Okay, so, the work crap continues. I have two major major major deadlines next week, including the basic grant that funds our center, and I have been able to do almost no work on it (no, seriously, I didn't even get to read the RFP until a week ago or so, even though I've had it for a month). Why? Because it's whack-a-mole month. Every time I turn around someone or some agency needs something and it absolutely cannot possibly wait. The person who was being a pain at work is being an even bigger pain, and I am so unbelievably tired of the time-and-energy suck that this person is. We have a meeting tomorrow a.m., called by this person--when what I should be doing is writing the fucking proposal, already--and I really want no part of it.
Sunday morning I got an email from Chuck: his 81-year-old mom died Sunday morning (on CK's birthday, no less). Apparently she had walked into the hospital a week ago Sunday, seemed to be getting better, then took a bad turn Wednesday. All the choices involved massive, risky intervention, and the best possible (and not terribly likely) outcome involved dialysis and a nursing home for the rest of her life, along with other undesirable aspects, and she opted out of that. Chuck and his sister called her friends and relatives, and everyone got to come and say goodbye to her over the next two days, and she slipped into death Sunday morning with her kids by her bed.
Chuck called me Monday to tell me about the services--a funeral mass in the city in which she lived, but a smaller one here, too, at the cemetery--and told me I was not obligated but was welcome to come. (He told me the details in the previous paragraph as part of that call, too.) Of course I decided to see if there was any way I could make it to the thing here, and, in fact, I could, so I went--fortuitously with a ride from a coworker who lives near there and who had to be off this morning for a meeting at her son's school. She dropped me off and then came back and picked me up, which was a huge, huge help.
When I got there, one of the first people I saw was Chuck's sister, who gave me a big, long hug--she told me, several times, that she was so glad I'd come. And, really, so was I. I liked their mom a lot, and I got along well with her, and I'm glad her death was relatively painless, relatively quick, and in such a manner that enabled her to say goodbye to the people who loved her (and vice versa). Chuck was a bit more restrained, but I realized, much later, that one of the people there (it was a small crowd, maybe 25 people, and nearly all family) was, I think, his current girlfriend. He and I did have an amusing conversation about the fact that the picture on the casket was taken at our wedding (and, apparently, they buried her in the suit she wore, too)--it was a great picture of her, so I'm glad.
The other entertaining moment was when Sis introduced me to a long-time friend of hers, someone about whom I'd been hearing for 10 years but whom I'd never actually met. Sis said, oh, this is my friend Mary, and then turned to me and said this is Narya who is, um, and I said "Chuck's third ex-wife." Which was kind of amusing, and to the point, but also completely explanatory. (Another side note: later, the friend said, I've heard so much about you, I expected you to be very tall. Which made me laugh, because I've realized that i act as though I am much taller than I really am.) I said to Sis afterwards, well, if you're ever in the city, you should come by, we could have dinner, and she jumped all over that, yes she'd like that, etc. etc., which was nice. And Sis's husband's sister, whom I'd met multiple times over the years, was friendly, too, and said in passing that she'd missed seeing me.
Ex-wife number two--CK's mother--came over and we air-kissed (which was fine), but I kind of stayed away from Chuck's cousins. I didn't quite know what to say or not say, so I just stayed the hell out of the way and tried not to be intrusive. I didn't go to the luncheon afterwards--I hadn't planned on it, and I had to get to work, but once I realized the new girlfriend was going to be there, I wouldn't have gone anyway. No need to make Chuck more uncomfortable on an occasion like this. I was just so glad that he invited me to come (and, simultaneously, didn't put pressure on me to come, because he knows that getting to a cemetery in the burbs isn't exactly an easy feat for someone w/o a vehicle) and that I was able to go. She was a good person, and a kind person, and, personally, I always appreciated it that her devout Catholicism was a way for her to be a force for good in the world rather than a dogma that she used to divide people. She looked for the good in people, and didn't care if it came with a communion wafer in hand.
Meanwhile, today was the 26th anniversary of my sister's death, so I had that going for me, too.
I've just been so stressed out lately. Work is fraying me, because it's all deadline-related and the federal government is not interested in whatever excuses I may have. Simply not interested. And I had an editing job to finish over the weekend, too, so Friend and I ended up bailing on Pearl Jam (much as I wanted to go) AND bailing on Elvis Costello last night--a concert I had looked forward to all summer, actually. We didn't have tickets for either one, so we weren't out the money (and we did manage to see Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal on Friday, which was fabulous), but still, bummer.
Tomorrow I'm going to work as long a day as I can possibly stand, and maybe get some stuff out of the way. I've already decided that I am not going to let the morning meeting get to me. My boss and coworker and I hashed it all out for 2+ hours this afternoon, and I think we reached a place where we're on the same page, and I instructed coworker that we need to let Boss take the lead tomorrow. So, we'll see what happens; I have too much real work to do to allow myself to get sidetracked into pointless bullshit.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Sortofa Recipe
If you embiggen the pics in the last post, you can see the lusciousness of the fruit all the better . . . It was REALLY easy to make, too. The cake, such as it is, is a pavlova, i.e., whipped egg whites and sugar (with a little salt, some brown sugar, and some vanilla and vinegar), baked in a very slow oven for an hour, then the oven turned off and everything's left inside for another hour with the door propped open. The original recipe called for three 8-inch pans (buttered, dusted w/ powdered sugar, and then parchment circles on the bottom), which you were then (after baking) supposed to layer with berries and a mixture of heavy cream and sour cream. Okay, so how did I change it?
First, I only did two cake pans, not three (and they may have been 9-inch; whatever I have), and with the rest of it, I buttered and sugared three rings that I set up on silpats. I thought individual-sized desserts might be a nice option, and the rings would make that possible. Second, a few reviewers (the recipe was from Gourmet, but posted on epicurious) noted that it was difficult to cut the assembled dessert without tearing it apart, so I decided not to layer it--which was also useful given that there were only going to be two of us eating it. Third, I have some mascarpone that I wanted to use, and the heavy cream/sour cream mix didn't do much for me, so I beat the mascarpone with a little milk to thin it and some good maple syrup (no brown-colored HFCS for me, thank you).
So Saturday I mixed raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries with a little honey just before we sat down to dinner (grilled vegetables, grilled wild turkey, fresh corn on the cob, and a tomato salad with fresh mozzarella), which enabled everything to macerate without falling apart. I put the fruit on top of one layer, dolloped on the mascarpone/maple mix, and we each took a fork and had at it. Sunday (steak--yes, beef, if you can believe it--grilled sweet potatos (peeled, thick slices, in a buttered foil packet, and sprinkled with some brown sugar), and a morel/wine reduction/onion sauce for the meat, along with more corn and more tomato salad, this time with fresh basil as well) I used raspberries, blackberries, and peaches, and it was even better. I froze the three smaller ones, so we'll see how they do (theoretically freezing them is okay). The only thing I'm not sure about is whether I used the correct amount of egg whites. I scaled out a double recipe of the whites and then the sugar, looked at it, and thought, hmmm, no way is that going to fit in my 5-quart mixer. I distinctly remember removing the sugar, but I don't remember if I took out the extra whites. Guess I'll have to make it again and see!
It's a really incredible summer dessert, while everything is ripe and fresh, but I bet it would work just fine with high-quality frozen fruit as well.
So today I stumbled across Rick Bayless' blog, and the post that was up described the last show (or, rather, the behind-the-scenes part of it); I also found his post about the previous show, and it was kind of amusing how much he echoed some of what I'd said, though with fewer fucks. (Incidentally, until today the site name was root4rick; someone was thinking ahead.) Here's his comment on that show and Spike: "Hubert seemed genuinely excited to work with them, Michael sprouted a side none of us had ever seen in the competition, Anita seemed to hunker down and just want to get through the competition and I was worried about building a team that could do my food (guessing that none of them had experience with traditional Mexican cuisine). There was one thing we all agreed on, though: none of us wanted Spike. He just seemed so cocky, not a team player."
And I've been thinking more about the whole dust-up between Chiarello and the TC cheftestant in the next-to-last ep, and I still think the latter was wrong. Yes, I know the cheftestants are good chefs in their own right, in at least some cases--a few even own restaurants--and I even think that Chiarello was being a dickhead in a number of places in that ep, but that's not the point. Your job is to help your chef win, and you don't accomplish that if you're mouthing off to the chef from another team; no way is that going to work out for you.
We're having a kind of go-round like that at work now. Someone is being a dick, basically, and trying to go after my boss, which is just a very, very bad idea. For one thing, he and another team member and I have each other's backs, and this guy is just plain making a mistake. But I also think he just loses sight of what the ultimate goal really is: i.e., providing services to the people who need them. Everything we do should be with the aim of enabling us to do a better job of that; everything else is a waste of time. Including the endless fucking pointless meetings, but that's unavoidable, I guess.
First, I only did two cake pans, not three (and they may have been 9-inch; whatever I have), and with the rest of it, I buttered and sugared three rings that I set up on silpats. I thought individual-sized desserts might be a nice option, and the rings would make that possible. Second, a few reviewers (the recipe was from Gourmet, but posted on epicurious) noted that it was difficult to cut the assembled dessert without tearing it apart, so I decided not to layer it--which was also useful given that there were only going to be two of us eating it. Third, I have some mascarpone that I wanted to use, and the heavy cream/sour cream mix didn't do much for me, so I beat the mascarpone with a little milk to thin it and some good maple syrup (no brown-colored HFCS for me, thank you).
So Saturday I mixed raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries with a little honey just before we sat down to dinner (grilled vegetables, grilled wild turkey, fresh corn on the cob, and a tomato salad with fresh mozzarella), which enabled everything to macerate without falling apart. I put the fruit on top of one layer, dolloped on the mascarpone/maple mix, and we each took a fork and had at it. Sunday (steak--yes, beef, if you can believe it--grilled sweet potatos (peeled, thick slices, in a buttered foil packet, and sprinkled with some brown sugar), and a morel/wine reduction/onion sauce for the meat, along with more corn and more tomato salad, this time with fresh basil as well) I used raspberries, blackberries, and peaches, and it was even better. I froze the three smaller ones, so we'll see how they do (theoretically freezing them is okay). The only thing I'm not sure about is whether I used the correct amount of egg whites. I scaled out a double recipe of the whites and then the sugar, looked at it, and thought, hmmm, no way is that going to fit in my 5-quart mixer. I distinctly remember removing the sugar, but I don't remember if I took out the extra whites. Guess I'll have to make it again and see!
It's a really incredible summer dessert, while everything is ripe and fresh, but I bet it would work just fine with high-quality frozen fruit as well.
So today I stumbled across Rick Bayless' blog, and the post that was up described the last show (or, rather, the behind-the-scenes part of it); I also found his post about the previous show, and it was kind of amusing how much he echoed some of what I'd said, though with fewer fucks. (Incidentally, until today the site name was root4rick; someone was thinking ahead.) Here's his comment on that show and Spike: "Hubert seemed genuinely excited to work with them, Michael sprouted a side none of us had ever seen in the competition, Anita seemed to hunker down and just want to get through the competition and I was worried about building a team that could do my food (guessing that none of them had experience with traditional Mexican cuisine). There was one thing we all agreed on, though: none of us wanted Spike. He just seemed so cocky, not a team player."
And I've been thinking more about the whole dust-up between Chiarello and the TC cheftestant in the next-to-last ep, and I still think the latter was wrong. Yes, I know the cheftestants are good chefs in their own right, in at least some cases--a few even own restaurants--and I even think that Chiarello was being a dickhead in a number of places in that ep, but that's not the point. Your job is to help your chef win, and you don't accomplish that if you're mouthing off to the chef from another team; no way is that going to work out for you.
We're having a kind of go-round like that at work now. Someone is being a dick, basically, and trying to go after my boss, which is just a very, very bad idea. For one thing, he and another team member and I have each other's backs, and this guy is just plain making a mistake. But I also think he just loses sight of what the ultimate goal really is: i.e., providing services to the people who need them. Everything we do should be with the aim of enabling us to do a better job of that; everything else is a waste of time. Including the endless fucking pointless meetings, but that's unavoidable, I guess.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
More Posting About TV and Food
Yes, I know, I should be editing. But I miss writing for my (and, hopefully, your at least occasional) pleasure, rather than writing a grant proposal, or an email, or comment in something I'm editing. This extremely stressful patch has another three weeks to it, but it will be followed by the Month of Concerts (yeah, I know; what else is new). So far, I have tickets for six concerts, and a seventh may be in the works as well. That's not counting last week's Phish concert or the three concerts I'm hoping to see in the next week or so, or the beer festival of last week, or various other activities planned for the next six weeks or so.
But that's not what I wanted to write about.
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for background noise while I edited, and I ended up flipping on Top Chef: Masters. Rick Bayless, of local fame, was among the contestants, so I left it on . . . and got sucked in. Of course. Overall, I'd say that the thing that stands out, from the three or four episodes that I've seen, is that there is WAY less drama, and a lot more emphasis on the food, and it is so much more enjoyable. The "cheftestants" do this for a living, they're playing for a donation to their favorite charity rather than for their Big Break, and they're really not going to get their knickers in a bunch or sabotage each other (as least, if any of that is happening, it's all being edited out); on the contrary, they seem to lend each other a hand pretty reliably.
Another thing: there's not a lot of working together, at least on the shows I saw, so more of the individual chef, rather than the working-with-and-against-each-other-simultaneously thing goes on. One of the things that becomes more obvious, in this format, is how stupid a lot of the challenges are (they're using various challenges from regular seasons of TC). The most interesting challenge was that each chef made his/her favorite/signature dish, and then one of the other chefs ended up having to "reinterpret" it.
So Wednesday night they were down to Rick Bayless, Anita Lo, Michael Chiarello, and Hubert Keller. The chefs do a quickfire challenge (identify, while blindfolded, these 20 substances; Chiarello got one more than Bayless & Keller, so got to choose first), then they bring in 12 people who were cheftestants from previous seasons of TC. Given that I have not watched the show all that much except for last year, I didn't know anyone except Jamie and Fabio from last year, and this guy Spike, who showed up in a couple of episodes last year and who always wears a fucking fedora. (Spike wears on my last goddamned fucking nerve, in case you couldn't tell.) The master chefs have two minutes with each candidate, to interview them all and, presumably, make a ranking.
Now is when it got interesting. Keller is shown asking several people whether they know how to do pastry. (Only one says yes; the other two are like, eh, no, not really.) Bayless is asking questions about what they like, what flavors, yadda yadda. I don't remember what they showed Lo asking, but she picks Jamie from last season, because apparently Jamie used to work for/with her. Chiarello is being Mr. Big Man Chef: go find a knife and carrot and show me how you dice a carrot. (Someone--Spike, maybe?--actually refused to do it) What's my name? (to see who can pronounce the last name correctly). What do you call me in the kitchen? ("Chef" is the only correct answer to that question.) Kinda maybe being a dick, hard to tell; it would have been more interesting if there had been more cheftestants than slots, number one, and, number two, Spike was the last one picked; Keller got stuck with him.
So the chefs get together with their teams to plan the meal (buffet for 200 "Hollywood insiders," whoever the fuck they are), go to Whole Paycheck (whose CEO has pissed me off with his health care bullshit enough so that I am going to boycott his fucking stores) to buy shit, and do some prep. The next day, they're in the middle of cooking, and they're told they need to pack up and move everything to the venue (or a different venue?). Which is kinda bullshit usual TC stuff, but it does fuck with the chefs, some of whom are making things that require a certain kind/amount of cooking to develop flavor profiles. There's also a shot of one of the team members (Dale somebody?) screaming at Chiarello, saying, "What are you going to do about it???" and then Chiarello interviews that he's been doing this for 20 years and he has a Dale for lunch regularly. Looked like a lot of dick-waving on both sides, if you ask me, but still: Chiarello is the chef, AND Dale isn't on his team, so WTF? Dude, get the fuck over yourself, go back to your room, do your tasks.
So they pack up and move, and, when they get there, they discover that (a) it's going to be served outside, in the sun, and (b) they each have to cut a team member. The former condition completely fucks Anita, and not in a good way, because she had been planning a raw bar, which is totally not something you do in the hot sun, but also not something you can change two hours before serving time. It's also interesting that the team member she cuts is Jamie, with some not-completely-coherent interviewing about how Jamie isn't that good after all (too slow, I think was the problem). And when Hubert cuts Spike, Spike's comments--that he thinks it's a compliment to be chosen last, because it means the chefs are afraid of him totally RULING with his mad chef skillz--provide further evidence that he is delusional; it's a good thing I didn't watch that season, or I would have reached through the TV to drag him off the set by his balls. Or stopped watching, more likely.
Blah, blah, blah.
The crowd shows up, eats, whatevs. Everyone lurves Hubert's and Rick's food: Keller serves 18 (yes, 18) different food items. Bayless isn't far behind, and, apparently, it's all quite tasty. Anita is totally hosed: no way that raw fish in the sun is a good idea, but she can't do anything about that two hours before service. That is actually the thing that pissed me off most about the episode. Yes, one must always be able to work on the fly, but that's a changeup that's really out of the question, because any chef would tailor the menu to fit the venue, and Anita interviews that she knows it's a bad idea, and she knows she's hosed, but there's not a lot she can do about it--make fish soup? In short, I don't think she would have lost if they hadn't thrown that particular twist, and it highlights the aspect of the whole show that I think does a poor job of representing the fix-it-on-the-fly aspect of any kind of food service work.
Michael's meal doesn't really seem to come together; the swordfish looks like an unholy mess; hard to say what else is there. The judges don't have anything good to say about it, really--but it's not raw fish in the sun, so, hey, he's safe for another week.
The thing that really stood out, though, is that both Keller and Bayless were portrayed as incredible team leaders, people who were, on one hand, completely in charge, but, on the other hand, were completely open to contributions from other people and who expected their team members to perform, i.e., didn't think they were likely to be useless idiots. Bayless openly credits mr. molecular gastronomy (ew) with the avocado ice cream being created tableside. And both of them were just (portrayed as) very calm; no histrionics, no drama, no ego-for-the-sake-of-ego.
It's hard to say whether there's a relationship between their calm demeanor and team leadership and the excellence of their product. I know one of the big chefs in this city--has cookbooks and such, too--has a rep as a dick, but the product there is excellent, I'm told (I've never been, and his politics annoy me sufficiently that I don't feel compelled to go). OTOH, people like Bossman are pretty calm, pretty supportive of the team, etc., and also produce excellent product. What it comes down to, for me, is whether I would have wanted to work with the person, and, personally, I made an effort to avoid places that had bad reps that way. Some of it is just that I'm old and cranky, and I am seriously not up for some guy, no matter how marvelous a chef he's supposed to be (or actually is), being an asshole. Clearly, as Bayless and Keller show, it is not necessary for someone to be an asshole, so why would someone put up with it? But I also recognize that my calculus on these things is different, in large part because of my personality and in smaller part because of my age. (Seriously: I'm going to seek out some 35-year-old superstar to berate me just because he has a famous restaurant? It's just food, people.)
Anyway. I'd meant to describe the two incredible meals that Friend and I made over the weekend, but that will have to wait for another post. However long it takes me to put that together.
But that's not what I wanted to write about.
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for background noise while I edited, and I ended up flipping on Top Chef: Masters. Rick Bayless, of local fame, was among the contestants, so I left it on . . . and got sucked in. Of course. Overall, I'd say that the thing that stands out, from the three or four episodes that I've seen, is that there is WAY less drama, and a lot more emphasis on the food, and it is so much more enjoyable. The "cheftestants" do this for a living, they're playing for a donation to their favorite charity rather than for their Big Break, and they're really not going to get their knickers in a bunch or sabotage each other (as least, if any of that is happening, it's all being edited out); on the contrary, they seem to lend each other a hand pretty reliably.
Another thing: there's not a lot of working together, at least on the shows I saw, so more of the individual chef, rather than the working-with-and-against-each-other-simultaneously thing goes on. One of the things that becomes more obvious, in this format, is how stupid a lot of the challenges are (they're using various challenges from regular seasons of TC). The most interesting challenge was that each chef made his/her favorite/signature dish, and then one of the other chefs ended up having to "reinterpret" it.
So Wednesday night they were down to Rick Bayless, Anita Lo, Michael Chiarello, and Hubert Keller. The chefs do a quickfire challenge (identify, while blindfolded, these 20 substances; Chiarello got one more than Bayless & Keller, so got to choose first), then they bring in 12 people who were cheftestants from previous seasons of TC. Given that I have not watched the show all that much except for last year, I didn't know anyone except Jamie and Fabio from last year, and this guy Spike, who showed up in a couple of episodes last year and who always wears a fucking fedora. (Spike wears on my last goddamned fucking nerve, in case you couldn't tell.) The master chefs have two minutes with each candidate, to interview them all and, presumably, make a ranking.
Now is when it got interesting. Keller is shown asking several people whether they know how to do pastry. (Only one says yes; the other two are like, eh, no, not really.) Bayless is asking questions about what they like, what flavors, yadda yadda. I don't remember what they showed Lo asking, but she picks Jamie from last season, because apparently Jamie used to work for/with her. Chiarello is being Mr. Big Man Chef: go find a knife and carrot and show me how you dice a carrot. (Someone--Spike, maybe?--actually refused to do it) What's my name? (to see who can pronounce the last name correctly). What do you call me in the kitchen? ("Chef" is the only correct answer to that question.) Kinda maybe being a dick, hard to tell; it would have been more interesting if there had been more cheftestants than slots, number one, and, number two, Spike was the last one picked; Keller got stuck with him.
So the chefs get together with their teams to plan the meal (buffet for 200 "Hollywood insiders," whoever the fuck they are), go to Whole Paycheck (whose CEO has pissed me off with his health care bullshit enough so that I am going to boycott his fucking stores) to buy shit, and do some prep. The next day, they're in the middle of cooking, and they're told they need to pack up and move everything to the venue (or a different venue?). Which is kinda bullshit usual TC stuff, but it does fuck with the chefs, some of whom are making things that require a certain kind/amount of cooking to develop flavor profiles. There's also a shot of one of the team members (Dale somebody?) screaming at Chiarello, saying, "What are you going to do about it???" and then Chiarello interviews that he's been doing this for 20 years and he has a Dale for lunch regularly. Looked like a lot of dick-waving on both sides, if you ask me, but still: Chiarello is the chef, AND Dale isn't on his team, so WTF? Dude, get the fuck over yourself, go back to your room, do your tasks.
So they pack up and move, and, when they get there, they discover that (a) it's going to be served outside, in the sun, and (b) they each have to cut a team member. The former condition completely fucks Anita, and not in a good way, because she had been planning a raw bar, which is totally not something you do in the hot sun, but also not something you can change two hours before serving time. It's also interesting that the team member she cuts is Jamie, with some not-completely-coherent interviewing about how Jamie isn't that good after all (too slow, I think was the problem). And when Hubert cuts Spike, Spike's comments--that he thinks it's a compliment to be chosen last, because it means the chefs are afraid of him totally RULING with his mad chef skillz--provide further evidence that he is delusional; it's a good thing I didn't watch that season, or I would have reached through the TV to drag him off the set by his balls. Or stopped watching, more likely.
Blah, blah, blah.
The crowd shows up, eats, whatevs. Everyone lurves Hubert's and Rick's food: Keller serves 18 (yes, 18) different food items. Bayless isn't far behind, and, apparently, it's all quite tasty. Anita is totally hosed: no way that raw fish in the sun is a good idea, but she can't do anything about that two hours before service. That is actually the thing that pissed me off most about the episode. Yes, one must always be able to work on the fly, but that's a changeup that's really out of the question, because any chef would tailor the menu to fit the venue, and Anita interviews that she knows it's a bad idea, and she knows she's hosed, but there's not a lot she can do about it--make fish soup? In short, I don't think she would have lost if they hadn't thrown that particular twist, and it highlights the aspect of the whole show that I think does a poor job of representing the fix-it-on-the-fly aspect of any kind of food service work.
Michael's meal doesn't really seem to come together; the swordfish looks like an unholy mess; hard to say what else is there. The judges don't have anything good to say about it, really--but it's not raw fish in the sun, so, hey, he's safe for another week.
The thing that really stood out, though, is that both Keller and Bayless were portrayed as incredible team leaders, people who were, on one hand, completely in charge, but, on the other hand, were completely open to contributions from other people and who expected their team members to perform, i.e., didn't think they were likely to be useless idiots. Bayless openly credits mr. molecular gastronomy (ew) with the avocado ice cream being created tableside. And both of them were just (portrayed as) very calm; no histrionics, no drama, no ego-for-the-sake-of-ego.
It's hard to say whether there's a relationship between their calm demeanor and team leadership and the excellence of their product. I know one of the big chefs in this city--has cookbooks and such, too--has a rep as a dick, but the product there is excellent, I'm told (I've never been, and his politics annoy me sufficiently that I don't feel compelled to go). OTOH, people like Bossman are pretty calm, pretty supportive of the team, etc., and also produce excellent product. What it comes down to, for me, is whether I would have wanted to work with the person, and, personally, I made an effort to avoid places that had bad reps that way. Some of it is just that I'm old and cranky, and I am seriously not up for some guy, no matter how marvelous a chef he's supposed to be (or actually is), being an asshole. Clearly, as Bayless and Keller show, it is not necessary for someone to be an asshole, so why would someone put up with it? But I also recognize that my calculus on these things is different, in large part because of my personality and in smaller part because of my age. (Seriously: I'm going to seek out some 35-year-old superstar to berate me just because he has a famous restaurant? It's just food, people.)
Anyway. I'd meant to describe the two incredible meals that Friend and I made over the weekend, but that will have to wait for another post. However long it takes me to put that together.
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