Poivrot Farci

Endured a drab lunch not long ago and while my expectations of lunch in general rival those of convincement by Jehovah’s Solicitors that “the end of false religions is near”, no self-righteous good can come from goofing on a very reputable restaurant, despite their abhorrent oversights. However, having sped-read the apocryphal mumbo-jumbo pamphlet, I must repent and regale the community before the Rapture, Eternity in hell or Bobby Flay’s next cup size; which ever comes first. Upon our 6-top being seated in the near empty dining room, fellow guests and I squelched at the varied Libby-esque trift store stemware, and mostly-poly blend napkins which were slightly thicker than any grandmother’s slips (same color though) and slid off most trousers. The soups arrived on a large serving tray next to the table whereupon the plastic-wrap was near-expertly removed and humbly served. One soup’s corner pieces could have been advertized with “now 50% more filler!” Mostly fat or bread for buoyancy, void of salt, spice or herb and remarkably held together by either residual protein or magic. Another was dry; the bloated, beached starches having sucked up all the juice from the pool. Wine and espresso were pleasant and free peppermints on exit received enthusiastic nods. Taste and the value of a $60 lunch is subjective and critics have labeled me as particular and cheap. Nonetheless, the tableside plastic-unwrapping was a scooch more pedestrian than I would have expected even from a Christmas lunch buffet in Little Rock on a particularly cheap budget, much less an allegedly award winning chef. One might assume that the soups were heated in a microwave and then expedited. Lazy traditionalist and tactful good liars would have topped the bowls with a cloche after/before nuking said soup. Anyone else would have taken the plastic off before sending it to the table or delegated the responsibility. A pocket-full few veteran disciples of the Medici era still heat soups in metal pots with fire.

stainless steel sieve

Cod roe and/or smoked herring paste out of a tube in the twilight of the ‘fridigaire On my finger. Like I’m brushing my teeth without a toothbrush. swish, swoosh Oh ja.

It is entirely conceivable that between Apicius’ 4th century snail recipes and the present, a resourceful cook will have paired 2 ingredients found in the same area during the same season once the rain has stopped. Italians may call it evoluzione di cucinare. Celery root & snail’s alliteration precedes its historical menu popularity by virtue of celeriac’s C-list celebrity.Corrodere (Massimo Manfredi’s 1st course at the bottom)

Romain Snails (lumache) are common to the relatively lean mountains of Le Marche region’s otherwise fish-rich coast along the northern Adriatic. Traditionally, they were raised and eaten by monks for Lent because the fishes were too far away, and there is nothing more pious than eating snails at 18th century Friday Monastery Happy Hours. Celery root (sedano rapa) has been consumed by Italians in fall/winter and others, apparently grudgingly, for quite some time now.Croquetter is Swedish.

Having met both, Mr. Hoffman is the sober, dedicated, sustainable-farming protagonist who rides a Dutch-style bicycle to the farmer’s market for his Savoy restaurant whilst Mr. Bourdain’s Kent-smoking Blah-sserie pedigree enjoys globetrotting vices, book tours, goofing on fellow celebrities and developing-world adventures which we envy. Though both decry The Man’s castration of the epoch-old curing perpetuation, Mr. Hoffman’s nerd demeanor may be more adept at curing meats rather than Mr. Bourdain’s cynical documenting of such and better afterhours hanky/panky parties ...and will Libertarians’ agenda compromise food safety?

26# heritage bird. Ataturk would be proud.

Man Servant Hecubus is on a strict regimen of Canned Heat and 15oz. canned “people food” pink salmon (not soylent), which, aside from the bones that he dutifully discards, is consumed with the same enthusiasm as the water from canned tuna and it smells the same and in desperation almost tastes the same. The sodium content may be high, but MSH is active, doesn’t smoke or have a job or hair around his nipples. If you are cordial with a restauranteur or cook, perhaps you can ask for the tuna scraps, boil and blend with water; or it is too dry. Feeding your creature as you would yourself eliminates the guess work when the light in the fridge goes out. MSH will become a taxidermy rug if he expires.

That so many posts have been made on such a benign topic is remarkable. Bravo!, the spirit of McCarthyism lives on. Anonymity eliminates reader’s bias. Some peoples have been known to vote anonymously as well, which ensures against reprisals. Where will the witch-hunt hearings to blacklist anonymous posters from this digital cork-board be held?

The magic is science.

Not really. More of an ouroboros. Would make a good crossword puzzle or junior jumble for malcontent diners suffering from ageusia.

So is Grade D reading comprehension.

Wagyu, as opposed to Waygu or Wangyu is Japanese for “Japanese cattle.” Wa = Japan, Gyu = Beef, Wang = Chinese surname “Yellow Penis”. There are 4 breeds of cattle from which Kobe beef is raised. Cattle raised anywhere else is called Kobe Style or Wagyu but not solely Kobe. It is an appellation of origin much like the French AOC, Italian DOP, champagne/sparkling white wine nomenclature law things. Highly unlikely that you or anyone else is getting the “real deal”in the US save for a few exclusive joints since Kobe beef must be raised and slaughtered in Hyogo Prefecture by Japanese goldfish tenders in sandals to be called such, and doubtful that the meth-driven poet laureates who composed the menu at Posh cold find a Japanese purveyor, or their asses. Indeed; no shit.True Kobe sells for $500-$50,000. CP Steak used to offer a 10oz. Waygu sirloin for $76. BLT Steak NYC Wagyu skirt retails, $44. Kobe: $28/oz. Wang Chung LP’s can be haggled for $0.75-$1.50. Your “Kobe Style Wagyever” most likely comes from Virginia, Idaho, Texas or the Pacific northwest.

Too much sugar. reduce sugar to 2/3 cup. increase milk to 1 1/2.

The “dolphin safe” appellation is not a blessing to stocks in the eastern Pacific which have not recovered from the 1960's decimation and the “dolphin safe” tuna fishing practice does not guarantee dolphin survival. Many still die. Probably just to spite us. That's how cynical they are. What the “dolphin safe” label does not mention is the other bycatch as a result of purse seining...sharks, turtles, Swedish fish, mermaids and plenty of Neptune’s smaller fishes which are eaten by bigger fishes and so forth. While it may please the few conscientious consumers to purchase “dolphin safe” tuna, the repercussions are pushed further down the food chain and the majority of world wide tuna fish salad consumers may not question the fishing policy of their lunch counter nor might they have the luxury of choosing one brand over another. Though most commercially caught tuna destined for canning is albacore (chunk white) and yellowfin or skipjack (chunk light) are in somewhat healthy populations depending on how they are fished, better quality tuna stocks are still dwindling.

It is difficult to dodge seasonality of fish since laws dictate fishing seasons and fishermen face fines for surpassing quotas.eg: western halibut, salmon, and sablefish season ends in November. Anything sold afterwards is frozen or farmed. Wild fish prices fluctuate based on when the fisheries are temporarily closed so that stocks and quotas can be calculated. The burden on the individual consumer should not be the specific creature consumed but the manner in which it is fished or harvested. What the article’s paranoid fantasy doesn’t foresee is that given a limited resource, man will find a way to fish farther and deeper, like the oil industry, and that much like skate and monkfish were the scourge of nets a generation ago, man will find previously unconsidered species to feed upon. Consumers can choose dayboat products which are fished on a smaller scale, relatively benign to other species. Oceanaire often buys from dayboat fishermen and Jeff Buben catches his own tuna. NOAA is pushing legislation to mandate nets that allow undesirable items and bycatch to pass through. Bycatch is the curse of commercial fishing. Don’t be loathing fish... loathe fishing. If one is so naive and disillusioned to believe that their personal eating habits can change an $80 billion industry, the best they can do is avoid processed industrial products or seafood from impersonal chain establishments and consider dayboat fishermen. Furthermore, rather than over-subsidizing farmers, government should encourage fishermen financially, much to the detriment of the consumer, to police their waters of poachers, and maintain quotas. At the Boqueria in Barcelona oil drums are full of immature bycatch fish sold for stew, mostly monkfish and few more than 4" in length. At the famed Bergen, Norway fish market however, next to the minke whale steaks were only 2 monkfish, each close to 40". The pescapocalypse will affect more populous areas that rely on factory fishing to feed their masses whose vacant relationship with the sea is a parallel to the plight of inland farmers vs greedy/thrifty aloof consumers. For better or worse, within the next 40 years science will probably yield the luxury of synthesizing caviar and cod in our refrigerators anyway.

The swanky menu’s flowery superfluousness and razzle-dazzle dissertation adjectivery upstages even Air-Mall, Men’s Hats and Spencer Gift catalogs combined! A whimsical Rita Crosbyesque audio narrative would deliciously compliment the blossoming spawn of labored alliteration and detailed ambiguity which sets a lofty standard for any bargain barrow boy or closet costermonger trying to hawk shoddy bric-a-brac and Sanka cans sans promises on Craigslist.I totally tip my Persian Envoy Shearling hat to the elite editorial squad at Posh for the sultry veal caption/adventure essay. The imported Italian robusto cheese allegedly rivals any good-humored soft-eyed customs agent’s interrogation of suspicious globetrotting vagabonds arriving at Newark. Chef Willis’s tenure as personal chef to author Tom Clancy is purely coincidental.

Although one needn’t be dependant on hard liquor to have a good time, it sure helps. Consider this year’s “Grand Marnier et cidre chaud aux épices en potiron.” Note to the kids: If your going to skim a bit off mom & dad’s chilled Zubrowka and top it off with water and it freezes, you’ve taken too much. Pinch your nose and move on to the Drambuie.

I have fabricated 4 turduckens, the last of which the stuffed legs were braised and the breasts stuffed, brined, barded then roasted. Turducken in 2 services. While not as majestic of a centerpiece, it was more sophisticated and practical to carve and serve.The entire single service creature assembly requires the better part of 2-3 days and needs 14-16 hours to cook at 180 degrees. The layers are visible but usually crumble when a cross-section is sliced, and once you get to the mid-section, it’s a veritable crap shoot. Left to rest overnight and then reheated, the proteins have time to coagulate and the layers are solid. Though a novelty, and without brining or barding & basting the outermost bird is wretchedly dry, what the conglomerate thing lacks in epicurean substance regardless of truffles, foie gras, caul fat, spices and herbs (flabby skin, steamed duck, impractical carving) the satisfaction of engineering such a eccentric comestible opus is a grandiose high water mark, not unlike building a vibrating bed that is featured in the last pages of Popular Mechanics, but shatters teeth.

I can neither confirm nor deny whether chefs indiscriminately throw pumpkin vs squash nomenclature around like frisbees, but a pumpkin is a winter squash, different from a summer squash in that it is left in the field for a longer time for the skin to harden and make it conducive for winter storage and that Scott McClellan’s head looks like a butternut squash, while Ari Fleischer’s resembles a balding sukkot holiday gourd. Stephen Colbert suggested that Tim Russert rural visage brings a creepy jack-o-lantern to mind. I put horn rimmed glasses on a turban squash once and called it Henry Kissinger. Children egged it. They were more sympathetic to the venerable Theodore Roosevelt pumpkin.Using the generic pumpkin appellation rather than specific squash varieties might appeal to a wider spectrum of diners. Any chef worth their spatula would relish in using esoteric squash identification on their menu, lest they be using Libby’s pumpkins.

It is the same in virtually any industry. Rather than selling a floor model television or old piece of fish, you go back to the store room and sell a fresh one

A tiny nordic country banned any food product containing more than 2% trans fat a few years ago. Easy for a population smaller than that of New York City (twice Chicago), but possible, and better for you.

Despite Mr. Slaters legitimate spurn of Wrong Island, consider Mirabelle in St. James Kitchen, a Bistro in St. James Next to the Curry Club in Stony Brook there used be a small place where the classically trained opera singer/chef would come out and sing tunes La Plage in Wading River North Fork Table and Inn in Southhold (Gerry Hayden-formerly Aureole and Claudia Flemming -Grammercy Tavern) The Island gets better as you move out east.

Perhaps. But I have better sense than to risk compromising my business by publicly and recklessly condemning an otherwise benign article, and recognize the difference between an objective and subjective piece. There appears to be a prejudice mob mentality in which the bearer of unsavory news is being tried as a heretic, much like lynching a reporter who documents the evil of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptists without the unnecessary conventional decent “other hand” humanity which is assumed by readers of the WashPost.

Mr. Fisher appears to be reporting hillbilly intolerants deperately clutching the vestiges of Rockwellian (Norm) yesteryear homogeny, rather than spearheading immigration reform on Salvadorian gypsies & Mexican Jews. Mr. Landrum’s retort is enough to make Castro blush. Generally, on the argyle pipe flavored collegiate professor symposium circuit, when one is unable to intelligently make sense of anything or recognize defeat of a low-watt argument, they resort to the all-time favorite stock rebuttals: (insert drum roll) 1. The Nazi’s! ... 4. Profanity!... 9. Jews!... 16. Nixon!... 43. Hippies! Somewhere, a fortune cookie reads: The higher a monkey climbs, the better view we have of his ass.