The good thing abount living in New York City, when I lived there, was the restaurants. The population was large enough to support chefs whose recipes might be shunned by many -- and not all of them were artsy-fartsy two-bite art works -- and yet the chef might make a living on the few who remained.
In the small city I now inhabit, Northampton, Mass., there is much talk of the good restaurants but no talk at all about the doomed chefs who fall away because their specialties cannot appeal (money, flavor) to the masses (the income-producing Wonder Bread crowd).
When I think of going out to dinner, as I am today, I long for a doomed chef who makes what s/he makes and the devil take the hindmost. S/he may not be in business long, but I keep hoping I will find something weird and wonderful (or awful -- same difference) placed before me before s/he becomes an auto mechanic or just caves in to American 'hand-crafted' bullshit.
True, there are things I prefer not to eat -- anchovies, for example ... and I'm not a great fan of fish -- but there must be something that I like that can be made strangely, newly, and wonderfully off the charts. Public relations do not persuade my taste buds.
Where can I get something good to eat?
I think I may have to move back to New York ... which I have no desire or intention to. I know there are doomed chefs in my bomb zone, but I have no idea as to how I might find them, pay them something pretty outrageous (relative to my checkbook) and be filled with ... with ... what?... phantasmagoria, perhaps.
It all seems pretty greedy in this time that is so widely felt in terms of desperation.
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