Chef/Writer Spencer
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Posts posted by Chef/Writer Spencer
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Anyone who jets around the country telling minimum wages monkeys to add more of packet number six to the ranch dressing is not a chef.
Anyone who is holed up in a " food lab" somewhere with a flip chart denoting demographical preferences and sports a name tag that reads "TGIFriday's Corporate Chef" is not a chef.
Anyone who throws killer Colin Cowie style dinner parties, is not a chef.
Anyone who has schmoozed his/her way around the brigade system but makes "the best biscuits this side of the Mason/Dixon line and finds it necessary to curse the maker when something is spilled on his/her 105 dollar piped and monogrammed Bragard chef coat is not a chef.
Anyone who has paid the dues, worked years on end breakinig his/her back with the ultimate desire to produce quality food, that has great organizational skills, a fatherly demeanor and a passion for perfection is, in my humble opinion qualified for the title. It's not about schooling, or intellect. It's about loving the heat, the hours, the deprivation, about late night discussions concerning vegetables over beers....
It's about the passion for food. If you're the biscuit king you ain't worthy.
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Scathing retorts are what Bourdain seems to invite with his unique point of view. If you're trying to dethrone the king of curmudgeons I say you're energies will be wasted. The guy's got a teflon alibi, he's or was a chef. This ought to be of great interest though.
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Aw come on, the guy's French. Of course it's going to be overedited.
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Can I play the curmudgeon? That's something else missing from FN. Some sourpuss to poo poo food trends...It'd be cool. I could gripe and bitch and moan only to have things pushed in my face. Like I could go up to Trio and eat, and sit there trembling like a wet cat as chefg was floodlit with a Friday the 13th grin on his face, flood lit from behind. How bout that?
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I see he conveniently skipped Memphis...sonofagun...
"10:00 PM
$40 a Day
Memphis, TN
30 min.
Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion is toured during a trip to Memphis. Also: a restaurant that specializes in pork barbecue."
But Chef/Writer - Rachel Ray was there - doesn't that count for something.
You've got to be kiddin' man, seriously. Al Roker and now Rachel light the room up with warm and fuzzies Ray. Be still my pickled heart.
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I think they're listening to us, those demons of seersucker and wisdom, the food network programming execs...
I was walking by the bar area in my club just a couple minutes ago and low and behold there was Mario charring up some leeks to accompany some pan-fried upstate NY goat cheese. Thank you Food Network. What a welcome sight. I feel like I can breathe again. God, this is such a great thing for me. I love that guy.
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I see he conveniently skipped Memphis...sonofagun...
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Winning fans one moronic rant at a time. Thanks Soba, i think.
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Anybody who discounts the merits of canned San Marzano tomatoes is screwy and misinformed.
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I think the fact that they even called hands on cooking shows "dump and stir" is indicative of the whole idiotic mentality of the suits in the boardroom. I'd rather watch a dump and stir and than a bump and grind or dumpy and annoying. I'd love to watch a top ten fine dining restaurant show. How come they've rarely, if never done exposes, or countdowns where C. Trotter shows up, or Thomas Keller. The chefs really making the scene are doing so in the print media exclusively. Not that I'd like to see Keller makin' torchon with granny panty Jill Cordes but true high end cooking is tremendously underepresented. Do we need more shows that tell us how to dress a fucking salad, how to cook a steak--come on, if I have to watch Ming Tsai push on the soft part of his thumb one more time...
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Minor's base =Salt in many applications.
Not Minor's. But I've used LeGout's. And Philadelphia's Chef's Market sells RG brand. All base makers make different levels of stock. The key is to check the ingredient statement. If "chicken" or "beef" comes first, it's their top qualitystock intended for hotel kitchens. While not fresh stock, these top of the line stock bases can be quite acceptable and quite helpful in a pinch.
Thanks Holly...but I suck, and so does Minor's. It's the Crystal Light of bases.
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Strong ass margarita...getting that initial happy buzz, gut full of Vietnamese string beans in black bean sauce.
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OK...time to bare my soul...Thanks Monica...
Admissions of a Thomas Keller (will never be) wannabe.
At the club I buy my demi-glace from Buckhead Beef...I made the real thing for years of course and hope to get into a more user friendly situation but the first day I worked at the club some lug nut cook threw potatoes into the tilt kettle mistaking my delicately simmering brew for Irish stew. That was the first run-in with the cold water feeling and caused me to reevalaute a few things.
I like dry thyme, a lot. Especially the stuff from Colorado spice.
I use peeled garlic cloves exclusively. Mario B., I'm sorry bro.
Though we made our puff dough at Samovar, and I prefer it to the box o shit, I'm willing to admit that I'm too lazy to fold, chill, fold, chill, ad infinitum.
Any fish I get is already three days old. Often it's better to purchase IQF in the center of the country rather than fresh--unless it's trout, and then we're getting that ugly box from Idaho.
Minor's base =Salt in many applications.
There are more, plenty, but this is all I'm willing to divulge at this point. I'd like to challenge all of our superstars to come forth and let the embarrasments fly. God, I feel better.
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I thought the watershed moment was when Masta Flay was asked if he was thinking about jumping up on the cutting board after the match. He responded with his typically dorky, "I might" or some paraphrase thereof. What a disrespectful dribble dick. But, hey, he won the battle and kept his cool when he was being "sabotaged" by the wok eye. I'll give him that. But blue corn crusted lobster? Shut the fuck up.
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just killed three red bulls, a pack of sunflower seeds
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Cookworks...
Teaching firemen how to make fritattas...well, ok. Kinda sterile exceptfor the interesting sexual tension between the thirty strapping fire dudes and the blushing host, the gangbang overtones were hard to dismiss. Still painful television, but not on par with Lighten Up. I see another season in the future.
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what's this big obsession with how "black" some of the foodtv "talent" is or isn't? no doubt, they are plenty black enough, when not getting buzzed into stores, being arbitrarily stopped by the police or just generally discriminated against in this world. maybe "talking black" doesn't get you a job on foodtv?
no obsession here...in fact, what the....
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Date Plate or "The Culinary Melrose Place" is the crux of the issue for me. You got the pastel sets,, the airhead/model/expensive water gugglin' yupsters, and the bonerific, snotty big gunned actress wannabe sitting there like talking about her dislikes like some Sultana of Brunei...Then you take a chef, maybe an unknown guy that needs some good exposure, and ruin any chances he's got at respectability by making him dance around like a constipated white kid while stirring his sauteed plantains. They constantly purchase ingredients that turn their siren off, never getting her likes before hand--which would make more sense to me--... It's embarassing to me that TFN thinks we need a culinary 5th Wheel/Blind Date/Change of Heart. The show is poorly produced and feels as awkward as taking a bath with your grandmother. Where are the hungover trolls trying to massage the best they can out of a Johnsonville Brat and a pack of Wonder Buns.
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Ok, maybe there's room in culinary heaven for B. Flay, maybe, but the two broads who host Lighten Up need to start penance proceedings nowif they hope to dupe Escoffier into letting them into the mix. The first quote that made me run for the gun rack was, "Now, I know a lot of people find working with pineapple intimidating..." Oh really, name one fruitcakes? That was, bar NONE, the worst fucking excuse for quality food programming I've ever seen--odd, unnecessary and goofed out to the nines addition of "the pretty model" to add demographic appealing poop, the welder's shield as a prop whilst conducting a sad flambe lesson, the prerequisite pastel set design--taken to a new nausiating and kalaidescopic extreme, the happy for the camera/housewife/nerd alert camaraderie.
The Food Network thinks we're all dip shits. They've got to. Low-fat ambrosia to hell you bastians of filth.
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I just submitted a recipe for my tangerine curd to Private Clubs magazine. I do a tangerine curd/rhubarb napoleon with creamy tangerine sorbet that rocks out. Just use the same recipe as in lemon curd but add some lemon juice to bring the tart thing out. You won't be sorry.
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Maybe there's hope. But I'm not counting on it...Sandra Pinckney's on talking like a white girl about hot sauce. I'm sure patty shoe ain't far behind.
Sandra Pinckney is white, C/W, just like Bobby Rivers. What's wrong wit 'choo??!?
Sandra also sez "chih-pole-tay" chile -- but then, she's not alone.
Gotcha Xan. They've been fist dunked into the racial sterilizing tank along with their broadcasting cross-profession magnate Al "couldn't possibly be related to Roxy" Roker. I think somebody at the network watched The Stepford Wives too many times.
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Hey, if there's an award for consistently long posts I elect slkinsey. Jesus.
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Spencer, are you feeling okay?
Yeah, I know, me liking a Bobby Flay production is rather depressing. But I have to give props where due, so I give them to Chris and Lydia. Flay's annoying side was decidely absent. I think he needs to do more television by himself. It's when he interacts with other humans that he gets in trouble.
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Well that's quite a pair--Chris and Lydia. I really like what they're doing. You get a good vibe from those two, even though they're on the otherside of camera. I say bravo to this development.
Letters To The NY Times
in New York: Dining
Posted
Hey man, it takes one to know one.