I've seen this working paper on the attraction between spendthrifts and tightwads in the blogosphere today. I haven't read it yet, but thinking about my own life, my fiancee and I are actually pretty similar in terms of our spending habits. If I was forced to label ourselves, I would say we were either "selective spendthrifts" or "tightwads by reason of pickiness", which is to say that we are usually very thrifty, except that we will deploy very large sums of money for stuff we think highly valuable.
The trick is that the list of things we think are highly valuable is small, so, for example, I end up wearing a mix of dress shoes so expensive I'm ashamed to mention them and shoes I bought used off e-bay, whereas someone less odd would nix the former and just buy a bunch of new, reasonably priced, Allen Edmonds.
8/12/2009
8/10/2009
Trinidad Sour
We were recently at Dutch Kills here in Astoria to soak away some woes. We met bartender Guiseppe Gonzalez, who made me his own creation, the Trinidad Sour (I'll give you a hundred bucks if you can guess the base spirit in that, he said. The answer? Angostura bitters!) Just delicious, and entirely unexpected.
8/05/2009
Odd interview
I only now noticed this odd interview by Ezra Klein, which Megan McCardle has dealt with. But I wanted to point out the underlined sentence below. Apparently, drug companies are bad because they have administrative costs and such. Unlike their chief competitors, universit . . . Oh. Wait. (see p. 33 for the punch line).
"You occasionally hear that a national health-care system would have a devastating impact on medical innovation -- and particularly on drug research. As the thinking goes, the system would save money, but in saving money, it would reduce profits for drug manufacturers, which would reduce the incentives for innovation. Is this worth worrying about?
No, it isn't. . . . There are a couple reasons that this is a specious argument. One is that according to their filings with the SEC, the drug companies only spend about 15 cents of every dollar on research and development. That's compared to more than 30 cents in administration and marketing and more than 20 cents on shareholder equity. As an investment in R&D, I think any venture capitalist would say a company spending 15 percent on research is not a robust innovation engine".
"You occasionally hear that a national health-care system would have a devastating impact on medical innovation -- and particularly on drug research. As the thinking goes, the system would save money, but in saving money, it would reduce profits for drug manufacturers, which would reduce the incentives for innovation. Is this worth worrying about?
No, it isn't. . . . There are a couple reasons that this is a specious argument. One is that according to their filings with the SEC, the drug companies only spend about 15 cents of every dollar on research and development. That's compared to more than 30 cents in administration and marketing and more than 20 cents on shareholder equity. As an investment in R&D, I think any venture capitalist would say a company spending 15 percent on research is not a robust innovation engine".
8/04/2009
kidnapping
I don't know whether it is right to negotiate with the North Koreans or not, but didn't we just teach the world that if you want a visit from a very high level American emissary, you just need to kidnap a couple of Americans? I'm very puzzled.
8/03/2009
Quick bites
We had some friends over this weekend. I made margaritas, and two kinds of quick bites, before we adjourned to Astoria favorite Agnanti for some killer greek food.
Mini Crab Cakes - I used some claw crab meat from Wholefoods, to which I added lemon zest, parsley, salt, pepper, a little lemon juice, and a few whole wheat bread crumbs from a leftover breakfast toast. I dipped them in egg and breaded them in panko bread crumbs I had put through the food processor. I fried in a little olive oil, and then warmed up at party time in the toaster oven. Each little cake was topped with tartare (store bought mayonnaise, cornichons, salt-cured capers, and lemon) and a little piece of chive.
Gougeres - This is so easy, though I prefer choux in an eclair. Put a cup of water in a pan. Melt 4 tb of butter in the water at the boil, and add a little salt. Pour 4-4.25 ounces of flour (a cup, in other words) into the water all at once, pull off the heat, and stir enthusiastically. Put back on the heat, and dry the resulting dough. What you're trying to achieve is a soft, pretty oily dough that doesn't stick to your hands when you squeeze it. Dry the dough until it leaves a film on the bottom of the pan. Then let cool a little, and beat in 4 eggs one at a time until you have something that looks like mayonnaise. At this point, at flavoring - I used a lot of cheese and dijon mustard. Pipe into little balls, top with egg wash, and cook at 375 until golden brown.
Mini Crab Cakes - I used some claw crab meat from Wholefoods, to which I added lemon zest, parsley, salt, pepper, a little lemon juice, and a few whole wheat bread crumbs from a leftover breakfast toast. I dipped them in egg and breaded them in panko bread crumbs I had put through the food processor. I fried in a little olive oil, and then warmed up at party time in the toaster oven. Each little cake was topped with tartare (store bought mayonnaise, cornichons, salt-cured capers, and lemon) and a little piece of chive.
Gougeres - This is so easy, though I prefer choux in an eclair. Put a cup of water in a pan. Melt 4 tb of butter in the water at the boil, and add a little salt. Pour 4-4.25 ounces of flour (a cup, in other words) into the water all at once, pull off the heat, and stir enthusiastically. Put back on the heat, and dry the resulting dough. What you're trying to achieve is a soft, pretty oily dough that doesn't stick to your hands when you squeeze it. Dry the dough until it leaves a film on the bottom of the pan. Then let cool a little, and beat in 4 eggs one at a time until you have something that looks like mayonnaise. At this point, at flavoring - I used a lot of cheese and dijon mustard. Pipe into little balls, top with egg wash, and cook at 375 until golden brown.
Allegretti
We had not been to a proper restaurant in some time, due mostly to the fact that I have been pretty busy. So on Saturday night, we visited Allegretti, the eponymous two star restaurant of Alain Allegretti, who immigrated to New York from Alain Ducasse's magisterial Louis XV in Monaco. We thought it was terrific - I could not have been reminded more of our meal at Hostellerie Berard last August in the South of France, just after we got engaged. The brief notes I posted on egullet follow:
We went last night as well, based on recommendations from here. A few observations before getting to food. The dining room was *empty*. So empty that I asked one of the staff what was going on. He said that they had only 14 reservations for last night (Saturday) but were expecting 70-80 on both Monday and Tuesday, an odd quirk of traffic he attributed to the fact that their core customer spends August weekends sunning themselves in the Hamptons. Take that for what you will. I also noticed that the tables no longer sported the "crisp white linens" Bruni half-mocked in his review. I wonder whether that is an intentional nod towards the mood.
In terms of what we ate, we intended to have the prix fixe, but it didn't really speak to me. I would have been happy with the striped bass that was on offer as a main course, but wanted neither a ricotta tart or either starter. So we went off into the carte. Happily this was a good choice.
First courses: We had the Taste of Nice and the Octopus a la plancha. While the Taste of Nice is perhaps a little overwrought in the sense that I'm not sure I want six different preparations on a plate, each item was delicious. I especially enjoyed the pissaladiere loaf, which I had never seen before, and the squash blossoms. As for the stuffed red pepper, my only comment is that Allegretti must keep a squadron of Armenian grandmothers imprisoned in the back, as it tasted exactly like my own grandmother's dolma.The octopus was presented as a single long tentacle, lightly dusted with pimenton and served with potatoes. There's not much to say about it, other than that I found it terrific. Tender, well seasoned. Just a very enjoyable dish.
Main Course: Black and White taglietelle with seafood: I had been wanting the seafood soup as a first course, but ended up with the octopus. But the black and white taglietelle with shellfish was a noble substitute, as it replicated much of the flavors one would expect in such a soup - certainly fennel and a little spice creeping around the edges. The shrimp dotting the pasta were perhaps the best cooked shrimp I have ever enjoyed - just this side of wobbly. Cod with Crispy mussels: This was seafood cookery every bit the equal of Le Bernardin. The cod was barely opaque, skin crisp, and the saffron sauce gave the whole thing some needed flavor. As for the crispy mussels, I am sure there was some sort of sweet spice in the breading (clove?), which imbued the whole thing with a sort of North African flair.
Dessert: We shared the peach frangipane. A classic dough, excellent peaches, and a delicious peach gelato. Yes, as others have said, perhaps not a $10 dessert, but I didn't care.We also had cocktails before the meal. Many thumbs up to the Cucumber sling, a refreshing summer drink involving muddled cucumbers, lime, cilantro (!) and mint with 2 oz of Hendrick's gin. Not quite what you'd get at one of the big cocktail lounges, but very nice nonetheless.
We went last night as well, based on recommendations from here. A few observations before getting to food. The dining room was *empty*. So empty that I asked one of the staff what was going on. He said that they had only 14 reservations for last night (Saturday) but were expecting 70-80 on both Monday and Tuesday, an odd quirk of traffic he attributed to the fact that their core customer spends August weekends sunning themselves in the Hamptons. Take that for what you will. I also noticed that the tables no longer sported the "crisp white linens" Bruni half-mocked in his review. I wonder whether that is an intentional nod towards the mood.
In terms of what we ate, we intended to have the prix fixe, but it didn't really speak to me. I would have been happy with the striped bass that was on offer as a main course, but wanted neither a ricotta tart or either starter. So we went off into the carte. Happily this was a good choice.
First courses: We had the Taste of Nice and the Octopus a la plancha. While the Taste of Nice is perhaps a little overwrought in the sense that I'm not sure I want six different preparations on a plate, each item was delicious. I especially enjoyed the pissaladiere loaf, which I had never seen before, and the squash blossoms. As for the stuffed red pepper, my only comment is that Allegretti must keep a squadron of Armenian grandmothers imprisoned in the back, as it tasted exactly like my own grandmother's dolma.The octopus was presented as a single long tentacle, lightly dusted with pimenton and served with potatoes. There's not much to say about it, other than that I found it terrific. Tender, well seasoned. Just a very enjoyable dish.
Main Course: Black and White taglietelle with seafood: I had been wanting the seafood soup as a first course, but ended up with the octopus. But the black and white taglietelle with shellfish was a noble substitute, as it replicated much of the flavors one would expect in such a soup - certainly fennel and a little spice creeping around the edges. The shrimp dotting the pasta were perhaps the best cooked shrimp I have ever enjoyed - just this side of wobbly. Cod with Crispy mussels: This was seafood cookery every bit the equal of Le Bernardin. The cod was barely opaque, skin crisp, and the saffron sauce gave the whole thing some needed flavor. As for the crispy mussels, I am sure there was some sort of sweet spice in the breading (clove?), which imbued the whole thing with a sort of North African flair.
Dessert: We shared the peach frangipane. A classic dough, excellent peaches, and a delicious peach gelato. Yes, as others have said, perhaps not a $10 dessert, but I didn't care.We also had cocktails before the meal. Many thumbs up to the Cucumber sling, a refreshing summer drink involving muddled cucumbers, lime, cilantro (!) and mint with 2 oz of Hendrick's gin. Not quite what you'd get at one of the big cocktail lounges, but very nice nonetheless.
7/30/2009
Buried
I am buried under a lot of work and other things, but what is the (food world) uproar about this study about? Organic food is no healthier than other food, supposedly. But the way I read it is that the study shows that organic food has no more nutrients than other food.
Did anyone ever think the point of organic food is that it has more nutrients? I thought the point was that the food was not layered with pesticides, and that occasionally it tasted better. But the way I see it, the study discussed neither of those issues.
Did anyone ever think the point of organic food is that it has more nutrients? I thought the point was that the food was not layered with pesticides, and that occasionally it tasted better. But the way I see it, the study discussed neither of those issues.
7/21/2009
Non-original thoughts on health-care
Reading through Ezra Klein's morning discussion on health-care raises what to me is the fundamental problem with the left-wing health-care argument. (See, I'm fair to Klein. He might know less than nothing about food, but health care he seems to understand something about, and I do not).
So Klein says that the goal is to reduce national health care expenditures - what I understand as the aggregate spending on health care in the entire country, public and private. And the way to do this, I understand him to believe, is to use so-called "public option" to reduce costs. Fine.
As others have observed, I assume that Klein does not think it is a good idea to organize other parts of our economy in this way. After all, you can make exactly the same arguments about car production, and yet no one would say that we should reduce our national expenditure on cars by having government produce standardized cars with lower, negotiated prices. I recognize that smart people have constructed arguments about why the health care market is different, but I confess I do not completely understand them. But the left argument is dependent on the truth of this proposition.
Even granting the proposition, the bottom line really is that I do not believe there is an appreciable surplus of real waste in private sector healthcare as opposed to the public sector. I suspect, though cannot prove, that the reason national health care expenditures are lower in other countries are a combination of much lower compensation for health care professionals, lower drug costs, much less extraordinary care, and lower creature comforts in hospitals. I would assume an honest liberal would say all those things are true and are the proper cost for ensuring health care for all. Beware anyone who does not grant the truth of those propositions.
I think the left has to face up to the fact that getting universality of coverage and lower aggregate costs means persuading people who already have insurance to accept worse service or higher costs for their current level of service. I don't think they have done this forthrightly.
So Klein says that the goal is to reduce national health care expenditures - what I understand as the aggregate spending on health care in the entire country, public and private. And the way to do this, I understand him to believe, is to use so-called "public option" to reduce costs. Fine.
As others have observed, I assume that Klein does not think it is a good idea to organize other parts of our economy in this way. After all, you can make exactly the same arguments about car production, and yet no one would say that we should reduce our national expenditure on cars by having government produce standardized cars with lower, negotiated prices. I recognize that smart people have constructed arguments about why the health care market is different, but I confess I do not completely understand them. But the left argument is dependent on the truth of this proposition.
Even granting the proposition, the bottom line really is that I do not believe there is an appreciable surplus of real waste in private sector healthcare as opposed to the public sector. I suspect, though cannot prove, that the reason national health care expenditures are lower in other countries are a combination of much lower compensation for health care professionals, lower drug costs, much less extraordinary care, and lower creature comforts in hospitals. I would assume an honest liberal would say all those things are true and are the proper cost for ensuring health care for all. Beware anyone who does not grant the truth of those propositions.
I think the left has to face up to the fact that getting universality of coverage and lower aggregate costs means persuading people who already have insurance to accept worse service or higher costs for their current level of service. I don't think they have done this forthrightly.
7/20/2009
Still busy
The topic of the U.S. Senate and its undemocratic nature (and more specifically, whether that undemocratic nature is a problem) is usually the bailiwich of Professor Levinson at Balkinization, but I wanted to flag a recent decision by the highest German court effectively delaying German ratification of the Lisbon treaty, a much maligned bit of legislation designed to further bind Europe together.
I haven't had the time to read the document entirely, and it is in a stilted translation of assuredly already stilted legal German. Nonetheless, I found the the following of some interest. The German court held that the Lisbon treaty as it was currently constituted violated the Basic Law. Why? Because a single German representative in the European parliament represented far more people than his or her colleague in Malta or Sweden or any smaller country:
"According to the Draft decision, a Member of the European Parliament elected in France would represent approximately 857,000 citizens of the Union and thus as many as a Member elected in Germany, who represents approximately 857,000 as well. In contrast, a Member of the European Parliament elected in Luxembourg would, however, only represent approximately 83,000 Luxembourg citizens of the Union, i.e. a tenth of them, in the case of Malta, it would be approximately 67,000, or only roughly a twelfth of them."
But is this always a violation of general democratic principles? No, said the German court. Just in a representative chamber of government:
"In federal states, such marked imbalances are, as a general rule, only tolerated for the second chamber existing beside Parliament; in Germany and Austria, the second chamber is the Bundesrat, in Australia, Belgium and the United States of America, it is the Senate".
The Court's decision implies all kinds of interesting things, but, alas, I must run. Perhaps later.
I haven't had the time to read the document entirely, and it is in a stilted translation of assuredly already stilted legal German. Nonetheless, I found the the following of some interest. The German court held that the Lisbon treaty as it was currently constituted violated the Basic Law. Why? Because a single German representative in the European parliament represented far more people than his or her colleague in Malta or Sweden or any smaller country:
"According to the Draft decision, a Member of the European Parliament elected in France would represent approximately 857,000 citizens of the Union and thus as many as a Member elected in Germany, who represents approximately 857,000 as well. In contrast, a Member of the European Parliament elected in Luxembourg would, however, only represent approximately 83,000 Luxembourg citizens of the Union, i.e. a tenth of them, in the case of Malta, it would be approximately 67,000, or only roughly a twelfth of them."
But is this always a violation of general democratic principles? No, said the German court. Just in a representative chamber of government:
"In federal states, such marked imbalances are, as a general rule, only tolerated for the second chamber existing beside Parliament; in Germany and Austria, the second chamber is the Bundesrat, in Australia, Belgium and the United States of America, it is the Senate".
The Court's decision implies all kinds of interesting things, but, alas, I must run. Perhaps later.
7/15/2009
Taxes
Do people really think the proposed 45% tax rate on the wealthy will be the last tax increase? Hey, "middle" class (i.e., everyone else) - your turn is coming.
7/14/2009
I am delaying things
In an effort to delay my weekend's food blogging (I made my version of Jean-George's caviar egg and turbot with Chateau Chalon sauce) I note today this article about the plight of adjunct professors at universities.
I note it because the situation perfectly illustrates my point about European social democracy, below. It is very pleasant, in some ways, for the winners of the system, to be either a tenured professor or an employed European. Both people are almost impossible to fire, have many benefits, etc.
But woe to those who aspire to one of those two classes.
I note it because the situation perfectly illustrates my point about European social democracy, below. It is very pleasant, in some ways, for the winners of the system, to be either a tenured professor or an employed European. Both people are almost impossible to fire, have many benefits, etc.
But woe to those who aspire to one of those two classes.
7/09/2009
Ok, you win
I am reading David Kessler's, The End of Overeating, which describes how the food industry exploits biological reality by relying on fat, salt and sugar to encourage overeating (or, at least, that is the message so far).
The odd thing is that I find the book impossible to read, because Kessler's descriptions of the fat, salt and sugar, even though his descriptions touch on things I don't eat (like mass produced snack cakes) cause my mouth to water so much that I find myself distracted and searching for a mass produced snack cake. This is a little startling. So, point taken, Mr. Kessler.
The odd thing is that I find the book impossible to read, because Kessler's descriptions of the fat, salt and sugar, even though his descriptions touch on things I don't eat (like mass produced snack cakes) cause my mouth to water so much that I find myself distracted and searching for a mass produced snack cake. This is a little startling. So, point taken, Mr. Kessler.
7/07/2009
A note on social democracy
For some reason, my republican cohorts have decided that the way to oppose President Obama is to describe various parades of horribles that will occur if he gets his way, many of which have something to do with Europe. See this overwrought example.
The problem with these is that they are false. In fact, life in Europe is very pleasant. For many people, far more pleasant than here. You are taken care of in sickness. Holidays are long and leisour-ous. Children are valued by the state. Jobs, if you have them, are secure. Retirements are less plagued by worry. Obama clearly intends to import some of these ideas, and people are going to like them.
Not recognizing that second point is going to land us conservatives in trouble. People like the welfare state. They are wrong to do so, maybe, and I think America has the balance between individual autonomy and the state's leviathan more right than does Europe. But the idea that our people will revolt when given Obama's welfare state is just wrong. They are going to like it and ask for more, to our detriment. Our counterattack has to recognize the superficial attractions of that model.
The problem with these is that they are false. In fact, life in Europe is very pleasant. For many people, far more pleasant than here. You are taken care of in sickness. Holidays are long and leisour-ous. Children are valued by the state. Jobs, if you have them, are secure. Retirements are less plagued by worry. Obama clearly intends to import some of these ideas, and people are going to like them.
Not recognizing that second point is going to land us conservatives in trouble. People like the welfare state. They are wrong to do so, maybe, and I think America has the balance between individual autonomy and the state's leviathan more right than does Europe. But the idea that our people will revolt when given Obama's welfare state is just wrong. They are going to like it and ask for more, to our detriment. Our counterattack has to recognize the superficial attractions of that model.
A new book
I received a new book in the mail today (ironically at the same time as I start thinking about what to do with my hundreds of books prior to moving in the near future): Au Revoir to all That: Food, Wine and the End of France. It begins positively, and the writing is very good. I suspect I might conclude that the book is overly alarmist about the collapse of the French gourmet culture, but I am open to being convinced.
7/06/2009
A thought
If my explanation to myself of why I am buying some thing or service is any longer than a few words, I'm going to make a mistake by buying that thing or service.
7/01/2009
A late night boozy snack
My fiancee was out on her own last Sunday night, so I took the opportunity to prepare a snack for her return. The base for my effort was the bottle of blue Sapphire gin I had bought earlier in the day. But gin is the most versatile of liquors, and the range of cocktails one can make with gin is almost limitless. Still, I settled quickly on the Singapore Sling, which has been a sort of inside joke in my family for a long time. (The joke is that my father, who doesn't really drink cocktails, always orders it when it seems like one ought to order a cocktail, and the bartender invariably either doesn't know what it is or doesn't have one of the ingredients or, if he or she is of a certain age, does know what it is but makes a comment about no one having ordered a singapore sling unironically since the mid '60s).
Unfortunately, I didn't have Benedictine, one of the components of the traditional drink, but I decided to substitute cognac. Otherwise, the alcoholic ingredients were these (from left to right, Remy Martin VSOP cognac, Cointreau, grenadine (fake - boo!), Bombay Sapphire gin, and Heerings Cherry Liqueur.
Unfortunately, Singapore Slings also include at least 4 oz. of pineapple juice, and after all the effort to secure a small bottle of Heerings, I thought it was a shame to just pop open the usual tin. However, I also don't own a juicer, so I did the only thing I could think of - whizz up a pineapple in a food processor and pass it through a sieve. This worked fine, though it is a hassle.
Singapore Slings need to be poured into a collins glass full of crushed ice. I had neither, but approximated the crushed ice by putting my normal ice into two ziplocs as an impromptu Lewis Bag and smashing it with my heavy mortar. Voila - Singapore Slings.
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This left the snack. But luckily, my cream puff pastry has gotten better over the past year, so I immediately thought of gougeres - roughly speaking, cream puffs with cheese in. I slightly undercooked these due to the hurry I was in, but I thought they were delicious.
In fact, I proudly claimed they were at least as good as the $8 appetizers at Death & Co. My fiancee scrunched up her nose and said, "Aren't they more like the $5 pretzel nuggets?".
6/26/2009
Places I want to eat
So my list of places I want to eat is growing, and yet I am economizing to save my waistline and budget. After all (as to the latter) we have a wedding and then a moving-in together to fund in October!
So instead of actually dining, let me make lists of places I want to go:
Corton - Paul Liebrandt does some exciting cuisine.
The bar at Adour Alain Ducasse - Ducasse dishes for under $15 at the four person holographic wine bar in the St. Regis.
Eleven Madison Park - People keep talking about it.
Daniel - We have idiosyncratic reasons for wanting to go back to Daniel.
Tailor - Modern food with good drinks.
Wd-50 - even more modern food, also with good drinks.
So instead of actually dining, let me make lists of places I want to go:
Corton - Paul Liebrandt does some exciting cuisine.
The bar at Adour Alain Ducasse - Ducasse dishes for under $15 at the four person holographic wine bar in the St. Regis.
Eleven Madison Park - People keep talking about it.
Daniel - We have idiosyncratic reasons for wanting to go back to Daniel.
Tailor - Modern food with good drinks.
Wd-50 - even more modern food, also with good drinks.
Paris is know for its falafels
Amber points out that Ezra Klein has, unaccountably, been given a food column in the Washington Post. My views about Klein's food writing have been abundantly well aired on this blog, so I'll leave my reaction at this: ?!?!!. Also, ?!.
It had escaped my attention, though, that Klein's diabolically bad food blog, the Internet Food Association, also includes blogging by Matt Yglesias. In this post, he makes a reasonable point about a Slate column (i.e., the column is pointless and doesn't match its title) and then adds the equally reasonable observation that France is blessed by an "extremely high level of pedestrian food". Yes, certainly true. Pate, bread, cheese, hams, vegetables of very high quality, milk, butter, cheap bistros, surely. But no! Yglesias was actually referring to "Vietnamese restaurants and falafel shops that would be huge sensations in the United States".
What is Yglesias even talking about? First, the falafel and Vietnamese in Paris are fine, but pretty plain. This is what you eat in Paris when, after the sixth round of epoisse in three days washed down with pork rilettes, you realize that if you eat any more French food you might die. But in fact the great weakness of Paris as a food city, if a weakness it has, it that its ethnic offerings are far more narrow than some of its competitors, and mostly not as good. (See, New York, London). Putting aside the two supposed examples Yglesias gives, the Chinese food is execrable. There is little Indian. Little Thai. Little really good sushi, and the median of sushi is lower. I could probably write dozens of pages on this topic and not exhaust the point. But the real point is that all this is irrelevant. Paris is one of the greatest food cities in the world because of French food. As you might imagine.
Moreover, sensations in the United States? Yglesias, as far as I know, lives about half an hour from what is arguably the locus of Vietnamese cooking in America. Paris's Vietnamese restaurants would be sensations in that area in the sense that they would be flops, made sensational by the fact that they were flopped French vietnamese restaurants. And the idea that one gets exceptional falafel in Paris, so exceptional that those are the things you would mention as examples of good food in Paris - it's not really clear to me how to respond to that. He's wrong. It's as if I said one goes to DC for falafels. Put another way, wrong.
EDIT: Also, as to the substantive point of the Slate article, it is true that French food has declined in quality in the past decade. This has nothing, in my view, to do with Michelin, which after all could only concievably cause a decline in the highest of the high (the Michelin-is-hamstringing-France argument goes something like this - France can't have its own Momofuku because of the Michelin Guide's requirement that a 3-star restaurant be opulent, and therefore its higher end cuisine is staid and falling behind America and Spain) but with a decline in French taste.
Having said that, I do think now is not the time to be serving 130 euro main courses.
EDIT 2: I meant 198 euro main courses. In other words, a main course that costs more than an entire meal at Per Se.
It had escaped my attention, though, that Klein's diabolically bad food blog, the Internet Food Association, also includes blogging by Matt Yglesias. In this post, he makes a reasonable point about a Slate column (i.e., the column is pointless and doesn't match its title) and then adds the equally reasonable observation that France is blessed by an "extremely high level of pedestrian food". Yes, certainly true. Pate, bread, cheese, hams, vegetables of very high quality, milk, butter, cheap bistros, surely. But no! Yglesias was actually referring to "Vietnamese restaurants and falafel shops that would be huge sensations in the United States".
What is Yglesias even talking about? First, the falafel and Vietnamese in Paris are fine, but pretty plain. This is what you eat in Paris when, after the sixth round of epoisse in three days washed down with pork rilettes, you realize that if you eat any more French food you might die. But in fact the great weakness of Paris as a food city, if a weakness it has, it that its ethnic offerings are far more narrow than some of its competitors, and mostly not as good. (See, New York, London). Putting aside the two supposed examples Yglesias gives, the Chinese food is execrable. There is little Indian. Little Thai. Little really good sushi, and the median of sushi is lower. I could probably write dozens of pages on this topic and not exhaust the point. But the real point is that all this is irrelevant. Paris is one of the greatest food cities in the world because of French food. As you might imagine.
Moreover, sensations in the United States? Yglesias, as far as I know, lives about half an hour from what is arguably the locus of Vietnamese cooking in America. Paris's Vietnamese restaurants would be sensations in that area in the sense that they would be flops, made sensational by the fact that they were flopped French vietnamese restaurants. And the idea that one gets exceptional falafel in Paris, so exceptional that those are the things you would mention as examples of good food in Paris - it's not really clear to me how to respond to that. He's wrong. It's as if I said one goes to DC for falafels. Put another way, wrong.
EDIT: Also, as to the substantive point of the Slate article, it is true that French food has declined in quality in the past decade. This has nothing, in my view, to do with Michelin, which after all could only concievably cause a decline in the highest of the high (the Michelin-is-hamstringing-France argument goes something like this - France can't have its own Momofuku because of the Michelin Guide's requirement that a 3-star restaurant be opulent, and therefore its higher end cuisine is staid and falling behind America and Spain) but with a decline in French taste.
Having said that, I do think now is not the time to be serving 130 euro main courses.
EDIT 2: I meant 198 euro main courses. In other words, a main course that costs more than an entire meal at Per Se.
6/25/2009
Green Chartreuse
We had a midweek escapade at Death & Co. tonight. The drinks were as usual terrific, and we got face to face with Green Chartreuse, a deeply herbal French liqueur.
As our bartender noted, doing shots of chartreuse is known as being run over by the chartremoose. It is a startling drink, like sipping on a tree infused in greek fire.
As our bartender noted, doing shots of chartreuse is known as being run over by the chartremoose. It is a startling drink, like sipping on a tree infused in greek fire.
Busy, busy
I haven't blogged because I am quite busy with about 5 different things, but I did want to note our visit last night to Company, Jim Lahey's pizza house (my previous visit is here). The pizzas are still good, and still inferior to Motorino's, though I have to say the meatball was extraordinarily flavorful. And I do not quite understand how Lahey gets away with charging $3 for literally one piece of toast with a spread as an appetizer.
Above all, this really is more a bakery than a pizzeria. Lahey's bread is masterful, without question. I wonder whether the right answer here might not be a pizza bianca, without toppings, and a salad. Our simple caprese was, unexpectedly given the season, magnificent.
Above all, this really is more a bakery than a pizzeria. Lahey's bread is masterful, without question. I wonder whether the right answer here might not be a pizza bianca, without toppings, and a salad. Our simple caprese was, unexpectedly given the season, magnificent.
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