[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

Well, certain arguments against "sustainable*, local" orthodoxy strike me as indisputable.

I believe there are plenty of good reasons to buy locally-grown food, for example, but the carbon footprint differential is what it is. Either you stick your head in the sand about the sometimes radically larger carbon footprint of the locally-grown food you buy in the greenmarket or you don't care. I fall somewhere in the middle myself: I acknowledge the fact, and I care a little. From a culinary standpoint, I appreciate the fact that locally-grown foods taste better. And I believe that there are traditions there worth preserving. But I don't fool myself by supposing that it's "better for the world" in some kind of absolute ecological sense to eat NY State lamb as opposed to New Zealand lamb. Because it isn't. If anything, it's worse to eat the NY State lamb because the carbon footprint is many times larger. This is not a matter of opinions. It's a matter of fact. So I don't see how someone who has truly "thoughtfully considered" these facts can reject this kind of criticism.

* I challenge the notion of "sustainable" altogether, although I do believe very strongly in more responsible ways of growing food.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

Your original argument was that people can't afford to spend a lot of money on food during a recession so AW is irritating and unrealistic.  Now you're saying that they don't want to "alter their diets radically" so that's why she's irritating and unrealistic.  Fine, so don't listen.  Your arguments against sustainable, local food still make zero sense to me.  You can join the rest of the country in feeding meat raised in concrete food lots to a bunch of obese 10 year olds with diabetes.  I'll spend my money on eating well.

I'm done.

This is a perfect example of the kind of rhetoric -- not to mention a willful failure to consider valid arguments raised against orthodoxy -- that many people find annoying about Alice Waters.

[An interesting dried-pasta tasting]

I think you'd first have to have some general understanding of the different pastas and what they're going for. For example, I've mentioned before that the Latini family believes in cooking the pasta extremely al dente. Other pastas -- De Cecco, for example -- might be considered more "general purpose" pastas. To whatever extent possible, you'd try to cook the various pastas in ways that display their qualities to good effect, with the understanding that this won't be the same way for each brand.

I'd also have "blind cookings" as well as "blind tastings." Many of us have observed that artisinal pasta, as well as different brands of industrial pasta have different cooking properties. For example, some industrial brands seem to have a very narrow window of "just right" between undercooked and overcooked. This is important in choosing a pasta, in my opinion.

So, then you'd choose a few preparations. You could do a simple "in bianco" preparation with nothing more than pasta water and a hint of olive oil; you could do a seafood pasta; you could do pasta with a light application of tomato sauce. These would all be evaluated in both the blind cooking and blind tasting stages to see how they cooked and tasted. It strikes me as not impossible that a pasta that worked best with clams, olive oil, parsley and garlic (not exactly as "sauce," per se) might not be the same pasta that works best with an actual sauce.

In the end, I think what you hope to be able to do is say: "the combination of the way this pasta brand cooks and tastes in this specific preparation gives us the best chance of getting the highest quality dish." For another dish, or other stylistic goals, it might be a different pasta.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

Is this an argument, or a Monty Python sketch?

Only because you keep on putting up strawmen.

I don't see what's so hard to understand. Alice Waters has been, and continues to be very influential. Most of her ideas and philosophies are good ones. But she can seem out of touch with the realities of working people, especially in the middle of a touch recession, and she comes across as self-aggrandizing, overly pleased with herself, condescending and absolutist. This is why, despite all the great things she does and has done, she can seem so annoying.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

Not contradictory.

In the first example he is saying that Alice Waters annoys him for suggesting in the middle of a punishing recession that everyone should be buying expensive organic food at the farmer's market.

In the second example (not written in the middle of a punishing recession, I should hasten to point out) he says that greenmarket food and "slow food" is often among the very best food and that it's worth your while to cultivate these people if you're looking for the best. These two statements are, in fact, not speaking to the same point at all. Just like your apples-to-oranges attempt to position Josh Ozersky as advocating "$26 hamburgers for the masses."

Meanwhile, the full context of what he says about Waters is quite a bit more equivocal than what you have excerpted. In the full context, he acknowledges that she has a point about much of what she says. For example, he says, "I'm not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that" and mentions his "revulsion at what we as a country have done to ourselves physically with what we've chosen to eat and our fast food culture." What makes him dislike Waters is that "there's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic," that he's "a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits" and that he doesn't "know if it's time to send out special squads to close all the McDonald's" -- all of which are positions (or rather, caricatures of positions) he perceives Waters as advocating.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

And you're right - Josh Ozersky doesn't say that $26 hamburgers should be served for school lunch.  I don't hear him say much on important issues or anything remotely healthy, period.  I'm glad someone is bringing these issues to people's attention.

But he does say, in his "review" of Minetta Tavern:

The meal wasn’t cheap — $450 without wine! Vey is mere! — but I’ve seldom felt so at peace with paying a big check. Yes, this is The Waverly Inn with better food. But it’s really so much more than that, a perfect consummation of the old-school movement that is the presiding urge of the moment in the restaurant business. It’s the new Stork Club, the new 21. But so what? Go for the scene. But stay for the steak.

Come on, Mitch. Cherry-picking decontextualized tidbits doesn't help your argument. We all know he's not saying "everyone should be spending $450 on dinner."

Sooooo...Bourdain, like many others, has complicated views. It's pretty easy to find somebody contradicting themselves, especially when you have access to their printed word over the course of a couple of years.

Complicated views I have no problem with. Totally contradicting your own printed word because it might make some headlines, or because you're playing the bad boy, I do.

I'm not going to say that I don't think Bourdain has it in him to be hypocritical for effect. But I'd sure like to see you post some side-by-side statements by Bourdain that "totally contradict his own printed word."

Here's the complete context what he said in the DCist interview:

The inauguration is tomorrow. Do you have any advice for our soon-to-be president?

I would not presume to advise him on anything. By virtue of being elected, he has made my life as a traveler much much easier. I've felt the impact abroad already. I get congratulated by complete strangers walking up to me in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. It's been a tough eight years to be a traveling American. I don't think people hated Americans, but there was a look that people gave you. Just by virtue of being an American you were like some well-intentioned, but rabid golden retriever. A look of curiosity, disbelief and horror. And this was in England and Australia. I'm particularly proud and happy about our new president. There will be a tangible difference in the way Americans are treated abroad. It just feels better. Above and beyond all the policy.

Any advice about food?

I'll tell you. Alice Waters annoys the living shit out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic. I mean I'm not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that, but I'm a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits. I'm suspicious of orthodoxy, the kind of orthodoxy when it comes to what you put in your mouth. I'm a little reluctant to admit that maybe Americans are too stupid to figure out that the food we're eating is killing us. But I don't know if it's time to send out special squads to close all the McDonald's. My libertarian side is at odds with my revulsion at what we as a country have done to ourselves physically with what we've chosen to eat and our fast food culture. I'm really divided on that issue. It'd be great if he [Obama] served better food at the White House than what I suspect the Bushies were serving. It's gotta be better than Nixon. He liked starting up a roaring fire, turning up the air conditioning, and eating a bowl of cottage cheese with ketchup. Anything above that is a good thing. He's from Chicago, so he knows what good food is.

Nothing there appears to contradict any of the things you've posted. And I think it sums up nicely what annoys a lot of people about Alice Waters.

[Stomping Through the "Savoy" (2009–)]

Russian tea has a particular tradition (that I've largely picked up from reading Dostoyevski) . An extra-strong tea is brewed and then diluted with hot water from a samovar for service. It is quite common to float a slice of lemon on top of the tea. And it was quite traditional to hold a sugar cube (not compressed granulated sugar, but a broken-off lump of loaf sugar) between the teeth or a bit of preserves in the front of the mouth, thus sipping the tea through the sugar or preserves.

Some info here: http://teatips.ru/eng/?action=ShowArticle&id=301

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

I really do love good food, but not to the point where I'm going to cut off all other things in my life that I find enjoyable.

HUH? Who is asking you to?

This would be, e.g., the implication that one should forego $100 shoes in favor of $100 worth of organic food from the farmer's market.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

And some of those critics are less than honest with their public or themselves.  Like I said, touting a $26 hamburger, which isn't exactly food for the masses.

Mitch, this is a completely bullcrap argument. No one is touting a $26 hamburger as "food for the masses." Alice Waters, on the other hand, is touting super-expensive organic greenmarket foodstuffs as "food for the masses."

You have to compare apples to apples. If you can find one single quote where Josh Ozersky says that schools should be serving and everyone should be eating $26 La Frieda Black Label burgers, then you've got an argument. Otherwise, this is just a strawman.

And I'm wondering if Tony remembers this line, from the Les Halles cookbook:

You need to be a citizen of the world, or, at least, your local markets.

First, you need to find a butcher. This, sadly, is no small task in our increasingly homogenized, standardized, sanitized ubermarket-choked country.

And, of course, Saint Tony had this to say as well...

As painful as it might be, it's also a good idea to suck up a little at the overpirced "gourmet specialty shop."

With produce it is advisable to use what is good and fresh and prime locally, but if you must have Cavaillon melons from France, so be it.

And...

A final word on greenmarkets and the Slow Food movement. Whether you fully share the views of the Slow Food sustainable agriculture organics posse or not, it is well worth making their acquaintance.

Oh, Tony, how we used to trust thy word.

I'll be the first person to say that Bourdain sycophancy and idolatry is annoying and stupid. But none of these things are presented as "save the world" arguments, nor are they presented with the flavor of "everyone would be a better person if they were more like me." And the bottom line is that Alice Waters does come across that way. The Bourdain quotes are simply hints about how to get better quality food. I don't sense any moralizing there.

[An interesting dried-pasta tasting]

"The water is different" is a common reason given for why all kinds of things are different -- usually completely fallaciously (no, the reason the pizza in Peoria isn't as good as it is in NYC has nothing to do with the water). I can't imagine that water qualities, mineral concentrations and mineral types aren't just as variable in Italy as they are in the United States. Regardless, New York City has some of the best municipal water in the world, soft, pure and with very little chlorination needed.

By the way, if you're filtering your pasta water through an activated charcoal filter, you're just wasting the charcoal. Things such as chlorine that are removed by this kind of filter will boil off almost immediately.

[An interesting dried-pasta tasting]

I always find these taste testings completely bizarre. Why taste pasta with nothing on it? It's like tasting gin at room temperature, when it is not meant to be consumed that way, and giving that evaluation major weight in the final rating. But then they decided to taste with butter (?!) and Parmigiano, which may be too strong.

I have a hard time trusting any rating where no one mentions that Latini's strand pasta is gummy. Although this brings up another issue: how was the pasta cooked? I'm given to understand that the Latini folks prefer their pasta extremely al dente, which probably mitigates the gummyness.

I think it's interesting that the director of the Italian Culinary Academy and the only actual Italian among them was also the one who rated Setaro the highest.

I would much rather have seen them test the different brands with a light coating of a light tomato sauce or something like that. Why not evaluate the pasta in a context at least somewhat similar to the way the pasta will normally be consumed? It seems quite possible to me that one pasta might be preferred with only butter, whereas another might do better with a more involved condiment.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

Again, I don't think anyone is suggesting that Alice Waters doesn't have any good points (or that Bourdain isn't a bit of a douche in his own right). They're just explaining why some people don't like her.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

But Alice Waters doesn't come across as weighing anything. When she goes on TV and proclaims that she couldn't imagine having a microwave, that she doesn't go to supermarkets, that she cooks eggs in a spoon over an open fire...

Julia Child, in her Master Chef series, went to visit the late Jean-Louis Palladin...here's that show in a nutshell...

Jean-Louis Palladin ran his own restaurant in the Watergate Hotel for almost twenty years. In this episode, he prepares Foie Gras (duck liver) with Poached Apples, roasts a Duck Breast over an open fireplace, and, to accompany the duck, prepares Sauteed Porcini Mushrooms.

There are several things here...

First of all, it's a cumulative effect. Julia Child certainly wasn't saying that she couldn't imagine having a microwave, that she doesn't go to supermarket and all those things. If anything, she was incredibly sensitive to the limitations and considerations of everyday people.

Second, there is no suggestion whatsoever that this should be an everyday kind of cooking and a normal way that people should be engaging with food. Palladin is presented as a multiple Michelin-starred "master chef" who is demonstrating an interesting cooking technique for people who might be interested.

Third, this is not Julia Child's cooking technique and demonstration, it is Jean-Louis Palladin's cooking technique and demonstration that Julia Child is featuring on her show. This is no different than showing, for example, a family that pit roasts whole pigs in it's back yard. Again, there is no implication that "this is the sort of thing everyone should be doing."

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, featuring this sort of thing on her "master chefs" show doesn't convey the same flavor as Alice Waters' egg on a spoon, because in Waters' case it comes across as self-aggrandizing: "ooh, look at what a foodie I am cooking this egg on a spoon over an open fire... you should be more like me." Julia Child was never this way about herself, and this is why she is universally beloved. Alice Waters is this way about herself, and this is why she is vulnerable to these kinds of criticisms.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

Aren't there many, many reasons to support local food and local food traditions, even beyond mileage?

I certainly think so.

But where do hot house tomatoes from Holland fit in? They taste like crap and local tomatoes here in California sell for about $60 a ton.

That becomes a more interesting question if you don't live in California. If you live in New York, for example, local tomatoes are all quite expensive because they're largely grown on small farms. And there is some question in my mind as to whether tomatoes shipped from California are going to be better-tasting and also whether they're going to be better for the environment compared to tomatoes from Holland or Israel. If the answer to both of these questions is "no" then there is no compelling reason not to buy the Dutch or Israeli tomatoes, if that's what you can get and afford.

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

Mitch, just because some people have written douchey articles critical of Alice Waters during a time when it's easy to do so because of some backlash, doesn't mean that some of the reasons behind the backlash don't have validity. And just because the Chez Panisse foundation has three main points of focus, that doesn't mean that these three points represent all or even most of the public message Alice Waters the person has been putting out there.

Alice Waters is a visionary who has had a major impact on American cuisine, and she is a tireless supporter of ideas the principles that are, for the most part, entirely commendable and valuable ones. I don't think that anyone disagrees with this.

But, it is also true that she can come across as condescending in the expression of even her best ideas. Josh Ozersky, for example, isn't out there saying that everyone in America should be eating a $26 hamburger and wagging his finger at mothers who use $1.99/pound ground beef instead of La Frieda Black Label.

It is further true that she can come across as insensitive to the realities of working people in the middle of the worst recession of their lifetimes. People don't like being told that they should cancel their cable TV in favor of pastured local lamb and organic eggs from the farmer's market, especially when they're already at the point of cutting back. I've preached the philosophy of "pay more and you get better food while helping to change the world" to my own parents, who are quite well off, and I can tell you that it played a whole lot better 5 years ago before the market nosedived and the economy started circling the drain.

It is still further true that some of of her cornerstone arguments -- at least insofar as the way she expresses them -- are not correct on a purely factual basis. The premise that "eating local is better for the environment" or "has a smaller carbon footprint" is one.

So, not only is paying 300% or more over the supermarket price for farmer's market foodstuffs an expensive luxury for the economically comfortable (which demographic finds itself considerably reduced in recent years), and not only does the "save the world" argument seem like "hippy talk" to a large percentage of Americans, but it turns out to be largely incorrect. But, really, I think that these things would all be okay with most people if she expressed these ideas in a way that didn't make it seem like she was wagging her finger.

I buy food at the Greenmarket, but I also buy food from Jeffrey's and Fairway and Whole Foods and even Gristede's and CostCo. And I'm sure as hell not going to take any shit from Alice Waters for doing so. To the extent that people feel like they're getting shit from Alice Waters for buying the occasional bag of frozen peas at Gristede's, there's going to be backlash. To make a comparison, I have a friend who has become a die-hard crusader about recycling and plastics use... to the extent that she won't buy many products most people normally enjoy because it comes in single-use plastic packaging. This even includes things such as the plastic lined paper that Murray's uses to wrap cheese. Now... while I haven't gone over to pursuing the same lifestyle as her, being around her and the occasional conversations we might have about phthalates or whatever has definitely changed some of my habits in a direction of which she would approve. If she gave me a withering look or tut-tutted every time she saw me sipping a bottle of San Pellegrino or eating a carton of Kesso yogurt... well, there would be backlash. And yet, her message would not be any different. There would be backlash due to the way the message was expressed and the context in which is was expressed.

[Stomping Through the "Savoy" (2009–)]

I wonder if this is somehow related to a traditional Russian way of drinking tea, in which the drinker places a sugar cube or bit of preserves in the front of his mouth and sips the tea through the sugar or preserves?

[Tired of the Alice Waters Backlash - Are You?]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the school budget in Berkeley, California (median household income $86,542, median property value $736,200, very education-friendly population) is a tad bit higher than the school budget in, say, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (median household income $43,704, median property value about $135,000, not exactly full of liberal college professors and students).

["Maillard-ing" Sous Vide Meat]

I'm interested to try it myself. I have an idea for a project I'm developing for the fall where I have to turn out a lot of meats from a poorly-equipped kitchen with a relatively inexperienced "staff" of helpers.

One of the things I'm trying to figure out is how to do little lamb and little beef "mini burgers" on rounds of toasted brioche. I've thought of molding and freezing 1.25 diameter by 0.75 tall "pucks" of home ground 80/20 meat ahead of time and bagging these in a single layer. Then, at service, I could cook them to temperature in a 55C water bath, de-bag and quickly blot dry, then put them on a rack over a sheet pan, paint with the ozmasome/glucose wash, blast with a blowtorch to brown, then quickly get them onto the rounds, drizzle a touch of homemade ketchup, top with a "bread and butter" pickle slice, stick with a toothpick (no top bun) and send out.

Hopefully the "Maillardizing wash" will help them brown very quickly so the throughput is fast. Also hopefully, the aesthetics will be good without needing to brown both sides. If I need to brown both sides to get a good look, I'll consider freezing the mini-burgers and browning one side prior to bagging and cooking so that I still only have to torch one side in between de-bagging and plating. I have a fair amount of testing to do and mini-burgers to eat!

[Presumptuous Waitress]

I certainly wouldn't think the waitress were making an implied commentary about my personality if I ordered coffee and she said, "decaf?"

["Maillard-ing" Sous Vide Meat]

This is an interesting-sounding technique, Douglas. I wonder how it would work if you used reduced/skimmed/clarified ozmasome (aka "meat liquid from the bag") instead of water to make the glucose wash?

[Most bizarre ways to ask "How is everything?"]

Why ask "how is everything?" The real question, in my opinion, should be "is there anything else I can do for you right now?"

[Presumptuous Waitress]

Without being there and observing the waitress ourselves, it's hard to say definitively what happened.

Is it possible she was making some kind of point? Sure. There are people like that out there. I can't imagine that a waitress who feels it is her right and duty to chide people about the sugar content will last long in that business, however, so I have to believe this is a pretty unlikely scenario.

Is it possible that she unconsciously made an assumption based on your size that you would probably be drinking Diet Coke, and checked back with you to make sure you wanted regular Coke? Certainly more likely. People do make assumptions about these things unconsciously all the time, as evidenced by the common practice of automatically delivering the steak to the man and the salad to the woman.

Is it possible that she always says "diet?" when someone orders a Coke, because this is a popular choice and she wants to make sure she gets the order right? More likely still. We really can't know this unless someone else at the table also ordered a Coke and wasn't asked the same question.

And, of course, is it possible that you're sensitive enough about your size to react to what might have been an innocent query? Also likely.

[Sourdough Bread Troubleshooting (Part 2)]

Household bleach normally contains around 5% sodium hypochlorite and then a little bit of something like hydrogen peroxide. If you had a weak solution, frankly the chances that it would significantly kill the germs on your hand is pretty low unless you're soaking your hands in the solution for at least two minutes.

If your weak bleach solution had been out in an unopened container with exposure to sunlight for three hours, it's not unlikely that it was hardly more "germ-killing" than highly choridated municipal water.

[What would you like Gordon Ramsay to cook for you?]

I would say fish pie, but I like James May's fish pie better.

[Presumptuous Waitress]

Some people like Diet Coke because it's sweeter than regular Coke. For a lot of people, Diet Coke is their second choice of beverage when they find out that my restaurant doesn't serve sweet tea.

Diet Coke is not simply regular Coke that has had the sugar replaced with aspartame. Diet Coke is actually an entirely different beverage than regular Coke. It was developed at a time when the people at Coca Cola were worried that Pepsi (a lighter, less intensely flavored, sweeter cola product) was gaining market share. Diet Coke was created specifically to have a "Pepsi-like" flavor profile. And Diet Coke was a huge success. New Coke, then, was simply Diet Coke with the aspartame replaced with sugar. My understanding is that Coke Zero is real Coke with the sugar replaced with aspartame. This is really, in my mind, the true diet "Coke." The other stuff is a completely different product from Coca Cola.