Bux

I guess I was lucky to discover these with the 95 vintage. The Pierre Bise wines are wonderful, but there are other producers that are also worth knowing. Delesvaux comes to mind as we had some recently at Cafe Boulud in Manhattan. Quite good with an excellent friut and custard dessert. If you don't count the aperatif, the meal was bookended between two chenin blancs from almost opposite sides of the Loire. A very dry Savennieres with the appetizers and a nice Coteaux du Layon with the desserts. I'd also consider looking at the Spanish wines for bargain dessert wines. I was impressed with the quality/price ration of some of the moscatels from Navarra Montecristo, Ochoa, Chivite and there's Casta Diva from Alicante, I believe. I don't find most of these in the US and in general the US mark up on Spanish wines, seems greater than on French wines. Not long ago, we had a Brachetto (sp?) at Blue Hill. It's a very light fruity and pettilant red that went well with a light fruit soup/sorbet. Not a great wine in my opinion, but quite refreshingly wonderful on a summer evening with the right dessert. I don't know the price, but expect it is inexpensive. At higher prices, Klc has good recs. The Seppelt D.P. 57 Rutherglen Show Tokay, is one I believe I've had and its incredible. With flavors of dried fruit, molasses, etc. it will hold up to a good chocolate dessert, although dessert will run stiff competition.

Why would you want a big asparagus like that. It's going to be tough and woody? Oh ... never mind. I withdraw my question.

Exactly! A quarter century ago John & Karen Hess called attention to the American predilection for starchy fillers, which applies also to much of James Beard.John, are you saying that Julia increased the starches in traditional French sauces, more roux per liquid in a veloute for instance, for American tastes? Julia was basically my introduction to French cooking so it's hard for me to make a definitive judgement here. My gut reaction is that she was accurate to the French taste for Bechamels and Veloutes at the time, but that these sauces and roux, in particular, are less commonly used in contemporary French cuisine. A quick glance at a 1961 English translation of the Larousse Gastronomique, shows heavy use of flour in these sauces. I think the recipes are classic, but today, one is more likely to find one's fish fillet sitting in a nage rather than under a sauce supreme. Even such classics as coq au vin are more likely to have a thinner sauce, or one thickened by a reduction of the wine and stock. If, on the other hand, you are implying that a good old American gravy might not only have more flour per ounce of sauce, but a more floury and less refined taste as well, I would agree. That Hess book was a gem and I wish I could find my copy.

It's called getting each other's goat.No, oh humorless one. FG, Tommy, and I were actually satirizing the very thread in which we're participating. The three of us got it. You didn't. Nina tell me you didn't miss the relationship of "KIDDING" and "goat" and we'll decide who's sense of humor is disfunctional.

Can you try to do it, Bux, for the benefit of those of us who are too young to have dined at these establishments during the relevant time periods? Is there nobody with first-hand experience who will take the position that Gagnaire and Adria are running circles around the chefs of yore? I'm probably not the one to do that clearly as my experience with "great" chefs is very spotty in my youth. Most of my love of French food and understanding of it came from travel on a very meager budget in the sixties, and then we didn't get back until the mid eighties, still on a limited budget. When we splurged on a famous place in the sixites, it was often ill chosen in certain ways, but educational in other. Le Pyramid after Point passed on and le Cote d'Or at two stars between three star chefs are examples.

I really don't have a lot of cookbooks but I should say I am indebted to Volumes 1 and 2 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking for just about all I know of basic technique. Long after we stopped using the recipes, we'd return to those books, particularly the first Volume, for technical details left out of other people's recipes. Julia wrote for those who had not learned to cook from a French grandmother. The details in those books scared many of our contemporaries away from the books and they cooked with less understanding and less success because of it. Volume 1 is all tattered and torn. When I do look at it, the thing I most notice is that we've made notes calling for a reduction or elimination of the flour and other thickeners used in sauces just about across the board.

Is this what you mean? I've had it since 1995. It was free or very expensive depending on how you look at it. It is a souvenir of our daughter's college graduation, I suppose. For a few days each May the hotels in the town double their prices. As a way of sweetening the deal, our hotel threw in a bottle of cheap wine and a corkscrew. I don't recall if we drank the wine or gave it away, but I kept the corkscrew as it wasn't bad, It had a good worm and the double leverage of which you speak. I don't imagine the hotel paid much for it. It has "Ruffino" stamped into the plastic on the side. It doesn't show in the scan. Sorry for the quality it's just a direct scan of the object.

These decisions are often made by the third in command. Do you assume a professional cuisinier would back up your assumptions of Plotnickian kitchen? All analogies suck. Comparing an orchestra conductor to a restaurant chef is a particularly ill conceived idea, but a conductor's role is limited. Only on the rarest of occasions will he have also written the music that's played.

I don't think these are santons. There's nothing particularly provencal about them either. Traditionally they're either a bean or a little baby Jesus. The latter might work in a creche, but that doesn't make it a santon. Just from the very few galettes de roi I've had, it seems these days they'll use anything including a little Mickey Mouse statue. Nothing's sacred.

Before continuing to crucify Dr. revenue for calling Shaw an idiot, please note it was not he who used this characterization first. If members truly believe that post enouraged the use of ad hominem responses, I apologize. I really trust you understand the difference between the use of the word to attack one's critics in a public discussion and my editorial use for the sake of humor. I furthermore trust that all members don't think I think only idiots are wrong. As for disputes between restaurants and diners, I've said from time to time that from what I've seen, the customer is wrong at least as often as the restaurant. To put this in context, here's the thread in which my "idiot" appeared in the heading

Let me take a side track here for a minute, especially as drrevenue is away from his computer on a trip. (I got that from one of his posts--and it appears to be an extended trip to France.). APPS411, would you mind if I asked you a rather personal question? I'll be happy to back track and erase all mention of your name and my question if this is offensive to you--so, please don't anyone quote this if my question goes unasnwered. Simply put and without the implication that I am not in agreement with your feelings on this, would you have expressed yourself in quite the same words if your real name was attached to your post, or it you were speaking face to face to drrevenue, another anonymous poster, in a room full of other eGullet members who knew you? We've allowed members to register under aliases, because several members offered what seemed like valid reasons for not participating unless they could so anonymously. Most of our thread have remained respectful and it's not been a problem, but when I see this sort of post, I wonder if we'd be not only more civil, but a better group it we had to be ourselves here and not our evil twin brothers and sisters. Please don't take this personally APPS411, I am well aware that things went off track in the civility department when drrevenue referred to those who disagreed with him as "idiots."

On comparing Chapel in the 70's and 80's to Arpege in the first decade of this millennium, there are other factors that will play a role beyond the times. Dining in Paris has always been a bit different than dining in the provinces and restaurants have always differed from each other, although I'd venture to say that one of the changes is that today's restaurants may bear an even greater stamp of the chef as the classic dishes of Escoffier have been all but abandoned. I'm agreeing that things have changed. I'm just suggesting it's hard to ascertain the exact difference by comparing those two restaurants. I will disagree about opera. I think it's less relevant than haute cuisine. People still go to see and hear opera and people still eat haute cuisine, the difference is that there are more chefs creating new forms of haute cuisine than there are working on operas. Do opera buffs even consider Phillip Glass' work as opera? Gourmets who loved Robuchon flock to Adria's tables as they do to Veyrat, Bras, Passard et al. Have these chefs changed the rules so much that their food no longer qualifies as haute cuisine in your opinion? On the comeback of regional cuisine, I find that's always very difficult and worse yet, forced. Traditional dishes need to be handed down directly. Once they're revived from books there's an inevitable loss in authentitcity and connection to the region. As France's agricultural base changes, it is often easier to resurrect a Burgundian dish in Paris or sometimes even in NY. The snails or frog's legs often have to be imported anyway. I never thought one had to plan a trip around multi starred restaurants to enjoy the gastronomy of France although in the latter part of the 20th century it appeared to me that lapses in the middle were destroying regional, bourgeois and bonne femme cooking in France, while the talent of the great chefs has been rising. It's hard to measure and weigh the talent of one generation in comparison with another, but there are at least a half dozen chefs today that offer priceless experiences in terms of cuisine, even if they don't allow one to gorge on truffles and caviar. In fact, I might add that they may be better for having to earn your attention that hard way--without being able to offer a whole baked truffle at a reasonable price. La cusine francaise est morte, vive la cuisine francaise? Si non, vive l'haute cuisine internationale. I think the real change is not the decline in France, but the rise elsewhere.

Well said. I might have said not just for the benefit of my ego! I recognize that I enjoy being treated with respect and being made to feel good about myself. Although Ducasse stretches my budget, I felt really good there--only I didn't get special ego boosting service, I got the regular ego boost every John and Jane gets when they eat there. Interestingly enough, special attention used to make me uncomfortable. I felt I was in the restaurant's debt. I suppose that was the reason it was offered. A restaurant knows it will slip up one of these days, so it offers a bit of attention to someone spotted as a regular or potential regular as insurance against the possible slip up. As I understood this and recognized my value to a restaurant I relaxed and enjoyed whatever attention I got. There are limits to my debt as well. When a neighborhood place we frequented regularly wouldn't honor my request to enforce the no smoking law, I was insulted by the free dessert they offered and ended my relationship with the restaurant, although not really abruptly. I returned after a while to see that the policy had not changed and the food had deteriorated. I deduced they had made the decision to cater to smokers rather than diners and that it was no longer my kind of place. More recently I've been the recipient of special attention in more upscale places. In some cases it's been due to the company in my party, but sometimes it's all mine. That old uncomfortable feeling kicked in again until I was convinced by certain cooks and chefs that they really appreciated my interest in the food and enjoyed cooking for me. That was an honor that made me aware of my contribution to their ego. This, by the way, is a theme I've picked up here on eGullet from time to time. Even first time diners in a really fine restaurant may note that their service picks up from formally proper to enthusiastic as the staff begins to understand their enthusiasm and manages to convey it to the kitchen. I've heard of diners getting little complimentary treats on their first visit. I believe this happened to us at Veyrat where I went in wondering if the guy was a charlatan and left feeling he was not only a great chef, but the most generous of chefs, even if he was emptying my wallet at the time.

I am also a fan of the Michelin green guides. If you have a deep interest in a small area or have a real interest in some aspect of the local culture you may find other books useful, but the green guides are terrific for the casual travler who wants basic information on key sights along with some background information on the area. We seem to have copies for most of France and will update our editions if we want reliable information on opening times and things like that. As for road maps, I find them essential for driving in rural areas as we're always looking for back roads and interesting roads to offbeat places. I like the Michelin series at a scale of 1:200,000. I just find them the easiest to read. It may be a matter that I like the ones I know and am used to reading. I've been a fan of the Patricia Wells' Food Lover's Guides to Paris and to France, but while the one to Paris has been updated, the one to all of France hasn't and is getting less and less reliable with shops and services that are no longer in business as well as an absence of new listings since 1987.

From what I understand, you were too young to remember much.

Santons are the little Provencal figurines. The word means "saint" in Provencal. It seemed to me that they have some connection to the santos of Puerto Rico although the latter are small carved and polychromed wooden representations of saints. While santons means saints, the figurines are as often as not of everyday village characters. According to the Michelin Green Guide to Provence, they are figurines made for nativity creches. Originally they were the New Testament biblical personages one expects to find in a creche, but figurines depicting tradesmen and other village residents soon followed. Many people collect these figurines and there's a yearly fair in Marseille. I believe they are still mostly ceramic and painted. Today they are mass produced, but the art of hand made santons reached a peak around 1820-30 according to Michelin and that's why the dress you see on them today is from that period.

It is quite possible to travel on one's stomach in areas without a starred restaurant, although it may not resemble the grand gourmet tour as is often expressed here. It's rare for me to have multi-starred meals in a row for more than two days. For all that Roellinger means to me in terms of great food, when I think of going to Brittany, I am apt to salivate over the thought of tasty eggs on a great ham crepe with perhaps a bowl of Breton cider. A gateau basque is something that makes me take as great a detour as at least a two star restaurant and may be something I crave more than dessert in a multi-starred restaurant. We have been knocking around markets and shops for a long time and generally spend more time doing that than eating in starred restaurants. One of the things that's drawn us to northern Spain has been the proliferation of excellent restaurants, but the success of our trips has been at least as dependant on discovering a local cuisine as we travel. What's disappearing in France, it seems, is regional food and that's perhaps a greater loss than haute cuisine, at least to some.

Correct. All one has to do is redefine the terms and narrow the discussion to eliminate conflicting points. There will never be another renaissance man or a great new twentieth century novel in the strict sense either. Cubism is not an art but a style and as with all styles it has to go out of fashion. Is fine dining either an art or style?

Are you sure? I could be very wrong on this, but I seem to recall the story that after Gagnaire went bankrupt in St. Etienne, the owner of the Hotel Balzac, a friend of Gagnaire, invited him to set up shop in his hotel in Paris. The space, as I understood, was occupied by Bice. I don't know it their lease was expiring or if it was bought out. I seem to recall that Gaganire, after bankruptcy, didn't even own the rights to his own name, and that the owner of the hotel owned the new Gaganire, although his intent was to let Gagnaire have a totally free hand. Both the de Vigny and the Balzac appear to have the same owner, but I can't verify what I heard several years ago. It's even possible that the Hotel owned the restaurant then, but does not now.

I was going to say that about your last post. Equally surprising, if not more so, is that the great artists and inventors of any age manage to find a creative possibility where the rest of us fail to see it. It's not that there's really any field without a creative possibility, but that there doesn't exist that person who can find it. When he or she does, hindsight will render it obvious to all of us. We can focus on the chicken or the egg, but the other side of creativity is equally valid. No, nor are these the 70's or 80's. While there are times that may be judged to be better or worse on an objective scale, they are also different in a relative sense. Why would you believe there is the same audience there was a generation or more ago? In this case, it was more than the family name. There was Robert's own personal history. This is where age and previous experience plays a factor. Nevertheless, Troisgros has some remarkable rating in both Michelin and GaultMillau and the latter is much quicker to recognize change and while I can't dismiss Robert's criticism, I also don't have all the information I need to assess it properly. The excellence of cusine in the US had only a little to do with quality of cuisine in France, but quite a bit more to do with the flow of tourism. It's a much more complex issue and one could bring many more aspects of tourism into play. A better argument could be made that travelers from the states discovered fine food in France, than that they went there to seek it--at least in the first generation after WWII. A declining interest in travel to Europe is explained by many more factors than the food, or even an interest in food. Because we, (you and I in particular, the habitués of this forum and eGullet members in particular) are so food driven, what drives others is less obvious to us. Hype and genuinely deserved publicity will bring tourists and diners alike, but as often out of curiosity as out of dedicated interest. What I guess I don't follow here is what I see as an argument that good cooking alone won't assure success for a restaurant. I agree, but I thought Robert's post was about his disappointment with the cooking. I'm afraid all the cosseting in the world is not going to draw Americans to the hotel across from the train station in a town that has almost nothing to offer outside the history of a great, but departed restaurant. Who goes to Vienne and Saulieu except on the hope that the food is good today? Whether culture has to transcend it's core audience to be profitable is arguable. Certainly l'Astrance has managed to adjust it's business model to be profitable catering to its core audience and it remains to be seen how Barbot develops his business model. I have no disagreement that rstaurants cannot operate at a loss, unless there's enough hope of profit to encourage continued investment. Oh, I suppose I could theoretically accept a premise of a patron endowing a chef to allow an operation to exist as one might commission an opera or some other art project. Certainly the tax write off as a business loss is just as effective as a charitable donation, but would it have the same cachet? In practice, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were a chef.

Jinmyo, how relevant is Ducasse, Adria, Veyrat on the same score? I don't mean to suggest this food is on that plane, although it appears some people think it is. I probably remain a skeptic mostly because of what I consider an unnecessarily rigid philosophy, and it's that philosophy that makes the food sound less relevant to me, not the complexity. What can I say? I'm just an old fashioned guy who likes to play with fire. Beachfan, you make a convincing case that the restaurant cannot be ignored by the rest of us.

I pretty much agree with Steve on this. French truffles are, by and large, black truffles. That includes those from Provence and the Perigord. With the common market developing as it has and the appearance of the euro to facilitate exchange, I would not be surprised to see white truffles in Paris, that's not the tradition. I thought the season for game starts in the fall, but would agree that late in the fall is better than September. I am surprised that a good concierge can't get good dinner reservations. If memory serves, Gagnaire is in the Balzac and that and the de Vigny have the same owner. I would think a room in either would get you a reservation at Gagnaire. I'd make it a condition of booking. I also prefer the left bank, but casual is not what everyone prefers. I have a friend from the UK who stays at the de Vigny. I've also never seem him not wearing a coat and tie, even when we meet at casual bistros.

First, that older generation had a generation of chefs before it when it was young. This is a continuous process. Each generation will have the artists and the hacks. Some generations will stand out more than others. There will be golden ages and dark ages, but at all times there will be the hacks and a few that stand our. Veyrat, Roellinger, Bras and others sing now. Younger chefs are still in the wings. Restaurants like la Régalade and l'Astrance appear. Within that greater framework, various chefs will speak to various diners. Not every "creative" chef will be working in a truly creative mode. Some will flounder under the pretense of creating, but all they are doing is not following in anyone's footsteps rather than leading themselves. The big change that we may not be prepared for, could be that some of the most creative chefs will abandon haute cuisine, or at least luxury dining. It will be interesting to see if a place like l'Astrance continues to get good marks and if it will grow into a an elegant restaurant or continue as a chic, but relatively casual place. It will be interesting to see how Robuchon's new operation influences younger chefs. Look at the revival of interest in bistros that followed la Régalade. There was a chef who could have had a fine restaurant, but chose to open a bistro.

The choice between small hotels and gites is probably entirely subjective. I have French friends who swear by gites. Are you driving to France or renting a car there? I only ask because you will not want a car in Paris. Parking is difficult and will probably run into a bit of money for a week. Coming from the US, I've always arranged to spend my first r last few days in Paris and will pick up a car when I leave Paris or drop it off on my return.

That was in NY Times Food Section thread in relationship to Robuchon's new counter restaurant as reported in the NY Times. There is also a thread on the El Bulli hotel Hacienda Benazuza in Sanlúcar la Mayor. (Sevilla is probably the closest airport.) In that thread I started to mention Adria's relationship with NH Hotels. The "Fast-Good" is his second project for them. The first is his "NHUBE" concept for hotel dining. Even after reading an article on it, I'm not so sure I can describe what he's doing beyond rethinking what a hotel can offer its guests in the way of an environment in which getting a meal is just one function of the public space. If I can lay my hands on the brochure I have, I will post additional information on the Spain board. I'll have to check my sources but I understand Adria will also be involved in the new NH Alanda Hotel in Marbella. This appears to be a luxurious new resort hotel. Most of the information I have is from NH press releases, advertising and the in-house magazine distributed in NH Hotel rooms.