Eat at Adrian’s is part of a motel, and the atmosphere is fairly basic, aside from the view of Cape Cod Bay. The food, however, is anything but. The menu incorporates seasonal ingredients and local seafood, including a sampler of fish charcuterie. One evening it features a pot of cod rillettes, fish pate with pickled mustard seeds, smoked salmon, and fuchsia beet-cured scallops. These are accompanied by a variety of pickles (sunchokes!), mustard, and toasts.
Click through for the rest. Yes, we have a drink called the Honey Badger.
El Bulli is closing on Sunday right around the time that a new documentary, Cooking in Progress, about the famed restaurant is coming out. Along with the movie, there are a bunch of interesting links out there the last couple days.
*The NY Times reviewed it here.
*With the closing, the media has flocked and told us about it. This article is indicative of the "My Meall at El Bulli" genre.
*Earlier in the month, Mark Bittman wrote about cooking with Ferran Adria.
*An interview with Cooking in Progress maker, Gereon Wetzel.
*From several months ago, but still interesting, the NYTimes talks to several chefs about Adria's legacy. David Chang:
The fact is, he moved the entire spectrum of food in every direction, so that as a chef, even if you don’t like his style, he redefined everything you do. Closing down for half the year to do research? Changing the entire menu, 50 new dishes, every year? Amazing.
That title doesn't exist. That person doesn't exist. Certainly when one is talking about the best chef in the world, one is referring to the influence that person has had in the field. If you have a lot of influence, then you're one of the best. That individual doesn't exist, and after all I don't work to be the best, I work to enjoy life. The consequence of that is that you're recognized for your work. I like to be recognized, but I don't work for recognition.
I didn't know the Michelin Guide had pulled out of Las Vegas (or Austria and LA for that matter), which is one of the things I learned from this profile on the restaurant guide's troubles in the Financial Times. Also, the Guide is losing $21 million a year. It makes sense historically, but it's so weird that this is published by a tire company.
See also this profile from the New Yorker of the Michelin's inspectors.
"I'd go to a banquet in honor of those Somali pirates if they served bacon wrapped shrimp."
"I call this Turf and Turf."
"Fish meat is practically a vegetable."
"You had me at meat tornado."
I was there last year and just fell in love with Australia—holy shit, the produce, the proteins, the fish. This place is insane. Why wouldn't you want to open a restaurant out here? We're going to try to use only Australian ingredients, with the exception of some fermented products from Japan and some wines from France.
Since my brain really only works in the morning, I try to keep that time free for writing and thinking and don't read any media at all until lunchtime, when I treat myself to The New York Times--the paper edition. At this point, I realize, I am almost a full 24 hours behind the news cycle. Is this is a problem? I have no idea. My brother, who is a teacher, always says that we place too much emphasis on the speed of knowledge acquistion, and not the quality of knowledge acquistion: I guess that means that the fact that I am still on Monday, when everyone else is on Tuesday, is okay.
I don't want to shock anyone, but we may have been mislead. I think I saw the Olive Garden commercial touting their cooking school about 15 times before the message internalized and I realized that Olive Garden was talking about a cooking school to which they send their chefs and managers. I don't know if any of you have been to an Olive Garden lately, but I think they need to take a look at the curriculum. Turns out the school is more of a vacation, then educational facility.
I was a manager at Olive Garden and was sent to their culinary institute in Tuscany back in 2007. It was more like a hotel, during the off-season, with restaurant on site. They would let the Olive Garden come and stay in all the rooms and they would use the restaurant as a classroom for maybe an hour here or there and talk about spices or fresh produce for a minute before going site seeing all day. The only time we saw the "chef" was when she made a bolognese sauce while taking pictures with each of us to send to our local newspapers. Basically, yes, they send people to Italy every year. As a manager I still got paid my salary and didn't have to use vacation time, it counted as "work". They paid for everything from meals, sightseeing, flight, everything except souvenirs. But in return, they sent pre-written articles to out local newspaper with fake quotes from me and a group photo. Also every year when they would run the promotion, I was supposed to wear a special "chef" coat and make conversation with guests who ordered the promotional meals.
Tom Haverford was riffing about food on Parks and Recreation and I had to transcribe it. If I knew how to use the computer, I'd just put up the clip on Youtube, but this is how I do it.
"'Serts are what I call desserts. 'Tretres are entrees. I call sandwiches, sannies, samdoozles, Adam Sandlers. Air conditioners are Cool Blasterz with a z, I don't know where that came from. I call cakes, big ol' cookies. I call noodles long ass rice. Fried chicken is fry fry chicky chick. Chicken parm is chicky chicky parm parm. Chicken Cacciatore is chicky catch. I call eggs pre-birds or future birds. Root beer is super water. Tortillas are bean blankies. And I call forks food rakes."
In the Esquire article about Roger Ebert a few weeks back, Ebert mentioned his interview interview with Lee Marvin as one of his favorites, and now they've republished it online.
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