Mr. Jefferson's Conveyance

One of the things I enjoy about law, especially about the more escoteric non-corporate law world, is the opportunity to spend a little time chasing down trivia. Just such an opportunity seemed to arise as I was reading the transcript of oral argument in Arizona v. Gant, a case before the Supreme Court this term. Complaining that the parties had spent little time on the historical background of searches incident to arrest, the matter at issue in the case, Justice Scalia asked:

“What was the situation when the Fourth Amendment was adopted? Do you know? If you stopped Thomas Jefferson’s carriage to arrest Thomas Jefferson and you pulled him off to the side of the road, could you -- could you then go and search his carriage?”

I might spend a little time on what I think about the case later. But I was more immediately interested in Justice Scalia’s question, and spent some time flipping through a couple of online resources I’ve always found helpful. The most enlightening thus far has been Old Bailey Online, a database consisting of 197,745 criminal trials held in London’s central criminal court. While that database has necessarily given me no clues as to American practice, I do have a couple of thoughts about English practice (on which American practice is largely based, in one way or another).

First, it seems pretty clear that, just as in current US practice, the English police in the 18th and 19th centuries felt pretty comfortable searching the vehicles of people they arrested when they felt that there was evidence of a crime in the vehicle. Though of course they didn’t think about it this way back then, and certainly no in England, the modern US explanation of this phenomenon is that since people have somewhat reduced expectations of privacy in their cars, the police can search a car without a warrant if they have probable cause that there’s evidence of a crime inside. So, for example, when a robber ran off with a saddle, bridge, and martingale, the police found him and searched his chaise for evidence. Similarly, a baker’s assistant was arrested and his cart (though it is unclear whether this was a handheld wagon or a cart with a horse) was searched for missing flour.

The more interesting question is whether there’s any evidence of the police searching a cart or a carriage when the police didn’t, prior to searching, have any reason to believe that there was evidence of a crime inside. I’ve only found one example of what I think is such a situation. In March 1795, a twenty year old man named Robert Charles was found guilty (and transported, presumably to Australia, for seven years) for stealing “two live cock fowls, eight live hen fowls and an iron hand saw” from a “victualler” named George Toomer. As Charles was leaving the scene of the crime in a cart, a watchman named John Humhpry saw him, and “perceived [that Charles] was the same person that put me in bodily fear, about three weeks before”. The watchman followed Charles around, and being reinforced by some colleagues, made the arrest, apparently without knowledge of the thievery of the fowls and saw. But he searched the cart anyway, and found the items that had been stolen from the unfortunate Toomer, for which Charles was eventually convicted. There’s no mention or discussion of whether the policeman had done anything wrong, but, of course, there’s no real mention of legal argument either.

Obviously, none of this is dispositive, and doesn’t even really answer Justice Scalia’s question. I think part of the problem, though, is that the fact pattern is so abberational - how often did the authorities arrest someone in a conveyance in the 18th century without a warrant and without some idea that there might be evidence in their conveyance? I’d bet that the incidence of that can probably be counted on one hand in any particular jurisdiction. I’ve consulted a number of classic treatises on criminal law as well, and none so much as mention what is to be done incident to arrest, and certainly not incident to an arrest in a conveyance. So this may be one of those historically unanswerable questions. But it remains fun to try.

Ethnic Food

I've been posting increasingly on Sietsema's Table, the web discussion board led by Tom Sietsema, the Washington Post food critic. The current topic is whether the presence of people from the ethnicity of the food in the restaurant means anything. Here were my preliminary thoughts:

I think this is all really a disagreement about what "best" means.

If best means "most authentic", then clearly a higher percentage of native diners is a good proxy for quality. Native diners may not be great judges of food, but they know whether what they're eating tastes like what their grandmother made.

If best has a broader meaning that includes quality of ingredients, innovation, inventiveness, etc, then I think native diners don't help you much. I'm of middle eastern descent, and I can guarantee you that if you give my relatives lamb kebabs dusted with zataar, say, they'd leave that restaurant and go to the place that keeps the zataar for breakfast. But I like zataar on lamb - it's an interesting flavor, albeit one we don't traditionally use. So a restaurant that has zataar dusted lamb may well be very good, but also have not a single olive skinned family sitting inside.

I think the interesting point is that the same person can want both these things on different occasions. Sometimes I want to learn about what people in such and so country eat, so I find myself nibbling on cold, spicy, pork ears in some authentic chinese restaurant. Sometimes I want to see what a really talented person is doing with new traditionalist farming and traditional ideas, so I go to the zataar kebab place. They're both good, but at different things.

I guess the real answer is that if a restaurant claims to be a traditional ethnic restaurant AND there aren't any natives sitting inside, I'd give it a miss.

The democratic pledge of allegiance

I think it is time to recycle the pledge that I recite to myself, in one form or another, around every election. It is the basis of my political posture, and as I say below, I am glad that Obama appears to have a similar inclination. If everyone truly believed the below, I think we'd have more fun debating politics, because people wouldn't assume their adversary was bad, or stupid, or evil, but rather simply disagreed, with good faith and full information, vehemently.

My political opponents are smart, thoughtful, well informed people who are disagreeing with me in good faith, and want the best for America. They are equal partners in our democratic experiment.

* Is this mantra sometimes untrue? Sure. Should the socialists in Weimar have recited to themselves, as the National Socialists advanced? No. But we are not Weimar. Our political system is built on two centuries of representative democracy, and I believe that all serious players in the system are covered by the above.

Why I am (still) voting for John McCain

Why I am (still) voting for John McCain

This is a deeply odd year in American politics. The economy is in the single strangest funk in anyone's living memory, the depth of which is basically unknown and unknowable. The incumbent is more dead than lame, and in any case he has ceded his powers over everything but foreign policy to a sort of council of technocrats (long may they live, I guess). Two counter-insurgency wars rage. And over all of this hangs the dark spectre of terrorism.

But none of this is as odd as the spectacle of me being tempted to vote for the Democratic candidate for president. I can make no secret of the fact that, like almost everyone else on my side of the aisle, on everything other than the war on terror, and to some great extent even on that, George W. Bush has been a disappointment. A deep disappointment. His legacy does not inspire confidence in the Republican party's chosen successor. And at the same time, the Democratic challenger is a breath of bracing air who has swept up in the intoxicating winds of his personal charisma a great many right thinking conservatives and libertarians. The great Charles Fried, Ronald Reagan's solicitor general, is only the latest, but what matters more to me are staunch friends whose judgment I trust implictily. It is not a good time to be a Republican, and especially to be a constituent of the Republican party's wavering libertarianish wing.

Despite all this, I have decided that I cannot vote for Barack Obama. In the face of all the countervailing forces I have listed above, in the face of George W. Bush's failures, his abandonment of conservative values, and in the face of the strong attraction of Obama, who, after all, is precisely my kind of guy, a lawyer, a Harvard lawyer, a calm unangry presence, a man who comes like me from overseas, and who appears to understand the life changing power of America to set free the talents of a larger portion of its people than anywhere else, I still judge John McCain to be the better choice for President.

Why? I admit that it is mostly a negative case against Obama, but still persuasive to me.

1. On what I believe to be the transcendant issue of the century, on what to do about international terrorism, John McCain is more likely to bravely take the unpopular but necessary path. He has stood against his own party on torture, and on the conduct of the war in Iraq. He is no stranger to being disliked, and I judge that the President will need to be disliked in the next eight years, especially by foreigners.

- But, despite Obama's strong dovish tendencies, will his advisors and world events push him to the middle? If so, I am less apprehensive about him, but should we risk it?

2. Obama is obviously a brilliant and thoughtful man, but if his brilliance and thoughtfulness add up to efficacy, he will be effectively pursuing an agenda with which I disagree. I do not agree with his health care proposals, his tax agenda, his protectionist inclinations on trade, his support for farm subsidies, his apparently overwhelming desire to regulate ourselves out of our economic troubles. I don't agree with his pro-union positions, on his positions on education or on energy. I don't agree with Barack Obama on almost anything. That he might be good at governing with that agenda does not make me feel better.

- But, he's advised by Volker and Buffett! How bad could he be? See number 5 below.

- But, how do my views match up with McCain? Not so well, but a little better.

3. I don't believe that Obama's brilliance and thoughtfulness will add up to efficacy. I agree basically that we need competence in the next administration, but I am not convinced that Obama is particularly good at running anything other than a presidential campaign. In fact, my innate skepticism of lawyers running things suggests that he will be bad at leadership, whatever his prodigous gifts of charisma.

- But, McCain hasn't run anything either. No, I don't really buy the "largest squadron in the navy" claim as being relevant to the Presidency.

4. On issues on which I should agree with the Democrats, Obama has been cowardly. The best example is gay marriage, which I think that the Democrats at least should support explicitly, with the caveat that it be adopted by states democratically. Obama, for what seem to me to be obviously political reasons, has adopted a cheap cop-out - full legal rights of marriage without the name. As Obama obviously recognizes (see this video), this formulation would have been unjust had it been tried with mixed-race couples, such as his own parents, and it is unjust now. I take his point that perhaps the name of marriage is a lower level priority than the legal benefits of the institution, but it is a real count against him that he hasn't spoken out on this matter. Ditto for drug legalization - although I am a conservative, nothing seems particularly conservative about the state imprisoning millions of people because they like ingesting bad substances. As I always say in these cases, I've not even smoked a cigarette, but if people want to smoke huge bundles of marijuana, why should I care?

5. I do not believe that Obama will heed his centrist advisors. We have been told again and again not to fear Obama's leftist tendencies (did he really say he would renegotiate NAFTA? Yes) because he is advised by such centrist luminaries as Warren Buffet and Paul Volker. But I tend to agree with Richard Epstein. Obama's record does not suggest to me a careful centrist, but rather a very thoughtful, inclusive, respectful, leftist. It is very good that Obama can disagree vehemently while respecting his opponent. But this does not help me particularly with my policy objections.

6. I will not abandon a team I've been playing for since I wrote desperate op-eds in my high school paper for Bob Dole just because it is going to lose. They'll need me, and the kinds of people people like me support, in the years of wilderness.

7. Joe Biden is a windbag.

- But, Sarah Palin. Enough said.

Obika

I finally had a chance to have lunch at the new mozzarella bar, Obika, yesterday. The good news first. My cheese was marvelous, the thin skin like exterior giving way to a ball of mild but flavorful cream within. The accompanying Italian meats were equally good. While my speck and proscuitto were excellent, I was especially taken by the mortadella. It's almost worth dragging everyone who thinks mortadella is supermarket baloney with pistachios stuck in to Obika to change that impression alone.

Alas, the service is terrible, fumbling and slow. There's no reason at all for this to be a bar the way a sushi bar is a bar. After all, there's no real action, and you can't talk to the chef or buy him Japanese beers. The don't have wine, bizarrely. I had to drink a good, but expensive, grape-fruit juice. Bread costs extra, unless you berate the waiter, at which point he might deign to put a couple of slices on a plate and bring it over. And, most annoying to me but a little petty, the servers spend all their time loudly slamming the little door that leads into the interior of the bar. It's especially annoying because they obviously know its an issue. The manager type person prowling around in a suit took almost ridiculous pains to close the door slowly, but his employees were paying no attention.

Nonetheless, this was delicious food. I'd return.

UPDATE: I found Paul Goyette's post on this restaurant, but in Italy. 

Craftmanship

I've long had a thing for craftsmen, and have mentioned it on this blog. Tailors, shirtmakers, shoemakers, weavers, cabinet makers - it is a sad thing that many of these honorable, ancient, professions are slowly fading from the world under pressure from industrial process.

In any case, this is all by way of saying that I had my first visit with a proper suit maker this morning. I realize that some might think it is all a bit of a waste, to pay so much money for a suit. Why, when you can get some suit with a big name label for less from Saks, and impress people when you let the label poke out from inside at some fancy meeting?*

Even putting aside the fact that the bespoke suit will fit properly, and the suit off the rack won't, I'm spending my money with the craftsman rather than the big store because, fundamentally, I'm a conservative person. I want to know that in a couple of weeks, the particular man that I met this morning is going to stand over a bolt of cloth that I chose, and he's going to think about my slightly sloping shoulders, and the fact that I'd like the suit for my wedding, and what I told him about how I'd like it to fit. And thinking about me, he's going to pick up a pair of shears and cut my suit out of that fabric, and then hand one part of it to a coat maker, and another part to a trouser maker. In doing all that, they're going to be replicating what they were taught during their own long years of apprenticeship, and what their teachers were taught before them by other masters. In turn, this fellow will teach someone to follow him, and proper tailoring will be conserved, and novelties ignored until they are no longer novelties but well-tested traditions themselves. Just as I might buy traditional farm raised pork because I value the existence of people who bother to traditionally raise pork, so I'll buy a traditional bespoke suit because I value the existence of people who take the trouble to make traditional bespoke suits. All the issues I care about with respect to food are part of the choices I've decided to make about my clothes, when possible.

And, of course, buying clothes from an actual living person is a lot of fun. As my tailor said today, describing the solid, dependable heavy English cloth I chose, "it's a safe as a house, this. Well, safe as houses used to be, leastways." I don't think you'll get that kind of color from the industrial made to measure at your local men's emporium, and you won't even save much money, to boot.

UPDATE: Why not do neither, and save all your money with a normal suit? That's fine, of course - formal clothes are just the indulgence I chose, rather than a big TV or a car, say, and if I am going to indulge, I feel strongly about indulging in a proper way.

Higher percentage?

One of the big New York city specific issues in the newspapers is Mayor Bloomberg's bid to get re-elected to a third term as New York mayor. Putting aside what I think, I wonder if people have considered a sort of modified term limit structure, allowing candidates to continue running but against higher thresholds? For example, why shouldn't Bloomberg have to get 55% of the vote this time to stay in office? That way, really popular incumbents can stay in power in tough times, but only by virtue of a very difficult to secure super majority.

EDIT: I found a letter to the editor on point.

One way tax calculator

I notice that the Obama-Biden tax calculator that Althouse links never actually says "your taxes are likely go up under the Obama-Biden plan", but only gives information if you're getting a tax cut. Not, to be clear, that I believe anyone's going to get a tax cut under either Obama or McCain in the final analysis, not in the midst of our dreadful fiscal condition, but I did find it amusing.

Chanterelle cookbook

I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon flipping through the newly released Chanterelle cookbook (I have never dined at Chanterelle, but am told it is very good). The book is exceptionally well conceived, especially from the perspective of a home cook planning a fancy dinner party, and the recipes provided are both accessible and seem delicious. This is nothing like the Alinea cookbook, which both makes it a more useful resource, and also, paradoxically, a less compelling buy.

What if firefighters ran the world?

Am I alone in thinking that this commercial, entitled "What if firefighters ran the world?" is disturbingly totalitarian?

Weekend eating (pumpkin risotto, greek style kebabs)

I roasted one of the two halloween pumpkins we brought back from lake George last weekend, and make a simple risotto of pumpkin and greek yogurt (so much better than the fat laden risotto we had at the Sagamore). I also boiled and roasted the seeds, coating some in ras al hanout and salt for snacking, and using others in a low fat pumpkin bread with some more of the pumpkin puree.

On Saturday, I continued working on my version of a greek classic - ground lamb kebabs with yogurt sauce, as we always enjoy at the excellent Agnanti. My experiments have led to the following recipe - add one measure of lamb to a third measure of fresh bread crumbs, and season heavily. Add one egg, and form into football shapes. Broil under the highest heat possible until well charred (a barbecue is better). While broiling, fill the center of a plate with greek yogurt, and top with any kind of spicy tomato sauce (even salsa, believe it or not, works fine). Line the kebabs in a pinwheel around the yogurt, dust the plate with a hot pepper (I use a ground pepper mix my mom has friends send us from Syria), and serve with pita. The result is a very light meatball, with good accompanying flavors that make even those a little wary of lamb dig right in. With less ambitious meals like this one, we have been drinking pinotage, which satisfies both some of my burgundy craving while being cheap and undemanding.

* Grind your own lamb, or have the butcher do it for you. It's so much better.

** I suppose its helpful to note that my previous attempts involved soaking the bread crumbs in milk (the kebabs become too light and hard to handle), using pita bread (no real difference) and using a higher percentage of breadcrumbs (too light). This really is not a complicated recipe, and I was trying to do too much.

Food dilemmas

Is it better to have ordered the insipid black bass and root vegetables everyone else ordered, or was I right to order the amazing langoustine pasta, even though I cannot even imagine how much flavor sat mocking me in the plate as I realized that grinding the shells in my mouth and sucking the roe from what was left over might give the potential summer associate I was interviewing the wrong idea?

Eh, I still think I did the right thing.

Every man a king

The problem with various people's anger about Obama's "spread the wealth" theory is that our putatively right wing government has spent the last month betraying capitalism. I find myself a lot more sanguine about Obama's leftism when we've got worse already.

Amish pork and apples

I also cooked while up in Lake George. Given that apples and apple ciders were everywhere, I made a dish I remember from an excellent amish cookbook - pork chops with apples and cider. The technique is easy enough, befitting its amish roots. All you need to do is cook the pork chops in a pan with a little oil until well browned, remove from the pan, remove and drain, and then cook cored, thick, apple slices in the same pan until about as brown as the pork. You deglaze with apple cider, add the pork back into the pan, and cook for about 20 minutes until the cider has reduced to a sauce and the pork is ready. You can always thicken the cider with cream, but I think that makes it swing a little too far towards dessert.

Lake George - The Sagamore

We visited the charming resort town of Lake George over the long weekend. It's a favorite of my fiancee - a sort of old-timey vacation spot in a beautiful setting. On Saturday night, we stopped by the one fancy hotel in the area for a drink, and let ourselves get talked into the Risotto of Braised Veal Cheeks and Mascarpone. The dish hit the spot with our wine (I was quite taken with the Willamette Pinot Noir I was drinking), but only in an appetizer portion, and only shared. The idea of eating an entire portion of something so over-the-top fatty as that risotto would make me ill.

* They also messed up my bill, and I missed it when paying. That will have to be fixed.

Matsugen

We had a delightful meal at Matsugen in Tribeca last night, which is owned in part by Jean-Georges Vongrerichten, but run in fact by others.

Complaints first - overmuch staffing, little coordinated. We were left menu-less for 10 minutes. A little expensive, if you venture outside the soba. A slightly "too cool for you" feel.

But none of that distracts too much from the food, which for us included some freshly made tofu (like night and day, in terms of texture, when compared to store-bought stuff) topped with a soy and dashi sauce, and soba soup with fried tofu and scallions. The broth was both sweet and complex, and the noodles we had (the flour for which is ground in the back) have a satisfying bite and flavor. Altogether delicious - I could have eaten at least another bowl.

Alinea Cookbook

This is a tale of shattered expectations. Well, perhaps not that dramatic, but shattered somethings, at least.

I got the Alinea cookbook at the end of September, and spent the next few days leafing through it with anticipation. It is full of fascinating looking food products. Caramel mixed with some chemical in order to look like rubble. Kumquat jelly. Parrafin wax bowls filled with cold potato veloute and topped with skewers of potato somethings. The problem is that most of the cookbook requires ingredients so exotic that I wouldn't know where to get them, much less how to use them. Not exotic as in truffle, just to be clear, but exotic like Ultra-Tex 3.

After much leafing, I finally found a recipe that seemed achievable. Poached pork tenderloin served with fennel, sage pudding, corn bread puree, grapefruit, honey, and sous vide pork shoulder shredded into strands as if for pulled pork, and then fried in a disk shape until "puffed" (all this as a garnish). The only exotic ingredient was agar agar, which I both have and happen to know how to use.

I embarked on the recipe with the most enigmatic ingredient first, the sage pudding. I boiled water, sugar and salt with sage leaves, and let the mixture steep for 20 minutes, yielding a pale green infusion. I strained the mixture through a chinois, and then brought it to a boil for exactly a minute and a half with 10 g of agar agar. The now weirdly gummy mixture went through a chinois again to strain out any unmelted agar agar, and then sat to cool until solid. Once that happened, I ran the mixture through my food processor on "blend" until I had exactly the smooth pudding I was supposed to get.

At which point I tasted my much slaved over concoction.


I leave open entirely the possibility that I did this all wrong. That my mixture of sugar and salt was off, or that I put too much sage or something. But to my palate, the verdict on this pudding was unmistakeable. There was just no reason that I would choose to eat this thing on my own. None. It was oddly sweet, and salty in all the wrong places. The sage was overwhelming. The mouth-feel a gloppy, thin, slime, like what I imagine astronaut food to be like. I couldn't imagine how it could complement pork.

But putting all that aside, I soldiered on with the corn bread puree. I made the extremely fatty corn bread required by the cookbook (honestly, the best corn bread, for me, has very little sugar and fat, but this was corn cake), and then enriched it further with even more cream and butter as I was processing it into a puree. The result wasn't as disappointing as the sage pudding, which was wretched, but still wasn't something that I thought accomplished anything more than some plain corn bread with honied butter would have.

By this point, I was tired. And not enthused about eating the meal, so I gave up and we went out for some pizza instead. Over pizza, I sat thinking about the larger implications of my failure.

Of course, I'm going to keep working away at the Alinea cookbook when I have the time. It's a gorgeous volume, filled with intriguing things. The larger question, however, is about the entire Alinea project. As I've said before, we're living in a moment now of almost unprecedented advances in local, organic, free-range, traditional farming (add whatever adjectives you will). Micro-farms are turning out the best food we've had in America since before people invented chemicals. Restaurants that feast on that amazing diversity of production are not only flourishing, but multiplying. But at the same time, the most talked about restaurants in the world are restaurants like Alinea, and El Bulli, restaurants at which the quality of the natural ingredients appears to be almost of no consequence, and the benefits of local, organic, free-range, traditional farming entirely undercut by the intentional adulteration of perfectly good food with a chemistry lab worth of industrially produced molecules with nature defying properties. The closest analague to the food these restaurants serve isn't Per Se, but the Taco Bell in the futuristic filmDemolition Man.

It is no good to say in response that salt is a chemical too, like some defenders of this new "cookery" do. It is a chemical, true, and it has seemingly miraculous properties. But you can go to the sea and get salt, by getting some water and letting it evaporate. It is a fruit of the earth. Ultra-Tex 3 is the fruit of the lab. It is exactly the sort of thing that people who love food have been trying to banish for the past two decades, and yet here it is, in beloved restaurants.

I fear, honestly, that our food is going to look more and more like ultra-tex than like the farm, and the best farmed products become more expensive, and chemicals are even better understood by chefs. In that context, I'm going to keep grappling with this new food to see if I can discover some sympathy for it. Obviously, a part of it will be to eat some of this stuff made by people who love cooking this way. But at this point, I feel like the new gastronomy is a frankenstein-ian step backwards along a path we'd been hiking positively for more than two decades, and I wish it would go away.

Beet Salad

I had a marvelous beet salad at Insieme today, an understated Italian restaurant with a big reputation among food people in New York. The combination of yellow beets with oranges and salted, baked, hazelnuts was perfect, well matched with the slices of ricota salata on top. I will have to pair this with some pork, maybe, this weekend.

Alinea

The new Alinea cookbook was waiting for me at work today. I'm normally not one for these big coffee table cookbooks (more food po$n than food thought), but Alinea is so interesting that I felt I had to have it. Plus, at $31.50 from Amazon, it's a good deal for so many great photographs.

I've started to flip through it now. The first thing that struck me was Grant Achatz, the chef at Alinea, talking about El Bulli, in Spain (where Achatz spent a three day stage, or internship):

"It was almost as if I was on a different planet. There's nobody butchering meat, there's no veal stock simmering, there are no saute pans."

And this was a good thing?

Best grass-fed beef ever

We had the best grass-fed beef I've had in this country last night - an organic, grass fed filet from Citarella. So let's go over the caveats. Yes, it's from very far away. And yes, it's tenderloin, which I usually dislike. Oh, and it's expensive ($29.98 a pound).

But grass feeding and finishing lends the usually insipid tenderloin some new flavors, while the tenderloin gives you the latitude to cook the steak extremely rare, which helps the tenderloin. As for expensive, you only really need 12 ounces for two people - that is, about $20 bucks. Sure, that's a lot of money for a steak. But any entree in any restaurant we'd go to is more. So I poured the extra money into some excellent 2005 bordeaux instead.

* A quick note on cooking technique for steaks. I don't have any secrets. Just get a properly conductive pan really screaming hot with a little oil, open the windows and the fans, and let 'er rip. Turn the meat rarely, and let a proper crust develop. And make sure to let the meat rest when it comes out of the pan - the difference in the internal color (grey and flabby, without resting, and a consistent pink, with resting) and flavor is worth the five minutes of extra time.

Pimenton Redux

Pimenton with Halibut (or rather, halibut with pimenton, though the mistake is meaningful) turns out to be incredibly delicious. Not only does the deep red, smoky, spice give the fish an unexpected flavor, but the visuals of a pimenton laced halibut steak are terrific. We had the halibut, which I cooked on my griddle (if a plancha is good enough for restaurants, its good enough for me) with my usual fishy potato salad - boiled potatoes, mustard vinaigrette, sliced green onions, and parsley.

Pimenton

I don't always agree with Mark Bittman's recommendations (I am a little bothered by his "I don't care if something is done this way or that so long as it tastes good" approach), but I have to say that I did not know about pimenton (aka, smoked paprika) before his various recommendations. What a cool flavor. I think I'll try it on halibut tonight, and report back.

Odd scandal in DC

No, not a political scandal, though there are some of those about. Eric Ripert, the mastermind behind Le Bernardin, has been sponsoring a new restaurant in Washington DC. As Grub Street and the WaPo report, the chefs at the DC restaurant have been booted for behavior problems. Putting aside the question of what could possibly be enough of a behavior problem to cause a firing in the restaurant industry (in which, I hear, behavior problems are kind of par for the course), I noticed this follow up on Tom Sietsema's (the WaPo restaurant reviewer) chat:

Washington, D.C.: Tom,
Before your chat begins, I just wanted to say that Leo, Ricky and I worked incredibly hard this past year to turn the Westend Bistro into a major success. We cared deeply about the restaurant and strove for perfect food under difficult circumstances. In the end, The Ritz had other ideas about food and what it took to run a great restaurant. Eric Ripert's name was on the sign but the Ritz always called the shots _ for better or worse. So we parted ways. All three of us. I think it was best for everyone.
Robert Berry Former executive sous chef, Westend Bistro by Eric Ripert.
Tom Sietsema: Thanks for taking the time to write, Robert. I'll be interested to know where everyone ends up.
Interesting, interesting.
_______________________

Delicatessen

What kind of people go to restaurants like Delicatessen, which Frank Bruni gave zero stars today? I'd wonder why he was reviewing it, except that restaurant reviewers have an obligation to review popular places, but deep fried "rueben" fritters? Cheeseburger spring rolls? Fried chicken in a metal pail? It sounds like deli food interpreted by a drunken Scotsman recently laid off from a failing chippy.

Geniuses

Amazingly, every single one of our esteemed Senators, according to their comments at the committee meetings on the bailout plans, foresaw all these problems, and each was individually ignored by all the others. We're so lucky to have such geniuses in power.

Weekend Meal

I finally had a chance to cook on Sunday, after a week of late night meals in the office (disgusting, all of them).

For lunch, I mixed lots of ras al hanout with greek yogurt and slathered it all over chicken thighs, and then let loose my broiler on them. Voila. Pseudo-tandoori - a bright yellow, spicy, delicious kebab.

Dinner was a little more ambitious. I braised beef short ribs in a covered dish for six hours with wine (an oddly fruity American merlot, more on which later), mushrooms, celeriac*, and pearl onions. The meat, as it should, eventually melted into the sauce. Delicious.

My fiancee bought me Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques DVD's this weekend (which I'd been collecting by tivo'ing the shows on PBS). To celebrate, I made a creme caramel, finally getting the caramel right (I usually burn it) by following Jacques's advice. A note to self - creme caramel really needs vanilla, otherwise it ends up tasty like sugary egg. Aside from that mild setback, all was delicious.

Anathem

I finished Neal Stephenson's Anathem over the weekend. I liked it, though the best review of it I've read is a negative one, from Michael Dirda of the Washington Post. The story captures the imagination. The philosophy that litters hundreds of its pages is a comforting layer of intellectualism if you just want a story that sounds smart, and yet lets you dig in and think if you'd rather.

One thing that occurs to me, though - the avout are so smart (and, I guess, Stephenson wants everyone to realize that he is so smart) that their brains verge on acting on the story as a deus ex machina. Maybe not quite, but it is rather like the complaint that some have about the Eagles in Tolkien.

The confusing reality

I've been thinking recently about what one can possibly eat in a typical restaurant that doesn't fall afoul of the newest conventional wisdom on food.

Beef: It's produced by feeding grass eaters corn. So, no.

Chicken: Most chickens are raised in horrific batteries and doused constantly in antibiotics.

Pork: Pigs raised in small pens, rife with disease, and tasteless anyway.

Milk: From those corn cows, and also rife with chemicals.

Shrimp: Raised in cesspools of chemicals in China.

Tuna, both fresh and canned: Mercury, mercury, mercury.

Cod: Your next fish stick might be the last cod there is.

Vegetables: Not local, so massive environmental damage, and also doused in chemicals, and also totally tasteless (see "not local").

Tofu: GMO.

So what are we supposed to eat? Short of using places like Blue Hill as a cafeteria, that is?

The silver lining

The upside of sleeping on a pillow made of your suit coat under your office desk: I've still got enough money on my subway card for tomorrow.

Take that, MTA!

Citizen

My mother (finally) became a US citizen yesterday.  In November, she'll vote in an election for the first time in her life (Syria is not especially big on contested elections).  As with most things in my family, her celebrations here revolved around food.  A little after the ceremony, her and my father found themselves nibbling through some ribs at Red, Hot and Blue.

Thinking back to when I became a citizen about ten years ago, I remember finding the entire process extremely moving, both the image of all people of all nationalities coming together in the conference room we'd been herded into united in their desire for citizenship, and the exercise of putting into words by way of the citizenship oath what it means to become an American.  I am so so lucky to have become a citizen that day, and I'm delighted my mom has joined our ranks.

Burrata

I had lunch at La Masseria today (a consistently decent italian restaurant near my office). Apart from my excellent sea bass (with an astonishing wild prawn on top), I had burrata, which I'd never had before. If you want to make eating a large round of mozzarella any less healthy, you'd add cream to the middle of it when it's still cooling - and that, of course, is what burrata is.

EDIT: Also, it was $32, which I only realized when I looked at the bill a second ago. Ah, expense accounts.

Shrimps

I love shrimp. Which makes what I'm reading about shrimp in Bottom Feeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood more than a little depressing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not much of an ethical eater, though I'll try if it doesn't inconvenience me too much. But, more and more, ethical eating, and vaguely natural eating (which I am interested in) intersect. To wit:

"According to Tamil Nadu's fisheries department, a dry pond should be prepared by spreading urea and superphosphate to encourage plankton growth. Once the poind has been filed with brackish water . . . it is typically covered with diesel oil . . . The water is then treated with a piscicide = a ubstance that poisons any competing aquatic life - such as chlorine or rotenone; the latter has been strongly linked to Parkinson's disease in humans. As the shrimp grow, the water is treated with pesticides and more piscicides, but by far the gravest area of concern is the use of antibiotics to ward of disease. (p. 158).

And, p. 170.

If the shrimp in your supermarket display case glisten unnaturally, or if they taste soapy even after being cooked, they have probably been treated with STPP . . ., the suspected neurotoxicant used to prevent drying. . . A grainy substance coating the shell could mean the shrimp has been treated with caustic borax.

Strawberries

When I talked about how much better fruits were in France, I meant everything. Peaches, strawberries, raspberries, and all the way down the line (though, depressingly, french fruitiers and markets have started to sell non-French fruits in greater numbers). But these strawberries are a pretty darned good example of what I mean - impossible red inside and out, and a flavor like the best jam, except better.

Take 'em out

The Washington Post is reporting Obama as saying a rather curious thing today. First, he excorciates Palin for mocking Democrats who supposedly want the constitution to apply to suspected terrorists:

Calling it (the writ of habeas corpus) "the foundation of Anglo-American law," he said the principle "says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, 'Why was I grabbed?' And say, 'Maybe you've got the wrong person.'

"The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, "because we don't always have the right person."
"We don't always catch the right person," he said. "We may think it's Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it's Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president."

We'll leave aside the wisdom of using the "Barack the bomb-thrower" line. But the article continues:

[I]f the plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks are in the government's sights, Obama went on, they should be targeted and killed.

"My position has always been clear: If you've got a terrorist, take him out," Obama said. "Anybody who was involved in 9/11, take 'em out."

So, what happens if you "take out" Mohammad the cab driver, accidentally? Or are constitutional rights somehow less crucial when you're killing people? Of course, I have a lot of sympathy for habeas rights and so on - but you've got yourself some serious contradictions if you're ok striking people you think are terrorists with missiles launched by drones, but think that imprisoning people without applying controversial rights to them is a serious betrayal of American liberties. I've no idea where I come out on this, but one would expect the hyper thoughtful Obama to have grappled with the problem.

Les Fables de la Fontaine

We tried to get into Cafe Constant one night in Paris, and found ourselves at the end of a long line. "For two?", the waiter said? "No way".

So we wandered up and down along Rue St. Dominique and ended up at Les Fables de la Fontaine, a one michelin star restaurant known for fish.

The one thing I will say without equivocation for Les Fables - the welcome was without fault. We walked in late, at about 10:00 pm. We made no indication we would order a bottle of wine, or a big meal, and in fact proceeded to order only a main course. Although restaurants are in the hospitality business, we all know that a one michelin star establishment, especially in France, would feel entirely within its rights to get a little sniffy. There's wasn't even the slightest whiff of it.

As for the food, we have an excellent amuse bouche of a bell pepper mousse, and each of us had a piece of fish - my fiancee dorade, and me lotte. Both fish were cooked impeccably. But there was so much on each plate. Mushrooms and foam, and onion and mashes and vegetables and herbs. Each component was delicious, but by the end we were confused and baffled. The whole was entirely less than than its parts.

I'd like to back for a full meal. Maybe a real meal would have all built up to a crescendo to that final main dish. But I'd still have left off the foam.

Bourmoudienne

I've been re-reading Bourmoudienne v. Bush, the case in which the Supreme Court held last term that the writ of habeas corpus ran, in some sense, to Guantanomo. It's an important case, of course, but setting all that aside, it's a deeply compelling mix of history and law.

It's becoming clearer to me on my re-reading, though, that the history on which the Court relies is all rather muddled. It feels wrong, to someone familiar with the early modern era. Of course, to some extent that's because it was probably drafted by someone not terribly interested and based on obviously outdated textbooks, which couldn't possibly be the state of the art understanding of the relevant history. On page 11 of the slip opinion, for example, the Court cites a well known but ludicrously general "History of England and the British Empire", originally published in 1937 for the history of Charles I and the 1627 Petition of Right. I'm pretty sure that the current state of thought on that episode is something a little more sophisticated than "the King soon began to abuse his authority again, and Parliament was dissolved".

The stilted history particularly struck me in the Court's various answers to the Government's claim that because the writ didn't run to either Hanover or Scotland, it shouldn't run to Cuba. As the Court described the argument,

"The Government argues in turn that Guantanamo is more closely analagous to Scotland and Hanover, territories that were not part of England but nonetheless controlled by the English monarch (in his separate capacities as King of Scotland and Elector of Hanover). "

The court goes on repeatedly to discuss both entities as if they had something in common at the time of the founding, interspersing such oddities as Berwick upon Tweed and Guernsey in the mix. But these places really had nothing in common at all at that time. First, of course, no person was ever King of Scotland and Elector of Hanover at the same time. The Kingdom of Scotland ceased to exist in 1707 with the Act of Union, and the first joint King of Great Britain and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, George I, took the British crown in 1714. Having conflated the timing, the Court proceeds to explain the English Court's reluctance to issue writs of habeas corpus against imprisonments in both Scotland (and Hanover) as driven by prudential concerns - "Given the English Crown's (an entity which, technically, didn't exist) delicate and complicated relationships with Scotland and Hanover in the 1700's, we cannot disregard the possibility that the common law courts' refusal to issue the writ to these places was motivated not by formal legal constructs but by what we would think of as prudential concerns."

While we probably can't "disregard" that theory, as to Hanover this seems plainly wrong. However one understands the status of Scotland in the late 18th century (and there is debate here - Justice Scalia explains on p. 22 of his dissent), there can be no misunderstanding the position of Hanover, which had literally nothing to do with the English crown, the Scottish Crown, the British crown, or anything else having to do with the British isles. Issuing a writ of habeas corpus in favor of a prisoner in Hanover would be something like having a US court issue a writ of habeas corpus in favor of a prisoner held by German authorities, on the basis that President Bush also happened to be German Chancellor. It's not a matter of prudential self restraint, but of formality - Hanover was deeply, utterly foreign, ruled by a German Duke who also was an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, bound to the Emperor in some vague and difficul to understand ways, governed by a completely continental legal system. The English Courts would have had about as much luck issuing writs of habeas corpus to Frederick the Great as to the Elector of Hanover.

I realize that this is all very strange to the modern ear, but that's how people of the time thought. They understood the composite state, the personal union, and it would never have occurred to them that some court in a different country might somehow be able to compel the sovereign of some other country, who happened to be the same person for the time being, to do anything much at all.

Does all this undermine the Court's decision? No, not as such, I guess. But I wonder how much of the Court's history would still be standing if some enterprising person were to look deeply into the Court's various uses of European history in the last few years especially.

Pineapple

A friend of mine brought me a pineapple from Reunion, the French owned island, east of Madagascar. And then he showed me this novel way of cutting out the pineapple's eyes. A little time consuming, but great theatre. As for the pineapple itself, it was every bit the equal of the extraordinary pineapples we had in Hawaii last year.

100 things to eat before you die

The first clue that this list of 100 things you should eat before you die is too conservative is that I've eaten 94 of them, and one of them is a cigar, which I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Palin interlude

I wrote and erased a post yesterday mocking Palin as McCain's choice. Elite conservatives can be just as arrogant as elite liberals, after all. Frankly, I thought she wouldn't be able to string two words together.

Right, so - mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

PS: Oh, and Palin was too mean to Obama? I mean, really. The attacks gently mocked a hugely gifted man who's been convinced that he's the second coming and happily tells everyone so. Boo hoo.

Read Paul for the opposing opinion.

French poverty

One of the most powerful arguments that the American left has in favor of its agenda of increasing the Federal government's economic intervention is, in a word, Europe.  "Look", they say. "Europe spends much more of its people's money on public goods and social justice, and just look at the effects on poverty and on the country's infrastructure." 

I don't have too much of an argument on infrastructure.  European infrastructure is, in some ways, much better, though much of it in ways that aren't especially useful to Americans.  The French train system is so comfortable and fast that the only discomfort I felt while traveling the 800 kilometers from Paris to Marseilles in 3 hours was the embarrassment of comparing the trip to my commutes last month on the Acela, which takes the same time to travel half the distance for twice the price.  But where outside the Bos-NY-Wash corridor could we build such a train? Our country is to big too have spokes of trains coming out of New York or Washington, like the TGV emanates from Paris. 

But poverty and social justice?  As a starting point, I think it's clear that France has reached a point very close to the Laffer Curve - that is, broadly, the point where lowering taxes would raise more revenue.  I know for sure that if I was French, and told that I could make almost as much money by lazing at a prestigious government job rather than busting myself working for private industry, I would pack it in overnight and start planning my month-long Provence holiday. 

But are things really better for the poor in France?  I really can't tell.  On one hand, the government benefits are obviously more generous.  But on the other, I have never seen in New York, the jungle of poverty, scenes like I saw in the richest arrondissement in Paris during this vacation - poor men coming almost to blows over the grocery store's trash can, and two others trying to breath air into their friend's wheezing lungs after his emergence from what I took to be some sort of giant dumpster.   I would say that we're better at pushing poverty off to the unseen sides, except that Europeans have long claimed with pride that their superiority had something to do with the fact that you didn't see poor people on their streets.  Well, you do.  And they're more desperate than the ones on ours, in my experience on this trip and others.  So where does that leave us? 

Le Comptoir

As I mentioned in my post below, probably the most important trend in restaurant cooking recently had been the "gastropub" and its descendants.  Good food, in other words, in relaxed surroundings. 

Le Comptoir is one of the first French manifestations of that trend, a casual bistro attached to a hotel that serves updated but rustic food of the highest sophistication.   No, no veloute, but a braised, de-boned, pig's foot rolled in a web of pork fat, breaded and fried, a truly shocking package of deep fatty flavor.  As part of a tasting menu, it would have been overwhelming, but as a main course, cut through with a tartly lemon salad, it was magnificent.  One of the greatest single dishes I've ever had the pleasure of eating.  But, of course, my fiancee's osso bucco, braised then roasted, tinged with tandoori spices, set in a yogurty sauce and served with fresh garden vegetables, wasn't far behind.  Unlike most fusions of this sort, the tandoori spices almost made the meal taste more french, somehow more authentic.  Cheap (3 euro) glasses of wine complete an exceptional package - the fact that the restaurant is relaxed, and comfortable, and open for continuous service all day and even throughout August is just the cherry on top. 

A contract to enforce weight loss

We were sitting at a pizza restaurant last night, not quite recovered from our trip, and heard a woman behind us saying that she had written a contract with her brother saying that if she hadn't lost 40 pounds by next year, she'd have to pay a $10,000 penalty.  Her brother had also promised, in the contract, to sue her.  

Oh, man,  what a contract law exam question, with a little embellishment.

America v. France: The foodly state of play

Before getting bogged down in descriptions of individual restaurants and foods, I wanted to write a quick description of where I think the US/France balance stands in terms of food (and by US/France balance, I really mean France/New York balance, since I am deeply familiar with the food scene here, which is also reputed among the best in the country) . For reference, I'll note that I cooked at least one meal a day at home every day during the vacation, in both Paris and Cassis in the south. We also ate at two 1-star michelin restaurants, and a couple of others listed in the guide, including one "bib gourmand" (good value food).   

High Cuisine - Admittedly, my impressions are based on a limited sample. We had a full dinner at Hostellerie Berard in La Cadiere D'Azur, and one smaller meal at Les Fables De la Fontaine in Paris (both blessed with one star). I enjoyed Berard more than our tasting menu at Le Bernardin (my clear favorite in New York), which cost twice as much and boasts 3 Michelin stars in the American guide. Our meal at Berard was simply flawless and served with extraordinary grace.   

Casual high cuisine  - by this I mean the new breed of restaurants that prize cooking over service or setting.  Gastropubs in England, Ko (my thoughts) and Little Owl and Peasant (my thoughts) and the Spotted Pig in New York, or Cafe Constant or Le Comptoir in Paris.  Our efforts in New York in this genre are excellent, in their own ways - I still remember a truly great beet and smoked trout salad at the Spotted Pig, but the de-boned, braised, rolled, and then fried pig's foot at Le Comptoir is one of the greatest dishes I've ever had, and my fiance's tandoori spiced veal breast was close behind.  I still think we have space to improve here. 

Diversity - France has none of any note (please, spare me traiteurs chinois, and kebab stands, and the occasional tagine specialists - I've eaten at all of them, and they're not like New York).  New York is one of the great culinary melting pots. A New Yorker craves sushi and thai when in Paris, even while gorging him or herself on the best of France. 

Bread - France continues a slow decline, but there is still bread that makes the best in New York pale. A "pain de campagne" of wild sourdough from the Cassis market stands out especially. My fiance says it was the best bread she's ever had. I think it's damned close, but then I've eaten a lot of bread.

Vienoisserie (croissants, brioche, pain au chocolat, etc) - I'm not even sure this is worth describing. In short - every bakery in France is as good or better than La Bergamote, which is the best croissant bakery in New York. Yes, some in France are using frozen product, but even so do a better job of getting it to rise properly than their American counterparts. But when you get hold of someone making their own - oh gosh.   I had numerous extraordinary croissants, but right now I remember that at Boulanger Julien. 

Chicken, poultry - The quality of French chickens is unsurpassed (I had an amazing farm raised bird in the south, which delighted even though cooked in a convection oven I knew nothing about). Having said that, some of the best Pennsylvania chickens are very good. I wouldn't move to France for chickens alone.

Cakes - Like croissants, this isn't a fair competition. I had an eclair at Le Moulin de la Vierge the first day which laid to rest any doubts I had about my palate memories when I whine about New York cakes.  Every cake I had in Paris was better than its equivalent here. 

Fruits, Eggs, Vegetables - I buy the most expensive fruits and vegetables here in New York, from both Whole Foods and, more important, from the Union Square Greenmarket, in season and local.  Nothing could have prepared me for the first peche blanches I had in Paris, nor for the raspberries, nor for the wild strawberries, nor for anything else I bought at the market or fruitier.  We are doing something very very wrong when it comes to produce.  

As for eggs, we had two weeks of the best omelettes I've ever had, with good butter and eggs from the cheesemaker and the market. 

Ice cream - New York newcomer Grom is excellent (my thoughts) and their pistachio flavor remains my favorite, but we were utterly startled by the ice cream in the gardens of Versailles.  The best fruit flavored ice cream I have ever had - the apricot especially was revelatory.  

Cheese - Again, I realize that Americans have been doing some great work recently, but French cheese making is hugely diverse and blessed by some of the best raw product (and really raw, since French cheesemakers are unhampered by stupid laws) in the world. What to do at home? I recommend sticking with young goat's cheeses (which we do well with) and our own cheddars and similar. Leave young, soft, cheeses like camembert for France.  

Back from France

I'm back from France, where I had a truly great time. Much food and culture related blogging will ensue.

Till then, my aphorism for the trip - "the difference between New York and Paris is that in Paris, the people smell worse than the city."

France

I've been silent because I've been getting ready to go to France. Preparations have been long, but now most everything is set. We have rented apartments in Paris and in Cassis, and and several restaurants have been booked, a car reserved, TGV tickets ready, and thoughts about activities noted down. The one interesting thing is that while many of the top Parisian restaurants are closed for the holiday month, everything in the south is open. Full reports from my iphone, to the extent I have Wifi, will be forthcoming.

Laminated Doughs

Aran says something very important:

To this day, I believe a good pastry shop distinguishes itself by the quality of their laminated doughs such as mille-feuilles and croissants.

This has always been my view. A good croissant is something special. And rare, these days, as more and more bakers (even French bakers) buy frozen.

How much chefs earn

I think that people get caught up in the glamor of professional cooking without realizing that there are far easier ways of earning big bucks than slaving away in a hot kitchen. For the average chef, of course, life is a fairly unrewarding grind, from a financial point of view - they may get to do what they love, but what they love doesn't pay. But even the biggest chefs are a little less well-off than you might imagine. Here, for example, is an article from Forbes estimating the earning power of some of the culinary world's biggest stars.

Most striking? People like Mario Batali, owner of 13 restaurants and an endless parade of marketing opportunities, pulls in $3 million. Is that a lot of money? Of course. But Batali is probably the single most famous American chef. He is literally at the pinnacle of his profession, and his financial peers can be counted on two hands. By contrast, my guess is that there are at least 500 law partners in New York who do as well or better, with a career arc at that earning level of at least 20 years (which may not be true of Batali).

Which would I rather be doing? Obviously, I'd rather cook. But the disparity signals that either lawyers are a lot better at extracting money from the people who need them, or chefs are really bad at it. From conversations with people in the industry, I suspect a lot of it is the latter.

The vanished gourmet

The biggest story in the food world right now has got to be the disappearance of Pascal Henry, who was attempting to eat in all 62 3-Michelin starred restaurants in the world. He vanished after a 32 course effort at El Bulli.

The most interesting detail to me? Le Monde reported yesterday that he had gained 7-8 kilos on the trip. Frankly, I'm surprised it was so little.

joe's noodle house

" You don't want the salted fish" said the friendly woman manning the counter at Joe's noodle house, tucked in a grim strip mall in Rockville, MD. "Basil. You get basil."

"But I want salted fish", I bleated.

"No. It's for Chinese. Too strong".

I should have insisted. Without the pungent flavor of the mysterious salted fish, my hot pot with chicken and eggplant wasn't near as flavorful as I imagined when I saw it on the specials board. It was too bad, because my soft tofu was promising in it's fiery sauce.

Next time, I won't be so easily put. Spicy tripe, here I come.

Jamon Iberico

I recently had the opportunity to nibble on a few pieces of Jamon Iberico, which Wegman's (clearly the best supermarket on the East Coast) is selling for $70 a pound. I'm not a Spanish food expert, but my understanding is that the ham comes from a breed of rare, acorn eating, pigs. If I'm wrong, they sure do somehow taste like acorn - a sort of deep, piggy, acorn.

Still, I suspect this has to be eaten in slightly greater quantity to truly appreciate it. My nibbles were too small, and I was too greedy, to get the most out of it, to work the fat around in my mouth, to feel it melt. Aah. Next time.

Wendy's salad? Never. But Potacho!

To continue pounding away at the idiots in Los Angeles, who are putting a moratorium on new fast food construction in certain impoverished areas, I present the Potacho, the kind of food one can get at the type of sit-down restaurants that are likely to show up in the places they're worried about.

Bob's 66 Noodle Bistro

A much lauded restaurant in suburban Maryland (Cowen here, but he links to all reviews), the clientele of Bob's 66 Noodle Bistro bears witness to its status as the best (or at least most authentically good) Chinese food in the area. The menu's unusual, and packed with spices and offal. To celebrate, I ordered a cold pig's ear salad to start. It was crunchy, and gelatinous, and meaty all at the same time, the potentially overbearing pork wonderfully offset by a searing spice. While I was nibbling at that (and half is with me today for lunch), my thick noodle soup with squid and mushrooms arrived. I could have done without either the tough squid or the relatively flavorless mushroom, and with more of the tasty noodle and broth. In fact, I just turned it into a noodle soup with my spicy fried squid balls, which arrived shortly later and tasted wonderful dunked in the soup (I'm not sure how much I insulted people by doing this, but then, it's not that kind of place).

I'll be back. There's a duck tongue dish on the menu, and I saw an even thicker noodle in someone's plate that I'm going to have to locate. My only problem with restaurants like this is that one is always suspicious that everyone else has a menu you have to make an effort to extract. Even so, the public menu's pretty good.

Maggie Moo's

That's it. I apologize for everything bad I ever said about Pinkberry. Because yesterday, I got a cone at the worst ice cream store I've ever seen. I don't mean just the chain it was part of, though the ice cream itself was milky treacle and little more (is there any excuse these days for ice cream this bad?) I mean the particular store. Specifically, Maggie Moo's in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in the Washingtonian Center, where the manager looked at the line forming due to his own horrible service, blew out his cheeks, and then ambled to the back for a good fifteen minutes, at which point he returned, told a customer they couldn't have a marshmallow "mix-in" effectively because he didn't like mixing in marshmallows, and then wandered off again, leaving in place two even more junior people who would see to the occasional customer in intervals between chatting to their visiting friends, who kept bragging loudly about the 10% discount they were getting. Why didn't I leave? At some point, it's worth staying, just for the scene.

Chicken Out Rotisserie

I felt like some roasted chicken yesterday (too long away from home, I guess), so I visited a successful DC area chain, Chicken Out Rotisserie. The one good thing to say is that the chickens are, as a matter of theory, promising - no antibiotics, no hormones, and so on. In reality, the chicken was a fairly tasteless mass, rendered grainy by a stint in some kind of steam closet, only halfway saved by an attempt at an enthusiastic spice rub tempered heavily by the fear that people don't like spices. Side dishes were similarly lame. However, I did enjoy my cashier's over-the-top enthusiasm. "I hope the gentleman enjoys his soda", he said. "I wish the gentleman a fantastic evening", he added. I did. As soon as I left his restaurant.

LA continued

PG helpfully points me to an LA Times article which discusses the LA fast-food ban. Here's the definition of fast food:

"any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders and food served in disposable wrapping or containers."

I can't help but point out the number of problems with this definition. To take a few: Burger King makes its burgers to order (something that supposedly exempts Subway, mentioned later in the article), as does Wendy's. I think the definition is supposed to exempt burrito shops, which are unquestionably just as unhealthy as any of city council's bug bears. Limited menu (as the article mentions) has no definition. It allows me to open any number of restaurants serving fat burgers piled high with bacon so long as I make them to order. It would theoretically ban a fast food low fat vegan restaurant that relies on tofu. Artichoke Pizzeria would be a no go. Etc, etc.

Honestly, wouldn't it be nice if the government could just restrict who it meant to restrict? If you're going to adopt such a paternalistic regulation, just say it applies to McDonald's, Wendy's, KFC, whoever. I'm not a fan of these definitions that try to appear generally applicable, but are actually just efforts to capture some company without naming them.

Sushi bowl

Can someone explain to me in what sense this "sushi bowl" (cited approvingly by the ever clueless Ezra Klein) has anything to do with sushi, either in the American or Japanese sense? Also, didn't the Japanese think of a version of this that has something to do with sushi a really long time ago? I mean, they gave it a name and everything.

Los Angeles

I see that Los Angeles has put a moratorium on new construction of fast food restaurants in certain neigborhoods of the city. I've been looking for the regulation, and have had no luck.

The reason I'm looking for it is that I can't understand (a) how they plan to differentiate fast food restaurants from any other kind of restaurant. (b) why they think having a bunch of fast food restaurant is less healthy than a bunch of sit-down restaurants and (c) what they want people who live in these places to eat.

On (a), I rather suspect that if you were to open a little burger chain in Los Angeles, the regulation wouldn't apply to you (though, prove me wrong). But why not? Mcdonald's offers much healthier options than, say, Five Napkin Burger. As for (b), substituting Bennigan's (well, perhaps not Bennigan's) in place of McDonald's doesn't strike me as having any particular health benefits, unless the benefit consists of culling everything affordable out of the neighborhood, leaving residents to mill pathetically around places they can't pay for before heading home to cook with ingredients they can't buy in their neighborhood for lack of grocery stores. This doesn't strike me as a policy likely to improve outcomes.

Les Delices

In my long-running quest to find cake of any quality in America, (rare, other than apparently in Aran's home), I stopped by Les Delices bakery on East Gude Street in Rockville, MD, last night. (full disclosure, it's owned by a family friend).

The fruit tart was clearly a sideshow. Although I prefer bakers to underplay sweetness, the pastry cream was unsettlingly neutral, and the pie crust both too thick and a little burnt. Nor was I totally impressed with what the almond croissants looked like - (why were they sliced in half? ).

But these are minor gripes, because the chocolate cake (what in France would be called something like a pave au chocolat, or effectively, an opera without the coffee layers) was very good. A crisp, flavorful biscuit at the bottom was a terrific setting for chocolate buttercream of real quality (the Washington DC area is positively rife with truly appalling "French" bakeries, and the most appalling part of most of them is the wretched, stinking, canned whipped cream, chemical gunk-tasting sludge they claim is cream). Most important, the cake avoided many of the pitfalls of the usual American attempt to do French pastry -it wasn't too big, or too sweet, or cloying, or too complicated, or too refrigerated, or stale. At $3.50, the small slice is expensive for around here. But it's the equal of anything I've had in New York, except for Payard's opera, which I judge to be a little more refined (as well as a full dollar more expensive).

Gifford's

Do you want to know what (food) injustice is? That places like Gifford's, a stunningly good ice cream chain in Maryland, are flat out empty on Monday night, at the same time that silly frauds like Pinkberry are printing money in New York.

The almonds on my $3(!) (on Monday only) Sundae were fresh, the chocolate obviously melted quality stuff rather than some sugary gloop, and the ice cream itself creamy and fresh tasting. I'll be back.

Tapei Tokyo

A confused mess of a restaurant in Rockville, Maryland, mixing Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Korean food. I flipped to the narrative story at the front of the menu to try to figure out which of the parade of food they might know something about, and it turned out that it started life out as a noodle bar. So, after nibbling through some fried tofu (I peeled off the batter, which I found extremely unnecessary) I ordered a thai style soup with shrimp. Not that I expected so much, but the shrimp were undistinguished (obviously just standard issue frozen shrimp), and there were none of the promised vegetables. I poured in soy to add some flavor. Near the bottom of the bowl, my mouth did start picking up some heat, but, to quote the 300, this is Thailand! No Thai soup should be so tame. On the other hand, the owner or manager was wandering around being solicitous, and the service was friendly. I have come to realize that the latter of those two things can turn a mediocre restaurant into someplace you might become a regular.

The underlying thought I had while sitting at Tapei Tokyo was more interesting than the food. Are we now at the point where every major world cuisine has been introduced to the market? Thirty years ago, say, one could reasonably say that there was this enormous country, called Japan, about which people knew nothing from a culinary perspective. Same with Thailand. Perhaps the same with India, although my impression is that Indian food penetrated major US markets first. But is there anything out there right now that can do what sushi did? My nomination is for Chinese food. Of course, we all think we know Chinese food. But it must be in a state of flux, and I cannot believe that a country whose wealth has undergone such an extreme revolution in the past couple of decades will not eventually produce something exportable that isn't moo shu chicken.


(Tyler Cowen's thoughts on a different branch, here)

Ambrosia Grille

A family run, Greek restaurant in Rockville, which I chose as a sort of ironic joke (I live in Astoria, but I'm having Greek food here - ahem). Appetizers were a little disappointing, though huge - somewhat insipid taramasalata, and tzatziki with too little garlic. But the herby lemon chicken was terrific, and the inevitable accompanying potatoes would find themselves welcome back home. A very good rendition of mousaka was also on the menu.

Bonus tip: There is a frozen custard stand nearby called "Splurge". It was not the best frozen custard I have ever had (there's a good argument that frozen custard is better than either frozen yogurt or soft serve), but it was good. My choice of peanut butter was especially flavorful.

Afghan Grill

I had dinner with a friend last night at Afghan Grill, in Adams Morgan.

Pros: The surprising pumpkin with meat sauce (yes, yes, I know, it's summer. The pumpkin was good anyway). Terrific meat dumplings in yogurt, which were fully the match of Armenian/Lebanese manti, though much bigger. Tasty, highly spiced, rice, and a delicous ground beef kebab. Friendly service.

Cons: Indifferent bread, puzzlingly sliced into nibbles (how could you not take advantage of the drama of a whole Afghan bread arriving at the table?) Very high pricing ($16 for a platter? Really?). A home made baklava which betrayed its home-madeness by the paucity of its syrup. Parsimonious portions (it's a kebab place. Two skewers at least, please, especially for $16). And also, though it doesn't bother me much, we were seated in the darkest recesses of the corner next to the kitchen - I didn't think I looked quite that disreputable.

Moby Dick

When I first began eating at Moby Dick, it was a very small chain of fairly ramshakle kebab restaurants in suburban Virginia and Maryland. And it was super good - great bread, amazing kebab. Now, it's expanded, and it's gleaming, and shiny, and could be mistaken for a Mcdonald's, except that the "#1" is a kebab rather than a Big Mac.

The kebabs are still good, but the bread has suffered, and one worries that the expansion has taken a bit of the soul out of the place. These days, I prefer Duke Kebab. On the other hand, one needs not have that long a memory to recall when excellent kebabs weren't strewn around the DC landscape. In that context, overloud complaints seem a little bit spoiled.

Mama's Dumplings

A tiny whole in the wall famed for its pork dumplings. I was laughed at by the entirely Chinese clientele when I put one of the newly steamed dumplings in my mouth, burning everything it touched, but I think they warmed up to me when I chewed through regardless. The dough is a little less delicate than at the best New York "soup" dumpling houses (though that may be intentional - I'll have to eat more of this genre of dumpling), but my pork and celery dumplings were excellent. I also had a scallion pancake, but from all indications, one ought to skip anything on the menu that isn't a dumpling.

Business Trip

As might be guessed from my silence, I'm on a business trip. I find that when I'm forced to eat out all the time, my inspiration for writing dries up. Cooking is my lubricant.

Nonetheless, I'll be posting little capsule reviews of the DC dining scene, to the extent I experience it.

Is that ok?

Just walking around New York today eavesdropping, and I overheard someone ask whether their dining companion liked fish. What struck me is the changing patters of which foods I ask that question about. For example, it still seems clear to me that politeness requires asking whether your companion likes sushi. Same, probably, with Korean and Thai, but I'm not sure I would ask about chinese. Certainly Indian food, I'd ask. But not pizza or pasta, and not "mexican" or steak (oddly, since for a non-steak lover, a steak house is every bit as exclusive as a sushi bar). I suppose, in the end, that this is all a complicated matrix of social expectations and relationships, that foods enter the realm of presumed acceptability over time. I wouldn't be surprised if sushi were firmly planted in that world, in New York at least, in the next ten years. But what's next? I'm not sure.

Peasant

On Friday night we had the chance to dine at Peasant, a wood burning Italian restaurant that's been a chef's favorite in New York for years now. I present my thoughts in the form of a vignette.

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We settle down, at a cramped table for two in full view of the open kitchen, wood fire burning satisfyingly. Two older gentlemen (TOG 1 and TOG 2) are to our right, sopping up the last bits of their ricotta spread with warm bread from the fire.

TOG 1: There are some big gays over at that table, no? (loudly)

We looked at our menus, to find everything in Italian (as I had been warned). The waitress shimmies over to explain. After a couple of iterations (I cannot remember menus in different languages, or long lists of specials) we order a razor clam appetizer, roasted baby pig, and pasta with bottarga.

TOG 2's roasted quail arrives. He begins sawing at it ineffectually.

TOG 1: Let me do it, let me do it. You can't do nothin'. He hacks manfully at the quail, tearing it asunder. Small pieces of quail now litter TOG 2's large (ceramic?) plate.

TOG 2: What you doin'? Stop. I can cut my own chicken.

TOG 1: That's how you do chicken (gesturing at the hacked quail). I used to cook da chickens, you know.

My girlfriend and I dive into the fresh razor clams, which taste of the sea, sopping up the sharp wine sauce with the fantastic bread. The wine is pleasing and fruity. If these people would just stop acting the fool, all would be well with the world.

TOG 1: I got 5 million dollars last night, you hear?

TOG 2: Five million? That'll change your life.

TOG 1: Eh, I'm only getting a hundred grand. It's an inheritance you see. And other people are getting more.

TOG 2: So why you tell me you gettin' five million for?

TOG 1: Just eat your chicken.

Main courses arrive. The roasted pig is rich, succulent. A crispy rind adorns the plate, which, though delicious, is very wintry, with buttery potatoes (not mentioned on the menu) only making things heavier. I prefer the pasta, the salt of the bottarga cutting through the butter and cream sauce. But aren't those shells a little too al dente, my girlfriend says? I nibble, and agree. It's not that they're too al dente. It's that they're uneven. This one is well cooked. That one isn't.

TOG 2: I wouldn't get this again. It's just a chicken. I had some diver scallops at Jake's (?) in Jersey, and they gave me three vegetables. I don't see no vegetables here.

TOG 1: Makes me sick. 25 bucks for a chicken.

We finish, and debate dessert. The wood baked peach tart with hazelnut ice cream (priced at an attractive, for Manhattan, $8) is extremely tempting. We decide to share one, and put in the order.

TOG 1, now working on a fruit plate: This here is a fig. You know figs?

TOG 2: Of course I know figs. They're like dates.

TOG 1: They're not dates. They're figs. Sure, they're both sweet, but that's where the similarity ends.

To Waitress: These figs are amazing. I usually have them in, you know, newtons. But here, they're not like dates at all.

Waitress: Er, yes, sir, these are fresh.

TOG 1: So are the dates I eat. Fresh!

The tart is brought to our table literally two minutes after we order. Alarm bells ring. When, precisely, was this thing wood baked? I taste. Parts of the crust are tasty, fresh tasting. Most of it tastes exactly of having sat on a counter all night, already baked and suffering (or maybe in the fridge?) Why can't they simply have prebaked the bottom, topped it freshly, and thrown it in the oven for a couple of minutes? Just to humor me? A terribly disappointing end to our meal. Sloppy, thrown together. Was it bad objectively? No. But it costs $8 at a famous, among people who matter, restaurant. In that context, what is only a pleasant mediocre suddenly becomes appalling.

TOG 1: I can't believe it. A hundred bucks for a chicken and some figs.

TOG 2: Jake's is a better deal. Three vegetables, you get (turning) At least the gays left.

TOG 1, to waitress, loudly: You make this night really, really special. So special.

Exit.

Involtini of swordish

I wanted something comforting and simple this weekend, so I decided on a sort of rolled fish dish, stolen from Mario Batali. I made a quick tomato sauce with canned tomatoes, onions, garlic and basil, and added toasted pine nuts, olives and raisins. Then the swordfish, cut into thin slices and then pounded in between plastic wrap and stuffed with bread crumbs, olive oil, and basil chiffonade. The fish goes on top of the tomato sauce, and then into the oven for about 15 minutes. I added some cooked and cooled polenta to give some body to the meal.

Five Napkin Burger

5 Napkin Burger, a new haute burger restaurant on the west side, has been getting a lot of press early in its life here in New York (see here and here for a round-up). Short story is that the titular "5 Napkin Burger" used to be on the menu elsewhere, and was thought compelling enough to deserve a spin-off into its own restaurant.

There is nothing bad to say about the burger. Deep chuck-y flavor, perfectly cooked at medium rare, caremlized onions, a rosemary aioli. All delicious, though overwhelming - I ate only half and brought half home to nibble on tomorrow (why not have a six ounce burger on the menu, rather than only the 10 oz monster?). The fries, on the other hand, were a bit embarassing. In fact, had I known about the crunchy little nuggets of broken up potato I was going to get, I'd just have run up the street to the Mcdonald's a few blocks away. No matter, in any case. The burger is fantastic.

The rest of the menu, incidentally, is a total puzzle, and most especially the sushi that the waiter was aggresively pushing to me. I'm there for burger. Sushi is the enemy of burger. What gives?

Duke Kebab

I have nothing but good things to say about Duke Kebab, in Alexandria VA. Properly charred, flavorful meat (I recommend the spicy chicken thighs), wonderful afghan bread, and a super spicey green sauce. Tyler Cowen likes it too.

Pork

I love pork. I do. But I really am getting very sick of the bacon/pork fetish that has been sweeping both the New York and the international food scene in the past several years. Latest exhibit? Salon's "bacon week". What's especially funny is that unless you eat great piles of it, bacon's not even that bad for you. Eaten as italians might eat it, as a flavoring, it's positively healthy, transforming a bit of pasta into a tasty, meaty, mess without needing to bother with a lot of meat. But the food fashion police have apparently all decided that it's a sort of rebellious splurge - decadence personified. The result? Trendy models eating bacon ironically in trendy New York restaurants. Eh.

Bits and Bobs

I'm leaving shortly to visit Washington for the weekend. We have a slap up barbecue tomorrow with family, for which I'm going to make crumble, probably peach.

Also, I realize I haven't yet posted about this, but we are going to France for much of August, with Paris and somewhere obscure on the Riviera on the agenda. Great mounds of food will be consumed. The tricky bit will be to balance restaurant eating (Gagnaire, for sure, L'Astrance maybe, but how about flying to Barcelona on a budget airline and sitting desperately outside El Bulli? Or to London and then "training" out to the countryside for the Fat Duck? Or trying to get into Mugaritz? And how extraordinary is it exactly that I'm thinking of punctuating a visit to France with trips to Spain or England (England?!?) to eat?) with cooking at home. I am, of course, renting apartments rather than staying at hotels, as I mean to cuisiner up a storm. I don't know if poulets de Bresse have a season, but they had better be around - I'm still haunted by a leg I had six years ago. And rillettes. And cheese. Cheese! Bread. Pastries. Arghflagh.

Chef's Ripert's "focus" on seasoning

Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin has been faithfully continuing his excellent series on cooking with a toaster oven. Though I recommend watching, I'm really interested by what is clearly something of a bugbear for Ripert - being properly "focused" when seasoning. The snippets below, from each of his episodes other than the one involving a mango dessert, illustrate the point. The questions they raise are clear - is focused salting that important to food of the quality that Ripert produces in his restaurant? And second, is it as significant a question for the home cook as Ripert suggests?

My experience is that salting enough is extremely important, but that patchiness in salting across a piece of fish or meat is less so. In the pantheon of home cooking problems, I would put inconsistent salting across surfaces somewhere below inadequate seasoning, failure to brown, and cooking to just done (and not overdone) as the most significant cook's "craft" problems faced by the home cook. But I wonder if people disagree. (I'll see if I can get the Chef himself to address this through a comment, but barring that, I'll ask the question here).

Broiled Red Snapper Fillet: 1:12 "You can see the way I'm seasoning. I'm not too far, I'm not too close to the fish. I'm maybe five inches on top of the fish, and I'm very focused on it."

Salt and Pepper: (a written post only): To season, hold your hands six to eight inches above the food and sprinkle a fine coating of salt and pepper all over the surface before cooking. Be methodical about seasoning evenly–if you have uneven fillets, use more salt and pepper on the thicker portions.

Parmesan Zucchini with Balsamic: 1:38 Then some fine sea salt, and I make sure I'm very focused when I'm doing the seasoning, because the zucchini is so thin, if you are not concentrated in putting the salt and pepper, you may have something extremely spicy or extremely salty.

Herb Roasted Chicken Tenders: 1:00 Making sure at all times to have your fingers very dry, so that way you can season very precisely.

The sugar buy-out

I recently read that Florida was going to purchase all the assets of Florida's largest sugarcane producer. The decision was haled as a major environmental victory, returning near 200,000 acres to the Everglades. I have no reason to doubt this justification for the deal, but I have to wonder whether this has something to do with the sugar lobby in Florida, which explains the lack of sugar in American Coca-Cola, for example.

Ko Auction

An auction for a reservation at Momofuku Ko has closed at $2,870. Over at eGullet, there has been some suggestion following the recent price hike from $85 for the tasting menu (when we had our meal) to $100, how high the ceiling of Ko pricing might be. My guess is that the auction is, in some ways, an extremely clever way to figure that out. I suspect, of course, that there's a little fluff in the price, because people are motivated to give to charity, but I'd also guess that pricing near the astronomical level of Masa (1200-1600 for a full meal for two with wine) would fill the 12 seats.