Steve Plotnicki

John Whiting finally gets to the heart of the dispute. Not to the heart of the matter mind you, because it is obvious from this last post that he has a prejudice towards the subject matter so he is really unable to address the issue on the merits. In the process he demonstrates intolerance towards concepts other than ones he prefers (or maybe can afford,) or ones that resonate with his sensibilities about how food should correlate with life. In fact it goes further than that. Intolerance about how people have chosen to live their lives. It's funny how in a post where he needs to climb the back of Escoffier to bolster his concept, which is that the simple topics that the best prose writers chose to write about equal what is best in food, he then goes onto discount all the cooking that emanated from the disciples of Escoffier by calling it, "a baroque extravaganza, designed primarily to impress those who can afford it and those who observe it." Excuse me, what is it that you think Escoffier did? We would save a lot of time in these discussions if people who didn't accept a key premise in the discussion would just announce it early on. Then the rest of the people who do can just ignore whomever it is because there is no purpose in having a discussion that is really about whether their god is better than our god or even whether there is a god at all. It happens constantly, particularly on the Internet when things of great expense are discussed. People are discussing things in relation to each other when someone comes along and says wait a second, that entire category isn't legititimate because you wealthy dummies don't know shit from shinola. That isn't a very persuasive argument and from here on in, let it be known as *the resentful argument.* That will be the eGullet code when someone tries to prove relative food quality through class warfare. What's even funnier about John's argument is that if you look at it on the merits, the chefs and cooking styles he has dismissed in one fell swoop of the pen all adhere to the principals of the writers he likes. And they use the same ingredients his list of writers does. So that really narrows his objection to two things. He doesn't like the additional technique they employ, or think it necessary, and he doesn't like the reason they employ it, i.e., the people they are employing it for. I think there is a major difference between arguing this point from Wilfrid's perspective, or Yvonne's and the perspective of, Why are you arguing it all sucks anyway? Wilfrid might be pedantic and persnickety and maybe a bit knuckleheadish in my book but (all said with affection,) but I don't hold him in contempt for his opinion even though I think he's got it dead wrong. I just don't understand the motivation or the need for wholesale discounting of entire disciplines. Whether it be conceptual art or haute cuisine. The refusal to acknowledge that they exist because they have merit, is to say that the people who support those disciplines are stupid. And that isn't to say that maybe that opinion won't win the day in the end. And what people believed to be substantive was really nothing more that something stylistic and fanciful. But to announce the results of history in advance in the context of more than a prediction is arrogant. And to do it in this context, after haute cuisine has been practiced for over 100 years and has evolved into a new stage courtesy of chefs in Spain is utterly ridiculous. And when John writes that much of haute cuisine is, "the equivalent of expensive jewelry – it is there to be admired and envied by others." It makes me wonder if that is what supporters of the lute said about Segovia. It has also occured to me that the people with the dogs in this fight that are against my position are predominantly British, or live in Britain. I haven't seen anyone French disagree with me. Make what you want of that statistic but, I will gladly offer free lessons to anyone of British descent on how to assess the quality of food. Just queue up over here on the left.

You guys are all whackos. Does it really make a difference whether quality always costs more or if it usually costs more? Sheesh. There can only be two reasons for this much protestation about what is in reality a very simple concept. People are unable to understand the concept or people are refusing to acknowledge it is true. And what's to understand? To me the only way someone doesn't get it is if they can't taste the difference when tasting things. Anyone who can taste through the various cuts that come from a cow, or taste through a vineyard that has been divided into parcels, and who can't tell the difference between better quality and poorer quality is clearly not going to understand what the hell I'm talking about. Taste might be subjective, but only to those people who do not have the taste buds to discern if something meets the objective criteria that assesses quality. John W. - You keep trying to avoid the issue. The writers you mentioned are great writers of prose. The two people I mentioned, Keller and Wells either write or collect recipes. How can you compare prose writers to recipe writers and why would you want to if you could? All the writers you mentioned are terrific, but if I wanted to learn how to make a Lime and Green Tea Foam, or to cook Taillevent's Waterress Soup ( a delicious concoction that everyone should try at home,) I wouldn't read Fisher. And I wouldn't read Liebling either and I think he's better than any of the writers you listed. I would read Adria and Wells. So if you want to compare things, compare apples with apples.

"I'm reminded of the book review written by Abraham Lincoln: "If this is the sort of book you like, this is just the book you're looking for." John W. - Well you couldn't possibly be more wrong. Come to Books for Cooks in London or Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York and you will see that the types of books you are writing about are nowhere near the best sellers. Do you know what the best selling book is in places where people who are serious about cooking shop? Harold McGee's On Science and Cooking. It has been the number one best selling book in the history of KAL being in business. The writers you have mentioned, while all great writers and inspirational, are not the books that hard core foodies are running out to buy every week. Yes everyone has an Olnay because he codified an entire phase of French cooking, and everyone has all the Fishers because they inspire the gastronome in us all. But if you want to know what books sell like hotcakes, it's books like The French Laundry cookbook. I understand it is going to sell something like 15,000 copies. And I understand that the better Patricia Well's books sell 30,000 copies. Those are the standards for serious professional cooks, and serious amatuer cooks. The ones who write books that that people who are serious about haute cuisine, and bourgeois cuisine are buying. John Thorne is a great writer but that he writes well and in tremendous depth is not responsive to the issues rasised in this thread. He is writing books about why the best radish grows in Oshkosh. A worthy topic but not one that has anything to do with what technique one uses to blend pureed cauliflower and gelatin sheets correctly to make Thomas Keller's Panna Cotta of Cauliflower with Ossetra Caviar which is what I have been talking about.

Wilfrd - You are fixated on the final price and I am fixated on the butcher and the public noticing the difference in quality(ies) between cuts of meat. It is irrelevent for my point whether the difference in price between the lowest cut of meat and the highest is a matter of dollars or matter of cents. The issue isn't to assign meat a value, it's to assign it a purpose based on how its qualities best lend themselves to an occassion. I hope that makes sense because it's a hard concept to get out. Rib lamb chops are a nicer cut of meat than leg of lamb. So as a result you see Cote d'Agneau on the menus of three star restaurants more often than you see a rack of lamb. But switch venues to a bistro and you are likely to see the leg more than a rack. Pricing should follow their application. It's only at that point that supply and demand issues exagerate the differences. John Whiting's post is funny, and actually makes all the points needed to be made. Except it has this one gigantic flaw in it. He says, "1. The most interesting food to discuss is the most complex, made from the best ingredients by the greatest chefs, and is therefore the most expensive." To make it apply to what we are discussing one would have to insert the phrase "for people who are interested in that style of cooking" Then John says, "2. The best food writers in English are generally considered to be Elizabeth David, MFK Fisher and Richard Olney." Well those people are the best food writers, but they aren't the best writers on the topic described in number 1 as amended by my insert. You can't compare a defined market with a different market that is defined a different way. That is one of the problems we keep having. In order to make a proper assessment, you somehow have to find a common denominator to compare them. Or as I say casually, all things being equal

Wilfrd - You are fixated on the final price and I am fixated on the butcher and the public noticing the difference in quality(ies) between cuts of meat. It is irrelevent for my point whether the difference in price between the lowest cut of meat and the highest is a matter of cents. The issue isn't to assign meat a value, it's to assign it a purpose based on how its qualities best lend themselves to an occassion. I hope that makes sense because it's a hard concept to get out. For example, rib lamb chops are a nicer cut of meat than leg of lamb. So you see Cote d'Agneau on the menus of three star restaurants more often than you see a rack of lamb. But switch venues to a bistro and you are likely to see the leg more than a rack. Now why do you think that is? Of course this isn't a set rule but, in my experience it's usually the case. Ultimately this results in the leg of lamb being priced below what the rack is priced at because, IT CAN'T BE USED FOR THE PURPOSE PEOPLE WILL PAY THE MOSY MONEY FOR.

"What I really like is having my options open. If Jean Georges Vongerichten wants to serve me a meal in a dining room with lots of linoleum and where I need to walk up to the kitchen pass through and get my own food," Jordyn - Well sometimes I imagine that the Mets don't play at Shea but at the Hunter High schoolyard and and I can just walk around the corner and hang with my homies. Sometimes they even let me in the game.

"Ah, but there is much to discuss beyond shucking about Bowen's Island oysters." Holly - I agree with you. But all you are saying is that certain ingredients are so complex by themselves that they warrant much discussion. For example, one need not sample George Blanc's Poulet Bresse avec Creme to have a discussion about the virtues of a Bresse chicken. In fact there is an argument to be made that the simple roast chicken is best way to prepare it. But these examples are the unusual exceptions. Most times, the amount of technical expertise that goes into the preparation of food, providing it has been done with competence, makes fine eats more interesting. Yvonne - You are confusing liking something better with the concept of quality and what people are willing to pay for. I've never said that lesser quality things can't be more enjoyable than better quality things. All I've said is that things are usually priced according to their quality, not based on their likeability. I like BBQ but that is meat and cooking of poor quality and it is priced accordingly. Where is the inconsistancy in that statement? A good hamburger is better than a bad strip steak. In fact it's better than a mediocre one. And while I prefer to eat strip over filet, as I stated a few posts ago, that woudn't be my choice if I was dining at Alain Ducasse. At Ducasse I would much prefer the filet steak because its texture more suits that type of cuisine and the general tone of the environment. In that environment I wouild find a strip steak much less enjoyable than a filet. We don't always choose the most important thing to eat, or the best thing. We choose what is appropriate considering the circumstances. Sometimes it is appropriate to eat Bowen Island Oysters on a pier with a tank top and shorts and follow it with a Surf & Turf of a great lobster and a small strip steak. And other times it's appropriate to wear a coat and tie and eat those same oysters with some Sauce Mignonette and then have Tournedos Rossini. The latter meal is bound to cost more because they probably would have chosen the oysters a bit more carefully, taken some time to get the sauce right, butchered the filet and foie gras in the Rossini to perfection and spent countless hours getting the sauce for the Rossini right. That's what people are willing to pay more for. All that effort into getting it perfect. And that's why filet steak costs more. It is conducive to being in that environment and strip steak isn't.

"Why aren't there places with fancy food but not fancy digs?" Jordyn - Well why aren't there hambuger joints where women wear gowns? This issue was raised by someone on the French/Chinese thread. It's because the visual aesthetics of haute cuisine, along with the textures of the foods that are smooth and luxurious do not lend themselves to t-shirts and jeans. If you were to match Robuchon's potatoes with a fabric, what fabric would that be, denim? The art of dining is geared around a specific event that incorporates not only intense cooking technique but all the rest of the trappings of the world that corrolate to the expenditure of that technique. Don't you think it's a good thing that we live in a world that is a bunch of interrelated parts?

"Complexity of preparation. Got me there. But I'm not sure the complexity of a three star entree is any more worthy of respect that the pure simplicity of a plate of barbecued ribs, a side of smoked, baked beans and a couple of ears of fresh Jersey corn." Holly - I don't think anyone here would disagree with any of your assessments. Who doesn't like to sit on a pier and eat a bunch of clams or oysters that have just come ashore? It's great. But when you get to complexity of preparation, well you are right. That's an aspect that doesn't exist in cheap eats that does in fine dining. But it's not a matter of whether it's more worthy of discussion, it's a matter of there simply being all that additional technique to talk about that doesn't exist when a guy is just shucking clams or oysters on the pier. But take those oysters and add a little champagne to them and then throw them in the oven for a few minutes, that just makes there be more to talk about. One can discuss whether the additional technique improved the oysters, and if so to what extent. But neither of those discussions precludes a conversation about how good the oysters were in the first place. But in terms of what people like to cook, it's obvious that people would prefer to talk about food that is at a level of technique they could master over a discussion about shucking.

Bux - I thought that was one of the best posts I've ever seen you write. Especially your comments about conceptual art and Picasso. But most importantly, it's the poster child in favor of the argument that food can be viewed objectively, and not through the lens of subjectivity that many here are quick to impose as a standard. Adria's cuisine makes it plain for all to see that a dish can be interesting while not necessarily tasting the greatest. Of course there's a balancing act there in that if it tastes so bad it can completely eliminate the value of the cerebral component. But in general, Adria has made the point that it is just as important to think about food and why it tastes the way it does as it is to enjoy its flavor. Adria is not the first chef to have thought this way. I can point to Senderens and Robert would probably point to Chapel. But Adria is the first chef who applied technique this way. What can we call it, post modern? Whether this discipline continues will depend on the things that propelled French cuisine to its greatness. Disciples who want to cook that way and customers who view dining as an expanding aesthetic and eat for those reasons. And I am certain that if this style turned out to be substantive (not that I'm doubting it I just don't want to be accused of making predictions,) and not just a passing fad, then one day way down the road the Joel Robuchon etc. of that cooking style will appear and then every dish will be cerebral, creative and delicious all at the same time. But right now, Adria and all the other students of the style are fidgeting trying to create the right balance between thought provoking and flavorful, ultimately in their quest to blend the two.

How about with Chinese shrimp chips?

Bux - Gopnik lived in the 7th when he wrote the book. At first he lived right near the D'Orsay, possibly on rue Vernieull I believe. But then his landlord reclaimed the apartment and he moved into the building on Blvd. St. Germaine that houses the restaurant "Au Fins Gourmets" which is on the block east of Blvd. Raspail. As for the St. Sulpice area, I had considered it but that is one of the most expensive areas in Paris. It becomes a bit more middle class as you walk towards Montparnasse and you get to the Notre-Dames des Champs metro stop. On those blocks in the 7th with ministerial buildings, which are mostly on rue Varenne, are you aware that contained within many of those dour looking walls are entire residential villages with apartment buildings and free standing homes? Some of the most expensive residences in Paris are within those walls. And you would never know they exist by just walking on the rue Grenelle and the rue Varenne. Anil - You don't want to live in the Latin Quarter but you could possibly want to live in the 5th but away from the touristy areas. The area just east of the Sorbonne is lovely. It has that nice market block on St. Germaine I forget the name of that market. And down on the other end of the hill along rue Monge, behind the Jardins Luxembourg, not far from where the large Mosque is, is a nice area as well. And near the cookbook store Librarie des Gourmets. But some of the streets in the 5th are deadly. Like being near rue Mouffetard isn't a good idea as there are hangouts for college students and a long, noisy market a few times a week that winds down the street. The thing about Paris is that it's a small city. If you lived in the area I initialy recommended, or in the area I'm describing in the 5th now, you would be a no more than a 15-20 minute walk to St. Germaine which is the cultural heart of the city. I'm wondering when you say Latin quarter, do you really mean St. Germaine?

Strip steak of course. What are you crazy? There's another reason that strip steaks are dominant which is that it is best eaten all by itself. It needs no sauce, no peppercorns, no nothing but salt and pepper. I would say that I buy strip steaks about 70% of the time with the other 20% split between filetm rib steak and skirt steak. I used to buy porterhouse but I stopped for some reason. If you are feeling particularly flush one day, go into Lobel's and buy yourself an entire rib from a prime rib and tell him not to trim it. Salt and Pepper it and put it in your oven at 500 degrees until whenever. It's remarkable. edited in after I forgot to add one thing that is pretty important. It is rare, if not impossible to see a strip steak at a 3 star establishment. The texture of a strip does not lend itself well to that style of cuisine. It doesn't take well to saucing (but dunking a slice in Bearnaise ain't bad) because the meat is too coarse. Filet fits the bill for what a 3 star chef needs to do much better than any other cut does. Hence its place in the pecking order.

You see I go out to take a walk and the conversation takes a turn for the better. Finally you are discussing the real issue which is what characteristics people value (i.e., are willing to pay more for) and why. For example, as John Whiting points out, people will pay more for things that have a luxurious texture to them. Foie Gras is a perfect example. Filet mignon is another. And if you were all at Loulou with Robert Brown and I sharing our Cote de Boeuf, it had a beefier texture than a filet would have had but it was smooth as silk, even though it had some chew to it. There are other items that fall into this category as well like diver scallops. Sea urchin is another. Tremedously smooth and luxurious mouthfeels. And its also a characteristic of a great bottle of wine. Go get a bottle of 1964 La Tache or 1961 Latour and it's like having silk in your mouth. Or open a bottle of Chateau d"yqueem from a good vintage. It's like having Quaker State Motor Oil on your tongue. Or get a bottle of champagne the wealthy drink, Cristal. 1990 Cristal, probably the single most heralded bottle of Champagne in the last 20 years has the mouthfeel of creme brulee. I'm sure I can name countless other examples but, that should be enough to demonstrate that the characteristics of smooth and silky are qualities people are willing to pay for. But before any naysayer jumps in and tweaks their nose about these things being luxurious, don't forget that luxury and mouthfeel are just secondary issues because in the first instance, these items are profound expressions of their terroir, and possibly the most profound expression of terroir in the regions they originate in. Then there is another category of food item people seem to place lots of value in that isn't as refined. Tougher cuts of steak like a strip, lobsters, mushrooms, truffles, poultry, lamb. Things that are harder to chew and intensely flavorful in a way that defines its food group. Take a strip steak. To me it is the most "beefy tasting" cut from a cow.That the texture is firmer and chewier enhances the beefy characateristic because as you chew the beefy flavor intensifies. Like a stick of gum when you first put it in your mouth and it releases the flavor. The beefy taste is in those fibers that you have to break down in your mouth. And a great chicken like Bresse chicken or one from the Landes has almost the same characteristics as the strip steak, and I can see why it is valued so highly. The flesh is so firm. So chewy in a good way. Like if you could make chicken that was cooked through and al dente as well. But just like the strip, the chewing is worth it because the amount of flavor it releases is intense. Many items are like this. I think that a good lobster offers a lot of the same qualities as well. But regardless of how good the items in this category are, I think as a general rule, things that are more refined cost more because people are willing to pay more for that feature. When you start getting to the lesser cuts like brisket and flank steak, though those cuts offer lots of flavor, they don't offer the characteristics that either of the two categories I sited have. I've eaten a few thousand briskets in my lifetime and although flavorful, it has a coarse mouthfeel and doesn't approach a strip steak in terms of beefiness. I am certain that the lack of those charceristics translate into their being sold for a lower price. And I think that ground meat is in this category, possibly below it. I think ground meats biggest appeal is that it is comforting. Easy to chew. But it will never be elegant and refined, even in a DB Burger. And it will never have the beefy flavor that a good strip has, although as Jaybee pointed out, a burger at Luger's comes close. But remember, that's because it is made out of the good stuff they aged. It's the trimmings of the $35 a person steak. Anyway, if one were to try and determine why meat was priced the way it is, this is a place to start. Understanding what characteristics people value should lead to how much people are willing to pay for it. Which should correlate to market price. And although there are blips in the system, I highly doubt that people would pay more for their chopped meat than they do for a steak. But there are people who tell the Lobel's to grind up the good stuff. But as Yvonne said earlier, good chopped meat needs to be fattier, i.e., of lesser quality to be good. It's a perfect case of less being more. It's just not more than a good strip. As an aside to this, I have to say that I have had much better results making filet mignon than the reputation it has. Maybe because I buy them at Lobel's But I buy them at Citarella too and it's the same. I always buy really thick steaks and cut them into small disks around an inch thick and cook them over a really hot fire (they aren't fatty so the flames don't flare up.) I serve them on a bed of arugala with shaved parmesan cheese with some truffle oil splashed on top and then a sprinkling of sea salt. Fabulous. It's a perfect way to take advantage of the silky texture of the meat. JD - I think someone who just got off the plane from Minneapolis and never had fish soup before is not entitled to have an opinion about it that you and I should give any weight to. Unless of course that person has a superior palate which will become evident through a debriefing. But in reality, 99% of the time that person's opinion has no value to people who have an expertise in food. I don't think we should be shy to admit that. Our failing to do so just perpetuates there being shitty food in the world.

"Yes, the steak/hamburger comparison turns out to be a red herring, because hamburger isn't cheaper than steak unless it's made of a cheaper cut of beef." Wilfrid - Cart before horse. If you reread my example, in the mix of the chopped meat is steak that they were trying to sell for three times the price. That it got dumped in the vat with a bunch of trimmings and cheaper cuts draws the inference that ground meat that is made out of steak costs less than steak. What used to be sold for $15 a pound now gets sold for $5. "And sure, ground meat loses some of the properties of steak, and gains different ones. Fine. Which do you prefer?" Well here's the answer. The properties it loses are the ones that people will pay more for ($15.) The properties it gains people are only willing to pay $5.99 for. That is the totality of my point. Adieu. Yvonne - If you would like to discuss to different fish with me, go ahead., It will make my heart flutter. Just don't tell me that those two fish are relevent to the point I was making which was about two of the same fish. But if you would like to start a thread on the merits of catfish which includes a deeply analytical discussion about why it's underpriced, I promise to participate to the best of my abilities.

" I know it's hardly the weather for it, but if you had a kasha kishke you were planning to simmer, what would be good accompaniments - sides, sauces, condiments?" Wilfrid - Excuse me but what is a kashe kishke? Have you eaten a large lunch and are your kishkes stuffed to the gills? Or are you describing something that is the same as stuffed derma only filled with kasha?

"I could have sworn you were also talking steak/hamburger. Or Tuscan beans/cassoulet, now I think of it. " Wilfrid - I was. That's because hamburger is ground up steak. But it's cheaper because they use the parts THEY CAN"T SELL for $15 a pound. Do I have to tell you why they can't sell them for that price? And is there a difference in the beans between Tuscan beans and cassoulet? It's not the same as comparing two different things like pork and lamb where some unusual aspect of raising one or the other might significantly alter price. "Neither of these means a $4.99 per pound tomato is necessarily better than a $.99 per pound tomato, which was your original claim." Jordyn - When I say a .99 per pound tomato, I am really saying inferior tomatoes. I am not saying it is impossible to find great tomatoes for that price. But I am saying that in a store with $4.99 a pound tomatoes, it would be extremely doubtful if the ones for .99 were any good. But I am certain that in August if we went to Apulia, we would be able to buy bushels of the most glorious tomatoes in the world for chump change. Unfortunately when we got them to Balducci's so they could resell them, they would probably charge $5.99 a pound. Wilfrid again - Well now you have gotten to the core issue. Why is a steak better than a hamburger on the objective scale a butcher uses to price things? As I wrote earlier, ground meat loses some of the qualities a steak has. Let me think about how to describe those qualities or maybe Fat Guy can help me out in describing what the special qualities of a good steak are. "So, to extrapolate, you were only ever suggesting that French food should be compared with French food. In which case I agree. It is better. Or not. " G. - You are the clever one. The common denominator in comparing French vs English and other cuisines is technique. It isn't a matter of intrinsic quality, it's a matter of proficiency. It's man made. It's how proficient the French are compared to the Brits. That's something that can be measured.

"Right up to a point, but what should we infer from it? If hamburger was the same price as good steak, do you think people would stop buying it altogether?" Wilfrid - What you should infer from it is that the price is a pretty good indicator of quality. And that the ratio of hamburger meat to steak sold is subject to a price differential which is based on how people view their quality. And if the differential was altered significantly, then consumption of one or the other would rise or fall in some relation to the way the price moved.

"I'll use catfish as an example. The expert has long known that this is a fish with a lot going for it. Until more recently, could it demand a decent price? No. Fishermen couldn't get over shoppers' willingness to pay more for a fish that was of the same or inferior quality relative to the catfish. An example of the public not paying for the quality that the expert saw all along. " Yvonne - I keep talking apples to apples and you are talking apples to oranges. Without an intense analysis as to why, I cannot tell you why catfish is so low on the totem pole compared to say swordfish. But what you conveniently leave out, and this THE ONLY POINT I KEEP MAKING, amongst catfish only, people are willing to pay more for better quality catfish than they are for poorer quality catfish. I'm wondering why this point is so difficult to fathom? Do they not charge less for bruised fruit and veggies? Isn't that because a bruise lowers the quality somewhat? Do they not charge more money for wine made in years where the grapes have matured properly as opposed to years when it rains right before harvest which causes many of the grapes to rot? Why does sweetcorn sell for more money than fieldcorn? Isn't it is because it tastes sweeter, i.e. better? And when I go to Lobel's and they have a dog of a NY strip steak in the case that has a thick vein of gristle running down the middle and instead of it being marbleized evenly throughout it is grouped into little constelations, and none of the customers who shop there are willing to buy it, so they use it in the chopped meat before it spoils where it sells for 1/3 the price, hasn't it sold for less because it was of worse quality and weren't the steaks that sold for full price of better quality? How many examples do I have to give where people pay more for things that are of better quality? That you can point to inneficiencies in the markets for these things, doesn't negate that generally the market is efficient. And when you point to catfish, that doesn't prove that flounder is overpriced because it costs more than catfish, it proves that catfish hasn't been marketed correctly? Why that is I don't know? Maybe they should change the name of catfish to something like "Tilapino" or "St. Magdalene" fish. I bet you it would sell like hotcakes, oops I mean fishcakes then.

My two most recent meals at Lespinasse and Jean-Georges has me leaning towards J-G. But in general, I think that J-G is the best restaurant in the city. March isn't in the same category as the other two, although you can have a pleasant meal there and the sapce can be nice.

" do think it is very useful to have a conversation of the form "In evaluating a fish soup I look for the following characteristics: ..... and the soup at restaurant X had the following: .... " " JD - But now you have shifted gears. In your original post about Tetou, you say the fish soup was "disappointing." Now in my book, your opinion about it is only subjective if you don't know how to assess a good fish soup. But in reading your posts I sense that you do know how to assess one. So which is it? Did you just not prefer the soup at Tetou or was it inferior to the soup at Loulou?

I think there is a big confusion here between market cost, something of which I am not commenting on, and the relational value items of the same type have to each other and how they are affected by differences in quality. Pricing for those items are set by their producer/manufactuer. How they set them in relation to the market is a different matter. But it's his realization that things are of different quality that starts the process. But then what I'm saying is that no matter how much the market manipulates a product, the pricing relative to quality doesn't change. Here's an example. Let's say Honda instead of their being able to manufacture umlimited Accords could only manufacture 10,000 cars a year. And lets say the demand was 15,000 a year. In that instance, supply and demand would push the price up. But that increase has a ceiling because at some point the price starts to approach the car Honda makes at the next level of quality. Why would anyone pay the same amount for an Accord as they would for the next step up? That's right you got it, they wouldn't. If for example an Accord cost $30,000 and the next step up cost $37,500, once the price shot up to around $33,000 people would start asking themselves if they should just punt the other $4500 into the pot and buy THE BETTER CAR. It's the same for hamburgers. People eat them because they cost $5.99 a pound instead of $15 a pound like steak (Manhattan pricing and that isn't to say people don't like them.) But if there was a shortage of hamburger and the price rose to $10 a pound, it would make people buy steak more often. And I predict that at $15 a pound, sales of chopped meat would plummet. And if anyone doesn't believe this, I'll be the one with a bridge to sell you. And I'll deliver too.

"Most of the time, you have to pay more to get more" -OR- "Most of the time, when you pay more you get more" Jordyn - How nice of you to reduce the quibbling to a few simple statements. I'm saying neither. What I am saying is that when someone produces something, whether it be raised agriculturally, or in a factory, or caught from the sea or whatever, they segregate those things that are of better quality from those things that are of lesser quality and they charge for them accordingly. And that means that 100% of the time, the item of better quality sells for more money, or is worth more money, or is more valuable. To me that is all semantics because it doesn't speak to the primary concept which is that the better the quality, the higher the cost. Of course this doesn't speak to market manipulation of any sort. Look at the Bordeaux estates. They only released about 10% of the wine they made in the 2000 vintage and jacked the priced up. But my point isn't to compare the 2000 vintage to the 1999 vintage and ask why the prices have risen 200%?The issue is did pricing stay the same relative to quality within the vintage? And of course the answer to that is yes. The first growths still have the same magical qualities they do year after year, and are priced at the top end of the scale. And that is true in bad vintages as well. Say it anyway you want when comparing wines like Latour and Grand Puy Lacoste but people are willing to pay more for Latour because *it's a better wine.* I don't care if you articluate it as being of better quality, or being worth more, or being more complex. To argue about the semantics is just to try and deny the point without confronting the issue directly. Simply put, Latour is a better wine than Grand Puy Lacoste. I don't know how else to explain it. And to taste them and not know that is to not understand wine. By the way, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Many people can't make that assessment properly. There are lots of things I can't assess properly because I don't have the experience to do so. I'd have an awfully hard time deciphering why one curry powder is better than another other than the "I like this one better route." But over time and with a bunch of tastings under my belt, I would probably learn how to do it. And if I couldn't, the answer isn't that curry is subjective. The truth is I'm just not the right person to ask about it because I can't tell.

Jaybee - I'll email you the exact name of the wood from the Hamptons. I buy it at Schmidt's in Bridgehampton which is a local grocery store. I tried to find it on the Internet but couldn't. But here's a link to one that looks good. Maple Leaf Charcoal B. Edulis - Were you in the movie The Deer Hunter? Or did they work in the steel mills? Actually I find that aging the coals for the 8 months makes them burn just slightly faster. And possibly more evenly.

Why would anyone care about prized cuts of rare French beef when you can go into you local hypermarche and buy massed produced and hormone injected boeuf hache?