Michael Ruhlman

I think it's a big money laundering scheme. I've never trusted that symon character.

I heard from one of his dishwashers bourdain is a closet quiche eater, and I beleive the guy.

When I first had the quiche at Bouchon, it was a revelation. Unfuckingbelievable--something like that. And it was exciting to explore with Keller what makes a perfect quiche (mainly the depth, but also proper cooking--it's got to just set up so that when you slice it, it's on the verge of collapse). It fascinated me also that here was dish that America trashed even before it understood what it was all about. Mainly because of a tool--a 9x2-inch ring mold. It cannot be made properly in a pie shell, and certainly not a store-bought pie shell, which is part of the reason for its demise. I'm on a personal quest to resuscitate the quiche in America, a kind of try-it-again-for-the-first-time campaign. I'm glad Russ wrote about it--I wish more people would explore it for themselves. It can be one of the great dishes.

emilymarie, i believe the finalists will be announced or notified in two weeks. m

Try to keep an open mind, those of you who are skeptical. This is not a vehicle for becoming a celebrity or humiliating contestants. The producers, I'm convinced, are committed to creating a kind of culinary show that hasn't been done before, a competition that really explores what it means to be a cook and a chef. They want young or even not young culinarians who are committed to pursuing a future in this business. It will cover all aspects of the biz, menu building, costing, organization, cooking under pressure. Certainly it's not for everybody. And yes, it's going to take some committment, some risk and sacrifice for a known goal. It will also be a great learning experience for the people chosen, to cook with some of the country's best chefs, and to travel to cool places, definitely an adventure. Auditions start today in Chicago, so I'm going to sign off and not say more, but I hope those of you who are interested will check it out.

a jacket wouldn't be out of place but nor is it necessary. has anyone been to zach bruell's new place in Tremont?

That was one of my main questions. But we've got to have a place for the ADD, fringe misfits and criminally insane in our society--and I know of no better place than the restaurant kitchen. There are good kitchens and bad kitchens and this is a chance for some young cook to maybe find a good one. I'm really eager to see who wants to come out for this thing. Passion when you get down to it is really just a highbrow name for dementia—but no matter what you want to call it, I think that's going to be the determining factor—irrevocable dementia dovetailing with actually being able to cook. Throw in a used car, all the better, I'd say. As for Bourdain's comments on the sartorial nature of the show, I was unaware. Though blue is my favorite color. And electro-shock dog collars for the contestants? I personally don't have a problem with this. It sounds efficient. Neglecting to skim the crud off your brown sauce. Zap! Might work.

chefzadi, anyone can audition for this but i suspect it wouldn't be right for you. For a young cook or a culinary student to leap into a nyc sous chef position, that plus the attention of a national audience could really jumpstart a culinary career. that same cook would likely have to work three to five years to reach the same position. so its aim would be to attract people for whom that goal was desirable. re: the veal stock: I was referring to the nytimes magazine food column yesterday--perhaps there's a discussion already going on about it. if i knew how to make a link here I'd do it. Jinmyo, Always appreciate your comments and the tone with which they're uttered. Next book is HOUSE: A MEMOIR about rehabilitating an old house in the cleveland burbs, a love song to this city, to the importance of that structure in one's life, the importance of staying in one place in our vagabond culture. In the fall, a book on charcuterie, pates, sausages, cured things, confit, with my friend Brian Polcyn, more or less an extended ode to salt, animal fat and the glories of the pig.

Chris, I hope that the show is entertaining, that's number one. It's tv after all. It's what I try foremost to do in any book i write. if no one watches or reads who care how good it is? Beyond its being entertaining though, my main hope is that it really explores the work of cooking, professional cooking--gets the whole range of humanity that surfaces in a working kitchen, the potential for abject failure and humiliation and immortal glory, from knuckleheaded vulgarity to grace. And I'd hope it would teach people what a good cook was (as far as the ability to organize your space and your time, the ability, while you're working four pans at the range, to sense when the walnuts you're toasting on the other side of the kitchen are done), and to teach something about the food itself. I'd personally like people to know what a good veal stock is and how to use it instead of being taught by certain august publications that it's not really important. The guy who contacted me about it wanted these same things, so I trusted him. And I daresay asking me as opposed to, say, Danny Bonaduce, suggests a certain highmindedness of intent. I after all am midwestern earnestness personified with a certain amount of ktichen experience to bring to bear on the situation. (I can see Bourdain sticking his finger down his throat when I get like this. Did they ask him--I don't know, could have. But he's cultivated his own persona that brings along with it specifice expectations. And Jinmyo, judge not my discernment lest yours be judged ok--we all mistakes.) The producers seem to combine a good mix of entertainment savvy and pbs didacticism. Yes, it absolutely could be the nadir of food tv, an abysmal embarrassment, but I suppose that's part of the fun as well.

Ha! It's the perfect opportunity for Rocco to make his kitchen comeback. Same goes for Tony! And if it did bring some tatooed central american wretch with a passion for food and extraordinary stamina on the run from the INS, and launched him or her into the dangerous realm of American celebrity and a visible spot in American restaurant cooking--that would most truly show what this business is all about. The business of cooking food for money has been one of the great avenues of opportunity for the huddled masses. It levels the playing field. Auditions begin next Monday in Chicago, followed by auditions in new Orleans and Seattle. Auditions via video tape are also being accepted via the "Cooking Under Fire" site. The cooking will take place in LA, Vegas, Miami and New York with one of twelve finalists being sent home from the show each week, leaving a final cookoff between two in New York City. The producers of this show are looking for cooks with passion and a real desire to succeed in this industry--that's the only criteria. They want the audience to know what means to cook professionally. I love that and I'm really hopeful they, we, can pull it off.

That would be too true to life--no one would believe it.

Masa uses high tech freezers kept at about -87 F. for toro. He says there's not a huge difference. In my experience high fat food freeze very well. He also freezes some of the fugu skin so that it's easier to julienne.

I have no doubt you find the place and the chef worth the money. However, I think you are wrong in saying that the people that are sniping at their price point are just "pissed off" because they can't afford it. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford a dinner like that on a regular basis if I wanted to. I choose not to. $1000 on a dinner for two at a Japanese restaurant is foolish to me. Watch the place close it's doors within the next two years. ←

In response to above questions, I've eaten at Masa once, and no I didn't pay for it. Or let's just say I paid for it afterward, though it was worth seeing Tony reduced to a gelatinous blob of saliva and invective as Eric and I dumped him into a taxi. Tony, blessedly generously picked up the tab, 1300 (he peeled them off the biggest wad of c-notes i've ever seen, smirking all the while at his largess). I'd gone fully expecting to pay. But I must say I was so euphoric I'd have happily given over my next born to Mr. Takayama at the time. I spent a few days with Masa with recently watching him work. He's a craftsman and an artist, and a gentleman. Part of the thrill for me is watching the man work. Indeed, he himself noted that he couldn't charge what he does if he just sent the food to a table. (Only sit at the bar, if you do go.) I was soooooo tempted to put away my notebook and ask for a spot at the bar, but I'm saving that splurge for when I can bring my wife. It's worth a grand to me, but it's part of what I do (and what I care about) so it's more easily justified. Let's be honest here. Isn't all this griping about the prices, and how can it be worth it, and suckers born every minute, really an expression of our being pissed off that we can't afford it? I'm reminded of the Seinfeld stand-up moment when, impersonating a stewardess closing off the first-class cabin, sharply snapping closed the curtain, Seinfeld takes a last disdainful look at all the people in coach and says, "You should have worked harder." Snap. I'm reminded of that every time I fly, and I'm ok with it. No, I am.

It's the beauty of capitalism.

It's 350 just to start, add wine, you're looking at a $500 check average. Per cover. Average. Say Masa does between 10 and 25 covers a night. The numbers are not unreasonable. There's an awful lot of whining going on here. I'm not sure I quite get it.

Who wrote it and is an online copy available? Just from the tone of your comments, it sounds like the usual phony baloney blowhard knowitall manhattan-journalist snark. Masa is one of the extraordinary restaurants in the United States. But you either see it or your don't, there's no in between. Personally, it's my favorite restaurant experience in New York. Who's rumoring that it will close. My source tells me it's the most profitable food and bev operation in the Time Warner Center.

Jason called my attention to this forum a long time ago but I've been awol. sorry. I have a couple comments. Above all, yes, a committed home cook can produce a meal reasonably close to those of the four-stars. Cooking is fundamentally a craft (almost never never never an art), and crafts can be taught. And good ingredients are out there and available to the hoi polloi. foie gras is a great example--the foie available to home cooks is the same stuff that Keller and Ripert et al use. Here in Cleveland I can run out to the store and buy kobe beef. Then again, one of the reasons for going to a four star is precisely to enjoy those very special products unavailable to the home cook: white truffles, masa's amazing mackeral, fresh hearts of palm. that's their reason for being. Also, what really makes a four-star experience is as much the service than the food. What no one has mentioned here is the fact that one of the things that allows a professional cook to achieve the sublime is sheer dumb repetition, the making of a dish over and over and over, growing ever more perceptive of its nuances. That above all is what separates the professional cook from the home cook.

He sent me an email to say he'd read and liked my soul of a chef. This, needless to say, endeared me to the guy. The ensuing brief correspondence resulted in Bruni's offer to let him know next time I was in town. Which I did. Also along for the meal were a noted food writer and Times regular contributor and an editor from the times dining section.

No reporter for the times (anymore!), no reputable reporter anywhere, makes up quotes, for any reason.

I was actually, and I don't think I'm betraying any confidences here, at one of those dinners, Bruni's first visit there in early september (the only time I've met him). It was clearly not a three star experience. Two star? Maybe if it continued to improve, but on the edge. I can only imagine that on subsequent visits the experience remained the same, in which case I don't disagree with Bruni. His decision to begin the review with a cerebral setting-of-the-restaurant-in-its-context, and what it might be attempting, was smart. I ordered the sweetbreads he mentioned toward the end of the review and we all discussed at the dinner that it seemed odd to wrap a sweetbread in anything, given that one of its chief pleasures is a crispy exterior. I don't remember that they were overly tough, though they could well have been. He was not soft or generous in his evaluation of the dishes, but rather I thought, a little hard (but that's me, it's not my job to review food); he listened to everyone's comments about this or that dish as we discussed the meal, as everyone does when they eat out--you talk about the food. Desserts were simple and wouldn't have added, for better or worse, anything new to the review. So, all in all, having been a part of one meal that critic tasted, my trust in his judgements, gernerally, is fortified. On a personal note, if it matters, he seemed like an exceptionally nice guy, and I sense, uncommonly intelligent (meaning intimidatingly so without calling attention to it, a gentleman). My only regret is that he didn't mention the extraordinary grappa he ordered for the table after the meal. I want to remember it.

Oh god, had no idea. How embarrassing. though the truth is truth.

About this raw pork fat business, maybe I just don't prefer it, I don't know. I've worked with it a lot over the past year, commercial, niman, and hand raised from an Amish aquaintance. It doesn't even smell good, smells like dead hog to me. lardo is cured, not raw. maybe these guys are telling you it's raw meaning not cooked. It doesn't make any sense to me. next time you're offered raw pig fat, ask the chef if he has cured it in any way, or did it come straight off the steaming hog in the slaughter house. When asked by anthropologists what human beings tasted like, cannibals in the south seas, exchanged courteous glances with one another and answered without disagreement, "Pork." Think about that the next time you're rolling a silky slice of raw pig fat around in your greedy maw. I dig on swine like the rest of you. And I know for a fact that there are many ways to eat pig fat. Raw is pretty low on my list. There are so many finer ways to enjoy it, as on rillettes, which classicaly are topped with delicious creamy lard, originally a preservation technique. The pig is king, long live the pig.

Tony, you ignorant slut. You don't eat raw uncured pork fat because it doesn't TASTE good. Trichinosis, as most people now know, has nothing to do with it.

Just read the Brenner review. She sounds kind of hysterical to me. Nothing wrong with the bearnaise recipe that I can see, but Tony, what's up with the raw pork fat on the rillettes? Not even cured? I love pork fat, but raw uncured is a little gung ho.