|
|
September 30, 2009
 Photo: Warren Bobrow
Photo: Warren Bobrow
Billy Reid: A Glass of Bourbon, Branch and History
by Warren Bobrow
Back in the eighties I bartended a bit, drank a fair amount of good bourbon in carefully learned, hand-crafted mint juleps, and cooked the line in a fine, white tablecloth restaurant near the historic waterfront area known as Ansonborough in Charleston, South Carolina.
That restaurant was named the Primerose House. Here at this very early proponent of locavore cooking I was introduced to the culture and mystique of the oft mentioned, never tasted branch water. After Hurricane Hugo set us all asunder in 1989, Charleston changed, but her charms as a graceful Southern city has never faded.
Many moved on to other places and culinary careers, myself included. But the manners that I was taught in Charleston have stayed with me. I especially cite Martha Lou’s Kitchen for teaching me the value of listening under pressure in her non-air-conditioned kitchen. In the Soul Food restaurant she owns in Charleston, Martha Lou let me watch her cook. Once she trusted me after several months of my begging, she let me cook alongside her. Martha Lou also gave me another gift, a palate for all things hog, Southern culture and a glass of Bourbon Whiskey.
I was reading a food article in the New York Times the other day by the noted Southern cultural raconteur named John T. Edge. He wrote a piece on All-American, Mexican Hot Dogs. His web presence begins with these words: “Eater, Writer, Educator.” As one of the founders of the Southern Foodways Alliance and a contributing columnist of the Oxford American Magazine John T. Edge has a passion for food, clothing and fine Bourbon whiskey. I admire his pen and have learned much from his unforced, open ended- writing style. He has championed the work of Billy Reid, the 2001 CFDA Award winning clothing designer in his unique style of prose.
There is a carefully constructed shirt on the rack of Southern vernacular clothing at Billy Reid’s store in NYC. This shirt is simply known as the John T. It has a nice muted check, is narrow in length and is made, like all of Billy Reid’s clothing designs, in Italy. This is clothing is meant to complement an afternoon of tasting Bourbon or working in the corporate canyons of NYC. Billy Reid is known to most Southerners as their native son-their home-spun answer to Ralph Lauren.
While reading John T. Edge’s writing on his web page, I noticed that it immediately references bacon, one of my passions. This piqued my interest in Edge and his alliance with his clothing designer friend, Billy Reid, both modern day cultural icons of the New South.
 Photo: Warren Bobrow Reid’s clothing store in NYC is sandwiched between renovated former industrial buildings on a rag-tag cobblestone street in Lower Manhattan. Here in the basement of a former manufacturing space, the gracious interior elegant as a fine gentleman’s bar room and open to the street through large sun filled windows, was the perfect venue in which to taste a series of three, half-century old bottles of Kentucky Bourbon whiskey. I sat with some of the friendly and eager staff and we discussed at length the concept, unknown to most Yankees (of which I am one) of branch water. Branch water, I learned is a direct connection to the cultural and culinary definition of Southern drinking heritage. Webster’s Dictionary defines branch water as: “Pure natural water from a stream or brook; often distinguished from soda water.”
I’ve found from my very short time living in the South that somewhere out there in the steamy ancient forests-thick with blood-sucking ticks, leeches and poisonous snakes, (they wear those thick leather leg chaps when walking in the woods for a reason)–lays a Valhalla or holy-grail in “Bourbon-speak.” A pristine spring bubbles up sweet water, pure as the dew that lights up in sunlight shining on the elegantly dripping strands of Spanish moss. Vanilla-tea-colored water rises from the depths-situated directly in front of the roots of the almost mythical in proportion, ancient Southern Live-Oak tree. The sweet water found here is known as branch. It is one of the defining elements of Bourbon understanding, the physical act of discovering for the first time…spring of water bursting from the ground, the essence of purity and grace, danced simply over a glass of the brown liquid. The next act in appreciation of the past is by making a perfect drink with that branch. This physical interaction of adding branch to Bourbon binds hundreds of years of Southern culture and drinking lore.
I offered to bring the employees at Billy Reid, a bottle of locally sourced branch.
Near where I live is the Morristown National Historical Park. There is an ancient artisanal well somewhere out there in the deep woods. (Historically, it was used by George Washington’s troops during the Revolutionary War.) This source of branch, sweet and alive with minerals, is from the pure protected spring located at the foot of a long forgotten rotted oak. The sweet water bubbling up from the depths remains to this very day. Its secret location is just up in the woods from me apiece.
I know they’ll smile at Billy Reid because finding a new source of real branch water is a rare experience. It is my desire to put the bottle of this geographically specific Yankee Branch water into the hands of Billy Reid himself drawing a new modern connection to his upbringing as a Son of the South.
Some may say that they rue the day that a Southern cocktail would even allow the introduction of Yankee Branch and call it a nip. I say create your own history by using what is available and that branch should speak clearly of the earth from which it rose.
It only takes a few drops of branch to liven a brown elixir in your great- grandfather’s unwashed crystal tumbler. An antique bottle of branch water may last a lifetime. Branch is not used casually; but the simple act of using the branch is a specific connection to Southern lore.
Branch water, when used correctly, is metered out in small portions, just what fits between your bare fingers. It was described to me on an ancient plantation somewhere east of the Cooper River, as gently snapping your branch water-moistened fingers together over the glass. There is a specific sound, one that was made by moving one’s fingers together. I would imagine snapping my fingers underwater to approximate the feeling. This pure liquid entering the glass; scattering over the top of the glistening- 55 year old Bourbon was in my experience a physical bond to a bygone age.
This specific act of making a cocktail hasn’t changed much in several hundred years.
As we sipped our whiskey in the former basement industrial space-its original inhabitants long gone-standing over hand-hewn barn-wood floors, surrounded by the casual, unforced elegance of bespoke Southern gentility clothing we tasted our way through 3 bottles of Kentucky Bourbon dating from 1952 to 1959. The flavors unleashed from the long sealed bottles lingers on in my mind.
The Historic Bourbon:
Old Forester 100 Proof/Bottled in Bond
Set into oak: Spring 1952-bottled fall 1957.
Warm treacle tinged molasses. Sun-dried walnut butter smeared on crunchy, fire-toasted cornmeal Hoecakes.
Exceptionally long finish with exotic Jungle Curry undertones. A liquor which tastes as fresh as the day it was bottled. Bottle looks like a sputnik. Space Age stuff!
Old Forester 100 Proof/Bottled in Bond
Set into oak: Fall 1954-bottled fall 1959
Sweet tobacco cream and freshly dug loam. Caramelized yams in the mid-palate. Dry, country ham finish with a whiff of pit-roasted Hog Cracklins’ at the end. Bottle is modern in design and interesting looking, with the real surprise contained within, a history lesson of the way Bourbon used to taste. Made by producers long gone.
Old Grand Dad 100 Proof/Bottled in Bond
Set into oak: Fall 1954-bottled fall 1958
Creamy sweet vanilla fire gives way to a pecan brittle mid-palate. Long mouth filling finish with sharp hints of Southern Blackberries and brown butter coated and roasted-hazelnuts covered in crushed dark bittersweet chocolate pastilles. This bottle looked like a Baccarat Crystal decanter.
All whiskeys served without ice in an unwashed glass with the sweet soulful drones of Greg Spradlin tearing it up on the stereo, serving as background music for our tasting.
 Photo: Warren Bobrow  Photo: Warren Bobrow
Wild River Review contributing editor, Warren Bobrow grew up on a farm in Morristown, NJ. A graduate of Emerson College with a degree in Film, he spent his senior year as a research assistant in visual thinking at The Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT. He worked for many years in the corporate world.
His column, Wild Snack, appears every Wednesday on WRR@Large. His soon to be published Blog; Wild Nibble is coming soon in October. In addition to Wild River Review, Warren writes for NJMYWay.com and SLOWFOODNNJ.org. He has upcoming work in Edible Jersey Magazine on the topic of Biodynamic Wine and a piece in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Ed., 2. Please follow his moving about and drinkin’ ’round on Twitter @ jockeyhollow.
Help support Warren’s work on Wild River Review, and his column, Wild Table:
You may make a donation to: Wild River Review, PO Box 53, Stockton, NJ 08559. Wild River Review is an international website and 501c3 non-profit organization so your donation may be tax deductible.
Please put Wild Bite in the subject line. Thank you!
September 25, 2009
The Jester’s Marginalia: Three Translations from Old Irish, Old Norse, and Old English
by William Irwin Thompson
In the library of St. Gall there is an oddity in the Priscian Manuscript–already famous for its seventeen marginalia invocations of St. Bridget. Since the marginalium is written with the same hand in Old Irish, Old Norse, and Old English, it has always been assumed to be a forgery and some sort of Ossianic prank of a learned monk and fiendish librarian from a much later period. Consequently, the poems have never been published. It is possible that a monk of an earlier period might know Irish and Norse, but it is hard to believe he would also know the West Saxon dialect of Old English. And yet the peregrinatio was sacred to Irish monks, and so I like to imagine an Irish monk making his way from Clonmacnoise to Ripon after the destruction of Lindisfarne and on to St. Gall. It is clear in the second poem that the author was familiar with some version of Beowulf, oral or written, as the poem would appear to be spoken by Grendel, cursing his attacker before he dies. When I was living in Switzerland, a kind librarian, knowing that I was a poet, gave me a translation of the Jester’s Marginalia—as he liked to call it–into German, and then I reworked his scholarly German into English.
1.
The moon is full, the wind down.
I fear the unheard frog drop
of oars on the still waters
of the wide sea-laned Shannon.
More than the bell of Matins,
I hark to the round tower.
2.
I am not child of Cain!
Your Church lies on stones
it cannot hear – cry nor scream.
Before you were, Enoch’s kin,
taken to heaven, were made
great giants from weak men.
No demon, I am
first-born, heaven bent.
You the mold scraped off tree,
hairless pigs, ape-men,
clouded seed, cattle cunt,
foul creatures of time and muck!
3.
Old am I now,
fared wide on seas
castled with ice,
frost on my beard
already white
in the white spray.
My name I lost
when the Æsir
flung me out
the tossing boat,
off Iceland’s red
burning rivers,
took out my breath
under waters
cold and steaming
and put in me
their forms and words
unknown to man.
Under the waves,
I talked with seals,
lifting me up
to breathe the air.
Flat on black sand,
then could I hear
the mountains talk,
hammers of dwarves,
and high pitched Elves
with their gold harps
and their strung bows
moving in air,
riding the clouds.
I sailed again
as mountains burst,
loud in black smoke.
Nowhere the sun,
nowhere the stars.
Endless the seas,
endless the ice.
Cultural philosopher and poet, William Irwin Thompson, is founder of the Lindisfarne Fellowship. He became nationally known as a writer for his best-selling book on contemporary affairs, At the Edge of History, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award for his science fiction fantasy novel Islands Out of Time and has published four books of poetry. As a cultural historian, he is most widely known for his books, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality, and the Origins of Culture and Coming into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness. His collection of poems, Still Travels, will be published in October Wild River Books, an imprint of Wild River Review.
September 24, 2009
 Photo: Warren Bobrow The Jimi Cocktail
by Warren Bobrow
There is a private club in New York City’s West Village that caters to an artsy crowd. It’s located in an historic building on a gritty commercial-looking street. You can walk by the place a hundred times and never notice that it’s just down the way from the spot that once held the famous Luchow’s Restaurant.
If you are invited – and that’s the only way to get in the front door – it’s possible to bump into the next hot director working on a movie, or the latest ad agency sensation. This is a smart, social networking/internet savvy crowd. Over on the couch you’ll see a group of giggling, well-dressed couples reading the extensive menu from the excellent locavore restaurant upstairs.
The spectacular landmarked town house where I found myself on a recent weekday night is arranged over 5 floors and houses a sixty-five seat restaurant, two lounge bars, a forty-five seat screening room, event space, as well as a subterranean dining room for up to twenty four people, plus a walled garden. There is very little public information about this club. One has to dig rather deeply into the National Trust for Historic Places website for any information on the original owners, or the property for that matter.
In fact, the club keeps its landmark designation hanging inside the entrance to hide its status from peering eyes. Add the fact that the Federal-style architecture blends into the ambiguous brownstone homes surrounding it and you can rest assured that should you desire it you’ll have a measure of privacy.
Once inside, the rooms feel like someone’s private lair- a mansion from another age, in this case 1845. I felt like I had entered a well-orchestrated theatrical tableau. Hipsters abounded, dressed in cool clothing like those created by designer Billy Reid-dripping with bespoke Southern Heritage styled- duck hunting outfits? There is nary a Ralph Lauren preppy to be found. If this crowd had been a bit older, they would have hung out at the club named Danceteria where I worked back in the day.
The building has narrow staircases (an elevator is available) and gracious public spaces, floor to ceiling (sound insulated) windows were reminiscent of the Adam period architecture found in Charleston, S.C. Old, wide plank, wood flooring and heavy pocket doors framed the rooms. The cocktail bar and lounge, lit with intimate shaded light, was located on the main floor. Curved in the corner, glass back-lit shelving held exciting-sounding liquors in exotically shaped bottles.
The classically dressed bartender works with a speedy efficiency and with an almost Buddhist- influenced calm, possessing a sense of grace that causes one to remember his or her own manners. The members (and their guests in whose corner I counted myself) smiled, drank their well- prepared libations and spoke of dreams and possibilities well into the night. Twitter is part of the scene, with Blackberries at the ready, but the ongoing conversations into cell phones are conducted in hushed tones.
On shelves, I saw several bottles I didn’t recognize. All I could think about was the Jimi Cocktail, which our bartender was preparing in front of us.
History and Prep: Jimi Cocktail:
The true history is muddy at best. It is an amalgamation of the famous Mojito Cocktail containing mint, white rum, ice, simple syrup and freshly squeezed lime juice. The Jimi Cocktail’s name is derived from the Hendrick’s Gin and the Jimi as in Jimi Hendrix, guitar legend and Woodstock protagonist. And with the 40th anniversary of Woodstock having just passed the cocktail is now called the “Jimi.”
The ingredients for a Jimi Cocktail are very similar to a Mojito with a psychedelic twist. That is the Hendrick’s Gin. It has properties that are known to be mystical like its namesake and contains the essence of rose petals, cucumber oil, botanicals such as juniper and the ever-present, brooding alcohol at nearly 100 proof.
Our bartender muddled chunks of seedless cucumbers in a pint glass creating almost a pulp as he released the cucumber essence. Then, he added freshly squeezed lime juice and muddled a bit more. A splash of simple syrup, more muddling, then 3-4 generous shots of Hendrick’s Gin. He added some cracked ice, shook the cocktail and strained into a pre-chilled martini glass. His garnish was a perfect cucumber slice- and voila, the Jimi Cocktail!
I sipped slowly, tasting fresh, cooling cucumbers and the almost watery quality of the Hendrick’s Gin. It went down very easily, too easily, in fact, on a hot night. The slice of cucumber, floating in the off clear liquid had the element of a Japanese Ofuro Mineral Bath potion. I slipped away into contentment and started hearing the strains of Jimi Hendrix in my mind - Purple haze all in my brain. Lately things just don’t seem the same – a slow throbbing, and then the attack! The room spins, the hipsters pack up their iPhones and Blackberries and I wander out into the night.
I offer the “Jimi” Cocktail-Recipe.
1. Muddle with a well worn wooden muddler, a few chunks of an English “seedless” cucumber in a pint sized mixing glass
2. Add about 3-4 shots of Hendrick’s Gin, continue muddling the cucumber
3. Add a splash of “simple syrup”
4. Add some fresh squeezed lime juice
5. Fill mixing glass w/ cracked ice, shake gently
6. Strain and serve in a Martini Glass with slices of cucumber for garnish
Sip carefully and order another immediately, followed (in my case) by another. Start hearing guitar riffs from Jimi Hendrix in your head…..(queue the guitar!! MAXIMUM VOLUME!)
Click here –à Jimi Hendrix riffs
Wild River Review contributing editor, Warren Bobrow grew up on a farm in Morristown, NJ. A graduate of Emerson College with a degree in Film, he concentrated on visual thinking at The Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT. He worked for many years in the corporate world.
His column, Wild Snack, appears every Wednesday on WRR@Large. His soon to be published Blog; Wild Nibble is coming soon in October. In addition to Wild River Review, Warren writes for NJMYWay.com and SLOWFOODNNJ.org. He has upcoming work in Edible Jersey Magazine on the topic of Biodynamic Wine and a piece in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Ed.,
Follow his moving about and drinkin’ ’round on Twitter @ jockeyhollow.
Help support Warren’s work on Wild River Review, and his column, Wild Table.
You may make a donation to: Wild River Review, PO Box 53, Stockton, NJ 08559. Wild River Review is an international website and 501c3 non-profit organization so your donation may be tax deductible.
Please put Wild Bite in the subject line. Thank you!
Comments Off
September 16, 2009
When a Restaurant Does it Right
- Photo: Warren Bobrow
by Warren Bobrow
A Toute Heure is located not in Martha’s Vineyard, or Boston or even New York City… But, if you ever find yourself just off the Garden State Parkway in Cranford, New Jersey and locavore is how you eat, then you must find your way to one of the best restaurants in New Jersey, if not in the entire Tri-State area. (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.)
Walking up the path to A Toute Heure, is like stepping into a farmhouse located somewhere in the Hudson River Valley of New York, without the farm tractors parked outside.
Local to the restaurant is a postage stamp farm called Cherry Lane-mere blocks away-nurturing perfect little heirloom tomatoes that glow on the plate with an inner energy. The mention of the Cherry Lane farm had originally piqued my interest. Where was the Cherry Lane Farm? Did I know that it was “just around the corner?” You cannot get any fresher than this!
A black board prominently displayed on the wall tells all you need to know about who is supplying what ingredient to the restaurant. Fresh cheeses are listed alongside the farm names. All the varied locavore ingredients right down to the eggs are given a place on the wall. The list changes daily depending on what is fresh.
Local foods complete the scene in this change-the-entire-menu-weekly, James Beard Society-nominated restaurant. But that kind of award doesn’t make the scene. What makes the scene is the abundant energy and pulse-the smiles from the staff-the smell of the open kitchen as the staff prepares each plate. The kitchen just radiates good feeling… you can taste the energy in anticipation of your supper.
A Toute Heure is a BYOB. I brought a peach pit and citrus-tinged Sybille Kuntz Trocken Riesling in a 1/2 sized bottle for our appetizers and a really special bottle of a single vineyard, Pax Syrah from 2004-which has rested in my cellar until I opened it about 9 hours prior to dinner. The tap water doesn’t taste like chlorine that is a nice complement to the meal, one I cannot say for Morristown, New Jersey, where I live and where the tap water reeks of it, making for difficult drinking and eating.
We were presented with an Amuse Bouche of Hush Puppies that sent me right back down to Charleston, South Carolina. It was here that sparkling fresh shrimp from Shem Creek fished just out of the brackish pluff mud filtered water filled my memories. One taste and I was eating the essence of Wild Shrimp. A brilliant, freshly made remoulade sauce sealed the deal.
My mother-in-law, who doesn’t eat shrimp, was offered a small plate of several heirloom “cherry” tomatoes. Each one was brimming with flavor and were still slightly warm from being just picked maybe seconds before they were sliced, dashed with a grassy olive oil and a bit of sea salt to raise their inner secrets to her fork. I tasted one and wanted to eat an entire bowl of them with aged Balsamico and crusty bread.
I started with a bowl of Kara’s Mussel Pot, an appetizer size that dwarfed the other plates on the table. It was brimming with succulent, steaming hot PEI Mussels. Sweet and plump, they came drenched in Belgian Ale from a local microbrewery, dotted with sweet, yet tangy blue cheese and a splash of cream. I inhaled most of the bowl and set to work at the excellent bread served and refilled without my notice to sop up the broth.
My wife and her mom shared the satisfyingly filling, meltingly soft to the tooth Paffenroth Garden’s roast beet salad. Each generous portion of beets echoed their specific terroir and was folded between perfectly cleaned local greens. I could smell the earthy nature of the beets and it stirred a far away feeling of summer and memories that lingered at the edge of my memory.
Tables around us shared large portions of all the items I had myself dreamed of ordering. Steak Frites! Pork n’ Clams! Cones of Pomme Frites – Can I snag one?
I ordered the Hudson Valley magret duck breast which came over goat cheese-infused mashed potatoes that tasted made a la minute-the glutens of the potato had not turned to glue. I wanted to jump right in to bowl full of them. A veritable pillow-top mattress made of them. The duck, rendered of the fat that sometimes plagues other examples of this dish, tasted as if it had been running around just that morning. Or swimming, so deep was the flavor.
The other dishes were the boneless, brined, “brick” roast ½ chicken. Brick-Cooked Chicken holds a special place in my heart and this delicacy was brined to bring out all the flavors of a small, organic bird. So delicate and almost sous vide in texture- I wanted to tear into the chicken and perhaps convince the chef to fry me up a few wings,to keep me honest and quiet.
My mom-in-law has a restrictive diet, so she doesn’t eat meat in a restaurant, nor most fish. A Toute Heure accommodated her needs, serving her the bountiful, piping hot, Heirloom Cherry Lane Farm’s eggplant gratin with Gruyere and Parma cheese. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her polish off a plate of vegetables so quickly.
While we were finishing our meal I took note of the cheese list. Perfectly aged cheeses abound. Without asking, we were served a selection of cheeses which included: Cayuga Blue from Lively Run Dairy in NY, a perfectly aged specimen of the Weston Wheel from Woodcock Farm in Vt., and my personal favorite-the Constant Bliss from Jasper Hill in Vt. Each cheese was just about 2 bites-served with house-cured olives and more of that excellent toast, carefully marked by the grill in crosshatches. I love seeing that extra effort at taking an ingredient and expanding on the flavors of the charred bread.
Dessert would be a selection of the best ice-cream I have ever tasted in NJ, the Burnt Sugar, the brightly flavored and toothsome Spearmint Bittersweet Chocolate Chip and the Ricotta with Candied Citrus. if I had a cooler, they might have been missing some. My wife enjoyed the chocolate bread pudding, drizzled with caramel sauce.. it was… deep, dark and filling.
Coffee was served in a French Press-nice touch! I wanted more-but wanted to be able to sleep and dream of our beautiful meal.
At A Toute Heure, if they stick to their ethos of fresh food,cooked simply with the love that we were shown through the excellent service and not-overly intellectualized cuisine, they will have that grail.. The James Beard Award hanging on the wall-just out of eyeshot though, for their food doesn’t need an award to be truly wonderful.
What better ending to summer could there be than that?
 Wild River Review contributing editor, Warren Bobrow grew up on a farm in Morristown, New Jersey. He graduated from Emerson College with a degree in Film, concentrating on visual thinking @ The Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT. He worked for many years in the corporate world. His column, Wild Snack, appears every Wednesday on WRR@Large. His soon to be published Blog; Wild Nibble is coming soon in October. In addition Wild River Review, Warren writes for NJMYWay.com and SLOWFOODNNJ.org.
Follow his moving about and drinkin’ ’round on Twitter @jockeyhollow. To support my work on Wild River Review and Wild Bite, you may make a donation to: Wild River Review, PO Box 53, Stockton, New Jersey. Please put Wild Bite in the subject line. Thank you! wb
Comments Off
September 11, 2009
Planes in Alberta
Crickets in New York
by Scott Smallwood
My wife and I just relocated to Edmonton, Alberta, after living for the last several years in the New York / New Jersey area. Needless to say, this has brought great changes for us, and as always, I’ve been curious to explore the sounds both of this city, and of Alberta in general.
One thing I’ve noticed that is sort of shocking: a conspicuous lack of airplane noise. In fact, there is hardly any of it.
Edmonton is a good 296 km (184 miles) north of Calgary, which itself is almost that far North of the Montana border. Take a look at a map of North America, and you’ll see that Edmonton is really quite far removed from everything else, and there are no urban centers east, west, or north. And so, as I sit outside on the patio, I count the number of planes I can hear in an hour: one at the most.
This is quite a refreshing situation. And yet, even still, one of my new students, who is embarking on a project to create an archive of field recordings of places in Alberta, has complained about being interrupted by airplane noise. Despite this, it’s amazing to me just how few of them I hear – perhaps for the first time since I was a child. And when I do hear them, they seem deafening.
How many an hour can you hear in your neighborhood?
In any case, I do hear lots and lots of automobiles. I also hear some really neat crackling, sizzling electrical sounds coming from some high-voltage power lines near our apartment. There is a paved path that follows some nearby high-voltage power-line support structures, and you can hear the cables humming away in certain places. Here’s a recording of it during the middle of the night.
In the meantime, as we are getting settled in our new city, learning about its sounds, culture, wildlife, and public transportation system, I’m already missing New York, planes, trains, and automobiles and all. Those of you who live near the Big Apple, go out and count some crickets and katydids! The NYC Cricket Crawl is happening on Friday Sept. 11, and seems like a nice way to both help with an important project and listen to the evening insects together. For more information, see http://www.discoverlife.org/cricket/.
Scott Smallwood is a sound artist and composer whose music draws inspiration from the soundscape around him. His work is founded on a practice of listening, field recording, and improvisation. He currently teaches music composition, computer music, and improvisation at the University of Alberta.
Comments Off
September 8, 2009
The Birth of a Restaurant Reviewer – A Cautionary Tale
by Warren Bobrow
 Photo: Warren Bobrow How do you nicely say to your waiter that your meal wasn’t quite what you expected-and what you expected wasn’t what you received? Or do you say anything at all? These are questions that restaurant reviewers take very seriously. Great reviewers not only care deeply about the craft of making beautiful food, they have their readers’ best interests in mind. But what happens when you’ve read a good review of a restaurant and it doesn’t meet your expectations?
This question and many others found its way into the heads of my wife and me after looking forward to a Saturday night dinner out at Copeland in the Westin Hotel in Morristown, NJ.
In prior trips we had eaten at the bar with mostly good results-it’s hard to mess up a hamburger billed as the “best in NJ,” and we were eager to try the more formal restaurant. We had no idea that the restaurant would be so inept at even the simplest task of cooking and serving dinner for two on a Saturday night, especially after the New York Times had spoken favorably about the chef.
We arrived at 7:30 for our 8:30 reservation, hoping to get an earlier seating and were told by the Maitre d’ that we could not be seated even though there seemed to be plenty of open tables. And so, we sat down at the empty bar surrounded by large screen TV’s playing sports without the sound, not the atmosphere we seek out for a romantic dinner on a Saturday night.
The dimly lit room of dark wood and deeply painted red walls, hung with pastoral scenes of house and home from an 18th century perspective, didn’t quite fit with the large screen TVs playing sports. Drinks were well made and with a careful hand; I had a Havana Mojito made with 10 Cane Rum, fresh mint and simple syrup. My wife had a $12 glass of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc that might have cost $6 or less at retail for a bottle.
We finally got up from our bar-stools and walked back up to the podium and asked the Maitre d’ if we could sit down. They had forgotten us at the bar after a nearly 45-minute wait. That’s where our experience went quickly downhill.
Now seated at our table, we waited for someone to notice us. After about a 5 minutes, we were offered grease-stained menus, and no wine list. After another five minute wait we asked for and were given a wine by the glass list, also grease stained and smeared with food.
Eventually, after weeding through many commercially available-mostly forgettable and overpriced bottles, I ordered a somewhat serviceable Pouilly Fume. But, I didn’t feel like drinking much. It was getting late, and we were hungry having worked all day, skipping lunch.
We were not told about the nightly specials, although we noticed that diners at nearby tables received a recitation of an interesting selection of the chef’s creativity. We were beginning to get a complex. Why were we ignored? I was interested in what the chef might prepare, having read in the New York Times that he had (some) talent, garnering a Very Good rating, not an easy task to receive. But our waiter never gave us the chance to deviate from the menu set before us.
I ordered the Sashimi of Yellow Fin Tuna w/Coconut, Kaffir Lime, Chili Oil. The description of the dish on the menu read well enough, but what I was served was in no way matched the description. The mostly warm temperature (not a true sign of freshness) tuna was soft and mealy to the tooth and flavorless to my palate. I tasted no hint of chili oil or coconut or even Kaffir Lime Leaf, but I did detect some slivers of scallion. The foam that surrounded the minuscule pebbles of fish was reminiscent of milky-colored cucumber tinged marshmallow cream, whipped into a frenzy of fuzzy, tongue-numbing submission.
My wife ordered a simple Caesar salad, nicely plated and well cleaned of the grit that sometimes plagues Romaine washed in restaurant prep kitchen sinks , but it was overpowering with both a lemon juice and vinegar dressing. The Parma cheese “Frico” crisp on top was a clever and creative diversion, but it was soft, as if it had sat under a heat lamp for too long.
We ordered the Roasted Organic “Heritage” Chicken that was billed as a twenty-minute wait, (we waited almost 40 minutes for it to be ready) served with roasted cipollini onions, chanterelles and fava beans for $26 a portion.
I don’t mind spending $26 on a $3.50 chicken (wholesale) if it is brightly flavored and freshly roasted to a crispy turn. In this case, however, the chicken was desiccated from being par-cooked, then held until service at just below temperature, then flashed in a hot oven, reheated to finish. The chickens were served with vegetables that may have been originally cooked during the Nixon Administration, then reheated ‘banquet’ style on a steam-table warmed plate. The portion size was miniscule with only slivers of really small chanterelles, a couple of sorry looking pale green fava beans and finally, two overcooked to mush, cipollini onions. The sauce tasted of a type of canned stock that I was familiar with…a demi glace that comes from a jar or pouch of concentrated mix, having a flavor that is bitter and cold to the tongue, not a homemade, deeply flavored demi-glace from a restaurant that bills itself as “everything from scratch.”
We skipped dessert. We had arrived around 7:30 and didn’t leave until long after 10. Having cooked in hotel kitchens for some of my restaurant cooking career, I am well aware that hotels have a marvelous way of taking excellent ingredients and destroying them, focusing on food cost over-runs than the TASTE of the food on the customer’s plate.
It is often too much about the bottom line and the conveyor belt style of feeding, one that I learned about plating luncheons out in Arizona at the Scottsdale Princess Hotel in 1992.
The New York Times has a restaurant review that dates from 1859 which may well be the first foodie writing:
http://kottke.org/07/09/first-ny-times-restaurant-review-circa-1859 .
It would be many more years before food writers, critics and journalists would hold the power to build reverence with the public regarding a fantastic meal, or humiliate and destroy a restaurant over a series of poor, inedible ones. Reviewers, in order to stay balanced and unbiased in their reviews, would don elaborate disguises in order to eat like everyone else-hopefully without special treatments or discovery.
A reviewer has the responsibility to describe the restaurant experience from the coat check person to the waiter who folds your napkin when you stand up. Each person who works in a restaurant is worthy of mention and should be as important a character as the head chef and the Maitre d’. They all play a part in this specific kind of theatre. It’s show time and I want to read the reviews. I want to be driven to dine at that restaurant, or steer well clear!
In this case of Copeland, I should have dug, “a bit deeper.” to find why this restaurant was mostly empty on a Saturday night.
Food writing and more serious food journalism exemplifies the reasoning that someone is interested in letting their readers know that there is a restaurant worthy of their visit, or a simply a mention for their shared imagination. Prior to 1859, no one had done this in the New York Times. Reflecting on the retirement of Frank Bruni as the Times’s restaurant critic, I wonder what our fascination is with the meals people are eating? Do we really care if the food is good or not? Some obviously do, otherwise we would have never had a man like Frank Bruni filling our stomachs and minds with his well chosen and satisfyingly delicious words describing the great, the good and not so good, restaurants in New York City.
I found with Copeland at the Westin Hotel that one reviewer’s (in this case not Frank Bruni’s) “Very Good” is another reviewer’s “needs much more work.” As a food journalist, I find myself influenced by the writing in New York Magazine’s Grub Street as much as I am with our local (to our town) foodie blogs in the New Jersey Star Ledger restaurant review forum on NJ-Online. The local cognoscenti oozed over Copeland and their talented young chef. I wanted to ooze over him as well.
Although I enjoyed, over my past four or five visits, the “best burger in NJ” (a maybe on that one) at the bar, that wasn’t why I wanted to dine there. The reason was pretty clear at that time. I wanted to be influenced by a chef with a clear vision and purpose in his kitchen. I wanted to learn something from this “Very Good” review and be moved into that seemingly otherworldly place that restaurants like Nicholas in Middletown, NJ and Serenade in Chatham, NJ, hold in my stomach.
The immediacy and power of the Internet as witnessed by Gary Vaynerchuk with his critically acclaimed success of the Wine Library and its golden egg, the eCommerce operations, exemplifies the explosion of eCommerce as a new sales medium, a new language if you will. Blogs from traditional and therefore serious media sources such as the Times,contain many valuable lessons for the restaurateur, if they would only take the time to read them and hopefully act upon this information.
The restaurant owner must re-train his mind to scope out this new channel of communication…To pay attention to the power of the media…To read what the media has to say- to guide the restaurant’s success or failure..As Marshall McLuhan says, the Media is the Message.
To grow the a business or fail takes careful attention on both accords. In order to succeed, every meal in a restaurant that calls itself “Very Good” must reflect the love, the passion and that specific sense of attention that the restaurateur took on when they opened the doors. Any less is unacceptable and only perpetuates the myth that good reviews make the restaurant and assure its success. Success is earned by careful consistency, rather than what was perceived as being assured because of a framed review placed conspicuously on a wall in the foyer.
It’s just not happening at Copeland right now. That’s too bad. It’s a nice room even with the sports on the television monitors.
My take away here is: Cook well, serve good bread and teach your staff to smile. Success will follow.
Wild River Review contributing editor, Warren Bobrow grew up on a farm in Morristown, New Jersey. He graduated from Emerson College with a degree in Film, concentrating on visual thinking @ The Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT. He worked for many years in the corporate world. His column, Wild Snack, appears every Wednesday on WRR@Large. His soon to be published Blog; Wild Nibble is coming soon in October. In addition Wild River Review, Warren writes for NJMYWay.com and SLOWFOODNNJ.com.
Follow his moving about and drinkin’ ’round on Twitter @jockeyhollow. To support Wild River Review and Wild Bite, you may make a donation to: Wild River Review, PO Box 53, Stockton, New Jersey. Put Wild Bite in the subject line.
Older Posts »
Powered by WordPress
|
Archives
|
