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Steve Plotnicki

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Everything posted by Steve Plotnicki

  1. Spqr - Well personal taste might be subjective but "taste" isn't. Almost all things have standards that apply to them. Clothing, music, food, furniture. The world doesn't operate in a free-for-all of personal taste. There is an amazing amount of agreement as to what good taste is. Your aunt's preference for overcooked meat has nothing to do with taste. There isn't a single restaurant reviewer in the world that would say that overcooked meat tastes good. She's just saying she likes it that way. It tastes good to her, but it doesn't "taste" good. Gee I wish they used two different words. Jaymes raised the issue of the integrity of the product. Whether it be the product itself, or a chef's pride in his/her work. A business always reserves the right to refuse to serve it the way the customers want. Personally I happen to disagree with this because I think that a restaurant is in the service business and they should make people happy. But I think that making people happy is a completely independant concept from one that says that people should be educated how to eat their meal "the right way." Macrosan - I can't say that "bleu" is the right way, although I think it falls in the acceptable range depending on the cut. But if a chef insists on serving a steak bleu to me when I want it cooked more, I would ask for the rational and I would go with the program about 75% of the time. Look I eat steak rare but hanger steak is better medium rare. And I know that because some restaurant recommended I have it that way and they were right.
  2. But all you're saying is that there is no answer as to what the perfect BB is but that there is a range of acceptable versions. Just like the Beethoven Violin Concerto. The issue is what makes a BB, or the concerto unacceptable? Same with a steak. On an objective level, at what point does cooking it make it *too dry* so it has lost it's flavor? There was a discussion about interpertations of classical music possibly before you joined the board. I had said that if we had for example, Beethoven's recording of his violin concerto, there would be less wiggle room in how it is performed. This exact debate takes place in jazz today. There is one school that says that the compositions are what is important and that the musicians have to improvise new solos. That improvisation is the cornerstone of jazz. Then there is the classicist approach promoted by Gunther Schuller and a few others that say that improvisation was just a method of composing and the pieces should be reproduced exactly the way they were originally recorded. As a lover of jazz, I find myself agreeing with the former on an intelectual basis but as a pragmatist I realize that the young players do not play up to snuff compared to their elders and they would be better off performing it note for note with some room for improvising. And it's my personal opinion that had we had recording technology available during Beethoven's lifetime, many of today's "interpertations" wouldn't be accepted because they would be too far afield from what he intended once we could prove in the absolute exactly what it is he intended.
  3. Gee, why is the thought of all those heavy dishes prepared in the summertime at an Egyptian restaurant not doing it for me? Maybe you can suggest to Ali and Mostafa that they wait until November and then we can descend on them with mulitple bottles of heavy red wine.
  4. Fat Guy - As if it weren't obvious from my use of the word "today" in the first sentence, I wasn't commenting about discussing the history of Russian food, but how uninteresting it is to eat today. Especially here in NYC. There are lots of historical aspects we dicuss about food that have lost their contemporary application. We don't even have to go back to Russian cultural dominance. We can pick something French like Gigot en Croute that until 30 years ago was considered a state of the art lamb dish. Open a restaurant todasy and serve that dish, Beef Wellington, Steak Diane etc. and you'd likely go out of business too.
  5. It really was the Russian Luchow's with a better location. There is no need for a Russian restaurant to exist anymore because after all, what is interesting about classical Russian food? The previous owner Faith Stuart Gordon used to do a good job of keeping the tradition alive. She took advantage of it's location near Carnegie Hall to make it be a destination of choice for people going to hear music or attend the theater. Plus it used to be the hot ticket for lunch meetings in the entertainment industry and certain industry publicists would have their regular tables every day. I think after Leroy bought it it lost its panache and graduated from touristy to too touristy. I used to go there when I was younger for exactly the type of occassion I described. And it used to be open late too so you could go after the theater. I remember how beautiful the place used to look at x-mas time. As to the food, well I don't think there was ever much to it and these days, who eats Chicken Kiev anymore? But the warm blinis with sour cream. melted butter and caviar were, and always will be a delight. How can one screw that up? Yet it seems that they managed.
  6. As I Pm'd Cabrales yesterday, I had recommended Barthelmy to her. It is on rue Grenelle just off the corner of Blvd. Raspail, about a 6 block walk from Poillane. Good to hit one after the other and then make a beeline for either the parc at the Rodin Museum or the Jardins Luxembourg for le picnic. Some people prefer Anne-Marie Cantin to Barthelmy but I don't get that at all. And Alleose while a fine shop isn't in the same category either. Barthelmy is the fromagerie of your dreams. One of my favorite things to do is to buy one of the small Boule d'Amours from Barthelmy and eat it while walking down the rue de Bac and peeking in the shop windows. Occassionaly I get one of those small cups of St. Marcellin but that necessitates a plastic spoon which unfortunately they don't offer at Barthelmy. The French while great food providers, are not good at allowing people ways to improvise eating it. That's why they like American jazz. Fat Guy I never tried Harney's but I willl give it a shot.
  7. I like tapioca very much. But bubble tea doesn't taste much like tapioca. At least the large black pearls don't.
  8. "My own assertion is that we would find that the best chefs start with passion and pick up finances as a means to an end." Well if all we are talking about are people with ideas and no money, of course that's the case. But people who start out with money usually act differently and act according to their level of wealth. I can think of very few children of billionaires who decided to become haute cuisine chefs. But they might buy a vineyard or finance a restaurant. Or they might start a book publishing company etc. People with money have a completely different view of the world. I started a company in 1981 with a partner for the equivelent of 20,000 pounds in an industry I was passionate about. But if I was the son of someone very wealthy, I might have chosen a different industry completely or gone about being in my industry in a different way. So while I agree with you if we are talking about an art or a craft, I don't think this applies to lawyers and accountants. I must have two dozen friends who are lawyers who range from senior partners at top firms in the country to solo practicioners with modest practices. Aside from one friend, they all hate their job. Most of the lawyers I know think their job is scummy and they all stick with it for the money. In fact, almost all of them would love to quit their jobs today. But that doesn't stop them from giving their clients good advice or writing excellent briefs. So I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss money as something that provides motivation for people. We are getting away from food a bit but we might as well see this point through. Yes there are people who go to law school and then decide to "downgrade" their careers but in my experience most of those people do it because they aren't on partnership track. Sometimes that is purposeful and people decide they just don't want to put in the effort or want a different lifestyle. But many other people just don't cut it for one reason or another. These types of "professional" jobs are quite different than jobs that have an artistic component. Choosing between being a lawyer and a being a ballet dancer is not the same as choosing between being a lawyer and a journalist. Excuse me for saying it but anyone can be a lawyer. There are thousands upon thousands of them. But being a professional ballet dancer, well that's special. "By "the market" do you mean the equity markets? If I really knew how they measured things then my chauffeur would be writing this note." No I mean that Johnson's & Johnson's mission statement is not evidence of anything and the reason the "principal of obliquity" works is that it allows a free market to measure things. The fact of the matter is that in business there is no chicken and egg dispute. You have to have an idea and way to implement it to first in order to make money. Those things need to be in line before financing, and profit is a result of proper execution. Great ideas while needing money for implementation, exist independant of it. But in reality, great ideas contain the concepts of compromise and balance by implication. "I must say that I find it harder and harder to get similar experiences in restaurants. Not impossible, just more difficult. " I'm surprised to hear you say that because I see the trend just the opposite. Maybe not in the U.K., and to be honest, I haven't experienced a U.K. chef or top captain coming out to the table and chatting about the evenings menu. But it happens quite often in NYC at certain places and it's always available at a haute cuisine restaurants in France. Could this be about British rigidity? One of my favorite topics. Where is Wilfrid when we need him? Maybe Gavin can sit in for him today? As for my favorite subject, objectivity and food, one needs to draw lines. While there are numerous variations of bouillabaisse, you get the honor of naming your fish soup that way merely by adding a certain list of fish, veggies and spices to the pot. But what decides the standard between good and bad BB? Because I know you agree with me there are good ones and bad ones. Where is the line and how do we draw it?
  9. Is it not unlike unborn chicken egss? Eggs that have been fertilized in a chicken but not hatched? Though it sounds like the color is different.
  10. What's the point of bubble tea other than to make the drink more filling? I don't think it tastes bad but, it doesn't exactly add much taste to the drink. Texture yes, taste no. In fact in NYC I've gotten brave enough to now order bubble tea without the bubbles and you know what, it's better.
  11. Fat Guy - Well look at it this way. In France, they have a right way to eat. Same in Italy. Many countries have gastronomic customs that the general population basically follows that also maximize the dining experience. And it isn't a matter of the general population allowing the chef at Sizzler to decide the degree of doneness for them, it's little things like drinking wine with meals. 30 years ago, nobody in the U.S. but Francophiles and little old Italian men drank wine. Now wine is everywhere. So dining custom changes slowly. Look at sushi. The same people who eat raw fish often order it cooked through. Someone should tell them there's a gap in that logic.
  12. 1961 Petrus because I've had the others. But aside from that, I haven't had pours from good bottles of 1945 Mouton or 1947 Cheval Blanc. From what I hear from friends who have had them both quite often, 1947 Cheval Blanc is the greatest bottle of wine ever made, along with 1928 Latour. And if someone promised me a perfect bottle of it I'd probably make it number one. But I would be very interested in the 1945 Mouton for historical reasons. But in general I prefer Cheval to Mouton. Have you ever had any of them? I don't understand what the big deal is with '85 Sassacaia? It's good but I don't think it's in the league with the others. 1990 Latour is stunning and is loaded with opulent fruit. 1985 Romani Conti (I assume that's what you meant) is still closed and it's hard to tell what it's going to be like. But it doesn't hold a candle to 1971 or 1990 Romani Conti which are off the charts. I can't tell you much about Petrus at all since the only vintage I've had is 1975 which was very good, but not earthshattering.
  13. Trivia question Who wore the first tuxedo? Answer History of the Tuxedo Fat Guy - I think many more than we realize. But just to pick a number, on a worldwide basis? I would venture to say 50. Robert S. - I should add to your point that Italian males only wear brown shoes. Some of them do not even own a pair of black shoes. Black is worn only to the most formal occassions or by the type of Italians who don't qualify for this discussion. They wear brown with grey as well. I always find the contrast startling when going from Italy where they wear brown shoes with grey suits (a softer look) to France where they are wearing black ( a harder look.)
  14. "In reality, the difference between steak ordering and a black tuxedo with brown shoes is that when you enter a tuxedo store you are not suggested by the salesman to buy black with brown. The standard calls for black with black." Of course this is absolutely right and it corrects my desperate attempts to craft the proper analogy . That was my original theme wasn't it? We are prepared to allow a tuxedo salesman to tell us how to dress, but not a chef to tell us how to eat. And a chef is far more practiced at his craft than a tuxedo salesman is at his. The reason black shoes with a tuxedo is "right," is everyone accepts that standard. But not everyone accepts the standards about how meat should be cooked. That is really the issue and.
  15. Heron - Okay I will work on a list of wines along with accompanying data. It might take a few days so sit tight on this one.
  16. Lxt - I often like to alternate between Allegro Moderato and Allegro Presto but not when eating. Often before to work up an appetite. I'm also glad you aren't the opera czar in this country because they would have to shut all the opera houses down. Finally I don't think how a composer marked the tempo is analagous to how a steak gets cooked. I think it's more like a composition sounding better in a certain key. Steak has a natural flavor and the reason it tastes best at a certain temperature is because that degree of doneness maximizes the experience and flavor. But there are certain songs that sound better on guitar when played in an open tuning (the guitar tuned to a chord without the use of fingering.) Is there not the equivelent of that in classical music? Doesn't Moonlight Sonata sound *right* in a certain key? Robert S. - Who is talking about forcing? What we are talking about is whether is should be *considered* right or wrong. People are so stingy about using the word wrong in so many instances that it actually applies to. Like mushy pasta. Or maybe serving it in the first place . Fat Guy - You don't like an strict abstract agenda from a chef? I'm not going to Papillon with you. Spqr - Of course there isn't anything wrong with it. But it happens to taste bad that way. What we are really talking about is semantics and the use of the "W" word. There is an incongruity between chef and diner because there is a proper way to serve a steak yet many diners refuse to acknowledge the point. It's the visceral as oppossed to cerebral way of looking at food. While your aunt can certainly state she likes burnt to a crisp better, I can't imagine she can fashion an rational argument as to why.
  17. Here you go Oysters in Paris Coquillages Those lists are a little more discriminating. But all the brasseries operated by the Flo Group will have a oyster stand in front of the restaurant. Bofinger is probably the best of that bunch.
  18. JD - I find any introduction of money in this conversation to be a red herring. Because the fact of the matter is that whether someone does something for money, or whether they do it for passion is irrelevent as long as the result is outstanding. Clearly if we could interview the great chefs of the world, we would find out that their motivations are properly balanced between passion and finances And I don't see how an emphasis on either makes their food any better. Now whether a chef who dislikes his job can make a delicious meal is another issue. Because most things artistic need inspiration that comes from a source other than a bank. As I've said in the past, food needs to have soul. That people choose to make smaller incomes in order to practice their chosen vocation while commendable, doesn't prove that greedy chefs that only care about money can't make good food. As for lawyers, many of the young people that I meet today go to law school because they can't figure out what else to do. Getting a law degree or one from business school is becoming happenstance for an entire segment of society. I am intimately involved in this issue because the daughter of a cousin of mine who I'm close with, and who is sort of living with me for the summer is going to be a senior at a top U.S. university this year, after having spent her junior year at Oxford. She would very much like to go to jounalism school but the thought of making $30,000-$40,000 a year upon graduation isn't doing it for her. So she's studying for her LSAT's (law school exams) instead. And based on the type of test scores she's getting she will get into a top school and upon graduation, probably make in excess of $100k a year. So money very much dictates what we do with our lives. If I may frame this principal a different way, I think people just want to be happy with their lives. And many people realize that having an income that supports the lifestyle they want to lead means that there are compromises you have to make. And as long as you are happy with those compromises then you should be entitled to the lifestyle of your choosing. And it's my experience that most people who are successes in business, whether they are performers, chefs, corporations etc., have acheived their success because they were willing to live with those compromises. And how much compromise is relative to how much talent you have. The world's greatest flamenco guitar player can choose his own repetoire and make people pay a large sum for the right to hear his choices. A lesser flamenco guitar player plays in the flamenco show on a cruise ship and he has no choice as to what to play. And so it goes. Where Whiting is wrong, and where I think he diverges from you, and I'm not sure I know how to say this the right way, is that the way the market generally measures things is by money. I think that we are just stuck with that for now. And the "principal of obliquity" does not include the emotion of resentment as a valid one because the market doesn't see it your way. I believe it cuts off right there because right in your example about lawyers you say that the money follows the passion. I couldn't agree with you more. But with the one gigantic proviso being, you are happy allowing economics to be the ultimate measure of success. Or, are content with some other non economic measure of success that is self rewarding. But the principal doesn't reorder the world according to your sensibilities. And what proved this point for me are the numerous times that critics reviewed recordings I released and they highlighted certain aspects as "artistic" when they were calculated by the artists and recording company to make things a bit more commercial. Had we all been less openminded about it, that "great art" might never have been made. But trying to reel this point in back to the original one, a meal is the same type of balancing act. What I've been pointing to is that the culutre and history of dining has given the diner too much control over the meal. To the point of it being detrimental to the final result. All parties, the diners, the chef, the staff need to be on the same side. And while not saying that dining is like going to the opera, I can assure you you would eat much better if more of this aspect was included in your meals. As for Craft, I don't know of any restaurants in France that allow you to bring your own wine. But I do know of some in London. When I'm over there in Septemeber we can organize a big shebang at one of the restaurants that allow it.
  19. Robert S. - How do you feel about pasta cooked until it's mushy? Risotto too. Forget about the red herring question of whether diners should be allowed to order and eat it that way. I'm talking about right vs wrong as a matter of aesthetics. The tuxedo with brown shoes.
  20. Fat Guy - You help to distinguish different types of dining experiences. I don't think anyone including me is proposing that choice from here on in be left exclusively to chefs. But again it's an issue of where lines are drawn and what exactly achieves the best balance. Even in Omakase there are levels of choice. You can go to Sugiyama and order the simplest menu and even specify that you want certain dishes. All fish or all vegetables would be an obvious one. But the highest expression of Omakase, and I think the word expression is an important point here which we will get to later, is *Chef's Choice, Best Quality." That also happens to cost the most money. We need Robert B. to chime in here because he raised this point in his El Bulli post about chefs being performers serving tasting menus. A level down from that is a more interactive approach like my Craft example. Then there are people who insist on doing the ordering. Being in charge of the meal rather than relying on the chef and staff. Certain people believe that what the staff recommends is the food that they can't get rid of. That strikes me as a similar myth to the one about well done meat killing all the germs. Ultimately what makes food different than opera is the same point I believe Sandra made in the food stigma thread. Food touches your body, opera stands quite a distance away. So our relationship with it is more personal. But in the same way, as mature adults we should be able to get over those types of visceral reactions we have to it.
  21. "Trying to treat dining as opera is going to get us nowhere. Dining is not opera, nor are the two endeavors remotely analogous." What do you mean, I always dine at the opera. Don't you? Seriously, where dining and opera meet is on the issue of whether a chef is a performer or a servant. Sorry if the choice of the word servent offends anyone but I couldn't think of another word. And I'm not proposing that chefs be allowed to run amuck, but, culturally we treat chefs as if they are working for us, instead of creating for us. And I think it's fair to say that this aspect of our culture works to our detriment.
  22. Good points being made by all. First, I think that the most recent responses do a good job of supporting P-ism which is, not everyone is capable of knowing or caring about good food. Just like not everyone is capable of being a curator of an exhibit at a museum and not everyone is capable of appreciating that exhibit. This gets to my point about how experts, or connoisseurs, or an elite, however you want to term them make decisions that need a special group of people to make. It is irrelevent whether the general population takes part or advantage of those decisions. They can choose to if they like and avoid them if they would rather not. But would any of you argue that art, music, literature and fine dining are constantly being propelled forward without any significant help from the masses? As to JD's last point, you see I mostly allow the chefs to choose my meal at this point. It isn't true 100% of the time, but at the better restaurants it's probably true 50% of the time or even more often. Doing it has completely changed my perception about the ritual called dinner. I might also add, that the ability to bring my own wine to a restaurant has unshackled my dinners in many ways. Quite often a group of us go to a restaurant with a number of bottles that have been chosen in advance and the chef cooks to the wines. That aspect of it has totally changed experience of dining for me. Case in point, last month 6 of us organized a dinner at Craft. All six people are pretty serious wine collectors and collectively we showed up with 15 bottles of wine. Tom and Marco were out of town opening Craft Steak but had left word with the sous chef that we were coming. When we sat down, we talked through the meal with the sommelier, just to organize in what order the courses should come. All we said was raw fish, charcuterie, warm fish and then meat and which wines we were going to drink with each course. Well they served us a minimalist masterpiece with the highlight being a thick chunk (of maybe 3-4 inches, from the tail I think) of Alaskan King Salmon. This intelligent choice was explained to us after the meal by the sommelier who said that when they saw how much wine was there, they decided to keep the amount of food to a minimum. But their ability to make our experience be a great one didn't end there, because someone graciously brought a bottle of 1978 Ponsot Clos de la Roche to the dinner and the kitchen nailed it that salmon was the right thing. In another place they could have served skate. Robert S. - You have to go see Ali at Kebeb Cafe. He makes a great baba ganouj topped with sprikled zatar that I bet you would enjoy. It's different than other babas. It isn't as wet. He must squeeze the water out of the egglant slices before cooking. Although I will admit that it isn't as good as the hummus is. But your comment about accepting the chefs directions while reserving for your dislikes is right on the point. After all, eating is a matter of balance. And preference and the *right way to eat things* need to be balanced. Hollywood raises the issue of eating habits being left over from the days when people felt that meat wasn't clean. How much of our perception of foods and how we order them is based on myths that aren't or were never really true?
  23. I'm not much of a fan of white wines from the Rhone. But two of them, Chaves white Hermitage and Beaucastel's Roussane V.V. (different than the Coudelet Blanc and more expensive) are killer wines. I attended a tasting of the Beaucastel a number of years ago where they poured every vintage from 1987-1994 and they were phenomenol. The wines have a funny attribute to them in that they are great very young and then shut down and become virtually undrinkable for 15-20 years. But a Chave of age can have the same attributes that a Montrachet has. Jaboulet's last good year for his Crozes-Hermitages was 1990. The Domaine Thalabert bottling is terrific. It can still be found at auction for about $50 a bottle. It's well worth finding and it has years of life left to it. But Jaboulet seems to have dropped in quality since then. Even their famous bottling which is Hermitage La Chapelle, hasn't been up to snuff. The 1961, 1978 and 1990 bottlings of La Chapelle are among the great bottles of the 20th century. But in spite of the fact that other growers made great Hermitage in 1995 and 1999, Jaboulet's offerings are a few notches below. Heron - Part of the problem with comparing new world and old world wines is that they are made for two differently. Most French wine is made to be cellared until the wines reach maturity and most of the new world wines are to be drunk on release or at a younger age if cellared. So to say let's go out and buy a bottle of 2000 Crozes-Hermitage and compare it to a 2000 Andrew Murray (winemaker from the Central Coast,) the Crozes can easily taste like nothing. The best way to compare them is to drink them when each wine is at it's peak of maturity. I think a greater lesson about wine can be learned if you take a dozen people and pour them 8-10 Cote de Rhones one at a time, so that by the middle of the evening each person has eight glasses in front of them and can go back and forth between the wines. If one has an affinity for wine tasting, a scenario that allows you to distinguish between multiple wines of the same type allows you to absorb a tremendous amount of tasting knowledge (and a tremendous amount of alcohol as well .)
  24. JD - Good points all. Let me ask you, why did you conclude the opera had merit, even though it sounded like cats making love on a garden wall? Because one of my big issues here (which we revisit in your third point) is that, and here's that awful word again, we are capable of looking at things objectively even when we don't like them. Secondly, your second point is like my second question in my response to Robert S. about Callas and Sutherland. We have passed a threshold and there is a range of acceptable answers. But if I might not offer a different way of looking at this point. Like I said to Wilfrid, when we go to the opera, we have no choice in how they sing an aria. Why do we not give chefs the same latitude for a steak? Are they not capable of deciding what the right degree of doneness is? Don't they know better than we do? To me the mysteries of your third point have to do with the diner being in control for point number two. As you said, from the time we are babies we are pushing foods we don't like away from our mouths. So I am prepared to admit, and agree with you, that on a visceral level, food is *too personal* to be treated like things like opera and paintings. But in the same token, when we get older and acquire some maturity and objectivity (I know,) some people start eating with their heads as well as their emotions. I think much of this comes down to your point about infants in control. It's just been updated to the diner and the chef. If we go back to my point about how chefs would feel about the appropriate degree of doneness, some diners have ceded control of this point to chefs, and others have refused. Even more so, the likelihood of someone allowing Roger Verge to decide what temperature their meat should arrive at is greater than allowing the chef at a place like La Coupole to decide. If I've noticed any major change in high end dining over the last 20 years, it's when ordering things like tuna steak or duck when they tell you the chef recommends it be done rare or medium rare. I've also noticed that over the last 5 years or so, they have become a little bolder and say that they serve it a certain way. To me the interesting bit is in this chef/diner point and who is in control over dining (gee that sounds like a good new thread eh?) Because obviously if the dining experience was more like opera, or more like the museum where *they decide* which paintings are displayed, the dining experience would be more rewarding. Yet people demand, and this is true of even experienced diners, that the dining experienced be limited to their personal like and dislikes that they have formulated through what are often faulty means. It is Jeffrey Steingarten who has to take credit here. In the first chapter of The Man Who Ate Everything, he remarks that he has learned that if you eat anything 10 times, you learn to like it. I think Jeffrey is right and we can call him the inspiration for P-ism. Because once there isn't an issue over whether we like things or not, the issue can become how we assess things and why we would assess them differently? And of course P-ism would say, other than there being a difference of opinion within an acceptable range, we wouldn't. We would all be in general agreement, providing you limit the sample group to people who have the ability to distinguish the difference (again, an entirely new and fascinating thread.)
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