Busboy

What?? (&$()#*&(*#^*^*&!!!!!!! I like to keep it on the menu occassionally for a couple of reasons. It's really easy to cook vegetables properly with this technique, but the pot has to be watched. It's a way of teaching the newbie that even the easiest of things takes care. Also if those places that are fucking up tourne vegetables, safe to guess the rest was pretty bad or just plain awful. At the French haute cuisine level, unlikely that boiled vegetables will be served. This is where we are getting into different trends, which I don't always embrace. Boiled vegetables also go with heartier dishes which are sort enjoying a bit of a renaissance in America (comfort food trend), whereas in France it's still about refinement. Guess those darn chefs can't be everything to everyone all over the world. We can try though for our local customer base. ← I do mine in a simple glaze, barely covering them with water and adding butter and a bit of sugar. I did carrots, turnips, the aforementioned rutabegas -- to which I added a pinch of saffron, so they came out brilliantly yellow -- and pearl onions, and cooked them in separate pots with slightly different spicing (pepper in the turnips, vinegar in the onions, etc.) until the liquid evaporated and only the glaze remained. It was, as you can tell, a slow night. I am no chef, but they were a far better dish than that described by P'titepois, no wonder they depress her. I like roasting root vegetables, too, and mashing them up. But, if you're reduced to eating turnips and rutabegas for dinner, it's good to have a couple of different preparations up your sleeve. Chefzadi -- you lost 20 lbs because you couldn't get baby vegetables that you liked?

Maybe I'm lucky living in DC, and certainly I haven't had nearly the opportunity to scour the French countryside for ingredients I'd like, but I feel like ingredients is one place we're doing relatively well. Of course, we don't have a truffle market here, and the varieties of various foodstuffs changes (no rouget or French Belons alas ), but sourcing seems to be less of a challenge every year. Finding 30 minutes to scramble eggs -- Bux, you forgot about shaving the black truffles in -- that's a challenge.

Not superstition or Feng Shui. When you quarter a round potato to start the tourne there are three edges that have to smoothed, rounded out. Four more turns and you a have a symmetrical vegetable. I'll do a little step by step photo tutuorial within a week. When I teach it at school it's always a favorite with students. The first knife skill that's like sculpting. They get a kick out of it. The tourne is a way to give common vegetables a little more visual appeal. Most customers like them. They get a kick out of it, especially in the States. Although I don't recall a dining room full of dozing customers in France either. I never gave up on the tourne (No it's the only cut or even the most common cut that I do). Sounds like I'm in good company. Well if Mr Busboy is tourneing I know I'm in stellar company. ← I'll be looking forward to the tutorial, in hopes of making my vegetables look like the ones in the cookbooks.

I'd like to gently suggest that, since most people didn't grow up eating seared tuna, or working in restaurants, (or knowing why you can't stock an entire walk-in full of Key Lime Pies "just in case") that the comments like "if you have enough brain power to remember the first and last names of the latest contestants on the reality show du jour, is it too much to expect that you know enough about food to be able to order in a restaurant?" are, perhaps, unfair, to many if not most diners. Sure, it's fun to vent about the rubes -- and people who were warned what to expect and still send food back deserve the attitude they get in return -- but explaining what risotto is withot smirking isn't really so hard, is it?

I think we all kind of knew Muddy Waters had something to do with this. I feel certain that I eat out -- particularly at the 4-star level (oops: 3-star!) -- less often than FG, but I seem to stumble across turned vegetables every now and then. Given that so many restaurants, even at the top tier, use less structured presentations these days, I think turned vegetables might look a little forced or inorganic with a lot of plates. That being said, when I see them I get something of a warm feeling: Here's a kitchen that sweats the details. And I've developed a fondness for root vegetables that have been turned and glazed, a la Bouchon; turnips and rutabegas have never looked so good on a plate. Of course, any real chef that saw what I tolerate when turning, in terms of irregularities and size, would drive me out of his kitchen with a cleaver. Ca m'est egal, my wife likes them fine.

That's not completely true, IMHO, because you're not distinguishing between French haute cuisine and everyday French cooking. A case in point: tonight, I cooked Steak with Sauce Chateau. The reduction sauce (cooked in the same pan the steaks were browned in) consisted of 5 ingredients (minced shallots, white wine, beef stock, a dab of tomato paste, and butter) plus salt & pepper, and took less than 5 minutes to put together. It can't get much simpler than that. The other night I made French crepes for 2 adults and 2 kids -- they took about the same length of time to cook and assemble as a batch of American pancakes and were so much more elegant! How about omelettes? Salade Nicoise? Boeuf Bourguignon (= beef stew), Boeuf en Daube (= pot roast), Coq au Vin (= chicken casserole). All these dishes take little more skill or cooking time than their American counterparts. I'd list more easy dishes but it's 1:00 am here and my brain is not functioning... but you get the idea. ← I think you may be contradicting yourself -- omlettes take noticebly more technique than scrambled eggs; Salad nicoise, with several different vegetables cooked or blanched separately, takes more time than crumbling bacon and hard-"bleu cheese" over a Chef's Salad; and Boeuf Bourguignon is noticebly more complicated than the "Irish Stew" my mom used to make (not even counting Thomas Keller's cheesecloth apprach). Not that any of these is particualrly challenging in the greater scheme of things, but they definitely take more effort and knowledge than their American counterparts, and most home cooks didn't grow up with a French mother or Grande Mere to teach them the techniques.

Of course, the vintage date on the bottle carries with it an implied expiration date. Given that most of my quaffing is done with under-$15/bottle stuff -- much of it substantially under -- I rarely buy a bottle of white more than two years old or a red more than four years old. And I take extra care when dashing in for a bottle of something cold from the liquor store fridge; I'm convinced that owners put their far-past-prime whites in there in hopes of unloading them on the unsuspecting.

About the time my hands started cramping and I sliced open my thumb, I began asking, why bother to turn (tourner) these stupid root vegetables? Why not slice, dice, cube, mash or do something that doesn't take even experienced cooks hours to do? I remember prep when I worked in a formal French place, all work coming to a halt while virtually the entire kitchen staff turned vegetables for dinner service. Sure, they look nice on a plate if, to the modern eye, a little contrived. That's why I do it, and because it's a good excuse to hang out in the kitchen and drink wine and listen to the Grateful Dead. But there's a lot of waste, and it's slow. Are there practical advantages that make up for this? And, why seven sides? Not having been properly trained, I tend to hack out little batons that I then whittle into shape. Eight sides works well, and you don't have to count as you go along. Why not six? Why not nine? Is this something Escoffier wrote down, perhaps when hungover, thus locking generations of dishwahers, commis, and cooking school students into seven-sided-servitude? Inquiring minds want to know.

I think the sheer volume of French cooking literature may be a clue, as well. If I have a questiuon about French cooking, I have, what, four Jacques Pepin cookbooks, including The Complete Technique, Julia's Mastering, both Keller books, the LaRousse Gastronomique, Bourdain, a couple of Provencal cookbooks -- who needs eGullet? Like many Americans, my cooking is pretty eclectic, but there are few weeks in which the majority of home-cooked meals aren't French-inflected, even the preliminary inspiration is from somewhere else. Tonight's dinner which, in retrospect, was a bit all over the map, had black bean soup with central American crema, duck breasts with cumin and mango, in a sauce with duck fond, Greek muscat, lime and butter, and polenta, but with milk and garlic. Lacking focus, as I said, but all linked by a French-ish approach. But I do have a question, and I will post it.

I like to keep a bottle of Graham's "Six Grapes" around. Quite pleasant and reasonable priced.

Maybe we should move you to the "defensive chefs" forum.

I suspect you're going to end up with a not much more than a cup of peas once you shell them, so the risotto idea sounds pretty good to me. My personal favorite pea recipe is Thomas Kellers pea soup: pureed peas, vegetable bouillon, truffle oil and a parmesan crisp. Making that taught me how many pea pods you need to feed four -- and the joys of shelling them on the fron porch in a rocking chair. Blanching them and cooking them with butter, pearl onions and a little proscuitto isn't bad, either.

Given that Aquavit is simply flavored vodka, the potential to whip up your own stuff at home and mix and match is almost unlimited. I made up a batch of garlic/dill stuff that made a spectacular bloody Mary - until I developed an odd craving to sip it by itself, fresh from the freezer. Making your own also allows you to control the quality of the vodka.

I don't know of any restaurants around here that intentionally try not to honor reservations for any reason. Restaurants generally try to seat you at the time of your stated reservation, as far as I know. But, as stated upthread, some people are reluctant to relinquish their tables after they've finished their meals, and that can lead to unexpected delays. I take reservations at one of the restaurants where I work, and let me tell you, it's quite challenging. The restaurant is small, with less than 20 tables, and when it's full, it's full. There are simply no other places to squeeze any more people in. I was taking reservations one night a couple of weeks ago, and a guy called on a Friday night and asked me if he could get a reservation for 2 at 8 p.m. the following night. So I looked at the book, and the whole evening was booked solid - somewhat overbooked, in fact. So I told him we didn't have anything available that evening, so he said OK, how about next Saturday, 2 at 8 o' clock? So I looked at the book for that night, and I noticed that 8 o' clock was heavily booked, but there were some openings earlier and later. I offered him 6:30 and 9:30 as options for that evening. And then he said to me, "Look, either you want me to come or you don't!" Well, of course I want him to come and enjoy the restaurant, but I can't make a table exist where one does not. And I certainly can't give him a table that someone else has already reserved, can I? But some people take it as an affront when you tell them that you're already fully booked, even when you're simply telling them the truth. Maybe I should look for a line of work that doesn't make me want to strangle people. ← My guess is that after that conversation, the answer is that you didn't want him to come. Some server lucked out whan he rang off. I'm always surprised that people haven't caught onto the fact that restaurants crowd up between seven and eight and that a table is much easier to get if you book or wander in at 6 (the "I have a movie later" plan) or 9 (the European plan). Getting that first table after the rush slows down is great -- the kitchen still has its rhythm and they haven't run out of anything, and you have time linger without getting the evil glare.

I call vache-merde. The DC-ist blogger protests that s/he was not interested in creating a buzz with this post. If that's true, why the sensationalist (and irrelevant) factiod in the lead paragraph about New Star Market? That, plus the headlne and "Mr. Yuk" graphic both seem to be calculated to raise the possibility that something is seriously amiss chez Corduroy. Of course, it makes for much more exciting reading than "Corduroy shut down for several hours until a replacement garbage disposal arrived from Baltimore." I bet that wasn't reported in the Washington Post. ← I don't think this ( from The Post) sounds particularly appetizing: Nor do I think the graphic was particularly alarming. I thought it rather funny, and rather than making me fear unclean surfaces, made me think that the writer was taking a swing at the DC Department of health overreacting. Finally, the article was apparently true. This is considered good reporting.

from customers. They may come from disgruntled employees, unscrupulous competitors, or others with some personal grudge against the owner or the chef. When you complain about food on the spot in the restaurant, you are obviously an actual customer. Anonymous slams on the web, on the other hand, may not be As to the issue Randi asked about on this thread: sounds like the owner and the chef take pride in their new restaurant. I think their response, while a little tone-deaf, came from the best of intentions. They wanted to demonstrate to you that they take pride in their ingredients and their product. They may have come off as too confrontational about it, but I, like you, would give them another chance. Sounds like they aim to please, even if they're a bit too aggressive about it at the moment. ← [not to single out SethgG, but to respond to several who have questioned Radi's version of events] There's a lot of nuance in something like this that is as hard to convey as the writer as it is to apprehend as the reader. Was the chef a large, ruddy man with a whine and a grimace poking at his crabcakes like they were dueling pistols saying with his eyes and his tone of voice: "you are a moron, go away" to a much smaller woman? Or was he a concerned proprietor in a polite tone of voice explaining to a picky customer that he was fairly certain that crabcake construction had been consistent for many months? Did a change in crab sourcing confound both parties? Was there an honest difference of opinion? Not knowing anything about Randi except that she's from Jersey, thus probably a tough chick not prone to panic even when confronted by men who use knives for a living; that she did not take identify the chef or restaurant in order to take a public shot; and that she asked to compare notes instead of issuing a condemnation; I'd say we should accept her version of events as reasonably accurate until there is reason to believe otherwise.

It is still a good thing to do.

Information, my friend. Sort it, organize it, interpret it and pass it along: that is the way of the blogger. And in the marketplace of information sources, tear out the best market share that you can, with attitude, accuracy and aplomb. It seems pretty obvious to me. Edit: Maybe this should be a new thread?

There's a little ad hominem for you. As I know well. The DC Board of health -- and whatever you think of them, they have no dog in this fight -- decided it was a healthcode violation. It's news. You're either reporting news or you're running a PR firm.

I think there is a half-admirable, half-unfortunate tendancy of eGullet -- and particularly the DC board -- to circle the wagons and take aim at the messenger whenever one of our favorite restaurants is attacked. Let no one speak ill of Ray's, Palena, Courdouroy or Bistro du Coin, among others, or tempers flair, motives are questioned personal attacks are levied and, occasionally, a mountain is made out of a molehill. It's tough to see a friend take a shot. But criticizing Kaniska for reporting what was probably in the Washington Post and what was indeed true is unfair and a fundamental misunderstanding of the ways of the internet. Neither his site nor this one should be a cheering section, it should be a place of news and intelligent commentary, everyone should be as free to report what was overpriced, poorly cooked, or dysfunctional -- even if one of our friends is the perpetrator/victim -- as we should be be to fill cyberspace with praise.

I took a shot at a restaurant in DC here on eG and got a somewhat heated respnse from one of the cooks. I was actually unhappy with the service, so I was a little surprised to see that haymaker come out of the kitchen. No problem, a good tussle is what eG is all about, and I changed my sig so I can no longer be accused of "cowardly anonymous posts." More recently, Sunday night in fact, I told the #2 guy at a very swank Italian restaurant that I thought his pasta courses had been significantly oversalted -- an opinion shared by all at the table. He apparently had other things on his mind, possible the attractive woman to his left, and declined to take a swing at me, so I have no real idea how my opinion was received.

I get my pork casings at Union Meats in Eastern Market.

It's been a long time since I lived there, but a stroll through the North End -- Boston's Italian neighborhood -- is still a good idea. Just a couple of minutes, on foot, from the tourist drek at Faneuil Hall, it used to have the highest number of real butchers and bakeries per capita of any city in North America (or so it seemed). Pizzeria Regina is legendary, and excellent. Also, innumerable spots to stop for an espresso and an Italian pastry befor checking out the Old North Church or Cotton Mather's grave. The Union Street Oyster House -- in between the North End and Faneuil -- is worth popping by for a pint and a half-dozen oysters just for the history of the place and its famous, 200-year-old horse-shoe shaped bar. John Adam (or one of those guys) used to hang out there. I believe the Dorchester Men's Bar (now coed) is where Ronald Reagan famously hoisted a mug with the proles, if you're in the neighborhood, it's about a block from the T stop.

Indian food. Red wine.

Best Cellars is to proper wine shops as Benigan's is to a proper Irish pub. I walk past one three times a week to buy wine from a small shop where the buying decisions are made by someone who loves wine rather than the Head Office, and who, when asked, will tell you that something sucks, rather than accessing the corporate cue card in his cerebellum to tell you that it "goes with roast and game."