Monday, March 2, 2009
Restaurants Knife's Edge: Food borne illness
Posted by Richard Blais on Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 3:00 PM
My birthday was last week. As with most chefs (or probably most people), I got to choose where to go for dinner with my family. In recent years, I’ve picked a basic steak restaurant. Or a kitchen doing quality pasta. Or even a typical chain restaurant. For my last three birthdays we went to Fogo de Chao, Ted’s and Outback. Once, I picked the Olive Garden. It’s true. It was a deliberate choice. I wanted to ease the pressure of the “chef’s big dinner out”. I also don’t mind iceberg lettuce, canned olives, and undercooked bread once a year. But this wasn’t always the case.
When a young cook starts out, everything truly is a wonder. Our first few serious meals are looked at through curious eyes. We don’t know much, so it’s all stimulating. I remember my first few restaurant meals early in my career clear as day. Horseradish mashed potatoes. A crispy chip of lotus root. Lamb shank with a giant stem of rosemary sticking in it. Ostrich with a Coca Cola demi glace.
I would enthusiastically tell the waiter I was in culinary school. I asked what farfalle was because I didn’t know, and I admired the chefs of these kitchens as if they were superstars. This wasn’t Paris, by the way, it was Long Island. Most of theses guys were a shade removed from frying calamari. I was just happy to be there.
Fast forward five years, and the food I’ve described (as it may have seemed to you while reading about it) was a joke. An offensive one, which I didn’t actually find funny. Who would dare stick a stem of rosemary, an inedible garnish, on a finished plate? What horror! If you were dining out with me during this period... well, I’m sorry. There’s a chance you were a normal person who honestly didn’t care less about the way the chives were sliced for that baked potato. My disgust at the fact that they were actually scallions, and not chives at all, probably irritated you. The discourse that ensued about the fact the spud was really microwaved, and not even baked, sealed the deal. There was no second date.
This type of behavior gets much worse. The more you know, the more you know what’s wrong, or worse, the more you think you know, the more you think you know what’s wrong. It pours over into critiquing service. Even wine. If you’re really affected, you’ll start quizzing servers instead of asking questions. If you’re seriously obsessed, you’ll come back to your dining partner from a trip to the water closet, and discuss the restaurant’s bathroom maintenance. Shit, you even start saying things like “water closet”. Before you realize it, you’ve stepped into a world of industry douche baggery. A world typically reserved for newspaper critics, those who want to be newspaper critics, food bloggers, and jerk chefs.
It’s torture. You can’t enjoy any meal you didn’t cook yourself. You can’t even enjoy the ones you do, but that’s a topic we’ll discuss down the road perhaps. You lose girlfriends, or boyfriends, or both. Even home-cooked meals become tarnished. Like really, why would mom not sear the beef for her hamburger helper-assisted beef stroganoff? What a hack!
Eventually, I got it. I sweated it out. Broke the cycle. Cured my own tongue. For my birthday this year, we visited Craft. I was able to enjoy the experience, and also accept the inspiration that can come from dining in a great restaurant. Without the chip that so many of us carry on our shoulder.
I was one of the lucky ones. I finally realized that dining out wasn’t the same as preparing food for my restaurant. That my happiness, outside my kitchen, came from the company I kept. Feeling good about eating out was about simple things. Even, wait...satiating hunger. Happiness as a customer doesn’t revolve around the same things that make me happy as a chef in my own kitchen.
As a diner, chives versus scallions doesn’t matter so much.
Comments (13)
Showing 1-13 of 13
Blah blah blah Enjoy your 15 minutes in this cow town Or go to NYC and get eaten alive like Joel.
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Great essay--- brings back painful memories of when I was a "cooler than thou" film student.
Loved the piece, just like last week. Can't wait to read more. It's so true, a little education makes for a lot P.O'd friends, no one like the know it all... I wonder, what inspiration you can give for those "waiting" for recognition (last blog) and how to deal with the blogger/food critics who don't beleive or criticize without understanding?
great job as usual! an intresting perspective that will be great to read each week!
Chef: Glad you ended with the realization that its about the atmosphere and the company. Learning to enjoy life is definitely an art, no matter what our work.
I sometimes still catch myself criticizing the dumbest things at restaurants. Then I slap myself and tell myself to pull my head out of my butt. As you said, I like to appreciate good company more than whinging about chives vs. scallions. Olive Garden, by the way, is awesome.
My dear Richard. Please informa me the next time you are going to publish a column so that I can be the VERY VERY first to use a cowardly alias and poop on your doorstep and hope that you fail. Then I would be almost as honorable as Rush Limbaugh, wouldn't I? It's patriotic to wish that talented people who are team players fail miserably, at least that's what I've heard from his informed fandom. (Ga-hilk.) I for one—as a writer, an eater, a cook,and an appreciator of human beings who accen-tu-ate the positive—delight in your work: on the stove, on camera, and from your computer. I'm a food blogger, but I have never used the word "water closet." Promise. I just call it "the toidy." One suggestion I hope is helpful is that "Knife's Edge" is already taken as a very popular food blog of a Northern California chef, so you might want to consider a new name for your column. Which I hope is long-lived and brings much to the readership of Creative Loafing. Hey. You aren't one of those chefs who demands that people outside the kitchen, who don't work for him, call him "Chef," I hope. Otherwise you need to change your first name at Facebook. I doubt you're that kind of a douchebag. Cheers from starry California! Signed with my real name and not some stupid white Klan hood. (I grew up in Marietta and can say whatever damn thing about Georgia I want to.) Tana
Yes, Richard, please do write in the future about not enjoying the meals you cook yourself. I'm no chef, but when I prepare meals that I know objectively are likely delicious -- due to having expertise in the type of cuisine plus adding the love -- I never enjoy them fully. It's very hard to evaluate dishes that I've just cooked. Fortunately, I always aim for leftovers and the next day I can make a much more balanced judgment. Do you know what's up with that (or is this an aberration, i.e. others aren't similarly affected)? I really enjoyed your blogs on Bravo's Top Chef site this year and look forward to what you write here.
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