October 26
A publicist recently asked me why I don’t ever write anything about good publicists in my blog. So, for the record, some publicists do a good job.
But yesterday I tried to call a restaurant using a phone number from a press release. The release had transposed two digits.
I just interviewed a chef whose name ends in an s, and the publicist put an apostrophe before the s for no reason.
And here's a gem:
"Long Branch, NY (October 2006)- [Name deleted] is a contemporary French restaurant located along the breathtaking beaches of Long Branch, NJ."
If Long Branch is in New Jersey, why is the dateline in New York?
Proof reading is not brain surgery. It's really not.
I just got invited to an event claiming to usher in the debut of shochu to New York, which is weird since that spirit has been available in Japanese and Korean restaurants here for years.
And I swear that if I get another press release this autumn with the headline "How do you like them apples?" someone is going to get hurt.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Eat with Coke and smile
October 19
Last Monday, during MUFSO, Coca-Cola's publicist invited us to have dinner at restaurant Stephan Pyles with some PR flacks from Brinker International and some executives from Coca-Cola.
I think she thought the Brinker people were a draw for us, because we like to spend time with restaurant operators, but for me at least it was all about getting closer to Coke.
I'm not sure why, exactly. I mean, Coke is a great big company like many others, with lots of executives who buy and sell things for it and manage other people who buy and sell things for it. But it's also an American icon, and although I enjoyed hearing Coke trade communications manager Ben Middleton tell me about his daughters Claudia (9) and Harriet (4) (at her elementary school in Dunwoody, Ga., Claudia is studying German, something school administrators think will help children learn their English grammar better), I was thrilled to learn the Five Steps to Quality for fountain drinks.
They are
1) Syrup age (no more than 120 days for syrups containing sugar, 90 days for those with no-calorie sweeteners)
2) Temperature (it should be cold)
3) Proper amount of ice
4) Correct level of carbonation
5) Water-to-syrup ratio (generally 4.75 to 1)
Someone from NRN asked Carlton Curtis, vice president of industry affairs for Coca-Cola North America Foodservice and Hospitality Division, what the most successful marketing campaign for Coke was.
He said it was "It's the real thing."
Last Monday, during MUFSO, Coca-Cola's publicist invited us to have dinner at restaurant Stephan Pyles with some PR flacks from Brinker International and some executives from Coca-Cola.
I think she thought the Brinker people were a draw for us, because we like to spend time with restaurant operators, but for me at least it was all about getting closer to Coke.
I'm not sure why, exactly. I mean, Coke is a great big company like many others, with lots of executives who buy and sell things for it and manage other people who buy and sell things for it. But it's also an American icon, and although I enjoyed hearing Coke trade communications manager Ben Middleton tell me about his daughters Claudia (9) and Harriet (4) (at her elementary school in Dunwoody, Ga., Claudia is studying German, something school administrators think will help children learn their English grammar better), I was thrilled to learn the Five Steps to Quality for fountain drinks.
They are
1) Syrup age (no more than 120 days for syrups containing sugar, 90 days for those with no-calorie sweeteners)
2) Temperature (it should be cold)
3) Proper amount of ice
4) Correct level of carbonation
5) Water-to-syrup ratio (generally 4.75 to 1)
Someone from NRN asked Carlton Curtis, vice president of industry affairs for Coca-Cola North America Foodservice and Hospitality Division, what the most successful marketing campaign for Coke was.
He said it was "It's the real thing."
When a former president comes to your conference
October 19
All of the press materials for MUFSO said that our keynote speaker was going to be CNN's Anderson Cooper. Then when people showed up, they learned that he was being replaced by the 41st president of the United States of America.
The rumors about the switcharoo were hilarious.
Conference attendees were speculating that for security reasons we couldn't announce that George Herbert Walker Bush was speaking more than two days in advance, and that we paid Anderson Cooper off so that we could use his name and picture as a ruse.
That makes us sound so smart and sneaky that I wish it were true. But in fact, three weeks before MUFSO Cooper backed out. Working journalists like him generally have a clause in the contracts for their speaking engagements that allow them to annul the contract if there's breaking news. I'm not sure what news was breaking a month ago — it was before North Korea's detonation of a nuclear device and after the war in Lebanon — but at any rate, he backed out.
Our brilliant Monique Monaco always has a Plan B, and it just so happened that Bush père was going to be in Dallas anyway; he just needed to come in a day early to talk to the Multi-unit Foodservice Operators conference.
"That just rolls off the tongue," he said of MUFSO's full name.
He was being ironic.
The night before he spoke rumors were rife about the security checks we'd have to endure to get in. Although he was set to speak at 8 a.m., word had it that if you weren't there by 7:30, they wouldn't let you in.
Actually, as long as you were wearing an attendee badge security pretty much left you alone. They just asked that everyone remain seated until President Bush left the area.
All of the press materials for MUFSO said that our keynote speaker was going to be CNN's Anderson Cooper. Then when people showed up, they learned that he was being replaced by the 41st president of the United States of America.
The rumors about the switcharoo were hilarious.
Conference attendees were speculating that for security reasons we couldn't announce that George Herbert Walker Bush was speaking more than two days in advance, and that we paid Anderson Cooper off so that we could use his name and picture as a ruse.
That makes us sound so smart and sneaky that I wish it were true. But in fact, three weeks before MUFSO Cooper backed out. Working journalists like him generally have a clause in the contracts for their speaking engagements that allow them to annul the contract if there's breaking news. I'm not sure what news was breaking a month ago — it was before North Korea's detonation of a nuclear device and after the war in Lebanon — but at any rate, he backed out.
Our brilliant Monique Monaco always has a Plan B, and it just so happened that Bush père was going to be in Dallas anyway; he just needed to come in a day early to talk to the Multi-unit Foodservice Operators conference.
"That just rolls off the tongue," he said of MUFSO's full name.
He was being ironic.
The night before he spoke rumors were rife about the security checks we'd have to endure to get in. Although he was set to speak at 8 a.m., word had it that if you weren't there by 7:30, they wouldn't let you in.
Actually, as long as you were wearing an attendee badge security pretty much left you alone. They just asked that everyone remain seated until President Bush left the area.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
fun with corporate chefs
October 18
Culinary R&D apparently was a big hit (we won’t really know until we hear from our sponsors, who are usually too polite to gripe too loudly during the conference itself unless they're really mad).
My job, apart from writing about it, schmoozing and generally being polite to everybody, was to present some background on Mexican food in chain restaurants, put together by Nancy Kruse, and then run a panel discussion about it.
All the panelists were great, but the star was Margarita Carillo Arronte de Salinas, whom no one at NRN had ever met before.
I thought that if we were going to talk about Mexican food it would make sense to have, you know, a Mexican, there, so I e-mailed Allison Moore from the Produce Association of the Americas, which, you may recall, is made of a group of Mexican produce exporters who want to expand their presence north of the Rio Grande.
I asked her if she knew of an articulate, English-speaking American chefs, and she tracked down Margarita for us.
Well, she was charming, but was not about to put up with chain restaurants calling their food Mexican. I was standing at the podium, screening questions that were being sent up from the audience on note cards, reading with part of my brain and listening with another, so I'm not sure what Margarita's expression was when Stephen Kalil — director of culinary innovation and executive chef at Chili's, and a great guy — read data indicating that the three most popular "Mexican" cheeses at U.S. restaurants were Monterrey Jack, Pepper Jack and, oh, I forget, some other Jack. But I can imagine what it was.
When Oona Settembre, one of my favorite corporate chefs and currently the culinary R&D director for On the Border, said that some types of chorizo weren't available in the U.S., Margarita told her she could make her own. She promoted Mexican wines, told the chefs to find Mexican-food experts to help them (Stephen Kalil asked her for her card), and told them to come to Mexico (which Oona has done, by the way; she had been talking about putting tortas on the menu even when she was at Dave & Busters).
John Koch, vice president of R&D and culinary operations for Avado Brands, which operates Don Pablo's Mexican Kitchen and Hops Grill Brewery; and El Pollo Loco's manager of culinary development, Jonathan Rogan, also were on the panel.
Oh, it was fun.
Afterwards, Margarita showed the attendees how to make a Mayan pumpkin seed-tomato paste called Ha-sikil-p'ak.
Here are some other things I learned at Culinary R&D:
Shakey's, which now is mentioning the brands of some of its ingredients on its menus, has an organic sauce at its buffet; it's on the margherita pizza.
Rib Crib has a new menu
Chili's is extending its rib line with a bunch of new barbecue sauces
Shakey's target market is 6-11 year-olds.
I learned many other things too, but they're secret.
Culinary R&D apparently was a big hit (we won’t really know until we hear from our sponsors, who are usually too polite to gripe too loudly during the conference itself unless they're really mad).
My job, apart from writing about it, schmoozing and generally being polite to everybody, was to present some background on Mexican food in chain restaurants, put together by Nancy Kruse, and then run a panel discussion about it.
All the panelists were great, but the star was Margarita Carillo Arronte de Salinas, whom no one at NRN had ever met before.
I thought that if we were going to talk about Mexican food it would make sense to have, you know, a Mexican, there, so I e-mailed Allison Moore from the Produce Association of the Americas, which, you may recall, is made of a group of Mexican produce exporters who want to expand their presence north of the Rio Grande.
I asked her if she knew of an articulate, English-speaking American chefs, and she tracked down Margarita for us.
Well, she was charming, but was not about to put up with chain restaurants calling their food Mexican. I was standing at the podium, screening questions that were being sent up from the audience on note cards, reading with part of my brain and listening with another, so I'm not sure what Margarita's expression was when Stephen Kalil — director of culinary innovation and executive chef at Chili's, and a great guy — read data indicating that the three most popular "Mexican" cheeses at U.S. restaurants were Monterrey Jack, Pepper Jack and, oh, I forget, some other Jack. But I can imagine what it was.
When Oona Settembre, one of my favorite corporate chefs and currently the culinary R&D director for On the Border, said that some types of chorizo weren't available in the U.S., Margarita told her she could make her own. She promoted Mexican wines, told the chefs to find Mexican-food experts to help them (Stephen Kalil asked her for her card), and told them to come to Mexico (which Oona has done, by the way; she had been talking about putting tortas on the menu even when she was at Dave & Busters).
John Koch, vice president of R&D and culinary operations for Avado Brands, which operates Don Pablo's Mexican Kitchen and Hops Grill Brewery; and El Pollo Loco's manager of culinary development, Jonathan Rogan, also were on the panel.
Oh, it was fun.
Afterwards, Margarita showed the attendees how to make a Mayan pumpkin seed-tomato paste called Ha-sikil-p'ak.
Here are some other things I learned at Culinary R&D:
Shakey's, which now is mentioning the brands of some of its ingredients on its menus, has an organic sauce at its buffet; it's on the margherita pizza.
Rib Crib has a new menu
Chili's is extending its rib line with a bunch of new barbecue sauces
Shakey's target market is 6-11 year-olds.
I learned many other things too, but they're secret.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Preparing for Culinary R&D
October 17
Over the past few days I've taken time away from my usual habitat of New York's fine dining restaurants and related hot spots to spend time with my friends in the world of chain restaurants.
It started on Thursday with an early morning departure for Dallas, where Nation's Restaurant News' 5th annual Culinary R&D conference was taking place, to be followed by our 47th annual Multi-unit Foodservice Operators conference, better known, believe it or not, as MUFSO (that's pronounced with a short 'u', not MOOF-so). Culinary R&D is for chain restaurants' corporate chefs, MUFSO is for chain restaurant executives.
They're both quite polished affairs -- our event guru Monique Monaco sees to that. So even though Culinary R&D didn't start until Friday night, I arrived on Thursday to start rehearsing my presentation on Mexican food.
My boss, Pam Parseghian, also landed on Thursday so she could rehearse her fod science remarks and her introduction of David Burke. And contributing editor Nancy Kruse, who prepared all of the materials for us, was there to rehearse her presentation on broad menu trends.
To get in the mood, and because New York has very bad Mexican food, I had a pork tamale, beef taco and chicken enchilada with green chile at Uncle Julio's.
That night, after our first rehearsal, Pam and I tried to have barbecue at Sonny Bryan's but ended up with a singularly inept taxi driver (or so we thought) who couldn't find his way around downtown Dallas' touristy West End. However, he did manage to find Pizza Patron, whose wings we wanted to sample. The plan was to have those wings and Sonny Bryan's barbecue, but instead we had Pizza Patron's wings and pizza.
The next day, before our second rehearsal, we got an equally inept taxi driver, proving that there was nothing singular about the first one. Pam persisted, however, and we did finally make it to Sonny Bryan's.
I avoid expressing my opinion of restaurants in my blog, but I will say that I've had better barbecue in New York.
Over the past few days I've taken time away from my usual habitat of New York's fine dining restaurants and related hot spots to spend time with my friends in the world of chain restaurants.
It started on Thursday with an early morning departure for Dallas, where Nation's Restaurant News' 5th annual Culinary R&D conference was taking place, to be followed by our 47th annual Multi-unit Foodservice Operators conference, better known, believe it or not, as MUFSO (that's pronounced with a short 'u', not MOOF-so). Culinary R&D is for chain restaurants' corporate chefs, MUFSO is for chain restaurant executives.
They're both quite polished affairs -- our event guru Monique Monaco sees to that. So even though Culinary R&D didn't start until Friday night, I arrived on Thursday to start rehearsing my presentation on Mexican food.
My boss, Pam Parseghian, also landed on Thursday so she could rehearse her fod science remarks and her introduction of David Burke. And contributing editor Nancy Kruse, who prepared all of the materials for us, was there to rehearse her presentation on broad menu trends.
To get in the mood, and because New York has very bad Mexican food, I had a pork tamale, beef taco and chicken enchilada with green chile at Uncle Julio's.
That night, after our first rehearsal, Pam and I tried to have barbecue at Sonny Bryan's but ended up with a singularly inept taxi driver (or so we thought) who couldn't find his way around downtown Dallas' touristy West End. However, he did manage to find Pizza Patron, whose wings we wanted to sample. The plan was to have those wings and Sonny Bryan's barbecue, but instead we had Pizza Patron's wings and pizza.
The next day, before our second rehearsal, we got an equally inept taxi driver, proving that there was nothing singular about the first one. Pam persisted, however, and we did finally make it to Sonny Bryan's.
I avoid expressing my opinion of restaurants in my blog, but I will say that I've had better barbecue in New York.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Gossip about Barbra Streisand
October 11,
I had lunch today at Uncle Jack's Steakhouse on 9th Avenue and 34th Street. The publicist wanted me to check out their new tuna tartare and Kobe beef tartare appetizers, so while I ate them (and a Prime beef cheeseburger with sauteed onions and fries), I asked the publicist about the restaurant's clientele. He said it was mostly expense-account types and people on their way to Madison Square Garden.
Barbra Streisand had been performing there earlier in the week, and the publicist said her people had made reservations for dinner in Uncle Jack's private dining room after the show.
So the manager kept extra staff on hand and waited for her and her entourage.
And they waited and waited, and she never showed up. She didn't call or send a kid over to say she wouldn't be coming. She just didn't honor her reservation.
That's rude, even if you are Barbra Streisand.
And of course if you're a big, famous singer, people talk about it when you're rude and then it ends up as part of the chatter people engage in about you. They might even write about it in blogs.
It's really not a good idea. Pick up the phone, for crying out loud.
I had lunch today at Uncle Jack's Steakhouse on 9th Avenue and 34th Street. The publicist wanted me to check out their new tuna tartare and Kobe beef tartare appetizers, so while I ate them (and a Prime beef cheeseburger with sauteed onions and fries), I asked the publicist about the restaurant's clientele. He said it was mostly expense-account types and people on their way to Madison Square Garden.
Barbra Streisand had been performing there earlier in the week, and the publicist said her people had made reservations for dinner in Uncle Jack's private dining room after the show.
So the manager kept extra staff on hand and waited for her and her entourage.
And they waited and waited, and she never showed up. She didn't call or send a kid over to say she wouldn't be coming. She just didn't honor her reservation.
That's rude, even if you are Barbra Streisand.
And of course if you're a big, famous singer, people talk about it when you're rude and then it ends up as part of the chatter people engage in about you. They might even write about it in blogs.
It's really not a good idea. Pick up the phone, for crying out loud.
Wine, chocolate and '80s pop
October 10
During a wine-and-chocolate event on the Upper West Side I got a call from Andy Battaglia, who writes about music and edits the city section of the New York edition of The Onion.
He wondered if I wanted to go to a Lindsey Buckingham concert.
He then explained that Lindsey Buckingham was one of the key people in Fleetwood Mac, a group he correctly assumed that even someone as ignorant of music as I would be familiar with.
I try never to pass up the opportunity to hear live music, so I skipped the baseball-themed Maker's Mark party to which I had been invited, stopped by the Time Warner Center for a ham and cheese sandwich at Bouchon and then to Town Hall, a music venue in Times Square, and witnessed the bizarre but not unenjoyable spectacle of a man in his 50s playing music with which I was vaguely familiar, complete with '80s-era light show.
During the concert I realized that even in the 1980s I wouldn't have paid the $16 or whatever it would have cost to witness Fleetwood Mac live, but seeing Lindsey Buckingham for free with my friend Andy was worth the opportunity cost of missing a bourbon party.
Andy and I closed out the evening with Irish whiskey on the rocks at Siberia.
During a wine-and-chocolate event on the Upper West Side I got a call from Andy Battaglia, who writes about music and edits the city section of the New York edition of The Onion.
He wondered if I wanted to go to a Lindsey Buckingham concert.
He then explained that Lindsey Buckingham was one of the key people in Fleetwood Mac, a group he correctly assumed that even someone as ignorant of music as I would be familiar with.
I try never to pass up the opportunity to hear live music, so I skipped the baseball-themed Maker's Mark party to which I had been invited, stopped by the Time Warner Center for a ham and cheese sandwich at Bouchon and then to Town Hall, a music venue in Times Square, and witnessed the bizarre but not unenjoyable spectacle of a man in his 50s playing music with which I was vaguely familiar, complete with '80s-era light show.
During the concert I realized that even in the 1980s I wouldn't have paid the $16 or whatever it would have cost to witness Fleetwood Mac live, but seeing Lindsey Buckingham for free with my friend Andy was worth the opportunity cost of missing a bourbon party.
Andy and I closed out the evening with Irish whiskey on the rocks at Siberia.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Mai House in the middle of two other restaurants I own
I was right. Drew Nieporent says he is, indeed, opening a restaurant with Michael Bao Huynh, chef-partner in Bao 111.
Mai House will be between Tribeca Grill and Nobu, two other restaurants operated by Drew.
Mai House will be between Tribeca Grill and Nobu, two other restaurants operated by Drew.
Starting with ingredients
October 5
I met Aliza Green awhile back on a trip to Greece. She recently came out with a massive cookbook called "Starting with Ingredients" and she had a little press dinner at Barbounia to celebrate. It would have been rude for me not to attend.
Aliza met Barbounia's owners long ago. These days they also own Sushi Samba, which has two units in New York and one each in Miami Beach, Chicago and Tel Aviv — and they plan to open one in Dallas in March.
But they used to have a place in Philadelphia, where Aliza was the chef. Since a lot of the food in her thousand-some-odd tome is Mediterranean, Barbounia was a logical place for dinner.
I spent the first half of the evening talking to Aliza about random things, including her current work consulting for a kosher restaurant. She says the hardest part, now that trans fats are out of fashion, is to find appropriate fat for baking. Butter's out, because Jewish dietary laws ban eating dairy products in the same meal as meat products (which includes birds but excludes fish and eggs). Margarine is the popular choice at the moment, but that's likely to change. Aliza does have a cake baked with olive oil in her cookbook; I imagine she'll go that route.
Aliza wandered off to some other table, as was appropriate, and I ended up spending most of the rest of the evening talking with young Jay Rocco, Sushi Samba's marketing manager. He recently lived in Taiwan for a year, working for a publishing company that also had a television division. He ended up as the host of an English-language TV show and was semi-famous. That sort of thing can happen when you're a white guy in an Asian country.
I met Aliza Green awhile back on a trip to Greece. She recently came out with a massive cookbook called "Starting with Ingredients" and she had a little press dinner at Barbounia to celebrate. It would have been rude for me not to attend.
Aliza met Barbounia's owners long ago. These days they also own Sushi Samba, which has two units in New York and one each in Miami Beach, Chicago and Tel Aviv — and they plan to open one in Dallas in March.
But they used to have a place in Philadelphia, where Aliza was the chef. Since a lot of the food in her thousand-some-odd tome is Mediterranean, Barbounia was a logical place for dinner.
I spent the first half of the evening talking to Aliza about random things, including her current work consulting for a kosher restaurant. She says the hardest part, now that trans fats are out of fashion, is to find appropriate fat for baking. Butter's out, because Jewish dietary laws ban eating dairy products in the same meal as meat products (which includes birds but excludes fish and eggs). Margarine is the popular choice at the moment, but that's likely to change. Aliza does have a cake baked with olive oil in her cookbook; I imagine she'll go that route.
Aliza wandered off to some other table, as was appropriate, and I ended up spending most of the rest of the evening talking with young Jay Rocco, Sushi Samba's marketing manager. He recently lived in Taiwan for a year, working for a publishing company that also had a television division. He ended up as the host of an English-language TV show and was semi-famous. That sort of thing can happen when you're a white guy in an Asian country.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Maybe I shouldn’t be allowed out on my own
October 5
Last night I had no press events to go to. I love nights like that, and decided to catch up on restaurants in my own neighborhood that I hadn’t been to yet. I picked Franny’s.
Franny’s opened on Flatbush in Brooklyn to much acclaim quite a while ago. I tend to be suspicious of wild acclaim over a pizza place, but I did, indeed, have a delicious meal of pizza with tomatoes, mozzarella, sausage and hot peppers, and a Six-Point ale.
I noticed that everyone working in the dining room — servers, bartender, floor management — all were women. Peering from my table into the open kitchen, all I could see were men.
I made this observation to the woman who took away my dessert menu as I asked for the check, and it annoyed her. (I later visited their web site — I think I was talking to Franny herself).
“Well, that happens to be the case tonight,” she half-snapped.
I shrugged and said I’d never seen that before.
“You’ve never seen that before?” she asked as though I’d said I’d never seen water poured into a glass.
I shrugged again and smiled sheepishly.
“Maybe I hadn’t noticed.”
It’s true that when I was waiting tables at Azar’s Big Boy in Denver — the one at the intersection of Colorado Blvd. and I-25 that later became a Perkins and I don’t know what it is now — one night the manager said “I have six girls on the floor,” and I realized that she had counted me among the girls, so accustomed was she to servers being women. And I’m sure on many nights there all the cooks were men, but of course since on any nights I was working, at least one man would have been on the floor, I never would have witnessed what I did last night.
Anyway, the title of this blog entry stands.
Last night I had no press events to go to. I love nights like that, and decided to catch up on restaurants in my own neighborhood that I hadn’t been to yet. I picked Franny’s.
Franny’s opened on Flatbush in Brooklyn to much acclaim quite a while ago. I tend to be suspicious of wild acclaim over a pizza place, but I did, indeed, have a delicious meal of pizza with tomatoes, mozzarella, sausage and hot peppers, and a Six-Point ale.
I noticed that everyone working in the dining room — servers, bartender, floor management — all were women. Peering from my table into the open kitchen, all I could see were men.
I made this observation to the woman who took away my dessert menu as I asked for the check, and it annoyed her. (I later visited their web site — I think I was talking to Franny herself).
“Well, that happens to be the case tonight,” she half-snapped.
I shrugged and said I’d never seen that before.
“You’ve never seen that before?” she asked as though I’d said I’d never seen water poured into a glass.
I shrugged again and smiled sheepishly.
“Maybe I hadn’t noticed.”
It’s true that when I was waiting tables at Azar’s Big Boy in Denver — the one at the intersection of Colorado Blvd. and I-25 that later became a Perkins and I don’t know what it is now — one night the manager said “I have six girls on the floor,” and I realized that she had counted me among the girls, so accustomed was she to servers being women. And I’m sure on many nights there all the cooks were men, but of course since on any nights I was working, at least one man would have been on the floor, I never would have witnessed what I did last night.
Anyway, the title of this blog entry stands.
The week in bad publicists
October 5
Rule #1: If a writer agrees to meet with your client, stop pitching. If he (or she) agrees to visit your restaurant, stop pitching. If he says you can send him a product, stop pitching. You've made your sale, say "thank you" and get off of my phone.
Apart from running a gauntlet of people with bad phone skills, I've gotten a shocking array of irritating press releases, and I'm just halfway through Thursday.
One came from a ridiculous company that hawks sauerkraut. In the past they've lied that kiimchi can cure SARS and that cabbage is a treatment for avian flu. Now they're telling me that the Reuben sandwich is becoming — excuse me, "rapidly becoming" — "the most consumed" sandwich in America, which of course it is not.
"Reuben mania has swept the country," it says, which, again, it hasn't.
It declared the sandwich to be a new Oktoberfest favorite based on its findings that the Reuben is considered a special occasion food, and Oktoberfest is a special occasion.
Yeah, I'm still thinking bratwurst. I might even consider having it with sauerkraut, but I'll make sure it's not made by this particular company of liars.
By the way, Oktoberfest ended earlier this week (it starts in mid-September and lasts for 16 days).
Today I got a press release indicating that I was immoral and had bad taste for eating chocolate bars and truffles instead of the product the flack was representing — chocolate covered cacao nibs.
Apparently chocolate covered nibs are a "socially responsible alternative to the traditional, processed bar or truffle, appealing to consumers with a sophisticated palate, an interest in the arts and culture, a concern for the world and most of all, who are looking for a deeply satisfying chocolate hit."
So I'm being a socially irresponsible Philistine if I eat a piece of chocolate that's not from this company?
"The tasty morsels are designed to meet the lifestyle needs from the culturally hungry consumer to the avid chocolate lover..."
I guess so, although I'm not really sure given the bizarre grammatical structure of the above phrase.
Could someone please tell me what a "lifestyle need" is?
Rule #1: If a writer agrees to meet with your client, stop pitching. If he (or she) agrees to visit your restaurant, stop pitching. If he says you can send him a product, stop pitching. You've made your sale, say "thank you" and get off of my phone.
Apart from running a gauntlet of people with bad phone skills, I've gotten a shocking array of irritating press releases, and I'm just halfway through Thursday.
One came from a ridiculous company that hawks sauerkraut. In the past they've lied that kiimchi can cure SARS and that cabbage is a treatment for avian flu. Now they're telling me that the Reuben sandwich is becoming — excuse me, "rapidly becoming" — "the most consumed" sandwich in America, which of course it is not.
"Reuben mania has swept the country," it says, which, again, it hasn't.
It declared the sandwich to be a new Oktoberfest favorite based on its findings that the Reuben is considered a special occasion food, and Oktoberfest is a special occasion.
Yeah, I'm still thinking bratwurst. I might even consider having it with sauerkraut, but I'll make sure it's not made by this particular company of liars.
By the way, Oktoberfest ended earlier this week (it starts in mid-September and lasts for 16 days).
Today I got a press release indicating that I was immoral and had bad taste for eating chocolate bars and truffles instead of the product the flack was representing — chocolate covered cacao nibs.
Apparently chocolate covered nibs are a "socially responsible alternative to the traditional, processed bar or truffle, appealing to consumers with a sophisticated palate, an interest in the arts and culture, a concern for the world and most of all, who are looking for a deeply satisfying chocolate hit."
So I'm being a socially irresponsible Philistine if I eat a piece of chocolate that's not from this company?
"The tasty morsels are designed to meet the lifestyle needs from the culturally hungry consumer to the avid chocolate lover..."
I guess so, although I'm not really sure given the bizarre grammatical structure of the above phrase.
Could someone please tell me what a "lifestyle need" is?
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
My ears hurt
October 4
I just got my head chewed off by a famous chef downtown because I asked him where I might get my hands on some sodium alginate and calcium chloride.
I wrote an article about sodium alginate in September 2005, interviewed said chef for it but didn't include him in the story.
I didn’t know he even cared until I called him a few weeks later to interview him about unconventional noodles. Boy did he let me have it.
I think what really annoyed him was that when he asked why I didn't use him I said that what he was doing wasn't as interesting as what some other chefs were doing.
Oh, he didn’t like that, especially since in the story I included a few mundane examples of chefs using sodium alginate to make little caviarlike bubbles, which, if you’re one of the half-dozen most avant-garde chefs in the country, is as boring as a cheese sandwich. But for the rest of the restaurant world, you have to explain how it’s done.
I finished the story with chefs doing more creative stuff, including one who just became his new pastry chef, but I guess this chef didn’t get that far into the article, which is fair enough; he’s a busy guy.
To be honest, it’s nice to know that he cares.
Besides, after haranguing me, he did give me the phone number of an alginate supplier.
I just got my head chewed off by a famous chef downtown because I asked him where I might get my hands on some sodium alginate and calcium chloride.
I wrote an article about sodium alginate in September 2005, interviewed said chef for it but didn't include him in the story.
I didn’t know he even cared until I called him a few weeks later to interview him about unconventional noodles. Boy did he let me have it.
I think what really annoyed him was that when he asked why I didn't use him I said that what he was doing wasn't as interesting as what some other chefs were doing.
Oh, he didn’t like that, especially since in the story I included a few mundane examples of chefs using sodium alginate to make little caviarlike bubbles, which, if you’re one of the half-dozen most avant-garde chefs in the country, is as boring as a cheese sandwich. But for the rest of the restaurant world, you have to explain how it’s done.
I finished the story with chefs doing more creative stuff, including one who just became his new pastry chef, but I guess this chef didn’t get that far into the article, which is fair enough; he’s a busy guy.
To be honest, it’s nice to know that he cares.
Besides, after haranguing me, he did give me the phone number of an alginate supplier.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Idle gossip
October 3
As a journalist, you must never write anything that you have not confirmed (a former colleague, Jamie Peters, quoted a journalism professor as saying “if your mother says she loves you, get confirmation.”)
So I’m not going to write that Drew Nieporent and his Myriad Restaurant Group are planning to open a Vietnamese restaurant in New York with the folks from Bao 111.
It’s just a rumor, and Drew knows better than to provide further details before the ink is dry. You’re just asking for trouble when you do that.
As a journalist, you must never write anything that you have not confirmed (a former colleague, Jamie Peters, quoted a journalism professor as saying “if your mother says she loves you, get confirmation.”)
So I’m not going to write that Drew Nieporent and his Myriad Restaurant Group are planning to open a Vietnamese restaurant in New York with the folks from Bao 111.
It’s just a rumor, and Drew knows better than to provide further details before the ink is dry. You’re just asking for trouble when you do that.
Monday, October 02, 2006
weekend with friends
October 2
I like to lie low on weekends to recover from the general insanity of the work week. But this weekend began with drinks with work colleagues at the Fitzpatrick hotel (truth be told, I guess it really began with Friday's long lunch at Del Posto with egg man Howard Helmer, goose man Jim Schiltz, and excellent person and Food & Wine executive food editor Tina Ujlaki; the staff at Del Posto would not let us eat Jim's smoked goose breast in celebration of Michaelmas, possibly dooming us to financial hardship in the year to come).
From the Fitzpatrick I headed to Grand Central Oyster Bar for the Oyster Frenzy, where I downed oysters and white wine with my buddy Clark Mitchell, who works at Travel + Leisure. After a couple dozen oysters Clark felt a need for carbohydrates and we repaired to Therapy for chicken nachos, non-frenzied conversation and bourbon.
Clark did his first TV interview on New York 1 a couple of weeks ago. I missed it, but he said it was kind of a fun thing to do. He should do more, he has a face for television.
Saturday night I found myself in Midtown with New York Times scent critic Chandler Burr, who presented me with a bottle of a Guerlain eau de toilette that he likes (so do I; I'm wearing it now, in fact). We took the subway to Williamsburg and then walked up Bedford to Greenpoint, where we were meeting Howard, his partner Tom, and connections-maven Arlyn Blake and her partner Sal, for Polish food at Lomzynianka.
Have I mentioned that Howard holds the record for the most omelets made in half an hour? I believe it's 472. He admits that some of them were a little runny.
Chandler and I closed off the night in Williamsburg, judging hipsters as they exited the L train.
Then on Sunday it was dim sum in Chinatown with Kenny Lao, who owns Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. We ate at Oriental Garden, on Elizabeth St., and then went for a stroll. On Canal St. we were stopped by tourists who wanted to take a picture of Kenny. They recognized him from when he was featured on the MTV show First Year.
Kenny says that happens a lot.
I like to lie low on weekends to recover from the general insanity of the work week. But this weekend began with drinks with work colleagues at the Fitzpatrick hotel (truth be told, I guess it really began with Friday's long lunch at Del Posto with egg man Howard Helmer, goose man Jim Schiltz, and excellent person and Food & Wine executive food editor Tina Ujlaki; the staff at Del Posto would not let us eat Jim's smoked goose breast in celebration of Michaelmas, possibly dooming us to financial hardship in the year to come).
From the Fitzpatrick I headed to Grand Central Oyster Bar for the Oyster Frenzy, where I downed oysters and white wine with my buddy Clark Mitchell, who works at Travel + Leisure. After a couple dozen oysters Clark felt a need for carbohydrates and we repaired to Therapy for chicken nachos, non-frenzied conversation and bourbon.
Clark did his first TV interview on New York 1 a couple of weeks ago. I missed it, but he said it was kind of a fun thing to do. He should do more, he has a face for television.
Saturday night I found myself in Midtown with New York Times scent critic Chandler Burr, who presented me with a bottle of a Guerlain eau de toilette that he likes (so do I; I'm wearing it now, in fact). We took the subway to Williamsburg and then walked up Bedford to Greenpoint, where we were meeting Howard, his partner Tom, and connections-maven Arlyn Blake and her partner Sal, for Polish food at Lomzynianka.
Have I mentioned that Howard holds the record for the most omelets made in half an hour? I believe it's 472. He admits that some of them were a little runny.
Chandler and I closed off the night in Williamsburg, judging hipsters as they exited the L train.
Then on Sunday it was dim sum in Chinatown with Kenny Lao, who owns Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. We ate at Oriental Garden, on Elizabeth St., and then went for a stroll. On Canal St. we were stopped by tourists who wanted to take a picture of Kenny. They recognized him from when he was featured on the MTV show First Year.
Kenny says that happens a lot.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Peanuts on my mind
September 23
On the 21st I landed in Atlanta and was picked up by people from the Peanut Advisory Board for a ride to South Georgia in probably the coolest bus I've ever been in. Refrigerator, microwave, sink, tables for eating, seats facing the front of the bus for anti-social time and long couches facing either side of the bus for socializing.
I caught up with former Boston Market chef Bob Karisny, who's now a consultant in Denver. Among other things he tests recipes for the Peanut people. I also caught up with Brent Frei, who used to work with the American Culinary Federation and now is a publicist based in Chicago. I see him a lot, though, most recently at the ACF conference in Philadelphia this summer, so we didn't need to catch up much. Mostly I gossiped instead.
Also on the trip were a couple of other American food writers, four Canadian journalists, including three French-speaking Quebecoises, some chefs, a food historian and a duckling salesman.
I don't remember why the duckling salesman was there, so don't ask. He was a nice guy, at any rate.
In theory we were in the Georgia for a peanut harvest tour, but drought had delayed the peanuts' growth and they weren't ready to be picked.
But we still started the tour with a visit to the farm of David Reed in Hawkinsville, who obligingly used his machinery to lift up, shake and flip a couple of rows of peanut plants so we could look at them. We also brushed some of them off and tasted them. They're good; quite like peas. I can imagine local chefs from the sandy coastal plains where peanuts grow — an area that stretches along the coast from Virginia down the Atlantic and over to the Gulf of Mexico to Mississippi — using them for seasonal specials. Steamed, maybe. I wonder if peanut farmers could market them that way and sell them for a premium. As it is, Mr. Reed said prices for peanuts were so low that it looked like they'd lose money on them this year.
While this discussion was going on, we were being swarmed with gnats, who seemed to be fascinated by our faces and ears.
I found Mr. Reed's son to be fascinating. A former banker, he had a bachelor's degree in finance and a master's in vocal music. He figured he was the only opera-singing farmer in his part of South Georgia. These days he sings at church mostly. The food historian suggested he learn some Jewish songs so he could be a wedding singer. I said I thought that the demand for performers at Jewish weddings in South Georgia was probably not very high, and the opera singer agreed.
Then we visited a peanut-butter factory, where I learned that spectrometers check the color of peanut pieces that go into chunky peanut butter so that their color matches the color of the peanut butter overall.
We checked into our hotel in Albany, Ga. (pronounced al-BIN-ny or all-BEE-nee, depending on who you talk to), and then went to the Peanut Institute — peanut producers' research arm and, after a brief DVD presentation on the health qualities of peanuts, we enjoyed light refreshments and toured the institute, where there was a wide variety of peanut memorabilia and pictures of Jimmy Carter.
But the highlights of that visit were the crab dip, with cream cheese and cocktail sauce, and the pickled okra wraps.
Imagine crunchy pickled okra wrapped in flour tortillas with mild cheese and other flavorings and then sliced thinly. The presentation, including cross-sections of okra, was great.
And I know the crab dip sounds mundane, but it was superb.
My favorite thing to witness was the way one of the Quebecoise journalists managed a food allergy. Looking at the crab dip, she said that, as a Canadian, she was unfamiliar with this food and was curious to know what was in it. I never would have known she was allergic to seafood if her companions hadn't ratted her out, showing they didn't understand the incredible dignity with which their compatriot was avoiding anaphylactic shock without drawing attention to herself or embarrassing her hosts.
It was a great moment in social etiquette ruined by clueless people.
I don't think she minded, but she still got her companions back by convincing them that they had been entered as contestants in a peanut princess beauty contest to be held on Sunday.
For dinner, at AJ's Seafood & Oyster Bar, I had delicious fried catfish and I finally came to understand the point of fried green tomatoes. At AJ's the cook them enough to release some of the sweetness in the tomatoes. Delicious!
The next day we went to Tifton to visit a buying point — where peanuts are bought, cleaned of much of their rocks and stems and suck, graded and sent to be shelled. And in the afternoon we went to a shelling plant in Smithville, where we saw the shelling and sorting machines. Basically, after peanuts are shelled they're shaken and shaken and shaken and shaken to be sorted by size as they drop through various gratings. It's loud, but easier than picking through them by hand.
Between those tours we went to the Coastal Plains Experiment Station in Tifton, where the best thing I learned is how to tell if a peanut is ripe: rub away some of the beige colored hull. It should be dark brown underneath.
But the highlight of the day was unbelievably good barbecue at the experiment station. Pulled pork and ribs and Brunswick stew and so on. Followed by pecan pie.
Okay, I guess the highlight of the day actually was meeting my favorite ex-president, Jimmy Carter, who greeted us at the community center in his hometown of Plains.
We waited outside with him, and were handed little hand fans to shoo away the gnats. I had always thought that when I had seen southerners slowly waving themselves with fans, they were cooling themselves off. A slow wave of the fan is not very effective at doing that, but it certainly keeps the gnats off of your face. The only drawback is that the fans don't actually kill the gnats, something I wanted to do desperately at that point.
President Carter arrived before too long. He posed for a picture with us and then we went inside for sweet tea, lemonade and various peanut products. Shrimp cocktail, too. I'm not sure why.
At the shelling plant they had given us peanut butter pie after our tour, yet we still managed to enjoy the snacks as well as dinner, which we ate at the haunted Windsor Hotel in Americus. Being in Georgia, I ordered the pecan crusted salmon with peach marmalade. It seemed like the thing to do.
The next day was the Plains Peanut Festival — the 10th annual, if I remember correctly. I had lost my fan, so I shooed gnats away with my hand while I sampled sandwiches of barbecued pulled pork. Some VIP bleachers had been set up along the parade route and we were instructed that those bleechers were, in fact, for us.
The parade was fascinating, and lasted for a relentless 35 minutes as car after car of beauty queens in three categories went by. There were a variety of Miss fillintheblanks, as well as junior misses and tiny misses. There were shriners, too, and people from retirement homes, and members of the local ROTC and urban league.
Chris Koetke, the dean of Kendall College in Chicago and one of my fellow peanut harvest tourists, observed that all of the members of the ROTC and urban league were black, and that all of the beauty queens were white.
None of the beauty queens, it turned out, were Quebecoise.
On the 21st I landed in Atlanta and was picked up by people from the Peanut Advisory Board for a ride to South Georgia in probably the coolest bus I've ever been in. Refrigerator, microwave, sink, tables for eating, seats facing the front of the bus for anti-social time and long couches facing either side of the bus for socializing.
I caught up with former Boston Market chef Bob Karisny, who's now a consultant in Denver. Among other things he tests recipes for the Peanut people. I also caught up with Brent Frei, who used to work with the American Culinary Federation and now is a publicist based in Chicago. I see him a lot, though, most recently at the ACF conference in Philadelphia this summer, so we didn't need to catch up much. Mostly I gossiped instead.
Also on the trip were a couple of other American food writers, four Canadian journalists, including three French-speaking Quebecoises, some chefs, a food historian and a duckling salesman.
I don't remember why the duckling salesman was there, so don't ask. He was a nice guy, at any rate.
In theory we were in the Georgia for a peanut harvest tour, but drought had delayed the peanuts' growth and they weren't ready to be picked.
But we still started the tour with a visit to the farm of David Reed in Hawkinsville, who obligingly used his machinery to lift up, shake and flip a couple of rows of peanut plants so we could look at them. We also brushed some of them off and tasted them. They're good; quite like peas. I can imagine local chefs from the sandy coastal plains where peanuts grow — an area that stretches along the coast from Virginia down the Atlantic and over to the Gulf of Mexico to Mississippi — using them for seasonal specials. Steamed, maybe. I wonder if peanut farmers could market them that way and sell them for a premium. As it is, Mr. Reed said prices for peanuts were so low that it looked like they'd lose money on them this year.
While this discussion was going on, we were being swarmed with gnats, who seemed to be fascinated by our faces and ears.
I found Mr. Reed's son to be fascinating. A former banker, he had a bachelor's degree in finance and a master's in vocal music. He figured he was the only opera-singing farmer in his part of South Georgia. These days he sings at church mostly. The food historian suggested he learn some Jewish songs so he could be a wedding singer. I said I thought that the demand for performers at Jewish weddings in South Georgia was probably not very high, and the opera singer agreed.
Then we visited a peanut-butter factory, where I learned that spectrometers check the color of peanut pieces that go into chunky peanut butter so that their color matches the color of the peanut butter overall.
We checked into our hotel in Albany, Ga. (pronounced al-BIN-ny or all-BEE-nee, depending on who you talk to), and then went to the Peanut Institute — peanut producers' research arm and, after a brief DVD presentation on the health qualities of peanuts, we enjoyed light refreshments and toured the institute, where there was a wide variety of peanut memorabilia and pictures of Jimmy Carter.
But the highlights of that visit were the crab dip, with cream cheese and cocktail sauce, and the pickled okra wraps.
Imagine crunchy pickled okra wrapped in flour tortillas with mild cheese and other flavorings and then sliced thinly. The presentation, including cross-sections of okra, was great.
And I know the crab dip sounds mundane, but it was superb.
My favorite thing to witness was the way one of the Quebecoise journalists managed a food allergy. Looking at the crab dip, she said that, as a Canadian, she was unfamiliar with this food and was curious to know what was in it. I never would have known she was allergic to seafood if her companions hadn't ratted her out, showing they didn't understand the incredible dignity with which their compatriot was avoiding anaphylactic shock without drawing attention to herself or embarrassing her hosts.
It was a great moment in social etiquette ruined by clueless people.
I don't think she minded, but she still got her companions back by convincing them that they had been entered as contestants in a peanut princess beauty contest to be held on Sunday.
For dinner, at AJ's Seafood & Oyster Bar, I had delicious fried catfish and I finally came to understand the point of fried green tomatoes. At AJ's the cook them enough to release some of the sweetness in the tomatoes. Delicious!
The next day we went to Tifton to visit a buying point — where peanuts are bought, cleaned of much of their rocks and stems and suck, graded and sent to be shelled. And in the afternoon we went to a shelling plant in Smithville, where we saw the shelling and sorting machines. Basically, after peanuts are shelled they're shaken and shaken and shaken and shaken to be sorted by size as they drop through various gratings. It's loud, but easier than picking through them by hand.
Between those tours we went to the Coastal Plains Experiment Station in Tifton, where the best thing I learned is how to tell if a peanut is ripe: rub away some of the beige colored hull. It should be dark brown underneath.
But the highlight of the day was unbelievably good barbecue at the experiment station. Pulled pork and ribs and Brunswick stew and so on. Followed by pecan pie.
Okay, I guess the highlight of the day actually was meeting my favorite ex-president, Jimmy Carter, who greeted us at the community center in his hometown of Plains.
We waited outside with him, and were handed little hand fans to shoo away the gnats. I had always thought that when I had seen southerners slowly waving themselves with fans, they were cooling themselves off. A slow wave of the fan is not very effective at doing that, but it certainly keeps the gnats off of your face. The only drawback is that the fans don't actually kill the gnats, something I wanted to do desperately at that point.
President Carter arrived before too long. He posed for a picture with us and then we went inside for sweet tea, lemonade and various peanut products. Shrimp cocktail, too. I'm not sure why.
At the shelling plant they had given us peanut butter pie after our tour, yet we still managed to enjoy the snacks as well as dinner, which we ate at the haunted Windsor Hotel in Americus. Being in Georgia, I ordered the pecan crusted salmon with peach marmalade. It seemed like the thing to do.
The next day was the Plains Peanut Festival — the 10th annual, if I remember correctly. I had lost my fan, so I shooed gnats away with my hand while I sampled sandwiches of barbecued pulled pork. Some VIP bleachers had been set up along the parade route and we were instructed that those bleechers were, in fact, for us.
The parade was fascinating, and lasted for a relentless 35 minutes as car after car of beauty queens in three categories went by. There were a variety of Miss fillintheblanks, as well as junior misses and tiny misses. There were shriners, too, and people from retirement homes, and members of the local ROTC and urban league.
Chris Koetke, the dean of Kendall College in Chicago and one of my fellow peanut harvest tourists, observed that all of the members of the ROTC and urban league were black, and that all of the beauty queens were white.
None of the beauty queens, it turned out, were Quebecoise.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
My Swedish friends
September 27
So many interesting stories, so much non-blog work to do. Tales of my trip below the gnat line in Georgia (where I hung out with Jimmy Carter), of the things I ate at an omasake [sic] dinner at Sushi Samba, of the glorious opening of Porter House New York, of the redacted Roman food I just had at the French Culinary Institute and discussions of New York's plan to ban trans-fats, all will have to wait, but I have news, and the publicists know I have news, so alas it won’t wait until next Wednesday when I'd report it in my little column in The New York Sun. I've already submitted it to NRN online, so you might be able to read it there if our news gods deem it worthy, and it will be in the October 9 issue of NRN, the magazine, but why let the New York publicists leak it to competitors when it's mine? Why should I do that when I can tell New York first?
So here it is:
Nils Noren is not the executive chef at Aquavit anymore (people associate the restaurant with celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, but he's chef-owner and hasn't managed the kitchen on a day-to-day basis in years). Noren is now vice president of culinary arts at The French Culinary Institute, where he's replacing Alain Sailhac who is taking an emeritus position. Replacing Noren at Aquavit is Johan Svensson, who opened Marcus Samuelsson and Håken Swahn's other restaurant, Riingo.
The new executive chef at Riingo is Jimmy Lappalainen, who was a line cook at Aquavit from 2000 to 2002 before returning home to Sweden for a spell (his surname's Finnish, but he's Swedish). Most recently he was chef de cuisine at Frederick's and Frederick's Lounge, both in Midtown.
Thank you.
So many interesting stories, so much non-blog work to do. Tales of my trip below the gnat line in Georgia (where I hung out with Jimmy Carter), of the things I ate at an omasake [sic] dinner at Sushi Samba, of the glorious opening of Porter House New York, of the redacted Roman food I just had at the French Culinary Institute and discussions of New York's plan to ban trans-fats, all will have to wait, but I have news, and the publicists know I have news, so alas it won’t wait until next Wednesday when I'd report it in my little column in The New York Sun. I've already submitted it to NRN online, so you might be able to read it there if our news gods deem it worthy, and it will be in the October 9 issue of NRN, the magazine, but why let the New York publicists leak it to competitors when it's mine? Why should I do that when I can tell New York first?
So here it is:
Nils Noren is not the executive chef at Aquavit anymore (people associate the restaurant with celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, but he's chef-owner and hasn't managed the kitchen on a day-to-day basis in years). Noren is now vice president of culinary arts at The French Culinary Institute, where he's replacing Alain Sailhac who is taking an emeritus position. Replacing Noren at Aquavit is Johan Svensson, who opened Marcus Samuelsson and Håken Swahn's other restaurant, Riingo.
The new executive chef at Riingo is Jimmy Lappalainen, who was a line cook at Aquavit from 2000 to 2002 before returning home to Sweden for a spell (his surname's Finnish, but he's Swedish). Most recently he was chef de cuisine at Frederick's and Frederick's Lounge, both in Midtown.
Thank you.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Secret food section
September 21
What if you launched a food section in your publication and didn't tell anyone?
The Onion has done that.
Really, it's a city section, but there's a fair amount of food in there.
The Onion, of course, is best known for its satire news stories, but its middle section, the A.V. Club, has long been a place of serious reviews of music and books and such. The city section is like that, too.
So if you live in New York, pick up a copy today. It's free, and I have an article on Thai food in there this week.
What if you launched a food section in your publication and didn't tell anyone?
The Onion has done that.
Really, it's a city section, but there's a fair amount of food in there.
The Onion, of course, is best known for its satire news stories, but its middle section, the A.V. Club, has long been a place of serious reviews of music and books and such. The city section is like that, too.
So if you live in New York, pick up a copy today. It's free, and I have an article on Thai food in there this week.
Chefs Congress
September 20
The United Nations General Assembly has been meeting in New York, which is a real drag for those of us who work in Midtown East. But I've been on the West Side at another gathering, the inaugural International Chefs Congress.
Isn't that a great name? Chefs Congress. How important!
It was a bunch of demonstrations and seminars and a little trade show. But the demonstrations I saw were quite interesting and engaging, all done by cutting-edge, famous chefs (famous for chefs, at least).
Despite the lack of air conditioning, it was a good event, at least what I managed to attend. I had to skip most of today's festivities to finish up NRN's Culinary Currents section.
I was a little annoyed that the guy interpreting for French pastry chef Pascal Barbot refused to say what the chef kept repeating, that the recipes he was demonstrating were all about respecting the integrity of the ingredients. The interpretor wouldn't say it. He just wouldn't. Maybe he thought that notion was just the bizarre ramblings of an overly artistic French prima dona, but if you're an interpretor, you're not supposed to edit (or not much).
Besides, using great ingredients and not doing much to them -- respecting the ingredients' integrity -- is where American food is going (and where Italian food, and to a lesser extent French food, has been for generations).
But I was mostly there to hang out with the chefs anyway. And I met a few that I'd only interviewed over the phone before, like John Critchley at Toro in Boston and Scott Boswell of Stella in New Orleans, so that was cool.
I'd meant to introduce myself to a guy who works for Joel Robuchon and who asked Jose Andres, after his demonstration, about spherification (when you use sodium alginate and calcium chloride to make globules; perhaps the most widespread use of molecular gastronomy, unless you count those ubiquitous foam canisters), but I didn't get around to it. Oh well.
But here's something interesting. Tonight at a big reception -- the Rising Stars Revue, thrown by StarChefs.com, which also held the congress -- I chatted with Tony Esnault, the chef at Alain Ducasse at The Essex House. To be honest, one reason I stopped to chat was because at the Beard Awards reception in May I felt like I might have snubbed him, but of course I also wanted to talk to him because this week first Eater.com and then the New York Post reported emphatically, emphatically, that the restaurant was closing. So I asked him what his plans were. He brushed off the notion of Ducasse closing as a ridiculous rumor, and one that has been floating around since the place opened (which is true).
So if Ducasse closes soon I'll know not to believe Tony Esnault when it comes to business plans, but I'll still interview him about food. He knows his stuff.
One other random thing. In Polish, if people know each other really well, they say they know each other like bald horses. Where on earth could that have come from?
The United Nations General Assembly has been meeting in New York, which is a real drag for those of us who work in Midtown East. But I've been on the West Side at another gathering, the inaugural International Chefs Congress.
Isn't that a great name? Chefs Congress. How important!
It was a bunch of demonstrations and seminars and a little trade show. But the demonstrations I saw were quite interesting and engaging, all done by cutting-edge, famous chefs (famous for chefs, at least).
Despite the lack of air conditioning, it was a good event, at least what I managed to attend. I had to skip most of today's festivities to finish up NRN's Culinary Currents section.
I was a little annoyed that the guy interpreting for French pastry chef Pascal Barbot refused to say what the chef kept repeating, that the recipes he was demonstrating were all about respecting the integrity of the ingredients. The interpretor wouldn't say it. He just wouldn't. Maybe he thought that notion was just the bizarre ramblings of an overly artistic French prima dona, but if you're an interpretor, you're not supposed to edit (or not much).
Besides, using great ingredients and not doing much to them -- respecting the ingredients' integrity -- is where American food is going (and where Italian food, and to a lesser extent French food, has been for generations).
But I was mostly there to hang out with the chefs anyway. And I met a few that I'd only interviewed over the phone before, like John Critchley at Toro in Boston and Scott Boswell of Stella in New Orleans, so that was cool.
I'd meant to introduce myself to a guy who works for Joel Robuchon and who asked Jose Andres, after his demonstration, about spherification (when you use sodium alginate and calcium chloride to make globules; perhaps the most widespread use of molecular gastronomy, unless you count those ubiquitous foam canisters), but I didn't get around to it. Oh well.
But here's something interesting. Tonight at a big reception -- the Rising Stars Revue, thrown by StarChefs.com, which also held the congress -- I chatted with Tony Esnault, the chef at Alain Ducasse at The Essex House. To be honest, one reason I stopped to chat was because at the Beard Awards reception in May I felt like I might have snubbed him, but of course I also wanted to talk to him because this week first Eater.com and then the New York Post reported emphatically, emphatically, that the restaurant was closing. So I asked him what his plans were. He brushed off the notion of Ducasse closing as a ridiculous rumor, and one that has been floating around since the place opened (which is true).
So if Ducasse closes soon I'll know not to believe Tony Esnault when it comes to business plans, but I'll still interview him about food. He knows his stuff.
One other random thing. In Polish, if people know each other really well, they say they know each other like bald horses. Where on earth could that have come from?
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Lonesome publicist
September 19
Interesting opening party for Lonesome Dove last night, and not because some of us got to brand a cabinet with our initials.
No, it was interesting because the party was thrown by PR company Bullfrog & Baum and one of the first people I saw there was from another PR firm, Baltz & Co.
"This isn't your party," I said.
"We're going to start representing them," he said. "Shhh."
He said "Shhh," to a journalist. I don't shoosh well, and if I wrote for a publication with a name like New York Publicists Gossip Sheet that bit of information would have been in it now, especially since several Baltz folks told me the same story and then shooshed me. Then I was told by one Baltzian that the shift from Bullfrog & Baum was amicable. Who am I to call him a liar?
I don't write for the New York Publicists Gossip Sheet, and I don't know where one goes to read about the New York restaurant PR world, but I think some of the readers of this blog our interested in such things.
So there you have it.
Interesting opening party for Lonesome Dove last night, and not because some of us got to brand a cabinet with our initials.
No, it was interesting because the party was thrown by PR company Bullfrog & Baum and one of the first people I saw there was from another PR firm, Baltz & Co.
"This isn't your party," I said.
"We're going to start representing them," he said. "Shhh."
He said "Shhh," to a journalist. I don't shoosh well, and if I wrote for a publication with a name like New York Publicists Gossip Sheet that bit of information would have been in it now, especially since several Baltz folks told me the same story and then shooshed me. Then I was told by one Baltzian that the shift from Bullfrog & Baum was amicable. Who am I to call him a liar?
I don't write for the New York Publicists Gossip Sheet, and I don't know where one goes to read about the New York restaurant PR world, but I think some of the readers of this blog our interested in such things.
So there you have it.
Friday, September 15, 2006
"authentic Pan-Asian street food"
September 15
I wouldn't have noticed today's featured stupid press release at all if it hadn't invoked the name of NoPa, the little section of San Francisco just north of the panhandle of Golden Gate Park where my good friends Craig and Susan Stuart live. I sent the release to Craig without reading it, thinking, regardless of what it said, that he'd enjoy hearing about a new restaurant in his neighborhood. Craig made thoughtful observations about the place, of which he was already familiar and where he had picked up Asian chicken salad for his babysitter, but he hadn't eaten there himself yet.
I gave the release another look.
Here's how it release starts: "A trek North of the Panhandle now doubles as a tropical getaway ... where enlightenment seekers are revitalizing their spirits through authentic Pan-Asian street food, holistic teas, and eclectic music."
To be fair, south of the panhandle is hippie mecca Haight-Ashbury, so if people are starting there, perhaps they are trekkers seeking enlightenment, but the release, of a restaurant that claims to be Balinese and declares that it's serving "authentic Pan-Asian street food," goes on to talk about the Balinese concept of duality and quotes one of the owners, whose surname sounds Indonesian, so he could be Balinese, as saying his eatery (and tea lounge, don't forget the tea lounge) "is more than just a restaurant, it's a notion of living."
I mean, come on.
And how can you be Balinese and authentically Pan-Asian at the same time? How can you be authentically Pan-Asian? Is that like Continental, only a different continent?
Craig and I worked together in Thailand for five years and did a fair amount of traveling during that time and so we are, oh, let's say skeptical, of claims of authenticity at any restaurants trying to invoke pretty much anything Asian. But Craig, being a better person than I, and of much more generous character, was willing to reserve judgment on the food's quality.
But what kind of chicken salad does a Pan-Asian eat? And what's Balinese about it?
I wouldn't have noticed today's featured stupid press release at all if it hadn't invoked the name of NoPa, the little section of San Francisco just north of the panhandle of Golden Gate Park where my good friends Craig and Susan Stuart live. I sent the release to Craig without reading it, thinking, regardless of what it said, that he'd enjoy hearing about a new restaurant in his neighborhood. Craig made thoughtful observations about the place, of which he was already familiar and where he had picked up Asian chicken salad for his babysitter, but he hadn't eaten there himself yet.
I gave the release another look.
Here's how it release starts: "A trek North of the Panhandle now doubles as a tropical getaway ... where enlightenment seekers are revitalizing their spirits through authentic Pan-Asian street food, holistic teas, and eclectic music."
To be fair, south of the panhandle is hippie mecca Haight-Ashbury, so if people are starting there, perhaps they are trekkers seeking enlightenment, but the release, of a restaurant that claims to be Balinese and declares that it's serving "authentic Pan-Asian street food," goes on to talk about the Balinese concept of duality and quotes one of the owners, whose surname sounds Indonesian, so he could be Balinese, as saying his eatery (and tea lounge, don't forget the tea lounge) "is more than just a restaurant, it's a notion of living."
I mean, come on.
And how can you be Balinese and authentically Pan-Asian at the same time? How can you be authentically Pan-Asian? Is that like Continental, only a different continent?
Craig and I worked together in Thailand for five years and did a fair amount of traveling during that time and so we are, oh, let's say skeptical, of claims of authenticity at any restaurants trying to invoke pretty much anything Asian. But Craig, being a better person than I, and of much more generous character, was willing to reserve judgment on the food's quality.
But what kind of chicken salad does a Pan-Asian eat? And what's Balinese about it?
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