No Time to Lose

The supermarket lady started telling me that I was wasting my life. I admit it wasn't quite in those words, but that was her message.

"Think of all the time you can save by drinking your yogurt instead of eating it," she said, smiling one of those a supermarket smiles. They are intended, I believe, to enhance supermarket believability, badly in decline since we learned that virtually all grocery store products, even organic broccoli, contain trans fat.

Before her was a table of free samples, tiny cups filled with a tasting portion of liquid yogurt.

She urged me to try one. I did. Mighty flavorsome. She explained how drinking this product would enable me to eliminate the time-consuming process of enjoying yogurt in its conventional, squishy form.

She might have had a convincing argument if she'd been pitching the value of liquid yogurt over making yogurt from scratch, not that I would ever attempt such a dangerous act. That would put me in close proximity to weird cultures with names like Lactobacillus Bulgaricus, the ones that viciously attack milk. I would never take such a risk.

I intend to leave yogurt-making to those Azerbaijanis who want to live to be a hundred. In fact, I generally prefer to eat a product similar in many ways to yogurt but providing far fewer health benefits—sour cream. It is the Jewish answer to yogurt and promotes early entry into nursing homes. I also admire the makers of sour cream because they are honest fellows who never pretend it's good for you.

I know that yogurt is popular, and I started wondering how much time Americans actually would save by drinking it instead of gumming it. We all need more leisure time that we can spend watching Rachel Ray cook food that is even worse for us than sour cream.

I set up a scientific study. I would open a container of Stonyfield Farm raspberry smoothie—labeled "a refreshingly drinkable lowfat yogurt"—and drink six of the ten fluid ounces. I would then open a six-ounce container of Trader Joe's organic lowfat raspberry yogurt and eat that. What must also be considered—and only a top scientific mind like mine would think of this—is the time required to wash the spoon.

Since the only guarantee the supermarket lady had made for the liquid yogurt was speed, not flavor, I decided to drink and eat as fast as I could. I would make no effort to enjoy either product, not that there is anything enjoyable about yogurt.

I set my watch on the table. I began.

Unscrewing the top from the liquid yogurt and then ripping off the aluminum seal took a full 15 seconds. The seal was not user-friendly. Gulping the sweet, tart, thin, cloying liquid took 18 seconds. Total Elapsed Time: 33 seconds. I felt a little sick.

Removing the aluminum seal from the Trader Joe's yogurt took one second. Eating a whole cup of strange, wiggly stuff within required 45 seconds. The reason I was so slow is that buried inside the yogurt was something I can only describe as liquefied raspberry jam. Nauseating goop. I put the spoon in the sink, stood back, and timed the process of washing it. Three seconds. Total Elapsed Time: 49 seconds.

Clearly, the supermarket lady was correct. Were I to drink six ounces of liquid yogurt every day instead of eating the semi-solid kind, I would save more than an hour-and-a-half each year. I don't think that's quite enough to excite consumers, which doesn't mean yogurt producers should give up their efforts to promote efficiency. They should consider manufacturing yogurt in injectible form.

The Numbers Game

The Wine Spectator, not my favorite periodical, awarded a score of 84 to the Bartolo Mascarello 2001 Barolo, an $80 wine. By now almost everybody knows how the 100-point scoring system used by wine critics works, but in case you're still drinking Riunite Lambrusco from the seventies and haven't caught up, it goes something like this: 95-100 means great, 90-94 means excellent, 89-85 means good, and under 85 means you get challenged to a duel by the winemaker. This is especially true if we're talking about a venerated wine from a legendary producer in a terrific year. A 2001 Barolo from the late Bartolo Mascarello qualifies. (His daughter now makes the wine.)

I'm not a fan of the Wine Spectator's journalism, and by that I mean the stories. Usually, I don't believe a word I read. On the other hand, I've never had a problem with the wine scores. I use them, and I follow the recommendations. Again and again, the buying advice is correct.

I also know that not all wine professionals are as kindly and generous as I am. Many of them do not admire the way the magazine scores wines. I thought the Mascarello controversy offered a perfect opportunity to check out the Wine Spectator's scoring standards, simply because both sides have weighed in.

The magazine wrote of this wine: "Very funky… Smells like a warm room with two wet dogs in it." The well-respected Sergio Esposito of Italian Wine Merchants countered, saying it was "a gorgeous wine, with not a hint of damp puppy to it." He tacked on the opinion of an Italian wine writer who claimed the magazine had launched a personal attack on the Mascarello family for not cooperating with the press.

I bought a bottle of the wine and invited the wine editor of a leading American publication to taste with me. I didn't tell her why I was evaluating this wine. I didn't allow her to see the bottle. I told her only that I wanted an opinion. She was "blind-tasting." I was not.

We poured. The wine was light brick-red, the benchmark—some would say "curse"—of an old-fashioned Barolo. So-called traditional producers don't go for new oak, huge extract, or an opaque color profile. The Italian Wine Merchants said of this style, "There is a handful of gladiators who continue to protect this past way of life and resist all temptations to bow to commercial pressures."

I looked the wine over carefully. I have to say, this was one really light red wine. The wine editor sniffed. "Serious funk," she said. "Something funky is going on here."

She tasted. "Nothing there. No fruit, just an earthy, mushroomy character."

I didn't get as much funk as she did. I thought the earthiness was borderline, more intriguing than off-putting, but then I knew it was a traditional Barolo and she did not. I agreed with everything else she said. We both thought the wine had mouth-gripping tannins and high alcohol. We both thought it offered no promise of joys to come.

I told her what I'd paid. "Insane," she said.

I told her the score: "Too high." She thought it should be closer to 80 points.

I know what admirers of old-style Barolo will argue: Give it a dozen years, and then watch how it develops. I don't think it will. They would argue that I'm a typical American who doesn't understand traditional wines, only fruit bombs. I would argue that the word "traditional" is the new refuge for inferior wines. In past years, bad wines were often excused as being "elegant." Now they're "traditional."

It proves what I have always thought. Where wine scores are concerned, the Wine Spectator is your friend.

Cheesesteak, Cheesesteak

My hometown of Philadelphia has many culinary virtues, all of them modest (Tastykake, scrapple), none more beloved than the cheesesteak. Of late cheesesteaks have proliferated, appearing even in chain restaurants at airports. That's not good, because an authentic cheesesteak has certain properties that aren't easy to replicate. It's soft, gooey, and overcooked. Come to think of it, those properties are easy to replicate. Still, it's hard to find a cheesesteak outside Philadelphia that tastes like home.

One of Philadelphia's greatest purveyors of cheesesteaks is Tony Luke's—which is actually more famous for its sandwich of roast pork with broccoli rabe and provolone cheese. In New York, a branch of Tony Luke's has just re-opened on 9th Avenue, not far from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It's the right neighborhood for a cheesesteak emporium. Across the street is the League of Mutual Taxi Owners and Papaya Dog.

The place has been in business before. Evan Stein, who made money in an internet startup and invested it all in this shop—okay, he didn't make a fortune—first built this outpost of Tony Luke's in 2005, replicating the original's exceedingly downscale look (cement floor, a few stools). He says, "Nobody came in after 6 p.m. They'd look in and think it was a check-cashing joint." He closed for remodeling.

The new version is pretty slick, with exposed-brick walls and a full-service bar. The Italian fries with romano cheese (Philly is a romano, not a parmesan, town) are supremely crunchy. The roast pork sandwich is good, although I think the pork is too lean and healthy. It's the cheesesteak that stands out.

Have it the proper way, with Cheez Whiz (called wiz in Philly slang) and fried onions. You might think that sounds repulsive, and technically it is repulsive, but Stein gets it exactly right, creating a magnificent wiz-onion mélange. To his credit, the bread is very fresh and the meat overcooked, two key elements.

When I stopped in recently, Stein was a little concerned he had made the place too fancy, but I assured him his food was worthy of tables and chairs.

Life Can Get Simpler

Here's a headline from a recent edition of The Las Vegas Review-Journal, the paper of record for America's Bedouin community (I can't imagine any other people living in that desert): "Chilean wine great match for king crab legs."

The wine was Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc, an inexpensive Chilean wine that seldom rates headlines, even though it is perfectly pleasant. I have no argument with either the choice of wine or the author's decision to craft seven paragraphs on the oenological glories of this under-$10 beverage, even though his enthusiasm was a little out of control. For example, he described the wine as having a "…clean, clear core, going out into a faint almost glass-clear meniscus…" I'm a squeamish guy. Once wine writers start that meniscus talk, they're going too deep into a wine's personal life for a prude like me.

What annoyed me wasn't the overwrought wine talk. It was the writer's pronouncement that the wine was "…the ideal match for king crab legs."

Let's assume for a moment that the Mojave Desert supports a thriving colony of king crabs, and that it's a regional product in abundant supply. Even with that, the reference is nutty, as is almost all writing about food-and-wine pairings. I offer some advice: Pay no attention. I'm sure Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc does go well with crab legs, but so will almost any dry, crisp, unwooded white. If you ignore all writing about matching food and wine, your life will improve. It's nonsensical culinary trivia.

Some wines have traditionally matched up with certain foods. For historical reasons, it makes sense to pay attention to them. I don't mind reading that Sauvignon Blanc (like that Veramonte) goes well with goat cheese or sweet Bordeaux with terrine of foie gras. What I can't abide, primarily because it uselessly complicates a simple pleasure, is the idea that every food must be technically matched with a certain wine.

Here's a straightforward set of rules for pairing wine with food. It will work 99 percent of the time. (1) Taste the food. (2) Immediately taste the wine. (3) If the wine still tastes good, you've succeeded.

But How Do You Define Hospitality?

I recently spent a night in Philadelphia's Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel, one of the city's finest properties when I was growing up there. Of course, that was so long ago that mountains, to say nothing of hotels, could have crumbled in that amount of time.

I reserved a "deluxe guest room" online. The confirmation notice I received referred to it as "spacious." As soon as I walked into the room, I called the front desk and asked for an explanation of "spacious." I was certain the room was one of the smallest in the place.

The clerk at the desk contacted the manager on duty, who chose to give me a vocabulary lesson instead of a better room. She told the clerk to inform me that "spacious is a subjective term."

To tell you the truth, I was proud of her. It proves that the Philadelphia school system, which has been going to hell even longer than the Warwick, isn't as terrible as everybody thinks.

My "spacious" room had a rusty air-conditioner, two chips in the bureau, and peeling wallpaper in the bathroom. The base of the tub, originally white, was mostly grey. At this point I am speaking objectively.

I know I am supposed to be writing about food, so allow me to describe breakfast at the Warwick. It stunk. "Stunk" is a subjective term.

A New Foodie's Bible

David Kamp is not a food writer, but he is one of the most brilliant journalists I know. That gives him a pretty significant edge over food writers. Let's face it: Eating is one of the few human activities that takes no intelligence whatsoever. So it's nice when a superior mind takes on the subject of food.

Kamp has written a comprehensive and dazzling book about the history of food in America. It's titled The United States of Arugula, and it traces our evolution as eaters. He documents how we moved from being "Jell-O-abusing women's-page ladies" and "terrapin-eating boulevardiers" to a "gourmet nation."

The book is full of encyclopedia-quality tidbits, both in the text and in his particularly entertaining footnotes. However, the primary virtue of the book is Kamp's insightful sketches of everyone in the food world you have ever admired and quite a few that you probably forgot you knew. If he's missed anybody, it's the guy running a bodega at the end of your block.

There's a bonus, too. Should you ever have wondered about the sensual sides of Julia Child, Alice Waters, or Barbara Lazaroff (ex-wife of Wolfgang Puck), considerable information is provided. To tell you the truth, I had always thought Julia never did anything more provocative than dropping a chicken on the floor of her kitchen (and she might never even have done that).

The United States of Arugula comes out this week. You will never be able to make up for all the wonderful meals you've missed over the years, but now you can find out how good they all would have been.

The Tip

You might have heard about it by now, the famous $10,000 tip left by a bar patron in Hutchinson, Kansas. That's particularly staggering because for $10,000 you can probably buy a bar in Hutchinson, Kansas.

The bartender, a nice enough but seemingly unextraordinary woman named Cindy Kienow, was busy at her job, doing whatever it is that bartenders at Applebee's do. That probably does not involve stopping bar fights with a shillelagh or engaging in any of the other odious tasks required of bartenders in seedy joints. For no particular reason we know, a patron who had ordered $26 worth of food added a $10,000 tip.

In case you work in a restaurant and want to be on the lookout for him, he particularly enjoys cheese quesadillas. He's also known as a big tipper, often leaving $15 on a $30 bill. This time he kept writing in zeros until he got tired of doing so.

For Kienow, the best news turns out to be that she gets to keep it all.

I was sent this story by a friend in Washington, D.C., whom I call The Capitol Gourmet. He was so amazed by the patron's largesse—maybe because he's not much of a tipper himself—that he went out to his local Applebee's to find out whether other bartenders working for the chain were pleased by or envious of Kienow's good fortune. He said the bartender there hadn't heard about the $10,000 tip, but she knew right away that the Kansas bartender would get to keep it all. Restaurant tips are almost always shared by staff members, but at Applebee's, a tip left to a bartender on a credit card goes entirely to the bartender whose name is on the check.

Let this be a lesson to all you young people planning to work as waiters until your fortunes are made. Become a bartender instead.

Best of the Eighties

These days, critics are supposed to make pronouncements. One of my failings is that I never make enough of them.

I wish to declare the golden decade of French wine-making to be the 1980s. (By the way, the golden decade of American film-making was the 1970s, in case you missed that.) If I could only include 1990 as belonging to the eighties, in the same way as the year 2000 belongs to the 20th century, I'd be even more sure of myself. I'll just say that the 1990 vintage benefited from the residual greatness of the 1980s.

It was quite a decade. Monumental wines were produced in both Bordeaux and Burgundy, and the 1982 Bordeaux wines launched the modern era of wine. Yet the greatest wine of that decade came not from either of those regions but from the Rhône. That wine is La Mouline, a Côte Rôtie from Guigal. This is certainly no surprise to any collector, and it's not as though La Mouline is overlooked. The price of a bottle is staggering. Could I afford them, I believe I'd drink '83, '85, '88 and '89 La Mouline before any other red wines on earth. Recently, thanks to a friend, I was fortunate enough to taste the 1985 side-by-side against a 1986 Grange Hermitage from Australia. That's a fine vintage of a wine I've always considered my favorite.

They're both made from the same grape, Syrah, which is called Shiraz in Australia (Grange also contains a dollop of Cabernet Sauvignon). The La Mouline was easily the better of the two. It was inky, with a hint of the elegant, lead-pencil nose often associated with great Bordeaux. It was so rich it had a syrupy quality reminiscent of a 1959 Bordeaux, yet it also had a hint of the famous Rhône bacon scent.

We drank it at the Ryland Inn in Whitehouse, New Jersey, accompanied by Mishima beef in a black pepper sauce. I don't know much about this particular meat product, except that it originally came from a small island off the coast of Japan and is so rare it makes kobe seem like ground round. It was darned tasty, and a first for me. I've never eaten a course where both the food and the wine were so uncommon I'll probably never have either one again.

All the News

Last week, The New York Times discovered pigs in a blanket.

Our nation's leading newspaper was nearly hysterical over the scoop. It announced that without pigs in blankets, "no black tie cocktail hour is complete."

The story ran on the front page of the "Dining In Dining Out" section. An accompanying picture took up a quarter of the page, about the space the paper might give to a photograph of a presidential inauguration. The pigs in blankets—I shall henceforth refer to them as "pigs," notwithstanding that pork should never be part of a proper pig—were on an ornate glass tray.

A pig, for any of you who have never attended a wedding, a Bar Mitzvah, or a poker game, is a miniature hot dog, preferably kosher, wrapped in puff pastry. It is junk food for Jews.

The editors of the Times think otherwise. They referred to them in a headline as "the kings of the cocktail hour." Page four of the dining section had yet another color photograph, almost as large as the first. This one featured four eager young people, mouths open, preparing to down pigs. They were all having the times of their lives, sampling fare from an exotic destination they had obviously never visited, a kosher delicatessen.

The Times, never one to let well enough alone, discussed socially acceptable variations on pigs, one more revolting than the next. They condoned replacing mustard with such dipping sauces as quince paste or barbeque sauce. They also endorsed variations, like andouille in phyllo. Sure, that's a pig, like I'm Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. They went on and on. The story had the breathless excitement of tabloid coverage of an alien spaceship landing in the New Mexico desert.

Oddly, the Times never explained how to make pigs. Everyone should know how to prepare them, because they are one of only two foodstuffs—boiled shrimp is the other—that are much loved by all who attend parties. Not only will I disclose my recipe, I will reveal the secret that makes my pigs superior to all others.

Purchase one package of cocktail franks, preferably kosher.

Purchase one package of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. (The reduced-fat variation is fine.)

Here's my secret: Place the franks in a small saucepan filled with water. Cover. Bring to a boil. Remove from fire. Drain. By par-boiling the franks, you will eliminate the yucky, salty, packaged taste.

Unroll the dough on a cutting board. Slice into thin strips, about three-quarters of an inch wide by three inches long. Don't worry if they are irregular, too short or too long. Nobody cares.

Wrap a strip around each pig, barber-pole style. (Okay, you've never seen a barber pole. How about candy-cane style? Same thing.) Traditional pigs do not have the best bread-to-meat ratio, the single shortcoming in an otherwise near-perfect product. My pigs have less dough than most. What you are really seeking is a pig in a scarf.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Cook for 17-19 minutes at 375 degrees. Flip pigs halfway through, burning your fingers in the process. (Pigs are worth the pain.) Serve immediately, with the mustard of your choice. Mouth-burning is also encouraged.

I cannot wait to see what is next for the Times. It is my belief that the upcoming "Science Times" section will announce the discovery of gravity.

Not Quite Authentic, But Wonderful Nevertheless

It's called Bamn! It's not quite a Horn & Hardart Automat, even though it tries. The color scheme is a glowing amalgamation of magenta and hot pink. The tiny space is standing room only, with no place to sit and loiter away an afternoon over a cup of coffee—Starbucks has, to its credit, taken on that role in our society. It's in the East Village, only recently gentrified to a point that a gent with a pocket full of jingling coins could walk down the block without being hit on the head and robbed of them. Still, it is a little like an automat of old, and that's a thrill to those of us who used to patronize them.

In case you're wondering what the word automat means, it's in the dictionary. Here's how mine defines it: "A restaurant in which the customers obtain food from closed compartments by depositing coins therein."

Once automats were all over New York. They were huge and shiny, and any kid who got to go to one had about as much fun as kids could have where food was concerned. We had a different lifestyle back then—meals were under the supervision of mothers, not television commercials. Most of what I remember about my visits to Horn & Hardart Automats was getting a bunch of nickels from the cashiers—they were nicknamed "nickel throwers"—and heading straight for the little windows that dispensed baked beans. I sure loved those beans, probably because cowboys ate them around campfires.

Bamn! takes quarters. It offers only a few dishes, and other than the hot dogs and possibly the grilled cheese, I'm pretty sure none were available in the old days. Not the chicken wings, the teriyaki burgers, the roast pork buns, the Japanese donuts, the pizza dumplings, the peanut butter & jelly croquettes, or the mozzarella sticks. Surely not the spam sushi. Everything goes for $1.00-$2.00. I tried everything and liked the pork bun best.

As the world has moved toward self-service—grocery stores, gas stations—the food world has gone in the opposite direction. Everything is handed to you. Taking whatever food I wanted was the most satisfying aspect of an automat meal. If I had tried that at home, I would have gotten my hand slapped.

It's Not So Difficult

I'm sure restaurants believe they already suffer at the hands of demanding customers. Nevertheless, I wish to impose an additional burden on them. They must tell callers when they'll be closed for vacation.

In the case of restaurants that take reservations, this isn't a big problem. If they're not going to be open, they won't take your name. But what of places that don't take reservations? Twice recently I've called no-reservation restaurants to ask for the hours and days of operation. I get the information. I go there. When I arrive, there's a sign on the door: Closed for vacation.

It happened to me at the famous Galatoire's in New Orleans. I had a long chat with the reservationist on a Thursday. When I showed up the next Tuesday, coming straight from the airport to have lunch, it was closed for vacation.

It happened again at a macaroni and cheese spot in New York's East Village. That same dreaded sign was on the door. Here's my rule: If you call a restaurant for information and it will be closed for vacation any time in the next couple of weeks, it has to tell you. If it doesn't, cross the joint off your list. It either doesn't care about customers or the people running it are so dumb you should assume they don't know how to prepare decent food.