Zagat Survey Discussions

Looking for gift ideas for the gourmand readers in your life (other than, naturally, all the latest Zagat guides)? Fret not, here are some recent books about cooking, dining and food that will fill the bill.

For the Foodie on the Cutting Edge

A Day at el Bulli, Ferran Adrià (Phaidon Press, $49.95): In hundreds of pages and photos, a day in the life of one of the most influential restaurants in the world is vividly captured. Though recipes are few and far between, the sheer scope of the book reflects el Bulli's reputation as a mecca for culinary innovation, and helps explain why it's virtually impossible to get a reservation there.

Alinea, Grant Achatz (Ten Speed Press, $50): Re-create otherworldly dishes from Achatz's Chicago hot spot with this gorgeously photographed cookbook that offers recipes that come directly from the restaurant's kitchen. It's the ideal gift for the aspiring molecular gastronomist in your life. 

Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide, Thomas Keller (Artisan, $75): The art of sous vide – cooking food in airtight bags  – is explained to the home cook with beautiful photographs and careful instructions from the chef behind The French Laundry.

For the Foodie in Search of Something Different

Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin, Kenny Shopsin and Carolynn Carreno (Knopf, $24.95): Kenny Shopsin runs one of NYC's most unique restaurants, and his famous 900-item menu is reproduced here in a 12-page spread. In this surprisingly touching book, the chef dishes not only on his business and world philosophy but also reveals recipes for some of his most famous dishes, including Blisters on My Sisters, his take on huevos rancheros.

The Hungry Scientist Handbook: Electric Birthday Cakes, Edible Origami, and Other DIY Projects for Techies, Tinkerers, and Foodies, Patrick Buckley and Laura Bins (Collins, $16.99): For creative chefs who are bored with the same old dishes, this romp of a cookbook should spark inspiration with recipes for dishes like edible origami, glowing lollipops, cryogenic martinis and more.

For the Know-It-All Foodie

Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause, Tom Gjelten (Viking Adult, $27.95): In this intriguing new tome, NPR correspondent Gjelten explores the rich history of Cuba through the lens of the politically active rum maker.

The Bagel: A Cultural History, Maria Balinska (Yale, $25): The journey of the bagel from Jewish bakeries in Poland to the American breakfast table is one full of surprising anecdotes, not to mention cameos from the likes of Shirley Temple and 17th-century king of Poland Jan Sobieski.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, Jennifer 8. Lee (Twelve, $24.99): The New York Times' Lee takes a journey through the cultural and culinary history of one of the most enduring cuisines in America with side ruminations on topics like the enduring relationship between Jews and Chinese food.

A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America, Rowan Jacobsen (Bloomsbury, $16): This exhaustive history of the mollusk covers everything from cultivating pearls to the art of shucking with plenty of historical detours.

For the Francophile Foodie

The Complete Robuchon, Joël Robuchon (Knopf, $35): The world-famous chef brings his entire philosophy to the table in this dense but not daunting guide to cooking French food well.

French Milk, Lucy Knisley (Touchstone, $15): To celebrate her and her mother's birthdays, the author traveled to Paris for a month to eat and explore. The resulting graphic novel brings to life the joys of a Parisian adventure – and the sweetness of the eponymous drink.

For the Bad-Tipper Foodie

Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter, Phoebe Damrosch (Harper, $13.95): From learning how to politely interrupt diners at Per Se to dealing with "anonymous" restaurant critics, this book casually invites you into the intimidating world of four-star service.

Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip–Confessions of a Cynical Waiter, Steve Dublanica (Ecc, $24.95): After three years of blogging anonymously, Dublanica has come out into the open to tell diners what your servers really think of you.

For the Media-Junkie Foodie

Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, Julie Powell (Back Bay Books, $13.99): In one year Powell cooked every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and the resulting blog and book have proved so charming and popular that a movie with Meryl Streep as Julia and Amy Adams as Julie is coming to theaters next year.

Top Chef: The Cookbook, The Creators of Top Chef (Chronicle, $29.95): For the loved one who just can't get enough of Tom, Padma and the gang comes a cookbook with 100 recipes from the first three seasons of the popular cooking competition.

For the Nostalgic Foodie

Amarcord: Marcella Remembers, Marcella Hazan (Gotham, $27.50): Known as the "Italian Julia Child" thanks to her wildly influential cookbooks, Hazan has written a memoir that reflects upon her childhood in Cesenatico, her marriage and, of course, her rise in the gastronomic world.

Dining at Delmonico's: The Story of America's Oldest Restaurant, Judith Choate (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $45): Choate provides the history of NYC's 1837 landmark restaurant, from major culinary innovations like eggs Benedict to its revolutionary dining practices like using tablecloths.

Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table: A Collection of Essays from the New York Times: Edited by Amanda Hesser (W. W. Norton,  $24.95): Conventional but well-written descriptions of meals mix with idiosyncratic tales in this collection of 26 stories that will both entertain and enlighten.

The latest from NYC scenemakers Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield (the Spotted Pig), the Way West Chelsea newcomer John Dory, nestled between Craftsteak and Del Posto, offers simple, uncomplicated presentations of British seafood; the seashell-heavy setting is an over-the-top celebration of all things aquatic, with fish rendered in tile, stained glass and under Lucite – along with the real thing swimming around in a mammoth fish tank – but space is surprisingly small (capacity 50), so brace yourself for tough reservations.

85 10th Ave., New York City; 212-929-4948

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Let us consider the turkey, that curiously hyperbolic fowl that an uncommonly large number of us will be forced to consume tomorrow. Turkey is a creature that one either loves, or doesn't love, with only a very few left sitting on the proverbial fence. One of the greatest fan of the turkey was gastronome and chef Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who wrote in his landmark volume The Physiology of Taste that:

"When the vine-grower or ploughman wants a treat on some long winter evening, what do we see roasting over a bright fire in the kitchen where the table is laid? A turkey. When the hard-working artisan invites a few friends to enjoy a holiday which is all the more precious for being rare, what is sure to be the principal dish of the feast? A turkey, stuffed with sausages or Lyons chestnuts. And in the high places of gastronomy, at those select gatherings where politics are forced to give way to dissertations on taste, what do the guests hope for and long for as the second course? A truffled turkey!"

Brillat-Savarin obviously liked his turkey. On the other hand, William Connor, who wrote under the named "Cassandra" in the London Daily Mirror back in the '50s, was not much of a fan of the bird at all. He wrote:

"The turkey has practically no taste except a dry fibrous flavour reminiscent of warmed-up plaster of Paris and horsehair. The texture is like wet sawdust and the whole vast feathered swindle has the piquancy of a boiled mattress."

Myself, I agree more with the Brit than the Frenchman. More often than not, it is a dry thing, eaten with untoward haste so that we might return as quickly as possible to watching the 27 millionth rerun of Miracle on 34th Street. The whole Thanksgiving meal is a true oddity, for it is not so much savored as it is inhaled – 12 hours of cooking devoured in 12 minutes at the table. Years ago, I suggested to some friends that our Thanksgiving feast be eaten in courses, rather than in one trip to the trough. They regarded me with the sort of shock that might have been appropriate had I suggested we do our dining in pink tutus.

Still, there's no denying the undeniable historical solidity of the turkey. Despite New Yorker scribe Calvin Trillin's argument that we should be eating spaghetti carbonara to honor Thanksgiving, rather than this large, unwieldy, notably dumb bird, turkey seems to be with us to stay. And, turkey is about as native as anything we eat.

The bird was first introduced to the Old World by any number of Spanish conquistadors – either Miguel de Passamonte, Francisco de Cordoba, or Hernando Cortes, all of whom sent turkeys back to Spain from Mexico – where it was known as the "Rooster of the Jesuits."

The Aztecs who raised the bird called it a "peru," which is odd, for turkeys are not found in Peru. But then, they're not found in India either, which didn't keep the French from calling them the "Bird of India" – d'Inde, which metamorphosed into the word "dinde," French for "turkey." Both the Germans and Dutch also thought that turkeys came from India, calling them Calecutische Hahn and Kalkoen respectively. It was the English, fuzzy as ever concerning geography, who named the bird the "turkey," in much the same spirit that they turned Jerez into "sherry."

If old Ben Franklin had had his way, the turkey would be the national bird today, instead of the eagle, and probably rightly so. Though of course, there's a good chance then that someone would try to instigate a constitutional amendment making it a federal crime to eat a turkey. And don't forget to eat yours with fenberry sauce and misickquatash – far more colorful names than the latterday monikers of cranberry sauce and succotash.

– Merrill Shindler

By Jacqueline Wasilczyk, ZAGAT.com Staff Editor

After five seasons of being involved with Top Chef, Lee Anne Wong shares some behind-the-scenes scoop.

Lee Anne Wong

Top Chef whips up drama on TV screens every Wednesday night, but there's plenty of action that happens off-camera too, something that the show’s current culinary supervisor, season one contestant Lee Anne Wong, knows all about. She spoke to us recently to shed light on former scandals, the appeal of the series and what it takes to survive life after the competition.

Zagat Buzz: With the show in its fifth season, how do you keep it fresh? Is it true that you try never to repeat a challenge?

Lee Anne Wong: In many ways, new contestants keep it fresh. We could put them through all of the same challenges we’ve put other seasons through and you’d get totally different results. We are always striving to think outside of the box while still paying homage to the simple beauty of food, [but] we’ve [also] managed to create some challenges that have become favorites season after season, like our relay race and restaurant wars.

ZB: What’s the most common behind-the-scenes difficulty in setting up and executing a challenge? And how do you decide on the task?

LAW: Most challenges are only mapped out a few days ahead of time, and you’d be amazed at how much last-minute swapping and decision-making is involved. Sometimes it has to do with the sponsor, or whether or not a certain guest judge is available; other times it’s as simple as getting a location secured. Usually the challenge team looks to me for guidelines on which ingredients should be made available, equipment restrictions, time limits and budgets. I also provide a realistic point of view of the contestants’ limitations, like if it’s possible to cook [a dish] in minutes or the time I filleted a fish blindfolded. It’s a big ballet really, and amazing to see how much stuff it takes us to get everything ready [only to] tear it all down and leave virtually no footprint in a matter of hours.

ZB: How much input do the show’s sponsors have on challenges?

LAW: The money to make television doesn’t grow on trees. I think that’s about all I’m allowed to say.

ZB: Scallops have been quite popular the past few seasons and have sparked a bit of scandal (à la Spike Mendelsohn’s decision to use Rick Tramonto's frozen ones). Do you expect them to continue to be a hot item (we did notice one pop up in the premiere), or have you tried to push the cheftestants toward other ingredients?

LAW: Hehehe. There was one Quickfire this season where we had staged them in the fridge in the Top Chef Kitchen. Angie (my right-hand woman on my culinary team) and I caught each other’s eye, and I just walked over to the fridge and took out both the bay scallops and diver scallops, tucked them under my arm and walked off the set. There were plenty of other seafood and meat choices in the fridge still. Lunch was delicious that day. And that Tramonto thing was all my fault, for the record.

ZB: Do you feel that by this season, the judges expect more from the contestants? How has the addition of Toby Young on the panel changed the judging dynamic?

LAW: Absolutely, the judges have already seen a wealth of talent in the four seasons past so these contestants have big shoes to fill. Toby Young has added a very new, very tongue-in-cheek element to the judges’ table. I would watch judges’ table and some of the things he would say would make you spit your soda out your nose. I know that Tom, while he didn’t always agree with Toby’s POV, certainly welcomed his presence and enjoyed his commentary, as we all did.

ZB: How has placing the show in New York changed the competition?

LAW: Location, location, location. It’s quite simply the food capital of the world. It sets the tone, the level of excitement and the intensity. Plus, the judges this season are some of the best chefs in the country.

ZB: You’ve managed to spin your Top Chef success into an established media-chef career. Any advice for current contestants who would like to do the same?

LAW: I always tell the smart ones to remember that the cameras are always rolling. Top Chef is a stepping-stone and an opportunity to find out the blood and guts of yourself as a cook, and also who you are as a person. The ones who listen to what the judges have to say and move forward usually have a better chance of keeping in the public’s good favor. Every now and then you get a contestant who believes too much in their own hype, and then they self-implode. It’s up to you to figure out who I’m talking about. So in other words, keep working. There is life after Chef.

The results of our 2008 Airline Survey are in, and while there were a few positive developments, the industry as a whole is hardly flying high in the public’s eyes.

First, the good news: average overall ratings – factoring in Comfort, Service and Food scores – rose slightly for premium and economy class performance in both the domestic and international ranks. Not surprisingly, premium class showed the most improvement.

And a number of carriers – including Continental, JetBlue, Midwest and Virgin America domestically and Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Singapore and Virgin Atlantic internationally – turned in solid performances despite the tough conditions facing the industry.

Still, in the domestic economy ranks, several airlines again scored better for their websites than for their in-air performance. And the 9,950 surveyors who participated continued to express a high degree of airborne discontent (read some of their comments here).

Other survey highlights:

• – Among large domestic airlines, Continental was voted No. 1 in premium class while JetBlue took top honors for economy. Looking at just the U.S. “Big Six” – American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, US Airways (soon to be “Big Five” with the merger of Delta and Northwest) – Continental led in all categories, as it did in ’07. It was also deemed the best value among all airlines for international flights.
• – Among midsized domestics, Virgin America, the low-cost, high-style newcomer launched by Richard Branson in 2007, continued to impress, ranking No. 1 in premium and No. 2 – after winner Midwest – in economy.
• – Singapore Airlines keeps gaining altitude: it topped the international ranks in both premium and economy classes for the ninth Survey in a row.
• – Delay-weary fliers cited Southwest as having the best on-time performance among domestics. Southwest was also saluted for offering the best value domestically as well as the best website, frequent-flier program and luggage policy.
• – Top in-flight entertainment honors went to JetBlue domestically, Virgin Atlantic internationally.
• – When booking, 60% of surveyors use airline websites, while only 4% call the airline. Sites such as Expedia, Travelocity and the like are used by 18%, while 9% book through work and 8% use a travel agent.
• – 65% of surveyors use their frequent-flier miles for free flights; 25% use them for upgrades; and 10% don't use them.
  

This year’s Survey included 17 domestic airlines and 68 airlines that fly internationally. Each surveyor took an average of 16.3 flights per year, for a total of 162,000 annual trips; 38% were for leisure, 62% for business.

• – Campbell soup is so over MSG. [Chicago Tribune]
• – Starbucks lost a laptop with 97,000 employees' names, addresses and social security numbers. [Starbucks Gossip]
• – Was the head of New York's State Liquor Authority pressured into letting the Ciprianis keep their licenses? [NYP]

• – Chefs need to stop whining and go back to cooking. [NYP]
• – A new study argues that fast-food TV ads are directly related to childhood obesity. [LAT]
• – Meanwhile, nutritional information may be coming to fast-food chains in the U.K. [Independent]
• – Bacon-wrapped iPhone, anyone? [Bacon Today]
• – Mysterious meat is showing up in a Massachusetts park. [Serious Eats]

• – A 2.15-pound truffle is having a terrible time selling in New York. [Gothamist]
• – Beaujolais' big days are behind it. [WSJ]
• – Massachusetts' wine shipping laws have been thrown out. [Bostonist]

• – The feud between Taco Bell and 50 Cent is getting intense. [NYDN]
• – In a new advertising campaign, Burger King is leaving wallets around the country. [AHT]
• – Genes may play a role in shaping our dietary choices. [Independent]
• – Robert De Niro's Ago outpost in New York may be on the way out as early as next week. [Strong Buzz]
• – The insatiable Gael Greene is out at New York. [Feedbag]
• – Wait, really? Disgraced Dinner Impossible "chef" Robert Irvine is coming back to the Food Network for more? [AP]
• – Still looking to wow 'em on turkey day? Whip up a turbaconducken. [Bacon Today]
• – "Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants." [Food Chain]