mags

I guess I feel like there's nothing inherently rude in refusing food. I mean, if one is rude about the refusal -- "Ycch, I wouldn't put that disgusting-looking morsel in my mouth if you paid me!" -- that's another story. But why is one obligated to eat something, merely because it is offered? Certainly there are situations, and cultures, in which refusal of food IS considered rude, but a tray of goodies handed round in a teachers' common room doesn't strike me as one of them. Maybe the people involved were watching their weight. Maybe they don't like sweets. Maybe they had big lunches. Whatever. If the scenario is that they routinely eat goodies that are offered by other Europeans, but not by Americans, that's a different issue. But simply saying "No thanks" in this situation doesn't strike me as any ruder than saying "No thanks" to the waiter at a cocktail party who's passing around a tray of hors d'oeuvres.

For what it's worth -- and as a born-n-bred American -- I have never understood the combo of cheese and chocolate. It's not just that I don't like it, it's that it tastes sort of....WRONG to me. To my tongue, cream cheese (and fresh cheese in general) is a light, front-of-the-mouth taste, that I associate with spring and summer flavors -- summer fruits, herbs, and salads, as well as cold poached chicken and fish, which also taste "summery" to me. Chocolate, on my tongue, is a back-of-the-mouth, full-bodied taste, that I associate with fall and winter flavors -- dried fruit, spices, nuts. (Citrus, for me, bridges the seasons, although the combo of lemon and chocolate is as bizarre to me as cream cheese and chocolate.) And no, for what it's worth, I don't really like chocolate ice cream.

I'm wondering if it's wine rice.

Try being a restaurant owner; A customer saying: "Can you Turn it down sir" , "the music is a little loud" Another customer saying: "Sir the music is a little quiet can you turn it up" Have you ever thought that a owner is trying to cater to a certain market and the music is loud because it is the type of customer that the owner is trying to cater to. The music should be in tune with what the restaurant is,.. like Indian music-Indian restaurant, Chinese music-Chinese restaurant but in the end it is the restaurant owners right to play what they want, if you do not like it you can always leave. Cutting the speaker wires is a little deviant; I do not think that is the right behavior, it tends to be a little bit of a passive aggressive kind of behavior. If the waiter or owner does not want to turn it down, maybe they do not want you there, maybe they are just %*&%*%* and do not care, well maybe you could look for a place that has the music or lack of music and you can be happy. The owner should accomadate the customer to the best of his or her ability but you know what, the owner also decides what his or her customers are, and it is not the athority of public to dictate what music the restaurant should play, if you do not like the music but love the food, live with it, or just dont go. stovetop I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Leaving aside the question of cutting the wires -- which I admire, but can understand why others might not -- as a customer I'm entirely within my rights to ask that music be turned down, that air-conditioning be turned up, that a window or door be closed or opened, whatever. The restaurant, in the person of a waiter or manager or owner can tell me that's not possible, for whatever reason ("The owners insists on this/three tables have asked us to turn it up/it's already too cold for the people sitting near the vent/whatever"), at which point I get to sulk quietly. I do not get to make a scene, be rude in any way, punish the waiter by leaving a lousy tip, or otherwise make trouble because my needs weren't met. But I certainly have a right to state them. The owner may very well be trying to create a certain kind of vibe for a certain kind of customer. But if those customers aren't there, and I am, it is not my job to help perpetuate the owner's fantasy of his dream-restaurant.

Eh, what's the big deal? People have been poking fun at other region's/countries' food fetishes for centuries. New Yorkers grimace at weak Midwestern coffee and Cinci chili with cinnamon and chocolate in it, and make fun of Angelenos' taste for stuff like wheat-grass juice and tofu-dogs; I know folks in the Midwest who think we all eat sushi because we're too dumb to cook the fish; I have friends in the UK who find the classic overstuffed American deli sandwich disgusting to contemplate (but I also cherish the memory of a pal from Chicago, visiting me in London, and staring at stunned disbelief at the faint veil of ham on a wafer of buttered brown bread he received when he bought a "ham sandwich" at a Brit Rail caff).

I am passionately in love with your kitchen, and also relieved to find that the first set of photos were from the realtor. I just thought you had extremely minimalist taste in home-furnishing.

This is a major thread-hijack, for which I apologize, but I just heard a wonderful story about Iceland. One of my customers had been flying from Munich with his wife and two cats, en route to a 3-month sabatical in NYC. While they were over the Atlantic, one of the plane's two engines caught fire, and they were forced to make an emergency landing in Iceland. At the airport, they were greeted with reporters and photographers -- apparantly the engine problem had been REALLY bad, and nobody had expected the plane to make it down safely. My customer was photographed clutching one of his kitties, and then he and his wife and the cats betook themselves to a hotel for some much needed whiskey and rest. The next morning, they were awoken by the police. The photo of customer+cat had appeared on the front page of the Icelandic equivalent of the New York Times, where it had been spotted by the Minister of Health. Iceland, it seems, has very strict pet-quarantine laws, similar to the ones the UK used to have, and the Icelandic government was furious that they had brought their cats into the country. My customer and his wife were hustled down to the police station, and somebody or other from the U.S. Ambassador's office -- who knew we HAD an ambassador to Iceland? -- had to come and negotiate their release. They have printed up cards with a picture of the villainous cat in question, draped over a sign reading "I caused an international incident."

I made a great omelette recently that was filled -- over-filled -- with some broccoli that had been long-stewed with olive oil, garlic, and onion, a little crumbled feta, and some tiny croutons. That was seriously good, and I cried when it was gone. I'm also fond of an omelette recipe I snitched from Sophie Grigson, which involves fresh chevre mixed with a little marscapone, a tiny spoon of sugar, and fresh mint.

I would have to disagree with this. My mother's generation grew up serving two or more vegetables with every cooked meal, Oh, I didn't mean that vegetables weren't served, I meant that in my experience they have tended to be badly prepared, clearly an afterthought, a nutritional sop that was not really intended to actually taste good, but was there merely to apease the nutrition police. Growing up, we always had a couple of vegetables at dinner. One of them was always salad -- torn-up Boston lettuce dressed with oil and vinegar shaken up in an old jelly jar. Not bad, but in no way delicious. The other vegetable dish was frequently canned Le Seur peas, which my mother still loves (and which still make me retch). As a treat we would have Stouffer's frozen spinach souffle (my mom's other favorite). Frozen corn, frozen "french cut" green beans, and frozen broccoli made occasional appearances. They ranged from edible to disgusting. Vegetables were always on the plate (and always eaten) as a form of obligation; there was never any sense that with a little care and labor, they could be really delicious. As a result, the first time I tasted fresh peas dressed with melted butter and lightly boiled cabbage (ditto) I thoroughly embarrassed myself. Anyway, that sense of the Obligatory Vegetable is something I have long gotten used to in American cooking, both in restaurants and at other people's dining tables (and, until recently, at my own).

You know, and with all due respect to The Guardian, I have real trouble believing many of those quotes.

I was thinking last night, actually, that standard American cooking just has NO vegetable tradition at ALL. Not meaning to hijack the thread, but when people say that, since I'm eating low-carb, I must be eating no vegetables, I just giggle. The fact is, I eat tons more vegetables than I did before, because I've had to learn how to fill out the part of the plate that used to belong to starch. And I've discovered all kinds of great things to do with vegetables that I never knew about. My mother certainly never gave me pureed or roasted cauliflower. And Union Square Cafe may serve zucchini and tomato hash, but I sure haven't seen anything like it at any lower-end restaurant. So why do we tend to do so badly by vegetables?

I've liked carrot halva in the past, and I can certainly see beet or coconut or parsnip. But cabbage halva (shuddering).....ok ok I trust you.

God I hate those violet candies! A customer at the bookstore was raving about them one night, and demanded that I try one. I obediently put it in my mouth, and then just waited, trying desperately to avoid having it come in contact with any actual taste buds, until he left the shop. At which point I spat the damn thing out immediately and ate some healthful, restorative chocolate.

So it was some kind of proto-Tofutti? Blech. No wonder I didn't like it. And is there something wrong with me that, nearly a quarter of a century after the fact, I remember the name of a BAD ice cream shop?

I think it's no contest: The UK has better dairy products, better roasts (pork roast with CRACKLINGS, damnit!), better roast potatoes, and better apples. I still remember the first time I tasted a Cox's Orange Pippin, and that was more than 20 years ago. Oh, and generally better sweets, but I say this as a person who doesn't like American layer cakes, and is not much of a cookie-eater. Trifle or Eaton Mess or Sticky Toffee Pud, by contrast.....(swooning) On the other hand, yeah, the ice cream situation was very weird for a long time. When I was living in London, in the 80s, there was a place called Marine Ices, up by Chalk Farm I think, that was widely reputed to have amazing ice cream. So some friends and I schlepped up there one afternoon (from darkest Clapham), and they were oohing and ahhhing over what, to me, tasted sort of like sub-standard Breyers.

Inagiku -- the Japanese restaurant in the Waldorf -- serves a little pitcher of ginger-flavored simple syrup with its iced tea. It's faaaaaaaabulous. And, as my grandmother would say, "so easy to make."

I think that Gross Stuff That Pets Eat is probably its own thread.

Ketchup-flavored rice. Oh, I'm so sorry I found out about that.

For what it's worth, I had a miserable experience at Esca. Went there on a punishingly hot June night, and though their A/C was working, it was somewhat...hampered by the fact that they insisted on keeping open both the front door and the door to the "garden," with the result that the restaurant was sweltering. I mean, people were sweating into their food. Horrible. I ordered a crab salad with chilis and mint, and while the flavors were nice, every one of the three bites I took required me to spit out bits of shell. I sent it back, got some grilled something-or-other as a replacement, and vowed never to go back.

Oh they just are incredibly cute.

I think that with Atkins, as with most other things, it's a case of YMMV. Many people -- including me -- have seen their cholesterol numbers improve and have seen other health benefits; others may not have the same experience. With reference to the veggies, I suspect that intake of veggies on Atkins may be closely correlated to the amount one is willing to cook. It's relatively easy to pick up protein outside the house -- grab a burger without the bun, eggs and bacon at a diner, a steak at your local joint, whatever -- but getting the kinds of veggies that can really stand in for a starch really demands that you cook them yourself. A lot of restaurants in this country tend to treat vegetables as the forgettable splodge on the plate, and finding cauliflower puree, or zucchini-tomato hash or broccoli stewed in garlic and olive oil (three side dishes I rely on) can be very tough. It becomes a lot easier just to eat protein and the occasional salad. FWIW, I've just found a low-carb product that thrills me: Carb Countdown Milk. I used to be a major milk-drinker, and have really missed it since going low-carb, but a glass of regular milk has about 12 grams of carbohydrate, thanks to all the milk-sugar. The Carb Countdown stuff takes out the lactose and replaces it with sucralose, for a count of just 3 grams per cup. It doesn't taste exactly like regular milk, but it's easily close enough for government work. They make a chocolate version as well, which I haven't tried, though others apparently enjoy it.

At the risk of raining on the goof parade -- which I would ordinarily be HAPPY to join, perhaps while wearing baggy clown pants and a nose that goes "beep beep" -- something occurred to me in reading over this thread. Are we maybe talking about the difference between enjoying something ("it's good") and approving of oneself for enjoying it? I used to have a boss with a weird eating disorder -- they've now coined a name for it, which I forget, has something to do with being afraid of food and being convinced that this, that, and the other thing will kill you dead/make you fat/prevent you from joining the Society of the Pure and Good. Anyway, he had an enormous sweet tooth, but clearly disapproved violently of said sweet tooth. So he'd sit there in his office, eating chocolates, moaning and mmmm-ing with every nibble and lick...while simultaneously saying -- out loud -- "Oh, this stuff is so terrible. Loaded with fat. And you know, it's just drenched with high-fructose corn syrup and these scary preservatives...BH12, lycanthropic lyctopane..what the hell are those? Mag, you want some? You sure? They're really good." So he loved the chocolate but he didn't like himself for loving it. And in that way, I guess, the chocolate was not a "good" experience for him. Does this make sense?

The ferrets are ADORABLE!! With reference to the "last bastion of acceptable prejudice" quote, I suspect that what Ms. Voigt meant is that while urbane intellectual types would not dream, these days, of displaying racism or homophobia in public -- would not, say, make a snotty comment to friends about a black man's eating watermelon or a gay man's doing something stereotypically swish -- the same constraint doesn't seem to apply with reference to fat people. It's still acceptable, in "polite" society, to make fun of them or put them down in a way it's no longer acceptable to make fun or or put down blacks, Jews, gays, whatever.

Well, I think there are two ways you can go with the discovery (of Miracle Whip in your casserole, of a well-trained monkey in your bed, etc.) One is that you can allow it to change your perception of the experience: "Oh gosh, in my view of the world Miracle Whip/monkey-sex is loathesome and disgusting, and my view of the world is absolute, infallible, and unchanging, therefore I did NOT in fact enjoy this experience. Nope nope nope." The other way is to allow the experience to function as a wake-up call, a suggestion that perhaps your view of the world is NOT infallible and perhaps should NOT be unchanging. That conversation might go like this: "Well well well, I guess there are more things in heaven and on earth, Hubert, than are dreamt of in your philosopy." In other words, you can allow the experience to expand your perception of yourself, and your capacity to enjoy things you had previously categorized as unenjoyable. Personally, I get a major bang out of being happily surprised and having my (many) snobberies successfully challenged.