I've put off writing about last Wednesday's Top Chef episode because, honestly, I didn't have much to say. The episode was, as Bourdain expressed, a true test of culinary aptitude, lacking the typical brand-name dropping of episodes previous, and lacking the subsequent bizarre tests designed to challenge the chef's ability to cook in odd situations with odd requirements. Both challenges were simple in nature, and allowed the chefs the chance to express their technical skill and their ability to put together a wonderful meal.
Of all the chefs, only one failed both tests, and that was Sara M. Sara managed to fail both challenges on the same note - a note of technical skill so basic it is perhaps one of the top three essential skills in a kitchen: cook your meat thoroughly. Now, Sara is unique in that she's a cheese maker. But, in any kitchen, the last thing you can do is serve undercooked meat, especially chicken. And rather than be horrified that even one piece of her chicken was undercooked, Sara remained defiant. Didn't she try to once save Howie from the same predicament? Perhaps someone needs to teach her about the terror of salmonella poisoning before she returns to cooking proteins. Despite all that, I rather liked Sara M. from the start. Unfortunately, I watched her show her lack of skill in the last few episodes, and I knew she would soon be one of the next to go home. I believe she needs to stick to what she loves to do - that is, make cheese - rather than branch farther out of her league than she is prepared for.
Besides that, I really don't have words to lend to this episode. For once, it truly lacked drama and spoke about the food. We can only hope the finale will provide us more of that... but alas, we know that product placement will win the day.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Mm, shortbread
I just had to make note that Archer Farms' brand (aka Target Premium) Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookie Mix is absolutely to die for. It is the best shortbread that I have ever tasted. Yes, it even surpasses Walker's. If you have a Target with a food section, seriously go get and make these beauties as soon as possible. They will only require two and a half sticks of butter.
Note: I think these would be great with a nice simple chocolate ice cream, served ala mode.
Note: I think these would be great with a nice simple chocolate ice cream, served ala mode.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Kitchen Nightmares (US): WTF?
I've long been a fan of the Kitchen Nightmares series from the UK. So when I saw that Kitchen Nightmares was coming to the UK - while the UK was also starting a new season - I was thrilled. Now, having watched the first episode, I'm shocked.
I have to admit, I can't stand the American Reality Show Narration. I much prefer Gordon's own dialog; I imagine they decided Gordon was too vulgar to narrate. And that was a wise choice, once the problems of the first restaurant were revealed.
Rotten food? Outside a place with a Zagat plaque? Terrifying. The kitchen was 90% nonfunctional in technical aspects. Normally, a great deal of the problems with restaurants featured (at least in the UK edition) are on the menu or the kitchen staff. Here, the kitchen staff was operative, and the menu, while revised, was still fair. But at Peter's, the kitchen itself was in complete disrepair, and the state of the food! Reheated food purchased from a depot, refrigerated vegetables that had gone rotten, mostly due to a refrigerator that was leaking and wasn't cold enough. Terrible! And the owner... I've never seen such a temper or an attitude. Really, this episode can only be expressed by watching the nightmare literally unfold before your eyes.
And the next episode is supposed to feature a restaurant so incredibly infested, the place deserves to be condemned. This series is making the restaurant industry in the US look terrible.
I have to admit, I can't stand the American Reality Show Narration. I much prefer Gordon's own dialog; I imagine they decided Gordon was too vulgar to narrate. And that was a wise choice, once the problems of the first restaurant were revealed.
Rotten food? Outside a place with a Zagat plaque? Terrifying. The kitchen was 90% nonfunctional in technical aspects. Normally, a great deal of the problems with restaurants featured (at least in the UK edition) are on the menu or the kitchen staff. Here, the kitchen staff was operative, and the menu, while revised, was still fair. But at Peter's, the kitchen itself was in complete disrepair, and the state of the food! Reheated food purchased from a depot, refrigerated vegetables that had gone rotten, mostly due to a refrigerator that was leaking and wasn't cold enough. Terrible! And the owner... I've never seen such a temper or an attitude. Really, this episode can only be expressed by watching the nightmare literally unfold before your eyes.
And the next episode is supposed to feature a restaurant so incredibly infested, the place deserves to be condemned. This series is making the restaurant industry in the US look terrible.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Modern Food Writing
I got a delightful laugh out of this news blip from the Grub Street of New York Magazine. Today, Slate published an article by Paul Levy, in which the writer states why he is leaving the food writing business. Besides an incredibly sexist attitude, Paul states:
Writing needs to be honest. It is what writers are supposed to be; exquisite at lying and bluntly honest with the same tongue. Levy's desire for esoteric chat about cuisine and a polite vocabulary is Victorian at best. Only the few left in that aged circle actually care for that kind of discourse.
As Grub Street puts it:
Over the years, I've done my best to write seriously about food, assuming my readers are an educated audience who would get (and smile or learnedly chuckle at) allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare, Dickens, or Damon Runyon, readers who would understand cryptic puns and whose jaws would not slacken when asked whether they knew "the land where the lemon trees bloom?"Well now, that would explain why you're flopping about so desperately in the modern world of food writing. Look: while we foodies appreciate art as much as the next fellow, we don't want to have to check an encyclopedia to understand how an egg was cooked. Food is a common experience to all life forms. A food writer - like any good journalist - should speak to the common person, not to the elite crowd of snub-nosed alumni of Ivy League Schools. Levy points this out well to himself:
No editor today, for example, would be content with the way I dealt with durian, the cherished oriental fruit that looks like a giant hand grenade, which I wrote about for the Observer in 1984: "Some find the smell excremental, some find it reminiscent of sick." I'd now be booed off the fellas' food-writing team for excessive gentility. Today the correct vocabulary is shit and puke.30 years ago, that was the correct vocabulary too.
Writing needs to be honest. It is what writers are supposed to be; exquisite at lying and bluntly honest with the same tongue. Levy's desire for esoteric chat about cuisine and a polite vocabulary is Victorian at best. Only the few left in that aged circle actually care for that kind of discourse.
As Grub Street puts it:
If this is what we’re missing, bring on the barbarians. Food writing is too important to leave to gentlemen.Amen, dear comrades, and farewell to the past.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Yose Nabe
Yesterday, we went to Kyoto restaurant, a fine Japanese establishment here in Salt Lake City. It had been a while, and I had initially the intention of trying their udon. It has been years since I've been to Kyoto, and in that time I have appreciatively expanded my taste for Japanese cuisine. But as I looked over the menu - also pondering trying Kyoto's tonkatsu (another favorite dish of mine), I noticed a menu choice I had never heard of before: yose nabe, described as assorted seafood and vegetables cooked in broth. Curious, and far more interested in trying new foods than years ago, I ordered the dish and settled back for a fine dinner and chat with family and friends.
My dish was last to reach the table, and it arrived in a stockpot identical to their udon dish. It's important to make a note here that stockpot meals - at least as they are served at Kyoto - are a different experience than any other meal. A large cast-iron stockpot is set right in front of you, having just come off the heat in the kitchen, and full to near the brim with your meal. This means that over the course of the meal, you sweat. This generally makes you hungrier, or more tired. Now imagine that you're tired already, the person next to you has an udon stockpot, and it's a crowded restaurant on a summer night, and you'll understand what I went through eating this dish. Whew!
Looking into the stockpot, I first only spotted a few components - a simple broth (which radiated the warm smell of seafood), clear rice noodles, scallions, assorted greens, and chicken. Chicken, hmm? I hadn't expected that. I placed a little in my serving dish, and as I was eating it, I spotted sticks hiding below the top level of rice noodles in my stockpot.
Sticks? Slipping my chopsticks in to investigate, I pulled forth a stick, and found skewered fish. In total, there were seven skewers: two tuna, two halibut, two salmon, and one scallop. There were also two shrimp floating in the broth, along with tofu. All of the fish, and the chicken, had been cooked by the heat of the broth itself (with perhaps the exception of the scallops, which seemed they had been possibly precooked slightly beforehand.) The tuna and scallops were a real surprise - tuna is often reserved for customers who specifically order it, and the same is especially true for scallops which are, in Kyoto, only offered on the sushi menu. Also included were a few fish cakes and some small brown mushrooms.
To be sure, the yose nabe was a delightful treat. Meat excluded, the flavor of the soup was akin to a light cabbage broth, with only a hint of seafood taste - even after making a reheated meal of it this afternoon. If you ask me, a seafood stew that can manage to not taste briny or like soggy fishsticks after a day is quite exceptionally executed. Because they were broth cooked, all of the proteins were moist, but retained their firmness, with the realistic exception of the halibut (one of my pieces had fallen off the skewer by the time I pulled it out of the broth). I would argue that the only meat done a disservice by the broth was the tuna; when I retrieved it, it had already gone into the gray stage that tastes more like canned tuna than fresh fish. Most assuredly, though, I will be ordering the yose nabe again; it was both hearty in the stomach and light on the palate.
For more info on Kyoto restaurant in Salt Lake City, UT, click here.
For more info on yose nabe, click here.
My dish was last to reach the table, and it arrived in a stockpot identical to their udon dish. It's important to make a note here that stockpot meals - at least as they are served at Kyoto - are a different experience than any other meal. A large cast-iron stockpot is set right in front of you, having just come off the heat in the kitchen, and full to near the brim with your meal. This means that over the course of the meal, you sweat. This generally makes you hungrier, or more tired. Now imagine that you're tired already, the person next to you has an udon stockpot, and it's a crowded restaurant on a summer night, and you'll understand what I went through eating this dish. Whew!
Looking into the stockpot, I first only spotted a few components - a simple broth (which radiated the warm smell of seafood), clear rice noodles, scallions, assorted greens, and chicken. Chicken, hmm? I hadn't expected that. I placed a little in my serving dish, and as I was eating it, I spotted sticks hiding below the top level of rice noodles in my stockpot.
Sticks? Slipping my chopsticks in to investigate, I pulled forth a stick, and found skewered fish. In total, there were seven skewers: two tuna, two halibut, two salmon, and one scallop. There were also two shrimp floating in the broth, along with tofu. All of the fish, and the chicken, had been cooked by the heat of the broth itself (with perhaps the exception of the scallops, which seemed they had been possibly precooked slightly beforehand.) The tuna and scallops were a real surprise - tuna is often reserved for customers who specifically order it, and the same is especially true for scallops which are, in Kyoto, only offered on the sushi menu. Also included were a few fish cakes and some small brown mushrooms.
To be sure, the yose nabe was a delightful treat. Meat excluded, the flavor of the soup was akin to a light cabbage broth, with only a hint of seafood taste - even after making a reheated meal of it this afternoon. If you ask me, a seafood stew that can manage to not taste briny or like soggy fishsticks after a day is quite exceptionally executed. Because they were broth cooked, all of the proteins were moist, but retained their firmness, with the realistic exception of the halibut (one of my pieces had fallen off the skewer by the time I pulled it out of the broth). I would argue that the only meat done a disservice by the broth was the tuna; when I retrieved it, it had already gone into the gray stage that tastes more like canned tuna than fresh fish. Most assuredly, though, I will be ordering the yose nabe again; it was both hearty in the stomach and light on the palate.
For more info on Kyoto restaurant in Salt Lake City, UT, click here.
For more info on yose nabe, click here.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Top Chef: Noteable Bravo-Blog Quotes
Tom Colicchio:
Bourdain called [Sara's salmon] 'cat food' (the man lives for those snarky sound bytes) which, once I stopped laughing, I found a bit harsh.
The oven's dry heat somehow turned the blanched broccolini into musty, desiccated swamp vegetables punctuated by a bracing, medicinal slap of warm mint.Gail Simmons:
From the description alone, CJ’s entire dish of Pan Seared Halibut on a bed of Toasted Farro with Mint Crème Sauce, Roasted Broccolini with Breadcrumbs and Mint Vinaigrette stopped me in my tracks. Regardless of how well or poorly he prepared it, I have two totally subjective issues with his dish. First off, each time I read its description I thought I was reading a preparation for lamb. Seriously, read it again and tell me it would not have been significantly more appealing if he has used lamb chops or lamb loin?Rocco DiSpirito:
[Best opening blog line this week:] The road to New York City is not paved by incinerated broccolini, petrified salmon, or vulcanized lobster.
Casey’s comment about the butane burners was well founded; these are normally reserved for lost cause scenarios. They aren’t hot, the flame goes out constantly, and the butane cassette runs out of fuel in 20 minutes. Frankly, a Bic lighter would have been just as practical.
So we learn that the finale is headed to Aspen after NYC. Hmm, a challenge where the TCCs have to cook for cougars using twigs and a mirror?Lee Anne Wong:
Denial is the first, second, and last stage for [Hung] apparently, and the camera doesn’t lie.
So the big tree and his testicle fell down in the Top Chef forest with a hard thump (did anyone hear a sound?)Anthony Bourdain:
Most other carriers -- one American outfit in particular -- blithely carry on operating vomit comets -- contemptuously depositing their indifferently prepared droppings on passengers' trays knowing that the only reason people are eating their crap is to break up the stultifying boredom of the pressurized cabin and the inevitability of yet another Will Ferrell film on the main screen.
My fellow passenger Collichio and I gaped, unbelieving at the blackened, twig-like, half-dry, half-sludge Petri-scrapings in our side dishes. I believe I said something like, "This looks like something you'd find in Bob Marley's closet." I meant NOW -- like years and years after the great man's death. Not trusting our eyes, we even saved a portion, putting some in one of the "Glad Family of Bags" -- only reinforcing the impression of dried out ganja. But by judging time, when we had planned on offering the exhibit into evidence, it had degraded so badly as to be so prejudicial that it would outweigh any probative value.
If you've ever been on an ouzo bender and woken up the next day with your head in a bidet, burping up licorice? That was pretty much my in-flight meal on Air Sara.
...it felt like Brian was holding up a sign saying "All You Can Eat Jumbo Shrimp" and expecting us all to get insta-boners.
Top Chef: Newark ≠ New York
My anticipation for this episode was mostly centered around the fact that Bourdain was a guest judge again. If you're a follower of the show and haven't read his blog entry about this one, go read it. It reveals some interesting things about the Elimination Challenge dishes that were not included in the TV Edit.
Once again, Hung displayed his absolute lack of respect for the kitchen environment during the QuickFire Challenge. We've repeatedly seen Hung create kitchen hazards, and then shrugging them off apathetically. This isn't to say I approve of the tattle-tale attitude last night; the spill of a single bottle of truffle oil and two peppers did not ruin the kitchen (and someone obviously had cleaned up the glass by the time Casey slipped on the oil.) But his carelessness makes me wonder how Hung ever would last more than one night on a real kitchen's payroll. My only guess is that this proverbial "bull in a china shop" is only this dangerous in the Top Chef kitchens, a behavior brought on by the lack of time and the "me first" attitude prevalent in the competition. I'm still positive, though, that if Hung were employed in my kitchen, he would have the unusual distinction among the staff of having weekends off.
And there's another thing about Hung, who is beginning to turn into the social ghost of his friend Marcel from Season Two, is the echoing resentment that he's not a "team player." Some of you may have thought, as I did initially, that Hung's comment about not helping CJ because he wasn't asked for help was a poor justification of selfish behavior. Once I thought it over, though, I realized that Hung was right. A kitchen needs to communicate constantly to be effective. Just like in any relationship, if you don't tell your partner that something is wrong, they cannot magically know or assume that there is. Oh sure, being proactive in helping is definitely charitable (although I don't recall anyone ever asking Howie if he needed help in the half-dozen episodes that he was clearly struggling in.) But it shouldn't be expected, and no judge is going to hang a contestant because they didn't do something they weren't even asked to do, especially in a kitchen where you're supposed to be carrying your own weight.
I was also impressed by the sudden growth of maturity among the chefs last night. While I hate to point a finger at the newly-departed Howie, it's clear that a visible weight has been lifted from the shoulders of the remaining chefs. Although I'm sure they were feeling relieved, they are hopefully realizing one major downside: they no longer have a scapegoat. I think Sara was the first to realize that, as she had to begrudgingly accept that her Elimination Challenge presentation was, indeed, a poor offering unaffected by anyone else's actions or attitudes.
So what about the food? For the QuickFire, I thought Hung's inclusion of Grand Marnier in his breakfast smoothie was brilliant. Casey's breakfast "chunky salsa" looked more like a green enchilada sauce. I was amazed that Dale could complete a fritatta in 20 minutes, including prep time and a tiny two foot square kitchen. The Elimination Challenge presented some really good looking food, although many were off the mark. Sara's choice of salmon for an oven-plane warmed dish showed a lack of forethought, given that salmon is easily one of the most quickly overcooked and dried out fish. CJ's dish - which looked appetizing enough, sans the broccolini - sounded like a good dish, but I was horrified to hear from Bourdain that the mint sauce (which went unmentioned) tasted like toothpaste. Aside from those two dishes, I would have happily eaten anything else, except the failed super-sized surf and turfs.
CJ's departure is only a little sad. He's a great guy, but I think - like most chefs on this program - he is honestly just an under-experienced chef. These contestants are young; they have not spent years in a kitchen. They will continue to grow their talent if they strive to do so. I think CJ has a great future in the culinary world. CJ predicts in his exit video that Casey will win. I can agree that she's definitely in the top four; if she falls away before winning, I think it will be due to circumstance. She has fair competition in Hung and Dale; Brian and Sara M are going to take some luck and a true "best effort" to make it further.
Once again, Hung displayed his absolute lack of respect for the kitchen environment during the QuickFire Challenge. We've repeatedly seen Hung create kitchen hazards, and then shrugging them off apathetically. This isn't to say I approve of the tattle-tale attitude last night; the spill of a single bottle of truffle oil and two peppers did not ruin the kitchen (and someone obviously had cleaned up the glass by the time Casey slipped on the oil.) But his carelessness makes me wonder how Hung ever would last more than one night on a real kitchen's payroll. My only guess is that this proverbial "bull in a china shop" is only this dangerous in the Top Chef kitchens, a behavior brought on by the lack of time and the "me first" attitude prevalent in the competition. I'm still positive, though, that if Hung were employed in my kitchen, he would have the unusual distinction among the staff of having weekends off.
And there's another thing about Hung, who is beginning to turn into the social ghost of his friend Marcel from Season Two, is the echoing resentment that he's not a "team player." Some of you may have thought, as I did initially, that Hung's comment about not helping CJ because he wasn't asked for help was a poor justification of selfish behavior. Once I thought it over, though, I realized that Hung was right. A kitchen needs to communicate constantly to be effective. Just like in any relationship, if you don't tell your partner that something is wrong, they cannot magically know or assume that there is. Oh sure, being proactive in helping is definitely charitable (although I don't recall anyone ever asking Howie if he needed help in the half-dozen episodes that he was clearly struggling in.) But it shouldn't be expected, and no judge is going to hang a contestant because they didn't do something they weren't even asked to do, especially in a kitchen where you're supposed to be carrying your own weight.
I was also impressed by the sudden growth of maturity among the chefs last night. While I hate to point a finger at the newly-departed Howie, it's clear that a visible weight has been lifted from the shoulders of the remaining chefs. Although I'm sure they were feeling relieved, they are hopefully realizing one major downside: they no longer have a scapegoat. I think Sara was the first to realize that, as she had to begrudgingly accept that her Elimination Challenge presentation was, indeed, a poor offering unaffected by anyone else's actions or attitudes.
So what about the food? For the QuickFire, I thought Hung's inclusion of Grand Marnier in his breakfast smoothie was brilliant. Casey's breakfast "chunky salsa" looked more like a green enchilada sauce. I was amazed that Dale could complete a fritatta in 20 minutes, including prep time and a tiny two foot square kitchen. The Elimination Challenge presented some really good looking food, although many were off the mark. Sara's choice of salmon for an oven-plane warmed dish showed a lack of forethought, given that salmon is easily one of the most quickly overcooked and dried out fish. CJ's dish - which looked appetizing enough, sans the broccolini - sounded like a good dish, but I was horrified to hear from Bourdain that the mint sauce (which went unmentioned) tasted like toothpaste. Aside from those two dishes, I would have happily eaten anything else, except the failed super-sized surf and turfs.
CJ's departure is only a little sad. He's a great guy, but I think - like most chefs on this program - he is honestly just an under-experienced chef. These contestants are young; they have not spent years in a kitchen. They will continue to grow their talent if they strive to do so. I think CJ has a great future in the culinary world. CJ predicts in his exit video that Casey will win. I can agree that she's definitely in the top four; if she falls away before winning, I think it will be due to circumstance. She has fair competition in Hung and Dale; Brian and Sara M are going to take some luck and a true "best effort" to make it further.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Salt and Vinegar Chips
It strikes me a woeful time indeed when simple salt and vinegar potato chips must be given their tangy taste with artificial salt and vinegar flavoring. Yes, that's right. Per the package, which claims that they are artificially flavored, the ingredients include:
Salt & Vinegar Seasoning (Lactose, and less than 2% of the Following: Sodium Diacetate, Maltodextrin, Salt, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed and Soybean Oil, Malic Acid, Sodium Citrate)Hmm. So their salt and vinegar seasoning contains no true table salt *See correction below* (for those of you who've forgotten some of your basic chemistry, salt is sodium chloride), and no vinegar (which is water and acetic acid). No, the common flavoring of most salt and vinegar chips, I discovered, is sodium diacetate itself - a sodium salt of acetic acid. This is amusing, since most 'natural' chips I have had have been flavored with salt (usually sea salt) and vinegar. Apparently, though, the big brands want to go for more "tang" for their buck.
While browsing around the internet with interest in this, I happened upon The Salt and Vinegar Pringle Experiment. The short of it is, these chips (by the way, my offender today is Lays brand, not Pringles, and the ingredients are different in some subtle ways) contain powdered acids on their surface to give them their flavor. The chips create a liquid acid on your lips, mouth, and tongue - an acid that can actually burn you if you do not wash it away with liquid (ie, drink.) The chips, in other words, end up being more acidic than drinking straight vinegar.
While I'm not going to give up my bag of Lays for a cup of vinegar, I can't deny that I'm a little wary of eating these kinds of chips anymore (at least the ones with artificial flavoring). In a way, the whole thing - powdered acid to create a liquid acid in your mouth, thereby creating a flavorful "stinging" sensation - reminds me of drug consumption. No, I'm not implying these companies are trying to drug us (else salt & vinegar would be far more popular as a potato chip flavor.) What I'm referring to is the ingestion of a natural or altered natural substance in order to experience the thrill of the sensations it brings. Think of ultra-sour candies, hot sauces that top the Scoville scale - or better yet, think of a super-fast roller coaster. Roller coaster fans, like many drug consumers, take their rides not for the appreciation of the coaster itself (the "taste" of the drug), but for the thrill of the ride itself, the fear and anticipation it causes, the way it kicks in their fight-or-flight reflexes (the reaction the drug causes, such as hallucinations).
Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips are the same way; they do not stimulate our tastes so much as elicit a reaction of pain (albeit mild mannered). Are those of us who love these chips not attracted to their flavor, but instead, secretly thrill eaters, slightly sadomasochistic - at least with our food? Is that why, even as we eventually experience those small burns from time to time after ingesting a batch, we continue to return to them, knowing well the risks of another injury? Or are we just deluding ourselves that this combination of acids is actually the flavor of salt and vinegar?
* 11/8/07 Correction: I mis-stated this, and I apologize. I did not mean that the chips used no salt; rather that the "flavoring" was not a combination of salt and vinegar (as competing chip brands use). In my haste, I made an error.
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