Entries Tagged 'Food and eating' ↓

I spend a lot of time on the SF Chowhound board, where (just to pick a random example) “Best Bun Cha in the Bay Area” recently accumulated 37 quick posts. So when I wanted to know how the food is at the iconic Highland Park Cafeteria, recently reopened in Dallas, I naturally clicked over to the Texas CH board.

And how many posts did I find there? None. In fact, the most recent post on Highland Park Cafeteria was my own back in January, lamenting its closing, with no more recent messages to correct me. A wider search of the web found only stories about the restored portraits of the Presidents in the waiting line, and a couple of quick comments on personal blogs. This is a temple of Southern home cooking that has served some 36,000 diners since it reopened a month ago (based on published stats of 1200 meals a day) and not a single one has been moved to share their experiences in any depth.

In the Bay Area, online chatter about a restaurant event like this would have melted the copper in the DSL lines. Texas, as we see, is different. I happen to think the Bay Area has the right idea (which is why I’m here and not there, where I was born). But the purpose of this article is to note how really different groups of people can be, with this minor data point to prove it. Something to think about next time you fall into the copywriter’s trap of writing to yourself, AKA thinking everybody has the same priorities that you do.

I gave my mother the highly-touted new edition of the Joy of Cooking for her birthday, and bought a second copy for us to have at home. I like to leave the book open for reference when I’m cooking, and soon I noticed I was doing a lot of squinting and carrying the book into brighter light. Could it be that the type had gotten smaller?

A comparison of two identical passages shows that’s exactly what happened—20% smaller in fact. (Count the characters in the first line of the new edition, at left in the picture, and compare to the 1975 edition, at right.) I can understand why they didn’t want to make the book too unwieldy with all the new additions. But I’m too preoccupied to memorize the recipe before I cook it, and too finicky to be satisfied when I misread and put a tablespoon of salt in when the recipe calls for a teaspoon. Sorry, but the type’s too small.

This is why I advise my students and clients to double-check the work of their designers. If it looks too pretty, it probably is—something’s been sacrificed for the sake of great design. If there’s a coupon, try filling it in to be sure there’s room to write—or better yet, have your art director do it.

I’m finishing up a project that had me writing web product copy for over 150 different cuts and preparations of beef, pork and lamb. I need to describe each one in a way that makes the reader understands how it’s unique. A lot of this has to do with taste. Or does it?

So much great food writing is about the experience surrounding the eating—the origin of the ingredients, the way they’re prepared, the environment in which they’re consumed. Tasting itself is when all these elements come together—it’s the payoff for being in this place, at this time, eating this food. And if it’s good, that first bite and the flavor released becomes a time capsule or shorthand for remembering the entire experience.

Prepared dishes are easier to describe because the flavors play off against each other. The other day for lunch, for example, I had the Pork Bacon Sandwich at Cam Huong in Oakland’s Chinatown. The crunchy baguette lends crispness while showering my lap with crumbs. Mayonnaise adds sweetness and lubrication. Cucumber sliced and pickled daikon and carrot shreds provide coolness, crunch and slight acidity. Jalapeno means more crunchiness plus the anticipation of a delayed reaction mouth tingle from the aromatic chili oils. And all this is a backdrop for two meats. The “bacon” is one of those Asian special-pork concoctions that has very little taste but the slippery mouth feel that we love from fat. And the other pork, shredded, is cooked with salt and red spices and ends up with a gamy intensity which we recognize as the essence of meat. The day laborer who’s grabbed the seat opposite me asks how is it, and I say “great”.

By comparison, how does a New York steak taste? I find myself writing about musculature and where the beef comes from on the animal in part to make the reader an expert so they’ll feel comfortable presenting this expensive meat to their guests. And when it’s time to deliver an institutional message it comes through sounding like this:

“Eating dry-aged beef is as sensual and satisfying as drinking well-aged wine. The flavors have deepened and mellowed. The taste is concentrated, an effect brought about by moisture loss and by changes in the meat itself. Natural enzymes in the meat break down the fibers, enhancing the taste with a delicious nutty flavor and tender texture.”

So, science and nature come together to make magic which translates to user satisfaction. Appealing? I hope so. One of the greatest challenges, I found, is that there are actually only two words that describe this experience—“taste” and “flavor”. Can you tell me some others? Another word, “tenderness” which is universally used as a compliment for really good steak, is more closely related to the amount of fat than anything else. While “texture” is a promise, that when you bite into this stuff it WILL be tender, or perhaps crunchy, or maybe it will coat your tongue with the eggy creaminess of a rich sabayon.

Food writing may be hard, but it is easy and fun to read because it is so experiential and suffused with the joy of life. My personal favorite example, and in fact a book that was mentioned by many of the chefs I interviewed, is Heat by Bill Buford (that’s an Amazon.com ordering link). Buford, whose day job is an editor for The New Yorker, decides to see what life is like as a line cook at a Mario Batali restaurant. Before we know it, he’s made a lifelong commitment to a summer job carving meat in a Tuscan village. Go get it, and read it. But be sure you go hungry.

I’ve been working on a project that has caused my to read Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and re-read “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser. I’m pretty much in agreement with the pro-natural food, anti-factory food arguments made in both books. However, I found the polemicizing in one book far more compelling for reasons that are worth noting by marketers.

Pollan follows four meals from farm to table and makes commentary along the way as to how the food is raised and processed. The first meal is fast food, and the villain is “big ag” which seeks to coopt sustainable sources, organic standards, traditional family farms and foods free of drugs and pesticides in order to deliver something that follows the letter of the law while totally disrespecting the spirit by which honest, healthy meals have traditionally come to the table. So far so good.

The problem is that his is a holistic outrage; you need to totally buy into his argument to accept each part of it. And while in most cases I was nodding my head, at one point I found myself thinking “that’s actually pretty cool” when he described all the things you can make with corn. This is preaching to the choir and to the extent that Pollan wants to make new converts, I don’t know that he is doing it.

Schlosser, by contrast, adopts a “but wait, there’s more” approach to layer on the outrages of eating at McDonalds et al. It starts modestly, even acknowledging that the stuff can taste pretty good. Nothing here to make a Big Mac lover put down the book. But he gradually adds outrages and pulls you in. “You don’t like the feces in the beef? Well, let me tell you about the factory workers that get their limbs chopped off.” You’re led to agreement in baby steps, and thus potentially converted.

We direct marketers are happy to ignore the 98% or so of our audience that doesn’t pay any attention to our work, and focus on tweaking and maximizing our message to the remaiing 2%. It’s probably a worthy goal for a polemicist to get 2% of his or her readers to change their attitudes somewhat. I think Schlosser does a better job, but I recommend you read both books and decide for yourself.

(This post has been edited. There are four meals described in Pollan’s book and I want to make it clear his fast food outrage is specifically about the first meal, thus offering an apples-to-apples [or fries-to-fries] comparison with Schlosser. Be sure you read on about the other three meals, and don’t miss Angelo and the pigs.)

This has nothing to do with marketing, but I think the occasion must be commemorated: last night I had the worst meal of my life at Steak Escape, a “food court” store in the Denver Airport. Worstness is here defined not by the savoriness or healthiness or preparation of the food, but by the total indifference of the staff.

I had time before getting on the plane in Des Moines and thought about picking up a known quantity, a Quizno’s classic Italian from their store right next to the airport. Then I decided that taking a sandwich on the plane to eat 3 hours later was too food-obsessive and I’d just roll the dice when I made my connection in Denver.

I chose the “Steak Escape” because they were right by my gate in Denver and they advertised an Italian sub. I asked the counter person what was on it. He could not tell me. He darted his eyes around the food prep area, and I could tell he wasn’t finding anyone or anything that could help me. Finally he took a stab in the dark: “It’s salami… ham… and some other kinds of meat.”

So I ordered a known quantity, a Philly Cheesesteak. It came bare and I stopped the counter person just as she was about to slather it with mayonnaise. I told her I wanted mustard instead. She said, “we don’t have any mustard.” A cheese steak place without mustard? Impossible. But turned out she was just being lazy… SHE did not have any mustard and her station, and did not feel like stepping over to the next station on a slow night to get some. But a guy cleaning the place heard the conversation and produced a big box of packets. Hope he gets a better job soon because he deserves it.

The food was just as awful as you’d expect, but the non-service described above is what makes this the world’s worst. Here is their phone number: (303) 342-3445. Why not give them a call and ask them a question about their food?

This afternoon I was in Pasadena for a meeting that ended early, so on the way to the airport I slipped into the mysterious zone between the Golden State Freeway and the Alhambra hills to visit A-1 Eastern Pickles, on Johnston St. As I’ve done several times since I saw their phone number scrawled on the wall of a Greek deli in the 1980s below the word “pickles”, my plan was to buy a case of 4 1-gallon jars of fresh kosher dills for the ridiculous price of less than $12, then try to eat and share as many as I could before they became too bitter to enjoy.

But—today I discover they stopped selling the gallon cases 2 years ago, because “nobody was buying them.” The kosher dills are now available solely in a 5 gallon drum, hardly airline carry-on material.

I stumbled out in to the hazy sunlight and moved on to my next ritual stop, the subs at Giamelas on Los Feliz just east of the Golden State, a few miles north. Would these be gone too, perhaps my fault because I haven’t told people about them or eaten them more frequently? No. The subs, price list and even the serving and kitchen personnel were exactly the same as when I was last in town in July.

Here’s what I order and my ritual: the Italian Cold Cuts sandwich, no mustard or mayonnaise (why do they even ASK?), Italian dressing on the side, plus lots of their little yellow chili peppers and the carrot sticks which become flavored by association when they are wrapped with the peppers. The “regular” is $4.50 and the large is $4.95—ooh, tough choice!

The kitchen, which has not changed since I first went to Giamela’s some 20 years ago, is perfectly organized for preparation of this meal. The cook splays a soft sesame roll on the counter, like getting a diaper ready for a baby. He reaches into the reefer and pulls out a setup of mortadella, coppa and provolone on wax paper. He whacks the setup lengthwise with the back edge of a knife to score it and make it easier to mold to the bread. Then scoops of diced tomato, lettuce, pickle and onion are added with an artful chorography involving a slotted spoon dancing up and down the bread.

I used to get my sandwiches dressed but they got too sloppy before I was ready to eat them. So now I bring down a little jar with a tight lid and transfer the dressing from Giamela’s flimsy container (which once popped open in the Hertz parking lot—disaster) to my own more substantial one. Then it’s on to the plane with my sub. Tonight I was back in Oakland and on the freeway home at 7 so I spread a towel on my lap, poured on the dressing, and ate as I picked my way toward the Bay Bridge. Perfection.

I don’t really want to insist this is the world’s best sandwich. A Burger House cheeseburger and Carnegie Deli pastrami are also pretty good. But meanwhile, who’s interested in going in on a 5 gallon tub of pickles? We’d need to bring our own gallon jars, convene before A-1 closes at 3 pm (the neighborhood’s not safe after that anyway), then offload from the tub in order to avoid paying a hefty deposit.

I was speaking with someone I respect and mentioned my favorite neighborhood Indian restaurant. His eyes widened and he proceeded to tell me the following story:

A couple, who happened to be African American of the same sex, sat down in the restaurant. They were well dressed and well behaved. When they had not been waited on in half an hour, and others had been, they asked for a menu but the waiter did not return. One of the women said to the other, “I guess we know what’s going on here…”

At this point the owner of the restaurant came to the table, began screaming at the women and eventually hit one of them. The police were called and they, too, screamed at the women who then departed without their food.

What do you think of this story? Before you answer, here is one more consideration. My friend didn’t actually witness any of this. It was told to him by his friend.

As I mentioned, I respect the anecdote-teller too much to assume he’s making it up. And I don’t think I could continue to eat in this wonderful restaurant if I knew they treated a portion of their clientele that way. But this is second-hand information…does that make a difference? Also, the described behavior of the owner is completely out of character… the person I’ve witnessed is a Sikh with immense dignity. And, the description of the cops and their behavior just doesn’t pass the sniff test (at least not here in San Francisco).

Wrestling with my moral conundrum… whether or not I should continue to give this establishment my business, based on imperfect and contradictory evidence of a reprehensible act… I related the whole story to my wife. She reminded me of something: NOBODY gets their order taken at the table. You go up to the counter, you order and get a number, then they bring the food when it’s ready.

I emailed my friend with this new information and asked him if it was possible his friend could be mistaken. He emailed back that woops, he had the name of the restaurant wrong!

I’m off for daal and samosas now….

My Brisket Recipe
Originally uploaded by otisregrets.

My personal recipe for brisket, which I acquired from a multilevel marketer in the 1970s. It’s important to use USDA Choice meat, neither a higher nor lower grade. I’ve never tried the sauce. Don’t need it.

Let’s start by agreeing that people who refer to certain fire-smoked meats as “‘Que” are like those who refer to mushrooms as “srooms”. The pet names come from an uneasy relationship with food, and they deserve to be ignored.

The bigger issue is that “barbecue” itself is a term with such broad application as to be useless. In Texas where I grew up, we’d say “I’m going to Sonny Bryan’s” rather than “I’m going to Sonny Bryan’s Barbecue” and never the generic “I’m going out for some barbecue”… a meaningless description since smoking, grilling and saucing styles varied tremendously from one establishment to another.

My all time favorites include Kreuz’s in Lockhart, Sonny Bryan’s in Dallas (original location only, near Parkland Hospital where they took JFK), and Sam’s in Fairfield. When I lived in LA I would try to swing by a place called “Mr. Jim’s” on Florence Blvd, near the epicenter of the LA Riots. They had a saying, “you need no teeth to eat Mr. Jim’s Beef.” I have teeth so can’t validate this, but it seems plausible.

Today I live in the Lower Haight, 100 feet from Memphis Minnie’s which was praised in Gourmet Magazine as the best barbecue place in the U.S. The brisket is good, as are the rib tips. But if you order a sandwich they will bring it to you on a sourdough roll (?!) with a set of distracting sauces. Instead, buy a pound and bring it home and eat on cheap white bread with dashes of Tabasco or Crystal hot sauce.

(Memphis Minnie’s also makes an excellent sour slaw, but you don’t have to get on the 71 bus to enjoy it. The San Francisco Chronicle printed the recipe on 7/2/03 and last time I checked it was archived.)

But my favorite place in San Francisco (especially now that Claypool’s is gone) is Rudy’s in the Bayview, on 3rd Street near Oakdale. Hours are somewhat unpredictable, so I try to stop by on my way home if I have meeting in Silicon Valley, rather than making a special trip, and I try not to go too hungry in case I’m disappointed.

I order the brisket sandwich with two sides: a mustardy potato salad and beans with the tangy, intriguingly scorched taste of dark molasses. Ask for “mixed” sauce… not too hot, not too mild… and you will be set for more than one meal.

I drove to the Marina district the other day to check out the rumor and, sad to say, it’s true: Claypool’s B-B-Q is gone. A lady who looked to be closing out the books said he was “out of town… working on a franchise to open in Southern California” but further investigation reveals he’s simply gone… off to the Napa Valley with no immediate plans for a new spot.

Which is a true shame. Because this Arkansaw boy (whose family ran the huge Claypool duck farm, incidentally) who specialized in Tennessee pulled pork established, in the last year, a true talent for Texas brisket to go with his wonderful Jack Daniels beans. And is a good and generous guy as well as (full disclosure) the original owner of my backyard barrel smoker.

Come back soon, Philip. In the meantime, all of us should head off to Amazon.com and buy one of his country albums or, at the very least, listen to a clip or two.