So here's a mercifully brief anecdote which will serve to introduce my typically jaundiced stance about kitchen equipment:
About a dozen years ago, I got roped into helping chaperone my younger son's fifth grade class on a field trip (anyway, that's what we used to call them) to Ellis Island. All of the other adults, save one, were women. The one was a world-class tennis player (yes, him, but I'll never say the words) whose son was a close friend of mine. We got to chatting, mostly about the Knicks, when a teddibly elegant matron, Mrs. Lacquer, approached, and, grabbing my interlocutor, proceeded to grill him about tennis rackets.
"Oh, ____, my son neeeeeeds a new racket so badly, and I have no ideaaaaa what to buy him. He'll be going off to camp in a few weeks, and if he doesn't have the right racket he'll be miiiiiiiiserable. Now, there's the Prince, and that's what his father has, and there's the new Head, and the Wilson, and . . ."
The Champ listened stonily, his renowned bile almost visibly mounting by the second. Finally he raised his hands and said, "Stop. I don't know what your son needs. I've never seen him play."
Unfortunately, this was received as an offer to come watch Junior stumble around the court, and Mrs. L. was absolutely glowing. But the Champ took a deep breath and said, "All I know is that until I was sixteen I played with a racket my father bought me a few years earlier at Korvette's (a now-defunct discount store) and I did ok with that."
This was analogous to Babe Ruth saying he got a couple of hits. Even Mrs. Lacquer got the message, and, with a tiny moue, ankled off toward the bow of the ferry.
The Champ shook his head slowly, and looked at me. "Those rackets she's yapping about go for about $400. You ever see a kid, or anyone, who couldn't learn to do something because he was being held back by his gear? Me neither."
Back to the kitchen: to be sure, I wouldn't expect anyone to cook well with a cheap enamelled sauce pan, or a cheap, hollow-ground knife made from terrible steel. On the other hand, I did a lot of my best cooking using an ancient 10" Dexter-Russell chef's knife. The point had long since been broken off, and I'd rounded it off with my sharpening stone, and the blade was discolored at the end where I had accidently left it in a flame. The white rubber handle was deformed on the side where some moron had put a red-hot saute pan on it. But it could cut, and, more important, I was comfortable with it.
What I intend to do in these "Equipment" postings is to recommend some reasonably-priced stuff that works well enough that your food will never suffer from using it, unless . . . is that you reading this, Jean-Georges?
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
Equipment Review
We have to obtain a better closeup to determine the manufacturer of the saute pan being evaluated in this report from our testing facilities.
As soon we get the information, we'll be writing to the company that makes this item to offer it our imprimatur.
Credit where credit is due (and would you deny this man credit, or anything else? Hats off to Clay Edgin.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
End of Winter Voluptuary Thoughts
If you were, say, Richard Olney, the pinnacle of culinary voluptuousness might well be some perfectly sauteed foie gras with a glass of slightly chilled Chateau d'Yquem. If, however, you grew up in a family of construction workers on Long Island, the parallel experience might be sitting in the cab of a pickup truck watching a snowstorm shut down work for the day, while dunking a buttered roll in a steaming cup of coffee, light and sweet. Dunks alternating with drags on a Marlboro. Dunks which produced in the mouth the contrast between the sugar in the coffee and the salt in the margerine (no one puts butter on a buttered roll.) The margerine melting slightly in the coffee-soaked roll. Some local band on the radio - Blue Oyster Cult if possible. The hood of a navy blue sweatshirt pulled loosely up around your head. Trying to coordinate your intake so that the last dunk leaves enough coffee, with little slicks of melted margerine floating on the top of it, to finish in sips alternating with drags on the cigarette. A deep yawn, stretching, pushing your fists against the roof of the cab, letting out a small fart. The hell with Cap d'Antibes.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Roadfood and Anarchy
There's trouble on Roadfood, the site sponsored by Michael and Jane Stern, the Nick and Nora of melted cheese and all things fried. The usually-contentious RF denizens have become cognizant of Roguefood, a rival site established by emigres from Sternland, and the calumny is flying thick and fast.
I should, before going any further, mention that for a year or so I was a regular reader and frequent poster. At one point, when it still seemed as though I was going to open my hotdog stand, I was an intense reader. I was, and this will probably not floor anyone, givin' it out as good as I got, which is to say that I shot my mouth off a lot.
How I'd be expected not to is the question. I'll fall right into the trap here. My points of reference were often too hieratic for some of the Jukes and Kallikacks who slouched around the various threads. Needless to say, the semi-literate posters who litter the forums with their uninformed and frequently illogical opining found little to admire in my high-handed, Noo Yawk (as they would frequently have it) style.
The venom on Roguefood gets slopped around just as heavy-handedly. Perhaps more so, since the "moderation" is less stringent there. I'm a complete absolutist about First Amendment rights ("The question, Bob, is why aren't YOU?) so my recommendation, for the curious, would be to check these sights out, but only if you're bored to distraction.
I should, before going any further, mention that for a year or so I was a regular reader and frequent poster. At one point, when it still seemed as though I was going to open my hotdog stand, I was an intense reader. I was, and this will probably not floor anyone, givin' it out as good as I got, which is to say that I shot my mouth off a lot.
How I'd be expected not to is the question. I'll fall right into the trap here. My points of reference were often too hieratic for some of the Jukes and Kallikacks who slouched around the various threads. Needless to say, the semi-literate posters who litter the forums with their uninformed and frequently illogical opining found little to admire in my high-handed, Noo Yawk (as they would frequently have it) style.
The venom on Roguefood gets slopped around just as heavy-handedly. Perhaps more so, since the "moderation" is less stringent there. I'm a complete absolutist about First Amendment rights ("The question, Bob, is why aren't YOU?) so my recommendation, for the curious, would be to check these sights out, but only if you're bored to distraction.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
BBQ basta
I met a business associate at Q in Port Chester last night. If one were to place any faith in the opinions of the semi-pro axe-grinders on Chowhound (full disclosure: I stopped reading Chowhound for a couple of years after indulging in an unnecessarily splenetic debate with Alfa-Hund Jim Leff regarding the proper procedure for making a chocolate eggcream. Poor deluded man.) Q makes the best bbq in Westchester.
Someone once wrote that making vermouth is an art, but a very minor art. Probably one step above making lampshades from seashells. Well, bbq occupies a similar position in the realm of culinary achievements. I suppose that, in its indigenous situation, a ramshackle structure made of 55-gallon oil cans and old cypress logs, there's a certain apposite charm to it. Kind of like eating smoked mullet and drinking iced mugs of PBR in the Mullet Shack in Clearwater. One might almost talk about it in terms of terroir. One might, if one had indulged very heavily in boilermakers for a few hours prior to saying something so ludicrous.
But in Westchester, one of the richest counties in this country, even in one of its less affluent towns, like Port Chester, there's an inevitable infra dig quality about eating this stuff. Legions of completely-assimilated folks from Scarsdale and Mamaroneck, only a couple of generations from Lomsk and Minsk, scarfing down pulled pork and collards, and washing it down with artisanal pure cane sodas.
Back to Q. The food's good. There's a nice bar, if you don't mind sitting on a raised platform in front of a big window. Personally, I prefer the old joints with the mock-Tudor windows that accrue layer after layer of spray-on Christmas snow, until you could be holding tryouts for a road-company Caligula and no one would know. But both times that I've been there the service at the bar was quite good (even though my friend insisted on ordering a Sidecar, which stopped the barman in his very young tracks. Naughty, naughty, A.)
Portions are big, verging on ludicrous. I have a healthy appetite, and foodstuffs on which one has poured hot sauce usually present no problem until after the first pound or so. But there's SO MUCH of the same thing, which, presumably, is one of my problems with BBQ. After a while, even the spritely cole slaw didn't do much to relieve the one-trick-pony of the food world.
The food itself: pulled pork is as good as it gets up here in these parts, although it's suspiciously moist, as though it's pulled and then moistened. The flavor gets attenuated. But at least it's not the sicky-sweety stuff that passes for pulled pork in the North. The Texas brisket sandwich was not a success. A mountain of - okay, sicky sweet - deeply over-caramelized brisket shards. Tough. Sugary. Two adjectives that should never be applied to meat.
Mme. Sidecar had some kind of combo plate with sausages. The sausages were good, but just good. Far and away the best thing I've had at Q was the mac-n-cheese, an idiosyncratic version based on medium shells rather than elbows. It comes with a shower of toasted breadcrumbs on top, and if I had it around all the time I'd be One Fat Guy. The hotsauce, one of the excellent Cholula family, sets off the breadcrumbs wonderfully.
I don't drink Margaritas with my meals, not since a disastrous experience a dozen or so years ago at the huge El Rio Grande on Third Avenue, where I unwisely ignored the warnings of my buddy Handsome Mike, who was managing the place, about the proportions of tequila to mix in their slush machines. Two frozen Margs, and the bartender could have repaired my ACL without a squeak from me. So all I can tell you is that the beer was good and cold and inexpensive.
Dessert at a BBQ joint is too much of a muchness for me. All I really want is a slice of perfect watermelon, on which I might sprinkle some salt and pepper, the way my mother told me was de rigeur in the roadside shacks outside of Alexandria, LA, where my father was stationed (Ft. Polk) at the beginning of The Big One. Stuff like banana/Nilla wafer puddings and pecan pie (a non-starter in the dessert race almost all the time) and peach cobbler is totally unnecessary, unless you enjoy the crash from a sugar high at 1AM.
Cool idea: Q has a large stainless sink in the middle of the dining room. Much more satisfactory than the little wetnaps that come in foil packets which are very hard to open with hands dripping with pork fat and bbq sauce.
Q also seems to vend its wares in bulk, by the pound, so you can take it home and eat it without caring about your shirtfront. This might work very well for a party. As you know, I'll do almost anything to avoid dealing with caterers.
Someone once wrote that making vermouth is an art, but a very minor art. Probably one step above making lampshades from seashells. Well, bbq occupies a similar position in the realm of culinary achievements. I suppose that, in its indigenous situation, a ramshackle structure made of 55-gallon oil cans and old cypress logs, there's a certain apposite charm to it. Kind of like eating smoked mullet and drinking iced mugs of PBR in the Mullet Shack in Clearwater. One might almost talk about it in terms of terroir. One might, if one had indulged very heavily in boilermakers for a few hours prior to saying something so ludicrous.
But in Westchester, one of the richest counties in this country, even in one of its less affluent towns, like Port Chester, there's an inevitable infra dig quality about eating this stuff. Legions of completely-assimilated folks from Scarsdale and Mamaroneck, only a couple of generations from Lomsk and Minsk, scarfing down pulled pork and collards, and washing it down with artisanal pure cane sodas.
Back to Q. The food's good. There's a nice bar, if you don't mind sitting on a raised platform in front of a big window. Personally, I prefer the old joints with the mock-Tudor windows that accrue layer after layer of spray-on Christmas snow, until you could be holding tryouts for a road-company Caligula and no one would know. But both times that I've been there the service at the bar was quite good (even though my friend insisted on ordering a Sidecar, which stopped the barman in his very young tracks. Naughty, naughty, A.)
Portions are big, verging on ludicrous. I have a healthy appetite, and foodstuffs on which one has poured hot sauce usually present no problem until after the first pound or so. But there's SO MUCH of the same thing, which, presumably, is one of my problems with BBQ. After a while, even the spritely cole slaw didn't do much to relieve the one-trick-pony of the food world.
The food itself: pulled pork is as good as it gets up here in these parts, although it's suspiciously moist, as though it's pulled and then moistened. The flavor gets attenuated. But at least it's not the sicky-sweety stuff that passes for pulled pork in the North. The Texas brisket sandwich was not a success. A mountain of - okay, sicky sweet - deeply over-caramelized brisket shards. Tough. Sugary. Two adjectives that should never be applied to meat.
Mme. Sidecar had some kind of combo plate with sausages. The sausages were good, but just good. Far and away the best thing I've had at Q was the mac-n-cheese, an idiosyncratic version based on medium shells rather than elbows. It comes with a shower of toasted breadcrumbs on top, and if I had it around all the time I'd be One Fat Guy. The hotsauce, one of the excellent Cholula family, sets off the breadcrumbs wonderfully.
I don't drink Margaritas with my meals, not since a disastrous experience a dozen or so years ago at the huge El Rio Grande on Third Avenue, where I unwisely ignored the warnings of my buddy Handsome Mike, who was managing the place, about the proportions of tequila to mix in their slush machines. Two frozen Margs, and the bartender could have repaired my ACL without a squeak from me. So all I can tell you is that the beer was good and cold and inexpensive.
Dessert at a BBQ joint is too much of a muchness for me. All I really want is a slice of perfect watermelon, on which I might sprinkle some salt and pepper, the way my mother told me was de rigeur in the roadside shacks outside of Alexandria, LA, where my father was stationed (Ft. Polk) at the beginning of The Big One. Stuff like banana/Nilla wafer puddings and pecan pie (a non-starter in the dessert race almost all the time) and peach cobbler is totally unnecessary, unless you enjoy the crash from a sugar high at 1AM.
Cool idea: Q has a large stainless sink in the middle of the dining room. Much more satisfactory than the little wetnaps that come in foil packets which are very hard to open with hands dripping with pork fat and bbq sauce.
Q also seems to vend its wares in bulk, by the pound, so you can take it home and eat it without caring about your shirtfront. This might work very well for a party. As you know, I'll do almost anything to avoid dealing with caterers.
Monday, November 21, 2005
The Chateau
This is the Chateau de La Napoule.
By a long, strange chain of events, I wound up cooking here for a month in the summer of 1987.
There's definitely something to be said for cooking in a kitchen with big windows overlooking the Mediterranean, to say nothing of having one's food served on the large patio at the right of the picture. Much of the patio is planted in rosemary, some of which is cut into topiary. Throw in a couple of bottles of Bellet, a lovely white from the hills above Nice which is a prototypical "doesn't travel well" wine, and it's hard to imagine anything much nicer.
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