Festivus Airing of Culinary Grievances

[Jason Perlow]

http://www.seinfeld-fan.net/festivus.php

Festivus is the fictional holiday celebrated on December 23, as popularized in the TV Series "Seinfeld".

During the Celebration of Festivus, it is customary for families and friends to get together, and over the dinner table, to have the "Airing of Grievances".

"At the Festivus dinner, you gather your family around, and you tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year."

So in keeping with our discussion of food, who and what disappointed you most this year, food wise?

[Jason Perlow]

I'm gonna start us off with a few:

1) The James Beard Foundation

C:\JAMESBEARD\BOARD\TRUSTEES> FORMAT C:

are you sure you want to do this, THIS WILL ERASE ALL DATA! Y/N? Y

C:\> CTRL-ALT-DELETE

2) Coke C2

If a bottle of cola falls in the forest and nobody is there to drink it...

3) Frank Bruni

So much potential, and yet...

4) The Food Network

There's food on that channel somewhere, right?

[fiftydollars]

The MooLatte I offer as my first grievance.

[Jason Perlow]

The MooLatte I offer as my first grievance.

←

Now see, I actually like the Moolate. Its just the name that is stupid.

[fiftydollars]

The MooLatte I offer as my first grievance.

←

Now see, I actually like the Moolate. Its just the name that is stupid.

←

Yeah, I like it too... I also like the one with the brownies in it.

[phifly04]

Rocco

Jack Daniels

the $52,000 truffle fiasco

Not enough "memorable" Dining experiences

Dave s

[martha]

There's a funny Festivus article (from the 19th) in the New York Times Fashion and Style Section. It has links to sites with greeting cards, greivance forms, and feats of strenth challnge cards. www.nytimes.com I'm not sure a direct link would work b/c of the registration requirement.

1. frozen ama ebi

they should have to call it something else if it's not still moving.

[iamthestretch]

Eating crow Nov. 2. Tasted plenty bad then, know it's gonna repeat on me for years to come.

[handmc]

1. Food Network - What happened? Such a good idea, now I would rather watch an infomercial.

2. Rocco

3. Rocco's Momma for not taking him in the back and wood shedding him till he stopped his destructive and embarrassing ways.

4. Not enough good dinning experiences outside the home.

Edited December 23, 2004 by handmc (log)

[Al_Dente]

Nearly all the restaurants on Capitol Hill in Washington DC.

I gotta lotta problems with you people!

Edited December 23, 2004 by Al_Dente (log)

[Pouncy]

1. Rocco.

2. Lack of decently priced good seafood in San Diego

3. Can't afford some of the cookbooks I want.

4. Apartment kitchen. 'Nuff said.

5. That Semi-Homemade crap on Food Network. It actually made my mom buy Cheez Whiz. And send me a recipe.

6. Justice League Macaroni and Cheese isn't being made anymore.

[culinary bear]

Okay, be warned. If you don't like swearing, don't read this. I fear the effect would not be the same without it.

1) I am disappointed by the entire fucking front of house 'team' at the restaurant in which I work. They're a lazy, undisciplined, moronic bunch of wankers who, if they were any less intelligent, would have to be fucking watered twice-weekly. When I fucking well shout 'Service!', I don't want to still see you scraping plates, or what's worse, picking the fucking food off them to munch while you stand at the pass with your thumb up your fat arse and a gormless, vapid expression on your face. 'Service!' means that I have lovely, refined, tasty food on the pass, and I need to get it to the customers without you dropping it, misordering, forgetting the fucking butter, or not speaking enough fucking english to understand when I tell you which dish is which. I speak your language, you should bloody well learn functional English.

*pause while the blood pressure goes down*

2) I am further disappointed by the fucking gormless twat who insists on cutting the nose of a particularly fine piece of Picos de Europa cheese in order to provide a customer with ONE portion from the cheeseboard, thus rendering it unfit for use the next service.

Needless to say, the head chef and I are making a list of people to put up against the wall and shoot when the revolution comes.

One happy moment, in the vein of Ramsay vs Gill. One of the HC's friends runs his own (fairly highly rated) restaurant, and a customer complained about a pave of salmon that had been sent back because it was "raw", i.e. not cooked to death (I'm sure I don't need to educate any of you how salmon should be served). The chef patiently explained, through the waitress, that the salmon was cooked perfectly, and that if it wasn't to the customer's satisfaction he could order another dish; he made it clear (politely so) that the salmon would not be cooked any further.

The customer then sent back a snotty remark, via the (trembling) waitress, to say that 'only an arsehole would serve raw fish'.

The chef then emerges from behind the pass, out of the swing doors to the kitchen, up to the gentleman's table (in the middle of a 100+ cover service), and shouts, from a range of about four feet :

"If you don't like the salmon, why don't you just fuck off, you miserable old cunt?"...

... and then marching straight back behind the pass and plating food as if nothing happened.

Oh, how we rejoiced on hearing this.

[Carolyn Tillie]

I'm terribly sorry that Martha didn't plea bargain -- despite the ease at which we bash that woman, she is the Julia of our age, getting folks (men AND women!) to actually cook food instead of heating up TV Dinners. Had she plea bargained when there was an opportunity, she would have served no time.

I am still perpetually pissed at my inability to locate Lu's Pear Pims cookies. They market and sell the Orange, the Raspberry, and that hideous Chocolate Mousse, but no Pear to be found. In questioning the company personally, they assured me that they are still made (even though you won't find a picture of it on any of the OTHER Pims products), but alas, alack, no Pear...

The entire low-carb industry. Piffle, I say. Piffle! In five or ten years, doctors will have determined yet another disease du jour from the years worth of non-carb consumption. Then the DEA will have to start a whole new round of tests on drugs to counteract the years of carb deprivation...

I have a slight grievance against those folks with blogs who utilize chat lists like eG as their personal advertising space. If you are a blogger, great! Put a link to your blog in your signature and, if you feel your latest entry is especially interesting for some reason or another, start a new topic with a link towards that topic and what it contains. Please don't simply re-post the exact same, lengthy entry from your blog over and over and over....

I hardly find Rocco a grievance, but one of the most fabulous examples of a living piece of morphing Conceptual Art there is in our age today. Watch him crumble! Relish in his kaleidoscope of bumbles and foibles at recreating himself! Thrill at Momma's reactionary attempts to maintain a sad sense of normalcy! Think of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ. What about Damien Hirst's Sliced Cow in Formaldehyde? Can a post-modernistic train wreck like Rocco be any less artistic and fascinating? Nay, my friends! I see an NEA grant there...

Any other grievences? Yeah... but no sense beating a dead horse, huh?

[NulloModo]

Not sure if this is still valid considering it isn't technically the 23rd here any longer, but hey, maybe it is before midnight somewhere in the world... Perhaps I can just blend some grievances with the silver lining of their respective clouds.

I grieve that I completely missed seeing any episodes of 'A Cook's Tour' when F'N ran them earlier this year. Thankfully, it seems that they will be showing them again in Jan, and since I have a DVR now, I will be able to watch them ;).

I grieve that there has been so much bashing about the whole Low-Carb thing, mainly by people who never took the time to really read up on exactly what the plans are about and to take the time to read the studies on both sides showing that there is no danger of long-term medical damage, and that the media decided to grab onto it and make it into a big old hype-fest both ways. Thankfully, the media seems to be calming down on it now, and the 'weekend warriors' of the LC set seem to be drifting away, so the industries surrounding it can settle down a bit and start catering to those who have been doing it right and who will be coninuing to do so.

And it being the 24th here, I have a couple things I am purely thankful for:

I am purely thankful that I discovered eG, and that because of it my cooking this year has been tenfold greater than it ever was before, and that it continues to improve from the great guidance of everyone here.

I am purely thankful towards the people at Tova industries for coming out with a new product called 'CarbQuick' that seemingly has all of the taste/texture of regular Bisquick, without the empty calories/starch of the regular stuff.

[Carolyn Tillie]

• The outlawing of foie gras in California—even though I am not a fan, what a stupid project to take on.

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OHMIGOD!

Shame on me for not remember THAT one! Thank you, Tana.

[woodburner]

Overly mass production of MRE's. To little to late.

My fishmonger turned half of his fresh fish retail space into cheap ass seating for fish fry diners.

Bourdain failed to come to our local library, pop. 375. to sign my freakin book.

The for sale sign sitting out in front of my favorite local restaurant, at the same time offering "holiday gift certificates available inside."

Looking forward to ringing in the new.

woodburner

[woodburner]

oh yeah..

should have known

People who complain about, what other people complain about...

Regarding food.

woodburner

[winegeek]

Okay, be warned.  If you don't like swearing, don't read this.  I fear the effect would not be the same without it.

One happy moment, in the vein of Ramsay vs Gill.  One of the HC's friends runs his own (fairly highly rated) restaurant, and a customer complained about a pave of salmon that had been sent back because it was "raw", i.e. not cooked to death (I'm sure I don't need to educate any of you how salmon should be served).  The chef patiently explained, through the waitress, that the salmon was cooked perfectly, and that if it wasn't to the customer's satisfaction he could order another dish; he made it clear (politely so) that the salmon would not be cooked any further.

The customer then sent back a snotty remark, via the (trembling) waitress, to say that 'only an arsehole would serve raw fish'.

The chef then emerges from behind the pass, out of the swing doors to the kitchen, up to the gentleman's table (in the middle of a 100+ cover service), and shouts, from a range of about four feet :

"If you don't like the salmon, why don't you just fuck off, you miserable old cunt?"...

... and then marching straight back behind the pass and plating food as if nothing happened.

Oh, how we rejoiced on hearing this.

←

I gotta say, having worked in the business for over 2 years, that there have been "too many times to count" that I've wanted to explode whan a guest wants their salmon "cooked through", their tenderloin "well done" or the worst of all,, in my opinion, "can I get the seared ahi cooked all the way through??".

Having said that, while I am happy to recommend "proper cooking temps" for all of the above, especially the tunna, if a guest wants to destroy a beautiful piece of fish, it is their choice. And while my kitchen may on occasion raise an eyebrow, if a guest wants their salmon cooked through, they get it cooked through. If I was in a restaurant when the above scenario happened, I would lead a boycott against that pompous, arrogant, SOB chef. A guest at our restaurant (fine dining) can get anything they want anyWAY they want. It's all about the guest, not the egomaniac of an Executive Chef.

[MileHiWine]

I will agree that executive chefs that are 'too good' to cook a dish to a customer's specifications should be silenced and remember that the guests are the one paying the bill, however, dining guests who are not willing to put aside their demands to try something new should not go to a restaurant where they aren't familiar with the chefs style or try a new dish that they may not be familiar with the best way to prepare the tuna/steak or other fine ingredient.

Why experiment with a new dish when you don't want to take the suggestions of the creator?

[MileHiWine]

Also, my complaint is that while Denver has some decent restaurants, they are few and far between. WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER STEAKHOUSE!

[stovetop]

The customer then sent back a snotty remark, via the (trembling) waitress, to say that 'only an arsehole would serve raw fish'.

The chef then emerges from behind the pass, out of the swing doors to the kitchen, up to the gentleman's table (in the middle of a 100+ cover service), and shouts, from a range of about four feet :

"If you don't like the salmon, why don't you just fuck off, you miserable old cunt?"...

... and then marching straight back behind the pass and plating food as if nothing happened.

Oh, how we rejoiced on hearing this.

I gotta say, having worked in the business for over 2 years, that there have been "too many times to count" that I've wanted to explode whan a guest wants their salmon "cooked through", their tenderloin "well done" or the worst of all,, in my opinion, "can I get the seared ahi cooked all the way through??".

Having said that, while I am happy to recommend "proper cooking temps" for all of the above, especially the tunna, if a guest wants to destroy a beautiful piece of fish, it is their choice. And while my kitchen may on occasion raise an eyebrow, if a guest wants their salmon cooked through, they get it cooked through. If I was in a restaurant when the above scenario happened, I would lead a boycott against that pompous, arrogant, SOB chef. A guest at our restaurant (fine dining) can get anything they want anyWAY they want. It's all about the guest, not the egomaniac of an Executive Chef.

I will agree that executive chefs that are 'too good' to cook a dish to a customer's specifications should be silenced and remember that the guests are the one paying the bill, however, dining guests who are not willing to put aside their demands to try something new should not go to a restaurant where they aren't familiar with the chefs style or try a new dish that they may not be familiar with the best way to prepare the tuna/steak or other fine ingredient.

Why experiment with a new dish when you don't want to take the suggestions of the creator?

This almost needs a spot for itself; I was not going to comment on the first post but had to after reading more post about the first post.

All of this could have been avoided in the first place if the waiter was to tell the customer the chef does not cook well done fish. It was a bad mistake for the customer to take a shot at the chef, did they not think the chef would come out if they made a comment back to the kitchen, there is a lot of heat back there, it is a war zone, emotions and sensibility do not always prevail.

This will get a life of its own.

My complaint is also of the customer’s lack of knowledge when it comes to their diet, they think they are so smart, just cutting out carbs will not help your health or help you loose weight, has anybody ever heard of fat and calories??

Caesar salad is full of fat. The best one is a club house with no bread, this is insane. When you are in the kitchen and are really busy and every bill the customer has changed the menu, it is insane they just doubled the size of the menu, the restaurant is very high volume, when you have to stop at every bill and read the customer’s novel of the changes they want and every bill is like this.

Stay home and cook your own food, if you charged them a dollar for every change to the menu???; more work cost more money, every other industry charges you through he noose, when will we get our money.

steve

[Mabelline]

More fresh fish and Asian and Indian ingredients available to Montana.

[culinary bear]

regarding the chefs v customers debate - there's now a thread here for it. :)

[Dr. Funk]

More fresh fish and Asian and Indian ingredients available to Montana.

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Wyoming also - I'm 50 miles from the nearest super?market.

[stovetop]

My biggest beef is chefs who wank off like a jazz musician, not every one gets what you are doing , and if they do not get it, that is your fault , the chef .

steve