Dealing with problems at restaurants

[John Whiting]

We are trying to be present when they hit a high that only they can hit.

I'm content if this happens occasionally. In a life made up exclusively of unique experiences, the unique would become commonplace. As a concertgoer and as a diner, I'm happy with a *good* -- or even a partially good -- performance. The mountaintop revelations have come as happy surprises.

Edit: Mike echos my own experience in working with symphony orchestras. Solti's method, for instance, was often to force the tempo in performance just a little faster, stopping short of the point at which a challenge would become an impossible barrier. Magic sometimes occurs when a great conductor works with an orchestra which is accustomed to an entirely different manner of performance -- for instance, Simon Rattle with the Karajan-trained Berlin Philharmonic. The musicians loved the change of pace so much that they demanded, over the heads of the city fathers, that he be their new conductor.

I think that the music/food analogy works best if one is talking about a tasting menu which is truly improvised from available ingredients. One of my favorite French chefs -- not famous -- never served the same tasting menu twice. I could stay at his hotel for a three-day weekend and know that every dish would be a surprise. They didn't all work, but most of them did. He knew that I'd accept whatever came as an adventure, and so felt free to play.

[Fat Guy]

Mikecyz: As you are a professional musician, I'll defer to your expertise in this matter, though not on the culinary point. And Nina, did you see how he explained it instead of insisting that an explanation is impossible?

[mikeczyz]

FG- WAS a professional musician. I've decided to give it up to try and become a professional waiter. Serious. I'm not kidding. But that's a whole different story.

mike

[Steve Plotnicki]

Right, and on Thursday night you can go to Fez to see the Mingus Big Band (do they still do that?) But of course that is because you can't see Mingus because he is dead. And as someone who saw Mingus perform a number of times, the big bad doesn't hold a candle compared to the real thing. Which is also why the big badn doesn't sell any CD's.

Fat Guy, if you are serious about the main performers not being needed for a great peformence I do not know what to tell you. Maybe in a commercial kitchen the recipes and preparations are so much a matter of rote that it doesn't make a difference. But where greatness comes in isn't in the ordinary situation, it's in the small things like the adjustments when things are a bit unusual. What do we do when the veggies are a bit watery? Or who recognizes that today's batch of morels are top quality and then constructs a special of the day around them. Or who decides if today's batch of diver scallops would be better sauteed, seviched, broiled. etc. Or who takes a look at a strip of sirloins and decides to pan sautee or grille based on how marbled they are? Those are the tough decisions, not whether someone can follow the recipe and correctly add 3 trunes of fresh black pepper.

[Fat Guy]

Mikecyz: Maybe you should be a conductor.

[LaNiña]

Mikecyz: As you are a professional musician, I'll defer to your expertise in this matter, though not on the culinary point. And Nina, did you see how he explained it instead of insisting that an explanation is impossible?

There is still *something* that happens during a performance, or during cooking, that is inexplicable.

I made a living as a torch singer for a couple of years, some years ago. I would rehearse and rehearse, my musicians and I knew each other's instincts and nuances like a mother knows her baby's cries. But still, we'd get in front of an audience, and something would happen. Sometimes a tune would come out radically different that what we would have rehearsed. It's like being out on a tightrope, there's something that happens - a freedom, inspiration, spontaneity, improvisation on a theme...

And it defies explanation. There is magic to creation - that's what makes an artist an artist, and not a technician. It's in the giving and the receiving and the interplay between the two. And the same can be said of cooking.

"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."

-Harriet Van Horne (who the hell is that?)

[Stone]

Comparing music to food may not be appropriate. Deferring on one doesn't require deferring on the other.

Fat Guy -- what kind of proof could either of you have? If Nina said to you "prove it, prove it, prove it," how could you respond other than "in my experience" or "people in the know have told me"?

[Fat Guy]

Dstone, I'm not the one arguing for a magical perspective. All I've got to prove is that cooking is a scientific process that can be replicated. I think we all agree with that. The less you know about something, the more magical it seems. I assure you chefs don't view each other's work as particularly magical.

Plotnicki, now you're talking about performers and not the conductor-as-bad-analogy-for-chef, which is a different point and has even less relevance. But I'm content to give you the point about music, since you think you know a lot about the subject, because your ignorance regarding how restaurants work exceeds even Bux's cluelessness about how to run a business:

What do we do when the veggies are a bit watery? Or who recognizes that today's batch of morels are top quality and then constructs a special of the day around them. Or who decides if today's batch of diver scallops would be better sauteed, seviched, broiled. etc. Or who takes a look at a strip of sirloins and decides to pan sautee or grille based on how marbled they are? Those are the tough decisions.

Tough decisions indeed. You'd need at least a few weeks in culinary school to make them.

[LaNiña]

Comparing music to food is fine. Art is art. Artistic expression is artistic expression. The freedom of expression that mastery provides, when combined with creative spontaneity, is what live performance, or great cooking, is all about.

[mikeczyz]

There is magic to creation - that's what makes an artist an artist, and not a technician.  It's in the giving and the receiving and the interplay between the two. 

Nina- I find it interesting about the interplay between the two. Whenever someone asks me for a favorite recording of a certain piece, I can never decide. Take Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. If I'm feeling frisky, I may reach for a performance of Kogan or Heifetz. If I'm in the mood for something a little more laid back, a little more broad, I may find an Oistrakh recording. THe interplay between how I'm feeling, my mood, and the very personal approach every great artist has to a certain work is something I've been interested in for a while. But perhaps I've already said too much for a website devoted to food.

mike

[Fat Guy]

Newsflash: There's no such thing as magic.

[stefanyb]

The less you know about something, the more magical it seems.

Hence, the development of religion.

[LaNiña]

Newsflash: There's no such thing as magic.

Oy vey. I'm not talking about some bizarro concept of magic, as in warlocks and newts' eyeballs. I'm talking about the COMMUNICATION THAT HAPPENS BETWEEN AUDIENCE AND ARTIST, BETWEEN EATER AND CHEF.

I utterly reject the notion that you don't know what I"m talking about, and even get it.

Go read some Rilke, and tell me what you call it when the tears start rolling down your face.

[LaNiña]

The less you know about something, the more magical it seems.

Hence, the development of religion.

No. I know a lot about music. A lot. Which is why it's even *more special* when that tu ne sais quoi (ha!) happens.

[Jaymes]

The only thing we experienced, concerned, "professional" diners can do is vote with our feet!  and tell the world...

I do not believe Dr.Revenue's motives were anywhere nearly so esoteric as all this.

He made his intent quite clear.

[mikeczyz]

I know a lot about music.  A lot.  Which is why it's even *more special* when that tu ne sais quoi (ha!) happens.

Agreed. Knowledge about the development of musical style, and other historical precedent always makes a performance more interesting (not always better) when I hear someone deviate from the norm.

mike

[jaybee]

If members truly believe that post enouraged the use of ad hominem responses, I apologize.

Bux we seem to have moved into the realm of music, but to set my own record straight, I did not imply (or infer) that you were calling anyone an idiot. It was Shaw who referred to the title of your thread as though to say there was a possibility that the customer (drrevenue) was the idiot, not the chef.

[LaNiña]

Ok, you know what's a good analogy? Sex. You can have sex with the same person, day in day out, year after year, and sometimes it's routine, the things that are supposed to happen may happen, ya got all the bells and whistles and that's all fine and good.

And then sometimes, something *happens*, ya know? Maybe it's the mood, maybe it's the spontaneity, maybe it's mastery, maybe it's inspiration, maybe it's improvisation - but maybe it's the freedom and communication that whatever those circumstances brought to the bed that particular night.

Call it magic, call it the stars aligned, call it whatever you like - but it ain't science. And it's the same with music and cooking and painting and writing poetry and giving an impassioned speech...

jaybee, if I may put you on the spot: what's that quotation of yours about creative people? You know the one I mean. Give us the whole paragraph, please.

[jaybee]

Uh Nina, are you at work?

[LaNiña]

Uh Nina, are you at work?

Yeah, I'm at work, and off to a doctors appointment, if I can turn off the goddamn computer.

Oh I HATE to miss this.

See y'all latuh.

[Fat Guy]

It was Shaw who referred to the title of your thread as though to say there was a possibility that the customer (drrevenue) was the idiot, not the chef.

A strained reading at best. And what's the excuse for: "The problem started when the stupid owner became defensive and obnoxious...now I have to respond to stupid, obnoxious people who don't get it...this site is sort of fun because you see what stupid idiots out there are willing to do to defend people like Hans Rockenwagner who could have ended this whole thing by simply calling me--remember he has my number and has asked my help with his business more than once--so as I said, you are an idiot! "

Nina, why don't you just talk about food instead of grasping for weak analogies? Is it because you can't make the argument with respect to food?

[John Whiting]

The fact that we have been pursuing an analogy which places a dinner on the same level of human achievement as a fine performance of a great symphony makes a claim at which even Brillat-Saverin would raise his eyebrows.

[Tonyfinch]

But I can tell you that I am so tired of being ripped off and served poorly by American industry--airlines, car rental places, credit card companies, utilities, you name it, that I don't smile and take it any more.

Jaybee,your attempts to defend drrevenue are painfully half hearted.How exactly was he "ripped off" and "served poorly"? He told the restaurant he wasn't satisfied. The restaurant apologised and waived the bill. Is this being "ripped off"?

His anger is NOT about the poor food and it is NOT about being "ripped off".It is about the fact that he wasn't accorded the deference he clearly believes he deserves. I can tell by your posts that you know this really but feel duty bound to defend his egotistical pomposity out of some kind of personal loyalty.

[Liza]

Hey FG, no need to call Nina's analogies weak justbecause you don't relate to them.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Gee anyone who has been a live peformer, or who has been part of a performance, that peaked in a way so as to move the audience physically totally understands this concept. Having taken part in that phenomenon both onstage and in the audience, I assure you that the people who make the moment peak are not ordinarily replaceable. I'm even surprised that Whiting, who as a recording engineer has sat though through endless flawed takes only to catch that special and "magical" take that comes along on the rare occassion, just can't admit that. Different takes aren't just all relative. There are great takes and there are lousy ones. Some of them are quite magical.