The Search Is Over, Part Two (AKA - Molto WTF?)

I remember many years ago listening to a radio show or something like that where the speaker was talking about restaurant expectations. He was discussing something I had experienced, and he gave me the answer I had been looking for to a problem about which I was mystified.

He said, for instance, that people go in droves to Alice Waters' Chez Panisse in Berkley and are often disappointed to find that it's just food that she offers. This is largely due to the expectations that diners have developed by listening to stories, reviews, and marketing pieces about a place. As human beings we take in the hype and we come to expect something much different than can be delivered in reality.

I remember dining at Lutece in NYC back in the late 80's with no expectation and was truly overwhelmed by the flavors of foods I normally don't even eat. I dined at the once (locally) famous Restaurant Million (previously Phillipe Million) in Charleston, SC a couple years later and had the meal of my life. Never heard of the place previously.

Went to Charlie Palmer's place in New York, Aureole, and was very disappointed. A trip to Charlie Trotter's in Chicago left me wondering what these high dollar celebrity chefs have that I don't.

What I settled on was the concept of an agent, a crack marketing team, an enormous staff of talented people, and a whole lot of operating capital.

World class motivator Tony Robbins would say that what they have is drive, acuity, and perseverance. I suspect there's a lot of truth to that as well. I lack most of that some of the time...or some of that most of the time.

So, I think that the idea of expectations has a lot to do with one's dining experience these days! But that's not everything because if I ain't got nothing I do have good taste and an excellent palate.

And that my friends brings us to the steak house of (Molto) Mario Batali--Carnevino. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because it just gets my blood boiling. I was just at the doctor today and my blood pressure was great. I wanna keep it that way.

Carnevino is a place where you can get a steak that has been aged for at least 60 days, and it will cost you about half of your net income for the same period. Well, it seemed like it anyway.

A New York Strip is $54 and an enormous Ribeye, weight unknown, is $65 per person for two. Yes, $130 for one steak. Had it been an amazing steak I wouldn't be writing this. In fact, I bought a ribeye at our local Kroger two weeks prior and cooked it at home. It could have been one the 10 best steaks I've ever had. I paid about eight 9 bucks for it.

The waiter came to our table and greeted us with his idea of what we should have. He fancied that we should order one of three different items from the grill and split them among the 6 of us. When he returned to take our order and we told him that we preferred to order separately he criticized us and persisted to sell us his idea of a check that would've been about half what it ended up being. What an idiot.

Reminded me of the one time at the poker table that I went "all in" when I had a hand that would've beat anything. Rather than drawing out a pile of money I forced everyone to fold. Valuable lesson...but I digress (again).

So then he brings over some warm bread, not homemade, and two little vessels of condiment. One was butter. The other was "lardo", which is apparently the rendered fat of a pig that has been seasoned, cured, and aged. Fucking repulsive!

Sorry, I can't think of a better way to describe it. "It's an acquired taste", they said. We couldn't acquire it.

When beef is dry-aged, what takes place is water is evaporated out of the meat which concentrates flavor. There is further enzymatic breakdown of muscle tissue which increases tenderness. The outside of the meat turns black and must be trimmed before cooking.

The resulting piece of meat, if aged properly, is simply amazing! It cooks very fast because what cooking is really all about is denaturing protein and evaporating water. It melts in your mouth. Like a complex wine or a good cigar it tastes like several different things...a well aged cheese being one of them usually, maybe a little chocolate, and a little wine. There's nothing finer, and there was nothing that even comes close to it at Carnevino.

We told the waiter how disappointed we were, but none of that made it back to the manager until the next day when Dave and I went back to collect the $80 they stole from us. Well, it turns out it was only a pre-authorization on the credit card that was released a couple days later. The manager had read the comment card I left and was very apologetic. I guess we were the only ones who ever complained.

Nonetheless, if you're ever in Vegas and want to have a round or two of free drinks send me an email and I'll give you the manager's name. He'll be delighted to have you! Let me know if they took my advice and started chilling the bottled soft drinks before serving them. Mine was warm, flat, and expensive.

When in Vegas, Molto Mario should take the straw out of his nose and the stripper out of his lap and pay attention to the overpriced food that has his name on it! But that's just my opinion.

Then...

Just 48 short hours later we walked through a back hallway at the MGM Grand into what I will forever remember as the most amazing meal of my life. Right back where this whole story began--Joel Robuchon

First came the Amuse. Amuse-bouche means "amusement for the mouth" and is usually something designed to whet the appetite in just a couple of bites. Everyone at the table usually gets the same thing, and it is a course generally conceived as free or gratis by the guest (of course it's built in to the price). The amuse is also not usually posted on the menu or ordered by the guest. Understate and over-deliver is my favorite motto in our business.

Our amuse was Lemon Gelee with Fennel, Fennel Cream and Basil Coulis. It came out in an almost egg shaped glass dish and must have been around 33 degrees. It was ice cold. This made a huge difference. Basically the best, most tart, coldest lemon Jello (I hate to call it Jello, but that's what gelee is) you could imagine with finally diced fresh bulb fennel, topped with half- whipped cream that was flavored with fennel puree, and garnished with pureed basil.

Even if you didn't like the combination it was hard to argue with the mastery of flavors, textures, and temperature. From the first bite some of our table was disgusted, but I knew at once that we were in for the ride of a lifetime. I think I even giggled just a little bit.

Next came Carpaccio of Foie Gras with Violet Artichoke Salad and Shaved Parmesan. Black truffles were not listed on the menu...another extra! Again, I've never eaten anything that was so perfect. Perfect flavors, perfect amount of dressing with the perfect amount of acid, served at the perfect temperature. Spectacular how-did-they-cut-that-so-thin presentation, and I'm certain that nothing was leftover from the day before.

Also at the table was a dish of Lemon Flavored Scallops with Red Turnips and Radishes. I didn't taste the scallops but they looked divine. What was most remarkable was the radishes were whole and about the size of a fingernail, but smoothly and evenly coated with a bright green herb butter. It was as if they were grown that way. I'm blown away by the details in this meal, and we're only on the second course!

Chestnut Veloute with Smoked Lardons Foam followed. Imagine a warm cappuccino with extra foam, but it's flavored with bacon and chestnuts...heavy on the cream. Somehow there were almost microscopic flakes of bacon on top of the soup. Micro-planed I would guess, but perhaps Robuchon is as particular about knife skills as my Skills Development instructor Bruno Elmer was.

Anyway, each taunting bite left me wanting just a little more bacon...just a little more chestnut...and alas, the bottom of the bowl appeared.

For the main course (Les Plats Principaux in French) we had Sea Bass and Octopus with Lemon Grass and Baby Leeks, Chicken En Cocotte with Fricassee of Salsify, Spiny Lobster with Daikon and Nori in Sake Broth, and my Braised Veal Cheeks with Thai Spices and Fondant Carrots. I did not try the bass or the chicken. I'm told they were delicious. I did try the lobster and thought to myself for the first time in 20 years, "Oh, so THIS is what lobster tastes like".

After eating the veal flavored chewing gum at Jaleo a few nights previous I was able to share with one of my fellow diners that THIS is what veal cheeks taste like as well! They melted in my mouth like braised butter. OMG! They were surrounded by a clear veal broth that was ever so slightly scented with lemongrass and a little Thai chili, but not enough to know it until just after the very last bite, and only for a moment.

All of our entrees were accompanied by a small side dish of Robuchon's signature Pommes Puree (mashed potatoes). The potatoes are painstakingly made by boiling fingerling potatoes with their peels intact, peeling them, pushing them through a ricer...then a tamis. Then the potatoes are cooled and held for service, at which time they are heated with cream and mounted with butter--almost 50/50.

They're more like potato buttercream. They only gave us a small portion each, and after what I guess came across as a bewildered glance they brought another bowl for the table. They shouldn't have. They knew what they were doing the first time.

Throughout the meal we had been tantalized by a bread cart that carried at least 15 kinds of bread loaves and rolls that had baked that morning. We tried several of them...several times. There was bacon bread, mini baguette, petit pain, basil rolls, two kinds of cheese rolls, butter rolls, brioche, and a few others. But that was over now.

Our tables were cleared to make room for Fuji Apple Confit, Cinnamon Sable, and Manzana Milkshake; Guajana Chocolate with Coffee Ice Cream, Caramelized Puffed Rice, and Lemon Confit; and Banana and Passion Fruit Cream with Dark Rum Granite and Coconut Foam.

About 10 or 12 years ago a friend asked me, "What's the best dessert you've ever had?" I responded that I hadn't had it yet. A year or so later I had a Creme Brulee Napoleon with Butterscotch at Etienne Jaulin's Townhouse in Charlotte, NC. Etienne was trained by Michel Richard and Jean Louis Palladin. His restaurant closed years ago and he moved on to better things, but his legacy lives on in preparing "The Best Dessert I've Ever Had".

Robuchon's were awfully pretty though!

And when it all had ended, along came the mignardises (min-YAR-deez). Like the amuse-bouche, mignardises are perceived as being free by the guest, they are not ordered, and everyone usually gets the same thing. It's dessert after dessert in just a few bites. For that matter in America after-dinner mints are mignardises, but nothing like these!

I've looked back at the picture of the cart and counted 36 different hand-made candies that our waiter described for us by name and served to us each by choice. Between us all we tried most of them I'd guess. It was another lesson in "how did they do that?"

I remember blackberry opera torte, Poire Williams, blueberry custard, caramel with sea salt, pineapple gelee, pineapple marshmallow, blueberry financier, chocolate feuilletine, ganache macaroon, and five-spice chocolate. But if I studied my whole life I don't think that I could figure out the flavors and textures. They were not of this world. I've eaten a lot of chocolate, but never anything like this.

Fifteen cooks and six bakers and pastry chefs labored over this meal, some French...some American. Of course the Chef himself was unavailable, but he had been there a week or so prior and was expected back in a couple of weeks.

I can't tell you what it cost because my boss' boss might be reading this.

I floated away with a grin on my face.

I'm not sure that all of my dining companions "got it", but I'm grateful that they tolerated one of the most joyous moments of my life.

There'll be another burger run soon!

Stay hungry my friends!

The Search Is Over, Part One

We sat in a room with purple velvet couches, fresh orchids, and soft piano in the background. Ours was the only party seated in this particular room. The wall was covered in a thick carpet of live ivy and below was a flower bed filled with tiny pink and white azaleas.

The table was adorned with two white linen runners, gold mesh, and over-sized, starched white linen napkins. I don't mean cotton.

First a tiny stool came to the table for Laura's purse.

Then a little plate came with two half-dollar sized curls of purest French butter sprinkled with sea salt.

A maitre d', a captain, a sommelier, two servers bringing bread and 2 kinds of bottled water, and two or three other tuxedo clad professionals all stopped by our table to offer their services. We hardly ever noticed them. There were plenty of other diners, but we were the only ones that seemed to matter to the team of French and Asian service staff there to meet our needs.

Looking back I don't remember anyone ever once asking, "How is everything?" They didn't need to--they knew the answer.

This was Joel Robuchon!

In 1989 French chef Joel Robuchon was given the title of "Chef of the Century" by the Gault Millau guide. To date his dozen or so world-wide restaurants have earned 26 Michelin stars, more than any chef on the planet. His restaurant in Las Vegas has 3, which is the maximum rating. Michelin just started rating American restaurants in recent years. Nine other U.S. restaurants have 3 stars...world renowned Charlie Trotter has only 2.

The 16-Course degustation menu is $385 per person plus supplements for caviar and French truffles. We didn't do that!

We chose a 4-Course menu at $180 per person. When it was all over I would have gladly given twice that. The experience we had was beyond value and without peer!

The night before we had dined at Thomas Keller's Bouchon. Bouchon is Keller's more informal bistro, and though I don't doubt that America's most revered chef is at the helm on occasion and has well trained chefs doing his bidding in Vegas, I have to wonder if it would match what happened on the same night at the original in Napa Valley.

The menu certainly interesting. The service fantastic. But the noise in the place from 200 or so happy travelers and convention attendees was deafening. Robuchon only seats 60, and they don't come to party.


Every protein at our table at Bouchon was overcooked. Scallops were deeply over-seared on one side and a lighter caramel on the other. Chicken breast was dry. Sweetbreads still had some membrane in them and were crumbly in texture.

A fantastic display of paper-thin sliced cured meats were all store-bought. Duck confit was missing the robust, melt-in-your-mouth flavors of herbs, garlic, juniper, and pepper. Foie gras vinaigrette didn't taste like foie gras.

I do however applaud the Peanut Butter & Jelly Pot de Creme and the Ile Flotante, which is the Keller version of the old-school "Floating Island", consisting of poached meringue atop a sea of Creme Anglaise. While both were excellent, they both lacked just one minimal twist that would have rocketed them to perfection.

The first night in town we dined at Jaleo which is Jose Andres' tapas restaurant in our hotel, the $8.4 billion, two-month old Cosmopolitan. I recalled that I saw Anthony Bourdain interview Chef Andres at his home restaurant in Washington, DC. Andres trained under Ferran Adria at El Bulli in Catalonia, Spain, so one might expect that he knows his stuff. I have not since learned otherwise. Jaleo was perhaps our unified favorite--until last night.

Entering Jaleo one is greeted by a sea of partying diners spilling out into the hotel lobby, some begging for a table. In the back a large circular cooking area contains 3 or 4 separate wood fires atop which are huge pans of authentic paella that are made fresh throughout the evening. It was like being in the fields of Spain where paella is made at lunchtime over open fires to feed farm workers. Unbelievable! The sights...the smells!

We feasted upon 3 or 4 different types of ham made from the famous black-footed pigs of Iberia. Bourdain toured the ham making facilities in Spain with Adria! Honestly, I wasn't terribly impressed. Tasted like a good old-fashioned Virgina ham to me, but what do I know? I have had some pretty good Serrano hams before, and the one we had at Jaleo I felt was better than the high-dollar acorn-fed black-footed varieties. Serrano is nothing to sneeze at, and not remotely cheap itself.

The selection of Spanish cheeses was excellent, but cheese nonetheless.

We must have tried and shared 20 different small plates, each one a painstaking lesson in passion for food that is clearly shared by Andres' huge staff of culinarians. There were scallops, mushrooms, octopus, asparagus, romesco, olive oil, shrimp and much much more. Veal cheeks with morels was a must-try, but though the veal was so delicately and deliciously flavored, it was like chewing something that spent its short life chewing.

An amazingly simple salad of warm brussels sprout leaves with ham and apricots will undoubtedly find its way to one of my future menus in some form or another.

Then came dessert...

A friend had recently told me about a combination of vanilla ice cream, sea salt, and olive oil. I thought to myself, "YUK!" Chef Jose put together a couple things that sounded so wild that we couldn't resist. One in particular, Olive Oil Ice Cream with Grapefruit.

New paragraph...

When in Las Vegas go to Jaleo and order olive oil ice cream with grapefruit. I don't care if you don't like grapefruit. Most people don't. I don't care if you don't like olives or olive oil. It doesn't matter that you can't get your head around this concept. Buy it and eat it. It doesn't taste like olive oil or grapefruit. It has a texture that you've never experienced before if you've only ever been to planet Earth. I will spend the next weeks and months obsessed with duplicating this dish because it was the best, most sensational, most delicious, most unique thing I've ever eaten...until last night.

The next night had us at Alain Ducasse's MIX in THEHotel at Mandalay Bay. Ducasse has always been one of my idols because 1) He's one of the world's best chefs, and 2) He once said, "If you want art go to a museum, food is meant to be eaten." I love his attitude towards contrived, over-handled food.

We climbed (well we didn't climb, we took a terrifying ride on a glass elevator) to the top of the hotel where we were treated to an amazing view of the Vegas "strip" and a stylishly ill-lit table surrounded by an enormous and surreal mobile of hand-blown glass spheres that conjured images of jellyfish silently, gracefully floating through a tranquil sea.

An incredible assortment of freshly baked bread was brought out with perfect squares of butter and homemade peanut butter (butter blended with hand-ground roasted peanuts). My first pet peeve in a fine restaurant is when butter is brought out that is too cold to spread. Table butter should be just below room temperature. This wasn't, but I couldn't stop sampling the peanut butter. What a great idea! It warmed up eventually and we kept asking for more bread.

Slabs of perfectly seasoned foie gras were displayed cold with toast points and then hot with roasted green papaya. I had a dish of soft potato gnocchi that mingled with veal jus and Parmesan cheese producing a flavor with such depth that I was seduced by each bite to take the next one. This was one of the most sensuously flavored dishes I'd had in years, if ever!

A roasted lobster was taken out of its shell, stacked, and covered with an equally seductive sauce of curry in an Asian or Thai style. Paper thin shavings of toasted hazelnuts completed the dish both texturally and flavor-wise. The lobster was a little tough and I wondered how this could be in an era of sous vide cookery and "butter poaching" at low temperatures to keep proteins silky smooth. Alas, the lobster was yummy and no tougher than I would have probably made with no more forethought than I gave it at the time.

My dining companions had sea bass and fresh hearts of palm, and roasted rack of lamb with quinoa. All were simple but elegant presentations with flavors that made us all wanting more long after the plates were licked clean!

Dessert brought a chocolate souflee with pistachio ice cream, a caramelized apple napoleon "tatin", and my MIX Candy Bar--a handmade bar of chocolate, hazelnuts, and crispy feuilletine enrobed in ganache and accompanied by a quenelle of intensely flavored coconut/lime sorbet. Light and refreshing as dessert should be.

With the check came freshly baked madeleines with a dish of warm chocolate/hazelnut Gianduja (similar to Nutella) for dipping or spreading.

I would go back to MIX! I might go back to Bouchon to see if we just hit a bad night. Jaleo would be an oft visited culinary refuge were I living in Sin City. And you should come back tomorrow to read more about the most fabulous food experience this chef has ever had!

Until then...

* Photos (not necessarily well-made) of all of the dishes we tried are available on my Facebook page!

The Game Is Afoot

My boss, his wife and I set out this morning for a sure-to-be awe inspiring 4 day trip to Las Vegas.

Yeah I know...what happens in Vegas...

Well I'll tell you that 9 minutes after I got into my room on the
30th Floor of the Cosmopolitan I locked myself out on the balcony. 30 stories up, private balcony, no one knows where I am (not even my boss), it's 45 degrees outside, and I'm afraid of heights. Fortunately I had my phone with me and was able to locate the front desk number and call for help. Otherwise I was feeling like I was the bachelor in The Hangover, about to be abandoned for the next 24 hours. Okay, that's all the personal stuff I'm sharing about this trip. LOL

The front desk guy has my full permission to tell his buddies about it all at the bar later tonight.

I'm really excited about this trip! We're here for the 2011 Catersource Conference which is the premier convention of the year for our industry. I was here in 2002, which makes me a little leery of being here this year. I hope they don't remember me.

I was representing the VanLandingham Estate at the time and was charged with the care and custody of my then boss' credit card. My fellow chef and traveling companion and I put $140 on the card for the big soiree that they have a couple nights into the conference each year. L.A.'s hottest caterer at the time put on the show and it was actually pretty nice. Cutting edge displays and the technology of the day showed off 2002's most fabulous catering ideas--in the director's opinion.

After paying five bucks for a club soda and tasting some food that was no better than what we were doing at the time at the Van we left. Next day I went to Mike Roman, the President of Catersource organization and asked for our money back. I didn't feel we got our money's worth, and probably just wanted to be a prick.

Mike said that I would have to send a request in writing and that it was impossible to refund the money on the spot; to which I responded that it was entirely possible to TAKE the money on the spot, and I wanted back as easily.

His demeanor became inflamed and he asked, "Do you know what my relationship with your boss is?" My boss at the time was gay, but I resisted the obvious insult. After a brief standoff I got the money back, and felt bad about the whole thing ever since.

This year I have my own credit card and the event is sold out, so problem solved. Perhaps I'll have a word with Mr. Roman sometime this week.

In the meantime I have made reservations each of the 5 nights that we'll be here in 5 of Vegas' and the country's best restaurants! I'll be writing about each of them as much as possible. Our first reservation is in an hour!

But to start the trip we stopped in Memphis on the way to the airport for a burger. Dave was gonna take me to Huey's, arguably the best burger in Memphis, but they were packed. So we walked down the block to the Kooky Canuck, apparently known on the Travel Channel for their 4 lb and 6 lb burgers that of course are free if you can finish them within an hour.

We didn't have an hour, so we passed on the big 'un, but what we did have will go down in burger infamy in my opinion! Eight ounces of hand-pattied burgerlicious goodness on an oversized sesame bun with blue cheese and maple bacon, paired with a pile of fresh cut fries fresh from the grease. De-frickin'-licious!

The menu had a few cool items on it as well. I guess the theme is Canadian (I've been to Canada and was unable to discern a national identity, but nonetheless...). The wall was adorned with a fantastic collection of dead animals, mainly just their heads. One was a buffalo. I never can get the idea of buffalo hunting. Aren't they just like a big cow that you walk up to and say, "Buffalo, I'm a gonna shoot ya", and the buffalo says, "OK". I digress.

So the most Canadian cuisine I remember from my 1995 trip to Toronto was BBQ ribs at the Swiss Chalet and a doughnut shop on every corner. This menu had stuff like barbecue egg rolls, maple marinated flank steak, and my favorite new food idea Meatball Caesar Salad...blackened meatballs with a Heinz 57 Caesar dressing.

As I reflect on that menu whilst staring out my window at Caesar's Palace I am reminded of the time I got kicked out of Caesar's Palace in early 1999, but that's another story in which there was no food involved.

My last dining experience was last week back in Arkansas where the big gimmick is they throw hot rolls at you upon request. And fried okra...and white beans and ham.

I hope nobody throws food at me here! Check back later!

The Color Of Things

A few of you have mentioned that I haven't written in a while, and you're right...I haven't. Hasn't been a whole lot to write about, and I frankly haven't felt like it. Some writer huh?

So here we are, 4 weeks in to the 2010 Fall Semester and life is good. I'll bring you up to speed on the events of the last few months, there have been a few.

We had a grill cook die of a massive brain hemorrhage.

My Sous Chef left after 10 years of service (although I think it was only 9 years) and didn't have the guts to tell anyone he was leaving. He sent another employee in to gather his belongings and drop off his phone and time card. He left to begin a rewarding career at Arby's. Many of us are still celebrating! His replacement started exactly one week later and has already received immense kudos.

The lady that I nearly strangled (and nearly lost my job over) this time last year passed away a week ago from inoperable cancer in multiple organs. She will be missed by many! One of the last bites of solid food she ate was a brownie that I took to her at the Hospice. They were the only good thing I ever made according to her. I agree! Not my recipe.

Back in the Spring we pulled off a couple of the most amazing events of my career, and I'm not sure why I didn't write about them except that I was tired and uninspired. But there's a couple things we did well here recently that I had to talk about because they were really cool.

The American Cancer Society has a program called Paint The Town Purple. Apparently purple (my favorite color) is the official color in support of all cancer victims and survivors in general. Well, it turns out that it's the official color for about 28 different things including 9/11, animal abuse, and eating disorders as well. I find the latter interesting. You'll soon see why.

We were approached by a group that is supporting the Relay For Life and Paint The Campus Purple movement to join them in a day of recognition. We decorated a section of our dining room decidedly violet, passed out purple ribbons to our staff, and created a menu of purple food.

There was purple cabbage, purple potatoes, purple jello, purple cheesecake, blackberries and purple Chantilly Cream, Purple Velvet Cake (Red Velvet Cake with a little blue coloring added), and my personal favorite purple soft-serve ice cream. We even made a couple purple desserts so as not to alienate the sugar-free constituency.

It's hard to make purple food that people and chefs alike can take seriously. Purple lends itself best to the dessert table I think. I thought of turning Vegetable Lo Mein purple, but I resisted. Plums are out of season. Purple green beans are a past fad, and they turned green when you cooked them anyway.

Eggplant in my opinion, while inherently varying degrees of purple, just plain sucks. Who ever craves a big plate of eggplant?

In my training I have been subjected to a lot of little tips on food presentation, particularly when it comes to color schemes. There are certain colors that are just more appealing than others when it comes to food. Green is pretty natural. Bright reds always wake up the visual senses. Yellow is a good one, especially when we replace red tomatoes, peppers, and raspberries with their golden counterparts.

In the fall when we think of fall colors we think of orange and brown. One big challenge has always been making attractive plates in the fall when cooking with the season. Pumpkin, winter squashes, acorns, wild mushrooms - what in the hell else is in season in October and November? The plate always comes out brown.

I learned years ago that blue is perhaps the most "inedible" color, although set up a snow cone stand and include blue raspberry syrup. Tell me at the end of the day what you sold the most of. Blue raspberry is my personal favorite Slurpee flavor at the gas station in the summer time. But what in the hell is a blue raspberry? Ever seen one? Me either.

Apparently there is, or was truly a blue raspberry that is closely related to the black raspberry (never seen one of those either). I found little about it on the internet, and no pictures...but still...I can't call up my produce vendor and order a flat of them so as far as I'm concerned they're a myth.

It is a core tenant in the school of thought that I come from that if the only purpose of a component on a plate is to make the plate look better then it doesn't belong. Difficult at times.

I also subscribe to the philosophy that when tinting something edible one should use naturally derived colors. Green comes from "making chlorophyll" by pureeing parsley with a little water and straining the resulting liquid to achieve a beautiful, intensely light green coloring agent that adds minimal flavor. Orange comes from doing the same with carrots.

Of course in the 90's there was a short-lived trend in making everything clear - void of color. Charlie Trotter made "water" from everything. He taught us that tomato water is made by pureeing ripe tomatoes, letting the liquid sit and settle for a few hours, and siphoning off the clear yet intensely flavored water that rises to the top. Pretty cool really.

When making colored pasta dough a portion of the liquid in the recipe is replaced with a puree of blanched vegetables or herbs. Spinach makes green, beets make magenta, carrots make orange, roasted peppers make red, and so on. Roasted garlic makes brown...perfect for autumn!

But what makes purple food? Purple food coloring my friend - or at the very least red and blue.

I - or I should say we discovered one of the most interesting phenomenons of my culinary career. It seems that purple, while striking, beautiful, intriguing, and unexpected, actually makes pretty cool looking food - and popular. In fact, I would say that you could paint a turd purple and people from all walks of life would line up down the block and fight each other to get one, hot or cold.

Dinner opened at 4:30. I started stirring the first purple coloring into the vanilla ice cream mix at 4. We were out of purple food by 6 with three hours to go. Normal diners were gobbling up the sugar-free stuff just to get at the purple.

At 6:30 I frantically plopped scoops of room-temperature vanilla pudding from a tin can into plastic cups, piped in a generous helping of leftover purple whipped cream, threw a handful of blueberries into each one, and stuck in a lady finger for fun.

I walked out unassuming into the dining room with about 18 of these delectable little suckers lined up on a bent up old sheet pan, all the while reciting Eddie Murphy's "parfaits are delicious" lines in my head.

Once at my destination I had to drop the pan and run for my life. Looking back in haste I witnessed erstwhile normal, civil human beings ripping each others eyes out to get to the purple layered concoctions. Severed appendages flew across the dining room splattering the walls and windows with what appeared to be violet-tinted blood. My God - what have I done? It looked like old ladies at a bargain basement rummage sale. Vicious.

We never run out of dessert. We always have leftovers. This was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. Fortunately I had initiated a policy at the beginning of the evening that when we were out, we were out. I left before the riot found me.

But it was not the only such incident this week, for this week ended with Halloween.

Last year for Halloween I did strange, scary foods. We cut hot dogs into tapeworm like strips and stirred them into baked beans. We colored Asian marinated chicken wings black and called them bat wings. We stirred corn and peas into meat-laden cheese dip to make it look like vomit. Everyone thought our efforts were ingenious and commendable, however they barely touched the stuff.

This year at the last minute it occurred to me to give people something they would enjoy. I purchased $2,000 worth of candy...nearly a quarter-ton altogether.

It worked.

Coworkers bet that the candy would last anywhere from all day to into the weekend. Not me. I knew they'd go through it all and I was right.

Interestingly though when the smoke had cleared and the bones were picked clean all that was left was orange candy. Bit O' Honey, marshmallow Circus Peanuts, orange Pixi Stix, and those little wax bottles with sweet syrup in the middle, but only the orange ones. Weird.

All in all it was an educational week to say the least. My front-of-house counterpart suggested that we do a different colored food theme every month. Great idea, but no thanks.

Color me done.

You Ain't The Devil! Where's My Waitress?

Many of you know that when I travel I usually have a restaurant in mind as a primary destination. Sometimes it's to a 4-Star place to be dazzled like at Fleur De Lys in San Fran, sometimes a retail place like City Bakery in NYC, and quite often a local legend greasy spoon joint like my recent jaunt to Ben's Chili Bowl in D.C.

In Jonesboro, Arkansas there ain't much, let me tell you, but I've been in search of a great burger. What makes a great burger, you might ask? Well, a great burger is typically but not always hand formed from ground beef. Angus, choice, prime, sirloin, tenderloin, hormone free, chuck, or Japanese Kobe--doesn't matter. It's ground beef, and by law in most places it's cooked medium-well to well so who cares what cow it came from and what it costs?

To be honest I prefer my burgers medium to medium-well. I think that this is the range in which ground beef has the most flavor. I like steaks bleeding rare, "black & blue" or Pittsburgh-style, but a burger med-well with bacon, thinly sliced grilled (almost caramelized) onions, and freshly grilled raw jalapenos, not the ubiquitous pickled slices that adorn a well made stack of nachos. And for cheese, yellow American please. Who does this really well? Five Guys!

Now at times I do get in the mood for a mushroom and swiss burger with real swiss cheese and properly sauteed mushrooms. The 'shrooms should be sliced about 3/16" thick and seared in a "schtinking hot" pan. That's a European culinary instructor's description of a pan so hot that you can smell the metal. Don't forget the salt and black pepper, and keep them medium-rare in the middle.

Or there's the blue cheese burger with thin slices of red onion sauteed and piled on with blue cheese crumbles. Spend a bunch of money on Roquefort or Stilton if you want, but it all amounts to blue cheese at the end of the day. By the way, if it's an American or English cheese it is appropriate to write "blue" not "bleu". The Soda Shop in Davidson, NC does this one splendidly. Alongside they also serve my favorite burger accompaniment, the long forgotten and nearly impossible to find anymore cottage fry--1/4" thick coins of fried potatoes that almost souffle a little bit when you fry them.

The bun? I don't care, but it should be soft and warm. If you take the time to grill it so it's a little crispy around the outer edges that's nice but not necessary. No fancy kaiser rolls, ciabatta, brioche, or otherwise froo-froo bread. Just a freakin' bun please. Too small for the burger is better than too big.

Grease? Yes. Not juice...grease. There was a place in Matthews, NC many years ago called Roney's Grill--a middle-of-nowhere greasy spoon where they rarely scraped the grill and the old dirty bits that stuck to your burger and burned was an important part of the seasoning. I still can recall fondly that taste in my mouth's memories! They had the right grease.

Chili? Mr. K's in Charlotte has a decent burger and decent chili...neither are great, but decent. But when combined with the taste of the char grill there...magic!

Condiments? Here's where I differ from most, sadly. No raw vegetables and no sauces for me. Salad goes in a bowl, and as comedian John Pinette says, "Salad is not food". Ketchup doesn't belong on anything, and mustard definitely doesn't go with it. Sorry.

The Penguin in Charlotte...sublime grease. Perhaps the best. Big Block Burger with onion strings on the side.

The Beacon in Spartanburg, SC...the burger about a 7...the onion rings about a 19...the bacon, about 1/4 pound. The combination...my death bed last meal wish!

Lenny's Burger in Phoenix makes a rockin' green chili cheese burger and McDonald's in southwest Colorado even does a good job when the chilies come in from Hatch, NM each summer. Harvey's Wineburger in Phoenix hand forms each patty and steams them in wine at the end, but it's not as amazing as it sounds. Pretty anticlimactic actually.

$500 foie gras and truffle burgers in Vegas? $186 Burger King burger in London? Get the fuck out of here. Who needs that? By the way, I got food poisoning once...at Burger King. Burger King sucks anywhere at any price.

I almost forgot what this article was about. It's about my quest for a great burger in Arkansas. My boss has been talking about this magical place where they have the most amazing thing that could ever be called a hamburger. A place that childhood culinary fantasies are made of. They have a huge cast iron skillet that has about a half inch of grease in it and that's where they make the burgers and the fries. I can't wait. When can we go?

Well, last Saturday night we went. And on the way he decides that the place that has the skillet is in Memphis, and the place we're going he's never been to afterall.

So off we go. Nearly 30 minutes and 15 miles north of Jonesboro on State Highway 49, through hill, dale, and Goobertown we arrive at Roy's First and Last Chance in Paragould, Arkansas.

The story goes that Roy's started out as a one room party shack in the middle of nowhere and as the news spread the place grew. One room was added over here and another over there, but the ground was (and still is) unlevel so each room is on a different plane--very aggravating if you're drunk. Funny too when everyone else is but you.

Jonesboro is a dry county so Roy's was a treat. Not only can you watch perfectly good rednecks drink more than they should, but you can sit at your table and smoke while you do it. The room is dark (cuts down on the cleaning). The walls and ceilings are made of chipboard and covered with magic marker graffiti from everyone that's ever been in the place.

The tables are wooden picnic tables that are bolted to the floor with attached benches. There is a bar and in front of that bar is a row of barstools. The stools probably used to belong to a diner and stood in front of the standard counter height counter. Now they are bolted onto a 6x6 that is bolted to the floor in front of the bar to raise them to bar height. The floor is covered by what appears to be roofing paper tacked down with roofing nails.

A modest amount of unrelated memorabilia adorns the walls, one piece being the menu. As I later found out it is actually "A" menu, not "THE" menu. I'll come back to that.

The kitchen is about the size and shape of a bug and vermin filled closet and most people wouldn't eat anything that came from the place, but I don't care.

I suspect there was music playing but I don't remember what. I was fixated on the fact that the hostess that greeted us was also the bartender, the waitress, and the cook. There were no other visible employees in the place until about 45 minutes later when her husband showed up, had a beer, and made his way to the closet to start grilling burgers and frying cheese balls as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast.

Customers went behind the bar and helped themselves to beer shuffling through the stack of tabs on the bar and marking their purchases. Seemed like business as usual. There was a cocky looking, gum smacking Burt Reynolds type leaning on the backside of the bar. We wondered if he might be Roy, but if he was he certainly didn't seem phased that we and two other tables had been there for nearly an hour and had not been invited to order.

Robo-Waitress did furnish us with several beers and my canned Coke. Said she'd come back shortly to take our order but she didn't.

About 8:45 or so, an hour after we arrived, she approached our table and asked what we wanted. I began asking questions and ordering off of the menu on the wall. When I asked if they had bacon for my burger I was told they didn't. "Why not?", I asked. "Because this is Roy's", was the answer--nothing more.

Then I ordered Spicy Fries off of the menu on the wall and she said that that menu is old and that they don't have most of what's on it, including the prices. I had barely mustered a look of bewilderment when a friend of hers came to our table and handed her a cell phone, call in progress.

She took the phone and started talking, telling the caller that she was in the middle of taking an order and asked if he or she could hold on a second. He or she apparently couldn't hold on so the conversation proceeded. It was unevident whether she was asking us to hold on or asking her friend if they wanted mayonnaise.

We finally got the order in and about 30 minutes later we actually got 3 burgers and 3 orders of fries. Good timing too. I was about to eat the corner off of our picnic table.

This was a half-pound burger, hand-formed, well-done, and cold, but the fries were hot and not bad. Decent grease. The jalapenos on my burger were the pickled ones and the cheese, cold and unmelted white American. It's called Swiss American but I don't know why.

About the time we got done eating the band showed up. As they were setting up, one of the guys stepped into our barroom with the announcement, "Does anyone here have a roll of duct tape in your truck? I'll buy you a beer if you do". The only thing funnier than the fact that someone did was the fact that everyone there except me drove a truck. In fact there's only 6 of us in the county that drive cars, and 4 of us are from out of state.

I have no idea how much the bill was and we never spoke to Robo-Waitress again. She stood at the bar for most of the next half hour or so with a Parliment Light 100 hanging out of her mouth, perusing the bar tabs. I threw ten bucks on the table and we left, never to return most likely.

Back to skillets...

FYI, the World's Largest Functional Frying Pan lives in Rose Hill, North Carolina...my home state. They use it every year for a big chicken festival, and apparently in between festivals it reeks with the putrid stench of old fried chicken. I've never seen it, but I've been to Roy's. My advice--go see the pan.

Oh, and one more thing. If a burger weighs more than 6 ounces (before cooking) it needs to be split into 2 thinner burgers and called a "double". Just my opinion. Hands down the best double meat burger in the country...consistent, affordable, and yummy, is the Double, Double at In and Out Burger in Southern California. You get a double burger the way it's supposed to be, two beef patties and two slices of cheese. Get it with grilled onions and hand-cut fries for about the same price as Mickey D's and 101 times better. For the burger monster in you ask for a 4x4 (not on the menu). That's 4 meat patties and 4 slices of cheese. Yum!

Hold The Onions

A friend sent an interesting email the other day and I wanted to post it here and expand on my personal experience. So many sensational email warnings are circulating these days that Snopes can't research the facts fast enough. This one is quite true however, even if it may be remote.

The author writes:

"I have used an onion which has been left in the fridge, and sometimes I don't use a whole one at one time, so save the other half for later.

Now with this info, I have changed my mind....will buy smaller onions in the future.

I had the wonderful privilege of touring Mullins Food Products, Makers of mayonnaise. Mullins is huge, and is owned by 11 brothers and sisters in the Mullins family. My friend, Jeanne, is the CEO.

Questions about food poisoning came up, and I wanted to share what I learned from a chemist.

The guy who gave us our tour is named Ed. He's one of the brothers. Ed is a chemistry expert and is involved in developing most of the sauce formulas. He's even developed sauce formula for McDonald's.

Keep in mind that Ed is a food chemistry whiz. During the tour, someone asked if we really needed to worry about mayonnaise. People are always worried that mayonnaise will spoil. Ed's answer will surprise you. Ed said that all commercially made mayo is completely safe.

"It doesn't even have to be refrigerated. No harm in refrigerating it, but it's not really necessary." He explained that the pH in mayonnaise is set at a point that bacteria could not survive in that environment. He then talked about the quaint essential picnic, with the bowl of potato salad sitting on the table and how everyone blames the mayonnaise when someone gets sick.

Ed says that when food poisoning is reported, the first thing the officials look for is when the 'victim' last ate ONIONS and where those onions came from (in the potato salad?). Ed says it's not the mayonnaise (as long as it's not homemade mayo) that spoils in the outdoors. It's probably the onions, and if not the onions, it's the POTATOES.

He explained, onions are a huge magnet for bacteria, especially uncooked onions. You should never plan to keep a portion of a sliced onion.. He says it's not even safe if you put it in a zip-lock bag and put it in your refrigerator.

It's already contaminated enough just by being cut open and out for a bit, that it can be a danger to you (and doubly watch out for those onions you put in your hotdogs at the baseball park!)

Ed says if you take the leftover onion and cook it like crazy you'll probably be okay, but if you slice that leftover onion and put on your sandwich, you're asking for trouble. Both the onions and the moist potato in a potato salad, will attract and grow bacteria faster than any commercial mayonnaise will even begin to break down.

So, how's that for news? Take it for what you will. I (the author) am going to be very careful about my onions from now on. For some reason, I see a lot of credibility coming from a chemist and a company that produces millions of pounds of mayonnaise every year.

Also, dogs should never eat onions. Their stomachs cannot metabolize onions. Please remember it is dangerous to cut onions and try to use it to cook the next day, it becomes highly poisonous for even a single night and creates toxic bacteria which may cause adverse stomach infections because of excess bile secretions and even food poisoning."

As a chef of over 25 years I can attest that commercially made mayonnaise is a benchmark product and is pretty much bulletproof. Cooked potatoes however are highly susceptible to promoting foodborne illness. They are a perfect medium for bacterial growth.

Peeled and/or chopped raw garlic that is stored in an oxygen-void atmosphere (ie- canned or vacuum sealed, or in oil) can harbor the bacteria that causes botulism. I was always taught that but I can't prove it. Has to do with sulfur compounds.

Onions I'm not so sure about. In all my years I can remember twice hearing about onions promoting salmonella (from unreliable sources). I don't remember it from several rounds of sanitation certification, but I don't remember a lot of things. I do know that most foods spoil at some some point and eating spoiled food isn't cool.

We are aware in the foodservice industry that what causes foodborne illness is seldom the most obvious suspect. The biggest culprit is cross-contamination (poor food handling practices) and the greatest safeguard is proper hand washing.

Over my career of 27 years in the biz I am aware (not that there haven't been more) of only one time that someone legitimately got sick eating food from one of my kitchens. One day in 2006 something like 5 staff members of a hospital I worked at in southern California got sick eating tuna salad that was made that day. No explanation ever made sense and we never figured out what caused it.

First of all let's look at what it takes to create foodborne illness. Whole books are written on this topic but I will discuss the most commonly known and feared "food poisoning" scenarios. The ones that most people talk about are Salmonella, Botulism, and E.Coli. These illnesses are caused principally by bacteria, and either by ingesting the actual bacteria or the toxins that the associated bacteria produce (in which case you're probably ingesting the bacteria as well).

Bacteria are living creatures, and like most living creatures they require certain conditions to survive and multiply. We live, sleep, eat, drink, and breathe potentially harmful bacteria all of the time, and our immune systems adapt to their presence. Normally we are perfectly healthy and filled with little critters that we don't know are there.

It's when they are allowed to multiply that they cause problems. To do that they require time (could be hours, could be days), temperature (between 41 and 135 deg. F), food (usually sugar/starch, and protein), moisture, oxygen (though some prefer the absence of oxygen), and the right pH (typically neutral, between 6 and 8 on the pH scale).

Mayonnaise is made from oil, eggs, and vinegar. Due to the addition of lemon juice and/or vinegar commercial mayonnaise has an acidic pH level of 3.8 to 4.6. Bacteria cannot live below 4.5. Interestingly, if you try to make mayonnaise without the acid, you will not get mayonnaise. The acid is required to achieve emulsion. Because of the shelf-life extending qualities of commercial mayonnaise it is often used in the kitchen as a base for other cold sauces and dressings.

Potatoes on the other hand offer the perfect moisture content, food availability, and neutral pH to make critters feel right at home. Even if the surface is coated with caustic mayonnaise the potato itself dilutes the acid content and those little suckers bore inside and set up shop. Leave it on the picnic table for a couple hours and it's on.

Professionally, local and federal health codes dictate that if a prepared food product is allowed to sit in the "danger zone" of 41-135 deg F. for more than 4 hours it must be discarded. Good policy to follow at home as well. So why did the chicken legs that mom always left on the counter overnight never make us sick when we ate them two days later? Who knows.

Basically, buy good quality ingredients from reputable sources, store and prepare them properly, wash your hands, and enjoy your life and your food! We'll all die from food poisoning if something else doesn't kill us first.

By the way, an interesting little tidbit I picked up as a beekeeper a few years back--honey (in its natural and undiluted state) is the only food that cannot and will not spoil. Bees rock! I could argue that there are a few other unspoilable foods (just made another word), but that's another article altogether.

Follow up:

After writing this article I actually stumbled across a Snopes article about the email I received. Funny. An interesting read that concurs with what I have written.