Gourmet's Top 50

Gourmet magazine recently published a list of America's Top 50 Restaurants in its annual restaurant issue. Some of the choices are positively inspired--Alinea nabbed the top spot, lots of small market-driven spots were included and more than half the list is appearing for the first time.

That makes it all the more frustrating that the list of New York restaurants reads like an exceedingly pretentious fossil map: per se (which shares its spot with The French Laundry), Masa, Daniel, Le Bernadin, Babbo, Jean Georges and Grammercy Tavern. Where are the interesting risk-takers that are driving food forward? Where are Blue Hill, wd-50, Falai, Sripraphai or any of the other audacious and vivacious eateries that represent the way we eat now. Gourmet's list is clearly catering in large part to tourists looking to name drop once they get home and not to someone in search of truly great food. It is very sad that in a city full of fabulous stand-alone restaurants every one of Gourmet's "best" is the flagship of an ever-expanding chain.

I am counting down my last days of freedom before I start my new position working lunchtime Garde Manger. The restaurant is a great fit for me--a blend of traditional French technique and Eastern flavors, many daily specials, serious discipline and knife skills and refeshingly free from yelling and tantrums. The 7 AM start time is offset by the free evenings and possibilty to spend time with people who aren't cooks and waiters.

Smackdown!

Frank Bruni continues with his recent trend of delivering harsh reviews to mediocre yet popular Manhattan restaurants with Freemans. (log-in required) On the heels of his dismissive reviews of Mercer Kitchen and Vong this represents a refreshing trend of bringing some real honesty into the world of dining out. In a city where it is entirely possible to have a meal of gustatory delights for under $20, it is unconscionable that people don't riot when served chicken that "taste[s] like the remnants of a stock" for the same price.

The Heat is on

Bill Buford's Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany is absolutely brilliant. I have kept for years the issue of The New Yorker that featured the earliest sketches of Buford's journey and reread it from time to time to enjoy the way Buford chronicals his blossoming.

Not only does Buford manage to capture the adrenaline insanity of professional cooking, but also the love. It is touching to watch Buford grow to love and respect his food as he stages his way through Italy and change from a consumer to a creator. I wished for more chapters in the Babbo kitchen because the writing is so insightful that it led to a few "aha" moments for me, particularly his explanations of "bumping" and "cooking with love", both endemic in the kitchens I know.