Steingartening at Night

I started reading Jeffrey Steingarten's "The Man Who Ate Everything" recently. I picked it up on the recommendation of Chef Norman Van Aken, who gave a "reading list" as a preview of his new restaurant in Coral Gables, due to open (fingers crossed, everyone) this fall. I had read Steingarten's pieces here and there in Vogue and found his writing wildly inconsistent. Sometimes it seems he'd really nailed a subject with insight and wit, other times like the piece was a first draft thrown together at deadline. I enjoyed him early on as a judge on Iron Chef America but think he's now limited himself by being the self-appointed panel curmudgeon. The book, a collection of essays mostly written in the late 1980s and early 1990s, has been much more consistent, showing a willingness to really dive in and research subjects and also a great comedic touch.

I just came across his latest piece in Vogue, "Favorite L.A. Restaurants." Perhaps not surprisingly, given the above comments, there are points where I think he's right on target and others where I'm left scratching my head.

I won't blame him for the preposterous sub-title to the story, which was presumably written by someone else: "Vogue's inimitable food critic Jeffrey Steingarten discovers five hidden gems." Can you think of any L.A. restaurants that have been more talked-up than José Andrés' Bazaar, Jon Shook & Vinny Dotolo's Animal, and Mozza, the pizzeria from the power trifecta of Nancy Silverton, Joe Bastianich, and Mario Batali? "Hidden gems"? Anyway, the piece sparked a couple random thoughts:

In speaking of Bazaar, there was this, on a subject that's been kicked around some here:

Many of Andrés’s dishes are what seems these days to be called “molecular gastronomy,” or sometimes just “molecular.” (This is a foolish, misleading way of referring to the very modern methods of creating novel dishes by using technical and scientific tricks to surprise and amuse the diner, enhance the flavor and texture, and in the ideal, provoke thought. But the term continues to increase in popularity, and for now, there’s no fighting it.) Molecular gastronomy was named in 1992, but the concept was discussed at least five years earlier and practiced independently by Spanish chef Ferran Andrìa (José Andrés’s mentor) and has penetrated mainstream cooking in small and mainly insignificant ways. Andrés’s dishes are technically creative and unusual, and they (nearly) always taste extremely good. That’s why his food is important and worthy of our attention.

I tend to agree with the "foolish, misleading" part; I may have to reluctantly concede the "there's no fighting it" part; I'm not sure I would have given credit to Ferran Andrìa [sic] over Herve This; I'd like to think further about the "small and mainly insignificant ways" comment; and I whole-heartedly agree that food is important and worthy of attention if it tastes extremely good.

On the other hand, I continue to be baffled by the repeated fawning over Animal as if its meat-centric menu is an equivalent revelation to Niels Bohr's discovery of the structure of the atom. It all sounds good, but as I've noted previously, I just don't see how this is so different from much of what's being served at any number of other places around the country - including Miami (which of course means there must be a dozen places like it in New York as well). Except for a couple inspired signature dishes (the foie gras "loco moco," the bacon chocolate crunch bar), this looks like any number of other restaurant menus I've perused. It certainly seems over the top to say "I doubt there's another one like it." Steingarten gushes, "I must learn to replicate the homely crispy hominy served with a wedge of lime; maybe I’ll find it in Jon and Vinny’s popular cookbook, Two Dudes, One Pan." Or he could just ask Michael Schwartz for it.

Of course, no food column is complete these days without mentioning a pizzeria, and this one follows suit, paying homage to Mozza, the L.A. legend. In fairness, Steingarten is no Johnny Come Lately to the pizza thing, having written about his quest for the perfect pizza several years ago (note: this is definitely worth a click-through).

Speaking of which ... coming next, Pizza Crawl Part IV - the final crawl.

... and NAOE in Dine Magazine South Florida

You saw the pictures, now you can read a write-up of my last great meal at NAOE in Dine Magazine South Florida.

Paradigm Series Named "Post of the Month"

Thanks to South Florida Daily Blog and its readers for voting the three part series documenting my experience in the kitchen for a "Paradigm" dinner at Neomi's in Sunny Isles as the June "Post of the Month."

The original links are here:

In the Test Kitchen at Paradigm (Part I) - Sunny Isles
In the Test Kitchen at Paradigm (Part II) - Sunny Isles
Lessons Learned in the Test Kitchen

Frank Bruni Gets in on Pizza Crawl

Look what we started! In today's New York Times: The Cult of the Artisanal Pizza - Crust Is a Canvas for Pizza's New Wave, with comments on nearly a dozen new New York pizzerias. Can't wait for the "What does Bruni know about pizza?" chorus from the NY pizzerati to begin.

Does Transglutaminase Work on Shark Meat?

I do believe the phrase "molecular gastronomy" has officially jumped the shark. In what has to be one of the goofiest little bits of prose I've ever read, The Feedbag brings us this gem: Mystery Behind Meat Glue Revealed. The 150-word thriller explaining how "molecular gastronomers" use transglutaminase, a/k/a "meat glue," is cribbed pretty much directly from this equally goofy piece, "What is Meat Glue?", from the Tampa Bay Examiner's resident "Molecular Gastronomy Examiner."^[*] The Feedbag piece even duplicates the misspelling of transglutaminase as "triglutaminase" as well as the ungrammatical explanation that it "[is] an enzymes [sic] that catalyzes covalent bonds between free amine groups and gamma-caroxminid [sic] groups of protein or peptide bond [sic] gluatamine [sic]." That super-scientific explanation - minus the misspellings - is lifted directly from (drum roll please) Wikipedia. The Examiner article also references a "trilutaminase" for variety, while Feedbag mixes it up by throwing in the obligatory "Frankensteinish ingredients" comment.

[Sigh.] I don't even know where to start, so I won't. I do enjoy reading Feedbag, but their coverage of "molecular gastronomy" certainly leaves something to be desired. On the other hand, it's probably helpful that we've reached the point that 90% of the time, you can safely assume that someone using the phrase "molecular gastronomy" has no idea what they're talking about.

^[*]"Examiners" are freelance, apparently unedited, writers for the paper's website.

Best Of ... What, Exactly? - Updated

In today's Short Order blog, Lee Klein of Miami New Times offers a baffling and seemingly self-defeating explanation of the NT's annual "Best of Miami"^[*] listings. First, let me confess that I've never put much weight in this list, and really just stopped reading it entirely when a couple years ago they gave the "Best Restaurant Wine List" award to Maroosh, a perfectly serviceable Middle-Eastern restaurant whose wine list is - really, no exaggeration - less exceptional than many convenience stores I've been to. Seriously. Unless of course you consider a horizontal collection of the ubiquitous, mass-production Kendall-Jackson "Vintner's Reserve" to be impressive (they have the Chardonnay, the Zinfandel, the Cabernet Sauvignon AND the Merlot!). This was such an insult both to the several local restaurants that make an effort to put out interesting, fairly priced wine lists, and the diners who genuinely give a crap about such things, that I just stopped reading "Best of Miami." I didn't even look at the thing last year.

Besides, I'm just not a big believer in the whole "best" concept. Maybe I'm just incapable of making decisions or lacking in strong opinions (unlikely), but I find most matters, food or otherwise, to be too nuanced to declare such absolute superlatives. Best Spanish? I love Michelle Bernstein's contemporary take on tapas at Sra. Martinez, but I also like the more straight-ahead versions at Xixon; I also love the callos and ensalada rusa at Copas y Tapas, and the bacalaitos at Taberna Giralda, to say nothing of the more formal dinner fare at Ideas. Is one the "best"? I couldn't say; depends what I'm in the mood for any particular day. Dim sum? Tropical is the most consistent, but I had better chicken feet at Mr. Chu's on South Beach (before it closed - here's hoping they reinstate dim sum at the new Coral Gables location). These kinds of lists draw in readers (and, thusly, advertisers), but I don't think they usually mean all that much.

But the New Times' preemptive defense, hoping to avoid the "catcalls of derision," just gives me more reasons to disregard the latest list:

We do try to choose what we think is the best in each category, but with the same set of unofficial caveats that Oscar voters abide by. For instance, we are just as hesitant to name the same winner for the same item two years in a row. Do our readers need to read that Garcia's makes a great fish sandwich year after year after year? We think not.

So, if readers are looking for, say, the best fish sandwich, they should only rely on New Times every other year? This is the "Best of Miami - Unless You Were the Best Last Year"? How do I know whether this is the year that really has the "best," or this is the year that you decided to list someone else just for the sake of variety?

Plus nowadays every publication and online food site has their own set of bests -- do we really need to read that Garcia's makes a great fish sandwich 20 times a year?

No. Agreed. Completely. But then - and maybe I've lost my train of thought here - what exactly is the point of this "Best of Miami" thing anyway?

On the other hand, you can't put together a credible overview without giving nods to those establishments that everybody knows are deserving. So we mix it up -- best actor this year, best supporting the next. And we are also extremely unlikely to give more than one nod to any restaurant in any one year -- so if your favorite steak house didn't win Best Steak House, it may be because it won Best Restaurant In South Beach. Or vice versa.

So if, again, let's say I'm looking for the best fish sandwich in Miami, and it happens to be one of those years that the place that actually has the best fish sandwich in Miami isn't being listed for "Best Fish Sandwich in Miami" (because that would be so boring), I should instead look in, say, the category for "Best Restaurant that has Park Benches In Back Looking Out on a Somewhat Dingy But Still Slightly Charming in its Own Way Part of the Miami River"? Very helpful. And once again, if "everybody knows" what restaurants are deserving of awards, then what, exactly, is the point of publishing the list?

This is for those bloggers -- and I'm talking to you, Chowhounders -- who annually blather on about how our more questionable picks just have to be attributed to an attempt to please advertisers. Let me say, once and for all, that this is simply not the case, and never has been -- both in terms of our Best Of issue, and all other writing. Period.^[**]

Just for the record, I have never said that. And in fact, the numbers tend to bear it out - sort of. You can take a look at the 2008 Best of Miami listings, and only a small fraction of the award-recipients are advertisers, and there are certainly a lot more advertisers than awards. On the other hand, I suspect - and this may tie into the now-acknowledged "let's mix it up regardless of who's really the best" philosophy - many current advertisers have been recipients of prior awards, and vice versa. I am not a subscriber to the "advertiser conspiracy" theory; however, it shouldn't give anyone much comfort that some picks are so outright bizarre that the most natural explanation that occurs to some readers is that they must be paid for.

But I do think New Times' own explanation for its "best of" decision-tree is reason enough to doubt its reliability, independent of the unsubstantiated rumors of advertiser influence. If the purpose is really to just pick the "best" in any category, it shouldn't remotely matter whether the same place was named previously. Spreading the wealth around, just for the heck of it, does little to assist diners and undermines whatever credibility the publication might otherwise have.

It seems that the implicit message is "It's all just entertainment, don't take it too seriously, we're just trying to sell a newspaper here after all." (Of course, being a free paper, what they're really selling is advertising.) And I understand that. But sadly, the "Best of" Primer presents a very compelling argument for why anyone who really cares about finding the best food in Miami may well find New Times' "Best of Miami" largely useless in that endeavor.

Update: I posted a paraphased version of this as a comment on the Short Order post, and Lee Klein gave a pretty lengthy, earnest response. It hasn't changed my mind on much, but it does provide some further explanation. As some have already noted in comments here, there's nothing wrong with provoking a healthy debate over food.

^[*]Image at top via Miami New Times.

^[**]I don't think anyone's bothered to mention the New Times "Best of Miami" list on Chowhound for more than two years, so "annually" would seem to be a stretch. But nonetheless, it's nice to know that Lee Klein is reading Chowhound for reasons other than just picking up ideas on what restaurant to visit next - "Gustavo the hairdresser"? Really?

Morning Reading Material

Some interesting reading material this morning:

• Michael Bauer's blog for the San Francisco Chronicle suggests that the gourmet pizza trend is a bi-coastal phenomenon.


• Robert Parker's Wine Advocate gets called out by the Wall Street Journal for reviewers taking freebies - a story that first came out in the Dr. Vino wine blog a month ago.


• A piece in the Atlantic Food Channel looks at the diet of pigs destined to become jamon iberico de bellota (the conclusion that "there's very little that's "all-natural" about it" seems a little overblown).

Don't forget the Miami Pizza Crawl starts tomorrow 6:30 pm at Joey's Wynwood, then moves to Pizzavolante and (if appetites allow) Andiamo. If you're hoping to join in and haven't done so yet, please join the Miami Chowdown Google Group and let me know so we can try to plan accordingly.

Cracking the Codes - Further Thoughts

There was a further thought on the issue of blogger ethics codes which I was going to include in my initial post on the subject, but decided not to. Coincidentally, it just happened to present itself again today. The question is whether this is just a blogger issue, or whether (as I think most people assume) print journalists are adhering to the standards described in these codes, and whether it's legitimate to expect them to.

Word out of Chicago is that Esquire restaurant writer John Mariani is making the rounds. Indeed, somehow it's common knowledge (to MenuPages Chicago, at least) where he's dining before he even arrives. MP Chicago gives a link that may help explain its Nostradamus-like ability to foretell the future, a story from a few years ago indicating that Mariani had sent a four-page list of requests to a restaurant he was about to visit, including requests to be comped for "everything from cab fare to his hotel bill." A later story in the L.A. Times took Mariani to task for non-disclosure of non-anonymous, comped meals.

Mariani still is apparently far from inconspicious. Here's something of a play-by-play of his current Chicago visit:

Not exactly the best example of following the American Food Journalists' Critics' Guidelines. But my point here is not to single out John Mariani. Though this may be a somewhat extreme example, it seems that often these rules can be honored more in the breach than in the observance even by "professional" journalists. Read this Wall Street Journal story on the Miami satellite restaurants of Scott Conant's Scarpetta and Alfred Portale's Gotham Steak in the Fontainebleau Resort and tell me if you think there's any chance the author paid more than one visit to either restaurant. Admittedly it's a bit of a fluff piece, and the writer did have the good sense to venture beyond the NY outposts and pay a visit to local product Michy's, so I'm not all that troubled (though it is curious that the local consensus seems to be that Scarpetta's getting it right and Gotham's got issues, and the writer had it contrariwise). This local review of a newly opened Italian restaurant, I Corsini, although it makes parenthetical mention of a second visit (in which the only dish described is referred to as "perfectly cooked" and "savory"), takes so much joy in describing the service and kitchen snafus from the first visit that it's completely lost in the shuffle. Was the service equally abysmal on the second visit? Is it fair to judge a restaurant based on "one appetizer, one pasta, two entrees, and one dessert"? Maybe so. Additional comments on the place seem to indicate the review was pretty much on target.

Particularly with newspapers cutting back on budgets and facing increasing competition from online media, it may be unrealistic to expect all of these rules to be honored by the traditional media outlets as well. Which really matter, and which can be compromised? The funny thing is, if I read enough of their work, it's always been pretty easy for me to figure out the reviewers I trust.

Cracking the Codes

A couple weeks ago, a proposed "Food Blog Code of Ethics," followed shortly by some Reviewers' Guidelines from the same site, got quite a bit of play. Much of it is actually duplicative of what's in the Association of Food Journalists' Food Critic's Guidelines, though perhaps a "lite" version. Being a conscientious type, I spent a good bit of time thinking these things over. There are some good if not particularly revolutionary ideas in there - be accountable; be civil; reveal biases and comps; don't plagiarize; be fair to new restaurants. There are some others that may not work for every situation - don't post anonymously;^[1] try to visit more than once before posting;^[2] wait at least a month before reviewing a place.

Caught somewhat asleep at the switch, eGullet chimed in several days later with the assertion that they'd actually been hard at work on this for years, linking back to a thread from late 2007 which started with the prospect of a "list of guidelines" for posters, and quickly degenerated into a classic example of the meta-discussion to which the intertubes are prone, fading off into oblivion (with no guidelines) more than a year ago. The proposed eGullet code which emerged a week ago is not too dissimilar, though with more of a focus on site maintenance issues and less on aping the AFJ's guidelines. Meanwhile, the eGullet proposal prompted this rather pointed and ad hominem response from another website.

After much deliberation, I'm staying out of the fray. I operate by some simple rules:

• Be honest.
• Don't be a douche.

If that's a "code," then so be it.

^[1]This would appear to be a fairly loose rule, given this exception: "Even if we choose to write anonymously for our own personal or professional safety, we will not post anything that we wouldn’t feel comfortable putting our name on and owning up to." I'm good with that.

^[2]Again, this one seems to have been softened from the initial draft, now acknowledging "We realize that this is an ideal. Some people are writing about restaurants that they go to in their travels, and most of us don’t have the money to go to places more than once (and find it especially hard to cough up the extra dough if a place stinks the first time we go). If you only go to a restaurant once, just say so."

How to Win Friends and Influence People

While it's nice to hear that chef Jason Hall of Eos, the new Michael Psilakis / Donatella Arpaia venture in the Viceroy Hotel in Miami, is excited over some funky Sardinian goat cheese aged in a suckling goat's stomach that they're putting on the menu, locals may be less pleased to hear his thoughts on Miami:

I don’t really like Miami that much. It’s OK to visit for SOBE but I want to get back to New York.

Well, thanks for visiting anyway. Not exactly the kind of stuff that disabuses me of my perception on the influx of out-of-town chefs to Miami.

Bad Science or Bad Cooking?

Several days ago a rather snarky review, "When Bad Science Meets Good Food," of a Buenos Aires restaurant, La Vineria de Gualterio Bolivar, appeared on the Atlantic Food Channel website. La Vineria's chef, Alejandro Dijilio, is one of the ever-increasing number of chefs who have a stage at El Bulli on their resume and have gone out to colonize the world with their own versions of contemporary cooking (or, as it's more frequently, if inaccurately, called, "molecular gastronomy"). I've not been to the restaurant, so I can't say whether the food is good, bad or indifferent. But what I found objectionable was the tone of the review, which seemed to criticize not so much the food, or the execution, but rather the entire genre of "molecular gastronomy," as if it - and not bad cooking - were to blame for a dissatisfying meal.

Indeed, the review starts off:

Behold, the Molecular Gastronomist! Marvel as he whips, gels, foams, and deconstructs your food, much as he would his own hair. Admire his sullen expression as he leans over, tweezers in hand, to artfully apply grains of black pepper and dehydrated orange peel to your spoonful of Jellied Olive Oil and White Truffle Powder. And soldier on when you realize that all you are eating, really, is a slightly-gelatinous bit of olive oil, whose concentration mutes all the other flavors around it, and reminds you of forced dosages of cough medicine as a child.

After much more of the same snarkiness (in which the chef is dubbed "McG", the author claims that "every McG must have at least fourteen thousand courses on their menu," etc.), the author concludes with a question:

Why can't more chefs just serve food that is simply comforting, and comfortingly simple? Not all of you are meant to paint a canvas on the plate.

To which I responded with a question of my own:

Why is this about "molecular gastronomy" and not about bad cooking? There are plenty of lousy restaurants making "traditional" food, but the reaction when someone experiences one is not "Why aren't they using an immersion circulator and a pacojet?"

Bad execution is just that, and there is no culinary genre that is immune to it. The lesson, if there is one, is that a stage at El Bulli (or any other highly regarded restaurant) does not of itself make someone a great chef - a lesson I've seen demonstrated several times.

The author has now responded, and perhaps we're not so far off after all. He now says:

What concerns me is chefs diving into "molecular gastronomy" and ignoring what they do well. I have nothing against the movement. ... But there is a fad as well, a bandwagon of McGs, and it is unfortunate to see a good chef hop on it without seeming to realize where he's going.

No doubt, contemporary techniques and ingredients will not improve a chef that doesn't have solid fundamentals. In addition, a chef without a clear vision, and the talent to realize it, will rarely create a great meal regardless of the genre in which they choose to operate. But I think it's crucial to distinguish these individual failures from the genre itself. If I have a bad bowl of pasta, I don't castigate the entire body of Italian cuisine. And if I have a bad meal from someone working in the arena of "molecular gastronomy" - it's just bad cooking.

James Beard Journalism Awards Announced

Several weeks ago I listed the nominees in the media and journalism categories for the James Beard Awards, with links to the nominees' writings in Part I, Part II, and Part III here. The winners have now been announced and you can see the list here, so I won't regurgitate it all over again. Just a couple thoughts:

• Swine flu or no, it was the year of the pig, with multiple porcine stories winning awards: The Pope of Pork by Kristen Hinman, Riverfront Times, and High on the Hairy Hogs: Super-Succulent Imports are Everything U.S. Pork Isn't by Rebekah Denn, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.


• Monica Eng and Phil Vettel wuz robbed. I thought their piece in the Chicago Tribune on Michael Carlson of Schwa restuarant was just a fantastic and fascinating read. The story that won the category, Sushi Bullies in the WSJ, I thought was sort of goofy. Even more disappointing in light of news that Monica Eng is being moved by the Trib off the food beat.

Book awards and chef / restaurant awards are just getting started tonight. Any predictions?

Edited to add: a complete shutout for South Florida tonight in the chef/restaurant awards. Michael Schwartz of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, Douglas Rodriguez of Ola, Zach Bell of Café Boulud all bypassed for John Currence of City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippi in the Best Chef: South category. Hmph. Go figure.

Get Rich Quick!

Or maybe not. The 2008 StarChefs.com Salary Survey is a detailed and intriguing look at the economics of the restaurant business for those in the kitchen. The quick take-aways:

• Salaries for executive chefs are down (3.5% from last year), averaging $74,869.
• Salaries for pastry chefs are way down (13%), averaging $46,228 - guess we're all skipping desssert more often.
• Sous chef salaries are actually going up (5% from last year), averaging $44,205.
• Miami is the place to be. Executive chef salaries in Miami, at an average of $90K+, are higher than any other city noted in the survey, including NY, LA, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago.
• Doing a stage in a working kitchen (especially one outside the U.S.) may be a better investment than culinary school. While culinary school grads actually make less on average than their uneducated brethren (just kidding!), chefs who have worked outside the U.S. make nearly 20% more than their peers who have never ventured abroad.
• Maybe not getting rich so quick after all - executive chefs with 5-8 years of experience are not getting close to that $75K average, instead their average salary is $52,579. It's only those with 13+ years of experience that are making in the $75K range.
• Kitchens are still, by and large, sausage fests. 78% of the 1,000+ survey respondents were men, and male exec chefs are earning nearly $15K more than women.
• Slackers need not apply. Most culinary professionals are working 9-11 hours a day and 50+ hours a week, with more than 16% working 65+ hours a week.

Bulldog BBQ Redux - The Pros Check In

I gave my thoughts on Bulldog BBQ a couple months ago. Now, on the same day, the pros from Miami Herald and New Times check in. You'd think everyone had the same crib sheet.

• look - sleek and modern
• good - turkey chili, fried oyster app, burnt end beans
• bland - curiously under-flavored meats, cornbread and slaw
• not quite right - smoky, sour mac & cheese
• portions - large
• beers - lousy selection
• "hot chocolate puddin' cake" - molten chocolate cake in blue-collar drag
• bbq purists - don't bother
• verdict - still a decent meal, even if it ain't real 'cue.
  

What's That Growing in the Fridge?

I think the area of fermentation is an under-explored genre of food manipulation. At our recent visit to Akelaŕe, a dish described as "milk and grape, cheese and wine in parallel evolution" promised to explore the subject, but while the concept was there, I thought the execution was somewhat lacking.

I've always generally understood how the fermentation process works with wine, with yeast acting to convert the sugars in the grape juice into alcohol. I understood it less with regard to fermented vegetables (i.e., kim chee) and meats (i.e., sausages) until doing a little research. My naive understanding now is that it is in most respects essentially the same process, but instead of sugar converting to alcohol, it is the conversion of carbohydrates into lactic acid by means of beneficial bacteria. It is this lactic acid which both acts to preserve the foods and helps eliminate bad bacteria.

In any event, here's an interesting little interview with Sandor Katz, fermentation maven, on the topic of home fermentation, which in turn led me to his website, Wild Fermentation. I suspect I've had some unintentional home fermentation projects going on at one time or another - this suggests a more purposeful approach.

Offal Strange

In a piece on Houston restaurant Feast, Frank Bruni writes:

Feast would, in fact, be a gamble anywhere in America, because the menu doesn’t just slip in a little tongue here, a little liver there. It’s a full-on, extended ode to offal that has no real peer in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major cities that pride themselves on their epicurean adventurousness.

Umm, perhaps maybe you've heard of some guy in San Francisco named Chris Cosentino - has a restaurant called Incanto, is so dedicated to offal he runs a website called Offal Good? No? How about Cochon in New Orleans, where at any given time you can have rabbit livers, boudin, pork cheeks, hogshead cheese and pig-ear salad?

Look, the restaurant sounds lovely, much like the culinary version of a St. John cover band (one of the chefs spent several years there, and even the website tries to imitate the retro-minimalist look and feel of that bastion of nose-to-tail eating), and I'm all in favor of paying attention to the nasty bits, but let's not get carried away. Especially when less than a third of the items on the current menu on Feast's website actually feature offal. It's not exactly like the trend has eluded Bruni's home town, either, where a place like Casa Mono likely has a comparable number and ratio of dishes using "spare parts" (pig's feet, lamb tongue, sweetbreads, foie, cockscombs, tripe, bone marrow, duck hearts, pork belly anyone?)

Kvatchy McCrankypants

Boy, do I ever sound like a curmudgeon. Thanks, New Times, for letting me vent, and thanks, "community," for letting me be your spokesperson.

Pork Pirates? - Please.

Miami New Times gets all up in arms this week over pig farmers in Miami-Dade County slaughtering and butchering their own pigs. Almost all of the article's sturm and drang is over the fact that these farmers (illegally) kill their own pigs for customers, replete with graphic and dramatic descriptions of the process ("the animals are killed like Mafia capos"; "The air is acrid with the twin aromas of blood and shit"). The only thing missing is to name one of the pigs "Wilbur."

Ironically, the description of the slaughtering and butchering process is almost exactly like what is described as happening in the slaughterhouses down the street - the animal is shot between the eyes with a heavy-caliber pistol (the slaughterhouses instead use an electric stun gun), then immediately the throat is slit, the pig is bled, scalded, shaved, and hung, and organs and hooves are removed. According to the article, the whole process takes 20 minutes. At the slaughterhouse? "They follow national slaughter guidelines requiring that hogs be stunned by an electric bolt and that their necks be quickly slit. The carcasses are then hung upside-down and drained of blood." So what's your preference - bullet or stun gun? Paper or plastic? Yes, it's a gruesome business, but it always is.

The alarmist tone of the article is perhaps best demonstrated by this little nugget, describing a police raid on a farm in west Kendall - "among the meat found in refrigerators was what appeared to be neatly packaged horse flesh." (Gordon Ramsay would be proud.) A full 600 words later it's revealed that "what appeared to be horse meat was found by inspectors to be beef." Well - that sort of changes things a bit, doesn't it?

While getting all worked up over the fact that they're killing pigs on the farm (which, of course, is exactly what they're raised for), the article fails to shed much light on several questions that might be of greater concern: (1) are the animals well-tended? (there are suggestions, but no evidence at all, that pigs are fed slaughtered pigs' entrails, but otherwise no information at all on their living conditions); (2) are there health issues? (not according to "state food safety chief" Dr. John Fruin, who said "If a piece of meat is properly cooked, even from an illegal slaughter operation, there's not much risk"); (3) are there environmental issues? (no explanation at all of what the farmers are doing to dispose of waste, nor, for that matter, how it compares to what the legal slaughterhouses are doing).

Look, there's not much reason to believe any of these farmers are artisans inspired by Michael Pollan's boar hunt and his channeling of Ortega y Gasset as described in "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (although one of them does claim to be raising feral hogs). But - absent further information not elucidated by the article - this hardly seems like the greatest danger to our local foodways. Indeed, notwithstanding the drama, I suspect the more common reaction is going to be "Where can I get some?" rather than "How horrible!"

Reading Material - Part III - James Beard Books

In Part I and Part II, I listed links to the pieces I could find that were nominated for James Beard Media & Journalism Awards. Finally, here's the nominees for the James Beard Book Awards:

AMERICAN COOKING
Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited
Cooking Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans
Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook

BAKING
BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking with Over 200 Magnificent Recipes
Baking for All Occasions
The Art and Soul of Baking

BEVERAGE
The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea
The Wines of Burgundy: Revised Edition
WineWise: Your Complete Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Enjoying Wine

COOKING FROM A PROFESSIONAL POINT OF VIEW
Alinea
The Big Fat Duck Cookbook
Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide

GENERAL COOKING
How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition): 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food
Martha Stewart's Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook
The Bon Appetit Cookbook: Fast Easy Fresh

HEALTHY FOCUS
Cooking with the Seasons at Rancho La Puerta: Recipes from the World-Famous Spa
The EatingWell for a Healthy Heart Cookbook: 175 Delicious Recipes for Joyful, Heart-Smart Eating (EatingWell Books)
The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life

INTERNATIONAL
Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China
Jewish Holiday Cooking: A Food Lovers Treasury of Classics and Improvisations
Southeast Asian Flavors: Adventures in Cooking the Foods of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, & Singapore

PHOTOGRAPHY
The Big Fat Duck Cookbook
Decadent Desserts: Recipes from Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte
Haute Chinese Cuisine from the Kitchen of Wakiya

REFERENCE AND SCHOLARSHIP
Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages
The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs
The Science of Good Food: The Ultimate Reference on How Cooking Works

SINGLE SUBJECT
Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes
Mediterranean Fresh: A Compendium of One-Plate Salad Meals and Mix-and-Match Dressings
The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever

WRITING AND LITERATURE
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China
Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef

And there you have it. Happy reading.

Reading Material - Part II

More links to the James Beard Award nominees for the journalism awards. Part I is here.

MAGAZINE FEATURE WRITING W/O RECIPES
Made (Better) In Japan - Alan Richman, GQ
BBQ 08 (The Top 50 BBQ Joints in Texas) - Patricia Sharpe and staff of Texas Monthly Magazine
My Cherry Amour - Monique Truong, Gourmet

RESTAURANT REVIEWS
Jonathan Gold, LA Weekly - "A Proper Brasserie," "A Fine Palate," "Pho Town"
Adam Platt, New York Magazine - "Faux French," "The Mario of Midtown," "Corton on Hudson"
Tom Sietsema, Washington Post - "Great Expectations," "Robo Restaurant," "An Earned Exclamation"

REPORTING ON NUTRITION OR FOOD-RELATED CONSUMER ISSUES
Greens of Wrath - Barry Estabrook, Gourmet
What Good is Breakfast? - New York Magazine
How to Feed Your Mind - Rachael Moeller Gorman, EatingWell

BLOG FOCUSING ON FOOD, BEVERAGE, RESTAURANTS, OR NUTRITION
BA Foodist - Andrew Knowlton, Bonappetit.com
Hunter Angler Gardener Cook - Hank Shaw, Honest-food.net
Our One-Block Diet - Oneblockdiet.sunset.com

FOOD-RELATED COLUMNS
Dorie Greenspan, Bon Appetit - "Bacon-Cheddar Quick Bread," "All-Purpose Holiday Cake," "My Go-To Dough"
Corby Kummer, The Atlantic - "A Papaya Grows in Holyoke," "Beyond the McIntosh," "Half a Loaf"
Laura Shapiro, Gourmet.com - "Campaign Cookies," "Why Does America Hate Ratatouille?," "The Lord is my Chef"

WRITING ON SPIRITS, WINE, OR BEER
Revolution by the Glass - Jon Bonné, San Francisco Chronicle
Billionaire Winos - Jay McInerney, Men's Vogue
Viva La Revolucion! - Alan Richman, GQ

WEBSITE FOCUSING ON FOOD, BEVERAGE, RESTAURANTS, OR NUTRITION
Chow.com - Jane Goldman
Epicurious.com - Tanya Steel
Gourmet.com - Ruth Reichl

MULTIMEDIA FOOD JOURNALISM
Gourmet Cookbook Club - Ruth Reichl, Gourmet.com
The Test Kitchen - Ruth Reichl, Gourmet.com
The Whole Hog Project - Mike Sula, Chicagoreader.com

M.F.K. FISHER DISTINGUISHED WRITING AWARD
Knead, Pray, Love - Celia Barbour, O, The Oprah Magazine
Benedictions - Aleksandra Crapanzano, Gourmet
My Sweet Life - Alan Richman, GQ

If I can summon the energy at some point, there's also Book Awards too ...