John Whiting

bigbear writes: Yes, providing they're genuine. But are they???

lxt writes: There's something to be said for that. Or, as the sentiment is negatively expressed in a re-writing of Kipling's "If":If you can keep your head while those about you Are losing theirs . . . Maybe you don't understand the situation.

There is a serious problem for artists and craftspersons of all sorts when, as in our modern society, novelty becomes an end in itself. Of course there has always been a thirst for changing fashions, but what is new is the accellerating pace which marketing demands and mass communication makes possible. It's not surprising that successful hi-profile chefs are expected to revamp their image as regularly as auto designers change their contours and their colours.

It takes one to know one!

Bux writes That's it in a nutshell. They tell you how far it is, how good they think it is, and how much it costs. It's then up to you to decide whether you can afford it and if it's worth the wager. Not unlike travelling out of your way for a major concert.

The determining factor is not whether two people's food preferences are compatible, but whether they are prepared to tolerate each other's eccentricities. I like spicy food and my wife hates it, but when I want it at home I cook it; or, when I'm cooking for both, I spice mine separately. Fortunately there's nothing I *don't* like if it's prepared properly. And we both like all sorts of cuisines, but at a restaurant we may well order quite different dishes. The biggest factor in getting along is *wanting* to do so.

Cuisine Minceur was only marginally related to Nouvelle Cuisine. Guerard's aim was specifically to create a low-calory regimen for the residents of his sanitarium. He wrote another book _Cuisine Gourmande_, which pulls all the stops out -- his Terrine of wild duck with half a pint of double cream and 4 egg yolks is not for the abstemious!

As a child, in our teetotal household I *always* drank milk with my steak, and I loved it! I could still do it, as readily as I could eat beef stroganoff.

In the kitchen washroom at Chez Panisse, there's a sign which reads Edit: Not really. I made it up.

You can tell that he's an elitist because he omits the unnecessary and incorrect extra "the".

SteveP writes Justice demands that I confirm that this is, to an amazing extent, true. For myself, and for most of my friends, there is a point above which we do not attempt to establish a hierarchy -- if only because, in a certain mood, one dish or restaurant would definately be the best; in another mood, some other dish or restaurant would take precedence. To establish an *absolute* best, one would first have to establish a qualitative scale of one's emotions. Only the pathologically compulsive would even attempt it.

JD, thanks for the good news.

Rogov seems to have rambled in another era. Androuet's in rue Amsterdam is long gone and his London listings ignore one of the finest cheese shops ever, Patricia Michelson's La Fromagerie. And where's the Berkeley Cheese Board?

I wish I'd written that! ["You will, Whiting, you will. . ." ]

Yes, but . . .Let me share my method of having Venice all to yourself. Go on a weekend in the height of summer. Get up at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning. By the time you're walking about the sun will be out but the streets/canals will still be empty. Stroll about in total possession of your magnificent private world. (I've wide-angle photographs of the Piazza San Marco in broad daylight, not a soul in sight.) Plan to end up around seven outside the Fenice when the coffee stalls open. It has to be Sunday; any other day, shopkeepers and their suppliers are already on the move.

As a footnote, those who know Andy Smith will be aware that he is a food historian who really loves food in all its manifestations, including the unashamedly plebeian. His histories of the tomato, tomato soup and ketchup are both meticulously researched and a joy to read.

Anyone planning even a single trip to Italy should get hold of the latest edition of _Osterie d'Italia_, published in association with Slow Food. Even if you don't read Italian (although there's supposed to be an English edition coming or already here). It's worth its weight in Alba truffles.

One thing I think of (and I know that this is by no means the whole story) is recipes so complex and highly spiced that the flavor of the chicken virtually disappears -- which allows a dish to be made with a battery-raised chicken which had no flavor in the first place. It's the Emperor's New Clothes in reverse -- the clothing is magnificent, but there's no Emperor!

SteveP writes The first thing I learned in studying music history is that the "rules" are made up *after the fact* by theorists who attempt to explain what happened. The classic example is so-called "sonata allegro" form, in which two themes are presented in two different key signatures, then developed, then recapitulated. Those are the rules. But modern music historians have gone back to what actually happened and discovered that the only element which was indispensible was the relationship of the contrasting key signatures and the transpositions between them. End of theory -- except that in the meantime, thousands of compositions have been created, slavishly following those rules which never existed in the first place.You run into the same ex post facto rules in attempting to trace the history of any classic dish not obviously invented by a single chef -- bouillabaisse, cassoulet etc. EGullet has travelled that well-worn route until the path has become a rut. Wagner settled it once and for all in Die Meistersinger -- the comic irrelevance of highly complex and arbitrary rules of composition which are smashed to smithereens when a true genius comes along.

Paris: " . . . where every prospect pleases." (Ignore the next line.)

In La Gavroche, according to Albert Roux, the kitchen was in the cellar. In the early days [how early?] there was a large tin tray at the top of the stairs. Every morning the first cook to arrive would throw the tray down the stairs, wait for the scurrying to stop, and turn on the lights. By then the rats would be gone. The last person to leave the kitchen at night had to be certain that the tray was back in place for the following morning.

Cabrales, thanks. Didn't think of that. The same two are listed in the 2002 guide. I suspect that it's the cheese selection with dinner which is being recommended. What I have to write about is the more modest establishments, probably attached to a fromagerie, in which the entire menu is cheese-oriented. For instance, I note from the St. Hubert website that they feature tartiflette, that wonderful blend of melted Reblochon and sliced potato which, for some reason, most of the standard reference books don't even mention.

What a first-rate suggestion! None of my guide books (and I have most of them) seem to be aware of it. [Edit: I take it back. It's in Zagat.] A thousand thanks!

We've got a real problem here. There are all sorts of mishaps that used to be regarded as "bad luck" which are now, if you have a good lawyer, actionable. Everybody who deals with the public in a remotely risky capacity wants to cover his butt. Health and safety laws are enacted to reduce the risk. And then the people who enforce them have to cover *their* butts. In the end every butt gets properly sanitized except that of the "4 dollar an hour kid who doesn't speak English".

Tommy writes: I'm of two minds, one as concerns my own choices and another as it relates to public welfare. For myself, I honestly don't particularly care. I have a robust constitution and have rarely been even slightly ill as a result of what I've eaten. But there are people of delicate health who ought to be able to eat in public places without taking their lives in their hands.