Over at City of Ate Scott Reitz talks about doneness and the (very Texan and San Franciscan) custom to ask diners to cut open their steak and check if it’s done to their demands:

But here’s the rub. While beef certainly displays visual cues [...]]]>

Over at City of Ate Scott Reitz talks about doneness and the (very Texan and San Franciscan) custom to ask diners to cut open their steak and check if it’s done to their demands:

But here’s the rub. While beef certainly displays visual cues that indicate doneness, you can’t see medium rare, because it’s not a color. It’s a temperature (130 to 135 degrees, if you care.) Doneness should be tested when a steak is back in the kitchen with a thermometer, not table-side with a spotlight. I want my steak to rest easily on plate before I cut into it, end to end.

Scott has a point. Why should quality control be left to the diner? After all, isn’t that what makes us cooks and chefs? The ability to cook things to order?

But that’s only part of it. When I asked the same question in San Francisco I received a pretty depressing answer: diners dislike their food to be touched by cooks. And, said the food critic I was talking to, since everyone knows from Food TV that doneness is established by poking meat with fingers, diners seem to be more in favor of testing themselves than letting cooks prod their fare.

That’s of course correct. Unlike Scott’s “thermometer” scheme, I poke my steaks with my finger. Thermometers are slow and hold up service. Even the good fast ones from Taylor or Harold take five to eight seconds to read correctly. A touch is faster and as accurate. And can’t be stolen by a scumbag linecook. It’s all in a day’s work and two decades’ experience. A simple experiment at home is to squeeze one’s ear lobe, poke one’s chin and nose. The difference in “springiness” more or less translates into the feel of a 1.5 inch steak when done well, medium, or rare. After a few years I can touch my steaks when plating and know what doneness they are.

Good cooks know, from mere visual inspection before adding the steak to the grill and from experience with differently stored (we store our steaks below the danger zone, for example, so we need more time in the oven to bring it to temperature. Other places store at higher temps and pull smaller batches to avoid leaving them out above the prescribed time) cuts how long a grill and bake will take. Something in the back of my head keeps nagging me at about the right time, even if I am not consciously looking at clocks. Again, that’s what experience brings and what makes me (and tens of thousands of cooks and chefs) different than our self-proclaimed “chef” impostors and culinary school graduates.

Being able to cook steak right is one of our claims to those sixty cents above minimum wage we so dearly deserve. Relinquishing that control to the diner is not now and has not ever been our choice. Instead it’s a combination of Front of the House distrust and diner de-education, namely their unwillingness to concede that, yes, the people in the back of the house actually touch their food. We still do, but by letting diners do a little Quality Assurance on the table we at least add one more illusion to the elaborate construct of letting eaters think they’re as smart as us about food and as in charge as we are.

The year is 2009. Teresa Puente. a blogger for ChicagoNow (to call her a journalist would be about as stretching it as calling me one) asks “Why is Rick Bayless the expert on Mexican cuisine when he’s not even Mexican“. A year later, Cammie [...]]]>

The year is 2009. Teresa Puente. a blogger for ChicagoNow (to call her a journalist would be about as stretching it as calling me one) asks “Why is Rick Bayless the expert on Mexican cuisine when he’s not even Mexican“. A year later, Cammie McDaniel, this time for the Chicago Tribune, writes “Bayless insulting to Mexican-Americans” and means it.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But it shows a trend – X is offended if non-X sells X’s food and, somehow, is made the “expert” on whatever X they’re serving. Or is it?

Mario Battali is American. Not Italian. He was born and raised in America. His food is influenced by Italian-American dishes, sure, but Italian-American is about as Italian as it is Irish (or Irish-American is Irish, for that matter). He spent a few years in Italy and that qualifies him to claim Italian influences. But so did Bayless in Mexico. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Bayless spent more time in Mexico than Batali in Italy. And don’t get me started on Scott Conant. Not even remotely Italian by heritage he spent a few months cooking in Italy and is now the “predominant expert on Italian cuisine” to quote the starter blurb in Chopped. A few months in Italy? Compared to six years in Mexico for Bayless? If Conant is an expert so is Bayless.

Should Marcus Samuelsson be allowed to cook anything but Swedish, Austrian, or American food? Should I, for that matter, be allowed to cook French or American food. After all, I am neither.

The deal is simple. Cooking and cookery transcends petty little nationalistic bullshit attitudes. Food is a language and culture of its own and, unlike the regionalistic meatheads crying for someone’s passport whenever they taste food, speaks to everyone who takes the time and effort to listen. Battali makes food the way Battali understands food, Bayless does the same. So do tens of thousands of cooks and chefs in this country alone. Your French food in America is made by Mexicans, your Mexcian food by Puerto Ricans, your Spanish food by Mexicans, your German food by Americans. And each and every one of them, for that time, for the precious hours in the kitchen on a stove, forget about the idiotic notion of borders and languages and pride in something they had no power over such as the place they were born. There is pride – in one’s craft, in the results. The rest is best left to those who don’t speak food’s international and uniting language.

With temperatures below freezing in the morning, Texas is once again home to some of the more hilarious hijinks of nature. Atypically warm weather over the past few weeks [...]]]>

With temperatures below freezing in the morning, Texas is once again home to some of the more hilarious hijinks of nature. Atypically warm weather over the past few weeks led to farmers opening their greenhouses and banking on cold, maybe even freezing, mornings but warm afternoons. The result is a slew of great tasting, a-seasonal, fare that can now be enjoyed locally. Time to bring a squash dish back onto the menu.

… for the discerning chewer between Petrus Wine Gummy Pastilles and Havanna eVape drags.

Rocky Agrawal‘s (@rakeshlobster) piece on VentureBeat titled “Yelp advertising is a rip-off for small advertisers“. Then Disqus hickupped again (still asking me why I am not using third party commenting?) so I am posting it here.

For the promise of actual visits, the hope for great reviews and the subsequent influx of paying customers, restaurants are willing to dig deep into their ever-diminishing pockets. We’re gamblers in the great casino of hospitality, hooked on the three lemon streak we had in 2008, willing to double down with our last shirt to see that rain of money once more.

Remember 2001? When Exodus Communications (soon to be CW, later to be Savvis) lost Google and Yahoo and Sun Microsystems and everyone in-between as customers? Those tech smart people paid millions in useless advertising and marketing stunts just for a hope to see their cabinets hum with the monotonous sound of tens of thousands of servers once more. If tech-smart people like Exodus were willing to raise the ante and bet (and, in this case as in many Yelp stories) lose the farm, how can we fault John Q. Restaurateur for doing the same?

The issue here is triple: the aforementioned magical mystery promise, the disconnect between non-tech users and tech creators (quick, what do Venturebeat’s stats say about small business owner readership?), and the makeup of Yelp’s sales pitch which, as you know, doesn’t talk about “CPM” or “Impressions” but focuses on customers and reputation management.

Yelp is settled enough in the criticism and reputation space that it believes it can compare itself to Zagat or Michelin. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if your source quoted the line “we’re somewhat like Michelin or Zagat for the 21st century” as one of the pitches. Another thing often mentioned is Google (“when someone pulls up the place page, our reviews are linked from there”). And everyone knows Google. Everyone fears and worships Google. To the restaurateur this is like a nest of bees to the starving honeybadger – don’t care about the sting of the outlay, don’t care about the technical picture, there’s food on the table to be had, let’s risk it.

This image has nothing to do with the post, I just figured I’d show the final functionality. It was uploaded with WordPress’ image uploader but synced in the back to Dropbox and is now served from there.

I am using:

Food media is at it, again, this time (as every year) in the “shorties”, the annual event “honor[ing] the best of social media”.

Winner in food is, currently, Niall [...]]]>

Food media is at it, again, this time (as every year) in the “shorties”, the annual event “honor[ing] the best of social media”.

Winner in food is, currently, Niall Horan, a 18 year old singer. And, funnily enough, a namesake of his from Dublin.

He’s also the “hottie of the year” (seriously?), a “hero” (10s of thousands of cops, military members, doctors, EMT, and others laugh in disgust), a singer (funny if your chosen profession gets MUCH less votes than your ability to eat things) and “green”.

Down at 4th place is Hannah, the genius behind “My Drunk Kitchen“, the “Epic Meal Time” crew  at 5th, and (ewww) Bitchin’ Kitchen which, while an abomination upon mankind and as disgusting as McDonalds or Roadkill Cafe at least deals with food.

Ladies, gentlemen, this is why we can’t have anything nice in this world. When idiotic teen heartthrob singers can get more recognition in #food than weird cooking videos, the world is screwed.

What I am a little confused about is [...]]]>

noma

I am as thrilled as most of my brothers and sisters in the service of ideas and cuisines that have now become arranged under the monicker of New Nordic that Plate decided to dedicate a whole print issue to the topics we deal with every day.

What I am a little confused about is the “why now” part of the equation. It’s not like it’s new. Sure, noma’s success has propelled the idea into the stratosphere, not the least due to Rene’s ceaseless work in formulating the rules of the cuisine along with giving it a name, but this kind of food isn’t new. In fact, it’s been around for so long, might as well just call it Nordic Cuisine and be done with it.

Talking about “loyalty” is a hot topic these days. And most people have their own idea what it means. In restaurant terms it’s anything from customers telling friends to go, customers who defend “their” restaurant [...]]]>

Talking about “loyalty” is a hot topic these days. And most people have their own idea what it means. In restaurant terms it’s anything from customers telling friends to go, customers who defend “their” restaurant on blogs, networks, and forums, and customers coming back. To CNET, apparently, “loyalty” means to have images loading enabled. Which I don’t. So their little tracking bug 1-pixel won’t tell them if I read their emails or no. So under the subject line of “Is this goodbye? We’ll miss you…” I got this niftily aggressive note about being a stranger. Does it make me want to come back? Not really. But, of course, email is cheap…

True, Taylor is a GMO [...]]]> People are outraged now that President Obama appointed none other than former Monsanto lobbyist and flag carrier of the GMO movement, Michael Taylor, to food czar – more than two years ago. Sometimes it takes a little waiting… And well they should be. But not for the reasons everyone cries.

True, Taylor is a GMO advocate. Taylor pushed an agenda which allowed companies like Cargill and Monsanto to deploy genetically modified crops and to – in steps two to five – use those genetics and their patents to sue small farms out of everything they had, essentially creating a monopoly.

Also true, this isn’t Taylor’s first stint with the goverment and while the USDA Food Safety guy he swung big words but implemented scarcely any actual changes, despite Marion Nestle’s blog claiming the opposite a few years back.

But that’s just the particulars. The true issue here is with the administration’s repeated and anger-inducing push to put industry insiders into a watchdog’s place. Anyone ever working (or being a “guest” of) a prison knows that, yeah, you let some inmates do some jobs that allow them to interface with their kind and you, but the guys with the guns better not be of the general population kind. Obama just gave a gun to the guy who drinks wine with the prison’s most notorious inmate overlord every weekend.

I believe even a cursory glance over Taylor’s track record and pronouncements will make this very clear: Taylor doesn’t care about anyone but his industry buddies. Sure, he’s a former FDA lawyer gone private gone Monsanto gone USDA gone private and from there back to the FDA, which might look like he’s a man of both sides but, alas, this is not true.

Taylor is sneaky. He pushed a move in which the cost and oversight of food safety is moved away from federal budgets and groups to state ones. Knowing full well that states in dire straits will first cease enforcement of what looks like white collar crimes (until an E. Coli eye gets poked out, then there’s some lipservice and all goes back to normal) and that states like Texas or Montana will never, ever, work against their corporate BigAg overlords, he essentially handed Monsanto and Co. free reign.

Taylor also shows his true colors with his lawyer-like “let’s deal with the risk proportional to cost” approach in which “big ticket” items are addressed and “acceptable losses” are – while not voiced – a constant undertone.

A good food czar does four things:

• create an oversight and enforcement plan that reins in the big dudes while supporting the small ones instead of placing big dude requirements on small dude operations, essentially killing them
• places the population first, at all times. If that means less Monsanto and Cargill so be it.
• as a mediator he doesn’t have to be adversarial with big business. But never, ever, should he be friendly with them
• and, finally, he knows the insides of the millions of small food producers better than anything else. As a friend of mine, a dairy farmer in Wisconsin, once said: “If four hundred small farms go under it’s a statistic, if ConAgra lays off 1200 workers it’s a tragedy and Washington reacts.”

Taylor was a bad choice. Not because he pushed GMO and not because he is Monsanto. But because he has ties to one side of the equation and none to the other. Next time, Mr. President, how about an academic, not a lobbyist?