mongo

chou farci person? sure, it may turn out that given her biography (which, i don't know) she should know the names of more french dishes than she seems to know. but sneak wasn't responding to her biography (which he doesn't know either) but to the very idea of a food writer--even if the editor-in-chief of eater--having to google the term "chou farci" and that's what i was responding to. my point is that the horizon of culinary coverage in the u.s has expanded dramatically in the last 10 years and much as we might want every food writer to know every important term in every important cuisine, this is no more possible now than to expect a literary scholar to know every important writer/book in every major literary tradition--to take an analogy from my line of work. once upon a time, pretty much every professor of literature could have told you what an anapest is or rattled off an example of trochaic pentameter. now most would have to google. this is because the canon has exploded and the larger world of literary study has become impossible for anyone to keep track of.

it's not a question of high and low. (the analogue of rene clair in my comparison would be a long list of serious indian film directors.) it's a question of a canon. i do agree with you that the state of food writing is generally quite dire these days. but the proof of that is not the fact that eater's editor-in-chief makes a flip comment about googling the name of a french dish in a listicle.

given that the vast majority of american film critics* show no evidence of knowing the names of more than 1 or 2 indian film-makers of the 20th century, i'm not particularly exercised if they don't know the names of every significant french film-maker either. *the french, it must be said, are far better on this score.

who is rene clair? the stuffed cabbage of french cinema?

i do remember the lobsters.

i have no memory of chang participating on mf. and thanks to the old site disappearing, i don't have to read it now.

i dunno. it's hard to go out to eat in the u.s very often and not encounter ravioli. i don't know that i've ever seen the words chou farci on a menu (or encountered them on mouthfuls, a site that has been discussing food for 20 years).

i didn't know farci either. i think it's been a long time since in-depth knowledge of french cooking was a prerequisite for being in american food media. i'm sure she knows what dashi is.

but seriously, is it so outrageous that a food writer doesn't know off the top of her head what lobster chou farci refers to?

move to a small town in the upper midwest. there is only one middle school and only one high school in our town. the drama is in the elementary school years. there are three elementary schools, one of which enrolls most of the children of the town's growing working class latino population. it's the school with marginally lower test scores (whatever the fuck those mean in elementary school--both our boys attended it and it was great). we actually have a bit of white flight in our liberal town of <25,000 souls as a result, as some people actually choose to move across town after they spawn. there's also a "progressive" charter school that is quite the cult among a segment of the town's liberal population. lowest diversity and also the lowest vaccination rates. trolling my friends and colleagues who sent their kids to this cult used to be one of my favourite pastimes.

type of mushroom, right?

oh no, i'd've had to google lobster chou farci too.

he's helped make a lot of people stupider about food via ugly delicious.

but to get the people back on your side you now have to feature a boar's head menu.

well, there's the possibility of people thinking--as i did at first and second glance--that this is a le bernardin property.

the proprietors of le bernardin have not objected to the le b name?

we had a fantastic dinner at foxface on saturday. i hope to write it up in some detail in the next week or so on the blog but in the meantime you can look at the pictures on my insta. it was also great to chat with ori and sivan during the meal. and we also met simon and the flon who were at the counter as well.

on a saturday or sunday. where?

well, if you'd bet money on this you definitely would have won.

ori going down to the basement.

are the chicken tenders from california or maine?

so you're telling me...there's a chance?

that's crazy talk. santa barbara uni is excellent.

there are only two kinds of aging: without dignity, and i forget what the other one is.

yes, but we demand uni! do you understand? we live in minnesota. we demand uni!