Busboy

Nope. The point is not that only the rich can afford extravagent dining. That's something of a tautology, and even I can spot those. The problem is a trend reflected towards wildly uneven income growth which pushes even "fine (less-extravagent) dining" out of reach of the middle class. The Time-Warner building food court is a perfect emblem of a new gilded age, there's something galling about seeing it open even as one hears calls for further tax reductions for the large corporations and wealthy individuals, and the outsourcing of of blue-collar jobs and even middle class careers continues. And the fact that a $100 dinner for two is consided quite moderate is a measure of how out of touch many people are with the lives of middle class Americans. I'm not saying that any of this is wrong, I'm just saying that people who are angered by it may have a point, even if it's not exactly the one they are articulating.

I've been curious to see if anyone on this board would come out against extravagent dining and unsurprised that anyone has. Heck, I wouldn't. Just for fun, though, let's look at dining not as intrinsically wrong, but as emblematic of a a society where income and wealth are increasingly concentrated, and the idea of fine dining is increasingly the province of a relatively priviliged handful. Income has been rising at dranatically uneven rates for decades now. At the same time, the cost of fine dining has been rising significantly faster than the rate of inflation. The end result is that top-end restaurants are even more unimaginable for most Americans than ever, and even "mid-price" places are unaffordable to most. Just for fun I went to the Sette Osteria website. Sette is located near my office and has a reputation for reasonable food at reasonable prices. By my calculations, it is impossible to eat a decent three-course meal and have a bottle of wine ther for less than $100. That's a significant dent for most American families -- imagine if you wanted to bring the family -- and Sette neither accepts reservations nor provides tablecloths! Now make the jump to Masa, or Per Se, or Charlie Trotter, and its pretty easy to make an argument that the creation of a gilded cadre of dining rooms patronized by an equally elite group of diners may be a symptom of something gone very wrong, and that this disparity, rather than the act of fine dining itself, is the true cause of resentment.

Hey -- I don't even know what I'm doing, how do you? Actually, I'm pretty sure out home brining solution came from somewhere on eGullet, and who knows where the chef at Corduroy gets his. But, as has been pointed out, there are many variables. In addition, anyone with 2300 eGullet posts is probably so damn good in the kitchen you'd get "this is the best I ever had" whether brined or not.

But, according to Fergus Henderson it can make a tasty main course out of a sow's cheek and tongue. "Brine your pig's head for three days, rinse it and place it in a large pot..." (The Whole Beast, p 80.) Varmint, I admit that I've never had the visceral negative reaction I have to brined poultry when served pork or beef that may have been brined. As someone pointed out up thread, pork belly is often brined; at the same time we were crinkling out noses at the brined baby chicken, my wife and I were battling over who got the last bite of the pork belly. Malawry, if I get my act together to try to organize an eGDC picnic next month (once everyone digests the Indian street food dinner) maybe we can grill up dueling birds and do a taste-off. Finally, I'm not entirtely buying the concept that it's impossible to cook a good free-range chicken without turning the breast to sawdust and, frankly, if you can get a decent product, most ducks and pork cuts are pretty easy to handle. Unless the cut, or a particular preparation, demands it, why not just grill the stuff up the way god and Nieman Ranch meant it to be?

It was just a tenderloin, and it was nasty. Not worth smoking up. It's also possible that I actually finished if off, and that I was getting a little hyperbolic in the earlier post. After years of telling the kids to "eat it, dammit," you have a certain image to uphold.

Hey, who doesn't like bacon? But sometime you want your pork to tastes like pork, or you braise your shoulder to get the same juicy goodness allegedly delivered by brining. And, even the most dedicated briners admit that the process changes the texture of the meat, particularly chicken. Hey, I never understood the popularity of Mahler, Harry Potter or Nigella Lawson, either, so maybe it's just me.

DOWNTOWN: PSIRRI; MONASTIRAKI; PLAKA The three neighborhood of Psirri, Monastiraki and Plaka sit next to one another; you can probably walk from the center of Plaka to the center of Psirri in less than half an hour. Plaka abuts the Parthenon and full of tourist and trinket-dealers, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s also the only place in the city where the stores are open on Sunday. Just to the north-west, Monastiraki has only recently become hip; it’s full of old buildings turned into new cafés with spectacular views. Psirri is the TriBeCa of Athens, full of hip clubs, hip people and hip restaurants. The first night of my last visit we wandered down to Psirri, stopping for drinks at Therio -- “The Beast” -- whose address I unfortunately don’t have and can’t find. Even my friend had a hard time locating it on foot -- Psyrri is a warren of irregularly-signed tiny streets. Though we were too early for the crowd – at 9:30 there were four customers – I’d like to head back. It was captivating jewel box of a place with jazz on the stereo and a bartender who smiled. Therio is just around the corner from Hytra, so you should make sure you get to that corner of the neighborhood, anyway. Dedicated to Cretan ingredients and French technique, by way of Spain, Hytra is fun, adventurous and good at what they do. The room is small, bright and spare, the walls hung with large, modern canvases and the tables close together, but not uncomfortably so. It attracts celebrities. The menu was available in English. The wine list was Greek. But my friend – whose Greek is not exceptional – has learned enough to work his way through a Greek wine list with some panache. God bless him, his priorities are in order. The sommelier spoke English, the waiter spoke French, I speak food-French and since my friend speaks wine-Greek the four of us had a friendly little Table of Babel going in no time. We ordered the “surprise” menu, but by the end of the first course we kind of knew what we were in for – and happy about it. First, there was a glass of raki, Cretan grappa, served with an eggplant amuse. Then came a demi-tasse of fish soup topped with olive oil and a lemon-carrot mousse. The soup was good – similar to a bouillabaisse. Once the mousse began to melt into it, it was great. Once they set a spoonful of raw sea urchin down, to be nibbled in between sips, it was spectacular. Other highlights were an assortment of bite-sized Mediterranean fish, each prepared in a different way; and a salad garnished with small balls of ground chicken coated with pistachio and rosemary. I can still taste the entrée – loin of wild boar in pastry wrapping that had been liberally seasoned with allspice and cardamom, served upright in a bright yellow sauce of pureed bell pepper, dotted with chopped sautéed greens. It was a spectacular presentation and a taste that was oddly familiar and wonderfully different: half grandma’s baked ham with cloves; half Nieman Ranch tenderloin. The desserts were fine, but not that fine -- we didn’t need three, and I can’t remember what they were. Not matter, it was a great meal in a fun neighborhood. HYTRA 7 Navarhou Apostoli, 210 331 6767; dinner for two, with two bottles of wine, 170€ Friday night I worked late and didn’t have a chance to change before heading downtown and back to Psyrri. First stop was SOUL which my friend claims is a great place to drink until dawn, better than BEAST, but Soul was just too damn cool to let us in, either because we were too old or too American or I was in a suit or just because doorman can be arbitrary pricks wherever you go. “This is a private club.” “My friends and I have been here before.” “It’s a private club on Fridays.” Uh-huh. I was too sober to curse the malaka in Greek – the delights of learning a language – or English and we decided to wander over to BAR GURU and at least get rid of the sobriety problem. Guru is beautifully done, the interior looked vaguely New Orleans-ish, lit up with fresh flowers and candles and light blue paint. Behind the bar, the DJ set-up was a captivating two-story column of stained glass mounted in a wooden frame, and the owner himself was spinning everything from Snoop to Tina Turner. The crowd shared the same range of vintages as the music, and dress ran from hipster-wear to old t-shirts and off-brand jeans. We fell in with a couple of drunken Brit journalists and two Greek academics and I enjoyed the place immensely until I left at the early hour of 3AM. BAR GURU [10 Theatrou Sq. 210 324 6530] Despite my having worked until noon and getting stuck in a traffic jam heading south -- Saturday is the big Greek shopping day – I made it back to my friend’s place before he was able to get out the door. Although I am a degenerate, my friend, “Ionnaki,” is whatever is more degenerate than a degenerate (a bourdaine?) and about 12:30 we knocked back a breakfast of wine and cheese and headed back into the streets. CENTRAL MARKET bordered by Athinas, Sofokleous, Evripidou, and Filopimenos streets After loading up on pastries we strolled over to Athens’ central markets: meat, fish and produce. The meat market was a sea of halved lambs hanging from hooks, strung sausages and enough offal for a thousand Bloom’s Days. Butchers in bloody coats wielded cleavers the size of canoe paddles, with lit cigarettes and five o’clock shadow apparently the mark of a true master. Housewives prodded lambs heads, sniffing them and poking eyeballs to check freshness while a hundred butcher’s assistants lurked at the fronts of their stalls chanting like carnival barkers, and touting (one assumes ) the superiority of their wares -- homing in on you if you so much as broke stride next to their stall. Lamb, pork, intestines bundled together and knotted like garish macramé, the raw materials for uncounted sausages (down the street: a store selling nothing but meat grinders of every caliber), beef testicles the size of baseballs, slimy and compelling…you can imagine how disappointed I was to be dragged off to the Acropolis, but my friend says that when I return, I go back to the market – and cook something up in his kitchen. Before the Acropolis, though, we made our way through the Athens fish market which, unfortunately, lacked sanguinary din that energized its next-door neighbor. Much of the fish – including lovely Med-types like dorade and rouget – had been frozen and looked sad and garish. There was, however, a strong selection of cephalopods – sea creatures with many arms were available in many sizes, and the upside of frozen octopus is that you don’t have to bang it against a rock 41 times to tenderize it before cooking. We emerged into the bright light of the produce market. There’s something about going to the market when you’re not going to cook that’s like going to a strip club when you’re not going to f***: it’s a damn good time, but frustrating. The fava beans heaped in the stalls frustrated me the most: they were bright green and dirt cheap, 75 cents a kilo, just in from Santorini. Across from favas was all the feta you could need crumble over those favas, plus a dozen other local cheeses with Greek names I haven’t yet learned; at the next stall there were lemons that looked like peasants had painted them in bold, real colors, waiting to be mixed with olive oil and tossed with the favas and chees. We contented ourselves with some glorious strawberries and pushed off for the flea market and the day’s cultural activities. Staying on the subject of food, the flea markets offer a grand assortment of shipping line silver and old knives. We hade little time to look, as 2 o’clock was approaching, but, if I decide I need yet another set of place settings – and I may -- I will be back. After a couple of hours meandering through timeless works of extraordinary beauty and historic weight and that kind of stuff, we had naturally worked up an appetite. Fortunately, Ionnaki’s favorite weekend lunch spot was mere footsteps away, so we crossed the pedestrian boulevard dividing the historic Agora from the hyperactive Monastiraki neighborhood, and sat down for lunch at CAFÉ AVISINIA Avisinia Sqare an asphalt parking lot, with cars and motorcycles and a dumpster. Despite the large tree shading a few of the tables, Avisinia may be the only restaurant in Greece where the indoor seating is more desirable. Downstairs was cool and dark and filled with a joyous racket made by a pair of musicians sitting at a table at the far end of the room. God knows I’ve never been particularly drawn to American folk music, much less the Greek stuff, but this couple was having so damn much fun -- as was everyone else in the place – that they were hard to walk away from. He was a long-haired cross between a garage mechanic and a male model, crunching the accordion with a delightful ease. She sat next to him and filled the room with a lyrical voice in between drags on her smokes. It almost looked like a tourist joint except it was full of Greeks, and every now and then someone would leave behind his grilled sausages and sit in for a song, adding another layer to the compelling music the duo were laying down. I was disappointed, then, to be led to the upstairs dining room – a bright open room with tall windows on one side and whitewashed walls on the other two, decorated with flea market art apparently selected with an eye for the evocative and quietly surreal. Food and wine began arriving quickly, family-style, and the wine began to flow. The appetizers were wonderful – filling, heartfelt and traditional, like the music. Mashed favas were topped with chopped red onion, capers and tomatoes and, of course, accompanied by a fresh lemon. I’m starting to think of them as Greek mashed potatoes, they’re so common and so good. We got a garden salad that looked like it came out of a garden and not a bag; dakos – stale bread with diced tomatoes, soft cheese and olive oil; snails “Fresh (sic) style”, in shells with garlic butter; marinated anchovies that tasted salty and clean, half olive grove and half sea; and feta cheese baked with paprika, gooey and delicious. Before we could finish the appetizers, the kitchen started sending out main courses. Fortunately, we were famished from hours of walking and culture and the residual food lust from our market visits and we rose to the occasion, filling plates to overflowing and stacking empty serving dishes on the adjoining table, making room for the sardines baked in grape leaves (the one loser dish, fishy and dry) and the cabbage leaves stuffed with ground pork, which I found mediocre but the others at the table greatly enjoyed. The big winner was the grilled sausage assortment. It wasn’t on the menu, but we’d seen it at another table. Two lamb – one spicy, one mild – and three pork sausages, including a credible kielbasa that tasted disconcertingly like a Slim Jim, and a finely ground link larded with a strong white cheese. The four of us shared three deserts. The balaclava was strong effort – though my expat friends said it wasn’t as good as usual. The accompanying ice cream was more interesting, being delicately spiked with mastic, the resin or gum of the mastic tree that is, in the Greek Islands, commonly chewed (masticated), they tell me, like chewing gum. It’s got a distinctive flavor, but one hard to describe – somewhere at the intersection of anise and cinnamon, with an odd but not unpleasant bitterness to it. You see it a lot in Greek desserts, Turkish Delight, and herbal remedy shops -- it is reputed to have medicinal properties. We also had whipped cream with candies fruit and nuts, and fine Greek yogurt with prunes in syrup. CAFÉ AVISINIA 7 Kinetou St. at Avisinia Square (north side of the Acropolis) 210 32 17 047; Total damage for 4 people with 3, or maybe 4, bottles of wine: 160€ Ionnaki’s friend decided he’d had enough to drink and headed back to the apartment for a nap, but the other three of us decided that it would almost be immoral and certainly un-Dionysian to kill the high we were on. So we headed down to the acres of cafés that sprang up at the base of the Acropolis when they shut down traffic on the road around it and gave it back to the pedestrians. We wandered a bit, looking for the perfect spot and finally found one at DELFIS MCE. My view from the table. The inside of Delfis looked wonderful and enticing, but we sat outside, of course, backs to the building with orchestra seat-views of the promenading Greeks and the Acropolis as backdrop to the scene below. I guess the tourists were over in Plaka, or perhaps no one promenades as well as the Greeks, so they get the best turf. Anyway, the whole place seemed curiously undiscovered. Young promenader. Almost as delightful as the view was the waitress. She not only looked as though she has been fashioned by the same hand that had carved the Caryatids -- but with more care and love -- she twice went out of her way to take care of us. First, by talking me out of drinking raki – Cretan firewater -- and second, by trying to return our tip (10 euros on a 75 euro tab) as “too much.” She apparently hadn’t gotten the “be mean to Americans” memo. [in fact no server I’ve met in Greece has gotten that memo.] In between declining the raki and leaving the tip, we went through another three bottles of wine. Sitting where Plato, Socrates and Aristotle once trod, we naturally fell into a philosophical mood, talking of the same things they would have: love (and lust – the foot traffic was pretty swell); aging and mortality; travel; and body hair trends in pornographic films, gay versus straight. As the wine flowed, the passing show changed as the scruffy hipsters went home to rest up for their long nights clubbing, and the families and older folks took over, scrubbed for dinner, reveling in a warm spring evening, walking hand-in-hand. The setting sun turned the Acropolis the color of a glowing coal. Is was indescribably delightful. DELFIS MCE the juncture of the pedestrian walkway – Apostolou Paulou – and Akamandos streets; 3 bottles of wine: 75€ Realizing that we had to move on I parted company with Ionnaki and Tom and wove in the general direction of HILTON to check out their legendary balcony, but the sterility and mock-grandeur put me off so violently and immediately that couldn’t even stay for a drink. The whole building stank of air conditioning and room freshener and buzzed with the kind of people who think Athens is a place to be protected from rather than embraced, so I fled back downstairs and hailed an uptown cab. No doubt they were as pleased to see me go as I was to leave. I showered and shaved and sobered up enough to have a pleasant dinner at my hotel. Ionnaki and Tom slept until 1AM, had a tequila shot to wake up by and clubbed until 8:30 the following morning and were thus unavailable for lunch. Left on my own I meandered around the Plaka for a while and found a decent lunch at DIA TATYA. Not really worth a detour, but if you’re craving Greek basics like fried cheese and mashed favas, it’s a pleasant enough place to rest your legs. Exposed stone walls, friendly servers, a good mix of locals and tourists, reasonable prices for the neighborhood. DIA TATYA; Adriavou 37, Monestiraki 210 321 2347; 30€ with a couple of glasses of wine.

GENERAL INFO Other Help: http://www.gourmed.gr/ Tipping: My friends who live in Greece and the guidebooks diverge on this one. The guidebooks say the tip is built into the cost of the meal, my friends say that it is not, and we tip 10%, 15% for excellent service. Cover Charge: Virtually all restaurants (as opposed to drinking spots) charge one, they range roughly from 1 to 3 euros. Sometimes this will get you some bottled water and a small snack, sometimes it won’t. I don’t know why. English: Many Greeks speak English, particularly younger Greeks. Nonetheless, the usual niceties apply, and learning a few words of Greek will stand you in good stead. As with France, taxi drivers seem particularly disinclined to speak English. Bring a map, with your destination circled. Greek: Please, you’re welcome, what would you like? pah-rah-kah-LO: Thank you: Ef-khah-ree-STO Do you speak English? mee-LAHS ahn-glee-KAA Wanker: Malakah French: A pretty useful language, particularly -- and not surprisingly -- in better bars and restaurants. Service: Relaxed but efficient. Greeks can linger for hours after dinner; Greek servers are therefore slow to bring the check, which can irk Americans. Reservations: A good idea, though not strictly necessary, especially if you’re eating early (before 9). Hours: Many restaurants will not even have anyone on the premises when you call at 6PM to make a reservation for that night. 9-11 PM is the prime time to arrive. Anti-Americanism: Every American in Athens is at risk…of a lengthy diatribe from their taxi driver on American foreign policy. This is why cabbies who speak only Greek are not entirely a bad thing. Other than being turned away from a trendy club one night (surely it was because the bouncers were anti-American. It couldn’t possibly have been that we weren’t cool enough, could it?), I have never encountered anything resembling anti-Americanism; friends who have lived in Athens for over a year confirm that, on a practical level – despite the universal loathing of George Bush and the Iraqi war – anti-Americanism is largely a myth. Nickel-and-diming: I have never encountered serious crime in Athens, even in what appear to be very iffy neighborhoods, but there is a lot of penny-ante bullshit: crusty old liquor store owners who tack a euro onto the cost of the wine you’re buying; cabbies who don’t use meters and charge what they think they can get away with; maids that refill your mini-bar vodka bottles with water and restock them. None of this is unique to Athens, and the vast majority of Athenians I have ever met have been wonderful, but someone jerks me around for a couple of euros every time I go. So, pay attention, try to look like you know what you’re doing, and be ready to let it go unless it’s a significant sum or you’re in the mood to duke it out in Greek.

Athens has a pretty bad rep, some of it earned, but I’ve been spending a lot of time there for work and I love the place -- crawling through a warren of tiny backstreets in search of a bar that wouldn’t fill a two-story atrium in an American house -- apparently owned and decorated by two art students and a guitarist, and probably open until dawn – or eating good honest Mediterranean food under the stars, even paying tourist prices for drinks because the floor show is sunset on the Parthenon. Not long ago I was sitting in one of the best restaurants in what is unquestionably one of the most exciting neighborhoods in Europe and my friend, who’s been expat-ing in the Kolonaki neighborhood for two years, damn near choked up at the thought of leaving Athens this fall. It’s not a sophisticated town, and the food’s not in the same league as Paris or London, but it has a lot of charm. I started this thread because there is little about Athens on this board. I’m hoping to get a little information posted for the next eGulleter that travels through, and maybe draw a little knowledge from other posters. It is far from a complete overview, but it’s a start. And, though I may not be back in Athens until August, I will add and update whenever I have the opportunity. For convenience, I will post by neighborhood, and add info via editing whenever I have a chance to update. Forgive me if I get carried away every now and again; I’ll try to be at least as informative as I am self-indulgent. Yammas!

OK, I admit that there are many reasonable people who are pro-brining. But the texture thing really puts me off -- maybe I'm just an osmosis-aphobe. And, truth be told, there appears to me to be certain cult of brining that strikes me as a little silly. It was definitely "flavor of the month," if you will, a couple of thanksgivings ago. Bleachboy -- why on earth would you brine duck? I can grasp it, intellectually, for turkey and chicken, but ducks are so naturally rich and flavorful that messing with their cell-structure to ge a little extra water in seems passing strange.

I am an American, but agree with you on the turkey. Yuck. Your shrimp observation is interesting in that, as I was typing the original post, I realized that I have no problem with non-poultry brining. And that there is a fine line between marinating and brining. I'd be curious to taste your shrimp. Curious, but skeptical.

I am always willing to entertain suggestions that my cooking is at fault; one problem with not being able to eat out often is that you can spend years preparing a dish before you ever find out how it's "supposed" to taste. However, the thing that made me realize that I just dislike brined birds intensly is that I was served one prepared by a well-regarded chef at an excellent restaurant. Given that a properly roasted chicken (as challenging as finding or making one can be) can be divine, why brine it, anyway? I find the difference between industrial- brined and home-brined to be purely a matter of degree. Industrial-brined food tastes as if it were made entirely of inorganic chemicals, home-brined merely tastes as though it was injected with them. And the texture really puts me off. I didn't know if we were supposed to eat the chicken, or dribble it in for a lay-up -- and remeber, this from a chef whose other creations had us ecstatic -- I find the whole process off-putting and unnecessary.

You are wise.

I like every kind of tonatie sandwich there is, but after a long winter of seeing lame-ass bruschettas on menus in two countries, I'm eager to rub garlic on toasted peasant bread, throw in some fresh tomato and chopped basit from the garden, and top with olive oil and fleur de sel. Then, on to the BLT's!

I guess that corned beef is brined, as well, and I got no beef with that (ha ha), but somehow brined poultry really puts me off. The pink chicken was actually produced by the street vendor, and not me, so I assumed that it is common to all brtined birds. It's not a bright pink, more a pale pink that's somehow not quite the same as, say, a prefectly grilled breast and seems, like the taste, to be somewhat industrial.

I'd always thought the reason my brined food tasted like crap was because I was a bad cook, but last night I had dinner at the well-regarded Corduroy here in DC and the kitchen sent out a whole baby chicken that had been perfectly roasted but brined and which was so offensive neither my wife or I could eat a bite. [in Cordouroy's defense, the pork belly was extraordinary] Brined poultry tastes as though it has been preserved with a particularly offensive marriage of "lite" salt and MSG. And the texture -- talk about rubber chicken circuit! It is utterly unnatural, with a mouthfeel like something that's been preserved to prevent spoilage over a long sea voyage. Who invented this technique, the Royal Navy? Brined chicken would make an excellent entree in a menu featuring hardtack and cheap rum, once all the live sheep and toroises taken on at the last port had been consumed. And today, at the street festival, my daughter got some "authentic Thai grilled" chicken. Brined, again. After being urged to take a bite, I remembered that, in addition to its other drawbacks brining also gives poultry the pale pink coloration of a building material that will eventually be found to be cancerous. It's time to put brining in the same category as tall food and tomato water -- a moderately amusing fad whose time has passed. If you can't get your roast chicken to come out right without brining, serve beef.

I guess the no-bottle rule makes sense in that kind of setting from an aesthetic, future use and liability standpoint -- 90,000 people on the three-day part, half in bare feet could make for some ugly problems. But it is a pain. I think we're going to be experimenting this weekend, we'll post anything that seems particularly effective and cost effective. And if you see a couple of yuppies next to a blue Jeep, trying to make bernaise on a camp stove and swilling Zinfandel from a tin cup, that's us -- come say "howdy."

I think that it's easy for any one person to cook wonderful and creative meals. What requires the genius is for that person to be able instill his entire food mindset in those who work for him so that it stays with them forever. When Ducasse says, "I am in all of my kitchens all the time," that is exactly my vision of what a great chef should do. That statement should be completely true, because everything you think about food, from the exact degree you like to cook your green beans to what you would combine them with to where on the plate you would put them will be inside every single person who works for you. They don't need you present to replicate your vision. Micromanaging is easy. Not being there is what takes skill. I hope Keller is up to the task. Without quibbling over the nature of genius, I think this is what I was getting at and why I think JMayer got a little more roughed up than he deserved -- aside from the talent the chef has for great cooking, he needs to have a separate talent for transmitting that skill. Some chefs have proven that that have it. Keller hasn't yet -- we certainly hope he does, but he hasn't proven it yet. Thus, his being out of the kitchen raises legitimate questions, especially in light of Robert Brown's commoents on TK and Gagnaire. Exotic Mushroom, granted your ability to knock out the chef's cooking with the same skill he does, how long could your chef be out - and how far away could he go -- before your cooking and his began to diverge? At what point would it become, for better or for worse, more your kitchen than his?

See, here's the problem with chef-as-manager. A manager's job is to make the trains run on time -- get the food in, prepare the menu, hire and fire, see that the payroll is met and the health inspectors are paid off and the food costs are in line with revenue projections. I expect that all great chefs are competent managers, or, at least, that all great restaurants have one on on staff. Unfortunately, a great restaurant is not the product of an efficient business plan. A profitable restaurant is the product of an efficient business plan. Make no mistake, profit is good. But expectations at Per Se are not of excellent management, and competently reproduced culinary blueprints, but of genius, and of genius that flows from a particular individual. At some level, if he is not there enough, that genius will be transmitted less effectively to the plate put before the diner and Keller franchise will become merely a profitable food industry franchise, rather than, say, the best chef in America (or whatever we want to call him). I don't know at what point that will occur; I expect, from what I've read, that Keller lays awake at night wondering about this himself. But there is unquestionably a finite number of restaurants any individual can run, and keep all of them, or any of them, in top form. Brilliant cooking is ultimately more than an assembly-line product, as much as it may look that way from the line in the middle of a shift. Think about it (and I'll bet someone here can give us an insightful guess) of all the talented sous chefs and executive chefs who have worked under Ducasse or Keller or whomever, and spent years absorbing training, technique and management skills from them, have gone on to equal their mentors? Even given that you have to be a hell of a chef or a cook just to get into those kitchens? You can't mass produce art (or craft or whatever we want to call what extraordinary chefs feed us).

The analogy (those things again) between Keller and Sinatra is illuminating in a way other than its original intention. Keller is a celebrity chef. People admire and respect and gush over the guy. For those of us who have not had the privilege of dining in Bouloud so often that they have Daniel's schedule down pat (that's envy talkin', pure envy), not having the chef in the kitchen is a little bit of a letdown. It's not rational, it may not even be "right." But it's true, and it colors perception of the dinner. There is also a legitimate concern in that that any operation sufferes when their leader is not their often enough -- whatever that may be. Ducasse, for example, seems to be able to recruit, train, inspire, compensate and terrify people effectively enough that he can run a global restaurant empire without his reputation suffering. As for Keller...let's hope he can, too. I have reservations. Finally, let me throw out another analogy: football coaches. They don't play a down, but they run every aspect of the team; their creativity and drive set a tone that carries down to the least player; and some of them seem to be able to win championships year after year, with an ever-changing cast of players.

If I get into the hard stuff, it's all over. And Camper's definitely on the list. I've even asked Mrs. Busboy to be my beloved revolutionary sweetheart.

Only a liter and a half? I'll have to spend $90 on the things just to carry enough wine for the weekend.

Thanks. We were planning an REI expedition this weekend. We'll keep an eye out. I've heard about the traffic mess. Our travel plans are limited by work and kids, but our basic goal is: leave as early in the week as possible. Fortunately, my boss is coming, too.

Ahhhhhhhhh. I was worried that I was going to have to try to use a turkey baster to force the wine back into the box 20 cc's at a time. I wonder if Starbucks will sell the boxes without coffee. Surprisingly enough, there's one (OK, three) right here in the neighborhood.

I wouldn't worry about oxidation after opening -- once a liter of wine gets open at my house (much less a music festival) the odds of it oxidizing before it goes bad are measurable, but very, very long. NEVERTHELESS, that sounds like a great idea. Do you know how he got the water and the wine back into the box, though? And I know just the crew to help me empty it out... (how come there's no "sly" smiley for when you're plotting something?)