mags

Foodie52, I agree that bleudauvergne's pictures are gorgeous, and there are any numbers of reasons why I envy her living in France. But I think your France/U.S. comparison is about 20 years out of date. The ingredients for the lovely omelet you describe -- fresh zukes, mushrooms, onion, smoked salmon, parmesan, and eggs -- are available at supermarkets across the U.S., often alongside much more esoteric items. True, I live in New York, but there are three shops within easy walking distance where I could pick up a container of goose fat. Yes, there are far too many poverty-stricken parts of the country where residents don't have access to supermarkets, but those folks typically aren't buying Atkins bars -- those things cost a fortune and are hardly an economical solution to hunger pangs. And it's also true that my local butcher is not as likely as bleudauvergne's to provide a trimmed tete de veau at a moment's notice. On the other hand, my local market -- and CERTAINLY your local market -- probably has a much wider selection of chiles than is available at the typical French store. With all due respect, your post strikes me as rooted in the somewhat knee-jerk assumption that the French food-world is always and in all ways superior to the U.S., and I don't think that's necessarily true. The French food-CULTURE may be superior, in that it's really only within the past 30 years or so that Americans, en masse, have started caring passionately about what they eat, whereas the French have had centuries of practice. But in true capitalist tradition, U.S. food producers and retailers have stepped up to the plate in response to that new-found passion, and I suspect that a head-to-head comparison of a typical American supermarket and a typical French marche would be much less of a slam-dunk than you suggest.

I'm afraid I agree with you a bit less than you think, docsconz. Yes, I agree that copies are inherently "inauthentic." But that's basically because I think -- or at least I think I think, ask me tomorrow -- that authenticity, like uniqueness, is a quality that can't be split. That is, something can't be "a little authentic" or even "more authentic" than something else. Well, let me backtrack a bit. What I think is that something -- a meal, a building, a poem -- is authentic to itself. A meal of Italian recipes cooked in a New York City kitchen isn't 67% an "authentic" Italian meal or 48% or 99%, but it is a 100% authentic rendition of itself, a perfectly authentic rendition of a New York City meal in the Italian style. I haven't read Walter Benjamin in 20 years, but I think he suggested that the entire notion of authenticity is a creature of the slick fellas in marketing, designed entirely to make people dissatisfied with what they can afford to consume -- whether that's art or a meal -- and forever chasing sufficient pennies to purchase the "authentic" experience. In other words, authenticity is bogus. So I'm with Fat Guy. Who the fuck cares?

I knew I liked you.

Hee hee hee. I'm sorry Fifi -- I'm sure it was painful (and a pain to clean up). But also very funny: The Alien Hiding in the Pork Fat.

I'm wondering if, by suggesting that an imitation or recreation can ever be "authentic," we're not actually bastardizing the notion of authenticity. A road-show production of some Broadway dazzler may employ many of the same elements present in the original production -- certainly the same notes are being hit, the same lines being spoken, the same dance steps being executed -- but there's a reason why "the bus-and-truck version" is not a term of approbation. If the "New York, New York" casino in Vegas had been done to scale, would we regard it as an "authentic" version of Times Square? "Authenticity," it seems to me, isn't just about hitting the same notes (or following the same recipes), however slavishly, anymore than the concept of Times Square, to which such ticky-tacky homage is being paid, resides solely in a recreation of the physical appearance (at a particular point in time) of one New York City intersection. What's missing is context, without which any "artifact" -- whether it's a meal, a building, a book -- is a mere curiosity, like one of those quaint, lifeless museum dioramas of "Life Among the Iriquois." Amanda Hesser was right in a way, you know: Her grandmother COULDN"T experience an "authentic" Italian lunch without having the hunger for it that is produced by eating a tiny breakfast, and that hunger is part of the context. So, too, is the unspoken, even unthought, acceptance of the hunger that arises from the knowledge that This is the Way One Eats (or doesn't eat), and the way one's compatriots are eating (or not eating) all over town, the way one's ancestors have eaten (or not eaten) in the past. In fact, I would say that the past, history, is an essential component to authenticity. In the case of Times Square, even if the casino were willing to recreate not only the buildings, but also the centuries of accretions of pigeon-shit on those buildings, the mingled smells of exhaust-fumes, sweaty people and Tad's Steaks, the sounds of honking horns and grinding bus-gears...even if the casino were willing to recreate the entire sensory experience of "Times Square," it still wouldn't be Times Square. First, because it would capture that particular intersection at only one specific point in time, and "Times Square," the concept, is all about layers of the past -- about the hunger that millions of people have brought, over the years and decades, to that one conjunction of streets. The unseen history of "Times Square" -- the Weejee photos, the Ben Hecht-style reporters in their snap-brim hats, the grubby hawkers touting the enchantments of various ShowWorld lovelies, the gamblers the drinkers the hookers the dancers the tourists the writers the short-order maistros, and the cigarette-ad billboards that puff real smoke! -- is what gives life to the concept and makes it "authentic." In addition, it wouldn't be "Times Square," because it would lack the unseen present -- all the striving and rehearsing and yelling and napping and slurping coffee and fucking and laughing and working and WORKING that is going on behind the windows of all those skyscrapers every minute, regardless of when someone clicks the camera. Lacking both a past and a present, "New York, New York" is just a stage-set, an amusement for the eyes. Given a similar lack of context, an "Italian" meal in New York -- or Chicago or Mobile or Iowa City -- will only ever be an amusement for the taste buds. Which doesn't mean it can't be fabulously, gorgeously amusing. Even profound, life-changing. But what it won't be is an "authentic" Italian meal. Two other things occur to me (but HURRAH! I'm not going to yatter on about either of them!!). One is the extent to which nostalgia (or the satisfaction of nostalgic hunger) demands "only the good bits" -- Times Square without the pigeon-shit. And the other is the argument raised by Walter Benjamin, that clever old Commie, that in the age of mass-production, the entire concept of authenticity is illusory.

yum yum! WHat's salade de museau?

I thought this was a terrific piece. I particularly liked the notion of New York being the city that embraces, actually flaunts, its polyglot-ness, its essential mutt nature.

I am covered in shame, but I can no longer live with my guilty secret. I like sweet pickles in tuna salad. Specifically, I use Mt. Olive Sugar-Free, with some chopped scallion. Mmmm....lunch is calling my name.

Amen, Ted, on all fronts.

Rillettes maybe on slices of daikon or radish? Or apple, actually, though that might be a bit astringent next to the martinis. And brandade on endive leaves?

I grew up with the same saying, Owen. And I'm also fonder of my cheddar with just a nice fresh apple -- a combo that I find blissful in the extreme. However, the crispness of said apple really contributes a lot to the mix, and I wonder if the pie-and-cheese combo isn't based on very short -- i.e., crisp -- pastry. And being the product of a thrifty New England housewife, that pastry would also be unsweetened, so you'd have the combination of crisp, savory pastry, sweet apples, and rich, tangy cheddar. If you deconstruct it, it's sort of like a crunchy cracker or biscuit and cheese, with a cooked-apple relish -- not entirely unlike the mix in a traditional ploughman's lunch or in a Brit-style cheese-and-pickle sandwich.

I dunno, I'm guessing the apples would kind of melt into mush, basically just helping to thicken the sauce. And I bet it would taste REALLY swell if you introduced some pork products into the mix. It reminds me of a Madeleine Kamen recipe that I have never been brave enough to try, because there is no way to make it fit on ANYBODY's diet. It's pretty much a heart-attack on a plate, though it sounds delicious, to my oddball ears. You basically line a pudding basin with vast quantities of bacon. plop in some mashed potatoes, throw in a layer of dried pears and then some more bacon, and finish it off with more potatoes and pears, wrapping the bacon around to enclose the top. She recommends it as part of an apres-ski meal. I think you'd pretty much have to hike UP the Matterhorn and then schuss down it to burn that baby off.

<blink> Really? It's one of the world's great natural flavor-combos, right up there with basil and tomatoes. When Eugene Field (an otherwise unsung 19th century fella) wrote But when I undress me Each night, upon my knees Will ask the Lord to bless me With apple pie and cheese he wasn't talking about no Gogonzola.

Ted, I LOVE the coffee and cardomom idea. How much cardomom do you use for your 4-quart batch?

I have all three of McCollough's books (major cookbook junkie). I agree with Bux, the "Good Fats" book is swell. I'm less enthralled with the low-carb books, even though that's how i'm tending to cook these days. There are a few good tips, like using mashed cauliflower as a (surprisingly delicious) substitute for mashed potatoes (especially when you throw in some butter and/or cream cheese -- like that hurts anything), but by and large, if you are already a cook and have a solid selection of cookbooks, there's little in the low-carb books that you don't already have. The good-fats book, though, is interesting, though more for the info than for the recipes.

There are a number of places that sell flavoring extracts intended for home soda-makers. You might want to start with one of those, and then tweak it to your liking. While trying to avoid work, over the winter, I compiled a list, so PM if you want sources.

If you like Janet's idea of steamed artichokes, you could go with just the hearts, and stuff them with fatty, yummy stuff -- goat cheese, would be great, maybe softened with some olive oil, with some fresh thyme mixed in? Or a creamy fish thing -- I'm thinking something like a mayo or creme-fraiche salad made with smoked whitefish or smoked trout? Or hell, stuff the hearts with pate and bake'em. Barbara Kafka has a recipe for something like that that looks delicious.

Owen, this may sound sort of like reinventing the wheel, but have you thought about making your own? That way, you could control the sweetness, the form of sweetener, and the level of carbonation. I'm not much of a soda-drinker, but my SO craves orange soda (don't ask, it's a reversion-to-childhood thing), and I've been thinking about trying to make some for him that won't send him into paroxycisms of guilt over the amount of sugar he's consuming. Whey Low it is, for me, but you might be happy with plain table sugar...or even something like raw sugar.

Is there a Gourmet Garage near you? The one near me has someone come in to sharpen the knives for their butchers once a week, and if I drop mine off the night before, he'll sharpen them for $2.50 apiece. They don't advertise this service, but it might be worth asking the manager of whatever branch is near you.

I really agree. I'm certainly not rooting for Rocco -- I was repelled by his compulsive schmoozing and his apparent sense of himself as the most irresistible cake in the pastry case by the end of the first hour of the first season. But last night, I found myself feeling sorry for him. He's completely over his head. It seems clear -- to me, at least -- that he has a history of relying on being adorable to get himself out of hot water, and watching him ramp up the adorable-quotient, frantically flipping pizzas and flirting with the (somewhat under-wowed) babes at the bar, struck me as sad. By the same token, I was saddened by the pathetic specter of a grown man who brings his mother to a scary business meeting. He strikes me as a guy who has always gotten ahead by trading on his little-boy charm, and all of a sudden he's in a decidedly adult situation for which he has no skills, and he's floundering. From what I've seen, I don't like him, but it's sad watching anyone forced to confront his failings -- forced, perhaps, to recognize that adorable doesn't work forever.

Me, I was blown away that Rocco brings his mother to a meeting with his business partner. That's not a real swift move. But yeppers, this whole thing is a train-wreck.

I have a late dinner with a bunch of friends almost every Friday night at a restaurant near my house -- Gus's Place, in the West Village, for the New Yorkers in the crowd. And a few months ago, I got majorly sick -- spiked a high fever, chattering teeth, the whole nine yards. I needed to get to the doc, and pronto, but I didn't have the cash for a cab. That bartender at Gus's stuffed a $20 into my pocket without batting an eye, offered to send one of the bussers uptown with me, if I thought I could't make it to the doctor's on my own. And for the next three days, they sent containers of homemade chicken soup over to my place without ever asking for a dime. The food at Gus's is swell, but it's the people who make it so terrific.

Jason, I just wanted to throw in a word of encouragement. In my early 30s I COMPLETELY switched careers. After having trained as an actor for about 20 years (and working professionally for about 15), I became a financial journalist. I had never written professionally, had never taken a class in finance or economics or anything related, knew nothing about the topic, and didn't care about it, either. But I needed to pay the rent, acting gigs were thin on the ground, and when (after lying through my teeth) I got a job at the copy desk of a major business magazine, I discovered -- to my total astonishment -- that journalism had a lot in common with show biz. So I made the switch. If ultimately, you're happy in pastry, that's great. But if you want to make a change, it's absolutely possible. Many of the skills you've developed will transfer to another career, even if that's tough to see from where you're sitting.

Not me. I wish I had such a book of BROOKS' grandma's recipes. A book of MY grandma's recipes would have sections like "Ten Things to do With that Leftover Half-Cup of Cottage Cheese" and "Why You Should Save All Plastic Containers" and "Tips for Making Brisket Really Dry and Unappealing."

Exactly what Bloviatrix said.