We all love top ten lists. As a society we’re obsessed by them. We gravitate towards sites with lists of the most famous, the best dressed (and worst dressed), the most influential and lists of biggest mishaps that have happened to celebrities. All we have to give is “The top ten reasons” for anything and there’s an audience for it somewhere. (Which reminds me.  I need to do a few more list posts…)

Lists are great when they are done correctly but can quickly become a reputation train wreck if implemented poorly.  You have to be sure to quantify the list you are presenting in the right manner.  Failure to do so can result in reader confusion, blatant disregard for the information or worse, out-and-out revolt over the information you so laboriously gathered.

The reason for this cautionary tale is a list posted on slashfood.com titled The Ten Hottest Women in the Food Industry. In concept the post would be fine.  It’s actually a pretty neat list as far as lists go.  Sure, some will balk at the beauty pageant aspect of it, but hey, it’s good for a few comments and a light read, right? Read more…

Popularity: 3% [?]

I have worked on-and-off in the restaurant industry for years.  In that time I’ve come to understand that a certain level of service is expected both in the kitchen and in the front of the house.  Granted, the level of service I expect depends entirely on the establishment in which you happen to be dining, but there are certain standards that any waitperson should keep if they intend to make a tip at the end of the meal.

This post is about one hapless person whom, in the opinion of this particular food lover, should be banned from hospitality services for the rest of his (or at least my) natural life.  For the first time in my life, I complained about the service I received, not so that a small issue could be corrected, but in hopes of having the individual removed from service.

To put it bluntly, had this incident occurred in any establishment I have ever had the privilege of working in, he would have been sacked on the spot.  Had it been my own restaurant (which I am still planning to open someday), he would have been sacked and docked pay for at least three meals.

Yep, it was that bad.

Let me first set the stage for this calamity and make it clear what I expect from an establishment of the type we were seated in:

(Note: names have been changed to protect me from lawsuits the innocent.)

We headed for breakfast on a bright Sunday morning with the intention on dining at our local Lenny’s, but one look at their parking lot was enough to tell us that we should probably head for another restaurant our son would enjoy. Please take into consideration that our local area does not offer a plethora of choices for breakfast on a Sunday morning.  This is the Bible belt.  Most Mom and Pop establishments don’t open until brunch, so we go where the kiddo is comfortable.

With one Mega-Franchise too overloaded to be anything like enjoyable, we found ourselves heading to one of the area’s International House of Somewhat Edible Pan Pastries. While not the most glamorous fare, they have a menu that satisfies both a child’s palate and they have options that are less than inedible for his parents as well.  The atmosphere is usually comfortable, and the coffee never stops flowing.  For me, that’s good enough.  For the kiddo, it’s heaven with syrup, which makes it our number two choice.

In an establishment like this I have pretty simple expectations for wait service.  I expect for us to be greeted and seated as promptly as possible. I expect a clean table and utensils.  I expect to have my drink order filled immediately and our order taken in a reasonable amount of time.

During the meal I expect the staff to show back up at the table from time-to-time just to assure that drinks are still full and that the meal is satisfactory. At the end of the meal I expect to be handed my bill with a smile (or at least a chipper attitude), at which time I’ll decide what tip to leave.  I pay for the meal, compliment the cashier or manager and go about my merry way.

I’m not expecting top-notch service.  I expect diner level service. I almost always go to places like this often enough to have a regular waitperson.  I know his or her name and they know ours.  We chat, it’s fun, the kid likes it and it’s usually a good time.  This day none of these things happened.

Our experience went like this:

On entering, we were greeted with a smile and seated immediately.  The hostess thought ahead and seated us at a table that would easily accommodate a high chair, which she collected on the way to the table. Up to this point our day was better than usual.  I was impressed with the hostess and the greeter.  They thought ahead and were attentive to our needs.  They thought of our son.  They were personable.  I wanted to hire both of them.

The rest of the morning went quickly downhill…

Our server, whom I will call “Rufus”, arrived at the table promptly to take our drink order. He seemed rushed, but so far everything was going well.  We gave him our order and he scooted off to get our drinks.

Upon returning to the table he asked if we were ready to order.  My wife was ready, we had our son’s meal chosen and I was still deciding between two new menu items.  He asked if we needed more time and I said “No”, I would decide while my wife ordered her meal and the kidlings.  Unfortunately, Rufus was not having any of this.  He decided that I needed more time and left the table to tend to his other guests.

When Rufus returned to our table, he took my wife’s order and she gave my son’s (I always let her order first… It’s polite.) I began to give my order, which does differ from the menu offering, but almost had to chase him down to finish it.  Once he’d asked how I wanted my eggs he was already moving again.  He seemed inconvenienced to find that I did not want pancakes, but sourdough toast.  He was even more confused by the fact that I wanted an additional side order of sausage. (Kiddo likes it, and if he doesn’t want it that day, more for me!)

By this point I was getting irritated, but while waiting for our meal I had forgotten about him,  playing with a child tends to do that to me.  Lil’B. was having a good morning, so we spent the wait signing, clapping and listening to our son jabber about nothing in baby speak, with a  few random tickles thrown in for good measure.  Our moods were high and the morning was wonderful…

For a minute.

All the good feelings and happiness dissolved with Rufus’ return.  In his defense, he didn’t screw up my son’s meal.  As for the rest of the morning, well…

My son’s meal was delivered without incident and my wife’s meal was placed on the table.  In his haste to get everything set, Rufus managed to drop half of my side order of sausage all over the table.  It took Rufus a moment to decide that he should not just put the stray meat products back on the plate.  He apologized and stated that he would bring out a fresh sausage.  My wife reminded him that she had ordered PB&J to go along with her pancakes, which he promised to deliver on his return, and then he was gone again.

While we waited for the kitchen staff to grind, season and stuff a single link sausage, my wife noticed another issue.  She had ordered eggs over easy for her breakfast but our server had apparently not bothered to look at the orders, as what was on her plate was eggs over hard.

After about 10 minutes, Rufus returned with my solitary little sausage.  Nowhere in sight was my wife’s peanut butter or jelly.  We informed Rufus of the error made with the eggs and reminded him again that my wife had requested PB&J to go with her pancakes.  Once again Rufus apologized and rushed off without a glance back at our table.

Once again we waited…  And Waited… Finally, we flagged down another server to get the rare and elusive peanut butter and jelly packets for my wife’s meal.  It took this fine young lady less than 45 seconds to walk to the wait station and retrieve said condiments, a fresh drink for my wife and a refill for my carafe of coffee.

Rufus finally returned after about 15 minutes with a plate of ice-cold eggs.  At this point we had had enough so we asked for our check, but he refused to give THAT to us until he’d comped our drinks. He never considered comping the meal my wife never got to eat all of.

After another 10-minute wait, we finally got our check and left.  When I asked to speak to the manager, I was informed that there was no manager on the floor and that “Rufus” had was just back from a break, so he was just a bit “rusty”.

RUSTY!

In the time we were there, I heard this person apologizing to every table he served.  There was not a single order that came from his hands correctly, and not a single ticket that left the restaurant at full price.  Worse than that, he was comping the most profitable item any restaurant serves, the beverages!

This utter lack of competence is something that should never be tolerated.  If he was “rusty” enough for the other servers to have noticed it, there should have been someone checking his orders, or he should have been put back on training for a day or two so that he did not singlehandedly drive business out of the restaurant.

Worse in my opinion is the fact that no other person on staff stepped in to correct this idiocy.  It would not have taken much to make sure that these errors never occurred.  Any one of them I would have taken as human error.  The combination is nothing short of catastrophic failure and in the end the restaurant and the customer are the ones that suffer.  The restaurant because my wife and I will never step foot in that establishment again , and the customer who ended up going home to make his wife something else to eat because nothing on her plate was the way she ordered it.

So for all you would-be service professionals out there remember this:

It’s not about whether you are having a bad day, your customer should never know if you are having a bad day or not. It’s not about how well you did yesterday, no one you are serving today has a clue if yesterday went perfectly well or not, you are only as good as your last interaction with a customer. It’s NOT ABOUT YOU, it’s all about the people you are serving.

Needless to say, Rufus did not recieve a tip. What he earned for his efforts is my eternal disdain for a job poorly done in an industry that never tolerates anything less than absolute perfection.

Well done “Rufus”!  You are one of the only people in the world I have ever been disappointed enough by to make him or her the entire focus of a Food Snob rant.  That takes some doing.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’ve been holding myself back on this post for a while now.  It’s likely that there are a lot of people who won’t agree with what I’m about to say, and may in fact disagree violently with my opinion on this topic.  Unfortunately I find that I can no longer restrain myself in this case.  This is something that has gone unchecked for far too long and it needs to be reigned in before the epidemic spreads even further than it has already.

To all you restaurant chefs, television executives, magazine and newspaper food writers and others in a position to make a difference, please,

Enough it with the trendy foods already!

First it was California Cuisine, then it was the kiwi.  Following that was the mango and of course the demise of curly-leaf parsley in many of America’s kitchens. Now it’s foams, gels, sous-vide and an emphasis on pairing new and unusual spice combinations with classic ingredients. (Just how many different chocolate sauces does one really need?)

I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with these foods, nor is there anything wrong with wanting to try new methods or combinations. This is the nature of food. Risks must be taken, new methods tried and new flavor combinations explored.  It keeps the palate fresh and opens the mind to new possibilities. But it should not. EVER. Be used as an excuse to relegate perfectly good foods or ingredients to the “passe” file of the public consciousness.

I ask you, what exactly is wrong with a salad made with iceberg lettuce? Is there something wrong with the last 10 years worth of crop? Why is it that chefs worldwide simply removed this from their menus? I doubt it was because none of their clientele would have ordered it.  More likely it was the result of one or two overly pompous and self righteous chefs that felt that they knew better than their customers did what should be served to them.

The same fate has befallen many dishes that used to be featured on nearly every restaurant menu in the country.  Lemon Pepper Chicken, once a mainstay on menus from the lowest family chain to the most celebrated gourmet establishment, has simply fallen off the radar.  It’s not served anywhere.  I have seen chefs on television complain that “nobody serves this anymore, and no one should.”

Is there a reason for this attitude?  What is it about this dish has earned the scorn of the professional chef? Perhaps it’s the million bad knock-offs and cheap seasoning blends available on the market today.  Perhaps it’s because now that a million home cooks can make a truly decent version,t here is no more reason for a chef to attempt to make it well?  Nobody can explain why this dish has gone the way of the dodo, but I tell you one thing, I wouldn’t mind having a little of it right now.

The fruit of the moment trend has to stop as well. For the past two years the world has been assailed with mango.  Mango salsa, mango chutney, mango sauces and mango desserts.  The world has sung its praises for so long tht it, too is becoming passe.  soon I feel that it will disappear from restaurant menus just as surely as kiwi did in the 80’s or apple based desserts did in the late 70’s.  Why? Because these trend-powered monsters have overloaded us with them for so long that nobody wants to look at them any more!  Had we just cooked them with some restraint, they could have been a permanent mainstay of the American diet, but they will not be.  They have already been replaced by the fig and the pear.  Which one of those fruits will win the battle as the next fruit of the moment is yet to be seen, but it’s coming.

While we’re at it, quit downplaying curly leaf parsley!  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this herb.  It’s been a staple in kitchens for as long as anyone can remember, but suddenly not only cooks, but food stylists are calling this perfectly good herb “tired”, “old hat” or “blase”. While it is true that flat leaf parsley has a more pronounced flavor, it can be difficult to find in some places and where it’s difficult to find, it will also be a lot more expensive than its curly leafed counterpart.  Why in the world would you pay twice as much for an herb when using just a bit more of the cheaper variety will get you the same amount of flavor? To be honest, I use curly leaf more often myself because it has a longer shelf life, which stretches my money even further.

let me wrap this up by saying this:

Stop letting someone in a trendy restaurant determine the future of American cuisine.  They don’t know any better than your grandmother what is or is not good.  Some things don’t need to be changed or updated and good recipes and great food should not be forgotten just because they are “common”. It’s time that we as foodies (and food snobs) put our voices to work and let the powers that be know that what we really want is food that is  prepared well, from good ingredients, with passion.

But don’t put a salmon mousse on my plate.  I’ll stick with the actual fish, please.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’ve been planning on unleashing some serious ranting on at least a few topics, but the week has been hectic at best.  In the interim, I have a wonderful suggestion for any of you who would like to know the finer points of food snobbery. The Food Snob’s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Gastronomical Knowledge isjust the tool you need to help jump start your career as a  food snob.  It’s packed with all those tiny tidbits of knowledge that you’ll need to truly impress and bore the company you keep at dinner parties and buffets.

You really shouldn’t pass up this opportunity to help me out with my Christmas Spending get your hands on a tome of knowledge like this one. It is truly a lexicon of utterly useless and completely boorish useful and interesting information that your friends will want to rip your tongue out and serve it with fava beans love you for sharing with them. You’ll definitely be the one everybody is talking about!

The official Amazon Description:

Product Description
Food Snob n: reference term for the sort of food obsessive for whom the actual joy of eating and cooking is but a side dish to the accumulation of arcane knowledge about these subjects

From the author of The United States of Arugula–and coauthor of The Film Snob’s Dictionary and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary–a delectable compendium of food facts, terminology, and famous names that gives ordinary folk the wherewithal to take down the Food Snobs–or join their zealous ranks.

Open a menu and there they are, those confusing references to “grass-fed” beef, “farmstead” blue cheese, and “dry-farmed” fruits. It doesn’t help that your dinner companions have moved on to such heady topics as the future of the organic movement, or the seminal culinary contributions of Elizabeth Drew and Fernand Point. David Kamp, who demystified the worlds of rock and film for grateful readers, explains it all and more, in The Food Snobs Dictionary.

Both entertaining and authentically informative, The Food Snob’s Dictionary travels through the alphabet explaining the buzz-terms that fuel the food-obsessed, from “Affinage” to “Zest,” with stops along the way for “Cardoons,” “Fennel Pollen,” and “Sous-Vide,” all served up with a huge and welcome dollop of wit.

About the Author

DAVID KAMP is a writer and editor for Vanity Fair and GQ, and the author of The United States of Arugula, The Film Snob’s Dictionary, and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary. He lives in New York City. MARION ROSENFELD, a writer and producer, has spent her entire career in media, much of it food related. She lives in New York City. ROSS MacDONALD’s illustrations have appeared in many magazines, from The New Yorker to The Wall Street Journal. He illustrated The Film Snob’s Dictionary and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary.

So rush out and grab yourself a copy of The Food Snob’s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Gastronomical Knowledge, you’ll be glad you did!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud (and a little frightened) to announce that this week heralds the return of my dark, food snobbish self.  I’ve left the food snob locked in a closet since July 2007.  To say he’s been itching to get out and lay down a thorough tongue lashing on more than on topic would be an aggregious understatement at best.

Since his release from captivity he’s been camped out on our sofa eating bagettes and brie with my best bottle of cabernet and watching Food Network and Fine Living.  The occasional snort and expletive can be heard on a regular basis, as can mad scribbling noises on the screen of his smartphone.  In fact, the only time I’ve not heard something derogatory coming from his all-too-cultured mouth has been while watching Anthony Bourdain, Ina Garton or PBS cooking shows on Saturday Morning.  This looks like it’s going to prove to be interesting.

For those who haven’t read the Food Snob Chronicles, just click here and go check ‘em out.

And for the record, no, that’s not me in the photos.  The model’s name is (as far as I can tell) Yanc from Canada, and he’s been the official face of The Food Snob Chronicles since day one.  He’ll remain the face of the series until it ends.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I can’t help it, it makes me crazy. It doesn’t really matter who prepared the dish, be it myself, a friend, a chef, or a restaurant line-cook. It really doesn’t, I still get aggravated and the food snob in me wants to shout at the top of my lungs:

“HEY! Would you like some FOOD with that?”

But I digress. Please allow me to climb up on my soap-box and elucidate.

I know you’ve seen it, everyone has. You’ve worked your lil’ tush off in the kitchen, you’ve seasoned, flavored and tasted your dish until there is simply no way to make it any better, it’s perfect. Plates are served and you glance around the table, waiting to see if your masterpiece is appreciated by your guests as much as you hope it will be, awaiting that one-of-a-kind experience that comes from serving wonderful food to wonderful people and knowing that they’ve enjoyed it.

Then it happens.

One person in the group reaches for the salt, pepper, steak sauce, ketchup, cheese or other accompaniment and buries your carefully prepared meal under enough of their chosen condiment as to render the original flavor unrecognizable. They haven’t tasted your dish, nor will they ever, as it is now covered in enough of something else to be merely a supporting flavor to their addition, not the dish that you so lovingly assembled for them.

This particular variety of rudeness is simply unacceptable in my opinion.

Read more…

Popularity: 1% [?]

I hate to admit it, but the snob in me reared his ugly head again this week. It wasn’t pretty, and even though I’m the only person that heard the conversation, it still embarrassed me a bit to know that I was even thinking the way I was.

It began innocently enough. I was going over the list of ingredients sent in by Jess, the first of the Your Pantry or Mine, participants and trying to decide which I was going to use when I realized I’d actually huffed.

“Huffed”?

Yeah, you know that noise you make when you blow air through your nose in exasperation. The noise you would expect the snobbiest faux French waiter to make if you have the horrible sense to request ketchup for your haricots verts, or worse, suggested that you’d rather have a domestic wine with your meal.

Yep, that’s the sound, and it came out of me!

So what caused this tiny fit of obnoxious behavior, you ask? Since these chronicles are as much a soul searching experience as they are (hopefully) kind of humorous, I’ll tell you.

Canned Green Beans.

Read more…

Popularity: 1% [?]

It happened just the other day. My wife and I were enjoying a pleasant evening conversation on our balcony, going over our respective days, as most couples do if the opportunity presents itself. (And if the baby will let you!) In the midst of all of this idle chatter, I mentioned something about this blog and in response I was greeted with a statement that nearly knocked me off my chair.

After I’d made whatever comment it was (and I honestly don’t remember, it was all very innocent), my wife looked at me with those incredible blue-green eyes of hers and a slight smirk and said:

“One of my students mentioned your blog today.”

She had my attention, It’s always nice to know someone’s talking about what you’re doing.

“Oh?”

I said, with every attempt at not trying like the devil to make her speak a bit more quickly. (she’s Texan, I’m a native Californian, she talks a lot slower than I’m used to)

“Yes, but I’m not sure I should say any more.”

She said in that tone she gets that lets me know that she is definitely going to say more, but I’m gonna’ have to ask to hear it, and I’m probably not gonna’ like it much.

“You started this, so dish.”

I said, most likely with a smirk, though I’m not really sure at this point.

And with a theatrically perfect “I’m really sorry I’m the one who has to break this to you” attitude, she looked over at me and said:

“He said he’d like your blog a lot more if you weren’t such a food snob.”

Ouch!

Read more…

Popularity: 1% [?]