Chef/Writer Spencer

Just watched Bobby Flay do grilled lobster with curry butter, jerk chicken, and some habenero-schmutzed clams on Boy Meets Grill. Every thing looked tasty, and goddamnit, the guy didn't make me want to chuck my television off the roof. Though it was shot A Cook's Tour style I thought it was a good show--minus the obligatory Carribean tourist music and Hawaiian shirt. The lighting was perfect, showing the food off in its best light. It reminded me of looking through a Ducasse cookbook. 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.

I had submitted a raunchy, but borderline amusing bit about a restaurant in my area a month ago and it was forgotten. I don't feel like delving back into the will this get deleted/is this too risque mindframe.

Well Steve-o you're right, I did get off topic. But whatever, it happens all the time in this place. I was not partial to a weird construct you drew. And my perspective is, of course, the chef's perspective. I've been customer massaging for a while now. So I may actually know a few things.

I think it's admirable to stick a fork in a fan, which is what analogy I'm going to draw from Steve-o's Keller/Adria world domination theory but as a culinarian I can't agree with you that bad press is good press when it comes to thinking about food. If I curse the establishment of eGullet, call the founding fathers butt pirates, liars and condemn them to a cubicle in a cold room without a computer for eternity and then get expelled, never to return, banished to The Repulician Guard of foodsites, chowhound, and then simultaneously get four offers from big time publishers because my idiot rant attracted the right attention.....that would be an example of bad press is good press. Agree? Now if a chef creates a menu for a whole season and it sucks, causing devotees to shit slam the guy (while still holding out hope that he's just having a bad day), and the media questions his sanity? If more than one of his clone army of press preachers fall upon the same unfortunate conclusion on two or three separate visits, I assert that, this is not good press. It may draws some on lookers at first, but if the guy doesn't have a Bobby Flay revival (3 star crazy) and continues to drool his mania on the plate he can't be more qualified for a stall at the Culinary Hall of Fame than a guy like Thomas Keller. To me Steve, you think it's more admirable to pull the pyrotechnic thing out than to cook quality, close to perfect food or at least it's more respectable to test the outer limits of respectability with the sparkler/pine cone/atomizer of lavender mist/lozenge eating first mentality than a tasteful approach to elevating classics to the sublime. Or perhaps I'm just searching for a Tony Award winning subject to use as a platform to hurl hateful filth into the psyches of the American culinary dreamers. That's always a possibility.

Speidic. You're going to have to allow your inner "artist" to bend over the hot line and take it in the petooty once in a while or you'll eventually find yourself at the local wal-mart in the gun section asking the clerk what rifle does the most damage to a human head. Just a plain fact. You cannot exist within the profession without giving in once in a while. Most customers don't look at you as an artist in search of the perfect bite, nor do I. You're a glorified tie-dye salesman, hawking your wares to who ever is bold enough to want to wear your designs. You're not Michelangelo commissioned to paint the Sistine.

Fuckin' word.

This weekend I cooked with the wild green French asp., the baby white, and that fucking nasty ass sea asp. To me it was nothing special, a rather bland countenance of it's larger self. It looked cool though, all three asparagus sitting underneath a perfectly cooked filet. I'm not one to use baby veggies and all that kind of stuff. Fru fru fuck you.

I get really, really, seduced by a good meal. Of course, there's nothing like the soft skin of a woman, the scent, the electricity...but food activates many of the same receptors for me. That's why I'm so passionate about it, why I rant and complain like an attention starved teenager when people act like they're more interested in the peripheral concerns like presentation, atmosphere, and snob appeal. Eating high quality food while in the company of a beautiful woman is the ultimate form of Dionysian pleasure for me. I'm a Scorpio through and through. Bring me Dwan and a fat leg of lamb.

Well step into my shoes for a minute and behold the paradoxical. I'm haute...my customers are hate.

I'd rather sit down with a nice plate of fruit than be seduced by a siren...

As far as Keller goes you're going to be fighting an uphill battle here SA. Yes, Thomas Keller is the genuine article. He cares about the whole experience from the parking lot, to the shrubs, the foie, to the table linens. He wants you to feel like you're the only person in the dining room. He cares about your preferences, your dislikes, your interest in what's going on behind the scenes... BUT As far as what makes him tick...What makes him work 16 hour days, standing on his bad knees, scrubbing counter tops "like there was caramelized sugar holding on in a death grip and he had a plane to catch" is his ultimate respect for food. He wants those counters clean because there's more of a chance of ruining the presentation, his idea of perfection, with smudges and grease spots. Did you see him eying that fava bean in a Cook's Tour? He's all about products and what he can do with them. Part of the confidence that is Thomas Keller is his utter disregard for pandering to his customers--in the sense that you'll never see Keller putting the sauce on the side. He just won't do it. Case in point...read one of his menus...not the tasting per se, but the a la carte. There's so much going on there with NO explanations. Taupinere a la Charentis with Roasted Heirloom Beets and Red Beet Essence? I'm sure very few know what the hell that is. And the french translations? Come on. Don't you think if he was worried about confusing the customers he'd be using the English counterparts. It's all about his Metier...his place in the realm of food and how he can put forth his best foot. As a result of his passion for food (a selfish thing) customers get treated to the ultimate experience available. As a chef you've got to align yourself with your own selfish desires to see perfection on a plate or you'll ultimately end up barking like a dog on the Food Network. By "giving in" to customers differing palates he offers more than one menu. But still, nothing on those resemble anything that could be considered pedestrian.

OK, given. Why the fit, though, when one customer out of a hundred dares to tinker, and say, "leave the huckleberry sauce off, I'll have the foie gras without it." I don't throw a fit...I'e been doing this long enough to know that getting pissed about a diner's preferences is only going to cause me furthur discomfort. I have to take it with a grain of salt and move on. If the waiters were really doing their jobs though, they could get the SOSers of the world to give in. It's fear as much as anything else. No one wants to pay 25 dollars for seabass with verjus if they have no idea what verjus is. But, if the waiter would bring the customer out a ramekin of the sauce to taste it that'd probably do the trick.

I have to disagree. The chef, at his most base level, is in it for him/herself. That's not to say that we don't appreciate customers and their criticisms and praise but creation must be a totally selfish thing for it to transcend into the magical realm. God, I shudder to think that I could be creating food for MY customers. They'd be just as happy sucking down sesame crusted chicken tenders with Cattleman's barbeque sauce than foie torchon with huckleberry schmutz. I scratch the recesses of my mind to come up with new stuff to satisfy a natural curiosity. This is where the artist analogy may be valid. Any good artist, if they're worth a shit, isn't concerned with trends, popular opinion, etc. They want to extend a hand into the abyss and see if, by using their God given talents, they can yield any tangible beauty. Of course, however, without customers all of the Ferran Adrias and Thomas Keller's of the world would be cooking at unknown diners in Alaska or dead of broken hearts.

After toiling away in the buffet world for two years I have no interest in swans carved out of watermelons, eyes pinned to their faces with black olives, tails fastened with cloves. That the kind of "sexy" fruit plate I was referencing. Now, a nice plate of perfectly ripe fruit no matter what it may be will always replace a tongue to my ear.

I start the tourne routine in October...The first five hundred always suck...But then I realize that if I cut the barrell from the top, like you'd do a honeydew or cantelope it's incredibly easy. Just cut em like you cut fruit for those sexy fruit platters that no one eats.

The best way to scope out the best restaurants for me is to get on eGullet and ask. That got me a good meal in Atlanta anyhow. I'm rather concerned for the people that case the parking lots.

There's your next article, Spence. And I bet that Hilton Kramer would publish it, too! You may be on to something Matt.

It'd be nice if customers were forced to eat the food the way we "artists" intended it to be eaten. But it's bad form to act like a primadonna in most places. Trust me, I had plenty of time to think about this one day when I refused to cook an owner's friend's yellowfin well-done. The only place I've seen it done sucessfully was at The French Laundry. I think someone wanted Peas and Carrots and Keller flat out said no. I'm sure there were extenuating circumstances however. You can be sure that if the chef says no he hasn't been in the business that long. FOOD is NOT ART. CHEFS ARE NOT ARTISTS.

Hey Lord, First of all I never professed to being a broad minded guy. I think you can enjoy the intellectual aspects if you've got flavor backing them up. If the food tastes like a donkey dick but it can pop your popcorn while squirting fryer hot grape jelly in the back of your throat then I think it's a joke. I am not condemning Adria though. I'm condemning creativity for creativity's sake. You seem like a fairly smart guy, I'm surprised you couldn't figure that out.

Every once in a while I can zing. Thanks Jinmyo.

It's called being pretentious! Some folks like to live in the past. Apparently to these foam abusers 1998 was a banner year. Carrot juice anyone?

Fuck foams. in any form. Take that canister and shoot whippets. Pernod foam?

The suicidal thoughts that had plagued my earlier years are coming back. Bobby Flay? I may just quit cooking professionally all-together. I suggest all of us die hards take a cue from Jim Jones, I'm loading up on purple number 4.

Talk about overintellectualization. Brecht? This is food for god's sake, NOT THEATRE, NOT ART. IT'S GOT TO TASTE GOOD.

Why didn't someone tell me not to fuckin' go to Atlanta on a Sunday. Hit the Varsity...some flat burger, "What you havin'?" in my face, cayenne french fries, NO BOOZE on sunday...will swing back by on Wednesday. Someone give me a hand. We need a designated driver. Finished the Food Network rant, will show up sooner than later in RE. There's nothing to do, a rental car in the hotel lot and I've got plenty of time. FUCK. Talahassee is a bust too.