Foods You Can Cram into Your Gullet - With Nasturtiums

[East Coast Hustle]

Actually, it probably works at one of those crappy-yet-ubiquitous Belltown/QA yuppie holes. Queen City Grill and 10 Mercer Street come to mind.

[East Coast Hustle]

Shit....

Nast, you want this crap split off from your thread? I shouldn't do it since I'm the protagonist but I'm sure one of the other admins would be happy to.

[DECI4]

FARM TO TABLE, SON. HEARD OF IT?

I sure have, I don't think it means what you think it means.

So is it your contention that farm-to-table restaurants send their animals off-premise to be butchered?

Is it your contention that Alice Waters and Fergus Henderson raise all the animals they serve? Do you think farm to table means a restaurant on a farm? Farm to table  is in its broadest sense a philosophy of buying and serving food produced locally. It does not mean Alice Waters is slaughtering a pig she raised at Chez Panisse before service every night.

[DECI4]

Apparently basic kitchen knife skills are actually "sooper-sekrit techniques" passed down by sekrit masters in culinary dojos.

Oh, btw, "Hey, if you aren't comfortable julienning, you can use a mandoline."

You are being ridiculous. Most people don't have basic knife skills. Even fewer have a knife sharp enough to do a really nice julienne. The mandolin makes it easy for novices, that is all I was suggesting, perhaps unfairly for the audience. Lets make a big deal about it.

[East Coast Hustle]

Yes, your ability to cut carrots into uniform strips is a very special and rare talent.

[Phox]

First buy a mandoline.

/quote]
So, you come in assuming that your average person has no knife skills. Umm. I don't know how many average people you know, but of the subset of people I know who enjoy cooking, the vast majority of them have at least basic knife skills. I wouldn't come into this thread and assume that the person preparing these meals didn't know their own skill level with a knife/have the proper tools.

The only way you could sound more arrogant with that line is if you said "Don't cut yourself, kid." 

[East Coast Hustle]

FARM TO TABLE, SON. HEARD OF IT?

I sure have, I don't think it means what you think it means.

So is it your contention that farm-to-table restaurants send their animals off-premise to be butchered?

Is it your contention that Alice Waters and Fergus Henderson raise all the animals they serve? Do you think farm to table means a restaurant on a farm? Farm to table  is in its broadest sense a philosophy of buying and serving food produced locally. It does not mean Alice Waters is slaughtering a pig she raised at Chez Panisse before service every night.

It may not mean that by definition, but that's sure as hell the dominant trend in the "movement" (I hate calling it that but can't think of a better term). And I can think of several restaurants in Portland that are doing their butchering in-house even though they're miles from the nearest working farm. Fuck, I know a couple of food carts that do it. It's really not uncommon at all.

I think you must either be young enough to realize how much you don't know or stuck in some backwater where you think your knowledge and skills are SPECIAL and UNIQUE and don't realize that when it comes to the broader culinary world you are talking out of your ass.

And I can't help but notice that both of the names you've dropped are people who are, for lack of a better term, SO ten years ago.

[East Coast Hustle]

Oh, and you have your terms confused. Locavore and farm-to-table, while related and in some ways similar, are not the same things.

[DECI4]

Oh, and you have your terms confused. Locavore and farm-to-table, while related and in some ways similar, are not the same things.

I'm confused? Jesus man just google the terms. Then reread this conversation and tell me I'm the confused one.

[East Coast Hustle]

Though I don't need to google the terms, as I already know the difference between them, I did it anyway just to humor you and on the off chance I was wrong.

I'm not.

The locavore movement is primarily concerned with the physical distance between an ingredient's source and the plate it ends up on, while farm-to-table is less about the physical distance involved and more about reducing the number of handlers and processes the ingredient is subjected to before it ends up on the plate.

Did I really have to explain that to you?

[Freeky]

I didn't know there were places that butchered their own animals.  At least the spagginess has been full of learning. 

[trippinprincezz13]

Oh, and your salad recipe, which seems to have confused Thailand with Japan.

And the fact that you told someone to use a fucking MANDOLINE. Where are your knife skills, son? You can't julienne a carrot by hand?

Of course I can. Do you think someone that just signed up for culinary school can?

<= Has never attended culinary school. Can julienne a carrot by hand.

I think its pretty safe to say that most people can't. Congratulations, you are special.

Are...are you serious?  Doing that? ----> http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=preptip&dbid=12

Oh woe is me! I wanted to cut a carrot into matchsticks, but all I have at home are these stupid knives and no culinary school? Surely I can't just...well, do it.
How many classes did you have to take to learn how to do that. Did you need someone to show you how to boil water too?

[Kai]

Yes, because as we all know, only a professional can cut carrots into slivers. 

[trippinprincezz13]

PS - Sorry for laying this in your thread, Nast, but I was waiting for this idiot to expose himself as a complete fraud.

BTW, your food looks really good for a home cook. You might have some talent (not as important as you might think, really) and clearly have passion for it (vastly more important). If I ever get bitten by the restaurant bug again I'd totally hire you.

Also, this Nast (except that I'm not a professional chef and all that). All this food looks awesome, the presentation's great. While I've tried my hand at some "Asian-style" recipes (which a lot of your seems to be, or be inspired by), I don't always have the time/patience for the prep work and/or the focus to keep up with the often quick-paced cooking (at least not when I'm home from work and trying to do 20 million other things while I cook dinner). Perhaps part of it is picking and choosing what I'm going to cook on a particular night.  And again, the presentation!

Definitely keep it up.

[Triple Zero]

<= Has never attended culinary school. Can julienne a carrot by hand.

I think its pretty safe to say that most people can't. Congratulations, you are special.

Um....

/url] ].Julienne is a culinary knife cut in which the food item is cut into long thin strips, not unlike matchsticks.

How is that hard?

It's not. It's just that if you're not practised with it, it might take you a whole 30 seconds longer doing it a bit more carefully and precisely. Which is perfectly fine because the only situations where that would matter are the kind you *will* get practised rather quickly.

You are being ridiculous. Most people don't have basic knife skills. Even fewer have a knife sharp enough to do a really nice julienne. The mandolin makes it easy for novices, that is all I was suggesting, perhaps unfairly for the audience. Lets make a big deal about it.

1. Look at me, I'm multiquoting! U JELLY?

2. People that don't have a reasonable chef's knife will get one for their next birthday. Even a cheap $10 one is better than nothing. If you're not doing the same, you're just being a bad friend and there will come a time when you end up cooking some shit at their place and you'll be all goddamnit you don't have a knife and they'll be huh yeah I do have a knife it's right th--THATS NOT A KNIFE and you can't even stab them cause they don't have a knife and really you just got yourself to blame as you realize the futility of going at them with that fucking mandoline you got them instead. And this will keep on happening always, becoming the red thread through the sad story of your life ...