synthetics? How are all these subjects changing with time, the US economy, globalization, etc.? Then move on to limes, .... Higher levels? Sure. Tell us about the US restaurant industry, mostly from the point of view of business. Cover topics much as for lemons. A higher level? Sure, given several articles at lower levels to use as background, tell us what people in the US are eating. Restaurants? Frozen? Canned? Cooked at home from scratch? What? Nutrition. Cost. Preparation time. Flavor. More broadly, get some base articles. Then, over time, do updates and reference the base articles. Mostly what I would like to see from the general media would be such information about politics, the economies of the US and the world, business in the US and the world, and technology. Food is just a small interest, but I would like to know about food, as outlined above.

FistFullaRoux: In looking for what fits the data, my conclusion is simple: 50-75% of the McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King owners in my area have concluded that employees will be required to ask about cheese and fries and get explicit answers before executing the order. Period. No exceptions. Wouldn't matter if I came in with a large sign reading "No cheese. No fries". They will still ask the questions and refuse to execute until I answer. If I complain, the most I will get is a ticket for a free cheeseburger with fries! "If a burger jockey cuts me off midsentence, my faith in the human race will survive. I'm a big believer in non-verbal clues. Most people do get it. Try this next time. Take a deep breath through clenched teeth, and glare at them." I believe that the people are fine. I don't think that there is any way that employees are being insulting on their own. Instead, they have been told "Independent of anything the customer has said, ask, and get explicit answers, or do not execute the order." In the face of such an instruction, non-verbal clues would be water off a duck's back. Indeed, what upsets some of the employees so much is that they know full well that they are being asked to offend the customers. I've tried lots of phrasings, postures, tones of voice, etc. None of it works. "Don't let it get to you." It's not getting to me. I have a simple explanation and gave it in two versions just above. In this case, the owners do see the revenue from cheese and fries and do not see the lost revenue from when torqued people don't go. For the average owner, that's subtle enough not to be seen. The owners are making some big mistakes, but I have seen much bigger ones in business. Besides, since mostly the people on this thread are not offended and blame me, the owners would conclude that they are on solid ground! The key point for me is that I don't want to trust the food at a place that cares so little for what their customers think. josephreese: "Don't patronize establishments that work in ways you dislike. That is the best way." I was hoping for another answer but have come to just that conclusion.

Jensen: "I'm starting to think that this is more about expectations. I'll confess that I can't remember the last time I went to a McDonald's or a Wendy's. I just don't get around to them very much. That being said, when I do go to one, I expect the staff to be surly, slack-assed, or stupid. Right or wrong, that is my perception of the type of people that work in fast food joints. (For some reason, In'n'Out Burger employees are exempt from my stereotype.) It sounds to me like your expectations are quite different. You expect civility and manners. Unfortunately, I don't think your expectations are going to be fulfilled any time soon. It's a pity but I think it's true." I'm much more positive. My view is that the employees are fine and plenty courteous enough for me in every sense except one: I've concluded that 50-75% of the owners Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King places in my area have decided that no order will be executed until the customer has been asked about cheese and fries and has returned explicit decisions in response. While I have seen some movement over time, the movement is slow and some of it is in the wrong direction. I fully agree that there is nothing to be done. E.g., "Do you want fries with that?" is a national joke, and clearly the rate of customer objections via letters has not fundamentally changed the situation in years. Your point about expectations, though, is partly correct: I expected the owners to be much more concerned about having happy customers. I also expected that a much larger fraction of eGullet Members would feel insulted much as I am! Ah, learn something new everyday! SobaAddict70: "Having worked at a Burger King in my past life, is it any wonder that I preferred to be BOH rather than FOH? God knows what I would've done had I been subjected to the process that project went through...only on the other side of the counter." One of the reason for putting girls FOH and boys BOH is because people will mostly be nicer to girls than boys and because, given a really nasty customer, the girls won't jump over the counter and clobber the customer and a boy might! You are right; it's not a good situation. Now with all the typing for this thread, I'm concluding that any place that ignores what the customer said, asks questions, and insists on answers before executing the order cares too little about their customers for me to be willing to eat the food. The only solution is to avoid places that do such things and, should I be in one, just to walk out. In particular, I will avoid any such further confrontations.

GordonCooks: "Finally, someone has the courage to show how truly evil these people are. What about all the others?...Like Olive Garden ? I'm told as soon as you walk through the door, people are trying talk you into Italian food. I mean 'REALLY' What if you don't like italian food?" Ah, come on! McDonald's will be loud in arguing that it is not necessary to order a Big Mac, large fries, and soft drink with sugar, that more careful selection from their menu can yield better nutrition. Similarly for Wendy's and Burger King. Just going to a restaurant, including Olive Garden or ADNY, doesn't mean that we have to be eager to order just anything on the menu. Jensen: "In another industry, we used to call that "upselling"; it's a cornerstone of sales." Saying "cornerstone" doesn't mean it isn't insulting. There is a lot that might be regarded as 'cornerstones' of sales that are among the most objectionable things in our society -- tele-marketing, spam, bait and switch, high pressure car sales, flaky medical advice at health food stores, etc. "What I don't understand is this: you have been told by 'more than one shift supervisor' that this is a required practice at various fast food outlets. It obviously is something that bothers you, seemingly enough to make an issue out of it at every occurrence, and yet you continue to put yourself in what is clearly a confrontational situation for you. Why don't you just stop patronising these restaurants? They're not going to stop asking if you want fries with that. They're not going to stop verifying whether you want cheese on your burger. These aren't insults. They're sales techniques. The obvious solution is to either accept it or stop going there! Simple..." That they are "sales techniques" doesn't mean they aren't also insults! That others on eGullet are not insulted is interesting. I am coming to agree with your simple solution. I was looking for a third option; that was one of the main reasons for this topic. Writing out this material has clarified in my mind what is likely going on: Employees are ordered to ask about cheese and fries and either get sales or get explicit "No" answers. Nothing but nothing is a substitute: I can say "To go, that's all.", start out the order with "First, I'd just like to say that I want no cheese and no French fries", come in with a large printed sign saying "No cheese. No fries.", hire a sky writer to paint in the sky visible to the employees "No cheese. No fries.", give my order, and then, still, the questions will start: "Are those hamburgers with cheese?" and "Do you want fries with that?". It's simple: Nothing in communications can be effective. No matter what I say or do, the employee will still ask about cheese and fries and refuse to execute the order until I answer. beans: "Then why do you continue to subject yourself to your self-defined 'insulting' situations?" For "self-defined", curious that you would not find being interrupted and having what you clearly said ignored not insulting. But why do I continue to go? Well, I have been avoiding them in the past and now fully intend to avoid them much more in the future. But for why I did continue to go: First, the restaurants are very common. Out shopping, hungry, in a hurry, they are the obvious places to get something to eat. Second, the situation is not uniform. In my area, about 25% of the fast food places do not insist that a customer decline cheese and fries. And at a given restaurant, the situation has been known to change. Indeed, in my area Burger King only recently started asking. The last time I was at a Burger King, the guy asked, I winced, he explained that he's supposed to ask, and I said "The reason I came here and not the Wendy's down the street was to avoid just that question.". I will try not to go back to that Burger King. "Not having worked in fast food, but for a corporate restaurant chain, a standard script is the norm, as is asking about, say the cheese, because it might make that extra $.50 in sales -- or may have been inadvertently forgotten by either the order taker or order giver. Throughout this thread I keep shaking my head with the resounding question: How is it insulting for the order taker to ask questions so as to make sure your order is correct??" Inadvertently forget? I stand there under ideal audio conditions, excellent native speaker of American English, with careful and appropriate pacing, complete clarity of voice and articulation, no hesitation or doubts, give the order very explicitly, and from that there is some question about inadvertent forgetting? Are they asking just to make sure an order is correct? Does this consideration have anything at all to do with it? Let's look at the data and see: They don't ask about the number of hamburgers, about a salad, about a dessert, about a bowl of chili, about mayonnaise or catsup on the hamburger, etc. All they ask about are cheese and fries. Period. And from this data you still believe that their interest is getting the order correct? In pursuit of that extra $0.50 in sales, they have totally torqued me off. I've written McDonald's more than once. I started this thread. "Do you want fries with that?" has become a national joke. I've been willing to drive 20 miles to avoid these questions. I've walked out of restaurants. I'm avoiding their restaurants like the plague and, thus, costing them orders of $10 one at a time, and their questions are still justified in pursuit of $0.50 in sales? Gee, they should take the next step and hire pick pockets. "I am apathetic to your discomfort in the ordinary communication exchange between guest/customer and ordinary fast food employee." They have at times been stressful situations, for employees, shift supervisors, and other customers. For me the stress is not such a concern. Still, the overall situation is not good, and I started this thread to look for a better solution. "I can't even get started on the 'pretty girl' or the reducing these poor employees to tears aspects of your post(s)/opinion(s)/observation(s)/annoyance(s) that are to conjure up sympathetic support within this thread." I'm not conjuring up anything but just explaining. There is no sympathy for me involved: The girl walked away in tears, and I have sympathy for the girl. I started the thread to get the views of others and to find a better solution. If I were after sympathy, I certainly would not have explained the stressful situations. The situation is not good. You are ascribing unfavorable motives to me. A good rule is to do business only where the business is wanted and where that desire is shown, in part, by "common courtesy". There are many ways for a vendor to show contempt for the customers. Customers should be warned and either leave or not return. FistFullaRoux: "The voice quality you hear at the order sign is the same thing I heard in the headphones. Add traffic noise and an engine running 2 feet from where you are, and it makes it very difficult to hear clearly. I would rather ask again than put the order together wrong. Throw in an unfamiliar accent, and it was just better in the long run to have them pull up to the window to get their order." Sure, makes good sense. One reaction I have is, once they start asking questions over the speaker system indicating that they have some genuine doubt about what I said, I just say I will drive around and give the order to them in person. In a low traffic situation, there is no serious delay for this approach. But, as I explained above, about all they ask about are just cheese and fries. Here, then, the motivation is just 'suggestive selling' and not getting orders correct. For the cases I explained, Wendy's, McDonald's, and Burger King, I was speaking directly to the employee under nearly ideal audio conditions. "Were they rude to interrupt you? Sure. A case could be made for that." Well, for the case of the interruption, I was standing there my face at most three feet from that of the employee. So, all things considered, I believe that it was rude to interrupt. Had the context been over a possibly poor speaker system, auto engine noise, etc., sure, I would have been patient. In the cases I described, audio problems were not the issue, and this fact is part of why the questions were so objectionable. "Many times, in order to satisfy the company line of 'No customer should wait more than xx seconds before being asked for their order' and 'Drive thru orders are to be fulfilled in xx seconds', I often greeted customers and took orders while not standing at the register. You would hope it was a simple order, because you were pulling drinks for the 3 cars in front of you, and checking the fries to see how much longer they would be. If it was a simple order, I knew the total without ringing it up, and could punch it in on my next trip by the register. If it was a no xx or xx with extra xx, I'd have to get to the register, and verify it with the customer. If someone else asked me a question while all this was happening, a complex order just floats away, and you have to try to reconstruct it when you get back to the register. And this whole thread reminds me of the George Carlin 'AND A LARGE ORANGE DRINK' routine." Except for some of the suggestive selling, you were just working hard to get the work done. I don't, nearly no one would, object to that. Because in the cases I cited, all three -- Wendy's, McDonald's, and Burger King -- I was in ideal audio conditions with the employee not distracted and still got the questions, it was clear that no order could be given clear enough to avoid questions. So, no matter how clear I was, what I said would be ignored and I would have to decline cheese and fries. Being ignored is insulting. Haven't seen Carlin's skit. Yes, since "Do you want fries with that?" has become famous, a SNL or Mad TV skit could be made of this. Could be really funny as the desperate owners and shift supervisors go to really extreme lengths to sell that last slice of cheese to meet their quota for the quarter. cdh: "Since you are so dead set against any form of interpersonal interaction in the process of ordering lunch, you might want to find places that allow you to order directly from a machine, which serves as intermediary between you and the back of house." You are misinterpreting. There is another solution: Go to Subway or Chinese restaurants. Heck, at the Chinese restaurants there are no problems, and the employees typically have poor English skills. I don't get "Want egg rolls with that? Want steamed dumplings with that? Want extra rice with that?" It's not me: It's the determination of some owners to push 'suggestive selling' in some very rigid and insulting ways. And, it's not "interpersonal interaction" because much of what is insulting is that the interactions are not interpersonal. Instead, no matter what I say, "To go, that's all", etc., the questions about cheese and fries still follow. So, I'm being treated as a machine that does not mind having buttons pushed for no good reason and am not being treated as a person that made wishes very clear. "Having mentioned geography like Hopewell Junction, I'm guessing you're in NJ not far from Princeton." I'm not in NJ. I'm surprised you do not see the insults. Interesting. Jensen: "Or, you could have a little card made up that reads as follows: 'Hello. I am profoundly deaf. Please fill the following order exactly as written: [insert order here].'" Thought of that long ago. But that would just add one absurdity to another. Better to avoid the places, go to Subway or a Chinese place, or, if necessary, say, when traveling, realize that the poor employees have been given orders by an owner that's an idiot, just joke with the employees, put up with it, and go on. But, when traveling, likely I will be stopping at a rural place in the Midwest. These places are ideal environments of courtesy and also comfortable interactions. Some of the most intense intellectual activity in the US, some of the most highly practiced skills, some of the highest concerns for excellence, are interpersonal interactions and 'presentations of self before the public' in small US Midwestern communities. My wife was from such a town and Valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa, Woodrow Wilson, and Ph.D. in sociology from one of the world's best research universities, and the effort she made in her hometown social interactions exceeded what she did academically. Her mother did much more. There are not tractors enough in the Midwest to drag the local staff at such a place to be insulting. Should some outsider owner give a few insults, the local business would go to nearly zero within two days. At a fast food place in such a community, no problems! bergerka: "I mean, I thought 'project' was serious until I read the above quote. Dude, if you're trying to avoid foods that contribute to obesity, etc., um, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING IN A FAST FOOD ESTABLISHMENT???? This HAS to be a put-on." You exaggerate. The order I gave, Wendy's two singles with lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, and mustard, large diet drink is not so bad nutritionally. At Burger King my standard order is two Whoppers with light onion and no mayonnaise. Last time at McDonald's I got a chicken Caesar salad -- Paul Newman dressing. It is possible to eat with passably good nutrition at a fast food restaurant. A first step is to avoid the cheese and fries. melkor: "Isn't Hopewell Junction in NY?" I believe that there is one in NJ. EllenC: "Could I interest you in some hot, delicious fries with that?" You'd come off as a total sweetheart, high school voted Most Congenial or some such. I'd just make a slight smile, close my eyes, slightly lower my head, and make a slight head shake for "No, thank you." "OTOH project, I do think that when the girl interrupted, you could have stated, politely and firmly, that you knew just what you wanted and that you would like it quickly. This would have let her know that upselling was not an option. Any manager listening in would have understood then what was happening." Yes, and I could have said "Please, may I complete my order?" or other such things. My wife, her sisters, and her mother were all that good, and better. Would such civil subtlety work? Let's see: In this case, after I did complete my order and started getting questions, I did respond with "I'm not going to change my order.", "Please get my order, NOW.", "I'm not going to repeat the order.", "Please get the manager.", or some such things. Nothing but nothing worked. The explanation I've settled on -- just looking for what fits the facts -- is that at the high pressured places the employees have been told, no matter what the customer has said, ask and either sell cheese and fries or get explicit answers of "No" for each, and do not continue with the order until this process is completed. You will be tested. And on any violation, you will be fired. Period. It's what fits the facts. Your location's desire to have happy customers was fully appropriate. Due to an assumption of a need to have happy customers, I was reluctant to come to such an extreme conclusion and did try to find alternatives; this thread was one such effort. One concern, then, has to be, if the owners have so little interest in having happy customers, then what other less obvious offenses are they engaging in? If they clearly can't be trusted to want happy customers face to face, how concerned could they be with what the customers can't see? Scary. MsRamsey: "Perhaps the poster is doing a 'project' to see what kind of responses he'll get. I feel so cheap." No. The name "project" is quite old on eGullet, was for an effort long ago involving beef stew, and has nothing to do with this thread. Besides, there would have been no way to have predicted the responses! VeruApe77: "My thoughts exactly. Parts of this thread reminded me of Nabakov at his prime (it was the stuff about blushing teenage girls that sealed the deal)" You need better true/false filtering! Not even close! Further, Nabakov was from the wrong side, opposite side, of C. P. Snow's 'Two Cultures', the side I hate and despise! Closer to my interests are the posts I did on Jews and Chinese food. Review those and then try to bridge to 'belle-lettre'! tommy: "we should note that Project is a long-time member of egullet, and generally has thoughtful and interesting posts. i'm just hoping we don't slip into treating him like a troll or trouble-maker, as he's not. although this stuff *is* pretty funny." Well, tommy, the curious part now is how few Members of eGullet are insulted by 'suggestive selling' and how many are eager to make erroneous personal extrapolations! Some fast food owner will get the impression that nearly everyone on eGullet is so thick skinned that they wouldn't mind being wrestled to the ground and robbed while placing an order and, indeed, would respond "Good, strong marketing skills, son!". But the extrapolations do not fit the facts at all well, and contradictions are easy enough to find! Of course, there are other things going on! robsimons: For 1., a third person having to interrupt a conversation between two people as in your examples is much different than one person in a conversation of just two people interrupting the other in mid-sentence. Some times are appropriate for interruptions, and some times are not. For 2., your remarks about me do not follow from the evidence and are not true at all. I have written McDonald's. I have not written them lately because I have avoided them for so long. Further, your remarks are as if all restaurants were essentially the same, but they are not. If Subway and my local Chinese restaurants can do fine, then so can the 50-75% of the McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King locations in my area that now refuse to execute an order until the customer explicitly declines cheese and fries. But I have to believe that you knew these things. Gee, what a popular, uh, notorious thread!

Busboy: "I would suggest that the best response in the situations you outlined -- as in so many cases -- is to embrace common courtesy and avoid the juvenile impulse to, say, drive teenage girls to tears, pull the manager away from his other duties, mouth off or otherwise slow down service to the customers waiting behind you. You manufacture an insult, where none exists, and then take revenge on low-paid service workers whom, even you admit, are doing their job. I don't think they are the problem, in this case." You seem to be devoted to the employees. In the Wendy's case, I was giving my order clearly, and they interrupted. That's one insult. After I gave my order clearly and said "That's all", they asked my about French fries. That means that they ignored what I had just said. That's a second insult. Then they refused to execute until I explicitly declined cheese and French fries. That's a third insult. As experience showed (see below), the design of their point of sale terminal had little to do with the situation. Interrupting people and ignoring what they have just explicitly said are insults anywhere at least in the English speaking world. I didn't "manufacture" these insults. I was just giving a perfectly reasonable order very clearly, paced appropriately, and what I got back were three insults. There is a fourth insult: Cheese and French fries are high on the list of foods that contribute to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. None of their questions or stoppages were necessary: This situation was determined because after the manager came over and saw the stressful situation, I gave the order once more, as before, except a little louder and faster, and then the manager looked hurt, hung her head, said nothing at all, turned, executed the order, quickly, and completed the transaction, very unhappy. While I am very sorry that the manager was unhappy, in the end, the manager did in fact execute the order as given without interruptions, without insisting on pointless information, without refusing to execute, and without insults. So, in fact, they really could just execute the order. They were actually capable of doing so. Design of point of sale terminals, etc. are not fundamental: They really could do it. I very much did not like the situation. I didn't want the stress for them, the other customers, or myself. I didn't want to be a hated customer that would get something unsavory in my food. But they were the ones that came across with three insults, on their own, for their own reasons, without any cause from me, all three proven unnecessary. In no way did I deserve the three insults, or the fourth. I fully agree with you that the solution is to "embrace common courtesy". I started out with exemplary courtesy, deliberately so because from earlier experiences anticipated their actions and wanted to be sure I had done nothing outside of "common courtesy" to stimulate those actions. "Common courtesy" is a two way street, and three insults in a row all within a few seconds is enough for me to conclude that "common courtesy" is not what is going on. For the teenage girls, I'm an old fashioned guy that regards girls as sugar and spice and everything nice and very much hate to see girls under any stress or unhappiness at all. The girls are really good at smiling, being nice, etc., and I hate to see them cry. Gee, I hope that all the girls will be on the way to having Donna Reed lives. I very much did not like the situation. To me the really hard nut of this problem is the owners that apparently insist that their shift supervisors insist that no order be executed unless the customer has explicitly declined both cheese and French fries. Period. And otherwise people will lose their jobs, and there will be unannounced tests. More than one shift supervisor has told me that the employees are required to ask these questions. It's called 'suggestive selling'. So the owners are eager to violate "common courtesy" in hopes of getting a little more revenue from cheese and French fries -- both of which I try to avoid for nutritional reasons. There is some hope: Some owners are willing to let their employees just execute a clearly given order. I have seen at least one McDonald's reverse their policy and become willing just to take and execute orders. I have wanted a good solution and the views of others and, thus, started this topic. So far my conclusions are (1) to avoid restaurants that violate "common courtesy" in insisting that their employees pursue 'suggestive selling', (2) go easy on the employees, (3) try to find some humorous responses, and (4) eat more at Subway and my local inexpensive Chinese restaurants, Did the owners pursue "common courtesy"? No. Was I deliberately insulted? Yes. If an owner is eager to insult me openly and deliberately, should I also be concerned about other less obvious issues of 'quality'? I believe so. Did I have a good way to handle the situation? No. Am I sorry the girl cried? Very much so. Is some change possible? Apparently so, but it's difficult. Is there a good way to handle the situation? So far I haven't found one, even from this thread. There is another point that should not be missed: In pushing specifically nutritionally questionable cheese and French fries on their customers, the owners may be pursuing a common reaction of vendors that their customers are fools to be taken advantage of and success in business is doing the best at taking advantage of the customers. Further, the insults can tend to put the customer in an insulted, inferior, and more compliant state, better to be taken advantage of. That is, the owners may be getting perverse pleasure and a sadistic 'power trip' from getting away with pushing nutritionally questionably food on their customers. Curious that few on eGullet agree with me. Interesting.

tommy: "the entire state of NJ, until very recently, was made up of 2 area codes. hardly a situation where the operator should magically know the city. you're losing me here. but i think we're getting off topic anyway." Well, the 'topic' partly became principles and practices of interactions between customers and customer service! For decades computer based data base indexing and search technology has been quite up to the task of searching across not just one area code but twenty. By 1970, plenty was known for a simple application such as telephone number look-up; by 1980, good general purpose software for much more general data base work was available. Now such software is available in open-source, e.g., MySQL. A slow PC can do such telephone number searches with a CD in a slow CD drive. For some really amazing indexing and search, notice Google. Sure, if looking up "Joe Smith", then will need more information than just an area code in NJ. If looking for "Hercules Ball and Chain", "Tony's Industrial Waste Carting and Disposal", or "Richard M. Nixon" in NJ, then the area code should have been enough. Further, there are so many little towns and townships in NJ that they cannot be very relevant. Besides, I found that if I specified, say, Piscataway, then the directory assistance person might say "There is a listing for a Hercules in New Brunswick". So, even when I gave a town, essentially they didn't need it. Again, I don't think that they were asking for the city because they really needed it or even used it for the search itself and, instead, were asking for some legal or privacy issues. Ah, often the flip side of a problem is an opportunity: At the fast food places, often the employees taking the orders are pretty girls. Soooooooo, since I can't just give an order and have it filled and, instead, have to interact, might as well flirt with the girls, get them to smile, maybe blush. Since the saturated fat and cholesterol might have me keel over any minute, might as well enjoy ordering the fatal food!

tommy: "the entire state of NJ, until very recently, was made up of 2 area codes. hardly a situation where the operator should magically know the city. you're losing me here. but i think we're getting off topic anyway." Well, the 'topic' partly became principles and practices of interactions between customers and customer service! For decades computer based data base indexing and search technology has been quite up to the task of searching across not just one area code but twenty. By 1970, plenty was known for a simple application such as telephone number look-up; by 1980, good general purpose software for much more general data base work was available. Now such software is available in open-source, e.g., MySQL. A slow PC can do such telephone number searches with a CD in a slow CD drive. For some really amazing indexing and search, notice Google. Sure, if looking up "Joe Smith", then will need more information than just an area code in NJ. If looking for "Hercules Ball and Chain", "Tony's Industrial Waste Carting and Disposal", or "Richard M. Nixon" in NJ, then the area code should have been enough. Further, there are so many little towns and townships in NJ that they cannot be very relevant. Besides, I found that if I specified, say, Piscataway, then the directory assistance person might say "There is a listing for a Hercules in New Brunswick". So, even when I gave a town, essentially they didn't need it. Again, I don't think that they were asking for the city because they really needed it or even used it for the search itself and, instead, were asking for some legal or privacy issues. Ah, often the flip side of a problem is an opportunity: At the fast food places, often the employees taking the orders are pretty girls. Soooooooo, since I can't just give an order and have it filled and, instead, have to interact, might as well flirt with the girls, get them to smile, maybe blush. Since the saturated fat and cholesterol might have me keel over any minute, might as well enjoy ordering the fatal food!

Random Alias "Really, I wouldn't get surly with the workers at a fast food restaurant, esp. if they're teenagers. Aside from my propensity to overdo any order for extra condiments, I never did anything nasty, but then I was only there for 5 weeks and quit before it got to be a case of serious hatred for me." It has occurred to me. That's one of the reasons I don't like the situation on either side of the counter and started this thread. Nick: "Project, you're headed for a heart attack getting this worked up over fast food joints. MacDee's ain't exactly the French Laundry." The risk of a heart attack is more just from eating the food with high saturated fat and high cholesterol. Somehow so far I've lived through all the bad food; must have reasonably good body chemistry genetics. tommy: The example of telephone directory assistance was another pet peeve: So, for a number, first did need the area code. Then dial the area code and 555-1212. The first thing heard was "What city, please?". I assume that they knew what area code I had called and, really, without that the city, maybe Smithville, would not mean much. Given the area code, and given how small they are, that should have been enough; they should not have needed to hear the city from me. When I got a CD of all the phone numbers, I could type in just anything; e.g., I could get the phone numbers of all the Smiths in the whole country. If my little computer and CD could do such a look-up anywhere in the country, then huge AT&T with all their computer expertise should have been able to look up a name given the area code. Actually, eventually I concluded that computing was not the issue. So, sometimes I would get a phone number with area code and wonder where the phone was. So, I would call the area code and 555-1212 and answer their question with "Right, what city is this?". They always knew. They have always known what cities they were serving and never needed to get that information from me. My guess is that, for reasons of privacy or legal liability, AT&T wanted to keep people from using Directory Assistance as a way to search for people knowing only the area code. So, AT&T insisted that a caller give at least the city. Also, in many of the counties within 100 miles of New York City, there are a few identifiable 'cities' and otherwise there are many small towns and 'townships' all grown together. Further, the town and Zip code on a person's postal address just says what post office serves that person and doesn't always correspond to the town or township otherwise. E.g., the Wappingers Falls post office at 12590 serves a lot of people that live in the towns or townships of Hopewell Junction and Lagrangeville. Moreover Hopewell Junction has a post office; many people served by the Wappingers Falls post office are in fact much closer to the Hopewell Junction post office. Really, then, to find a person's phone number, often just the area code or county is about as much as a requester can be sure about. So, when directory assistance asks for "city", a person might answer "Hopewell Junction" or "Lagrangeville" when the postal address, and likely the telephone directory listing, says Wappingers Falls. Chad: You, tommy, and others see the problem as the design of the keys on the point of sale terminals. I see the cause as 'suggestive selling'. Ah, maybe I'll take the advice here: Take sympathy on the employees as they are forced by the owners to force customers to decline cheese and French fries explicitly. Maybe a joke to laugh it off: "Right! No cheese, French fries, Mackerel Snackerel, Cumberland sauce, 'Sauce Bordelaise', 'foie gras', or truffles, not this time thank you -- I'm driving." Take my time about it since the employee is likely getting paid by the hour. Or, get back at the owners by engaging in a really long back fence conversation, discussing the weather, asking "Are the hamburgers fresh today?", asking the employee's advice "What do you recommend that is particularly good today?", changing my mind a few times, asking if the cheese is American, Swiss, French, cow's milk or goat's milk, asking if the mustard is brown or yellow, etc. Totally blow all the owner's profit on the deal! But there is another solution: Don't go to those places very often. Besides, mostly Subway is better nutrition. Also, in my area, very curiously, there are more small Chinese places than MacDee's, Wendy's and Burger King combined, maybe even if we throw in Pizza Hut and Domino's. And for lunch the Chinese places provide better nutrition and flavor and are nearly as fast and cheap. We should have a concern about US national security: One guy that worked on food science at McDonald's became a problem sponsor at DARPA! It was good to see what others thought about such things!

Gee, people, my real take is different, it's all 'suggestive selling': So the employees are told to force the customer to decline explicitly both cheese and French fries. Curious that others do not see the cheese and French fry questions in this way. The last time at a local Burger King, the guy asked the usual cheese and French fry questions, I winced, and he explained "We are supposed to ask these questions." jackal10: Brilliant! Engage in extended grunting, mumbling, and gesticulating! Scratching is permitted, even expected. Or "When you get the order, I will quit picking my feet on the counter." Kim WB: "Actually, I find the way you ordered to be very irritating. For future reference, the registers are designed to specifically omit things, so ' A biggie single without tomatoes' might be the ticket here. Or perhaps the old 'walk a mile in their shoes' therapy." What did you find irritating? Years ago I got the impression that the registers had a key for 'with everything' and then some keys for subtractions. Of course the menu just has the base item and no item 'with everything'. However recently in my area I've gotten the impression that the terminals have a key for the base item and one key for each topping to be added. tommy: "you just gotta go easy with these folks. they hate talking to you as much as you hate having to deal with them." My closest McDonald's is in a relatively low traffic area in a relatively well to do neighborhood, and the place is staffed with many very well behaved very pretty high school girls with excellent social skills, sensitivities, and 'presentation of themselves before the public' to borrow from Irving Goffman! So, the worst situation was when I had been working in the yard for about six hours on a hot day, was very hungry, was too tired to cook, and it was already late for supper, so went to that McDonald's. I was totally in no mood for back talk. Of course, the management was forcing the girls to ask about cheese and French fries and, thus, to engage in interactions of a kind they would normally do only to someone they really hated if then. So, with me and their management, they were between the rock and the hard place. The result was that a manger came to the window and executed the order and the high school girl retired in tears. Thus, you are fully correct! Also, eventually that McDonald's quit the rude practice. I have to guess that some of the girls or their parents told the management that enough's enough, that if they want really nice girls as employees, then the management will have to let them act in reasonably nice ways and not be forced into behavior they would never do otherwise. So, now at that McDonald's, I can give an order and have it executed, quickly, pleasantly, no questions or back talk! Andrew Fenton: "Tommy is absolutely right. That said, I don't understand how you were insulted in any way." I was insulted because of the interruption and the refusal to execute a clearly given order until I explicitly declined cheese and French fries. The instance showed that they actually were able to receive and execute the order as I gave it. In that instance, I did get the manager to come over and repeated the order exactly. There were no interruptions, questions, errors, or delays. They weren't happy about it, but they did it. Mayhew Man: "I don't believe anything is to be gained by trying to show your intelligence and good breeding when all you really wanted was a half assed hamburger anyway. Do you really feel better after you have given a couple of snappy comebacks to a high school kid who knows his job is lame but also knows that he needs the dough?" No, I'm not happy about it, which is why I started this thread. My real objection is with the owners that insist that their shift supervisors insist that the employees require customers to explicitly decline cheese and French fries or refuse to execute the order. Chad: "I've been on the other side of that drive-through. A lot of customers are assholes. So are a lot of fast food employees. Add to that the fact that fast food employees are generally not encouraged to think creatively -- or even think at all." I believe that the employees are nearly always fine. I have little or no complaint with the employees. My complaint is with the owners that insist that customers decline cheese and French fries. At one local Wendy's, the policy seems to be just to take an explicit order as given, no questions. They say so little I have to ask for a confirmation! But they are terrific: They just get the order correct the first time, reliably! In the beginning at McDonald's, there was a radically different 'sociology' to the order process. Then nearly all the order takers, nearly all the junior employees, were teenage boys, and the atmosphere was borrowed from competitive athletics. The employees took pride in getting the order correct on one hearing, filling the sack quickly, and adding the amount while filling the sack -- no questions at all. My guess has been that some 'social psychologists' advised McDonald's management that this process was 'socially stressful' to some customers and that the order process should be more like two women having a back fence conversation, lots of interruptions, lots of back and forth. The people actually can take an order as given; it is just that somehow, on both sides of the counter, the 'social norms' are for a long iterative process. Did wonder what others thought!

In my last visit to a fast food restaurant, a Wendy's, my order went: Me: "I want two singles with five things on them. The five things are lettuce, tomato ..." Employee: "Do you want cheese on that? ..." Me: "... pickle, onion, and mustard. Also I would like a Biggie Diet. To go. That's all." Employee: "Was that a Biggie Fry?". So, I have to repeat the order, explicitly decline cheese and French fries or the order process stops. The interruption to ask about cheese was bad enough. The refusal to execute the order before I repeated myself and explicitly declined items was worse. Another case, at McDonald's, went: Me: "I would like three hamburgers, a large diet, to go. That's all." Employee: "Where those hamburgers without cheese?" Me: "Ma'am, I am only ordering from your menu. Nowhere on your menu does the phrase 'without cheese' appear." Gee, maybe it's a man-woman thing: Women like to engage in extended conversations for no directly practical reason! So, maybe the woman employees believe that they are just being friendly! Due to this process, I try to avoid fast food places. Am I the only one that finds this process irritating? Here are some candidate responses: "I won't change the order." "You can include anything you want when you are paying for it." "Please get the order, now!" "Get the order or get the manager." What are some good ways to handle this situation without doing their dance?

Craig Camp: "Merlot is the predominate red grape varietal planted in Bordeaux. In Pomerol and St. Emilion cabernet sauvignon is the blending grape not merlot. Excellent merlot is certainly not low in body, but produces a voluptuous wine. In soils that are a little cool for cabernet sauvignon merlot shines. The problem comes when it is planted in the wrong place or allowed to over-produce. Chateau Petrus is almost 100% merlot. It's not a bad wine." Thanks. Sounds like I have been on the wrong side of the river too long! So, what is California doing with Merlot?

Gee. all this discussion about Merlot. I've regarded it as useful mostly as a secondary grape in Medoc, Pomerol, and St. Emilion for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon to add softness, bouquet, and fruit. By itself, it promises to be low in body. But is early to ripe, productive, and ready sooner than Cabernet Sauvignon. So, apparently some wine growers have yielded to temptation! So, in California, they use 100% Merlot and go for high sugar, low acid, a lot of fruit and bouquet, and new oak? And, people like it? People that like 100% Merlot help hold down the prices of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon!

Gee. all this discussion about Merlot. I've regarded it as useful mostly as a secondary grape in Medoc, Pomerol, and St. Emilion for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon to add softness, bouquet, and fruit. By itself, it promises to be low in body. But is early to ripe, productive, and ready sooner than Cabernet Sauvignon. So, apparently some wine growers have yielded to temptation! So, in California, they use 100% Merlot and go for high sugar, low acid, a lot of fruit and bouquet, and new oak? And, people like it? People that like 100% Merlot help hold down the prices of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon!

Gee. all this discussion about Merlot. I've regarded it as useful mostly as a secondary grape in Medoc, Pomerol, and St. Emilion for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon to add softness, bouquet, and fruit. By itself, it promises to be low in body. But is early to ripe, productive, and ready sooner than Cabernet Sauvignon. So, apparently some wine growers have yielded to temptation! So, in California, they use 100% Merlot and go for high sugar, low acid, a lot of fruit and bouquet, and new oak? And, people like it? People that like 100% Merlot help hold down the prices of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon!

Ah, guess I'll have to drink all the wines in the world before having enough information to select the first wine I want to drink! Just set aside the region, the field, 'Appellation Controlee', estate bottled, the grower, the shipper, the year, and be fully open-minded! Not all white wines from Macon are called 'Macon Blanc' -- some are estate bottled and carry the name of the field, grower, shipper, etc. and don't even mention Macon. Gee, glad ADNY has some really special and expensive wine glasses. So if I go there and order a really dirt cheap $100 bottle of wine and chip the glass, then they are out $300 for the glass? Sounds like they should rent the glass for $200 and then just charge something reasonable for the wine! Or, if I get a Chambertin 1949 for a few grand, then the $200 glass rental is required; otherwise I get good wines in nice glasses from West Virginia, like the ones I did get from there, like the ones Mrs. Kennedy got from there for the White House. The wealthy people I've known tend to be extremely careful about how they spend money, just as a matter of course start applying the advanced Harvard seminars on negotiating techniques, and spend a half hour to get them down 10 cents if they can! That's one reason they are wealthy! The people I've known that spend $1000 on a bottle of wine they could buy at a good wine shop for $100 tend not to be wealthy very long! Uh, I didn't say that the 'Mobil Oil Travel Guide' was really good; I just said that it was some of the best evidence available! I hope that AD gets really wealthy, that he will be as free and easy with his wealth as he hopes his customers are, and that I can be selling him something! Ah, I guess one way to help separate people from their money is to take the position that their money isn't worth very much, that what is being provided is beyond mere money, and that the customers should hand over huge gobs of their nearly worthless paper and be grateful for the opportunity to do so! There is an old observation that when a smart person and a dumb person meet, the smart person tends to leave with the money! Differences of opinion are what make horse races, fora, long wine lists, and restaurant reviews!

Pan: For "I believe I can help out ADNY -- in the bathtub of my guest bathroom, last night was a very good year!" first, I was referring to the long US practice of using one's bathtub to make wine at home! US law permits an individual to make a considerable quantity! This practice is part of the origin of the expression 'homebrew' -- more appropriate for beer made at home, which is also legal. Second, the "last night was a very good year!" is borrowing from a related joke on the US TV series M*A*S*H where some US Army physicians in a field hospital used their knowledge of chemistry to make homebrew and often commented that 15 minutes ago, yesterday, or some such was a "very good year" (that being borrowed from pretentious discussions of wine vintage). Homebrew has a well deserved reputation for some really low quality, but if ADNY wants to sell 'Vin du Pays', then my joke was to insinuate that they might also want to sell what I brewed in my bathtub last night! Of course, it has to be a joke because, while it is legal to make homebrew, it is not legal to sell it. For "The other thing I noted is that you compared actual dining experiences of yours with a report from Schneier. It's hard to really know how you would compare the two places if you actually had dined at both. Ditto for Schneier: I am guessing he hasn't been to Harrald's. Which town is it in, by the way?" Yes, my visits to Harrald's were about 10 years ago. So, we're talking comparing my reading of Schneier's description of what he just ate with my memory of what I ate about 10 years ago. So, the comparison cannot be very persuasive. A good double blind test would be still better, but these are rarely part of comments on restaurants! The most solid part of my comparison was just the wines: The two wines I mentioned were an especially good Macon and a Morey St. Denis, both from a top importer that took very special care in selection, some of the vinification, shipping, and handling, both wines certainly 'Appellation Controlee'. Those two wines I mentioned are among the crown jewels of the wine world, way up there in the list of "the last of the great old time flavors left to enjoy" or some such! First-cut, by the usual criteria of wines, recognized for decades around the world, from yachts to palaces to state dinners, nothing that Schneier had at ADNY is even in the same ballpark, hardly even belongs on the same wine list or in the same restaurant. For the food, my most pointed comparison was the relatively classic, but still original and up to date, food of Harrald's versus the unusual combinations of ADNY. Some people do not look forward eagerly to unusual new combinations; I am one of those people. I did omit a comparison of the precision of cutting: I can understand the effort required to make precise cubes of vegetables 1/16" on an edge. I guess I would start with a mandoline. But for the hot seafood appetizer at Harrald's, eventually I came to guess that they had resorted to essentially microscopic precision for some of the onion cutting as a way to get the desired surface area for aroma while minimizing the volume that would be eaten. My guess was that somehow they used a laboratory tool designed for making thin slices for microscope slides. For some credibility for the quality of Harrald's I did offer some of the best evidence ever available for US restaurants -- their record of five stars from Mobil for 14 years in a row (for the last date I knew). For Harrald's, I do not know their current status. It's been a long time. They were in semi-beautiful, quasi-elegant Stormville, NY. To get there, I drove north on the Taconic State Parkway (which runs from a little NW of White Plains north to a little SE of Albany), north of I-84, turned east on Route 52, passed under I-84, went past a rock quarry or cement factory, and their restaurant was on the right, south side of Route 52. They had converted a modest house. My notes say that the owners were Harrald Boerger and Eva Durrschmidt. Harrald ran the dining room, and Eva ran the kitchen. They were extremely expert and serious. I believe that there was an article on their restaurant in 'The New York Times' on or about October 2nd, 1992.

Gee, I long thought that some of the best of the Chianti Classico Riserva bottles with the black rooster logo were some of the better red wines widely available and one of the best bargains in red wine. I remember opening some of these and finding that the oxygen did great things; the results were as much fun as many wines from the Haut Medoc or Cote d'Or. For "Super-Tuscan" I don't know what they are shooting for, but if it makes the old Chianti Classico Riserva ignored and less expensive, terrific! From the California wines, I eventually concluded that wine makers deliberately and carefully making new wines would succumb to some low values and, in a music analogy, come out with pop music instead of better Beethoven. For "Super-Tuscan", what are they shooting for?

Uh, it's been a while since I was trying to eat some of the best food in the world, but reading what Schneier ate at ADNY and comparing with what I ate the last dozen or so times I went to Harrald's about 60 miles north of Wall Street, sorry, but I can't think much of ADNY. For people new to expensive US food, long one of the best restaurant rating sources was the 'Mobil Oil Travel Guide'. Their top rating was five stars. Each year, maybe fewer than 10 restaurants in all the US got five stars. The last time I was at Harrald's, they had gotten five stars from Mobil for 14 years in a row. Nothing in Manhattan was even close. In all of the US, Harrald's was second to a French restaurant in Cincinnati which had gotten five stars for 22 years in a row. The wines Schneier got shocked me: In my first trip to Harrald's, I glanced at the wine list and for the appetizer ordered a bottle of Meursault. No way was I going to drink the whole bottle, but I really do like Meursault, they didn't have a half bottle, and Meursault is one of the best white wines in Burgundy, in France, and the world -- for people that like dry, clean, crisp. Harrald talked me out of the full bottle and explained his house white wine to me in great detail. He brought the bottle to the table so I could check all the particulars including estate bottled, 'Appellation Controllee', in Macon, etc. It had been imported by Neal Rosenthal's Mad Rose Group (for people that know that amazing story). It wasn't Meursault, but it was terrific -- for anything so near to Macon it was about as good as anyone could ever hope. The location was a little NW of the town and, thus, just from a map may have been LaRoche Vineuse. That wine became one of my favorite whites. For a red, I got a half bottle of a 1985 Morey St. Denis, another Rosenthal effort. Chambertin, Richebourg, Echezeaux, La Tache -- try to keep up, guys! There was excellent hot French bread and a terrific cheese course. The food -- it was more amazing than the wine. The appetizer I got was a pate, terrific flavors, still quite low in fat, with Cumberland sauce. While the Cumberland sauce was classic, the pate was original and current. E.g., for the fresh fish, when customers placed their order, the fish were still swimming in the pool with a roof over it out front, and the kitchen staff would walk with a fish net from the kitchen door past the front entrance of the restaurant to the pool, get the fish, walk back -- a good show for any arriving customers! We're talking fresh fish! The live fish were delivered daily. I believe that the extras were taken home each night and smoked; their own smoked trout were served as one of their terrific appetizers. Over time, I tried nearly all their appetizers and all their entrees that would go with their Morey St. Denis 1985 halfs, of which I drank the last one. For Schneier's experience at ADNY, the desserts sounded good, and the brioche was cute, but otherwise sounded like strange cases of this with that that would have left me disappointed. Of course, we should occasionally go to a place like ADNY and for two reasons, first to remind ourselves of how much we should appreciate Escoffier and second to discourage them from inventing anymore. Gee, I'm sure that there are some good examples of Vin du Pays, but I've never bought one at a wine shop, never drank one at a French restaurant from a bistro to a top quality place, and, really, don't think I ever drank a glass of it. Uh, for a dessert wine, maybe ADNY will carry a Greek Muscat? And, I believe I can help out ADNY -- in the bathtub of my guest bathroom, last night was a very good year!

Gee, the remarks of Jeffy Boy Posted: Jan 18 2004, 02:54 AM are terrific! If you like Champagne, then you should be in line to like a lot of nice wine! I started in graduate school with Beaujolais and some cheese and crackers! Years ago I settled on the dry reds and whites of Burgundy in France when I am willing to spend money and the dry reds and whites of Italy when I want to spend less! I drink them only with food. To me, the whites of Burgundy are a nice bright refreshing combination of dry, crisp, and clean: The dry means low sugar; the crisp means some acid; and the clean means delicate flavors. A few sips of that, nicely chilled (at home, I just put the bottle in a big bucket of ice water for about 30 minutes) with an appropriate appetizer is a great start to a great meal. Beers tend to be bitter and to have less subtle flavors -- if you like beers, then you should be able to like a nicely chilled glass of French white Burgundy. For most foods beers stand up to, a French white Burgundy would get lost. My experience with the dry Italian whites is that the acid tends to be lower and the flavors even more delicate -- not a lot there not to like. My experience with US whites is that they have too much sugar, too little acid (taste flat), and have too many too strong and too complicated flavors (don't taste good). I gave up on them years ago. For the dry reds, say, from Burgundy or northern Italy, do have them slightly chilled, say, down to 50 F, and let them warm a little, say, to 60 F, in the glass. While 50 F is too cool, warming is easy. A big deal about the big reds is that the flavors go through rapid riots of change as the oxygen first hits the liquid. So, have to open the bottle maybe 30 minutes ahead, 'decant' the whole bottle, or wait a few minutes after the wine is in the glass. But, as the oxygen takes effect, you are in line for some marvelous flavors and aromas. If you have some beef, game, or strong cheese, then you can have one of the crown jewels of civilization! But, gee, why am I telling you this! You will just raise the prices for the rest of us!

Varmint: "Oven Cleaning: Good point. But I still want it fairly clean from time to time." My approach to oven cleaning is clearly an example of men behaving badly! There is an element of truth to not cleaning an oven, but, when lasagna or apple pie overflows, it is nice to lock the door, push a button, and come back with just some gray ash in the bottom and everything else clean. Besides, your little Varmints may start to have pizza parties where they bake overloaded pizzas directly on the oven racks and drip tomato sauce, fat from pepperoni, and pizza cheese on the bottom of your oven! Of course, not everyone has a place for a compose pile. I've been shocked at how well mine works: I put vegetable peelings, too old vegetables, orange rinds, etc., and a few months later there is little or no evidence. It's shocking how fast the stuff disappears. Also, volumes indoors get totally lost in the volumes outdoors: A dishpan full of vegetables, large in the kitchen, is next to nothing when tossed onto the compost pile! "Wine fridge: Yeah, it's not necessary, but we've got it, it keeps the white wine at the temperature I like, and they're very helpful when you have a party (and I have a fair number of those)." Yes, a wine fridge could be nice for a big party! Uh, when your having some Meursault, maybe I'll find a reason to go to Chapel Hill and make a side trip! Gee, the white wine temperature I like is just from a bucket of ice water! If it's a little too cool, well, a hand on the glass warms it. For big reds -- I may have a few left in the basement -- the basement temperature is usually a little too cool so that, again, a little warming just as the thing 'breaths' or in the glass is enough. Whew! Your explanation of the two posts in the corner kitchen window is good! I was seeing the roof falling in and huge sheets of plate glass scattering! Of course, there is little chance your carpenter would have made such a mistake. "Hood: I need a good one. I've set off too many smoke alarms from searing a meat to be braised or cooking a steak. Simple enough." Sure, if you have been setting off smoke alarms and want to keep doing such things indoors, then you need a really GOOD hood. Even with a hood, you may want something to permit closing off the rest of the house. Outdoors, clouds of steam from deglazing hot pans has put plenty of grease on my hair, face, and glasses and has even left some evidence on the siding of the house -- such things indoors would need a GREAT hood. The house I grew up in -- after my father remodeled the kitchen -- had a hood, and my brother and I used to fry lots of things at high temperatures. The grease trap in the hood collected a big mess, and I had to get good at cleaning the hood fan and the inside of the hood. It was shocking how much grease that hood sucked up, and that grease is one reason I concluded that anything that would need a hood I should just do outdoors. Maybe one way to have a quieter hood would be to run a large tube, say, one foot in diameter and 20 feet long outside for the exhaust air and put the fan and its electric motor at the outside end of the tube. So, inside the house, have no fan, no grease trap, no filter, no screen -- just a hole one foot in diameter taking in air. Maybe the surface to be cleaned inside the house could be minimal; the tube could be disconnected and cleaned with a hose, pressure washer, or steam cleaner. For really cold weather, might have a plug could put into the tube at the kitchen end. Also, would need some screen at the open end of the tube to keep four or six legged 'varmints' from getting into the house! If the fan motor is well separated from the air flow and the fan blades, then it might be possible to clean the fan easily with a hose, etc., too. All that hood cleaning from my childhood has long had me thinking of hood designs that don't require much cleaning and would be easy to clean! One of these designs in a nearly airtight house says to have the forced air system exhaust into the kitchen, over the stove, out the hood, and outdoors, with no fan at all for hood itself. So, the air would be pushed out from the main house HVAC system. A related idea is to have the walls around the stove covered in sheets of stainless steel or copper, to have a drain on the floor, and to clean the area with a wand driven by a steam source! With the air leaks in your house, sure, the hood fan should have no problems getting air flow. However, in your area good summer A/C that gives low humidity promises to use a lot of electric power! For judging the air flow of the exhaust fan, I would not place much weight on the BTUs per hour of your burners. Instead, my guess is that the main challenge would be from individual sudden large rising clouds of smoke and steam with grease, e.g., pan deglazing, start of steak searing, where one cloud would last only a few seconds. Even a small burner can generate such a cloud for a few seconds. For handling such sudden clouds, I would want to see what exhaust fan flow rate is commonly working well elsewhere, e.g., at friends or restaurants. SubZeros have a great reputation, but I didn't know how quiet two of them would be. Considering how large they can be, I was wondering if they had an option for having the compressor and condenser outdoors. It's clear you are very much in line to have a kitchen you will enormously enjoy for years with all the other Varmints, friends, the little Varmints and their friends, etc.!

Fat Guy: "How many products are in the average suburban US supermarket? 10 or 20 thousand? More? I hardly think lack of choice is a problem. Even in narrow categories like ketchup there might be half a dozen brands in a given market, in all sorts of packaging configurations. Supermarkets are most likely already carrying as many products as they're ever going to carry. So the question is how to decide which to carry. On the most straightforward level, they should carry the products customers want, aka the products customers will buy. But finding out what customers will buy requires risk: a product that is currently selling needs to sacrifice shelf space to a new product. Slotting fees for new products don't fundamentally change the calculus; as far as I can tell what they do is shift some of the risk to the manufacturer." I concluded long ago that this argument doesn't hold: I do most of my grocery shopping at Sam's Club. One thing about black pepper corns, powdered Cayenne pepper, bay leaves, dried parsley, sliced American cheese, wheat bread, yellow mustard, catsup, pickles, chocolate sauce, pizza cheese, pepperoni, etc. at Sam's Club: Typically they have only one type of one brand in one size -- quite large. That's what I buy. If it's no good, then I bring it back and tell them, and they give me my money back. I've come to place a decent level of trust in what they put on the shelves; I'm willing to buy brands I've never heard of before simply because Sam's has it on their shelves. So, it isn't a dozen brands and two dozen total different tiny bottles of catsup. Instead, catsup's catsup, and that's it. Period. What negotiations go on in Arkansas, I don't know, but my guess is that if Hunt's gets the catsup order, then they provided one darned good price and for a few months ship many 18 wheel truckloads of the stuff; else, Heinz or someone else gets the order. I do get the impression that at times some manufacturers cut some really good deals just to get their products in front of the customers of Sam's hoping that these customers will buy the same product in the usual grocery stores later. My impression is that Sam's in effect throttles the usual grocery store 'survival of the fittest' battle for shelf space and, thus, greatly reduces the cost per ounce to me. I believe I see some good opportunities for both modest manufacturers and for me: Sam's does carry some luxury goods. Okay, suppose some manufacturer of some really high end Maryland crab cakes does have enough productive capacity for a Sam's order. Then, to sell, that manufacturer doesn't need a big ad campaign or visits to hundreds of grocery stores or food brokers. Instead, the manufacturer just needs to make one stop in Arkansas, with a darned good product at a darned good price. Darned efficient. In my last trip to Sam's, I bought a huge bag of grapefruit. I don't have a clue about the vendor, but the grapefruit are terrific. I've eaten about two a day and have made a good dent in the whole bag. Part of the savings is that Sam's stocks the shelves with fork lift trucks, and that has to be MUCH more efficient than handling all the little bottles one at a time, turning each bottle to face the front, stacking them neatly, etc. The usual grocery store competition results in lots of little bottles of catsup at high prices per ounce instead of one big bottle at much less per ounce. I'm reminded of the ecology of African dung beetles: These are about the most fearsome looking things in the animal kingdom! Some huge fraction of the food energy must go to all the armor plate and sharp horns, all to do battle with competitive dung beetles. But, if all one wanted was dung beetle meat, then the armor plate and horns would be wasteful. That shelf space competition in grocery stores is an ecology something like those dung beetles, and the result for me is a much higher price per ounce for catsup. That's why Sam's gets nearly all of my business, and the stores with two dozen tiny expensive little bottles of stuff don't.

Marlene: "Start by re-reading this TDG article. Maximum Suck." at http://www.egullet.com/?pg=ARTICLE-davevent Oh, boy. Will David Scantland soon hate me! His article has: "Can watts be converted to BTUs? Since they are both units of energy, yes (we'll skip over the explanation that energy output ought to be expressed as watt-hours or BTUs per hour, but never is)." NO! A 'Watt' is NOT a unit of energy! A Watt is a unit of power, which is energy per unit time. Another common unit of power is horsepower, and one horsepower is 745.7 Watts. In particular, in physics the main unit of energy is the Joule, and the definition of a Watt is a Joule per second. A 'Watt-second' would be a power level of a Watt continued for one second and, thus, would be a unit of energy, in particular, one Joule. Thus, a 'Watt-hour' would be 3600 Joules of energy. Yes, a BTU (British thermal unit) is a unit of energy. Other units of energy include the Joule above and the calorie. From my handy units conversion table on the back of my ancient circular slide rule (which I keep at hand in the case for my trusty HP-15C calculator), 1 BTU is 1055 Joules or 252 calories. So, a power level of 1 BTU per hour would be a power level of 1055 Joules per hour or 1055/3600 Joules per second or 1055/3600 = 0.293 Watts. Or, a power level of one Watt is the same as 3600/1055 = 3.412 BTUs per hour. The power of a 2500 Watt burner would be 2500*3.412 = 8530 BTUs per hour. So the energy of 1000 Watt-hours or a one kilowatt-hour would be energy of 3600*1000/1055 = 3412 BTUs. Oven Cleaning: Of course it is possible to live without a self-cleaning oven or oven cleaning! It's easy: Simply decline to clean the oven! Just don't do it! If there is really big spill in the oven, then, when the oven is cool, wipe up the worst of it. Otherwise, do nothing! Just let the ordinary oven heat burn the stuff and then just leave it there. It works great, for years! Twice I've had a self-cleaning oven: They're not worth it! Besides, don't want a shiny oven! Instead, want an oven with a black surface so that can get the full effect of 'black body radiation'! So, see, there is a good reason from physics why we should not clean an oven! The main risk is the 'kitchen police'! If they show up, show them your bottle of methylene chloride or sodium hydroxide oven cleaner, each with 100 pages of safety warnings and environmental restrictions, rubber gloves, safety goggles, full rubber chemical suit, and breathing apparatus, and say that you were just about to clean the oven as they arrived! Look really contrite! Better yet, don't let them in without a search warrant! If an in-law bends over and looks carefully at the interior of the oven, then run into them from behind hard enough to have them bump their head, and then be really sympathetic about how much their head must hurt! Garbage Disposal: I've had one and used it. They're noisy, hard on flatware and other small objects, but otherwise okay. Still there is an easy cost-free, environmentally-friendly, 100% energy-efficient, 100% all-natural alternative, a 'compost heap'! No, that's not the oven, the kitchen floor, or the kitchen trash receptacle! Instead, that's the patch of ground on the far side of a tree in the woods around the edge of the back yard! Also use it for weeds, shrubbery trimmings, etc. Wine Cooler: I don't get the point of a 'wine cooler': I keep my wine in the basement, bottles on their sides to keep the corks wet and airtight. If I want a bottle of wine to be really cool, then I get about eight pounds of ice cubes, a plastic bucket, and some water and submerge the bottle in ice water in the bucket. In about 30 minutes, have a really nicely cool bottle of wine! Corner Kitchen Window: The big window with the fused corner concerns me: For any rooms above and for the roof, there is no visible means of support except just the glass itself. Sure, some steel I-beams might be able to provide a solution, but such metal could be expensive. Stove Hoods: For hoods, in a home kitchen, I see no hope: If some cooking really needs a hood, then the hood will have to be very good not to put at risk the walls, woodwork, carpet, upholstery, draperies, books, paintings, electronics, piano, violin, etc. For any cooking that would need a hood, I just step to the porch outside. Ah, the great outdoors! When I was growing up, one neighbor put a roof over his outdoor brick BBQ set-up. That can work well, too. In one apartment I had, there was a sliding door to isolate the kitchen from the rest and a nice window in the kitchen. So, in case of a lot of cooking that might deserve a hood, I just closed the door and opened the window. House Insulation: David Scantland's article is fully correct about houses being sealed up: It is possible to do some simple arithmetic to show that in a house that has well insulated walls, has good windows with minimal area and with heavy draperies over the windows, maybe with some help from awnings and trees, and has no air leaks, mostly don't have to heat the house in the winter because heat from people, lights, appliances, and what conducts from the basement floor and walls is enough until it gets really cold outside. Further, letting in outside air costs a LOT: In the winter, first, have to heat the air. Second, have to add water to the air to get the humidity up to something reasonable, and, then, have to add heat for the enormous cooling effect of evaporating water into the air. Similarly, in the summer, have to cool the outside air and have to cool it enough to condense out enough water to keep the humidity comfortably low. The energy required for the evaporation, condensation of the water can amount to half of the total energy cost of the air leaks. It is possible to use an air-to-air heat exchanger, but this thing can do nothing about the energy for the evaporation, condensation of water and in the summer might have water condensation in the input air flow and in the winter might have ice in the output air flow. Further, while a small air leak can let in cold air in the winter and hot air in the summer, actually the energy cost of water vapor moving through such cracks can easily be higher than for the heat moved. That is, water vapor is really good at 'getting around'. This also means that a house with comfortable humidity in the winter can have problems with water vapor leaking through the thermal insulation and condensing on the interior surface of an outside vapor barrier. Net, in a well insulated house, it is easy for over half of the heating/cooling cost to be from air leaks. But a house that is nearly airtight has other problems: Undesirable or even dangerous gasses and odors can accumulate. One problem in some areas is radon gas which is radioactive. There have been claims that many materials -- plastics, finishes, fabrics, etc. -- used inside a house can slowly leak harmful gasses. Kitchen Cabinets: I fully agree with the idea of having open shelves covered with a door: Each time I've had a kitchen with a broom closet, I've used some plywood and a little carpentry to fill the closet with adjustable shelves. Fancy? No. Functional? Yes! The idea that kitchen cabinets should be massive financial sacrifices to the oak, cherry, walnut, or mahogany furniture gods escapes me! Storage? Yes. Furniture? No! In my 'dream kitchen', for 'kitchen cabinets' there is a room with a door, good lighting, and a lot of the now very popular NSF-approved chrome plated wire open shelves on wheels. To reorganize, just roll things around! If something breaks and makes a big mess, then roll the messy shelf outdoors and hose it off! My compromise now is to have some of these shelves in my basement. I have some more in the garage, but they are for the cars and yard! Refrigerators: I believe that the situation for home refrigerators and freezers is a disaster. The prices per cubic foot are really high. Next, typically the home units could use better insulation and, thus, waste energy. Further, their compressors are noisy and, in the summer, provide heat that needs to be carried out for still more waste in energy. Bummer. Actually, refrigeration is a fairly simple subject: For the volume we want to be cold, we build a well insulated box and put a door on it, well-insulated and airtight. For the cooling, someplace we have a compressor with a condenser. Then in the box we have an evaporator, a drain for condensation or defrosting, and a fan. We run a line for the working fluid from the condenser to the evaporator and an insulated line from the evaporator to the compressor. Important point: These lines need not be short! The noise and the energy are at the compressor and condenser; the evaporator and its fan are comparatively quiet. So, the simple solution is to put the compressor and condenser someplace away from people, say, in the basement or outdoors. With a well designed compressor and evaporator, in the winter we should be able to get our cooling for nearly no cost in electricity -- in this case we might also insulate the indoors part of the line from the condenser to the evaporator. In the summer, the heat from the compressor is somewhere we do not try to cool; again we get energy savings. There is some really effective and relatively inexpensive rigid foam insulation available. Thus, it should be possible to build a really well insulated box for much less cost per cubic foot than the usual home refrigerators. What we really want is volume in the refrigerated box, but for four times the cost in insulation we get eight times the volume! Net, in my 'dream kitchen', what I really want is refrigerator and freezer walk-ins! Kitchen Floor: While I'm willing to have a dirty oven, I do prefer to have a reasonably clean kitchen floor! To me, nearly all of the work in cleaning the floor is moving all the stuff on the floor -- kitchen table, kitchen chairs and stools, bookcases, free standing kitchen island work table, etc. So, in my 'dream kitchen' I would want essentially nothing on the floor to get in the way of floor cleaning! For floor cleaning, an industrial wet/dry vacuum cleaner is very effective but large and clumsy. So, it would be good to have a floor that could be flooded with rinse water. Then would want floor drains for the water and a rubber blade on a handle help push the water into the drains! Right: I'm just talking standard commercial kitchen design principles! Good Kitchen Tool: An especially good kitchen tool is a big 'industrial grade' wet/dry vacuum cleaner! Fast forgiveness for many sins! Ah, for all these dreams, need money! Back to making money!