Nick
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At that point we dismissed her.....
....all of a sudden Molto Mario appeared at the Maitre 'd's stand literally standing three feet away from where we were. It was the first time we had seen him all evening. I have no way of verifying if this is true but, based on articles she has read about MM, he had come out specifically to see who had sent the lamb chops back.
Ah, yes. Dismissed her. Now there's an attitude. BIG MISTAKE. You set the tone for the rest of the evening. Had she been one of some of the "waitresses" I've known, you should consider yourself lucky that you didn't end up with something particularly messy and gooey in your lap, with an, "I'm so sorry."
As it was, I'm sure word quickly spread into the kitchen about table x. Hence, Mario just had to come out and take a look. (Who knows why those chops were cold.)
Plotz, I agreed with you on the Blue Hill thread that letting the chef cook for you can be a good thing. But, there are ways to do it and ways not to do it. And times to do it and times not to.
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While I was having a late supper (hot pastrami on rye with Jarlsberg) I finished up reading the WSJ. In a small corner article ("Eating Around") was offal.
A very brief article, but in it Mario Batali says, " the secret is lathering up the offal with 'non-challenging flavors' like butter and tomato sauce."
My question is; do you really like offal, or is it something in fashion right now and you eat it slathered with this thing or that, and eat it just to be fashionable?
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Some years ago I potted very small cactus and succulents...
You should talk with Susie. By her own count she now has about 300 - in the house
Sounds as though your house might be a risky place in which to back up.....
Not my house. Susie's. The most lethal plant in my house is a Plumosa fern. And the only stuff I've got besides that are rosemary, oregano, and thyme.
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Some years ago I potted very small cactus and succulents in Japanese ceramic bonsai dishes as holiday gifts--a contemplative and satisfying endeavor. Some are still going, 10 years or so later, too.
You should talk with Susie. By her own count she now has about 300 - in the house, in Maine. I think 3 is a reasonable number.
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Susie has lots of flowers and, in the fall, gathered seeds from some of them to give for Christmas. I think she's making little bags to put them in.
Since I'm an artisan year round I'm not making anything. Bah Humbug!
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...and the other the BS thread for the subsequent bubble and squeak.
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I don't know. You brought "good time" into this intellectual exercise. How can anyone have an intellectual exercise without having a good time?
Is intellectual exercise something one "catches" on this board with no known cure?
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The country boy just has to butt in here.
Can any of you go out to eat, have a good time, and enjoy the experience without turning it into an intellectual exercise?
Define good time.
Are we talking subjectively or objectively - as in, "I had a good time," or, "A good time was had by all?"
After Plotsnitski's immortal, "Once again, taste is not subjective" (Artisanal thread), I want to be careful here.
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Steve, once again you amaze me. I was defining an artisan. That's all, and having fun at the same time. Being an artisan myself.
Jezuss, I sure wouldn't want to be sitting next to your table.
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Artisanal means made by an artisan. The artisan is an individual who may, or may not, be crazy but who cares about what they are doing. The result of their work may be excellent, fairly good, or not worth having been done.
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The country boy just has to butt in here.
Can any of you go out to eat, have a good time, and enjoy the experience without turning it into an intellectual exercise?
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The best knife is the one that feels good, does what you want, keeps a good edge, and is fairly easy to sharpen.
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Since I'm not one that dines out often, I'll gingerly wade into these waters.
I don't often agree with Steve P., but in this case I will. If you're acquainted with the chef and the chef knows what might interest you, you'll probably come away with a good and interesting meal. Maybe better than you could have done yourself by ordering off the menu. It wouldn't necessarily involve ingredients not available on the menu, just put together differently. It may be that you'll, in fact, get some stuff that ought to be used up, that other diners may consider not the freshest. But, they may not realize, for instance, that cod that's several days old is better than fresh. Or, it may be there's an excellent cut of meat that doesn't fit the menu. On and on.
I think that as long as one doesn't get puffed up with self-importance, letting the chef (or if you don't know the chef, a trusted server) suggest the meal this might bring rewards.
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Anyone that visits Key West and likes a good, funky bar can't miss Captain Tony's. Sloppy Joe's on the corner claims to be Hemingway's old hangout, but Capt. Tony's is the physical, historical location. Don't know if Tony's still alive. Legend in his own time.
Also, as said above, when in KW get into the Cuban food, if nothing more than a Cuban sandwich. I've tried to get the recipe for the way they do pork for twenty years without success. It's a closely guarded secret.
On the way back up, or down, the keys check out Monty's Seafood for dinner. It's somewhere around Big Pine on the right headed toward KW.
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I'm not generally into, or familiar with Jewish cooking - but LATKES! Yes! And meat knishes! Got a good recipe for knishes? The last, and only, time I had them was 35 years ago when I was working on fancy cars in Newport (RI) and ate lunch everyday at a local hole-in-the-wall Jewish deli that had it together.
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Try the "Station" in Windsor. South on Route five from White River Jct.
Here's the post I made a couple of months ago. The Station
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Jason, your new avatar looks like me when I came out of the cave last spring. You been sneaking around here?
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We New Yorkers have learned this lesson because the reason we rely on the faucet is we know what comes out when we turn it on. As long as it tastes good.....
You mean you drink that stuff?
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Hopefully one day someone will figure out a process to mass produce carrots that doesn't cause a detrioration to the end result. Unless you want to ensure that most people eat bad carrots for the rest of their life.
That process has been in place for probably hundreds of years. It's not hard to grow and keep fine tasting carrots. It all depends on the grower and middlemen. If they don't care about what they're growing, keeping, brokering, etc. beyond a profit - you're not going to get a good carrot.
Twenty years ago a friend of mine planted an acre of organic (unclean) carrots. He put great care and hard work into growing these carrots. In the end he was depending on a storage facility for root crops to be built by a coop and it didn't get built - so he had to plow the carrots under, gave up, and moved away.
While I don't think he would have wanted his carrots described as artisanal, he put every bit as much effort into this as some of the Italian olive oil makers that Bux described, or that Toby did in making his hot sauce.
If you don't want to eat bad carrots for the rest of your life, learn what goes into this, discover what the best practices are, and support them. You have to move beyond the picture most of us country folks have of the New Yorker. "Where's your water come from? The faucet."
Edit: I'm only using carrots as an example. You can extrapolate as you see fit.
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The thing about seeing it as a marketing ploy is that I don't understand to which evil corporation we'd attribute it. I don't see the word being exploited commercially, at least not on any widespread basis. It's something that's mostly being used by journalists, as far as I can tell.
I haven't suggested that (so far) this has anything to do with evil corporations. But, I think I've seen some smaller firms using it to describe their offerings. (Don't ask me to do a search.)
And, yes, so far it does seem to be used mostly by journalists. Though since you started this (damn you
) I keep thinking about it. Maybe egullet should come up with the definitive definition. No more than one sentence that will find its way into the OED. 
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FG - Getting back to your original question. I am getting converted on this artisanal thing. At first, I just couldn't see the word as any more than yet another marketing ploy.
But, in Toby's post back awhile ago on making hot sauce and in Bux' posts on artisanal olive oils in the D&D thread, I can start making some sense out of it.
Back about three pages ago I was asked, "Is there a difference between an artisan and an artist? If so, please explain."
I replied, "I'd say that the artisan deals with things of a more practical and physical nature while the artist deals with things more in the realm of the spirit. But these can become interwoven in each practice."
I think as we strive to define artisan and artisanal that we might consider that the true artisan does move more into the spiritual realm in producing something. That is, that whatever it is that's being made is being made not so much for intellectual or profit-making reasons so much as some inner drive to bring the "consumer" something good and maybe better.
I still don't like the word - it has no "ring" to describe what I think it tries to describe.
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Steve just keeps pouring it on.
Awhile ago it was, "Once again, taste is not subjective."
Now it's, "Some of the dirtiest food in the world is organically grown."
I guess he'd like us to hand him a well-washed, iradiated carrot and tell him, "this tastes good."
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Once again, taste is not subjective. It is on a personal level but it is not on the market level.
Good going Steve. Keep it up. Sooner or later we'll get it.
Edit: Sorry, I have to leave for now. Got to go cook a wild turkey with chestnut dressing. Just got back from France with the chestnuts via the Concorde. Does this make it artisanal or arsesanal?
Have a good meal everyone.
Babbo (First 6 Years)
in New York: Dining
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