John Whiting

FG, your cogent summary says it all.

Cabrales wrote: I didn't say it was impossible. I'm sure it happens often. I'm only saying that, for me and the people I've been closest to, the money was incidental and important only inasmuch as it was necessary to do what one most wanted. Certain people I've known and worked with who have made a generous amount of money would have been exactly the same people if they had made only enough to survive. The money was irrelevant. John Cage, Simon Rattle and Alice Waters would, I'm sure, fall into that category. No fundamental decision they ever made, I'm convinced, was influenced by which of two alternatives would have been more profitable.

Cabrales writes: It's very simple. In half-a-dozen different occupations, I've spent my entire life working with people who weren't interested in money but who loved their work. Everywhere we gravitated to restaurants which operated on the same principle. It's the way I've always lived and I've always been drawn to those who felt similarly. It's not a judgement on those who are differently motivated -- it's an instinctive response which for me is as basic as sexual attraction.

I continue to enjoy those few restaurants scattered about France where I feel that the chef/proprietor is making just enough money to serve meals to people whom he likes, rather than serving meals in order to make money.

Magnolia writes That is indeed the name I was trying to remember. I've only just spotted it in the Time Out Paris guide and recognized it. It was perhaps Steve P who recommended it to me. It was several months ago

SteveP writes: Why do you insist on reading the minds of people you don't know? Of course Alice picked Monday because it was a slow night; and yes, the ingredients are less expensive. But these were the elements that made it possible to offer a bargain night without losing money, not the motivation for doing so. I've known these people for forty years. You have to believe me.

Jay Raynor writes: What lets art collectors off the hook is that we're all capitalists now, even the impoverished. Everyone sees art collectors as knowing investors who buy up unidentified old masters or rising artists on their way towards the Turner prize. We admire their shrewdness. But a 300-quid meal goes straight through the gut and into the toilet, with nothing to show for it except a case of indigestion and a hangover. Your average punter will look at the bill and think, "STUPID!"

SteveP writes A crucial point, I think. Aside from ethical questions, it's sad when a local institution gradually prices itself out of the range of those who once contributed to its success. I can't help comparing it in my mind with the Walnut Tree, where Franco Taruschio made a point of keeping it a pub in which locals sipped their beer at adjoining tables to the dining tourists. Or Chez Panisse, where Alice Waters still keeps her Monday night prices down for the benefit of those impecunious gourmets who helped to make her a success. It's not just a question of whether a restaurateur has a *right* to go all the way up market. Cooking and eating are ineluctably social acts, and those elevated establishments that lose sight of this have given up something precious.

Jay Raynor writes: I won't attempt to answer that impossible question, except to point out that, as soon as you ask it, you make expensive food ethically inseparable from every other dispensible luxury. Utter extravagance for the sake of personal pleasure is a single issue, not divisible into an ethical hierarchy. (*Producing* luxuries has its own set of ethical questions.)These observations are not intended to be judgmental; I indulge myself as extravagantly as I can afford.

Any smallish board will do this, but a wet kitchen cloth between the board and the counter is as good as nailing it in place.

For this level of conspicuous restaurant consumption, you have to go back to the 19th century. But then there were only a few such places and relatively few who could afford them; today there are thousands of prosperous show-offs who are prepared to give the maitre-de carte-blanche. And it's the show-offs who make all this possible, not the handful of eGulleteer-types who actually know something about the food and pay attention to it while they're eating it. The new prices take the humor out of the old joke about the two Texans who see a new Rolls Royce in a showroom window. "I'm going to buy that," says one, reaching for his wallet. "No," says the other, "let me get this. You bought lunch."

And I've had carrots sealed in a plastic bag go moldy after a week, and at minimum fridge temp. What are your year-old carrots made of?! Edit: And the fact that you have a couple of year-old carrots in the fridge tells me things I don't want to know!

Vegetables in the fridge inside a plastic bag without an intervening layer of damp newspaper -- especially if closed -- risk going moldy.

Preserving fresh greens, such as lettuce and green onions, in the fridge: Wrap well in two or three thicknesses of quickly dampened newspaper and put in well-folded-over plastic bag. The bag can go on any shelf, not necessarily in the salad drawer -- but not nearest the freezing unit, which may actually reach the edge of freezing if your fridge is turned down to the 33/4 level.

In another thread several months ago -- perhaps even in Chowhound -- SimonM (I think) named a Paris wine merchant in a small shop who was particularly helpful. If I remember correctly, he supplied la Regalade. Does this ring any bells?

Steve wrote: When I say thick I don't mean chunky. There are no chunks in it. In fact there's a considerable latitude as to how thick soupe *aux* poissons can be. By soupe *de* poissons, Root means a soup which has discrete pieces of fish in it.Blue Heron writes: We're in an area of infinite complexity. Look what Proust was able to do with a madelene!

foodie52, I wish I had your ability to reject bad food. I'd be half the man I am.

A confusion of terms. What you describe is what Root calls soupe *aux* poissons. At any rate, we're talking about the same soup -- I think. The soup I'm referring to is *coarsely* strained; i.e. it's thick rather than clear or even thin; it may have cubes of potato in it and it's customarily served with croutons (or a single piece of hard toast), gruyere cheese and a thick spicy rouille.

I must confirm that Steve's claim is one of the more modest ones he has made. I have no such ability, but I know enough wine writers and buyers to have learned that such a skill is no more remarkable among professionals and dedicated amateurs than the ability to get a basketball through the hoop time after time in X number of attempts. Anyone who challenges Steve's ability to identify familiar vintages is betting against the house.

Suvir, if you ever think of hiring a full-time taster, I'd be prepared to consider moving to NYC.

I would find fish soup a tricky food on which to base expectations. I've eaten -- and made -- a lot of fish soup in a lot of different ways, and I find it one of the least predictable of dishes. Ruling out *bad* fish soup, of which I've had rather a few at restaurants where I would have expected better, I still find surprises from one to another. And if it's *good* fish soup, the surprise is always pleasant. Just to be clear, I'm talking about soupe aux poissons as Waverley Root describes it, not soupe de poissons; i,e, soup in which the fish is entirely integrated, not in separate pieces.

No, read it again. It was one of several -- three, maybe four. It wasn't a great wine of which I was expecting an earth-shattering experience; merely a pleasing charactarful wine at around the 7-8 pound stirling level.

Again, I should have made it clear that all the bottles I'd had were from a small single shipment and within a couple of weeks of each other. I told the manager (whom I knew) about my one-off bad experience and the change the following day, and he told me he'd only had one lot of a couple of cases, not knowing how it might sell. Peter: I also should have said that the several bottles of this wine that I'd drunk were all at lunch time in my own small studio and accompanying similar foods. I was more or less in the same mood for each; i.e. pleasant anticipation.

I should have said that the bottle in question had come from the same shop around the corner as my previous bottle, which I had drunk only a week before. It was from the same small shipment. Your various explanations are entirely logical, but I'm convinced -- I feel it in my bones, as it were -- that the difference lay in myself rather than in the wine.

Steve - Do you find that foods and wines can taste markedly different on different occasions? For instance I once bought a bottle of a certain California wine that I was quite fond of. I opened it and gave it an hour. It tasted terrible -- so bad that I determined to take it back. The next day before returning it I tasted it again, and this time it was as I remembered it. Now you might say that it simply needed a longer time to "breathe", but I gave it the same length of time as I had given previous bottles. I've also found that foods I make myself, or even a simple cup of freshly made coffee, can vary in the same way. Does this ever happen to you? If so, how do you allow for it?