I've found Waiter Rant through Jason the other day and I've been enjoying reading his tales from the front of the house. Working in a restaurant provides a lot of fodder for stories. Recently we were discussing kitchen pranks, tasks our chef has asked some of our more gullible employees to undertake. Highlights include asking one woman to, "drain the espresso machine" and sending another to, "get the rice stretcher out of storage." I love pranks that sound slightly plausible. There are lots of kitchen gadgets, who knows, maybe somewhere there is a rice stretcher?
We had a good one the other day, but our hapless victim, a culinary intern, had already returned to school. We were going to ask her to, "mix up a batch of okra" to go with the salmon special. It would have been priceless to see her paging through the cookbooks to find the recipe.
And of course, I am so gullible that I'd probably fall for one of these tricks if they ever pulled one on me.
I had the pleasure of tasting something similar to Marco Canora's Pan-Roasted Hen-Of-The-Woods Mushrooms when I had dinner at New York City's Craft back in late July. Moist and juicy and dripping flavor, the mushrooms were probably my favorite dish we enjoyed that evening. I'm anxious to try this recipe out at home, now I just need to get my hands on some hen-of-the-woods mushrooms.
I used to be a tuna fiend, eating tuna sushi several times a week, and on the days when I didn't eat it raw, I'd have a tuna sandwich. Then all the reports came out about heightened mercury levels. Then new reports about even higher levels of contaminates, and recommendations that women of childbearing age limit tuna intake to once or twice a week. And now this, from yesterday's New York Times, Tuna's Red Glare? It Could Be Carbon Monoxide
Buyers of fresh tuna, whether at the sushi bar or the supermarket, often look for cherry-red flesh to tell them that the fish is top-quality. But it has become increasingly likely that the fish is bright red because it has been sprayed with carbon monoxide...
...[F]or most consumers around the world, vendors say, lollipop-red flesh signals freshness and quality. Tuna treated with carbon monoxide is bright red when first defrosted, and fades within a couple of days to a watermelon pink. But "you could put it in the trunk of your car for a year, and it wouldn't turn brown," said one sales representative at Anova Foods, a distributor in Atlanta, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Oy. Ick. This reminds me of when I read about a lot of sushi being frozen. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
