Busboy

Wine consumption shot up in the U.S. (and perhaps other places) for a long time and a lot of acres of vines were planted in a lot of places like Chile, Argentina, Australia and South Africa. Now the vines are mature, but while production continued to rise, consumption leveled off, leading to excess capacity worldwide. I've been hearing about grape gluts in California for years, for example, hence "Two Buck Chuck." The French industry faces special challenges, as well, according to this article.

I'd be curious to know if this cut affectes Grand Cru and Premier Cru wines which, I believe, already face yield restrictions. Just what I need -- even less Chambertin being chased by a growing wine market. Food producers everywherereact poorly to cuts, even though it is often in their best interest. New England fishermen would overfish themselves out of existence rather than accept government restrictions, if they had a choice. Farmers don't like to cut production unless bribed by the federal government to do so. The French growers reaction, though (to me) wrong-headed, is perfectly understandable, particularly in light of the French delight in demonstrations of all kinds and, quite possibly, a little fortification by their own product. Another question: anyone know if French wine subsidies are based on acreage, or on production? And do they get a flat subsidy, or a guaranteed minimum price per liter?

Don't you threaten me with a good time, Doc. What bothers me is this Nanny State phenomenon that is slowly creeping into every area of our lives. The last place I want it to intrude is at my dinner table, dammit. It is not enough that I cannot get some of the wonderful wines I've discovered abroad, but now they are trying to take away the *one* indulgence I simply refuse to live without. It makes me so angry I could swear in ten languages while wielding a large bat. Why an anti-foie gras law, but not an anti-chicken, beef, veal, <insert-food-here> law? Animals are on this earth to feed us. We are the top of the food chain. What part doesn't compute? My fear is that foie gras will only be a starting point. ARGH! As an addendum, I will add that, at its roots, this *is* a Communist-Capitalist debate (Nanny State vs. Free Market), so you may want to shut me up now. ← I'm going to start off by saying that I eat foie gras with the best of them, and used to get whole lobes from the outfit in Cali that may be forced out of business there. But I want to ask. Is your position -- and those of other pro-fg folks -- that government never has a right or an obligation to regulate treatment of animals destined for your dinner plate? That the way an animal is bred, penned, raised, fed and killed is of no concern? That factory farms where pigs live in their own filth and chickens have beaks removed and veal calves are immobilized in a tiny pen are beyond the reach of law or conscience? As long as the animal is destined to be killed, is its treatment up until the moment of slaughter irrelevant?

The guests are gone, it’s past midnight and I’m standing in the Augean Kitchen, waiting for Hercules to bail my ass out and once again he fails to show. Most Saturday nights there’s a guest or two or six and they check out between eleven and one-thirty and we put out the candles and bring in the last few dishes and the glasses with a half-inch of red wine and a dead bug in the bottom – we eat on the front porch this time of year – and turn the corner into the galley kitchen to find a pile of dishes that could only be amassed, according to my wife, by somebody who learned cooking by watching chefs with teams of dishwashers at their disposal work their magic. But there’s something energizing about the aftermath of a good meal – a feeling, sadly, I don’t always get – when course after course somehow comes out just right and the conversation around the table lurches from love to politics to children and back to politics (we do live in Washington) with energy and humor and everyone staggers home talking a little too loud for that time of night. And so, 16 hours after we first stumbled up to the tomato stand at the farmers market, it’s time for my wife and I to finally sit back, relax, and enjoy. Before I rose to the exalted position of Busboy I did time as a dishwasher. It may be the last job I ever did well and, like Camus imagined Sisyphus must feel about his rock (and nothing is more Sisyphean than cleaning my kitchen), I still feel a comfort in snuggling up to the sink, ratty T replacing my dress shirt or, if I’m feeling particularly manly (or wasted) stripped to the waist, enveloped in steam and the smell of liquid detergent. There’s music, old people music, like the Stones or the Beatles or the Dead, and as Stephanie fetches in the bottles scattered promiscuously through the house, there’s more wine – a half glass here, a half-bottle there, Sauternes, Malbec, whatever, it all seems to go with the runny cheese and half-stale leftover bread. There’s the analysis and self-congratulation: “The squash blossoms killed;” “I can still taste the ice cream;” “we knocked their socks off, man.” Maybe a humid slow dance there in the kitchen, before glasses are dried. And, throughout, the relaxing rhythm of washing and drying while the wine and food and the glow of your guests’ good humor crawl into your frontal lobe like a high-quality pharmaceutical or the first great day of Autumn. It’s even better than a smoke. And, at some point, you realize that the hour spent up to your elbows in Liquid Joy, alone with your wife, with all the hard work done might have be one of the best moments of a great day. Go figure.

How long will you be there? I am green with envy. The (possibly) bad news: my recollection of Glyfada is that it's the Greek version of the less picturesque parts of the Jersey Shore, a place driven through along the Coast Road on your way to somewhere else. The good news is that, once rush hour ends, it's a fairly cheap and quick cab ride into downtown Athens, Piraeus/Microlimano or Vouliagmeni: 15-20 minutes, 10 euros or so. If memory serves, Vouliagmeni is where Athenians prefer to go to the beach, I cabbed by it at night and cars were parked in little nooks and crannies with campfires going and, one assumes, wine and fish consumed in large quantities. Piraeus/Microlimano is fish taverna heaven. Athens is, well, the birthplace of Western Thought and all. Here's a thread I started on Athens, it may be useful and there are a couple of other Athens restaurant links embedded in it, which may be useful, as well. In the Athens area: Never plan to eat before 9PM unless you want to be branded totally uncool. Never trust a cabbie, always bring a map of where you are going and, possibly, a phone #. (Cabs are dirt cheap, it the meter is actually running. Trust no driver, though) If you are there over Saturday or Sunday, enjoy "lunch," a huge feast that starts between 2 and 3 (the stores in Athens close at 2 on Saturday) and has people dancing by 6. Piraeus/Microlimano is a great place to do this. Never try to keep up with Greeks once they start drinking. Never travel main roads during rush hour (8AM-7PM weekdays, 12-2 Saturday and after 5PM on Sunday) if you can help it. Hopefully your hotel will be close to wherever you work. I believe the tram now travels to Glyfads, consider using that and a good book rather than taxis or a private car. Try to carve out some free time. Greater Athens can be a bit dingy, but I loved it. Have fun .

Man -- now I'm jonesing for octopus. Did you drink any raki/tsipouro?

Last Saturday Mrs. B and I had it out over pasta shape and thickness. I wanted the stuff translucent, and rolled out in perfect shapes on the ravioli mold, while she wanted to get all rusticated and hand cut slabs of pasta the thickness and size of horse blankets. I got the last laugh: we both made a batch, but her pasta didn't seal well, some of them coming apart in the boiling water. It was like winning a court case on a technicality, but I'll take it. Once we had such a knock down-drag out over Thanksgiving dinner that the dozen-and-a-half guests in the other room were pounded into stunned silence. "Maybe you shouldn't take dinner so seriously," whispered my social worker friend, Teresa, perhaps fearing that we'd be her next clients. We patched it up pretty quick, though, once I agreed to do what she wanted. And then there's the ongoing "grilling versus pan-roasting" of beef....

I once had a waiter put his arm around me -- apparantly to comfort me because my entree had been 86'd. I shudder, still, to think about it. It seems brutally insincere -- though some people are, I suppose, touchy by nature -- a cheap attempt to bond and jack up the tip. I suppose I've had more than a couple of servers over the years who I wouldn't have mided being touched by, just not in the kind of way that's appropriate during a busy dinner service.

I have a good friend who has the audacity to be a vegetarian, and so I feel your pain. Does s/he eat eggs/milk/cheese? In Patrick Connel's new cookbook he has a spectacular "Napoleon" made with mushrooms and puff pastry that Is pretty easy to make, PM me if you need more details. I'f you're handy with a pasta maker, or can get hold of good thin sheets, you can make a small lasagna or raviolis. My wife and I used to sautee the mushrooms very simply -- salt, pepper, shallots -- and then we'd boils down some cream with a little garlic and rosemary, layering that into lasagne as you might tomato sauce in a traditional prep. The brain takes a moment to get used to the rosemary/mushroom combo, but the mouth takes to it right away. You might surround the tarts with sauteed chard or spinach, or grill/sautee some egplants and zucchinis. Think olive oil, lemon and capers, thyme. Souffle? A kick-ass tartelette with greens and potatoes and bround garlic and leeks? Easy to make, and can be made in advance. Also, just pad out the dinner: salad, cheese course, hors d'oeuvres. It the courses are small, serve a lot. My experience is that vegetarians are so used to being served lame food by people who don't know or don't care, that your guest will be very happy with whatever you serve.

Seattle, eh? I just scored some excellent French washed rind stuff at a cheese shop in the Pike Place Market when I was visiting last month -- don't know if it was Beecher's, it was in the section across the street from the main building, near Fero's meats -- so you're in good shape for serious cheese-eating. I wish I could remember the name of the cheese, but I can't. The texture of a morbier but without the stripe. Whole Foods has a decidedly mixed reputation, at least here in the other Washington. One store I go to is rather lame, the other one has a serious cheesemonger (mogress?) behind the counter and it's great. Trust your nose; if you like cheese enough to post on eGullet about it, you're already able to tell the good from the bad.

Where are you? Do you have access to a serious cheese shop? That grocery store cheese is just generic medication when you need the hard stuff. One you get it you'll never go back to that gouda again (though you'll find other gouda that blows you away). Get some Morbier or Taleggio, both semi-stinky and relatively widely available, great gateway cheeses to the washed rinds like Pont L'Eveque, Livarot or Gubeen. Humbolt Fog or anything by Sally Jackson (but especially her sheep's cheese) prove that there are people in the U.S. that make cheese as good as anywhere in the world. Get some Gorgonzola dolce if you like blues and you're feeling Italian or, or make a pizza crust and melt Fontina, garlic and olive oil on top until the cheese just browns. When I first started discovering cheese, I bought a quarter pound of serious-ass gruyere that changed my life. Not the mass produced stuff, it had sat in caves for a few months and when I ate it still chilled on sliced baguette, I said to myself: "this is the cheese I've been waiting my whole life for." Sliced on bread and melted under a broiler, it's astounding. Scraped some aged provolone (not the regular stuff) over pasta tonight. The taste stays in your mouth for hours and in your mind for days. And you're damn glad it did. Just find the best cheese place you can and eat your way through it. Even more than wine (I've drunk so much bad wine), learning about cheese is a delight.

"Oi! Squire!" is likely to get the ass-kicking kind of attention in any number of bars on this side of the pond. ← A friend and I were relaxing at the the bar in the restaurant where we worked (by which I mean getting wasted) after a shift, when we notice the Japanese gentleman next to us trying to get another round by calling "master, oh master," in the direction of the bartender. Being helpful types, we explained that that wasn't the polite way to get a drink in the U.S. "What you want to say, is 'hey asshole'." So, the poor guy starts calling "hey, asshole; hey, asshole." Just as the bartender's about to come over the bar and rip the Japanese guy a new, well, you know, he sees my buddy and I collapsing in laughter next to the tourist, figures out what's going on, and pulls up just in time to avoid an assault charge. We bought a round, everybody had a laugh and in the end we had a long conversation about American obscene slang with the Japanese, who was an English teacher and at one point had us list a number of synonyms for the physical act of love in ascending order of offesiveness. The funny thing was, though, the bartender really was an asshole. I think creating new titles for perfectly respectable jobs reeks of condenscion when employers do it to you ("your pay isn't going up, but instead of 'salesman' you're now a 'customer service professional'") and pretense when employees do it themselevs. The best bartenders I've ever known were just "bartenders," but hey, people can call themselves what they want. I've always wanted to be Minister of Propaganda, myself.

I think you should order up a whole foie gras and a pound of thin-sliced proscuitto (or good southern ham); slice up the liver into pork chop sized slabs (ok, maybe a little smaller ) and brown over high heat, garnish with the ham and drizzle the fig-juice over the whole thing in lace-like patters. A little brioche toast couldn't hurt.

I had a very good meal at FDL a few years ago. The details of the meal itself are blurry -- I'd spent 15 or so hours trying to get fron DC to SF and endured a cancelled flight, a changed airport, a botched ticket exchange, a delayed second flight, lost luggage (not mine, but I could hardly leave the airport with my travelling companion waiting alone for her insulin)...and I may have done some drinking. Appropos of Andy's/Hubert's quote, though, I do remember a server taking the time to write down a food/walking tour of the city that I followed on the day between conference end and flight home that I'd given myself to see the city. It was a wonderful end to a hideous day.

I kept duck fat in the freezer for over a year with no ill-effects.

Just came across this one in Portland, Oregon. The place has closed -- moved to another location, according to the note on the door -- so I hope some civic do-gooder or deranged bar owner has arranged for the sign to be prserved for a sniggering posterity.

Any Seattleites about? Is the Mexican food here any good? Any reccomendations, especially towards the south side of town or in west Seattle (where I am crashing)? Thanks everyone so far for the advice, though we haven't been able to follow up on most of it. Damn kids make it hard to do the micro/winetasting thing. Loved Portland. Best four-night food binge in ages: first night at ClarkLewis, next three nights camping out and cooking up the grub bought at the Portland Farmer's market (and oiled up with Jim Dixon's fine products). Too broke to hit Seattle big, but hit Pike Place at damn near dawn (is there anything better than a market while it's still coming together in the morning) and rounded up a fine home-cooked feast. Any further low-end suggestions (or, mid-end if they take American Express and have something boring my kid will eat -- pasta, whatever) wil be gratefulley entertained. Did I say that we loved Portland? EDITED TO ADD: Make that five nights -- we went to the Pizza Nazi --AKA Apizza Scholls -- in between ClarkLewis and the camping adventure. Thanks, extraMSG for your very useful list.

I assume you've been to Salumi. If not, go there. Just had my first experience two hours ago, can still taste the pig cheek sub. Unbelievable.

A bit of a chain, too, but if it's a cool night, getting an onglet and some frites at Les Halles, 12th (?) and Penn its a pretty good way to spend the evening. Go late (after the crowds) and get a table outside. Where are you coming in from? If you find yourself on the east coast with a west coast body clock going, (or are just a night owl) the Old Ebbit Grill -- suggested by Mark above -- has a half-priced oyster bar special after 11PM.

I was thinking that this might be an attempt to draw in younger readers, especially with DCStyle and other youth-oriented glossies now competing for ad dollars. A good move on their part. Let's just hoe he doesn't start channeling Robert Shoffner.

I wonder if his style will change now that the age of his average reader has doubled.

PS -- Any suggestions of great wine shops in Portland? I need to bring back some obscure but delicious NW wines to repay debts.

I was just kidding, I promise. I'd love to get to Ashland at some point but, for whatever reason, SOU hasn't come up in conversations with either the kid or the counselors, so we're just not getting that far south this trip.

Any opionions on ClarkLewis in Portland? Can we sneak in with jeans, if we are otherwise un-scunged? Is there an Asian neighborhood, for food and for cooking supplies (Our "burner in a box") that we take camping seems to be a common tool in Asian restaurants, but the aerosol can-like fuel can't be taken on airplanes, so we need to stock up. Looks like we won't get down to Ashland as we are culture-phobic, as well as for other logistical reasons. Any food or other highlights in the Mt. St. Helens and north through the Cascades sector?

Senior Washington Post Critic and all-around eminence gris Jonathan Yardley looks at Turning the Tables here. Reader's digest version: 11 Paragraphs of "A former lawyer who now does food journalism on and off the Internet, Shaw may be just about the best friend the restaurant business has ever had, which so far as the reader is concerned is both good news and bad news. The good news is that Shaw knows a lot about restaurants and how they work, so he provides a lot of interesting and useful information. Moreover, he's not a food snob; a hot-dog stand in Connecticut gets as much applause from him as an expensive, trendy vendor of haute cuisine in Manhattan..." One paragraph of "This is where the bad news comes in. Shaw has some very odd and, to my mind, totally wrongheaded notions of what a restaurant critic should do..." and then explores battles that any eGullet old hand will quickly recognize. Congrats on another good review, Steve, I may have to buy the damn book after all. Hey, Bourdain did a book signing at the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market down here, and now he's as inescapable as taxes and faux martinis. Maybe you should come down.