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Cathar

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Everything posted by Cathar

  1. I come to this site seldom. After a long absence, and then reading this impossible gush about El Bulli (I always start singing "Wolly Bully" in my head every time I hear "El Bulli," that helps offset some of the pretentiousness), I'm reminded why my visits are so infrequent. Perhaps the worst thing is that, in writing about Wooly Bully, the English language becomes so bastardized, so devoid of the real meaning of words. And no, an almond is not equivalent in importance to, say, a strip steak. Foam is also not the way to get at the essence of a dish, unless we're perhaps talking about milk shakes.
  2. I thought it was pretty silly, and "bleudauvergne" is hardly M.R.. James. Still, there are a lot of French people who seem to live pretty long on spite alone.......
  3. Forget caring about the food, seemingly nobody who writes about El Bulli and Adria cares about language. This is all shameful gush and outrageous twaddle, spat onto the page by people who have nothing better to do. And if you folks go to Barcelona and this is all you can do with your time while in the area. you should be soliciting prayers, not pats on the head from fellow egullet posters. Have any of you paid attention to how bastardized your language is when you write about the restaurant, how mixed the metaphors, how silly it all sounds. Me, I'm heading back to Rutt's Hut, which I've been visiting since I was 5, or maybe to I Fratelli in Bloomfield, NJ, there as much for the almost overly Italianate music of the lounge singers as for the pretty decent food.
  4. This has to be one of the worst, most over-reaching pieces of food writer claptrap I've read in my life, and that's saying something. All these knotheads praising Ferri's modernity, too, sounds almost like upper-class Germans reassuring themselves after a fund-raising party for the NSDAP that they can "control" Hitler once he gets political power. Scary, sad and a mightily powerful argument for never reading food writing of this nature again.
  5. There are probably hundreds of good beers to drink out there, goodness knows it always seems that way when I buy 3-4 different new bottles to try. So everybody above is "right," in a sense. But one beer I really do miss, which was simply the best, fullest-tasting "light" beer I've ever had, was Nordic Wolf from, I believe, Sweden. Until about 10 years ago you could find it in NJ fairly easily. But now now, alas. It was good, well-developed as a brewing product. Another brewery whose products I like (mainly, maybe, because I still have 2 bottles left that I brought back from there) is the Valhalla Brewing Co. in the Shetlands, on the isle of Unst, beyond which as you head northwards there's only the Arctic Circle. "Simmer Dim" and "Auld Rock" are both estimable ales. I took 2 ferries to get to the brewery during a bona-fide gale, spent almost an hour chatting with the brewmaster, a 22-year-old grad of the U of Edinburgh, and finally! he shyly asks me, whilst the Atlantic is practically coming in at Force-6 wind speed through the brewery windows, if I'd like to try some beer. You have to love a moment like that. Luckily, too, I drank enough so that the two bumpy ferry rides back to Shetland mainland never affected me one bit.
  6. I read all these posts on Adria and El Bulli and my basic feeling is, this is all pretty silly, the output of people without too much else to do of late. Couldn't you guys at least start watching the US Open or something? Having read a few articles on Adria, too, it just sounds to me as if eating at his restaurant is more of a "chic ordeal," at bandit-like prices, than a true dining experience to be savored, With or without foam. (And if I really wanted foam in my mouth, anyway, I'd go back to shaving with a razor.) Nary a one of his dishes ever sounds remotely tasty. We're not talking pizza, say, or lamb chops. Also, and this one is probably more of a sociological observation, but once the NYT magazine writes about you, it's all over. To be on the same pages as that dolt known as "the ethicist" (who wouldn't know a real moral issue if a Waffen-SS division ran over him on its way to Stalingrad) or that stupendously dopey "What were they thinking?" feature, that says nothing good, Nothing salient. And nothing serious. So you've got some pretentious Spanish chef creating what sounds like only vaguely edible food at ridiculously steep prices. This is worth all the ranting and raving? I'd actually rather see a Sean Penn movie (which for me is saying a lot).
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