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Steve Plotnicki

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Everything posted by Steve Plotnicki

  1. No Jaymes that isn't my point at all. You just want to keep making that my point. People in America ate hardshell tacos (and invented Taco Bell) because they weren't aware Mexicans ate two soft corn tortillas that were folded around various fillings. And the reason they weren't aware is that they weren't interested in the lives that Mexicans led. They might have been interested in Mexicans and Mexico as some type of exotica, but that was symbolized by making a phony Mexican product, not an authentic one. They were interested in reinventing everything as an American item when it didn't need reinventing. And the curators point is that Julia Child brought authentic French cuisine into our households and that was one of the things that helped end American isolationism. Got it now? American reinvented food product = isolationism Authentic foreign food product = end of isolationism And when you say that Julia Childs helped introduce Americans to authentic French food, by your own definition, the food they ate beforehand was not authentic, hence, isolationist. As to my own opinion about what people ate, they ate dreck then and they eat dreck now. And I'm sure that there was no bigger pile of isolationist dreck then what they served at your Caribbean Night. Unless you were serving Curried Goat, Pigeon Peas, Callalloo and Ackee. Irish Cream - Well if you grew up in San Diego you had a better chance of knowing what a good tortilla was then the rest of us dig. Of course what I am saying doesn't hold for everyone. Certain people understood food on an international level and lived their lives accordingly. But 99% of the people ate dreck. And they still do.
  2. Hey Hollywood that was a good post. I haven't been to Pink's in years but I used to love it. And those dogs do have snap.
  3. Well I did say "I think" didn't I? But in general "I think" there is something to it. If natural juices that were infused with herbs were so great, nobody would have tried to "improve" them with butter etc. would they? This type of issue came up recently on that Sichuan food thread when someone asked if Sichuan cuisine could be as refined as Cantonese? And I believe it was Ruth who said that the oil based Sichuan cooking will always make the cuisine seem coarse and that is why it isn't as elegant and refined as other Chinese cuisines. Same general principal.
  4. Bux - Well my question didn't pose that France should stop doing what they do well, it asked why they haven't created a new category in between very casual and very formal? Craig - Well of course I am making a gross generalization but, in general , what I said is true. Infused with herbsis not the same as turned into a proper sauce. And I just gave the most casual example of a French-style sauce. Once you get to the high end restaurants the spread between the cooking strategies gets wider. Robert - Whi is SNG and did I miss something in this thread? And what is this special contributor business?
  5. First of all, Italian might have the right ambiance and the right ingredients, but the level of culinary technique exercized falls short for what I'm describing. For example, you might get as good a roast chicken at a place in Emiglia-Romana as you would get at L'Ami Louis, but they won't spoon a sauce over it that is the drippings from the chicken fat they smeared all over the chicken before roasting, and that was deglazed with a stick of butter and a glass of white wine while the chef was scraping the good schmutz from the bottom of the roasting pan. In Italy you get a little of the natural gravy. This difference in strategy is where I think Italian usually falls short when being compared. Magnolia - You must have had a fancy aunt.
  6. Irish Cream - Hardshell tacos I bet. I think tacos are one of the great examples of America being completely out of touch with the rest of the world. Up until there was heavy Mexican immigration into NYC, (over the last 10 years?,) nobody had seen soft corn tortillas and we were only familiar with the hardshell kind. What was that about?
  7. But the excellent points you both made sort of highlights why it is odd that the French have failed to create a restaurant experience between brasserie (aproned waiters with bowties) and haute cuisine (tuxedoes instead of aprons.) Considering that a brasserie is such an egalitarian type of place, how is it that in the 150 years of the brasserie tradition, part of it hasn't evolved into a more formal version of that dining experience reflected in both the food and the service? The only reason I can think of is that the class that made up the majority of diners at a brasserie didn't get split into two groups economically (the upper middle) so there was no business reason to create a dining experience for them. And that restaurants like Union Square Cafe represent that burgeoning class in the U.S.
  8. Didn't they use that Warhol photo for the cover of a Stones album? No, that was a different zipper.
  9. Condescending to Americans of that era, who the hell is that? The people who ate iceberg lettuce, Rice-a-Roni, frozen meat and Pop-Tarts? And who mixed water and powder to make Tang instead of buying fresh orange juice? Is it those people I was being negative about?
  10. Lesley - The better bistros serve great food but I think I am describing a different category. And no Chez Georges wasn't too formal. But I'm looking for something between Chez Georges and Arpege. What is in between are lesser starred restaurants Apicius. But they are just slightly toned down versions of 3 star palaces. Craig - Well you are projecting NY quality foodointo the type of restaurant I'm describing and I'm not. Can you imagine if a perfectly roasted Bresse Chicken was served at Union Square Cafe? That's what I have in mind. NYC ambiance but AOC quality food.
  11. Yes for the decision they made, not as people which is a different thing. Stupid is stupid. Not because the evils spirits were gone. Laughing is optional. I think you are confusing two things. I think you are confusing somebody saying that a concept is dumb with saying a person is dumb because they don't know any better. Because yes, you can easily describe your natives as dumb. And you can describe their actions as dumb. Those dumbs are different dumbs then the dumb which means an inability to learn. I also think that what you are promoting is the equivelent of lowering the level of the conversation so it can take place where the least knowledgable contributor can actively participate. I personally don't happen to agree with that. You hear that argument quite often on Internet chat rooms from people who have a hard time keeping up with the conversation. And I am not directing that to you personally. The most typical one you hear is you shouldn't tell people they are wrong (Strellabella and I can discuss this because we are haiving dinner in 45 minutes.) But at the level that many of us would like to discuss things, telling people they are wrong or they are being dumb about it is part and parcel of the discourse, no negativity or condescension attached. Just look at this thread. The conflict here was that people thought the curator at the Smothsonian was wrong about their assertion. That is ludicrous to begin with. But then when someone said something silly, like Chicken ala King or Shrimp Diablo wasn't an example of American isolationism and I told them they were wrong, I had a negative attidtude and I was condescending. How about the people who said the curator was wrong, were they negative and condescending? Do you think they really know as much about the topic as the curator does? It's all a matter of inferences. If you wanted to hear what I said in the context it was spoken, which was topical and not personal, that is how you would respond and there were many people on this thread who responded that way. But you want to read what I said as being personal. There must be a reason that you are doing that which is unique to you because what I said in this thread is tame stuff compared to some of the other stuff I post which nobody calls negative and condescending.
  12. Margaret - That is probably 90% of the problem. But one would think that since 1970, some French chef would have told them to screw themselves, gotten a lot of publicity for it, and opened the equivelent of Union Square Cafe in Paris. Actually I kind of like my contemporary brasserie idea (even if I am patting myself on the back ) because a chef could upgrade the food without the Michelin star pressure on his back.
  13. Lxt - The fisrt part of that post was terrific. But your Avedon remarks were second rate . I think that powerfull men are not necessarily taught to be powerful looking all of the time. And that inner self was what Avedon was looking for. Some of them who are above the game of power, like Daniel Moynihan and more notably Bella Abzug, probably because as a women she did not have a legacy of powerful men to live up to, looked quite comfortable with themselves. But other people looked lost, as if they were naked when all that was happening to them was their portrait was taken.
  14. Pepe's if you didn't know is on Leffert's Blvd. 2 blocks north of the Leffert's exit on the Belt Parkway. I like Manducatti's even though the food isnt super, but the wine list is more then super so there.
  15. Lenore huh? I don't know that one and I will try it before the month is out. TerrelK - La Parma was started by a Don Pepe's waiter about 15 years ago and its menu is almost an exact copy. I have eaten at the Willis Avenue La Parma as well as the Route 25 Huntington Branch many, many times and while I think they are both very good, they do not rise to the heights they hit at Pepe's which is a truly one of a kind place. Also for those who don't know, Pepe's served as the basis for Carmine's in Manhattan as Artie Cutler (RIP) was a long time customer of Pepe's and copied the family style format and menu for Carmine's.
  16. Hollywood - Was that supposed to add something to this discussion?
  17. You mean that I think that most American food customs of that era are plainly ridiculous, including most of the ones that are still in existance today, is negative and condescending? Even if I am right and it is true? You have lost me there.
  18. Just for the record, in case anyone didn't know, these are all examples of isolationism. The rest of the word already had a way to handle these things that was perfectly fine. And American corporations were able to change that and get people to switch to mass-marketed "modern" (really meaning artificial) things. You know why? Because the American people were trying to shed their cultural connection to their countries of origin and they were willing to accept frozen meat or formula as "modern" instead of eating fresh meat and breast feeding. And it is fair to say that some things they were right about. But some things. specifically in the area of food, they were 100% wrong about. To this day Americans are refrigerator crazy. You ever go into a food shop in Europe? The milk is stacked next to the register unrefrigerated. So are we ready to agree with the curator at the Smithsonian yet or are there still non-believers. Because correct me of I'm wrong, we went down this road because a number of people contested the curators comments about isolationism.
  19. I didn;t see Jay Rayner's post in reposne to mine until I saw Nina copy that quote. Jay - What I meant to say (I thought I actually said it) was that I thought it was a good idea that you described who your review was geared to before you posted it so we could respond within the right context. But I was not commenting at all on your readership not knowing anything about the NY scene. I wouldn't expect them too. And my point about the cost wasn't to say that it is cheap or it is expensive, my point was that within that category of restaurant, I happen to think it is reasonable and you get a lot for your money if you organize your meal properly. But no I wasn't passing comment on whether $100 a person for a dinner was worth it or not to your readers because I wouldn't know. And as for my gerneral comment about restaurants and cost, I think you will find that I am quite consistant saying that the quality of a restaurant is a discreet issue from its cost. Sure a recommendation as to whether something is worth it or not for a customer is a helpful piece of information but, that chicken you had at Craft tasted good or bad and its cost had nothing to do with it. Cost only goes to whether it's a wise spend or not. Otherwise, I think you should remove some of your last post as you make allegations you couldn't possibly support, including the ones that Nina pointed out as well as a few others.
  20. Let me set you straight here Fat Guy. The tasting is just the chef choosing the best ala carte items of the day. How's that? And I don't neccesarily mean the printed tasting menu. I mean telling them to bring you a raw fish course, charcuterie course, warm fish course and a meat course and they choose what it is including the sides. You will be quite pleased I assure you. And if that's too much food (ha) tell them to cut out one of the courses. I always cut warm fish first.
  21. Jaymes - I do not know what any of what you said has to do with learning to eat cassoulet, foie gras or any of the other foods that Julia Child taught us about? You can characterize the food we ate prior to her emergence any way you want. But it won't detract from her place of importance nor will it change isolationist for being a proper description of American food culture before she came along. And if you want to see American isolationism at it's best, get out your copy of Fannie Farmer or Betty Crocker. Or maybe we can make some Betty Crocker Crescent Rolls? Today we know those rolls as croissants. You know why? Because in the 50's we were isolationist so we had to Americanize the name because people wouldn't accept the French name. Today we are more accepting of foreign cultures so we use the correct name. In fact, the correct name has significantly more market value and the Americanized name has lost its value as a result.
  22. Personally I think Craft is overpriced if you order ala carte. But my experience is that when you order the chef's choice menu the price nets down to something more reasonable. It has been running around the $100 a person mark for dinner before t&t but it varies depending on what they have fresh that day. And it isn't that this pricepoint is so good on its own, it's the quantity and quality they serve you. Especially if you are a large party like 6 people.
  23. But let's face it, we were buffoons. When I grew up (late 50's and 60's) my father's customers (he owned a kosher butcher shop in L.I.) aspired to be able to buy an entire rib of beef that he would butcher for them into individual steaks etc. so they could deep freeze them. Being able to afford that was a sign of affluence. But that's backwards because fresh meat tastes good and frozen meat tastes mediocre at best. So how could a sign of affluence be that you ate frozen meat? This is what the curator means by isolationism (among other things.) There was no reason for America to reinvent what kind of meat tasted better, or how you did your shopping for meat. Countries with a tradition of eating fresh meat already knew the answer to that question. But it was Americas cultural isolation from the rest of the world that made it look inward for the answer to that question. It is even more amazing when you realize that many of the people who adopted these things (like freezing) were European immigrants and their children who came from fresh food cultures. Even my parents would freeze meat to use later instead of eating fresh meat. And my father owned the shop! How crazy is that? Do you think they had freezers where he came from near Bialystock, Poland? It's all an American construct that was driven by the appliance and mass-marketed foods industry.
  24. Well just a bit more, unless someone else has something else to add, when many of those pictures were first published I was a teenager or in my early 20's. Back then, those people seemed so much older to me. Now that I am the same age as many of them were at the time, I see them so differently. People who had such an important and seemingly permanent impact on our lives were in reality temporary historical figures.It's interesting to see whose impact has lasted and whose hasn't.
  25. Jaymes - One dish? That's what you are using as an example to show America was interested in European cuisine? How about the other four or five thousand dishes that we made up instead of using authentic recipes that came from other countries?
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