koreamjournal: Pulling Off the White Tablecloth
LA Weekly: 2008 is the year that Roy Choi debuted his Kogi truck, and it also was the year that Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo opened Animal, a restaurant initially viewed as a novelty place that put bacon in dessert. Now we can see these events as harbingers of a new and very personal kind of cooking in a city that really needed it.
The best chefs are no longer found at the most expensive restaurants. In Los Angeles, a majority work in midrange or pop-up restaurants.
Choi sees a direct relationship between the economy and this city’s embrace of small, informal restaurants, which offer almost a hallucinatory focus on flavor and pleasure, a kind of cooking that is playful, impolite and a little too messy for a white tablecloth. The intensity of this cooking, he says, can come only with a stripping down of barriers. “With no investors, there is a direct relationship between the chef and the person eating,” he says. “It’s like a musician going on YouTube and just putting his music out there, without the interference and the needs of a label or a producer. The restaurant scene is filled with energy now because people don’t need $100 to sit down and have a fantastic meal.”
Counter Culture’s Toscano at Everyman Espresso. When asked if they ever use Apollo I was informed that “you can’t use Apollo as espresso because it completely disappears in milk”.
RIP CC’s Espresso Aficionado blend, circa Spring 2010.
Look at the pricing… I don’t mean in relation to late-1950’s inflation, look at the ratio. Besides the milk, and ignoring food costs saved by additives/fillers/synthetics/preservatives: not much has changed. I do like the one-size for everything, probably 6-8oz drinks.
(Source: yimmyayo)
"In the fanciest restaurants, order what sounds least appetizing."
Frugal economist Tyler Cowen, revealing one of his six rules for dining out.
“The logic is simple,” he explains. “At a fancy restaurant, the menu is well thought-out. The kitchen’s time and attention are scarce. An item won’t be on the menu unless there is a good reason for its presence. If it sounds bad, it probably tastes especially good. […] And consider that a few items may be on the menu specifically because they are generally in demand, not because the chef cooks them with special brilliance.”
(via theatlantic)
(via theatlantic)
Upcoming site changes
Thanks for bearing with me while I actually do something with this site. I appreciate the follows, wherever you came from. Over the weekend I have a lot of writing to do - my couple-thousand-word (or more) write-up on LA restaurants based on the past month’s work, if you can call it work, in addition to doing a recap of the Laurent Q / Starry Kitchen Herb dinner I was fortunate-enough to be invited to, in addition to recoding the WPEC site in HTML5 from Flash, in addition to finishing the paper I’m writing on the sustainability of domestic coffee roasting, in addition to studying for Business School finals.
Based on the popularity of the restaurant report, that’ll the direction I’ll be taking the site, rather than a personal design portfolio, which was my original plan. One thing I don’t plan on doing with this site is a typical food blog, so if you’re following me for pretty pictures of bacon and cupcakes, you’re wasting your time.
Also, I’ve taken four meetings within the past month towards potential projects I might be involved in as a consultant, so I’ll probably be documenting that - barring any confidentiality clauses.
My roasting project is coming along. I have everything paid for and ready to go, it’s just all about having a single-origin cooked well-enough for me to launch the brand with.
I’ve been considering a pop-up with a chef friend too. Nothing official yet, just talking. Cool ideas, though, so maybe something to announce here soon on that front as well.
![theatlantic:
wired:
Hey all you liquor snobs and drink aficionados: want to make your own whiskey blend?
Learn how over at Wired!
[Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired]
IMPORTANT.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1pj5zSQlI1r69k7do1_500.jpg)
Hey all you liquor snobs and drink aficionados: want to make your own whiskey blend?
[Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired]
IMPORTANT.
(Source: Wired)
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
Ernest Hemingway (via asterisk-)
(via theatlantic)
![theatlantic:
The Very Real Economic Dangers of an Aging America
In the future, U.S. growth will be slower. Recessions will be deeper. Recoveries will be weaker. And there’s exactly one thing to blame.
Demographics.
That’s the stark conclusion from James Stock and Mark Watson in this fascinating, and occasionally depressing, new paper. In fact, they say, the future is now. For the last few years, we’ve weathered the beginning of what demographers have called the grey tsunami. “Most of the slow recovery [in today’s job market] is attributable to a long-term slowdown in trend employment growth,” Stock and Watson write.
The authors blame two demographic demons for our uncertain future: (1) the plateau in the female labor force participation rate, and (2) the aging of the U.S. workforce. Their underlying logic is that without continued growth in female workers or a significant boost in population, employment and GDP growth will slow, leaving us vulnerable to recessions with “steeper declines and slower recoveries.” In such a future, jobless recoveries will be the only recoveries we know.
Read more. [Image: Peter Bell, Ryan Morris]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1id7lPnbF1qcokc4o1_500.png)
The Very Real Economic Dangers of an Aging America
In the future, U.S. growth will be slower. Recessions will be deeper. Recoveries will be weaker. And there’s exactly one thing to blame.
Demographics.
That’s the stark conclusion from James Stock and Mark Watson in this fascinating, and occasionally depressing, new paper. In fact, they say, the future is now. For the last few years, we’ve weathered the beginning of what demographers have called the grey tsunami. “Most of the slow recovery [in today’s job market] is attributable to a long-term slowdown in trend employment growth,” Stock and Watson write.
The authors blame two demographic demons for our uncertain future: (1) the plateau in the female labor force participation rate, and (2) the aging of the U.S. workforce. Their underlying logic is that without continued growth in female workers or a significant boost in population, employment and GDP growth will slow, leaving us vulnerable to recessions with “steeper declines and slower recoveries.” In such a future, jobless recoveries will be the only recoveries we know.
Read more. [Image: Peter Bell, Ryan Morris]
"You find yourself, as a chef, having to seek out partners who have business degrees, and, you know, you don’t necessarily have time to get that yourself. I can’t think of anybody I know who’s a chef who has got a business degree but, it’s so important. It’s so important to understand the bottom line, to understand labor laws, to understand HR—you know, things you don’t even think about. You think, I can cook my heart out; I can teach kids how to cook; I can even manage front of the house; I can probably pair wines if I had to, but, you know, sack me with a law suit for some sort of labor law and I wouldn’t know the first thing to do with it. And that’s the thing. So, you find you have to pair up with like either money people, or legal people, or business people that don’t necessarily know about restaurants and there’s a giant chasm between the two worlds, where it needs to be connected at some point … I feel like, as a chef, everybody should spend a week as a dishwasher, and maybe a week as the restaurant’s lawyer or something. You need to be everything to everyone all the time, and you can’t. It’s impossible to write a menu, and execute specials and teach people and hire and fire, but also deal with the day to day money management and the business end of things. There needs to be something in between there."
San Francisco’s Liza Shaw (http://sf.eater.com/archives/2011/01/04/chef_shuffles_9.php) (via theskirtsteakfiles)
LA Restaurants, March (update)
I’m halfway through my month of checking out the new hyped (and in some cases, overhyped) restaurants in the city. So far Picca, Milo & Olive, Pizzeria Mozza, and Mariscos Chente are all standouts.
http://labrewingco.com/
I have to give Los Angeles Brewing Company a shout out for having one of the most original ideas on a menu I’ve seen in a very long time, even though I guarantee every one of you who’ve ever eaten at a restaurant before has seen it already.
Staff Meal – what the staff eats, changes daily 12
I don’t think anyone but a former restaurant manager would appreciate how brilliant this it is to put this on the regular menu. Ugly website, 99% heavy dishes/retread entrees, and bad location aside, that alone earns a visit from me.
Starbucks launches a coffee ‘laboratory’ in Amsterdam
Starbucks has opened a global ‘coffee laboratory’ in Amsterdam - the first of a series of concept stores - where it will test new brewing and baking methods
(Image via dlajholt/Flickr)
The World of Coffee
Coffee has experienced something of a revival of interest in the last decade or so, with a growing trend in actually enjoying coffee. For many, the caffeine injection is delivered via their Keurig or Nespresso, and caffeine-to-go is a big enough industry that even something as simple as the design of disposable coffee lids is endlessly patented and improved upon, and Starbucks generates enough discarded paper cups for it to be an environmental liability. But increasingly coffee drinkers are looking for something better.
That starts with good beans. Coffee is a fussy plant and very few regions on Earth have the right conditions to grow the best coffee berries: it requires tropical climates at high altitudes, with the right amount of rain and dry spells to flourish. Microlots across East Africa, South America and Southeast Asia grow batches of coffee to precise specifications, and they make up the bulk of the “high end” in coffee.
Peet’s probably set the trend for gourmet coffee, but they’ve long since jumped the shark, leaving a gap for coffee shops like Stumptown in Portland and Blue Bottle in San Francisco to crop up, embodying a philosophy of good coffee in their bean sourcing and preparation methods. Running a coffee shop in a world with Starbucks is still a risky proposition, but many are carving out a niche among the growing segment of customers that want good coffee.
The demand is such that it’s driving the price of coffee up. In 2002, coffee was cheaper than it had been for over a century, with supply outstripping demand, but as retail sales went up, the amount the farmers saw went down, pushing many into poverty and the coffee supply to an all time low. On New York’s futures exchange, the price per pound of coffee hit a three-decade high and roasters and coffee shops across the country hiked their prices. Coffee is more stable now, but many gourmet roasters that pride themselves on sustainability take measures to ensure the farmers’ good treatment and pay, and that drives the cost up too. Combined with recent weather trends reducing coffee yields to their lowest for years, good coffee has become an expensive preference.
Further Reading
- Coffee’s Mysterious Origins — Coffee’s origin story goes all the way back to 850 AD and a goat shepherd named Kaldi
- The phonetic taste of coffee — The etymology of “coffee”
- My Kushy New Job — GQ sends Wells Tower to Amsterdam to see what it’s like to work in a marijuana coffee shop
- Pot of Gold — Joseph Brodsky’s journey to Ethiopia in search of the mysterious Geisha coffee
- Todd Carmichael, American — Can you save Haiti with coffee?
- How coffee created the modern world
(via bculinaria)
Anonymous asked: That's the French Laundry cookbook on the Milo and Olive post?
Good eye!
