Welcome Fellow Diners,
The human race, to which so many of you reading this belong,
is a rather curious species. (It had better be, or this funny
stuff will get hard to find... But I digress.) Ever notice how
much of our life and culture is centered on food? Look at all
the meetings held, decisions made over a meal: breakfasts,
lunches, dinners, banquets, receptions, and those endless toasts.
How about all of the celebrations where food is a central theme:
weddings, birthdays, religious feast days, national holidays,
donut days at the office, etc. Food is at the center of so many
of our important activities. There is something very human about
turning a simple fuel stop into a cultural event.
Not that a fancy meal can't be intimidating and fabulous at
the same time. Some people will hock their cars and put their
platinum cards on life support just to be insulted at a fancy
French restaurant. Now it seems like even the cheap coffee shops
have started putting on French aires, even bumping the price an
extra buck for the increased frogginess. Maybe it isn't the
food, but simply the language. Everything about food sounds
better, tastier, more elegant in French, no matter how crummy it
really is. The food, that is, not the French. (Digressing
again? That's either a sign of old age or something I ate isn't
agreeing with me.)
It seems like the French language makes everything about
food sound great, which may go a long way toward explaining why
menus in France commonly list liver, horsemeat and tripe, three
food products from the wrong side of the tracks that never quite
caught on in the homeland of the double cheeseburger. Yes,
whether you say, Je ne peux pas manger une crˆpe de plus! (I
can't eat one more pancake!) or Ce pƒt‚ de sable est si beau, je
peux … peine m'empˆcher de le manger! (That mud pie is so
beautiful, I can scarcely keep myself from eating it!), a petit
slug of French gives any menu a boost of class - and price. In
fact, I could only find one thing that didn't sound pretty good
in French and that was "boisson gazeuse," which sounds like a new
and terrible weapon of mass destruction. Or, maybe, a warning
sign from a French bathroom. Actually, it translates simply as
gaseous drink, the somewhat disgusting French way of saying soft
drink. No wonder the French just say, "Un Pepsi, sil vous
plais.."
One thing about food you can always count on is that there's
always this week's poison food and this week's miracle diet cure.
Many of you think this food faddism is a recent thing, brought on
by television, commercialism and giant supermarkets, but it
isn't. Digging through the SUNFUN archives, we came up with this
archaic bit of silliness that was probably already old at George
Burns' bar mitzvah:
"Doctor, will this new diet make me live longer?"
"No, but it will seem like longer."
Human perception being what it is, that's probably about right.
Pass the nachos and beer, and let's see what happens.
The usual flock of cooks contributed to this week's zany
stew. Among those providing contributions, ingredients and/or
recipes this week, we'd like to Thank: Caterina & Jim Sukup,
Laura Hong Li, Jerry Taff, Jack & Sherrie Gervais, Yasmin
Leischer, Bruce Gonzo, Carol J. Becwar, Judy Mccallum, R.J.
Tully, Jan Michalski, Bob Martens, Tim McChain, Charles Beckman
and Susan Will. Thanks again to one and all!
Just one more thing to worry about, then. If you really are
what you eat, that would make me a blueberry bagel and warm and
rather flat Diet Dr. Pepper. There are those among you who will
assume, I suppose, that this explains everything...
Have A Delicious Week,
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CURRYING FAVOR...
--------------
Why do officers on London's hate crimes squad suddenly love
their jobs? It's not the pay, but the fringe benefits. In any
case the job of going undercover to dine at top restaurants in
case any waiters are racially abused by customers has become a
very popular duty assignment for the sleuths of Scotland Yard.
Instead of pounding the streets on a cold wintry night, up
to 20 officers settle down to eat at 10 Indian, Chinese, Thai and
Yugoslav restaurants in London's West End each weekend.
"We have had a lot of volunteers," admitted Detective Chief
Inspector Brett Lovegrove, head of a hate-crime prevention unit.
"My officers are working in partnership with local
restaurant owners and their staff to ensure that a pleasant
evening out remains just that for all involved. This means it is
bad news for the racists.
"Our officers are keen on spending the night in a nice warm
restaurant at this time of year with a meal and a soft drink --
no alcohol allowed, of course." (Reuters)
[ Sure beats the heck out of the dawn donut
patrol, doesn't it? ]
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DUMBEST THINGS ON THE MENU...
--------------------------
It seems there was a guy named James Scroggins, who was
accused of robbing a Subway sandwich shop in Albuquerque on
pretty strong evidence.
Police say a man entered the restaurant, ordered a sandwich,
took out his wallet and asked the clerk to change a $20 bill.
While the employee made his order, the man announced he had a gun
and demanded cash from the register. The clerk gave the robber
money, and he fled the scene.
But he left the wallet on the counter, and store employees
recognized the photo on the ID inside - a picture that looked
just like Mr. Scroggins, so authorities didn't have much trouble
finding their suspect.
"He was located at one of the addresses in the wallet,"
explains Sgt. Brian McCutcheon.
----------
Then there's the case of 17-year-old Lakount Maddox, who
police accused of holding up a Taco Bell restaurant in Fort
Worth, Texas.
Police say Maddox was riding a bicycle when he pulled up to
the drive-thru just after midnight and brandished what appeared
to be a gun, demanding all the cash in the register. And a
chalupa - a soft taco-style specialty.
That midnight snack is going to cost him, and not just in
his cholesterol count.
The drive-thru employee had handed over the cash, but
according to authorities, Maddox decided to wait for his snack,
too. While one restaurant worker prepared the Taco Bell
specialty, another worker called 911.
The fast food wasn't quite fast enough to save Maddox,
because police arrived on the scene while Maddox "was still at
the drive-thru window waiting on the chalupa," said Fort Worth
police Lt. Duane Paul.
The suspect got no smarter after that, brandishing his
weapon, yelling and pedalling madly until he crashed into a
patrol car. Police determined that his weapon was in fact a toy
pellet gun.
Maddox was removed to the hospital to be treated for his
injuries, but it looks like he'll have a bit of a wait before he
gets another Taco Bell chalupa; he's been charged with aggravated
robbery, which carries a penalty of up to 99 years in prison.
And he never even got his chalupa. (ABC/
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THERE'S A FLY IN YOUR WHAT?
--------------------------
Forget the stereotype of the snooty, unresponsive waiter.
According to a new study, it might be that the staff in popular
restaurants are going deaf because of the high noise levels.
In a study published in the May, 2000 issue of Audiology
Today, researchers at the University of California, San
Francisco, said dinnertime noise levels at certain restaurants
can frequently top 85 decibels -- about as loud as heavy city
traffic -- and sometimes go as high as 105 decibels -- the
equivalent of a packed dance club.
"In terms of diners, it is not a serious problem in creating
a condition where they may have permanent hearing loss," the
study's author, Robert Sweetow, said on Wednesday.
"But if you have noise levels up that high, you either have
to give your workers some kind of protection with earplugs, or
you have to give them some educational program (on hearing loss
dangers)," Sweetow, director of the campus's Audiology Clinic,
said.
The study looked at five San Francisco-area establishments,
ranging from a quiet bistro to a very noisy restaurant-bar.
Visiting on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at dinnertime, the
researchers took sound readings for several one-hour periods and
calculated the average noise exposure a waiter or other worker
might get in over an eight-hour stretch.
In at least two cases, the continuous exposure topped the
85-decibel level identified by the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health as threatening hearing loss.
Sweetow said noise problems were particularly acute at
restaurants with big bars, hard surfaces, high ceilings, open
kitchens and large crowds -- many of the hallmarks of the city's
most popular restaurants.
He said restaurant managers should be much more aggressive
about preserving employee hearing. While providing wait staff
with earplugs was not seen as practical, he suggested that
workers should be allowed at least one 10-minute quiet break for
every hour worked in high-volume settings.
"If you give your ears a rest, you are going to really
reduce the possibility of permanent damage," he said. (Reuters)
[ What did he say? ]
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HOW TO CLEAR OUT A RESTAURANT AT CLOSING TIME...
---------------------------------------------
Got those guests that never want to leave? You've mopped
the floor and put up all the chairs and they still haven't taken
the hint? Time to do something more serious:
- Repeatedly play, as loudly as your sound system can handle,
the theme song from the old TV show, "Charles in Charge."
- Walk from the kitchen eating a cup of soup. Cough and spew
the soup everywhere. Turn back facing the kitchen and
scream, "Hey Henry, you didn't get all the broken glass
outta this soup!"
- Within earshot of the customer, casually mention "Yeah this
is the table that guy died at. I just wish they would have
let us wipe this table down before they sat these people at
it."
- Wearing a chef's hat and apron, cover yourself in ketchup,
take out a large meat cleaver and pretend to be looking in
the dining area for a cat that got away.
- Have the entire kitchen staff dress up as clowns. Walk into
the dining area while sharpening large knives. Grin slowly
at the patrons.
- Drop some discarded fish parts in a mop bucket. Allow them
to "ripen" thoroughly. Leave bucket in the dining area near
patrons.
- Start scratching violently. Encourage others on the
waitstaff to do the same. Start wailing and ask the
customers if they had the soup as well.
- Sit down with the customers. Involve yourself in their
conversation. Interrupt everything they say and contradict
them continuously. Finally, jump up pointing an accusing
finger and scream, "Liar! I NEVER slept with either of
you!"
- Ask them if they drive a [whatever car is left in lot].
When they affirm, sigh quietly and look down. Mumble
something about how sad it is that those sick vandals will
probably never get caught.
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THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS... WELL MAYBE NOT!
-----------------------------------------
Chefs at some of the nation's top restaurants say with some
pain that customers are always right - even if they want their
liver medium rare and pureed and their beluga caviar smothered in
cocktail sauce.
New York-based Nation's Restaurant News, a trade
publication, reported in a 1998 issue on some of the stranger
requests the leading U.S. chefs have faced.
One chef, Ed Brown of the SeaGrill in New York's Rockefeller
Center, told of a guest whose mouth was wired up from dental work
and asked for his meal pureed. That might not have been so bad,
he said, but the man ordered liver sauteed medium rare with
balsamic-honey glaze, fried onions and wild rice cake.
"It was the most unappetizing food I ever served. It was so
ugly I lost my appetite," Brown said. "It looked like what I
imagine the inside of a sewer looks like. I didn't dare put it
in a glass because I didn't want anyone else in the dining room
to see it."
Brown also recalls a request from a diner for cocktail sauce
with his beluga caviar. Unable to contain his curiosity, the
chef surveyed the dining room and watched the man "slamming down
spoons of caviar and cocktail sauce. The beluga was over $100 an
ounce."
Another memorable request came from a diner who wanted fried
lobster. "It actually turned out to be fairly decent," the chef
admitted, after he dipped the blanched shellfish in a tempura
batter. "But that wouldn't be my first choice for a treatment
for lobster."
Jean Joho, chef-owner of Everest and Brasserie Jo in
Chicago, told Nation's Restaurant News about an order for a raw
veal chop with plain vegetables on the side.
Joho prepared the meal. "If this is what he wants, this is
what he will get," he said. But he wondered why the customer
didn't just eat at a supermarket.
Susan Weaver, chef at New York's Four Seasons hotel, also
said diners should get what they want, the trade paper said.
It said her list of unusual requests, carried out mostly by
room service, included pureed pizza, all blue M&M candies, two
cases of French Evian mineral water at room temperature for a
bath, a bottle of Evian for a dog and a specially prepared dog's
dinner (the customer provided the recipe).
The dog's dish was billed at the hotel's rate for a burger,
$24 a portion, but the tab for the bath water came out to more
than $200 a dip, not including the tip.
In Atlanta, chef Guenter Seeger said a diner told him he had
enjoyed the steamed white asparagus but wondered why the soup was
so bland. The "soup," Seeger said, was actually a finger bowl
served alongside the asparagus.
The NRN trade publication says a sense of humor helps to
defuse most potentially embarrassing situations.
Michel Richard at Citronelle in Washington tells about the
time a diner asked for Chinese-style duck in his French
restaurant. The chef asked in his thick French accent: "Why do
you come to a French restaurant for that? Do you go to a Chinese
restaurant and order beef Bourgogne?" NRN reported.
But Richard did his best to comply, adding some sugar on the
skin and cooking the duck a little longer to make it crisper.
"It wasn't Peking duck, but he liked it, and maybe I created a
new recipe," the chef told NRN.
Richard said his sense of humor always saves him when
customers ask if vegetables and fish are fresh. "Even if they
are not fresh, what do they expect me to answer? 'No, the fish
is old and smelly?"' (Reuters)
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OH RATS!
-------
A Hong Kong chef has found new fame trampling rats in his
restaurant as nimbly as he dishes up food in the kitchen.
The chef, identified only as "Uncle Kai" by the Apple Daily
newspaper, killed 60 rats in his first six days after joining the
staff of a new restaurant in Kowloon.
Kai killed nearly 200 rats in the eatery where he worked
last year, winning him the nickname "the anti-rat king," the
newspaper reported on Thursday.
Each morning, the chef dons rubber boots and gloves and
blocks off a section of the restaurant where the rodents like to
hide, leaving only one exit. He then scares the rats out and
stomps them underfoot as they try to escape before he starts
cooking in the kitchen. (Reuters)
[ Sure! Nothing packs 'em in like word the
chef kills rats in the dining area in his
spare time, right? ]
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© 2002 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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