La Niña

Ron - perhaps you can't hear the difference between oh-toe, and what's on that MP3? Does it sound like oh-toe to you? Well, what does "accept" mean? Okay so the owner's Italian sucks. Doesn't mean I have to pronounce it incorrectly. Americans (like everybody else) do the best they can. Some people can pronounce foreign words well, some people can't. Just because the owner can't - so what. I have called Chanterelle to make a reservation and I have had the phone answered "Chanterelle" with a totally American "r" - does that mean I have to say it that way? Why do we have to say petit-fours instead of little pastries? Why are we so enamored of using foreign appellations which we can't pronounce for things for which we have perfectly good English names? And we Americans are not alone in this. It's particularly prevalent in food and decor. We have an English word for "otto" - the word is "eight." A restaurant opened in New Haven some time ago and it was called Bruxelles. Many people called it Bruck-sel or Bruck-selle. Why not just call it Brussels? That's the English word. I'd rather hear "cheese melt" than fahn-doo any day. So for marketing purposes, these restaurant people feel it's more desirable to be called the foreign word. In France, they're all going nuts because of the invasion of English words - le weekend, etc. C'est la vie, c'est le monde.

Orik motek, amarti lecha sh'ani metta alecha?

Just read a thread on CH about this. Somebody said: "more like "haute"-oh. haute as in haute cuisine, said in a very french way." Good one. Except the second vowel isn't really a long o like English.

In Italian, the o at the end of Babbo (which means "Daddy" in Italian) is the same as the o at the end of Otto and risotto. It doesn't lend itself to transliteration, since we don't have the vowel in English, but it's a shorter vowel than the English long o.

Lemme just say this, and then you can all jump down my throat. One can listen to a foreign word pronounced correctly, but that doesn't necessarily mean one heard the word correctly. It's something you either have or you don't - the combination of a good ear and the ability to translate from ear to tongue. So someone could correctly say "Otto" and the listener could hear "oh-toe" - many Americans have difficulty with this. I have had many experiences with Americans (and some Brits) where I've heard the same word someone else has, and they can't for the life of them repeat it back the way it was said. Many people can't even hear the differences. I have European parents, one of whom spent most of his childhood living near Milan, and I spent a great deal of time in Italy as a child, so I'm just lucky to have had my ear trained from a very young age. Germans, for example, have difficulty pronouncing an English "th." Every language has its own imprint - and unless you learn the sounds at a young age, it's very difficult to acquire them. That's why people have accents. I was just thinking that the o in ordinary is similar to the first o in Otto, but then I realized that people have disparate ways of pronouncing the o in ordinary, which sort of demonstrates my point. I mean, listen to the difference in vowel pronunciation between northern and southern Americans - a person from Boston and a person from Atlanta could both be saying the word "auto" - and they hear each other's "accents," but they can't duplicate the other sound - make sense?

No, I didn't say that. One just has to hear an Italian, or someone who pronounces Italian correctly say it correctly, and then imitate that. That is, of course, assuming one has the elusive combination of a good ear, and the ability to translate what that ear hears into what comes out of one's mouth. Or have been lucky enough to have spent a good chunk of one's childhood in Italy.

Okay, here we go. Once again, I have spoken to 2 Italian friends of mine. The syllables in Otto do not rhyme with the o in the American top or hot and not with the o in toe or no or oh, - it's a softer, shorter o, and we don't have it in English. The two syllables also do not rhyme exactly with each other - the second syllable has a slightly longer vowel. The the two t's are not pronounced like a d, or like a hard t. It's a soft t - again, we don't have it in English. It's impossible to write anything like well the o sounds like x or y, because these vowel sounds *do not exist* in English. The closest thing I can come up with for the first o is something like the vowel in caught or paw, but even that's not it. And Macrosan is right - the o in the Brit pronunciation of top or hot is close. The second o is a bit longer than that, but still not like our long o in English.

That mp3 link won't open for me...

Cabby, my friend, and you know I have only your best interests at heart - that's just plain dumb - it's no way to lose weight.

Is that the language that Miriam Makeba sings in? Remember her "Click Song?" One of my favorites.

Okay, here's what I said about the second and third syllables of risotto: "The second and third syllables do not rhyme with "no" - it's a softer o, and we don't have it in English. The second and third syllables also do not rhyme exactly with each other - the third syllable has a slightly longer vowel. The the two t's are not pronounced like a d. It's a soft t - again, we don't have it in English." Same applies for the two syllables of Otto.

jaybee and I lunched there together - I think it was in September. I enjoyed the food and the place very much. Batali was sitting at the counter shmoozing, so we heard an earfull about the delays in Otto's opening.

Kill me for a misspelling why don'tcha? I'm still right about the pronunciation though. Where the hell is that risotto thread?

macrosan is right. But both o's on Otto are not identical to each other in pronounciation. The first one is a bit shorter. Who wants to dig up the risotto pronounciation thread?

Let's separate another category of unpaid labor: according to the law (US), if one is receiving academic credit from an accredited institution, one needn't be paid. And one can sign any waiver one wishes, but one cannot sign away one's constitutional rights in any situation in the US. Also, we have a minimum wage law, the violation of which can carry severe penalties.

We recently went to Philly for the weekend, which included a visit to the Barnes. Magnificent. We had sandwiches at Tony Luke's - a famous place - and it was really the best food we had all weekend. And fun, too.

I went to Celeste a couple of times about 2 months ago. We didn't try the pizza - but neither meal was particularly interesting. It was fine, but nothing special - I'd go back if I were in that neighborhood, but it wouldn't be first on my UWS list.

And all this time I thought it was because of me.

Oh, woops. Duh. I do, however, have a bunch of Iraqi Jewish recipes from some Iraqi Jewish friends of mine, if anybody is interested.

I've had two only fair meals at Locanda Vini & Olli, sorry to say. I love the room - it's a converted old pharmacy with a lot of the original fixtures still present - but the food has been disappointing.

There are several decent Persian cookbooks on the market. Check 'em out. There's also a chapter on Persian Jewish food in Copeland Marks' "Sephardic Cooking."

Had lunch at Katz's. Wonderful pastrami, but disgusting, and I mean disgusting, tongue. So salty it was inedible. And a gross, over-offal-y aftertaste. Yuck.

Ali arrangements moved to PM.

I don't think I ever had dessert there. Yikes. How was the service?

No matter how many times I go to Ali's, I am always surprised by what he prepares, and delighted. It's never the same twice. It was a pleasure to meet Stellabella. About the food: the last lamb platter is a dish called abu zalouf, which I believe means head of the sheep. It's all of the meat from the head except the brain, not just the cheeks and tongue. It looks a little like ropa vieja. It's in a sauce, with lots of pieces of meat in it, and the tongue and cheeks are put around the side of the platter, and the eyeballs are is put in the center (although tonight he put them aside because he didn't know who would react in what way to them). Each plate of meat was spiced differently. I loved the contrasts between the dishes. This guy has a real touch for offal. I really like the eyeballs - the flavor and the texture. We started with a Riesling, then had 2 bottles of Italian - I brought a Primitivo. And I love smoking the hookah (actually he calles it "sheesha") with him after dinner. If I could bottle Ali and sell his essence, well - he's really something special.