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Chef/Writer Spencer

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Everything posted by Chef/Writer Spencer

  1. I'm there amigo. Thanks for that.
  2. If you've got finesse then you can make a raisinette taste good with foie gras....but if you cook like a bulldozer, rumbling over finite points with your heavy hand, then you'll probably hate raisinettes and foie for ever. You've got to cook for many years to get that finesse...It's not something that comes naturally to anyone besides maybe...nah, not going there. But I agree that the duck a l'orange thing is played out. Sweet can be tremendously cloying done wrong, and I think that's what we're alluding to here. Usually when I do sweet with savory I bring some kind of liason in to the mix so there's a bridge, a counterpoint--I usually do this with smoke or spice--so that there's a necessary complexity involved. As my hero says, "It's all about finesse." It really is, but it's also about love and respect. If you respect your ingredients 110% percent, learn how they work, how they can be tweaked and combined with other ingredients, tasting constantly, not being afraid to try the outlandish then you'll eventually get at the heart of what works and what doesn't. When you have a problem is when you try to be too outlandish. Stick with the basics, they always get you from point A to point B.
  3. oh I see, now we're equating not wanting to sit in a kitchen with a hidden hatred for fine dining. makes perfect sense. I'm often critical of those who waste bandwidth by quoting whole posts, but in this case you manage to reduce a rather long post to a single line out of context. First you've substituted "dining" where I used "cooking," then you seem to have negelected to notice that the first two posts were not about the authors of those posts not wanting to sit in a kitchen, but questioning and even derisive of why other diners might choose to do so. How do you highlight passages...I've tried holding the shift key down but it ain't happening....
  4. Would you consider adding your recipe to the archive, C/W?? Sounds mighty tasty . . . No one should ever be allowed to pair the egregious mint jelly with lamb. No one. Edit to add: I also loathe any chicken salad containing grapes, etc.; I go for savory each and every time. sure..
  5. It is a Trio dish Mike. The intent is less to take you to a place and more to reintroduce the dinning public to a flavor (pine) that has been mostly forgotten over the years. With the execption of pine nuts, juniper, rosemary, cedar planks, maple syrup to name the few on the top of my head. Who's been longing to eat pine? That is his point. Oh....I get it....sardonic humor....
  6. Andre Soltner, Jean-Jacques Rachou, Jacques Pepin...The old school rules...
  7. It's an underminable arguement based on the bias desires of a base chef to remain caged from the other animals. It's a defense mechanism to me, the swinging door, which allows me to be myself. Open that door and instantly I have to turn on the charm...What a paradoxical thing to have to do while yelling at a drunk cook...Customers have their own room.... See you folks...
  8. It is a Trio dish Mike. The intent is less to take you to a place and more to reintroduce the dinning public to a flavor (pine) that has been mostly forgotten over the years. With the execption of pine nuts, juniper, rosemary, cedar planks, maple syrup to name the few on the top of my head. Who's been longing to eat pine?
  9. Difficult as it may be to imagine, I danced most of my wedding night away (I was so much thinner then, I'm fatter than that now), so these comments don't strictly apply. Married=Fat
  10. kate That is great and you are certainly not the type of chef my antagonism is aimed at. Nor indeed are those who 'sell their soul" to make some cash. Hell we all have to do that My real beef is with the chefs who do the latter but portray themselves as the former. The Chef's table in one indication of this If it is such a selfless act on the part of the chef. if it is just to show his muse to an audince of appreciating folk, then why charge so bloody much? perhaps, in Tony's world Chef's tables are like he describes in the same way the Queen thinks that the whole world smells of paint as there are always lackeys 10 mins ahead of her whitewashing every wall she is likely to see. I suspect, as C/W Spencer says, Tony will never eat a normal meal again, unless it is at home. Such is the badge of the tribe who attain ( if not seek out ) fame. S Well Simon now, I think Tony has been more than innundated with "simple" food on his tours of "duty". I mean tell me that Vietnamese family that he and Lejeunie just happened to stumble upon were ready for that pair to show up. I'm just referencing chefs tables.
  11. I do the best sweet and meat.... Pork Tenderloin marinated in Chipotle/Adobo with Bacon-Mango Sauce (use Neuske's--I should get check from that co.), and smoked mashed potatoes. You'd switch...
  12. Kim if I'm one of the four "food writers" on your list, scratch me off...I'm a chef 60/hours a week. I know customers, and the attraction and all of that stuff first hand. Writing is a hobby. I still don't want non-checked people in my kitchen.
  13. Tony, while you exude that whole "everyman" thing to most of us, if we hear you're coming into our kitchens to eat we're going to fawn through the pages of your books and put together the best "all Tony" experience we can--right down to the carton of Camel unfiltereds in the flatware credenza and stock pot of simmering squirrel guts. So I don't know if you're ever going to partake of a chef's table that isn't meticulously planned as not to incur your vociferous disdain. Except maybe at Azrak's.... Personally? I don't ever want customers in my kitchen watching me work. Not that I'm not a people person (despite the swaying public opinion here)--I love sitting down with them after I'm finished berating, sweating and worrying, but to try and act like I'm not a total basketcase for the benefit of a table of well-dressed gawkers would drive me to the William Wycliff box-o-relief. I run the antithesis of the Thomas Keller carpeted waiting room kitchen. My guys look towel-whipped and pissed most of the time. The labor pool is such that I have yet to find one Grant Achatz wanting to strain my stock for minimum wage with a big teddy bear toothy grin...most of my people think that 15.00/hr is a god-given right and the fact that they only make two thirds of that causes a great deal of tension. I'm a lover AND and fighter, so I play upon that tension, feed it back and keep reminding them that they paid vacations when the quitting chatter filters its way back. But I do love those guys...they're my family.... So I say fuck a chef's table in my kitchen...
  14. How goofy...not you Nero, but the notion that you'd want to feel like you were in an evergreen forest while you were being pampered at Charlie's. That's called playing with your food, and that's offensive. What's next...a duck blood vapor served misted with your boudin noir so you can get the whole slaughterhouse experience? I was happily relieved (since my Bittman post refused to materialize) to see Mark slam this new food trend...the Adria rip offs. Food is sensory, and should be enjoyed on many levels but to try and put you in a forest with some deconstructed bs is a moronic trend only executed well by a rare few....
  15. Life's not short, and being negative is an entertaining safety mechanism... not for grownups. grown ups know when to refrain...so i'm starting now...
  16. Life's not short, and being negative is an entertaining safety mechanism...
  17. Some would say that America comes by its anti-intellectualism honestly, having watched so many failures of intellectualism in Europe in the 20th Century. Nonetheless, America is a nation of contradictions: not only are we the anti-intellectualism capital of the world, but also we are an intellectual capital. No nation today can compete with the US in terms of production of intellectual literature, expansion of university research facilities, and academic innovation particularly in the sciences. Even when it comes to the culinary world, who is producing a body of literature comparable to what the US is producing? The US is surely the world leader in the academic study of food. This is my way of saying that anti-intellectualism probably doesn't explain much about America's relationship to food. If anything, too many Americans fall into one of two camps when it comes to food: 1) Totally ignorant; or 2) Overly intellectual. In my opinion, the primary issue is anti-hedonism rather than anti-intellectualism. America is still strongly influenced by its Puritanical roots. And that's not always a bad thing. But it is a bad thing when it comes to food and wine. The caricature of the snooty tuxedoed French waiter still controls the American consciousness. Indulgence in cuisine is still considered vulgar by many. The secondary issue, I think, is America's tendency towards change and innovation. In Europe, people are slower to accept cultural and technological change than Americans are. This I think harks back to the American frontier/expansion mentality, as opposed to the European mentality derived from living within limits. Thus, America, already handicapped by its Puritanical anti-hedonist traditions and therefore lacking a serious food tradition, had its culinary scene completely wrecked by society's enthusiastic embrace of modern food technology especially in the post-War era. Europe, with its traditions more entrenched and its populations more culturally stubborn, didn't accept these changes as quickly. Which isn't to say Europe rejected them wholesale -- as Jonathan points out, McDonald's is quite successful indeed in Europe, and there's plenty of indigenous European junk food that makes McDonald's look good by comparison. But Europe has managed to preserve its traditions and therefore has a core culinary culture that the US lacks. Thus, we are in the process of creating that culture. And by "we" I mean us, literally, this group right here. One of the better posts I've read lately. Thanks Steven...I agree wholeheartedly....
  18. We were just sitting around the campfire talking about Charlie Trotter...it wasn't good.
  19. ahhhh the good old days...i was a dishwasher at kent dining hall...lambda chi brother (long dred locks) lived at the house at 163 W. Main. I miss newark de.
  20. University of Delaware non-grad here 1987-1989...Sundays we'd pack into the one car in the frat house and run for the border. Fun memories. Shit Spencer, you didnt know my wife then, did you? Uh....could have...was she in a sorority, where did she live?
  21. University of Delaware non-grad here 1987-1989...Sundays we'd pack into the one car in the frat house and run for the border. Fun memories.
  22. Lissome....If the bass was on the bill they intended to charge you for it without a doubt. What probably happened is they rung the bass up, "forgot" to delete it when printing out the final check, and crossed their fingers when presenting it to you. It happens all the time. The waiter, unless he gets indignant in your defense and demands that the manager do something about it, was probably hoping you'd overlook the discrepancy and tip 20% on the three entrees. Not all waiters are dubious fools but that element is prevalent in the industry. I did stuff like that all the time when I was a waiter. In my mind I'd drop the check with the third entree on it and if the customer complained about it I'd play stupid and give em a good, "Oh my...I'm glad you caught that. My co-worker didn't show up this morning so I'm doing the job of two. I apologize that I didn't catch that..." Give em an award winning smile (waiters never mean those smiles), and head back to the terminal with the manager so the entree could be deleted. If you didn't catch the error then I'm drinking Heineken instead of PBR. As a chef though, if I sense that a customer is getting screwed I'm having a sit down in the office with said party. Most waiters are good people, capable of immeasurable acts of false consideration (dealing with the public, especially the dining public is a true test of the human condition) but there are fringe elements that are still fighting off the effects of a late night bender that clouds their judgement. Always voice yourself tactfully and you'll be better off.
  23. Talk about a strange nose dive of a thread.
  24. you guys are getting scary with this.
  25. I've got corporate inspectors crawling up my you-know-what with flashlights and tweezers so I can't post today but I'd still like to know where in the hell Adam RLNU was for this event? Probably missed out on some tragically sexy boules...
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