Busboy

Fist bump! I've defended Amanda Hesser here and elsewhere -- she's a good writer and a smart cookie. This piece was misguided . The Obamas are busy privileged people. So what if Michelle doesn't cook? Laura didn't cook, Barbara didn't cook, Hillary didn't cook, Nancy didn't cook, Rosalind didn't cook. Maybe Abigail Adams cooked. The Prez has commented often how much he loves to walk to family dinner every night. I'm sure it's a terrific dinner, and there's time for family chat. And yes, maybe they'll eat a First Tomato. ← Read the article. She never says that Michelle, or Barak, should "get back in the kitchen." To say or imply that she does is to have misread or to consciously distort the article. Hesser says things like: You know, First Lady stuff, nor chief cook and botle washer stuff. Remember, this is an issue that Obama chose: “The whole point of this garden for us is that I want to make sure that our family, as well as the staff and all the people who come to the White House and eat our food, get access to really fresh vegetables and fruits,” she said. “I found with my girls, who are 10 and seven, is that they like vegetables more if they taste good, right?” From the Wall Street Journal: And, from the Times Even Obama herself seems to imply that home cooking is important -- when she's not stepping on her own message by making it out to be a chore.

I think this is, again, nitpicky. We all have a pretty good idea what real cooking is and none of us (to agree with the good doctor above) minds a little prepared food as long as the general thrust is more or less away from microwaved TV dinners or whatever KFC is trying to force on us these days. And, as someone who has served their kids macaroni and cheese many times, I can assure that it is indeed not real cooking. ← I don't agree that this is nitpicky. Since "we all have a pretty good idea what real cooking is," maybe you can give me some guidance on the following examples: Cake from a cake mix Tuna casserole made with canned cream of mushroom soup Tacos made with ground beef and Lawry's Taco Seasoning, chopped fresh onions, tomatoes and lettuce, and bottled taco sauce Betty Crocker boxed "Au Gratin" potatoes Green salad with bottled salad dressing Grilled cheese sandwiches with Campbell's tomato soup These are all things my mother made for us while I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, along with pot roast, fried chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, and all kinds of other dishes "from scratch." She was a great cook, but I don't doubt for a second that she was very happy to be able to use those and other shortcuts. So, tell me: what counts as "real cooking"? From Hesser's comments, I can't see that any of those dishes would make her cut. ← It's nitpicky because you've deliberately ignored the larger thrust of the article: if the First Lady wished to effectively make the point she seems to wish to make, she would go beyond gardening photo ops and maybe say a kind word or two about actually cooking the stuff she's planting, rather than implying (however inadvertantly) that post-harvest food handling be left to mutlinational food processing companies or fast-foost establishments. Given that this is a Washington-centric discussion it's appropriate that you're using a fairly standard inside-the-Beltway ploy -- seize on the smaller issue to obscue the larger one (note that -- so far -- opposition to the current Supreme Court nominee centers not on what may or may not be significant and legitimate legal and philosophical problems but on a single paragraph uttered years ago). And we could certainly dig up a copy of the 1972 edition of the Betty Crocker Cookbook (I belive my mother still has hers) and go through, recipe-by-recipe, giving the thumbs up or the thumbs down. But it wouldn't prove anything. I don't have a problem, nor do I think Hesser does, with any of those dishes you mention in moderation, though the casserole and the potatoes are pushing it. But when my mom was serving them to me -- aside from the potatoes, which I had only on backpacking trips as a Boy Scout, all of those dishes are familiar from her table -- they all tended to be parts of a larger whole with, over the course of a day, fruit, vegetables (usually frozen, admittedly), whole grains and real meat. As I have said before, while Hesser nudges us to go beyond that, I read nothing that condemns those who fall back on such dishes when needed. This is a real Rorscharch test here. I first stumbled across this column on the Jezebel site (which I read in a desperate attempt to keep up with my wife and teenage daughter and get in touch with my inner politcally active party girl) and all the comments were about the "racism" and "sexism" of telling Michelle to get back in the kitchen. Here, it's a little more subtle, but she seems clearly to have pushed a button. Let me be clear, I am no Recession Mom, but I do have kids. I do live in a house where both parents work and both parents cook and clean and chauffer and so on. This is not an abstraction to me. I think this is clearly a shot at "fast" and processed food, at our overreliance thereon and at Michelle Obama's failure to close the loop on her own message, failing in ways that actually damage the message she wants to get out. You can't realistically be for good food and against cooking. If you think that Hesser is laying a guilt trip on parents (always mom in these discussions; interesting, that) who fail to reach some ideal you are probably reading too much of yourself into her words.

Hell, who doesn't love Michelle. That school is in my neighborhood andyou know, hey, serving the First Tomato at a state dinner likely has some symbolic importance. Nut, more than nothing is not necessarily something. She can do this well or she can do this poorly. If she follows Hesser's lead, she will do it better. Yes, chores suck and some people see cooking as a chore. But 1) chores are part of life; 2) perceptions are important and marketing does change perceptions and 3) I'm not sure what you're arguing in relation to the article: that consistently serving crappy fast food is acceptable if you find cooking a chore? Or that we shouldn't demand Household Goddess (or God)-like perfection from people who are tired after a long day. Because if it's the latter, I'm sure we all -- including Mandy -- agree. And if it's the former, we have a beef. I think this is, again, nitpicky. We all have a pretty good idea what real cooking is and none of us (to agree with the good doctor above) minds a little prepared food as long as the general thrust is more or less away from microwaved TV dinners or whatever KFC is trying to force on us these days. And, as someone who has served their kids macaroni and cheese many times, I can assure that it is indeed not real cooking.

Just to be clear, a few members of a food organization taking a position on a subject does not constitute the organization as a whole doing the same. Parts, wholes, all that. Can anyone parse Hesser's "cook" in scare quotes? I'm having a hard time reading that as anything but snarky.... ← Snark has its place. And she's saying nothing that Michael Pollin doesn't say every chance he gets. And what, all the sudden we've got to put on the kid gloves to talk about Kraft ("The Cheesiest")? The point of the piece -- and let's just leave the recession moms out for a moment -- is that cooking has been relentlessly marketed as a chore for 50 years, in order to encourage consumption of high-sodium, high corn syrup, high fat convenience food that has a damaging affect on our health and our environment (and possibly our larger karmic relationship with the earth and those with whom we would talk over dinner if they weren't eating McNuggts in front of the TV). Making a big freakin' deal about planting a garden is a little pointless unless you get people to accept that the food in that garden needs to be cooked -- not processed (you know what General Mills calls "recipes?" "formulas.") and for the vast majority of people who can't afford to take their family of four to Chez Panisse every night, that means cooking. Therefore it's time for Michelle to GET ON MESSAGE with this. Cause regular folks aren't going to Blue Hill tonight.

And yet, Hesser seems certain that it is evil: It's clear that only food prepared with raw ingredients counts as "cooking" for Ms Hesser. Picking something up on the way home, no matter how nutritious or delicious, wouldn't satisfy her. ← I don't agree at all that that's the point she was making. Rather than demanding purity of ingredients, that quote was in support of this: "For most of the last century, Americans have been told repeatedly that cooking is a time-consuming drag..." Two separate, though overlapping, points are touched on but I think it's clear that she's speaking to the larger thesis that marketing cooking as something that's a pain in the ass, as the makers of Pillsbury Biscuits do in order to sell higher margin prepared foods rather than lower-margin flower, is not a good thing. And regardless whether one cooks as a hobby, out of necessity or as a matter of preference (looks like I'll be eating carryout Ethiopian tonight. Wonder how kitfo compares nutritionally to Hamburger Helper) I do indeed expect that members of a food board would generally come down on the side of home cooking -- for any number of reasons -- over the 125 takeout meals a year plan.

But don't you think that the achetypical 3-job recession Mom (especially if she's single) is likely to find cooking a chore? I know I did! I wasn't single nor did I have 3 jobs but I had 3 kids born within a span of 3 years, a full time job with an added two hour commute, a husband who was of the old-school and thought that cooking was woman's work. So at 6 pm in the evening with kids and hubby asking every 5 minutes, "When's dinner?", you are damn right it was a chore. And I don't equate love of food with love of cooking it. Many members of eG are not cooks but love to eat in world class restaurants. What we really need to do is find a way to feed the family that does not require an exhausted parent to spend yet another hour meeting the obligations of parenthood in the kitchen. We should be pushing the food industry to improve the quality of their prepared foods, we should be showing how a salad along with eggs or cheese can meet dietary needs, we should be showing that using some pre-prepared foods in conjunction with fresh fruits and vegetables doesn't necessarily spell doom. Now that I no longer work and the kids are grown and gone I love to cook but I will never forget those years when cooking was the last thing I wanted to do when I finally got home just as tired and just as hungry as the rest of the family. Hamburger Helper showed up far more often than it should have! ← I don't disagree with anything you've said. But there are a number of aspects of child-rearing that are chores and that, nonetheless, need to be done. If the alternative to another chore is inevitable something scopped up from the drive through on the way home, then mom (or dad) needs to cook. The recession mom is a red herring anyway, because this is a long-term trend that precedes the current crisis and like likely continue once good times return. Also, I'm not altogether certain that Hamburger Helper is an evil thing, particularly if theres a salad or some frozen broccoli or an apple on the side, any more that I'm suggesting that every meal must be precisely nutritionally balanced and Hesserian in its perfection. I can't even remember what our kids ate at one, but it surely wouldn't have counted as a meal (applesauce and pasta figured heavily) and it was force-fed in the kitchen long before the table was set. Traiteurs are yet anoth reason that France is better than America and Paris is a great picninc town.

When I was last in France, an expat friend introduced me to a cocktail quite popular among her French friends and in-laws called ironically, perhaps, the Americano. Quite tasty and a little more unusual than a Kir.

I guess I was the only one who thought Hesser's piece was pretty reasonable. There's little point to changing what goes into the ground if we don't change what goes onto the table -- Obama has painted only half the picture with her new garden. The fact is that the increase in fast food and cheap restaurant meals and the decline in home cooking correlates closely with the increase in the kind of noncommunicable diseases -- obesity, diabetes, etc -- that gardens like the one in the White House are supposed to diminish. Hesser never suggests that Michelle get back in the kitchen. Nor does she imply that hard-working parents become gourmet chefs when they get home from work. She just suggests than an emphasis on actually preparing healthy food is as important as planting the stuff -- and she is right -- and that making cooking sound like a painful chore is a bad way to promote it and she right then, as well. It is almost inconceivable that the archetypal three-job recession mom has the means to afford healthy restaurant food, since it barely exists, especially in poor areas. Sure, everyone takes a night off, but if you're consistently feeding your kids carryout you're irresponsible (yes, there are many worse things a parent could do, but..) and, chore or not, a little time at the stove would be a good thing. How odd that a food organization would be so hostile to the idea that people cook dinner?

I got wasted or something and promised to treat a friend and his wife to a fab meal in NYC on the occasion of his 50th. For a number of reasons, its possible that a Saturday lunch will be the ideal time to mark this joyous occasion, the chief reason being that if I can snag a Per Se reservation I can get away for far less money than a dinner would be. Odds being against getting such a reservation, there are other reasons why a Saturday Lunch works well, but are there any other top-caliber restaurants in NYC that offer weekend lunch with serious pizazz? Beyond that, since I've watched the New Yorkers here go 'round in circles over which of the restaurants I've never eaten at is the "best" and determined that it's something of a personal choice, I wonder if there's a consensus as to which of the 4-star and top 3-stars (Corton comes recommended by a trusted source) might also offer the best "value." We may or may not do a tasting menu -- they are often too much for my wife and I'm not as blown away by the concept as others are -- but we do need strong vegetarian options (another reason why Per Se is the top contender). And, finally, we may do a mid-week lunch instead so the value question applies, as well, though not as urgently.

There are two statistical models that might appply here. The first is regression to the mean. How this works is that you have a basic level of doing a certain task, this could be cooking a steak or making a base hit three times out of every ten. Some times you will do much better than your "mean" level. This might mean cooking a truly perfect steak, or it might mean going three for four against (hopefully) the Yankees. The opposite could happen as well, and you could have an unusually bad performance -- burning the steaks or going zero for four against (hopefully) the Red Sox. These unusually good or bad performances relative to a mean skill level (or score or whatever) have a certain statistical probability which can be characterised by the normal distribution. They have low probability of happening, but not zero probability of happening. The laws of probability say that your next performance after a statistically improbable performance is likely to be a more statistically probable performance, because it is always true that the most likely performance is the most statistically probable one. What this means is that you are likely to follow a particularly good performance with one that was not quite as good, and you are likely to follow a particularly poor performance with one that is better -- this is because you are likely to give a performance that is closer to your statistical mean performance. The second contains most of the same principles. The normal distribution says that if you have a certain skill level (let's say Roger Maris' 27 home runs per year average) that there is a certain statistical probability, albeit very small, that you will have a season or a streak that exceeds that average performance by quite a lot (Maris' famous 61 HR season). You can actually do the statistical analysis to see how many seasons by how many players at various average levels would have to be played in order to produce one who had a statistically improbable 60+ home run season, which explains why it took so long to break Ruth's record. Of course, for the following seasons we normally see . . . regression to the mean. In culinary terms, this explains how someone whose steak-grilling skills are good enough to cook 4 out of 5 perfectly will sometimes cook 20 perfect steaks in a row, and sometimes 20 bad ones in a row. ← Apparently someone paid more attention in Stats than I.

One summer I got a job at a pizzeria of no note. I assumed that, by the end of the summer, I'd be sick and tired of (this mediocre) pizza . But, as as been said of London and almost certainly (though I can find no cite) of sex, when one is tired of pizza, one is tired of life. I want Richman's job.

No wonder you get along so well with Richman -- you are both apostates: "Likewise, many (including some official-sounding associations dedicated to the preservation of what they allege constitutes traditional pizza baking) will make doctrinaire claims about the superiority of fresh mozzarella as a pizza cheese. But side-by-side comparisons of pizza made with fresh and low-moisture mozzarella... amply demonstrate that in many cases the low-moisture can be better for this specific application because it exudes less fluid and has a more concentrated flavor, while an even more striking contrast reveals itself with authentic mozzarella di bufala (water-buffalo milk mozzarella), which, though most flavorful, has in the few instances when I've encountered it been far too watery for use as a pizza cheese. (The most important thing is not that the cheese be fresh or low-moisture, cow or water-buffalo, but that it be of high quality.)" Also, your piece is cut off in the middle of the thrilling comparison between Sally's and Pepe's. Or is that just a device to make us tune in for Part 2?

I think the only way to truly approximate a comprehensive "best in America" would be for Richman to amass a teem of 100 sub-judges, each trained by him in an intensive month-long session in major pizza centers across the country and then dispersed to limited geographical regions accounting for the entirety of the U.S., with the instruction that they report back on any pizza of of superior quality in their region - maybe 500 pies across the U.S. Then a select handful of judges, comparable to the referees chosen for the playoffs, would evaluate these offerings, with each judge taking two regions to ensure overlap and that one judge's personal prejudices or off day did not eliminate a worthy contender. At this point, with roughly 100 pizzas remaining in contention, a tour bus containing Mr. Richman, two attractive assistants, a small, portable workout room and myself would be rolled out and Al and I -- I call him "Al" by this point -- would try them all, over a two-month and he would render judgment from atop the heights of the greatest pizza evaluation program in the history of humankind. I figure the whole thing would take a year and maybe 500 grand, to be financed by 50,000 pizza lovers putting up $10 apiece for a chance to participate in this great and noble endeavo,r at levels from unpaid first-level judge to fully salaried bag carrier and assistant taster (responsible for retastes when an establishment might credibly be thought to have had an "off night") on the final tour.

Years ago I read an article claiming that the idea hitting streaks, or slumps, were the result of a batter somehow going "hot" or "cold" was a myth. Essentially, a batter's performance is a collection of random events unpredictable in the short run but statistically consistent in the long run. If you hit .300, we know that over the course of a season, you'll get a base hit in three out of every ten at-bats. But because each at-bat is a random occurrence (more or less), sometimes you're going to go 18-for-25 over the course of a critical week in August, and sometimes you're going to go 3-for-25. Not because you were "on" in the first instance and "off" in the second, but because that's the way random events accumulate. Same as flipping a coin. You flip a quarter a hundred times and it's going to come out pretty close to 50% heads and 50% tales. But if you charted each individual flip, you'd come out with a few patterns that were statistically rare in isolation -- six heads in a row (1-in-64 chance), maybe -- but which will inevitable show up in a larger sample size. All of this is a roundabout way of saying, Fat Guy, that you're the victim of ther laws of chance but that, in compensation, those same laws will some day present you with a solid week in which even your instant oatmeal tastes like it was cooked by Escoffier. You should invite guests. Either that or you have a rare and tragic nerve disease and you should PM Sconzo right away to find a specialist.

With all due respect to Australia's pizza community -- whose hospitality I hope someday to enjoy -- a quick glance at the America's Plate websitesuggests that the America's Plate honorees do not specialize in the "American pie" Richman finds superior. Not to mention the fact that a cook or two able to churn out overdecorated yupppie pizzas ("squash cream made with buffalo milk ricotta and topped with buffalo milk smoked mozzarella, roasted red peppers, and zucchini flowers filled with zucchini, gorgonzola, fontina and mascarpone cheese") does not necessarily indicate a broader culture of quality pizza. Or are we seriously suggesting that China and the Czech Republic are now global contenders? ← Perhaps they should call it the "World's Plate." If you're ever over here, I'll shout pizza ← Excellent. I will leave my chauvanism behind and, perhaps, ask for a glass or six of inexpensive buy hearty shiraz with which to knock it back. Or should I just stick to a good lager?

Awfully Southern sounding for a Philadelphia boy... Mom was from Alabama, but we always ate it as a main -- possibly because she came from a relatively poor background.

With all due respect to Australia's pizza community -- whose hospitality I hope someday to enjoy -- a quick glance at the America's Plate websitesuggests that the America's Plate honorees do not specialize in the "American pie" Richman finds superior. Not to mention the fact that a cook or two able to churn out overdecorated yupppie pizzas ("squash cream made with buffalo milk ricotta and topped with buffalo milk smoked mozzarella, roasted red peppers, and zucchini flowers filled with zucchini, gorgonzola, fontina and mascarpone cheese") does not necessarily indicate a broader culture of quality pizza. Or are we seriously suggesting that China and the Czech Republic are now global contenders?

There are also ways to maximize your exposure to good food while minimizing expenses. I am hoping, for example, to take a friend and his wife out for a 50th birthday celebration at Per Se (anyone with reservation tips, please PM!). This won't be a cheap date by any stretch, but if I can get a lunch reservation instead of dinner, that saves $100 a head. And, since they're in recovery and I'll be restrained in their presence, there will be significant savings on wine. And today I'm heading out to one of the better restaurants in town (Vidalia, doc) and rather than eating the $80 dinner tasting menu and ordering an $80 bottle of wine, I'll be having the $19.95 lunch special and maybe a single glass of something. Not the same experience as the full blowout, but a chance to experience a good restaurant nonetheless. I think low-rent dining takes more planning and less drinking - and also the discipline to make yourself a hot dog and tater tots on that night you don't feel like cooking, rather than blowing $50 on mediocre delivery Thai -- than fits my MO, but it can be done.

Having already expressed my devotion to the principles espoused by Alice and my annoyance at the messenger, I feel obligated to post comments by the anti-Alice, who is, in every respect, worse than she is. http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/2009/05...-teen-ass-play/

No no, me too! At least wine with character, even if it's "bad", gives you something to discuss at the dinner table. :-) ← At a lot of Greek Tavernas they pour the wine right from the barrel. It can be awful stuff, though sometimes it's surprisingly good. Either way, at least you know you're in Greece and not in The Souvlaki Den back in the states. We could call our wines 'Chateau Carton' to move them upmarket a bit. ← I suggest Carton-Charlemagne.

I just get my stuff at Crate and Barrel. It's not dirt cheap, but it's inexpensive; you can buy any needed dish and have it match the rest of the set -- if I needed a dozen gratinee dishes to match my plates I could pick them up this afternoon -- they're reasonably durable without looking coarse; and when I break stuff, as I always do, I can replace it with something exactly (or almost exactly) the same years later.

I thin Dave may have a better opinion of boxed wine than most Americans because he can getter better wine in a box. In my opinion, it would be the perfect container for an inexpensive wine produced with a little character and care -- your own personal barrel dispensing wine a glass or two (or caraffe or two) at a time. Unfortunately, the only wine available here in a box is anonymous, mass-produced swill. Even the "higher-end" offerings tend to have that factory-born anonymity that defines corporate wine and annoys me so much (I confess that I would rather drink "bad" local wine with character than OK mass-produced stuff, but I'm weird that way). With so many wine growers going broke in France -- and so much quality inexpensive wine available, maybe Dave, Paul and I can form an importing business and help both French growers and American consumers. Until then, with certain summer rock festivals banning bottles, I suppose I'll settle for the plonk.

Tuesday nights the (now departed) bartender, Adam, devoted himself to original and classic cocktails. Most other nights Bar Pilar was pretty much a beer joint, though with better-than-average bar food.

Washington gets four, though they tend to be obvious choices and one, Bar Pilar, just lost its top bartender, who created the Tuesday night cocktail-fest mentioned in the article. Nonetheless, all fine places to get a cocktail. Bar Pilar The Gibson Café Atlantico PX Missing: Cork, which, despite its wine bar roots, has an excellent bartender, and the Tabard Inn. Interestingly, Tom at Cork is brother to Derek at The Gibson who is engaged (or shacked up with or dating or whatever) to Chantal at the Tabard, meaning that almost 70% of the high-quality cocktails in DC are controlled, OPEC-like, by a single extended family.

Unfortunately, that's not possible, as we'll be arriving on a connecting flight. MelissaH ← http://vinovolo.com/ looks klike the best bet from the terminal guide - don't think it had opened last time i flew out of JFK and we ended up in the sports bar drinking beer ← I ended up in the Newark branch of this establishment not long ago. Nothing to write home about, necessarily, but head and shoulders above normal airport "cuisine." Decent charcuterie, very drinkable wine, as I recall.