Busboy

Word on the street is that Chef Seccich has moved to greener pastures -- at least pastures in the Green Mountain State. More information as it becomes available. This bums me out a bit, as I thought that, if he got a little running room, he might do some interesting things here in town. Alas, I think the Room's crowd and management weren't ready for what he wanted to do. He will be missed.

Fine line between body image ennui and guilt, no? Besides, I'm betting that you're in the shrinking minority who still "greatly enjoy" eating, whether it's a Whopper or something more traditionally "wholesome" and gourmet.

But polls aren't supposed to be "greatly enjoyable"...though I do have friends who do love to crawl into the cross-tabs on a slow afternoon. ← We need for food for sustenance and sex for procreation. We share these needs with all other forms of life, including plants and bacteria. Where did the idea originate that either could or should be "greatly enjoyable"? SB (not that I mind) ← If these things were not meant to be delightful, why did we evolve (or why were we endowed by our creator) with the capacity -- indeed, the deep urge -- to enjoy them so, well, greatly? Not being able to do so strikes me as an indication that one's life is out of balance, a kind of culinary Koyaanisqatsi, if you will. Moreover, the reason enjoyment seems to be declining is not because of a philosophical reorientation towards the stoic and ascetic -- not my style, but laudable, nonetheless -- but a psychological binge-purge cycle based on unwholesome food and unresolved guilt. It's a sign of emotional decay, an inability to prioritize and and lack of intellectual discipline -- another sign of the apocalypse, another indication of Western Civilization's decline, another brick in the wall.

But polls aren't supposed to be "greatly enjoyable"...though I do have friends who do love to crawl into the cross-tabs on a slow afternoon.

Yep, it's true. We Americans sit at the crossroads of irresponsible consumption and Puritan guilt and we're not to be trusted around dinner any more. "According to a new Pew Research Center survey, only 39 percent of Americans say they greatly enjoy eating -- a drop from the 48 percent who felt that way in a Gallup survey in 1989...." when, as we all know, cilantro had hardly been discovered and foams were not widely available. To me, it puts the nation in the neurotic category, rendering every food jusdgement by our popular culture inherently suspect. This is like reading about a nation where only 39% of the people "greatly enjoy" sex. "Want to get lucky?" "Sounds great, but there's a Frasier rerun on I want to see. " "How about dinner? My treat." I told you, I'm watching Frasier!" Article here. Interesting, the core eGullet demograhic --those who eat out once a week, and enjoy both cooking and eating "a great deal" is only 13% of the poulation. Pew release here.

No updates on the Silver Spring Ray's, aka Ray's Classic, but interested parties should know that the old Ray's in Arlington is offering -- iuntil Michael changes his mind -- a $20 bistro dinner featuring a Choice of: Crab Bisque, Onion Soup or a salad; choice of Hangar Steak or Salmon, in a couple of different preps each, and Mashed Potatoes/Creamed Spinach. The new no-res policy is reportedly working well, and lines are short. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Bear in mind that "Best Restaurant in Denver" is a little like "Best Soccer Team in America" (ok, not counting the women's team) or "Best Rock and Roll Band" in Paris. There's a lot of things to like about Denver, but their fine dining -- though I hear it's improving -- isn't one of its strengths. All raves should be taken with a grain of salt -- they're playing Triple A there. That being said, when I lived there, I very much liked Potager in Capitol Hill, about a mile from downtown. LoDo restaurants tend be good, and fun, but not exceptional. If you're a breakfast person, look for a non-chain place and get some huevos rancheros with the local green chili. This is a local specialty almost on par with ribs and always better than back east. The only drawback to skiing the Alps is that you can't warm up for a day on the slopes with huevos. Mexican and Vietnamese are good bets; Chinese and Indian, not so much.

Article in today's Washington Post on DC chef's salaries. Interesting comparison with the GS schedule. Looks to me like cooking pays about the same as being a bureaucrat here in town (though hours and job satisfaction are, one assumes, unequally distributed). Coincidence?

I have to say that I find myself more and more in agreement with the writer. Perhaps I should take Daniel's advice (on another thread) and take the study of wine a bit more seriously , but I increasingly find the SBs I buy -- wherever they're from or however much I spend -- to be thin, sour and characterless. I'm sure that with money and good advice one can find good bottlings of any varietel, but the odds of getting a good Sancerre or a memorable Kiwi SB seem stacked against the buyer. I'd much rather run with a chenin blanc or maybe something in an Alsatian than ever drink another Cloudy Bay.

Thanks, John. I've been tracking the topics you linked in search of information and vicarious thrills. They have been great regarding more elegant didning spots, and I hope to have something to add to those threads when I return. But I'm also hoping that someone will have the inside skinny on more determindly downscale places: the holes-in-the-wall that serve great, inexpensive local specialties meant to be washed back with the local pink wine, and which -- to the tourist -- are not easily distinguished from less desirable holes-in-the-wall. BTW, for anyone else planning a vacation to Languedoc and hoping to cook or just picnic well, here is a list of the markets in that area.

I PM'd a couple of the French regulars with my first query and got both some good input from John, Bleu and Peti' and a suggestion that it might be a worthy question for the board as a whole (and despite my searching I couldn't find the thread she suggested) and so, here goes. First: We are flying into Nice the third week of July and, after a few days of Jersey-sur-la-Med will be heading up to Gard, to the town of Uzes. After a week there, we have some time to kill. My wife is concerned that trying to ad lib vacation plans in Southern France in August will result in us sleeping in the car. On the other hand, I hate the idea of not being able to make a few decisions on the fly, and would rather risk it. So, assuming we stay up in the hills and far from the coast, are we insane for trying to wing it during the fermeture annuelle? A related question: does Barcelona close up in August the way Paris does? Budget and inclination suggest that in Nice we will be living on street food rather than haute cusine. Does anyone have any favorite sources of pizza, socca, pan bagnat and so on in any of the towns between, say, Cannes and the Italian border, but especially in Nice Old Town? Any information -- in English or French -- on "cusine nissard" would be appreciated, as well, as I will probably try to get a salable freelance piece out of the visit, and the ability to sound informed is important. Suggestions regarding any non-Michelin restaurants ,cafes or dive bars of note (nothing against the Guide Rouge, but I'll have one and I trust eGers more, anyway) in Gard, especially Uzes and Nimes would be well appreciated. Also good sources of picnic items, including but not limited to bread, wine, cheese and cure meats would be great to have. And, slightly OT, does anyone know where I can find a bullfighting schedule? Merci.

One of the great things about the Dupont Market is the minor celeb-spotting you can do. This morning I spotted the cheese lady from the Glover Park Whole Foods, a woman who seems determined to single-handedly overcome WF's reputation for mishandling fermented curd, and the Washingtonian's former, once all-powerful restaurant critic. You spot chefs and foodies and other eG-ers; it's a fun spot. There's still not a lot to fawn over, though we're having a warm spring, thank goodness. Asperagus is out and someone was selling morels. We spotted the first strawberries of the season -- a little green but tasting of the honey and spring rains, an apt metaphore for Easter morning when we celebrate rebirth and trancendence. And I've become addicted to the pastries at Bonapart, asking for millefeuils and croissants in bad French from the scraggly patissiere, and eating them greedily the moment I get home.

Randal Graham weighs in with a long piece on terroir, originally delivered as a lecture at UC Berkely (maybe Davis wouldn't have him , or vice vera). Quite an interesting -- to this tyro -- dicussion. In here, beginning page 23, following the lengthy parody of Dante's Inferno (called "Vinferno," natch).

everyone needs a reason for living and far be it from me to deprive you of yours. but i like them. i like peas, too, but garden peas go starchy so quickly i find it's about 1 batch in 5 that really has flavor. i like pea sprouts a lot--just made a risotto with them ... add them at the very last minute so they barely wilt and stay bright green. also baked halibut in paper on a bed of pea shoots and topped with herb butter. there are no bad ingredients, just bad cooks. ← Touché, you bastard. (but I didn't like them at Grammercy Tavern, either).

A viogner. Maybe a little chenin blanc. Something lush, viscous and floral. But that's just me.

I just noticed when they started showing up at the farmers markets and hip restaurants a couple of years ago. Never liked them and when they became a "thing" I decided to make them my personal bete noir (bete vert?). And then, when my wife and I asked the owner of one of the farms that sell in our market why there were no fresh peas (one of spring's great joys, IMO) and she said it was because they had used all the pea vines for shoots, well, it pushed over the edge. Kind of the way some people are about Rachel Ray.

Pea shoots are an abomination, chlorophyllic dental floss elevated to icon staus by chefs too impatient to let spring legumes sprout, and too shrewed not peddle fibrous vinage to the posturing masses as overpriced exotica. Don't, I beg you, don't grow pea shoots. Grow peas, grow herbs, grow opium poppies -- grow anything but these gaucho trousers of the vegetable world!

When do we hear about the rest of your trip?

Neither are exact matches to your request, but I'll bet you could make a good start by checking out this thread, and this thread, both of which cover that general area. I've been to the museum but don't know the area well enough to make any specific reccommendations, but I'd think Asian or Latin, if I were you. (Note that this is a holiday weekend with school tours and people trying to keep visiting relatives from getting bored, so you may want to hit the museum as early as possible.)

When I was a waiter in a swank joint an occasional twenty or fifty would be pressed into the captain's palm (not the maitre d', which we didn't have) with the explanation that "we'd like this to be a very special evening." We always did our best to make sure that it was.

Speaking of the Rainbow Room and views, my wife and I went there for a bottle of Dom Ruinart at the bar, a just after getting engaged (at Lutece). Big window behind the bar wit a view of all of lower Manhatten. I've never heard anything that would make me actually want to eat there, but for champagne, views and goo-goo eyes, it was pretty swell.

The Old Ebbitt is a Washington institution, kind of, the bar (and the emblematic walrus head above it) having been ripped out of its old space by the owners when its previous home was torn down, and installed in a much larger and less funky location. In another 20 years it will be as cool as the old place, though it will lack the patina that 40 years of smoking gives the woodwork and the walls. This is no place for gourmets. It is, however, a great place for a burger, post-theater bite, dinner with the unadventurous, or brunch. You can get a steak, pasta, grilled chicken -- the usual stuff -- in a very pleasant white-tablecloth (but not stuffy) main room; a snug back room, with frescos of voluptuous naked chicks; or the building atrium. Well worth a trip is the raw bar, particularly if your body clock allows you to go very early or very late, for the half-priced happy hour (not available Friday or Saturday). Decent wine list, good martinis. Apparently, these days, jammed to the gills with Cherry Blossom types. Call first. Number here. (Have half a mind to head over there right now myself for a bacon-cheeseburger and a glass of cab. Breakfast of champions.)

A very good rule. I'm generally in groups where there's not much disparity in seniority and then I tend to benefit from another rule, the "girls never pay" rule (unless they're reps, and then they're not really paying). Sometimes I insist. ← Heh. You got it backwards. Junior person pays, senior person signs off on the expense. What are you thinking? Plus, the poor person gets the Amex points. Worked for a while with a director whose husband was a chef. We were giving out a grant one time in San Francisco (I gave away money for about six months for a corporate foundation. Tougher than it sounds, but not a bad life, and you were able to buy dedicated dedicated non-profit employees good food) and I bribed the concierge into talking our way into a booked and then- (still?)-hot Rubicon for a $400 lunch for three. Pahlmeyer chard. Nice flight home.

I wouldn't read too much into the article or speak harshly of the bartenders quoted therein. I'll bet they're pretty good guys, pros who take care of their people. Why? because the writer is going to look for thet type of bartender when writing the story. And, while I don't know the places mentioned, they sound like serious watering holes. Contrary to what a lot of people think, landing good shifts at a a busy, upscale bar usually takes a couple of years -- at least -- working your way up the ladder. But everybody gripes about their job. That a bartender working for tips would -- when the troops are four deep and boozily clamouring for yet more booze -- prefer to serve as many of them as quickly as possible, and not get sugar syrup all over themselves, is hardly surprising. That they would be annoyed that no one can agree on what makes a Manhatten is to be expected. To get knickers twisted over a little honest bitching -- that seems unusual to me. Amazed that none of them mentioned blender drinks.

No turnip truck references implied. More a warning for those who will follow in your footsteps, and a reflection of my own surprise how pricy Boston can be. And, though I like the flying saucer-sized plate topped with teaspoon-sized course thing, the small plates were reasonable appetizer portions served on small plates. Maybe the lounge is the place to be, as ambience expectations are lower and the plates are less artful/pretentious.