Poivrot Farci

Without the written etiquette befitting of the zoo’s ape house, the article exposes Washingtonians and the general public to the dearth of otherwise common services delivering “shit” (e.g., foodstuffs and sundries) outside the spoiled bubble of the city with the highest number of establishments per capita in the US peddling such “shit” (0.4 per 100). The idea of one’s home being blacklisted from delivery in the capital of the wealthiest country in the world in the 21st century is no less newsworthy than other 1st world injustices like price of limes or preponderance of unreasonable pumpkin flavorings (if you don’t count the struggles of minorities in advanced countries to be served in the same capacity as the whites).

That is an effective reactionary measure to stifle business and stick it to the employees who kind of rely on full seats to get paid, keep their jobs, build résumés. Thankfully the moral sheriffs at Eater do not investigate who in restaurant management are drunk drivers, adulterers, tax cheats and scofflaws behind on child support.

Gossiping about girls' butts and baptizing cocktails after the globetrotting sexual somersaults of Beavis & Prostitutes is beyond or below the periphery of Michelin guide inspectors' humor and taste, but they are not crimes. It is unfortunate that employees at the Nats' MIC concession stands are likely to be burdened with unemployment as a consequence of their employers' insufferable obnoxiousness and moral destitution. Employees deserve a generous restitution package.

While there are exceptions (tourist destinations), France bans most retail work on Sundays. Employers that are open Sundays often must pay their employees double or make employee approved concessions and mayors can apply to have businesses open for 12 Sundays each calendar year. France also has a "right to disconnect" law which established a limit between personal life and work. Personally, I prefer not to receive, send or be expected to respond to work communications/bullshit outside of working hours. Meanwhile, the US quality-of-life sausage-making involves spit-balling legislation to bring guns to school and cuts to employee safety. Depends on what employers and employees value: quality of life (free time) or greed (depressing wages and tax cuts that neuter quality of life and fundamental services) There are far too many restaurants. Humans need to eat but they don't necessarily need the luxury and convenience of having someone else feed them and clean up afterwards.

Trite kitchen apparel submission: Form-over-function designer $90+ cross-back aprons that one must “get into” over the head with the help of a chamber maid or Jeevus the obsequious dishwasher. While an indignant no-frills apron belies kitchen hierarchy, the weight concession might allow for more efficient and effective “hustle”. Rocky would have been impeccably lethal if he had trained under the duress of a husky cross-back apron.

Yes, but lamb ribs (breast) are anywhere from 1/3-to-1/5th the price of rack of lamb which is always going to be different shades of expensive (BLTsteak's & Prime Rib's double cut lamb rack are $47 -don't know the size) compared to other cuts -however, the Aussie/NZ cuts that are shipped from the other side of the planet are much cheaper. Either way, lamb is going to be expensive and it might not be an ideal benchmark for the cost of food. I gauge costs based on wholesale/retail pricing which fluctuates throughout the year but don't have all the markups of a restaurant, and even then, I once saw Sunkist blood oranges priced at 3 for $2 at the Harris Teeter and later that day the same Sunkist blood oranges priced 2 for $3 at Whole Foods.

I don’t know where Tosca’s or Fabio’s lamb comes from, but rack of lamb is a premium cut and the price can very well be a matter of supply (droughts have limited the stock) vs demand (people like lamb chops and lamb is the harbinger of spring menus) and perhaps they pay their staff very well or affluent customers subsidize their absurd rents. Lamb is an expensive proposition to begin with and overall is the most expensive of common land food animals (pork/beef/poultry). They demand lots of work, health checks and sheering for most breeds -much more husbandry than pork and beef. Elysian Fields charges north of $40/lb retail for rack of lamb. It is unfortunate that Tosca does not list the provenance of the lamb (neither the beef nor the veal), because if it is grain-finished Colorado commodity and the staff at Tosca is paid a miserly wage then there are suckers for lamb happily being fleeced. Food has been devalued by industrialization. Quality food (by all metrics of quality) will cost more but the baseline appears to be frighteningly cheap. At the supermarket today, both commodity apples and pork chops are $2.99/lb. Chicken is even less. It stands to reason that there are far more resources, energy, manpower and waste management needed to bring a pig and it’s most valued cut to market than apples. Either apples are too expensive or pork is too cheap. Either way, our food system is fuuuucked in every direction and dimension. And there is a stunning amount of deceptive menu labeling and outright fraud -maybe that should be one of the James Beard Foundation’s “values” worthy of a trophy. Last year we had a fella* scoffed at the cost of his breakfast sandwich at our store. He ultimately drove away pleased, in his Mercedes-Benz. Depends on what you value. *The owner of fast casual Fresh & Co in NYC, who causally and liberally uses “organic” on their “about” page while most of the ingredients on the menus are anything but and by way of California, Mexico and factory farms in between. Satur farm is indeed a local operation and the owner is a reliable customer, but it is curious that no one ever has to weed their perfectly manicured rows. It’s like nothing else grows but the greens they intend.

Executive Summary: Nitrates prevent botulism and keep the meat nice and rosy. Nitrates are in saliva, beets and spinach. There are more nitrates in 2oz of celery than in 2oz of bacon. If your bacon had absolutely no nitrates, it would look grey/brown and you’d suspect it was spoiled. It is unlikely that the USDA would approve a “bacon” without nitrates for retail sale in butcher shop. Nitrate-free is generally bullshit-full. Most who do the no-nitrate shell game use nitrates in the form of celery juice powder or something else that actually has more ppm than conventional #1 curing salt (6.25% nitrite). The nitrate concentration is so high in the powders that is has to be used in minuscule quantities which can make it unreliable (works with industrial-sized batches of bacon) and it also needs to be activated by an enzyme -generally present in meat. Therefor the USDA does not deem it to be a suitable “curing agent” and give it the thumbs down. So the deceptive practice is to use the powdered juice of vegetables high in nitrates (beets, celery, spinach) then write “no added nitrates* other than those naturally occurring in whatever” which is consequently “uncured” because it is not a legal curing agent and people feel like they aren’t eating nitrates*. What/how the Organic Butcher labels the bacon is between them and the bacon producer and perhaps the label deserves more scrutiny or additional words. *But there certainly are nitrates. Lots more even. Nitrates have been used for well over 2-3 millennia (China, ancient Rome, Central Eurasia) and usually came from saltpeter. Saltpeter (the primary ingredient in gunpowder) naturally has nitrates and was widely used throughout the dark ages, but when introduced to other agents it can go boom in your face and the nitrate content varies. Up until the 1900’s curing was still irregular (not entirely safe) so a more reliable method of manufacturing and using nitrates was developed. The curing mix available on the market (#1, heat activated “Prague”) is 93% table salt and 6.25% nitrite and 2g of that is enough for 1000g. The manufacturing process is no different than how they make baking soda. Granulated sugar doesn’t exactly pour out of sugar cane so the natural vs manufactured/processed reasoning is moot. Nitrates are safe, make food safe, make it look appetizing and lend a characteristic “cured” flavor. “No nitrates” is nothing more than a marketing ploy, like the “no growth hormones” on chicken labels. Growth hormone usage has been illegal in US poultry since Eisenhower but consumers still need reminding -like unleaded gas and the “no smoking” sign in planes. When was the last time you asked for unleaded gas or saw someone light up on a flight? Nitrates work by bonding to myoglobin (what makes certain meats red) and replace the oxygen which would otherwise oxidize during cooking and turn the meat dark grey/brown, similar to the oxidation in apples, potatoes or artichokes when they are cut an exposed to the air. The nitrate in sodium nitrite (#1 curing salt) is heat activated and while it initially turns the meat brown, it turns pink when it reaches a certain temperature, upwards of 150F. (Sodium nitrate used in shelf-stable dry-cured meats is time activated). “Curing” is drawing out moisture through osmosis with salt and making the protein inhospitable to harmful micro-organisms. Once fully cooked, and refrigerated (different from shelf stable dry cured meats like prosciutto), it has an extended shelf life and the color is preserved, though it surface will oxidize a bit over time. Poly-phosphates are an industrial curing agent and will keep ham pink if you leave it in the trunk of your car for a month. In France, any charcuterie labeled “superior” quality (primarily deli hams) is strictly forbidden by law from using poly-phosphates. I don’t think there are regulations like that here, other than how much bacon you must eat to get a free T-shirt somewhere. You could salt a belly and smoke it and it might very well be delicious, but it would not have a very long shelf life (USDA would be hesitant to allow you to vacuum seal it) and by the time it got to market and then to someone’s home and then their plate, it would begin to deteriorate and then someone gets sick and there is panic and lawsuits…In New York state they are trying to regulate and redesign Tide Pods because there are paranoid fantasies of kids eating laundry detergent. If someone got sick eating bacon and hotdogs there would be chaos. Bacon (cured belly) has existed since ancient times and up until the 16th century, all pork products that were cured were called “bacoun” which was Olde German/French for anything coming from the back of the pig. Smoke houses remain a traditional method of preservation north of the warmer Mediterranean where it was too cold to dry cure over the winter. “Bringing home the bacon” came from a 12th century story about a town chuch in England that rewarded a husband a side of bacon if he did not have any tussles with the missus for 1 year. Might be worth dusting off that tradition. I don’t know exactly when the superstitious avoidance of nitrates became fashionable, but it probably has to do with faulty causation/correlation of cancer rates among those who eat cured meats. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that nitrates are the culprit in a heavy diet of cured meats. There are plenty of other factors and if someone is eating salty meats thrice a day, nitrates are the least of their problems. The greenwashing “no-...” buzzwords are a testament to flimsy labeling regulations, ignorant consumers and the prowess of marketing in a society that has been conditioned to be wary of food in general (after 50 years of crap) and treats it like medicine or with complete indifference.

If they truly do not use nitrates, it is not truly bacon. Its smoked, salted pork belly with a limited shelf life and likely an unappetizing brown appearance. Bacon by definition is and has to be cured (nitrates of some form). If the bacon was an appetizing pink, nitrates were invariably used. It is a deceptive (and lucrative) practice.

José was likely one of the more tolerant and charitable millionaire attendees of the Alfalfa convention (faulty AC and killing sneaking Communists in the jungle notwithstanding, José Andrés has sweat buckets of equity & integrity, much of the recent batch being benevolent) and that absolutely should entitle him to crash a fat cat after-party where members’ ideology would otherwise banish half the people picking, packing, shipping, cooking, clearing and cleaning up the $25 veg plate. Makes the smooth handed elite look a smidge less soulless when they rub shoulders with a Cava drinking working class hero speaking broken English from another land burdened by 17% unemployment. While most flaunting opulent wealth suffer from selective social autism -unable to apply fundamental courtesy when interacting with the great unwashed- José always said hello and shook hands when he came into the kitchen (Palena). I have heard stories of vacillating temperament but his presence alone at the latenight Alfalfa dénouement mixer would withhold my raging desire to spike their douchey punch bowl with laxatives, crop dust Jarvanka and sprinkle clumsily cut pubic hairs on the passed hors d’oeuvres.

In any reasonable society with a modicum of compassion for their citizens resigned to plastic spoons, such a charitable individual would be welcome and revered like a saint by aristocrats itching to buff-up their philanthropic photo-ops, provided he wear plastic bags (2 x $0.05 bag tax) on his shit-stained working-man’s hands. Also, Cafe Milano erroneously translates Black Cod as Merluzzo Nero (pollack). It should be Cornuto Cazzo dell'Alaska.

A bored consumer regulator could mount a fantasy fraud case on their lunch break, if “sustainable” had any legitimate standards or merits and slapping it on your menu meant anything to fashionably conscientious consumers who really couldn’t care less. I don't know what the crap “natural-cut fries” are, but I want some, and whatever inspired this insipid variety of deliciously fishy slapstick concept. Totally stoked to see how many trout permutations there will be at the Idaho location.

A toast my sister (WWF Germany) a dear friend at USAID and another from Miriam’s Kitchen/GW Hospital who have selflessly and nobly been to the least prosperous places on earth -plundered by empires and devastated by nature- in a daunting effort to snuff out little bits of rampant crimes against humanity, nature and animals; merciless corruption, civil rights abuses and hopelessly inadequate medicine all while witnessing elements of daily life that would totally reset your standard of reality and comfort. Their contributions to humanity are sobering. The depths of my shame as an American citizen are worth mollifying with triple pours of liquor and donations.

Despite the menu marquee, the Chesapeake Bay does not appear to be bountiful if oysters and quail eggs are the only items deemed representable from a 64,000 sq mile watershed (not even the crab cake gets MD designation). Might as well pave portions of the bay for parking and drill for oil in the rest.

The District Fishwife might have some fresh. Not sure if she pickles her own. If The Partisan or another "charcuterie" focused place doesn't have them this time of the year, well that is unfortunate. Same applies for a kitchen specializing in fish. But the herring may be too far north a this point. The herring are running in the Long Island Sound. I bartered 30lbs of freshly caught Atlantic herring from a fisherman in exchange for some finished pickled product. Some with red wine and red wine, the rest with white wine vinegar and lemon juice. The fisherman in question catches them by the ton, to the tune of 1-3 each day. He sullenly sells them for bait ($0.13/lb) or to the local aquarium for food. This is a legitimate tragedy, that such a plentiful, nutritionally beneficial fish which has low levels of mercury is being caught and sold for lobster bait.

Affluent areas such as DC/NoVa do not need more food courts or restaurants or concepts peddling recycled iterations of commodity crap. They need better outlets to promote the concept of consumers that care enough to buy quality ingredients they can take home and cook for themselves and their families at a more rewarding $$/time ratio.

Most of those folks are not aware that virtually every other modern country has paid sick days, multiple weeks of paid vacation and paid maternity leave. Americans have been bred to work long hours for little reward and time off is stigmatized. Kudos to Aaron Silverman's model of treating his staff with fundamental financial dignity despite it's effeminate and socialist "sharing is caring" brushstrokes.

I have not heard a convincing or reasonable explanation to uphold the notion that a restaurant employer with more money will spend more on their employees, other than perhaps to retain employees by throwing a holiday party -which some have to stumble out of early to work the morning shift and the occasional bonus. The elusive and mystifying “trickle down” altruism defies the mission of a business which is to increase profits and cut the costs of production. There is no federal law for paid sick days, paid vacation or paid public holidays in the United States whereas the rest of the modern world has at least 2 weeks paid mandatory vacation. According to the BLS, the average number of paid vacation days offered by private US employers (77% of them) after 5 years of employment is 14 days. After 20 years it is 20 days. Albania has more paid public holidays and vacation time than the US. A former colleague of mine works at the flagship NYC restaurant of a highly celebrated and awarded restaurant group that has no less than 39 establishments throughout the world. They appear to be “killing it” if they have not already “killed it”. The benefits are minimal. Hours are strictly regulated (no more than 5hrs overtime) and cooks are expected to work pro-bono to finish the work that can not be done within 40+5. At the other end of the gilded table: Carmine’s (NYC) which grossed $33 million in 2016. It is owned by Alicart which has 6 Carmine’s locations and as of 2011 grossed $70 million with 1,200 employees. A cursory search suggests that they do not offer much. An anonymous former senior sales manager (possibly an anecdotal outlier) reviewed the operation: “Though the salary is very competitive, almost nothing else is: no paid holidays, 10 days of PTO for the entire year (to include sick, vacation, and personal time), a PTO blackout from October 1st to January 1st, VERY expensive health care, no flexible spending, and short and long term disability are additional. Expect to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas. They require 10 hour workdays, weekends, and nights." Employees allegedly get 30% food discounts though, which, given the portions, one could stash in the freezer for a rainy day or make a cardiologist's payday. While these are only 2 examples of a powerful restaurant groups within the highly profitable “killing” range, I would posit that such entities are financially successful because they "stifle", offer little to their employees, maintain low wage/benefit standards and invest at the top (executives, investors, shareholders, etc...) rather than the bottom (hourly employees). If neither the fancy group nor Carmine’s coffers can provide the benefits enjoyed by the rest of the modern world, who can? Perhaps a forensic accountant can explain how an industry with $800 billion in annual sales in a country with a GDP of $18.5 trillion can not afford paid sick days, vacation days or at least paid public holidays for all employees as is standard on other poorer countries. Of course the simplest explanation is that American workers simply do not know the level of mandated benefits offered abroad, therefor do not want and ultimately do not demand work/life/family balance orientated policies such as paid maternity leave, paid vacation and paid sick days. If American workers do crave more fundamental benefits they certainly do not elect legislators to fulfill those cravings.

Other than flying coach and the hopelessly arcane process of signing up for aenemic health insurance, there are few indignities worse than working for a restaurant in the US, small independent or multi-Michelin outlet. Restaurant work is fetishized with very little reward and that is baffling. Across the Atlantic, the value -even reverence- of quality of life persists. While looking for a place to eat in Strasbourg (FR): Further north, Geranium will be closed for Christmas vacation from the 23rd of December through the 9th of January. If only time off from work was more ingrained in the greedy ethos of Capitalism.

The failing, frail, Ol' Grey Lady (not Flo-Fab) has a scoop on the agricultural livestock renaissance of sorts going on out on North Fork, which might bump up their readership. Quite a few organic farmers growing top shelf produce and exceptional seafood as well -though less abundant than yesteryear. A few roses in one of the state’s thorny Trump patches.

Doubtful. More than most likely slowly cooked stove-top in a stainless steel pan with not too hot olive oil. Black bass that is not overcooked is neither flaky or firm. I don't think Frank has ever cooked fish SV and probably is not going to start now.

At a glance from the picture of the clucker on their webpage, and according to a CSA, they grow Cornish Cross. That’s pricey for CC, but maybe the staff is paid well, the schmaltz supply is tight and the landlord is fleecing Mr. Langhorne in return. Either way, if people are willing to pay for that before seeing the Eagles downtown, god bless Mr. Langhorne and special tip of the hat to Rettland for taking advantage of free market capitalism, though if they are using organic (certified) feed that would be a selling point onto which they can charge even more.

Conflating the entire restaurant industry with head chefs and a contorted awards process compensated with extra dough prospects makes a pretzel of sense at best. These are luxury services in the entertainment industry, not elected legislators directly affecting our livelihoods or providing essential services, though both receive votes that are based on anything but objective scoring. Ostensibly, minorities are less represented than others because there are less of them. It may not be exclusively wholesale discrimination and more symptomatic of a litany of other social, economic and legislative factors. The $3billion NASCAR and the $4billion NHL (other stakeholders in the entertainment industry) were conspicuously absent from the NYTimes power exposé, and their profitable whiteness is probably because accessibility to go carts and ice rinks is more limited and costly than your average ball sports, instead of a collusion against anyone darker than the darkest Italian. As it pertains to restaurants that fall within the grade worthy of JB/Michelin/GaultMillau/TopWhatever consideration, there is no reasonable expectation that the chefs who invariably work 60+hrs/week, nights, weekends and holidays represent the general population/labor force and statistics from the BLS concur. Americans work longer hours for less pay and vacation than their international counterparts but 2/3rds still have weekends off and work somewhere in the 9-5 realm, perhaps less with telecommuting, which presents challenges in trying to oversee and manage a kitchen from home. Absolutely not. Women make up 50.8% of the general American population (58.5% of the labor force and), but not of the industry (closer to 15%) and people of color/LBGT even less. If LBGT people of color make up 15% of the chef population, then one can expect 10%-30% winners, but not more. That's just a matter of numbers and calculations and it would be a stretch to implicate 10th Century Arabs in the numerical conspiracy to deprive minorities from awards shows a millennium later. The awards (which, along with the Oscars have very little tangible merit other than driving up sales and egos) are an inward looking masturbatory gala (every industry has them) that "should" represent the makeup of the industry (Asian chefs are the largest minority) but with so many categories the odds dictate that the largest population has a better shot of winning. It's more chance than malicious and a medal to hang on the mantel, not a scholarship. In the first 20 of the World's 50 Best Restaurants, 3 are Asian, 1 is Indian and 5 come from central/southern America. Working in a professional kitchen that strives to offer a premium product as a career is far from drinking snifters of scotch in club chairs at, chewing cigars and chuckling with the investors/owners/beneficiaries of said restaurants The odds of breaking through to fame and acclaim in a fine dining restaurant (about 60,000 in the US) are worse than that actor who can't act like a server going to Hollywood or getting attacked by a blue lobster on the Cape. The restaurant portion of the food service industry is awful. It is underpaid, under-insured and essentially an unskilled labor force that works shitty hours which are not conducive to a healthy, social or prosperous lifestyle. Dangling hopelessly rare prizes on the end of a sparkly stick is certainly not an effective way to court more passionate female chefs to a business that is one of the mascots for economic inequality & servitude to the privileged and no less flakey than encouraging little girls to grow up to be princesses. Anyone choosing to cook as a career for fame & fortune should invest in PR and a pair of ice skates or a tiara as a fail-safe. It is an honor for these chefs to be nominated and validation for their work by peers who have established themselves as masters of the trade, but it is by no means meant to be a Benetton ad and I'll bet a fancy ham sandwich that most chefs were driven to cook out of necessity and to satisfy a creative craving for which there is an paying audience, rather than dreams of an elusive awards show indulged by star-fuckers.

Sure it is a pompously subjective affair that differs from the objective scoring of Track & Field and competitive eating and there is no harm in tokens on the podium, "but this year, 27% of the semifinalists were female, compared with 19% in 2009". That exceeds the demographics compiled by the Census Bureau and BLS. #statisticallymorechefsaremenandwhite Congratulations to Mr. Furstenberg, and his tireless head baker Ben Arnold who only gets crumbs of recognition and praise.

It doesn’t have to be but it is and forever will be under the survival of the richest economic model. The costs of living, goods and services are very high in the D.C. area which is commensurate with an area flush with fat cats. In terms of cosmopolitan cities, Berlin is a gruff, thrifty outlier more in line with Montreal where rents are still very affordable and ½ of Berlin/DDR was essentially off limits (and backwards) up until 25 years ago. Germany is much more affordable than this land of opportunity and Germans enjoy far less income inequality despite having the 4th highest GDP. And you can get a 18th century fixer-upper manor house in the former DDR for $45K. -deputy archivist and executive cheerleader of the FR fanclub.