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Busboy

eGullet Society staff emeritus
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Everything posted by Busboy

  1. Diva what you say is heresy! A sous chef or a master chef can't be 'created', 'molded' in 8 weeks or whatever time period these shows have. The professionals involved know that. If an argument can be made for a culinary student, a housewife with 6 kids, a corporate headhunter who have little or no proffessional cooking experience taking this leap in such a short amount of time let's hear it. Yes, it's only TV, but for a celebrity chef to say "I can make anyone a masterchef" yeah, well, sort of... Master chefs are created in two ways: God given gift plus a shitload of hard work or an investor with deep pockets who can hire a sous chef who has this God given gift and will do the shitload of work. (btw, investors often make the biggest fools of chefs. Take my picture for a playing card.) As for the type of show you propose. Realistically I see a functioning kitchen line in the time frame allotted for these types of shows and the attention span of the audience. I can do it with homecooks or would be professionals. ← So, you're chef, and someone walks into the kitchen and says: "I have no real cooking experience, but I spent eight weeks being screamed at by Gordon Ramsey on TV. I know I may look like a fool for having done that, but I wanted to cook, and I was excited about the chance to learn from a master. I know better than ever after that, that I am far from a chef, but I'd like to try my hand as a line cook or commis in your kitchen." Do you a) laugh them out of the kitchen; b) assume that they've hopelessy romanticized life in a professional kitchen and tell them to try somewhere else; or c) figure anybody who could stick it out in such a bizarre situation may well have the cojones to work professionally and hey, they most have learned something from the Great Man, and give them a shot? And another thing: Something that hasn't been much discussed but which may well be more of a factor than the skills of the individual cooks, is the difficulty of coordinating the little kitchen ballet when you have five people cooking, none of whom have ever worked with another of their team. So much of a good kitchen (as it appeared to me from the other side of the line) is timing, instinct, periferal vision and trust -- all of which take time to develope -- that even pros would have trouble serving a full house efficiently on a first night together.
  2. The Dead. Maybe a disc with one of their 20-minute versions of "Not Fade Away" or "Scarlet/Fire" or something equally loud and rhythmic and chaotic and complex. Especially when all four burners, the oven and the ice cream maker are all going, and something needs to be chopped. Admittedly, it annoys the guests. (and especially my wife, who like Nellie Mackay these days).
  3. Andres has a couple of places that are easy walks from the museums -- Jaleo and Cafe Atlantico are both about 10 mins from the National Gallery or the Archives on foot.
  4. I eat at the Palm a couple or three times a year. I like the atmosphere and my wife is treated like royalty, some of that rubs off on me, so we always have a good time. I find that they put out a good, but not particilarly great steak. 85 on the Steak Spectator scale. The last RC steak I had -- when we were looking to go up a level -- was simply surprisingly bad...tough, tasteless, expensive. Made The Palm beef look like Kobe. They're a huge chain now, with 80 locations; maybe they just can't do quality control like they did. Or maybe they just live off the easy pickings of the tourist trade -- the one in DC is just down the street from the Hilton -- and they don't have to hustle any more. At any rate, with so many other place to go, it seems ridiculous to spend time there. I agree with you on S&W. And I did have an excellent steak at the Old Homestead, recently. Not the Kobe but their "signature" Gotham Steak. That had the opposite effect of the RC steak..you're about three bites into it while carrying on your conversation and you stop babbling and say: "holy shit, this is some good steak." (Wasn't overwhelmed by the hot dog, btw). Finally, it occurs to me that I had an excellent piece of beef at Equinox not long ago, as I was "researching" an article. Well-bred, properly-aged grass-fed stuff, and served with a little more panache than a steakhouse cut. If one person wants steak but another wants something more exotic, Equinox would be a pretty good compromise.
  5. In fact, I arrive in cities such as Paris (are there really any cities that can be compared to Paris?) with a huge mental list of things I should do, but no organized plan of attack. I've taken many notes, but they're always back in my computer, when I'm in the quartier where they would come in handy. The net effect is that by the time I've left Paris, I have at hand the practical experience to plan the visit I should have made. None of which explains why I've had such a good time, unless it's that I leave knowing I need to come back. All of which however, suggests I'm the ideal person to tell you to do as I say, not as I do. ← Maybe I'm just lucky -- on one political campaign I was placed in charge of "food advance" because of my good fortune in finding good restaurants in strange cities -- but I think one of the great things about Paris is that it's hard not to stumble across life's little necessities. And, frankly, I'm about as happy to picnic on the quais as I am to check off Michelin stars, so if I can't get reservations at Tour d'Argent, ca m'est egal. There's always next time.
  6. Caught half the first episode and all the second last night. Didn't think GR was so mean -- about the same level as a 70s era high school coach. I've worked for much bigger assholes: manipulative paranoids and insecure screamers. In a kitchen full of rookie cooks trying to feed cranky diners as the tickets pile up, a little abuse from the chef is probably the thing I'd be least worry about. I'm a little mystified that anyone would expect anything else than what they saw. I suppose if you're a contestant you have to take it seriously, but nobody else should. The chef was hired to play a prick, the contestants were chosen to be incompetent, the diners were chosen to be shallow -- hilarity ensues!
  7. Avoid Ruth's Chris at all costs. I'm not a big Morton's fan, either. The Palm (19th and M) serves good, if not great steaks and is a complete Washington institution with a reasonable chance at spotting a celebrity (if you follow American Politics). Deamnd a seat in the back room. Charlie Palmer's is the hot steakhouse of the moment; and I have always been partial to Sam & Harry's (across the street from The Palm and next to Smith and Wollenski's, if you're in the mood to do a steak taste test), though its reputation has diminished.
  8. It's likely that I'm a terminal Type B, but my only mission when I'm in Paris is to be in Paris and to kind of allow the city to seep into my pores until I come over feeling all Frenchified. The whole concept of trotting from boulangerie to fromagerie to cafe, checklist in hand, fills me with horror. If you need me, I'll be in a cafe on Boulevard St. Michel, wondering how Parisian women learn to tie their scarves like that, and practicing my French by ordering more wine. Maybe I'll go to a museum.
  9. If you can pull it off, getting down to the Main Avenue fish market and buying a couple of dozen steamed crabs and then picknicking along the river (with some cold frosties) is pretty pleasant way to spend an evening.
  10. Drinks on the roof of the Hotel Washington and then around the corner for oysters at Old Ebbit would be a great combo.
  11. Welcome, dinwiddie. Looking forward to many more illuminating posts, like this one in the DC &DelMarVa board -- and elsewhere on the site.
  12. Great first post and welcome, faboo! And a belated welcome to pofferjes. Given your interests in CSAs you may both be interested on reading, and posting on this thread on seasonal cooking. Robin Shuster, btw, runs the Mt. Pleasant market and is a great source of knowledge not only on "her" farmers but what's generally going amongst our area's farmers and markets in general.
  13. My experience -- as an ex-smoker -- is that smoking's effect on the palate is greatly exagerated. Admittedly, I was only a moderate smoker and only for a few years on-and-off, so I don't know what two packs of 'boros a day for twenty years will do.
  14. Tree and Leaf Farms -- profiled in this thread (scroll down) -- has a CSA with shareholders in Mt. Pleasant (which means you can get your goodies on Saturday). I like their produce quite a bit. There's a link to their website at the top of the piece and you can contact them for more info.
  15. I confess that its interior design was, ahem, substandard. I've never argued that the sign was a historic landmark -- though I'd love to see Hank's get one up --it was, however, a lighthouse-like beacon for me on many a foggy walk home.
  16. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey...Trio's Sub Shop served tasty food to the kinds of people who can't afford lobster roll -- cabbies, immigrants, laborers and myself -- for many years. It's cheesesteak was legendary in some circles, and the pizza was not half bad. The sub shop's loss is yet another sign that a once-varied and diverse neighborhood is becoming another yuppie ghetto. Inevitable, perhaps, but unfortunate. I'm sure Hank's will be wonderful, I am eager to try it. I know, alas, that Time Marches On. But you can love Hank's without hatin' on Trio's.
  17. Busboy

    Sausage Making

    No meat is fatty enough (IMHO) to make a truly succulent sausage without a little help from our good friend fatback. For a pork shoulder, I'd reccommend about 3-1 meat to fatback. If that seems like a lot, remember that a good deal of it is lost during cooking. I just made some lamb sausages from a leg that was even leaner than a pork shoulder, so I probably went even a little higher. The assembled guests fell upon them like beasts, and almost came to fisticuffs over seconds.
  18. Tree and Leaf Farms click me Purcellville Farmers Market 21st Street, across from the train station and the Magnolia Restaurant. Thursdays 4 pm-7 pm Mount Pleasant Farmers Market 17th and Lamont streets NW Washington, DC, Saturdays 9 am-1 pm Clarendon Farmers Market (Starting June 4) Clarendon Metro Park The way the story usually goes is like this: talented girl from Farm Country packs up and moves to the Big City where, by dint of skill and hard work, she makes the big time, winning fame and fortune – or at least earning enough to pay Manhattan rents – perhaps on stage at Lincoln Center. Georgia O'Neal: so good, she can do it with her eyes closed. For Georgia O’Neal, co-proprietor and chief marketing officer – that is, she’s the half that shows up on market day – the train ran the other direction. After practically growing up in Lincoln Center – across the street in O'Neal's, her father’s restaurant – and building a rep as rooftop gardener, she bought a one-way ticket for the wide open spaces of Loudon County, Virginia. There, she and husband Zachariah Lester now farm six acres, serving 35 members of the Tree and Leaf CSA and customers at two (soon to be three) markets in the DC area. They like to grow “obscure crops” because “at a lot of markets, one or two farms can dominate the big items, like tomatoes.” Tree and Leaf looks for less common produce to sell in addition to the old standbys. The season is early, yet, but look for Scarlet Queen turnips and baby carrots in weeks ahead, and expect something odd and minty – in addition to the calendula petals and chive blossoms – in the salad greens. Calendula petals at the ready. I first started hanging at Tree and Leaf because, even when they had the produce that everybody else had, theirs seemed to come out of the ground a little prettier, with a little more taste – carrots of many colors (and the babies we ate last week); vast bundles of herbs; the skinniest little haricôt verts that blanched to a brilliant emerald green, beans Thomas Keller would have killed to stack delicately atop some crispy sea bass and vanilla cream concoction; and the 84-ingredient (give or take) bag of braising greens we served up with Steak Bernaise (see tarragon photo below) last Saturday night -- not a random heaping but surprisingly nuanced version of that springtime standby. It’s almost as though Georgia’s art school days find expression in the vegetables she grows…. …And also the market stall she keeps which, with its colored chalk and woven fabric and brilliant produce, feels like someplace you’d like to crawl into with a bottle of wine to relax and watch the people go by. Of course, this could also be related to the time she spent working with Martha. At any rate, I’m hoping Tree and Leaf will put out a t-shirt as cool as the wood-block style graphics that their adorn aprons and chalkboards. Husband Zach was as determined to leave the country behind as Georgia was to say “ciao, Manhattan” which is how he ended up at the Brooklyn Party where they met. Apparently he was persuaded that window boxes and rooftops simply didn’t supply enough acreage for what they wanted to do, though – or maybe he lost the coin toss -- and the couple left New York for work managing the produce, herbs and greens portion of an estate in Virginia’s horse country. Assistant Katherine Stewart loads the salad. In 2002, they began selling their own stuff through the Tree and Leaf CSA, distributing a selection of the week’s produce to 30 shareholders. That year they also started selling at the then-new Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market. Fortunately for all of us they’ve been enjoying steady growth ever since slowly expanding their market activities and drawing more customers at the markets they already serve. "Give me all your lupines:" Tree and Leaf also offers flowers and petals. Tree and Leaf grows organically, but haven’t been certified, something that seems less important this far from the world of agribusiness and large-scale farms. Not that the certified label can’t be helpful but – at the market – it’s people, not labels, that count: “it’s about knowing your farmer, knowing who you’re buying from.” Georgia can’t get the city out of her system, though, she likes coming into town. “It’s very friendly…little kids run up and say ‘bye-bye farmers’ as we’re packing up.” And, ironically, “city people know more about the food and what to do with it,” than many of those who live much closer to the farms. And she likes talking to customers wherever they are, teaching and learning. The information exchange “works both ways.” Maybe it’s this weekly exchange that has helped Tree and Leaf produce such excellent produce, maybe it’s tricks learned growing snapdragons and ficus trees on co-op roofs, maybe it’s art school or Martha…and maybe it’s karma: how could someone who obviously enjoys her work so much fail to grow delicious food? “What’s your specialty?” I asked. “We like to have fun.” And for all the passionate ideology and elegiac prose surrounding food today, her words warm my heart. Above all, dinner should above all be fun. And, when you’re cooking food from Tree and Leaf, it pretty much always is.
  19. I'll wager you're incorrect on this, though I suspect people will stop being so high and mighty about it. Fusion cuisine has been going on since the Italians stole psaghetti from the Chinese and brought tomatoes in from the New World. With ingredients and techniques flying around the world with the speed of jet planes and the Internet, and good chefs genetically programmed to experiment and play around, I think fusion's a given, though in a less "look at me" way.
  20. Wise words indeed. This, and your whole post too. ← Indeed. Interestingly, my experience has been that -- just as kids are often better behaved under the supervision of other adults than their parents' -- they behave better at restaurants than they do at home, after a certain point (not 2-year-olds, but 4-year-olds). Or, maybe it's just the death threats I used to issue before we sat down in anything more formal than a McDonalds.
  21. I always drink that cheap, sugar-fortified piquette from Beaujolais.
  22. More interesting data, from Texas A&M. Briefly: production cost of hydroponic tomatoes is more than twice that of Florida tomatoes and almost three times that of Mexican tomatoes. No transport costs for the hydroponics, though.
  23. Please don't shoot the messenger ... just found it of some minor culinary interest ... I do buy vine tomatoes thinking, probably incorrectly, that they are more tasty .... ← Nothing against the messenger. The article is astounding in its pointlessness and, more irritating, its bloviating self-congratulation. ("I'm an economist! I go beyond the obvious to ask important questions! I don't have to answer them, I'm an economist.") And the tomatoes? I've always assumed that they are hydroponic -- hence their chemically-enhanced taste -- and that the vine is part of their marketing strategy, as is their unfortunate life-like coloration and the unnatural perfection of their skins. They're like a computer simulation of a tomato, and better than no tomatoes (or those picked-green-and trucked-north abominations from Mexico) to the same degree that an inflatable love doll is better than no love. In either case, desparation provides a certain justification for their purchase, but I'd hesitate to admit in a public forum that I'd bought one. I expect they're allowed to "vine-ripen," which means, in addition to the added expense of chemically enhanced growth, that they are much more expensive to handle and ship than those Mexican pet rocks, and that their shelf-life is much shorter, hence the higher price. More from the USDA: PS, some of us geezers still remember these things being sold as "Holland Tomatoes."
  24. A moronic article about inedible tomatoes.
  25. Wahington Post finally catches up to eGullet on "The Coolness that is Wheaton", Vietnamese sub division, in today's food section.
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