chefbrian1's Profile
Great Food Truck Race 9/11 - SPOILERS
I like the vegetarian challenge and the others. The challenges level the playing field and create surprises.
I assume that these trucks do not come to a town blind. There must be some Pre-Food Network's coming to town buzz, which brings in the long lines for the trucks.
Customers know it is a Food Network competition and that means going vegetarian or dollar menu etc...
As for Korilla, they cheat period. And they didn't have too.
Tyler said, he was up late working through what happened and what should be done. It was like getting caught with weed at sleep away camp and being sent home.
Not sure how this will change the show. Maybe the camera person with double as a book keeper to each truck.
Great Food Truck Race: Korilla Say its not so! (Spoiler)
Trust to be honest.
Trust goes a long way with food.
Is it fresh? Is the meat grass fed? Organic? Did you drop it on the floor and serve it anyway figuring that you can "Get away with it."
Did your food contain an allergen?
Will you tell me anything just to make a sale?
Great Food Truck Race: Korilla Say its not so! (Spoiler)
What the heck happened?
For those of us who have been following Food Networks Great Food Truck Race, we were thrown for a curve when Korilla, the Korean BBQ front runner was sent home for cheating.
Tyler said that Korilla had tried to put their own money, an extra $2700, into their till to pad their tally. They were caught cheating and sent home, a first the show.
Two of the three person team seemed surprised by the news, which made it seem like it was the act of a rogue team member who was afraid they would be sent home because of a weak showing.
Ironically, they did not even need to cheat because Korilla had made it safety into the top three.
What were they thinking?
Win or lose the race, each truck gets millions in free advertising.
Now, they will forever be the cheater truck.
Do you want to by food from people you cant trust?
Bourdain vs. Deen
Is Paula Deen: “the worst, most dangerous person in America … plus, her food sucks”????
Is Bourdain now an advocate for a healthy lifestyle who is protecting us from the dangerous Deen?
Hum...
Bourdain's story is about a cigarette smoking, hard drug and alcohol using, mediocre chef, who luckily survived this lifestyle, so he could write a popular book and host a travel TV show.
We see him on TV getting drunk often and this guy is not shy about promoting greasy, fried and crazy huge portions of food himself.
So why the Beef with Deen and other Food Network chef?
This will blow over in a few days, with both of them going back to their huge income, celebrity chef gigs, but I really think that Bourdain's snarky comments about Food Network chefs have really, really been completely played out.
Ace of Cakes Duff Goldman: Bonergate
OK.
I was watching Ace of Cakes (The latest show with the rocket launch and I notice an airbrush picture of a Boner in the background.
I posted a picture my blog. See for yourself.
http://lastoneeating.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/ace-of-cakes-duff-goldman-draws-a-boner-on-the-show/
Now, am I just making this up or did Duff paint a large (male unit) on the wall behind his cake?
And if he did, did he do this on purpose and the video crew failed to noticed?
Food Network has recently decided to cancel the show, so this might have been a happy hard-on way for Duff and the folks at Charms City Cakes to say goodbye.
LOL Duff
CB
Louisville, KY - long report
I am going to Louisville for the week on a school trip.
I do not see any mention of the famed Hot Brown Sandwich on this post.
We are planning on going to Lynn's
Any suggestion for must try foods while in Kentucky?
Brian
Detroit-- best corned beef or pastrami sandwich?
We went to Deli Unique because we were trying to go to the Stage Deli and it was closed. The atmosphere (I was the youngest person over 18 by at least 20 years and I'm 30) may not be "cool", but that corned beef was great, all gooey with fat, melting in my mouth.
-----
Deli Unique
39495 Woodward Ave, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
An Oasis in an Urban Food Desert
We have it lucky in Ann Arbor, Michigan with access to fresh food. With in a few miles of my house there is Plum Market, Kroger, Meijer, Arbor Farms, the Peoples food Coop, Kerry Town Market, Fresh Season (which may be relocating), and in season the Ann Arbor Wednesday and Saturday Market Farmer's Market, and the Westside Farmers Market. A little further down the road is Bush's, Trader Joes and two Whole Food Markets. And a new discount grocer is being built across the street on Maple and Dexter from Plum Market. Ann Arbor is a fresh food Oasis.
By contrast certain places in Detroit and other urban cities have "Food Deserts." From an article from the Detroit Metro Times by Larry Gabriel:
According to the study, these are areas where fringe food locations — gas stations, liquor stores, party stores, dollar stores, bakeries, pharmacies and convenience stores — are ... uh ... more convenient than mainstream grocers. In fact, about 550,000 Detroiters, well over half the city population, live in out-of-balance areas where the nearest grocery store is twice as far away as the nearest fringe food location. Combine that with a lack of a good mass transit system and you have a nutrition drought. Those severely out-of-balance areas are defined as food deserts.
The study says that "unless access to healthy food greatly improves, residents will continue to have greater rates of premature illness and death."
Detroit isn't alone. Food and nutrition issues plague every major urban area in the United States. There are diabetes and obesity epidemics across the nation. But, as usual, national problems are magnified in Detroit.
"Detroit is unique in that there are more neighborhoods without this kind of access," says Kami Pothukuchi, a professor of geography and urban planning at Wayne State University. "The extent of food deserts is smaller in other cities."
http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=11830
Coming back from a trip to the Detroit's Eastern Market, I thought how huge and abundant it was. The Eastern Market was probably 20-40 times the size of of Ann Arbor Market. I thought, Food Desert?, This is an Oasis." But many do not have a car or access to the market.
Here are a few video of organizations who are trying to make a difference to help feed Detroit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fS-AI4iYNE&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrOPomDfAFw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWlj0OO_jcw&feature=player_embedded
https://lastoneeating.wordpress.com
CB
Local Food on a Budget:The $3-$5 Local Meal Challenge
http://www.localharvest.org/
I find this site invaluable. Just put in you zip for a listing of all sorts of local food resources from farmers markets, farms, and food producers. It is a great place to start.
Also check out your local food co-op if you have one nearby. They are pretty up on local food sources.
And there is always the resource of starting a home garden or getting a community garden plot.
CB
Local Food on a Budget:The $3-$5 Local Meal Challenge
One of the things I hear about local food is that it is too expensive. Nay sayers of the local food movement use this argument to dismiss our efforts. So I am throwing down a challenge.
Introducing the $3.00-$5.00 local food meal deal challenge:
The idea is to create a $3-5 local meal
Why $3.00-$5.00? That is about the cost of a fast food meal.
Here are the rules:
Every ingredient has to be sourced locally, within 100-200 miles (with the exception of spices, salt, and baking supplies like baking powder, baking soda, yeast etc)
sweeteners must be local (honey, maple, michigan beet sugar)
Fat and veggie cooking oil also have to be local (no california olive oil, unless you live there)
The meal must be balanced and include a serving of protein, a starch and vegetables.
All items and costs must be itemized and posted
Items from your garden, gleaned or wild foraged count. Account the best you can for your garden veggies. For example your packet of seeds for lettuce may have costed $3 and provided 10 servings.
I will be posting my meals soon.
CB
Jolly Pumpkin Cafe & Brewery, Ann Arbor
Here is a local review. It looks like some good pub food, pizza, sandwiches and some fun vegetarian options for the hard to take out folks. Prices are 10-15 dollars and they offer grass fed burgers.
I will post a review once I get there.
http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/food-drink/jolly-pumpkin-cafe-and-brewery-opens-on-main-st/
CB
Looking for Doughnuts In Michigan - Several Cities
The best doughnut in Michigan, in the Ann Arbor area is at Jenny's Market in Dexter. They make fresh pumpkin doughnut and have local cider, but the season will not last.
http://www.jennysdextermarket.com/
CB
https://lastoneeating.wordpress.com/
Michael Ruhlman: Expert in Residence!
I am very curious about the studies you mentioned about the positive health effects of nitrites/nitrates. I avoid using nitrites/nitrates because of a perceived health risk, and would love to either find a reliable substitute or see the studies you mentioned to put my mind at ease.
For example, Applegate Farms sells a nitrate free pepperoni.
Ingredients: (Pork, beef, sea salt, dextrose, spices, sugar, paprika, garlic powder, lactic acid, and starter culture)
Could lactic acid and starter culture be a substitute for nitrites/curing salt?
CB
https://lastoneeating.wordpress.com/
Michael Ruhlman: Expert in Residence!
Blood sausage:
I worked on a farm that was "harvesting" a cow." The farmer let me collect some fresh blood during the harvest, which I planned to use to make blood sausage. I figured when would I ever get the chance to get fresh blood.
Unlike most sausage making which consists of using ground meat, blood sausage is liquid and in my case required trying to pour a warm mixture of cream, blood, rendered fat back, and seasonings through a funnel and into sausage tube, before cooking them off and cooling them to a solid sausage.
A few of the sausage castings burst open resulting in what only could be describe as a crime scene in my all white kitchen. I managed to make a good batch of sausages from blood.
They were OK. They had a strong (blood) organ taste, like liver but more so. The most interesting thing was how the blood turned solid in my refrigerator before a made the sausages.
I saw that most blood sausage was made from pigs blood. Is there a big difference?
CB
https://lastoneeating.wordpress.com/
Top Chef Las Vegas Ep. 6 - 09/23/09 (Spoilers)
Mattin was likable, but the guy screwed up bacon, the holy grail ingredients which its use is almost assured to win a cooking competition. His food was so bad for the desert challenge that Judge Tom actually had to spit it out, which I think was a first for on Top Chef. That is why he was kick off.
Rule #1: Make your food edible.
So after Mattin's ground breaking screw up, the Top Chef's wear his neckerchiefs to honor him, while at the same time they prop up Robin as the person who should have not been picked on the playground to play kickball.
Robin wins the quick fire which is given away in the original post. Her win gave her immunity which provided an ultimate "So There," to all of the neckerchief wearing people.
With that said, I feel this is best season yet. Ash, Robin, Laurine have come in last or in the middle. Unless they dazzle, they probably will not last. Eli and Michael Isabella seems to be in the middle most of the time.
The rest are pretty strong cooks
No-Knead Bread vs Traditional (Kneaded) -- How are they Different?
Amazinc,
I have been making no knead for a while from the Bittman video and it is good, but lacks complex flavor, so I have been turn off to it lately. I was thinking that I could add a little bit of starter or something to jazz it up. I like the beer idea.
So is the cook's illustrated recipe basically the same with a little beer or vinegar thrown in?
CB
Nations Health Decline Because of Dirty Dishes?
I concede that dish duty is not the only reason people are cooking less, and yes, in trying to throw some humor into my post, I make some gross generalizations.
With that said, I do feel that behind every fast food, packaged, take out, microwave, and hot bar meal, there is in part an ease of clean up factor that is both behind the motivation to purchase them, and part of the billion dollar effort to market these meals.
People are spending less time cooking and that means less time at the dish sink too. There are some on this post that mentioned they like or do not mind doing dishes. Being the Chowhounders, I imagine that more of us cook then the average person and have made peace with dirty dishes by cleaning as we go, using less, or being zen about cleaning.
When I think about dish duty portrayed on TV there are two competing scenes. One scene is that of a couple after a meal or dinner party at the dish sink. One washes and the other dries while they smile, and flirt with each other. Dishes seems like foreplay. If that was the cast, I would be doing way more dishes.
The other scene is that of a huge pile of dishes and the person doing them is soaking wet, with a dirty apron, and is a salve to the sink.
The reality may be somewhere in between. Maybe the reason cooking shows are referred too as "food porn" is because it portrays a food fantasy where food is created and dishes do not have to be cleaned. Seeing a big pile of dishes to be cleaned is the fastest way to lose our metaphorical culinary boner.
In the back of my mind, when I decide to pick up take-out instead of cook a meal, the thought is that I do not feel like cooking and having to clean up tonight. For me, the clean up is the bigger deal than the cooking. I imagine that I am not alone with this thought. Some have posted to that affect. If the need to avoid clean up is strong then that can keep many people out of the kitchen, and to the phone for take-out.
Anthony Bourdain vs Alice Waters
Jmckee, greeting from the Mid West, (Ann Arbor). I think this is the best reply to the original post yet. Water's food, cooking, and restaurant is not the issue. Her cooking is very much inline with AB's and that is French inspired. That is way I was so confused with AB's dis.
In fact I think there maybe a sibling revelry between AB and Water because they are both New Jersey cooks who made good, but AB might be jealous of Waters success. After all AB inherited Las Halles and its theme and menu. He says as much in his cookbook. AB may judge Top Chef, but is no Top Chef. He walked into an already successful restaurant and was smart enough to not screw it up.
In Kitchen Confidential, he basically got fired, or the place went out of business on his watch at most restaurants he worked. Maybe because he was more into drugs than cooking. Although AB now has a dream job, he does show envy with many top chefs he meets because he knows he never came close to their level. I think Water is among them.
The St Alice comment makes sense, and I can see how people including AB would take issue with her.
I think part of why she may seems out of touch is her location of california. When I lived in Portland Oregon, I became accustomed to long, year round growing seasons, more variety at the farmers market, and in general a richer foodie culture of regional wine, cheese, mushrooms, and ethnically diverse cuisine.
Back in the Midwest, that culture is here, but harder to find. In a few weeks, I will be saying good bye to my garden and the variety of at the farmers market. It is easier to go local, and fresh in Northern California. If you are looking outside and thinking about food and see your garden still growing in January, I can see how expectation can be off.
With that said, I think anyone who is a foodie (chowhound), who cooks home made meals with fresh, whole food ingredients can become "out of touch" because that is far from the norm.
CB
Nations Health Decline Because of Dirty Dishes?
Nations Health Decline Because of Dirty Dishes?
Did you ever notice that they never show people washing dishes on cooking shows? On shows like Chopped, or Top Chef, after contestants destroy a kitchen during a challenge, they never have a follow up scene with them doing the dishes. When the contest begins again after a commercial, the kitchen is spotless.
Even a seemingly simple 30 minute meal by Rachel Ray creates a huge pile of dirty dishes. She throws pans in the oven to roast, has one pot for a sauce, another for veggies, a saute pan to brown meat, bowls to mix salad, and pots for boiling pasta. She uses a blender, a food processor, and chops raw chicken on a cutting board. There are serving platters for presenting her food, more dishes for dessert, utensils for serving, silverware to eat with and glasses for drinks. “Yumm-o” Rachel says with a smile after tasting her food. Then the credits roll. The meal takes 30 minutes to cook, but cleaning the dishes will take much longer. Is Rachel going to wash all of those dishes?
American’s are spending less time in the kitchen these days, about 27 minutes a day. This is down from an hour in the late seventies. And the time we do spend in the kitchen is more about opening a package and reheating then taking out a pan or a cutting board. There are many reasons for our move out of the kitchen. We can point to the fact that more woman are working outside the home, or the increase of fast, and package foods. But I feel that the unspoken reason why American’s are cooking less is the fear of dishpan hands.
I cook home made meals for my family and I create a lot of dirty dishes in the process. Take tonight’s meal of black bean and shrimp tacos with fresh salsa, home made tortillas, and a cabbage slaw. There is the pot for the beans, a broiler pan for the shrimp, bowls for the salsa, the cabbage salad and another for the tortilla dough. I used the salad spinner to wash the cilantro and then there are the plates and bowls to serve the meal. By the time dinner is ready, and served there is a pile of dishes to do. On a good night someone from the family steps up and the dishes get done.
But on a low energy, lazy, let’s do them tomorrow and watch our favorite cooking shows night, the dishes are left. The laziness from last night continues to the next day and the dishes are still not done. Instead of tackling them, I grab from what is left of the clean pots and pans to make dinner. This adds to the pile. One or two meals of not doing the dishes and the whole system breaks down. The kitchen is a mess and even the simplest of cooking tasks like making a grilled cheese sandwich is a pain. The kitchen is a dish nightmare. Suddenly take-out menus are starting to look really good.
Packaged, fast food and/or hot bar meals from the grocery store solve for the dish nightmare, and there is no fear getting dishpan hands. But what has my pursuit of freeing myself from dish duty cost me? The fear of or lack of will to wash dirty dishes is keeping millions of Americans out of the kitchen, in my opinion. This has meant a steady decline of healthy, home cooked meals. The end result has been a predictably steady decline in public health. All in the name of looking for a way out of doing dishes.
No one wants to wash dishes. After all, our cherished food memories are about grandma’s roasted chicken, but not the dirty roasting pan. But if we want to create a culture around healthy, home cooked meals again to counter a fast food driven, and obesity burdened society, clean up has to be apart of the conversation. The simple truth is that washing dishes is a part of a home cooked meal. And behind every Top Chef, 30 Minute Meal, or a health providing, home cooked dinner is a pile of dirty dishes. The famed chef and cooking show host Julia Child once encouraged us to be fearless in the kitchen. I would take that a step further and say that we have to be fearless at the dish sink as well.
(If anyone likes this post and wants to reprint it on their personal blog, or elsewhere, that is great. All I ask is that you include my blog address with it.)
CB
https://lastoneeating.wordpress.com/
Thoughts on Plenty/100 Mile Diet
I have been trying to source as much food as possible locally. I have only made a few truly 100 mile meals. Like chicken from a local farm, with potatoes from my garden and broccoli from the farmers market. I used local butter, and herbs from my garden. Besides the salt and pepper, everything was local, within 50 miles. Can I do this for every meal? I cooked for my family of four and we all would have to be onboard. I could slip in a 100 mile meal in, but they would rebel, and sneak chocolate, so...
I am not a purist by any stretch. The hardest items to give up would be:
citrus fruit,
chocolate,
vanilla,
spices,
sea salt,
avocado,
coastal fish,
coconut,
certain cheeses,
almonds,
pine nuts,
rice
olive oil
peanut oil.
Most packaged foods like my cereal and rice milk would be off the 100 mile list as would almost all meals out. And I would have to make all of my sauces, condiments, and vinegars, like soy sauce, ketchup and mustard? The biggest challenge is that I would pretty much have to cook all of my meals.
I live in michigan like Coney. About november the farmers markets, and my garden dries up. The plenty people started in March. I think I would start in May when I have my gardening coming in and the farmers market starts up. I would also make sure I stocked up for the winter. I guess I would make a lot of wheat bread, cornbread, winter squash and potatoes through winter.
Anthony Bourdain vs Alice Waters
I am not sure AB's show offers a message that good food can be had at any price. After all, he is eating in restaurant most of the time which costs more then making it yourself. I think his nemesis, Rachel Ray does a better job then him on the everyday cheap food message.
The cost of one of his upscale meals, $50-$100 or more the way he drinks is more then my home meal food budget for the week. And that is buying local organic at the farmer's market.
The guy is there to entertain, which is the point of the show. Part of that is to show food porn meals, talk smack about vegan, make apocalypse references, eating pork sandwiched the six of my cat and to drink a lot on camera.
But is there an underlining message of good for can be had at any price? The guys goes to food carts sometimes, and food carts are cheap.
OK. I will give you that he is a food cart/street food advocate.
CB
Anthony Bourdain vs Alice Waters
Organic is not always a magic bullet, I agree. When I worked on an organic practice, but not certified farm, the farmer put it this way. "I sell direct, which means people can ask me what I put in my soil, and how I grow their food. There is a personal relationship."
But when we buy in the super market, we do not know what they put on the food, the soil, etc...so we need standards like organic and labels to give an idea, but my experiences from picking and cooking fresh from the ground food, is freshness is king period. Garden fresh and home cooked is always the way to go.
CB
Anthony Bourdain vs Alice Waters
I don't think AB cares about or could be won over to sustainable food. He is not and I feel will never be a locavore champion, which makes he wonder why he seems to be such to be a hero to your locavore buddies. His message is, I don't care where the food comes from, only that it is tasty.
That is fine for him. He is welcomed to his views. I don't think he ever said he feels any different, but he is no poster boy for social justice food activism.
AB does seem to go organic for milk for his child. On a panel with Water's, AB goes on to bitch about the high cost of the organic milk he feds his child as unfair to people who can't afford it. AB's argument with Water's is for her audacity of wanting and working toward the social justice for everyone child to have the same organic milk AB provides for his child.
Can AB bitch about Water's desire for organic food for kids on one hand, but buy organic milk for his child because he can on the other?
I think people like AB because he has a punk rock, "take that" message, which supposedly makes him a man of the people. In order for him to have that message, he needs a straw man to set up as the "other." He does that with vegans and people laugh and cheer, and now with Alice Waters, but his Waters attack, I still say, does not work.
It is hard to be a punk rock man of the people when you eat from a taco stand one minute and then go to a fancy upscale, pampered meal the next. These pampered, "free because am on TV," meals, are the same expensive meals that you mentioned that you and your AB cheering friends cannot afford.
So why is Water's "annoying" because she wants good, local, organic food for everyone, and AB is not when he is paid millions to eat expensive meals in front us on TV?
CB
Anthony Bourdain vs Alice Waters
A locavore movement worker who does not cook?
Maybe you could pick up Alice Water's, The Art of Simple Food, and bust out some recipes, and invite some of your farm buddies for a locavore offal potluck.
____________
We don't sit around in the kitchen cooking polenta for hours. We have other jobs and even though they are food-related, we don't have a lot of time to cook. I sometimes feel like keeping a kitchen stocked full of locally-grown food and cooking it is like having a second full-time job.
______________
Charity Dinners at Home: The future of the Local Food Movement
A couple in my town of Ann Arbor, Michigan started offering breakfast for money every friday morning in their home. Their goal was to promote local food producers and farmers and to create community. Local chefs joined in to cooks on a given friday and volunteers chipped in to clean up. The food was sourced locally from nearby farms as much as possible and the meals were great. Suddenly there was a place to go in town to get a fresh local tasty meal.
I was inspired by this do-it-yourself idea. I figured if we waited for the food industry to offer fresh, seasonal, locally sourced food, we'd be waiting a long time. But here was an example of people doing it from there home kitchen, with very low start up cost. I had high hopes that this idea would grow into a network of local food movement inspired independent micro eateries. Anyone could transform their kitchen into a single table local food restaurant.
Shortly after they started, however, they ran into legal trouble concerning running a "restaurant" in their home. So much for a good thing I thought, but then they got some legal help. It ends up that a person can legally serve a meal in their house. According to the law:
The relevant exemption is this, excerpted from the Michigan Food Law of 2000, Section 289.1107:
(j) “Food establishment” means an operation where food is processed, packed, canned, preserved, frozen, fabricated, stored, prepared, served, sold, or offered for sale. Food establishment includes a food processing plant, a food service establishment, and a retail grocery. Food establishment does not include any of the following:
(i) A charitable, religious, fraternal, or other nonprofit organization operating a home-prepared baked goods sale or serving only home-prepared food in connection with its meetings or as part of a fund-raising event.
In other words, if they hosted a meeting or fund raising event for a charitable, religious, fraternal or non-profit organization they could serve food cooked in their home and receive money in the form of a donation. So they needed to fit into one of those four categories. What this couple did was aline themselves with Slow Food of Huron Valley, a non-profit organization. This relationship basically made their friday morning breakfasts into a non-profit fund raising event.
The charity dinner angle was a way for local food minded cooks (or any foodie for that matter) to host meals in their home and to get reimbursed. I have attended a few private dinners in peoples home for charity. This included "secret super clubs" or "underground restaurants" as they are called. Most people who run secret supper clubs will tell you that they do not make much money doing it. They do it to express their inner cook and foodie.
How these people work with the law to allow them to cook a meal in their home and receive payment is by contacting a local charity or non-profit group who then sponsors the meal. Some or all of the proceeds after food cost goes to the charity. The charity gets a little money and buzz. The home cook gets to get their chef on. And the guests get a great meal that is usually on par in cost and quality with an upscale restaurant. Everyone wins. These meal can be a one time fundraiser event or an ongoing supper club in the case of the couple with the friday morning meals.
So if you have a urge to express your inner chef, but don't have your own restaurant, start one in your home as charity fundraiser meals. This is the law in Michigan. I cannot speak to how it works in other states.
CB
Anthony Bourdain vs Alice Waters
Of all of the farmer's markets in the country or SF for that matter Bourdain picks is a "white collar" neighborhood to give a "farmers markets are elitist" shtik. It did not work. It is like the set up we see on political interview shows.
Lets see him scream elitist that at the Detroit michigan farmers market, a city where certain areas are so devoid of the availability of fresh produce that they are considered "food desserts."
http://www.guernicamag.com/spotlight/1182/food_among_the_ruins/index.php
Ypsilanti, michigan, the town over from Ann Arbor where I live was a food dessert until a farmers market opened. No elitism there I can assure you. People are able to purchase fresh, local and affordable produce at the markets with food stamps.
As for the price of food at the market, most of the time the farmers market beats the super market for produce staples. If you tend to get to the market at the end like I end up doing because I sleep in, the farmers practically give away the food. Farmer's are almost always open to give you a deal if you ask, and you are stocking up.
I agree with a poster, that maybe Bourdain should create a new show. The guy, I feel has lost his edge. He stopped smoking, is married with a young child and is on lipator, which he confessed on the SF show as he is eating a pork sandwich the size of his head.
Maybe he can team up and do a show with Alice Waters.
Jim Leff on MPR Midmorning with Kerri Miller
First off...sorry for calling you "Jeff" instead of Jim and thanks for clearing up your message with me with the points I got wrong, which was a lot. For the record I do not believe the gov't has death panels.
I listened to the interview again to see how I got so off.
I concede all your rebuts. It was your interview, your experiences and your opinions. Enough said.
One comment:
--------
Jim wrote: "But restaurants have not, are not, and will never be the place to go for everyday eating."
--------
This everyday eating I take to be the glycemic balanced, organic sourced meals you make at home, which talked about. This is not the "stick of butter, pushy flavored, indulgent cheeseburger, feel bad afterwards, lost my love of eating" meals....with the exception of corn flakes.
Are you saving that all restaurants are doomed to be dens of indulgent unhealthiness that should be avoided for the most part. Is this just the norm in america or everywhere?
And if yes, is there nothing we can or should do about it then cook for ourselves?
CB
Jim Leff on MPR Midmorning with Kerri Miller
The original post was good summary of the interview.
What stood out for me was when he talked about eating the fried chicken. He mentioned eating till being full for several days in a row then having a great piece of chicken which he really could not appreciate. Jeff goes on to talk about living a nine meal a day lifestyle as a chowhound.
OK. The guy got fat and unhealthy and made some lifestyle changes. Good for him, but he was eating in the extreme. If I ate nine meals a day and I was full, but still had to eat for my job I would be turned off to food too. How many of us are nine meal a day food critics who have eaten in restaurant so much that we are jaded? I wish. (chuckles)
Jeff mentioned that restaurants are lacking because chefs are stuck making consistent, yet less interesting food for a boring public to stay in business. People want things the same way every time. This was probably the most interesting point he makes. His point comes partly from his jadedness about food, but it rings true.
The need for sameness has lead to fast food, chain restaurants, packaged junk food, frozen pizzas, and super market sushi. The problem with sameness is that it does not account for seasonality, and regional or local foods. That is why we have crappy out of season food like tomatoes in winter.
Sameness is also holding back a well spring of culinary creativity. Chef's are dying to make more interesting fresh seasonal food, but the general food eating public always wants the same thing. That is why there is salmon, shrimp, and steak on most menus. And it is why we get the dumb down usually unhealthy version of ethnic cuisines. Only the really upscale restaurant push it a little when we foodies let them and we have to pay a fortune for it.
Jeff underlying message is that being aa day chowhound restaurant eater, and not a five meal low glycemic home cooked meal guy will make us fat. I feel there is a need for healthier home cooked meals, but Jeff seems to be running and hiding from the dangerous food word out there that will make him fat again. Instead of hiding, I say demand good food and let our chefs rise to the challenge, and support them when they do. That way the organic, local themed restaurant will survive and we will have a choice other than fast food for lunch.
Top Chef: where are they now (ongoing)
Stephanie Izard came to my town, Ann Arbor to do a cooking demo for a packed crowd. I showed later and did not want to see the demo via a screen in another room. What was the point of seeing some from TV live to see them on TV? (chuckles). She is in the works of starting her own restaurant in Chicago. http://www.stephanieizard.com/
Stephen from season one seems to be still going strong. http://www.stephenasprinio.com/. He seemed so full of himself the whole time. He did not win, but did not seemed not to care. He always dressed the part of success and talked up his food, maybe too much. We see him in later seasons in Miami owning his own wine shop.
