There's a battle between what the cook thinks is high art and what the customer just wants to eat.
I come from an Italian family. One of the greatest and most profound expressions we would ever use in conversations or arguments was a slamming door. The slamming door was our punctuation mark.
The passion of the Italian or the Italian-American population is endless for food and lore and everything about it.
I got some media coverage for using the tail, the ear, the oink.
Everyone makes pesto in a food processor. But the texture is better with a mortar and pestle, and it's just as fast.
Keep in mind that in 1975, when you became a cook, it was because you were between two things: you were between getting out of the military and... going to jail. Anybody could be a cook, just like anybody could mow the lawn.
Twelve-piece cookware sets for ninety-nine bucks are routinely hawked on late-night TV - often by friends of mine. But with a mere five pieces, you can do whatever you like - slay the dragon and then cook its tenderloin in the style of the duke of Wellington, if you want to.
We would load up the yellow Cutlass Supreme station wagon and pick blackberries during blackberry season or spring onions during spring onion season. For us, food was part of the fabric of our day.
All the information you could want is constantly streaming at you like a runaway truck - books, newspaper stories, Web sites, apps, how-to videos, this article you're reading, even entire magazines devoted to single subjects like charcuterie or wedding cakes or pickles.
The way the bankers have kind of toppled the way money is distributed, and taken most of it into their own hands, is as good as Stalin or Hitler.
