xxchef

The New York Times had an article yesterday highlighting the growing trend of chefs and restaurants who "just say no" to customer special requests from ingredient substitution to dietary requests. From the article: "David Chang, whose small empire of Momofuku restaurants is known for refusing to make substitutions or provide vegetarian options. “Instead of trying to make a menu that’s for everyone, let’s make a menu that works best for what we want to do.” He added, “The customer is not always right.”" Is he right? Is this a good trend or bad?

How interesting. I just blogged about this last night. I am going to have to be the voice of decent from the majority on this one. I do a little greenhouse gardening in the winter, exclusively for personal consumption, and the main crop in my little 12x20 hothouse is tomatoes. I plant the exact same varieties as I grow in the garden in the summer and they are planted in beds in the exact same soil as in my vegetable garden (which is about a dozen steps away). They get the same water from our well and the same sun shines on them (even if more indirectly and for shorter periods of time then in the summer) . Yesterday's harvest The yields aren't huge (and neither are the individual fruits) but I'm kept in vine-ripened deep red tomatoes all winter long and they are every bit as good as the ones from the garden in August. Just as good as in summer So what exactly is "In Season"? I think of the greenhouse as a "season extender" with almost identical conditions to my garden in summer (~95F during the day, ~50F at night and very low humidity most of the time). Apparently the tomatoes can't noticeably tell the difference so who am I to argue? No, I can't imagine finding good tomatoes commercially available off-season anywhere but, if you can grow your own, it is not an impossibility to eat and cook with them year 'round.

Oh yes indeed. Not a pretty sight. I forgot to mention the time, at the same place, when the always-crazy head chef really went off the deep end. He lived on-property in a room over the maintenance building with his girlfriend (the bartender's sister). He was even more abusive of her than he was to the rest of us and one day she just left him (smart girl). He went on a drug-fueled bender that culminated in his emptying the magazine of a firearm he had into the wall of his apartment. Incredibly, nobody was hurt, and thankfully the restaurant was closed or I'm sure it would have been an early incident of a workplace rage shooting. They still carted him off to jail, never to return.

Working as a weekend dishwasher one summer I saw some amazing and violent fights between the husband/wife owners. He (chef) and she (ran the dining room) would have serious loud arguments during service with lots of door slamming etc almost every night. One very hot and busy evening, things were heating up again between them and the power went out. All hell broke loose with hot saute pans and flatware flying. She threw a pot of coffee at the hot line that broke when it flew into the deep fryer. The oil exploded at the sous chef (don't know how he missed getting seriously burned). I sneaked out and never even went back for my last check. They called several times really mad at me for walking out on them. Imagine that! Worked with a line cook at another place who had a HUGE pot-belly. It was not a roomy line and there was lots of crossing behind and in front of other cooks during service so everybody had a hard time getting around this guy. Sometimes it was easier just to go all the way around, through the expediter's station. This guy's gut was so big he couldn't keep it in his chef coat so it was always just hanging out, above his pants. I remember one of his first nights at the saute station. He had about ten pans going on the big iron flat-top and I heard this yell - The broiler guy had tried to squeeze behind him and as he moved forward to make room, he had set his belly down onto the flat-top. He whipped around and cold-cocked the broiler guy, who went down in a heap, hitting his head on the steamtable en route. Both went to the hospital and we were two short on the line the rest of the night. Turned out to be a pretty nasty burn in a pretty sensitive place too.

We eat out at restaurants maybe a dozen times in a year but 8 of those is likely to be at the same place. It's a family-run Mexican restaurant in town that opened about same time we moved to the area, 11 years ago. We've been going, mostly for lunch, since they opened in a little one-room shack that sat maybe 20 people. They're now in a much bigger building just down the road and easily can seat 100. I doubt 8 times a year qualifies us as "regular customers" to them but with 75% loyalty on our part, they are surely our regular restaurant. Minor perk (probably as much from being in a small town as for being "regulars") is the owner lets us have periodic deliveries from various food-service suppliers left there for us to pick up when the company can't/won't get their truck down the 6 miles of dirt roads to get to our ranch. (edited typo)

I've not heard this before. Do you spritz the oven, put it in an evap pan on the oven floor, or are you talking in the roast pan itself? I often do the latter, along with some mirepoix for later pan gravy making and I can see how it might keep the fat splatters down.

Exactly my theory with the addition of the "predictability factor". For many years my sister (who has since graduating college always lived in large cities) considered fast food establishments and some of their more-upscale formula cousins like Chiles, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse etc. to be the only viable options for eating out. Her reasoning was that she knew the meals were never going to be anything special but it was unlikely to get anything really horrible either. These places were almost certain to be reasonably clean, with passable service and edible food. For her, predictable mediocrity tipped the risk-reward assessment away from independent restaurants and toward anything with a national logo. This was quite a while ago and she slowly grew and evolved her tastes and now is quite the adventuresome eater. That may be because, as this thread points out, the chains (in NYC at least) have deteriorated so considerably and are no longer a "sure bet".

boulak, I was very impressed by the photos and descriptions of your class in Chris's original post (and look forward to the rest of the report) but it pales next to being able to read your comments, in particular the commitment to education excellence in your own words. Amazing and inspiring. As a J&W Culinary alum '78 I can only relate too well to your challenges. The bread classes we had back then were full-out high production (and cleaning) with almost no time for discussion, evaluation, or theory. We got handed a stack of formulas and a list of that day's production needs and went to it. Those of us who had any knowledge of baking at all ended up as "team leaders" showing the other students how to crank out "snowflake rolls" as fast as possible. I am envious of your students today, having a teacher with such a fine classroom ethic (not to mention the CCCE!!) I now find myself in an educating capacity as part of my current endeavors as the cheese maker at a small goat dairy in AZ, holding 3-day workshops for others interested in starting small farmstead dairies. My situation is SO much easier than yours in that my class size is usually 2 to 4 people and my production requirements are usually exactly what I need them to be for optimum learning. I just wanted to say "Thanks!", and keep up the great work.

I have also wondered and looked into such statements of personal knowledge or observable facts. My understanding is that you would be fine to say, "in Denmark, many liquorice sweets containing ammonium chloride (aka salmiak) and are labelled 'for adults only" without reference. It's a readily observable fact. This is somewhat complicated by the time factor. What if the policy changes tomorrow and it is no longer true? To be more precise, you could say "In 1998 Denmark started labeling many liquorice sweets containing ammonium chloride (aka salmiak) 'for adults only". It would be true (if it were true) at any time, but the statement would greatly benefit from a reference. Also, taking your original statement "In Denmark, many liquorice sweets containing ammonium chloride (aka salmiak) and are labelled 'for adults only", if you went on to say "...because ammonium chloride rots the teeth of children" (or some other claim) a reference would called for. I'm sure someone with in official capacity will correct me as necessary.

Great job, Chris! Thanks for posting this!

There's an interesting article about Land O' Lakes' struggle with just this difference as they marketed their butter nationally: http://www.packworld.com/package-23418 Less about pack as it is about labeling and marketing but... there is a popular mayonnaise brand in the western US called "Best Foods". I noticed their slogan "Bring out the Best" and thought it funny that I'd remembered it from growing up back east also as the Hellman's mayonnaise slogan. Upon closer examination of the label I saw they were the same company, and same product, just with a different brand name. For a chuckle, check out these two web sites and compare: http://www.bestfoods.com/ and http://www.hellmanns.us/default.aspx . I've also noticed that identical cuts of meat are called different things in different parts of the country (although the terms seem to be blurring more these days). The beef "flap meat" that you'd practically have to give away in New England 30 years was top-dollar "fajaita meat" in Texas at the same time. Not so much difference any more.

We too are at higher elevation (6200') and use LPG (propane) for cooking, household heat, hot water, clothes dryer, and heating the greenhouse. This is partly because we are "off-grid", and have to generate all of our own electric and partly by choice. I can't imagine wanting to cook on electric over LPG or natural gas, if the choice is available. fyfas is right about the efficiencies of gas (any gas) being lower the higher above sea level one is, but this is true with gasoline and diesel engines etc. It has to do with their being less oxygen available for combustion. Conversion kits are readily available to convert between LPG and natural gas as well as for using either at higher elevations. LPG does have higher energy potential but it seems like some manufacturers over-compensate for this fact in their conversions, "dumbing-down' the performance of the equipment. Maybe this is for fuel efficiency reasons or for safety concerns (i.e. the lawyers told them too)- I don't know. We have a 4-burner-plus-griddle commercial American Range with a full sheetpan-sized convection oven that is great. It came from the distributer converted for both elevation and LPG and worked like a charm from the get-go.

For Mexican Restaurants: the refried beans and chips & salsa usually tell me all I need to know at any Mex place but at better ones I'd add the mole poblano. Diners: Gotta do a good patty melt and have great milk shakes (or preferably, malts) Italian: first the bread then the house salad dressing, then the osso bucco Greek: Moussaka (and it better be made with lamb) and bakalava French: Confit or Cassoulet Spanish: Paella

OK. I thought maybe it looked at the wiki pages I'd been visiting and tried to guess what I'd be interested in, or maybe it leaned toward most recently updated pages, or something less-than-random. Earlier, in about 30 random page tries I saw "capocola" 3 times, "Brian Polcyn" 2 times, "Char Sui Bao" 2 times and "waffle" 4 times. It was just weird! Just tried it again and it seemed much more diverse this time (only got "waffle" twice!). Thanks.

Chris- How does the wikigullet "random page" generator work? I thought I'd take some time and just see what was being written out there but it just seemed to keep cycling through them same 20 or so pages. I think you said recently that there were over 300 pages now. Any idea what's up?

No. Not at all. That said, if you are a seed-saver you will run into all kinds of hybridization surprises if you plant seeds from peppers/chiles that were grown in proximity to others of different types. It's the cross-pollination between them at the flowering stage that will alter the seeds to come. This is true with most fruits (tomatoes, cukes, etc).

There's a Reuters piece out today (Valentine's Day) about McWeddings. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. Real weddings being held at McDonalds restaurants. "In the buzzing financial hub known for its fast living, young Hong Kong couples can now grab love on the run at the city's McDonald's outlets, which are offering a burgeoning new sideline: "McWeddings."" Here's a link to the whole article. The wedding package, is $1282 and includes, (among other things) "classic golden arches fare worth up to $385." At least it's only in Hong Kong. So far.

I've had lots of cuts, strains, and burns, of course, but only one sent me to the emergency room. It was the tiniest cut you can imagine, but in just the wrong place. I was Frenching the bones on some lamb racks and made a little wrong flick with my boning knife, poking myself on the inside of my left wrist. I hardly noticed the poke and was only made aware of it when I got sprayed in the face by a stream of my own blood. Yup, poked a vein or artery. I put the knife down and gave it a minute of direct pressure followed by a tight bandage with a gauze ball to keep the pressure on and went back to work. A few minutes later the bandages were soaked through and dripping. Took off the wraps and tried ice and more pressure but the darned thing continued to spurt. Reluctantly, off I went to the hospital (do injuries ever happen at a good time, when your not in the weeds with a huge night ahead of you?.) The emergency room team was busy so I sat there for quite a while. When I finally got in to a cubicle a nurse asked what was wrong. I told her I'd stabbed myself at work and couldn't stop the bleeding. She gave me a once over and asked "Where?". I nodded to my wrist where my right thumb was covering the cut. "You're kidding me, right? she asked, obviously irritated that I was wasting her time. I assured her I was not. She hrummphed and told me to move my thumb so she could look at it. I warned her - I really did, but she pushed my right hand away. Predictably, the wound opened immediately and send an arc of blood about 18 inches into the air, making a red stripe across her uniform front as she bent in to look at it. Startled would be an understatement. She grabbed a gauze pad, put it on the wound and told me to hold it while she got the doctor. He put a quick cross-stitch across it and I was out of there in about 10 more minutes and headed back to work - back into the weeds.

Acidic? Yes. "too vinegary"? That's a judgement call. I like my dressings feisty and with an acid bite. It suits my taste for most salads. I find I can use less dressing and still get good flavor. It's also lower in calories, ounce-for-ounce (for what that's worth).

I'm bumping this thread up again. It's been 3 1/2 years since it was last discussed and I was wondering what's changed (if anything) with Harry and David Fruits? Personally we've just ended our second year of fruits of the month from them and will not be signing up again. Maybe we'll buy a box or two of Riviera Pears when they're available but that's about it. We signed up for the H&D fruit club because, being in a very rural area, our local selection of fruit is dismal at best. Sure it's at a premium but fresh top-notch fruit, delivered, in season, from the packer right to your door? Not a bad deal in theory. We've had just about everything from them: apples, grapes, strawberries (ridiculously, individually cradled in foam), pears, oranges (that came with cutesy bibs "they're SO juicy!"), pineapples, mangoes, papayas, peaches, nectarines, etc. Aside from the pears it was all about on par with what I can get locally. Sure, some of it was very pretty, or exceptionally large (the grapes were HUGE!) but flavor? Texture? Aroma? Not so special. They are real experts at packing fruit for shipping to have it arrive in good shape, I'll give them that. Because of our remote location and their bizarre practice of shipping some things FedEx, some UPS and some USPS we had more than one shipment go bad in transit, but I think that for most of the civilized world this would not be an issue. They were also good about replacing the fruit or crediting our account when bad things happened en route. They are also very good at marketing. I think of them now as the Hickory Farms of fresh fruit. That's not particularly a compliment. What are your recent experiences?

Like you Chris, I've got my regular container I always use and don't measure anymore. For a quart container: put in a couple of well-mashed cloves of garlic, a good dollop of Dijon mustard, a little salt, a few grinds of black pepper, maybe some fresh tarragon in the summer or a shake of ground celery seed, fill 1/4 full with red wine vinegar (shake), top off to a little more than 3/4 full with peanut oil/EVOO/walnut oil depending on my mood (shake like crazy). This is definitely an acidic dressing which suits my tastes (but makes wine paring a bear). I usually leave this at room temperature and often just add more ingredients to the old dregs when I need to make more. The never-ending vinaigrette.

Food innocence. It was a time when, for better or worse, we could pretty much eat what we wanted, guilt-free and without worrying about organic?, sustainable?, local?, humane?, cage-free, GMO?, carbon-neutral?, fair-trade?, trans fat?, low-carb?, gluten-free?, etc, etc, etc. OK, there was the "macrobiotic" craze, but that didn't last long. What I wouldn't give to be able to obliviously eat at a fast food restaurant again.

I keep my scrubby sponge in a 200ppm bleach solution when not actively in use and throw it out when it first starts to degrade from the chemical. Usually 4-5 days.

"Half Baked Chicken". The phrase should presumptively be "Baked Half Chicken" unless it's being sold for finish cooking at home.

Time for a J&W alum to chime in, I guess. Class of '80 2 degrees in 4 years; AS culinary arts, BS hospitality Mgnt. I guess things were different 30 years ago. I can tell you that most of the culinary students there then were very engaged and motivated to excel. And they weren't just aimless kids fresh out of high school either (well, some were, myself included). I'll bet a third of the students in my class were in their mid- to late 20's and a good number more in their 30's and up. Most of those guys and gals came there with some food service experience. Some had folks who owned restaurants and who wanted to get a management training or a broader base of experience from which to work. Some had recently gotten out of military service and were using the GI bill to build on their KP training (just kidding but there was one guy who had just finished a tour as the chef for a general). Everybody also had different ideas about what they wanted to do with their education. Lots wanted to own their own restaurants "someday", some wanted to become private or personal chefs, some wanted to work on cruise ships or follow the seasons cooking at ski resorts in the winter and beach resorts in the summer. One guy in one of my "groups" (about 25 students who were grouped together for the trimester and rotated through the various kitchen assignments together) was headed for much bigger things... (can I name drop here?) His name is Emeril. Anyway it seemed like almost everybody there was serious about their chosen field and was really working at it. The school schedule was set up to accommodate night and weekend jobs (classes ran 4 days a week: Monday-Thursday) and students were encouraged to get out there and learn everything new they could. I don't think there were more than a few hundred culinary students there at that time but I remember looking for work and it seemed like all the better places around had all the J&W workers they could handle. I had a friend working in Warwick, a roommate working over the state line in Seekonk MA and knew a classmate who drove to Boston every weekend for his job. It seemed like there was a lot of commitment to the craft and willingness to work hard . Longevity on the job after graduation is another matter. I did not keep in touch with very many of my alum-mates but (not counting Emeril, of course) only 3 or 4 out of a dozen or so are still in any type of food service related work. I know for a fact that at least 4 quit the business completely after only a couple of years and never looked back. One runs a bowling ally in PA and is happy as a clam. I had the opportunity in the late 1980's, while working at several different places in CT/MA/NY to hire quite a few culinary "externs". A couple were from J&W but most were from CIA in Hyde Park. They came in all different shapes, sizes, colors and levels of experience but were all hard and dedicated workers and reminded me a lot of the students I'd worked with at J&W. Your query is interesting and, if wide spread and common, possibly indicative of an upcoming problem for the industry. It's not a business where slackers are going to last long.