Poivrot Farci

Cooking for Geeks. Chapter 4. Time & Temperature: Cooking's Primary Variables. I recall chit-chatting with some Frenchman from Cuisine Solutions almost 10 years ago at a saucy champers tasting or whatever and while I conceeded that SV certainly has its merits, he grumbled that SV fish is a waste of both fish and plastic. I concur. If a professional cook needs the resources of a vacuum machine, bags, more than 30 minutes and a circulator to cook a piece of fish, they might get a nose bleed crunching the minutiae of fish type flesh varieties, thickness and other organic variables that make 1 piece of fish different from another and beckon the practical theory of human senses being able to fiddle with the damned thing without a dental dam around it. Though a hobbyist could be forgiven as its a way to pass the time. A good technician always blames their tools. But a competent cook shouldn't need that many gadgets to cook a pieces of fish consistently well. Practice, discipline and technique are just as useful and probably more marketable skills than pressing buttons.

What part of Chef Kwame being named a "rock star redefining the industry" by Zagat DC for its inaugural "30 under 30" list in 2015 did you gloss over? ESPN is probably spit balling a 30-for-30 documentary befitting his mercurial rise through kitchen puberty. You're just a jealous fuddy-duddy well into a twangy Traveling Wilburys kind of rock star decline. Sure, he has never run or overseen a restaurant or worked in one for longer than a year but this boy band duo was able to get investors with very deep coffers. He will do just fine. Fantastic. I've become so drained from the stuffy boredom and indignity of current fine dining doldrums now that I have just about aced the predictable mouth-breathing paradigm of pointing at food words, mashing food into my face hole and paying for it. I'll bring my slide rule and take notes (if the lighting permits).

Carl lived in DC for about 5 years (like, literally 5 times longer than Kwame) working 3 years at Palena then 2 at West End Bistro in a sous-chef capacity with keys to the executive bathroom. And yes, he channels a cheerleader boy scout twirling pompoms but had the shrewd reflex to re-baptize yours truly as the "executive wet blanket" way back when. It's cuter than a sack of kittens that Kwame has embroidered himself as chef/co-owner since 2015 of a restaurant that hasn't quite opened yet. I'm not sure how long or what qualifies as a "stint" at Eleven Madison Park, but Carl was there too, albeit for a New York minute; he didn't like it and went to Battersby instead (and Fat Duck, Trio, A16, Craigie on Main before that). It is unfortunate however that any of them, particularly Marjorie and Carl, feel the need to validate themselves as capable cooks on a tilted mouse-maze cable game-show which serves as a vehicle for Padma's garish wardrobe experiments, creepy lipstick selections and Whole Foods' generic shakedowns. Top Chef Tom is a good sport though, and his semi-flappable Larry Fine exasperation makes the chewy show more fascinating (after 13 seasons) than palatable. Rachel Sugar's rollicking round-ups are a particularly terrific soporific digestif. Here's hoping the cheftestants still get a lifetime supply of Gladâ„¢ plastic chefwrap to keep their dreams from spilling out.

You had me at "quality" then lost me on "good", so I'll defer to Inigo Montoya and maybe Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. It depends on what "quality" and the indifferent one-armed hug of hot air that "good" conjures. Putting Guy's famous Donkey sauce, any of many curries or truffled nönsense on a chicken isn't going to change the quality of the bird. Quality is different than taste and judging by America's collective cholesterol and waistband, what tastes good might not be the gold standard of overall excellence. I don't think anyone can give a definitive, absolute, guaranteed, clinical answer as to whether chickens (not cloned ones) of a certain provenance are always, without fail, better quality than others or if that quality can change by squeezing curried ketchup on it. I'll give it a shot. 1. Is a fancy, pampered western chicken invariably better quality than an Indian chicken that has been taking bird baths in the Ganges? Probably. 2. Is a fancy, pampered western chicken invariably better quality than that Indian chicken after it has been given a spice treatment? Same as above. 2a. Does the fancy one taste better than tikka cinderella? That's apples to apple sauce comparison. The flavor might depend on the caliber of the spices and who is making it. There is delicious, awful and septic international food depending on your tolerance for spice/heat/flavors, who makes it and where/if they washed their hands. If there is a polluting child labor scourge in the lucknow fennel and dhania coriander industry, then I'll re-evaluate my spice rack with more conscionable reasonings behind the seasonings. Again, chicken should elicit more than just isolated, singular taste. There are other variables. It is like those achingly dumb best restaurant lists which try to separate the wheat from the chaff using a weenie thumbs up/down Academy Awards method (the Gong Show does better merit calculus) which doesn't factor anything remotely tangible such how much they pay or exploit their staff, do they offer benefits, paid vacation, recycle, compost, donate to charity, etc"¦the kind of measurable under-the-hood-mechanics that actually make a restaurant function; sort of how one rates a car on fuel consumption and reliability in addition to how much the V8's purr makes yours and everyone else's genitals tingle. But most people have only so many shits to give, -whoever cooks the food is decidedly not one of them- and they rarely look beyond the mismatched estate-sale forks because it is *only* about the taste and food just comes out from behind a door shaped curtain, like pre-cut plastic-wrapped meat at the supermarket show and it's just easier that way. In Steak R-evolution, heavyweight Parisian meat-wad Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec sweats and slobbers so much over the porterhouse served at Peter Luger's steakhouse you'd think it was ortolan. He lauds their Angus' marbling and its tender juiciness, the payoff of a young animal's gluttonous diet (less collagen is best suited for Luger's crude and fashionably unskilled 800F grill) and goes globetrotting, visiting farmers who raise different breeds of blue-ribbon cattle with varying degrees of hayseed folklore, farmhand massages and premium husbandry. The liability of the Peter Luger's CAFO meat slabs however is the amount of commodity feed that needs to be purchased from so far away to fatten the things up and they make absolutely no mention of how (horribly) they are raised. The camera crew never went to go film those animals. Exceptional subjective taste, but the quality is not even debatable. So you are left with one of those 5 room/feedlot puzzles: how to raise animals on pasture to market weight in less than 2 years without having to buy too much environmentally nefarious feed or compromise the humanity of which they are raised "“provided those variables matter to you in the equation. If not, then why care? Eat up and enjoy because in 40 years you'll be eating chickens out of a test-tube. What is so scandalous about using Hellman's? Americans eat more Hellman's than whatever constitutes salsa and the saintly Heinz's ketchup annually. Sure southerner contend Duke's taste better, but as far as a pasteurized product goes, it is consistent and very safe until someone mucks it up with truffle lube or sticks their fingers in it. If the CDC and consumers expects a national chain to make their own mayonnaise from whole eggs then they might want to print out some more egg safety brochures and stock up on Ipecac. If you are curious as to the quality of the chicken a restaurant uses, ask them: "what kind of chicken do you use?" Tell them you are and intern at the City Paper. They should be delighted by your curiosity would be even more delighted to brag about the quality of their ingredients.

How many egg salad sandwiches do people with absolutely empty pantries and refrigerators plan on eating during a 48-72 hour period? This isn't rational, nor the siege of Leningrad.

Eat Wild has a list of farmers and which ones come to the metro area or farmer's markets. It ends up being a fair amount of work for a chicken, but it will help you look down on your neighbors and their bargain basement broilers. If enough people get organized and select a pick-up venue (market) they/you can probably buy enough birds (3-4 each, freeze a few) where the farmer can cut a deal, get rid of everything he has slaughtered for the week and still make more than enough gas money. Green Circle birds are a bit small, on the cusp of 3lbs, about $4.50/lb but I have not tried them. D'Artagnan may have been a beacon of quality a long time ago, but I feel that at times they are peddling a Sam Adams version of "quality" which is just a step up from Bud Light commodity with their label slapped on (their Muscovy ducks and guinea hens coincidentally come from the same part of California that cheaper Grimaud poultry does) and they take advantage of unregulated food term/labels. I've gotten the same mushrooms from other distributors for less, kind of like how Harris Teeter sells 3 Sunkist blood oranges for $2 while Whole Foods sells 2 of the same for $3. Their lamb options for example are befuddling. Either you get grass-fed pastured all the way from Australia (Dorset/Suffolk/Merino cross) or pastured Rambouillet/Suffolk cross-breed sheep from Colorado that are finished on grain (according to their website). Rambouillet/Suffolk might as well be elk since they grow to an enormous size in their first year during which they can still be sold as lamb rather than mutton after 1 year of age. It is unfortunate that the vanguard of the farm-to-table movement which "continues to anticipate the demands of the palates of American chefs and consumers" hasn't picked up on their "local" sensibilities and cannot find any lamb east of the Mississippi. D'Artagnan prides itself as being a "pioneer in a movement that is chock full of buzzwords. Farm-to-table, artisanal, free-range, grass-fed; all of these are in the DNA of the company, because to Ariane that is just the way things should be done. She built D'Artagnan on the idea that the care taken on the farm can be tasted on the plate. In other words (her own), "A happy chicken is a tasty chicken."" Sounds preppy, but those pioneers pop down their starched blue collars by packaging their retail organic chicken breasts and thighs in chock-full of average Joe-6-pack Styrofoam (which they acknowledge in their FAQ, but it is "efficient and lightweight"). As for buzzwords, their Green Circle is on a bit of a Greenwashing cycle. "Every chicken that bears the name is raised free-range on a diet of actual vegetables, is certified-humane and air-chilled. Now that is chicken as it should be." Except that chickens are actual carnivores and have been since the time of dinosaurs To qualify for the Certified Humane label that Green Circle carries, the chickens must have all of 2 sq/ft per bird and, weather permitting, be able to chicken strut all cocksure through a 1.5' x 3' wide door and spend at least 6hrs a day in the yard to work out and play cards for cigarettes. In that aspect, the Green Circle is better than the hot-house most birds are doomed to suffer in. The Certified Humane website has plenty of PDF charts and whatnot concerning poultry, pigs and ruminants and is transparent regarding their standards. Ayrshire chicken are Certified Humane and at $6.50/lb a 3.5lb bird will cost you 2 decent drinks at a bar with tax & tip. I like them The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service requires that the regular ol' "Free Range" poultry need to have access to the outdoors in order to carry that distinction, which means there is a little door or something, but the birds are usually too terrified to go outside, may not even fit their whole bodies through or even know it is there. These birds often have their beaks cut to keep them from pecking at each other on account of the density and their deprived insect craving. United Poultry Concerns has a more cynical view of what "free range" means, with some rather awful testimonials, if they are true. So D'Artagnan's organic chickens are USDA free range and eat organic bird food (and the breasts/legs are sold in Stryofoam, the herpes of man-made trash) while their Green Circle cohorts get to go outside but eat ACTUAL vegetables, like commodity broccoli, corn on the cob or cabbage that isn't up to snuff for human consumption. It would appear that the permutation of both organic and Certified Humane is not in the cards, maybe because of the cost and limited number to fit their enormous needs. That's too bad, but expected for a company that had about $95 million in sales last year. D'artagnan claims that their birds are raised on Mennonite and Amish farms which is a common theme in the Mid-Atlantic and that doesn't count the Easter Shore farms that help saturate the Chesapeake Bay watershed with lots of chicken shit. Their Rohan ducks come from a Cochecton Farm in NY where they raise 250,000 a year, slaughtering about 4,800 a week on average. With those numbers, they are also in the business of waste management. Aside from the Certified Humane standards, which is better than the casual fluff on most packaging: -"All Natural" has absolutely no standards or legal definition in US and with the exception of artificial thing like nylon, polyester and glass, virtually anything can qualify as natural and it passes the animal's sniff test. -"Cage Free" There is no legal standard or definition and it is a more charming way of describing high density confinement, like "free roaming". They are not in cages, but don't have much room to roam and rarely if ever are allowed outside. And their beaks are probably cut which is just as horrible as it sounds. "Free Range". There is no legal definition for "free range". As it relates to eggs "Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside" but there is no government oversight or standard for how long they must be outdoors, nor the size of the opening. If it suits your diet and conscience, eat bird seed or cardboard and save yourself the headache.

At the end of a French holiday I scouted some Gallic birds at some French markets, seeing about a dozen breeds as well as guinea hens, ducks, turkeys, squab, geese and live quail at a market in the Southwest Bèarn region. The quality, variety and availability are stunning and being able to buy in the marketplace whatever premium ingredients are being served at a restaurant is remarkable. While much of the posh poultry takes showcase real estate during the weeks leading up to New Year's Eve, it is still available all year round and revered birds have not sunk to any pedestrian levels on home or restaurant menus. They fetch high prices that are commiserate with the cost of raising them (slower and longer growth rate), more pampered slaughtering, (elite Bresse birds being plucked by hand on account of the thin skin) and smaller production on pasture. The best of the lot are sewn up in cloth bags (au torchon) to hold an elongated shape. Fancy schmancy chickens aren't going to bring world peace or resurrect Elvis, but we spend lots of money to battle the consequences of raising shitty ones (shitty water, shitty land, dead fish) and it is still the cheapest commodity animal that we have. And we each eat about 100lbs of it per year. More than anyone else, but they are catching up down under. In it's raw state as a whole bird, more than likely. You can kick the tires and tell from the feet if it has bumblefoot (associated with confined animals), breast blisters (Cornish cross birds have trouble lifting their bodies), leg to breast ratio which varies from breed to breed, check the teeth, see if the beak has been cut, whether it was scalded or plucked, air-chilled, if there were too many birds in the tumbler and they broke wings or legs after they were bled, how they took the crop out, the color and size of the legs compared to the breasts, the thickness of the skin and if it was slaughtered with care. Basically you can tell if it lived a life worth living. However, the quality of slaughtering is crucial since a creature can be impeccable the moment it leaves the farm but then gets carelessly hacked at. I am not confident that many people, sadists or otherwise, aspire to work in slaughterhouses and it is part of the trade that demands a deft, if not unflappable hand. Tendonitis no more, though the bird in the foreground has something ticklish on it's foot which doesn't seem normal The less processed the better (about 70% meat yield from a whole bird); feet allow for pulling tendons from the drumsticks so they don't shrink back and gelatin for stock with the neck & back; wings, giblets and so on what with some resourcefulness and know how -plenty of which is abundant or ex-tractable on this forum, books or the intertubes. Yellow chicken from Gátinais (Gers, north of Paris). 3-4lb, $4.35/lb. Marché Popincourt, Paris 11th. All cooked in the same manner, probably, though texture has much to do with affecting what we perceive and lump together as "taste". All this chicken chat ruffled by feathers and I would have been remiss if I left a France trip without tasting any. On my last night last week I had a Poularde de Gátinais, an old French yellow-skinned breed which, like most birds on the market, benefits from an IGP designation (Protected Geographic Indication) at La Cave de L'Insolite, which at 21€ it was the priciest of a limited post-Christmas menu, but modestly priced at the market. I enjoyed a deboned leg that was seared only on the skin and basted with some duck fat. It was cooked to the cusp of medium well and while one could be excused for calling the American embassy in a panic and Yelping about it, I was indifferent, because it wasn't an industrial bird and over there the onus on food safety is not on the consumer (Frontline has a documentary about the health liabilities of factory chickens that is sure to get stuck in your craw). It was ever so slightly crimson, the way leg meat should be, exceedingly tender but firm, savory, juicy and reminiscent of guinea hen. They had taken out that unpleasant bit of fat in the thigh and knee cartilage thing and cooked it to order. Cornish Cross legs in comparison are the same color as the breast and taste like bland wet packaging material. Blue-footed Orléanais (Loire valley).3-4lb, $20 each. Marché d'Aligre, Paris 12th. If you know what to look and taste for, hopefully. If it is something entirely new there might not be a benchmark to relate it to. I'm not sure when in time chicken became neutered of all descriptors relating to breed (exceptions for eggs) or style other than the manner in was raised, by whom or how the thing got cooked. While beef has it's Angus, Hereford, Scottish Highland, Charolais and other pedigrees and the pigs carry fashionable names but they are more novelty than anything since most heritage breeds have died off for very practical reasons (lard breeds like Old Spot Gloucestershire have no real use in the age of refrigeration, non-stick pans and readily available cheap(er) calories). But the hapless chicken is *just* a cheap vehicle for meat. Chicken from Landes (Gascony, southwest France). 3-4lb, $46 each and blue-footed Bresse Marché Popincourt, Paris 11th. Depends on how much you value or pay attention to food that goes into & out your food holes. And the consequences of eating food which extend far beyond the immediate "taste" but short of blood diamonds. Maybe in the realm of that seafood decoder ring thing with varying colors of shame based on creatures in short supply you were planning on having over for dinner and their habitat you just wrecked. Bravo. Bresse chicken "en torchon". (Burgundy) $13/lb Marché Popincourt, Paris 11th. Eating is more than fattening up on calories out of necessity (or boredom), sustenance and "tasting good", Different foods have pros/cons like virtually everything purchased be they robot vacuum cleaners, cars or electronics which will be obsolete in a year. But food has more of an impact on one's well-being and while I've gladly sacrificed some days for the next by not wearing a helmet the instant I step out of the house, getting starched on too much of brown liquor and the drugs, 2 of those are legitimate non-essential vices stashed in the unfinished catacombs of the food pyramid. Chicken on the other hand serves more of a purpose for keeping your machine ticking"¦ unlessn' your idea of a Thelma & Louise flavored bender is fixin' up with Josiah to get yer chin curtains greased in chicken juice and Cheetos while listening to a clandestine ham radio in the turnip cellar. The food dorks in R&D over at Pepsi Co's snack lab ($38 billion in sales in 2014) have worked tirelessly to engineer items that taste Grrrrrrrreat! first and foremost and the palate might not be able to taste the additives or notice the nutritional handicaps, environmental consequences, animal welfare, human labor toll at slaughterhouses (disturbingly detailed in Fast Food Nation) and distribution/packaging resources used. If you think of food as fuel for your body, why skimp on something that can cause costly and often painful repairs and will only set you back the cost of 2 movie tickets and popcorn. Guinea hen from Challans (western Loire) and Bresse chicken $65 each. Marché d'Aligre. Paris 12th. The overwhelming majority of the broiler chickens you find on the market place are the Cornish cross hybrid broilers. It has been a triumph of genetics for those who like lots of white breast meat, and the scourge of poultry. They are cheap to raise, lean and mostly white meat. Kind of like shitty bread. The birds have been bred to grow very quickly and faster than their bodies can adapt to the weight. Almost 70% have crippling leg problems and videos used to rate gait abnormalities aren't pleasant to watch, even if it is just a chicken They are lazy, don't scratch or forage for bugs on pasture, suffer from internal and skeletal issues and pretty much just sit there. There is probably a proverb that correlates the physiology of consumers and such birds via consumption. Broiler chickens are often billed as "no added hormones", which is true, like that trendy gluten-free grapefruit juice, but growth hormones have been banned in poultry production for over 50 years now, and the slick eager beavers over in marketing just want to remind consumers of how honest the caring the factory farm is. Those chickens are given an equally trendy "vegetarian feed", even though chickens are most certainly omnivores and those at the bottom of the pecking order get cannibalized dead or alive. "Hormone free" labeling has been ruled as gibberish by the USDA since all living creatures and even chickens have hormones. It's what gets them laid. Foie gras and capons from Gers, $72 each. Marché st. Quentin. Paris 10th. Other older heirloom breeds have their merits, depending on whether they are being raised for meat or eggs, different feed conversions, ease of raising, temperature resistance, growth rate and such. Some USDA inspectors have adverse reactions to seeing birds with feathers leaving a slaughterhouse, but like closer inspection of a wine cork, the feathers also prove breed bonafides and the care taken in plucking them, so some finer producers leave conclusive feathers around the neck and tail. Capon from Bresse. 2015 Agricultural award winner. Marché st. Quentin. Paris 10th. $30/lb Perhaps, but this is about an occasional chicken, not yachts, and we aren't living in post war Stalingrad. I don't think hobos are lining up at Kinship either. This is the 3rd wealthiest region of the richest country on the planet, by a large margin. And somehow as a nation we spend only 6% of our annual income on food, which is less than half that of Western Europe and other contemporaries and a pittance compared to the rest of the world. And what do we have to show for it other than a population with 30% obesity, 600,000 deaths from heart disease (almost 50% in the African American community) and 10% type 2 diabetes? Of course lifestyle affects health just as much as food, but if the food is intentionally and willfully deficient, then that is a problem that surely affects our prosperity and efficiency as a country, not to mention the other kind of heartache. Browder's certified organic Poulet Rouge (French heritage breed). Equally sized legs and breasts. Mattituck, NY. $8/lb. Top shelf quality and flavor. 125 are slaughtered a week on the farm. Tom Colicchio is a reliable customer and neighbor. US has managed to devalue and industrialize the majority of its top 3 meat productions. More than 90% of pork is raised indoors, mostly on concrete and while administering growth hormones to pigs (and poultry) has been outlawed in the US for quite some time now, the questionable ractopamine is perfectly legal here, but has not been approved in the EU or China. 75% of all US beef is feedlot raised on concrete and growth hormones are legal, but reassuringly labeled as "all natural" or some other stretched out bullshit, as if CAFOs and the highly industrialized feed is natural. Potato Baron Simplot's Grandview feedlot in Idaho is the largest in the US with 150,000 head of cattle squeezed into 750 acres, or 200 animals per acre, each with 218 sq/ft of dirt to call home. By law, Bresse chickens -which are much smaller than cattle- must have at least 102 sq/ft per bird. 8 Hands Farm organic Poulet Noir (black footed French Challons breed). Cutchogue, NY. $7.50/lb. Very large and long legs for those who want legs that go up all the way, and small breasts. Top Chef Tom buys with approval as well, and their lamb. Virtually all meat chickens in the US are raised in confinement. Consumer Reports found that "an analysis of fresh, whole broilers bought at stores nationwide, two-thirds harbored salmonella and/or campylobacter, the leading bacterial causes of foodborne disease. That's a modest improvement since January 2007, when we found that eight of 10 broilers harbored those pathogens". As for what's out there in stores and restaurants: the liberating, wholesome and groovy sounding Freebird are allegedly "guilt-free" which is terrific, and "free to wander in barns on family farms" just like one is free to roam around at a packed Skynyrd cover band show at the 9:30 club. Tyson, Cargill, Koch Foods and Purdue are also family owned. 3lb birds cost $1.29lb wholesale. That means that after hatching, feeding, slaughtering, processing, packaging and shipping to a wholesale purveyor, $1.29 is enough for everyone to get paid and makes a profit. That's cheap, and they sell to almost every Whole Foods in the Mid-Atlantic, which is a lot of birds and/or family farms. There is no indication of what breed they raise, but they look very much like Cornish Cross. Senat Poultry sells Penobscott/Cobb breed birds ($1.89/lb wholesale, 3.5lb average bird) that have a better leg to meat ratio, thicker skin, darker leg meat and are Halal slaughtered which allows them to keep their necks & feet. They are "fed a strict vegetarian diet", like orphans, and are probably scolded too. Bobo chickens are definitely Cornish Cross and at times are massive, but with the $2.29/lb pricetag you get a whole bird that has only been eviscerated, liver and gizzards included, just like batteries. It is a wonder the birds can walk. I tried to yank tendons from one that looked like it had clubbed feet and all the meat came out. The birds are slaughtered Confucius style which means that are kept intact with the head & feet which requires a religious exemption for the slaughterhouse. The first 2 claim their growers don't use antibiotics, but when raising that many, their claim is suspect. Much better is Ayrshire Farms (800 acres) in Upperville has American Bronze, Dominique, Red Caps and a few other breeds which retail for $6-$8/lb for 3-4lb birds. Excellent Scottish Highland grass-fed beef as well. Like many renaissance farmers, Sandy Lerner built a nest egg (co-counder of Cisco Systems) and raises better animals with integrity for the pleasure more than the profit, because she can All budgets, minds and tastes should be able to enjoy chicken and I am not advocating draconian chicken mandates, but perhaps there should be more and better choices and the nutritional standards raised for the good of the flock rather than filling the pockets of fat cats who benefit from a population that has little other option to wean itself from the cheap chicken. If Mr. Ziebold and others take pride in doing the calculus and serving what they deem to be a products that meet a tolerable balance of taste and consequences, and there is a demand for it, good for them. No one is under any obligation to split a whole roasted chicken at a finer restaurant between 2 people for a benign dinner no more than they need a Bugatti to get there, but it is nice to spoil oneself and after flying 1st class, coach might as well be a chicken barn.

What is the retail vs restaurant price range anyone reading would pay for: 1 x whole roasted 3-4lb chicken with vegetables and bread (4 servings) 1 x 750lm bottle of white wine with coasters and a smile (4 glasses) And what determines the cost (personal finances and thrift notwithstanding)?

Any chicken worth a damn that isn't "just" zombie Cornish Cross birds raised on concrete that haven't seen the light of day cost more. A couple raises organic pastured Poulet Rouge in NY state that sells for $8/lb retail and they sell 125 a week. Some birds in France cost up to $15/lb and beyond. $56 for a 3-4lb chicken split between 4 people seems reasonable, even a bargain if prepared and served with care. It is unfortunate that good quality food has been made to seem unapproachable and dinner table benchmarks devalued by very mediocre commodity supermarket sustenance that bears little resemblence to foodstuffs eaten just 50 years ago.

TG2015. The more photogenic fabrications. Pickled mackerel. Onion, garlic, rosemary, lemon and a few mustard seeds. Roasted Virginia chestnuts. Turkey consommé. Smokey turkey neck, broccoli and carrots Caulilower Polonaise. Yellow, purple and romanesco lathered in white cauliflower and sweet onion soubise before getting the gratinéed treatment and lemon-toasted breadcrumbs. A stuffing of sorts. Vegetables glazed in duck fat with some crusty bread and such. Turkey leg, liver, gizzard and quince ballotine. Slowly roasted in gravy with cranberries, chestnuts and Brussels sprouts. Hot & cold turkey pies. More gizzards, black truffle, dried cranberries and pecans in savory brown butter pastry. Star shaped cutters were readily available. A "DC" shaped cutter was found in a free-stuff box. Filled with spiked cider aspic.

It would appear that Momofucku Noodle bar offers starting line cooks a rather standard and anemic $12.50/hr in comparison to the $25-$30-$100,000 fantasy. Though the 401k swear jar pays off handsomely.

Gerry Hayden. An employer then friend for the better part of 14 years. He suffered and held on tenaciously far longed than most would and was generous enough to re-introduce me to the burgeoning bounty of the North Fork, where he moved out to dry out, though he sneaked a drink or 2 in near the end, as well he deserved to. I am pleased to have helped him in his time of need, even if he wasn't to sweet on all the "French shit".

Best version of a lyonnaise salad I've had in either Paris or Lyon. Mintwood Place's roasted chicken consommé was better than the pale broth at Camdeborde's comptoir too. Yes, rent an apartment and buy food from the storefronts/markets and go to La Grande Epicerie for an epicure's FAO Schwartz experience. The revelation for Americans traveling to France (and most of Western Europe) for the first time might be that you can buy the same food in the marketplace that you will get in a restaurant. Not so much here. Go to a fish monger (Aux ecailles d'argent 19th, market at Denfert-Rochereau 14th) and it rivals the Baltimore aquarium or Arthur Ave in the Bronx. Get an early 3am cab and go to Rungis and you'll never be able to shop at a store again.

Adams Morgan

L'Ami Jean gets their tippy-top shelf grass-fed, 4+year old 30-day dry aged beef from the venerable Hugo Desnoyer. It ain't cheap either. Go to Le Boudoir (MOF chef 8th), Le Verre Volé (corkage & boudin noir 10th), Du Pain et des Idées (bread 10th), Gilles Verot (charcuterie 6th) and buy foie gras on Ile st Louis at La Petite Scierie to take back home. Walk around Le Marché D'Aligre and get a bite at L'Ebauchoir in the 12th. All the markets are with the while. Mintwood's grilled confit calves heart salad is the best version of a Lyonnais salad around.

In my experience, the USDA will not allow a calf or steer to leave the slaughterhouse with skin still attached to the head (probably out of paranoid fantasies and the consequences of having virtually all beef coming from filthy CAFO's) and if the animal is killed with a bolt, the cheeks can not be harvested for fear of bone fragments. That is why you will never find a proper tète de veau -if you are into that. There little to no demand for uncommonly good butchers or shops. Most consumers buy center/loin cuts from supermarkets that don't require more than a band saw and a myopic woodsman who traded in their ax.

Just because it is made in a restaurant's own kitchen does not guarantee good quality or taste, at all. Sysco doesn't make anything, they are just a distributor and while it is fashionable and all but mandatory to goof on them, they sell Paula Lambert mozzarella which can't be any worse than commodity stalwarts BelGioioso or Sorrento "“which many use. Wiseguys alleges "house made fresh mozzarella" in addition to offering the grande variety. "Making" mozzarella is mundane and rather easy if you buy the curd, which most do. Making it from raw milk is another matter entirely and, like other cheeses, dry cured meats and products where time, environment, and experience are integral variables of success, are best left to those who do it regularly and know the dance moves. Perhaps Wiseguys has St. Uguzon on the payroll.

Thank you Dave. (Insert high-five emoticon). When available, Frank's páté pantin (not baked in a mold) is a finer farce-fine of the highest caliber with judicious flavors of truffle, dried fruit, cured meats & game. Brad at Boundary Rd recently received some recommendations (you're welcome) while experimenting with some lofty inlay ideas "“not sure if he made one; and Savenor's in Cambridge, MA will have their version pimped up/out pro-bono next week. With that uncertainty in finding a proxy in DC, consider visiting the North Fork Table & Inn and 8 Hands Farm from June onward, where I'll be put out to pasture fabricating stalwart products & antique forcemeats with whimsical zoomorphic gadgetry salvaged from yesteryear.

The other picture has better production value. They have a trio of crostini on their online bar menu within that orbit.

Not a helpful clue. A better picture of the Pinea crostinis.

Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications Bovine Myology British equivalents How little you should be paying for commodity flesh in your supermarket Serratus Ventralis becomes the ruggedly sounding "Denver Cut", named after the Rocky Mountain Ragamuffin John Denver, who notoriously popularized the cut after demanding it throughout his Muppet Show appearances. Not many butchers (retail/wholesale) buy whole steers, mostly CAFO primals from out west and it is easier for them to grind all the odd cuts rather than market them to a population that doesn't eat far beyond the loin so the colloquial names become moot folklore. Parts & Labor only buys whole steers from MD/VA and is one of the few with a rail to hang them. "Rockfish" is a regional name for striped bass but can refer to nearly a dozen fish throughout the world. Many other fish differ by name in different regions for reasons that are not in the interest of confusing the consumer. Meat cut names in Europe vary from town to town.

Not really. I left that job because I didn't want to go in a different direction that would have compromised what I like to do. Been watching the original version of The Bridge, napping, reading Edmund Morris' The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, prequel to Theodore Rex (TR is a personal hero), odd jobs here and there, studying bovine breeds, unlearning Spanish and wishing I was born 20 years earlier. What I've made was never very popular, maybe it didn't have enough appeal or needed better PR and whatnot. I've made my peace with that. Right now I don't feel like going through the indignity that is starting all over again and cooking in a restaurant for a pittance in what is the wealthiest region on the east coast. Not many "chef" jobs out there this time of the year and it is hard to work for anyone else after Frank. We'll see. Maybe I'll go to art school or become a professional cat teaser.

Us JV prep-school peckerheads at Palena were always jealous of and, like, totally inspired by the Ivy League varsity jocks downtown which Frank always pointed to for a finer secondary luster in what resembled an embassy or something with a 1:6 teacher/student ratio that provided as supple and sturdy of an approach to most matters of food as the warm, freshly laundered cotton jackets. And Parker House rolls. There probably won't be another intimate kitchen of that grandeur in DC led by such a culinary luminary whose practicum of highly disciplined sensory techniques and premium product is the pulp of salacious fabrication details I've only heard second-hand over late-night liquor and shoptalk. That's the gilded gossip for sweet reverie. A cleverly thickened nettle soup, bamboo sprouts treated with grandmotherly folklore, tender pan-fried corned veal tongue which all others must answer to and adroit surf & turf manipulations from an otherwise bucolic butchering colleague (it's not always about speed though; ask your GF) are noteworthy, and memorable. It was the 1st and so far only time I've seen sauce Paloise on a contemporary menu. Indulgence of the cheese board's breadth and depth kept me happily constipated for a weekend and the unflappable service is what humanity should demand from fancier things: smart, functional, stylish comfort and seemingly effortless built-to-last support. Noble showmanship of the finest grade. Those in the know say cooking at CityZen often demanded soulful precision that can only be measured by the senses, where temperature threshold is figured out by putting capable hands on the side of a pot and methodology demands patience, deliberate questions, careful trial & error, and pragmatic shuffling of skilled cooking sequences. It was a smooooooth as iced-cream foodstudio whose characteristic products were fluid and consistently accurate without being contrived or mechanical, like a Kyudojin hitting bulleye, without a scope, to the analogue tunes of heavy vinyl. Beyond impeccable ingredients, recipes and techniques it was a confident study of how to harmoniously do what and why; completely independent of what is trending or tired and the juice was definitely worth the squeeze. The elegant menus probably drew heavily from overlooked classics, maybe where Meditations of First Philosophy, Le Repertoire, Shobogenzo and heirloom recipes from the Midwest mother's cookbook overlapped. There was a reverence for the mastery of centuries past and for me the allure of CityZen's table was the mature, thoughtful revival of past elements and dishes rather than the desperate rush to invent something for the sake of being new. This is perhaps the penultimate of the bestest chef-in-residence restaurants to have been snuffed out in DC (J-L Palladin*, Le Paradou, Citronelle, Palena, Cityzen"¦) and leaves few reasons for anyone to eye DC in the immediate for such a rare, top-shelf standard of hospitality employment. The bar keeps falling and that's an unfortunate change in tide for a city already allegedly set on a swamp and weighed down with too many wasteful steakhouses. Until Mr. Ziebold's new space opens the unemployment line will be crowded this holiday season with quite a few restaurant folks who have good ideas for government cheese and how to serve it, and that's a shame. *Jean-Louis Palladin is overdue for a Wikipedia page.

TG ca. 1914 A centennial anniversary edition. The finer of the lot: Consommé Dubarry. Smoked turkey neck, romanesco, green and white cauliflower. Turkey salmis: Roasted and picked turkey leg, tender gizzards, cranberries, Brussels sprouts and root vegetables in a kabocha squash gravy thickened with onions & rice; Pont-neuf potatoes baked with caramelized onions, sprats and allspiced-heavy cream; Maryland oyster stuffing with my ventrèche. Turkey Wellington Pastured turkey breast and a forcemeat made from the liver & trimmings, wrapped snug in collard greens and baked in savory pastry. Finished with blazing mince pie. Dried fruit bound with suet, baked in a cornmeal and almond crust then set ablaze with VSOP Calvados.

For the Luddite purists, traditional salade nií§oise does not include haricots verts or cooked potatoes, or any cooked vegetables for that matter. Nice is not in a particularly fertile area and gets little rain. It is an austere pauper dish comprised of a few raw vegetables: tomatoes (lightly salted), scallions, Cailletier variety olives with the pits (Nií§oise), basil, then salt-cured anchovy filets in olive oil, a hard boiled egg, the lot dressed with olive oil on a plate rubbed with garlic. When in season it gets sliced raw purple artichokes, bell peppers and tiny fava beans. Up until the 19th century tuna was rarely used; too expensive and saved only for the good times. Escoffier had the audacious idea to gussy it up with green beans and potatoes. He was born in Villeneuve-Loubet, on the other side of the Loup river and got his knuckles rapped for not being a legitimate Nií§ois.