THE WAITER YOU STIFFED HAS NOT FORGOTTEN BY JULIA MOSKIN

GOOD LINKS IN THS ARTICLE/ WISH THEY HAD THIS WHEN I WAS A WAITER CHAUNCY , " WHATS THAT EDGAR?'The Waiter You Stiffed Has Not ForgottenBy JULIA MOSKIN Published: February 2, 2005
HAT evil lurks in the hearts of waiters? Now you can find out. But can you stomach the results?
An anonymous New York waiter wrote online recently: "In my fantasy, I become Darth Vader the next time a customer asks about the wines by the glass, then says, 'Merlot! Waiter, haven't you seen the movie "Sideways"?' Then I will slice off his head with my light saber."
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Grievances, including friction between kitchen and dining room staff, rapacious management and near-universal bitterness over tipping, are being revealed with gusto on the Internet by restaurant staff members. As a customer, to read Web sites like www.bitterwaitress.com, www.waiterrant.blogspot.com and www.webfoodpros.com is to wonder nervously, "Could they be talking about me?"
Each month, www.stainedapron.com publishes a new extreme example of customer obnoxiousness. (One forum is titled "Keep Your Brats at Home!") On bitterwaitress.com, the most popular page is an annotated database of people who give bad tips (defined on the site as "any gratuity under 17 percent for service which one's peers would judge as adequate or better"). Anyone can add a name to the database, along with the location, restaurant, amount of the check, amount of the tip and any details, most of which cannot be printed in a family newspaper. (A disclaimer reads: "We are not responsible for submissions. Uh-uh, no way, not in the least.") There are almost 700 entries.
"That stuff is childish," said Timothy Banning, a California chef who often posts to www.ontherail.com, a San Francisco-based site for chefs. "And it makes the industry look bad."
But most servers say that letting off steam helps them do the job. "It's so important for us to have a place to vent," said Becky Donohue, who waits on tables at Mickey Mantle's in Midtown and writes occasional posts at www.girlcomic.net. "It's amazing that more waiters don't kill people," she said.
Many in the industry protest that the rage-filled, often incoherent blogs and posts don't represent the feelings of most restaurant staff members, And so far only a small slice of the industry is active online. "Unlike a lot of people, chefs and waiters don't have computer access at work, or enough time to fool around on the Net," said Bryce Lindholm, a Seattle chef and manager who participates in a Yahoo discussion group for restaurant employees.
But the result of these forums, say Mr. Banning, Mr. Lindholm and others, is that the symbolic wall between the kitchen and the dining room - the wall that prevents customers from knowing what is done and said by waiters and cooks - is coming down. And how do they loathe us, the customers? Now we can count the ways.
"I don't think civilians really have any idea how the staff really feels: namely, that they just can't wait to turn the table, get their tip and see the back of you," Mr. Lindholm said. "Let's be honest."
Referring to restaurant customers as civilians is common, and indicative of the siege mentality that longtime cooks and severs tend to adopt. "I'd say waiting tables is one of the most stressful jobs you can have, short of being a firefighter or an inner-city police officer," said Bruce Griffin Henderson, a singer-songwriter who did 10 years as a waiter in New York. "You have no control over anything, but you are responsible for everything. You are always being squeezed by three immutable forces: the customer, the kitchen and the management."
But recent interviews revealed some fresh irritants for the more than eight million Americans who worked in restaurants in 2002 (the most recent year for which figures are available according to the United States Department of Labor). Waiters must now enforce bans on smoking, drinking by minors and cellphone use, and are enduring an influx of Euro-rich tourists who, restaurant staff members say, often pretend not to understand American tipping practices.
Chefs say they are being driven mad by an ever-changing spectrum of diets, allergies and food issues. Gillian Clark, the chef at Colorado Kitchen in Washington, contributed thousands of words to a forum at www.washingtonpost.com on the subject of customers who demand changes to the menu. "I explain to them that they are in my restaurant," she wrote, "and they must have the flounder the way I make it."
Ms. Clark is relatively tolerant of customers with genuine health problems, but many bloggers reserve their most towering rages for customers with real or imagined dietary restrictions. Last year a server at a Sizzler steakhouse in Norco, Calif., was arrested after a fight with Atkins-dieting customers over whether vegetables could be substituted for potatoes. Participants in online forums reacted with understanding, though the consensus was that Jonathan Voeltner, the server, had gone too far in following the customers and covering their house with maple syrup, flour and instant mashed potatoes. "Use the forum, dude!" one poster urged. "Blow off the steam here."
According to www.waitersworld.com, one Washington restaurant customer recently insisted that the restaurant's $10 minimum should be waived for him, because gastric bypass surgery had rendered him unable to swallow more than a few mouthfuls at one sitting. "So why are you in a restaurant?" wrote one cook. "WHY WHY WHY?"
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PORK FAT RULES CHAUNCY...PASS THE BBQ,.CAREFUL DONT STEP ON MY RESUSITATOR

Steven Malloy, debunker of junk science, has the details on the latest major study to demolish the myth that dietary fat and cholesterol are bad for you. The article is here. The study involved nearly 50,000 women. According to Malloy:
The most significant result of the $415 million study is that low-fat diets don’t reduce heart disease risk. As the researchers put it, “Over [an average] of 8.1 years, a dietary intervention that reduced total fat intake and increased intake of vegetables, fruits and grains did not significantly reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women and achieved only modest effects on cardiovascular risk factors. . . .”Low-fat diets didn’t even improve heart health among the population of women who had heart disease at the beginning of the study. In fact, the low-fat diet regimen was associated with a slightly increased risk of heart disease among these women.These results are quite a blow to the Diet-Government Complex, that constellation of pharmaceutical companies, food processors, and government bureaucrats that have been pushing low-fat, high-carb diets on us for years. This has been a thoroughly politicized process from the start. (See this New York Times Magazine article, "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?") As Malloy points out, the other major studies have consistently failed to support the fat-cholesterol-heart-disease hypothesis, but the results were always spun to distract attention from the facts. And the news media has always been too willing to merely reprint the press releases.For the scoop on such things, visit the website of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics . I'd also recommend Dr. Uffe Ravnskov's book, The Cholesterol Myths.Somewhere up there, Dr. Atkins is smiling.As Emeril Lagasse says, "Pork fat rules!"
Posted by Sheldon Richman at 5:48 AM

WHERE DOES MARIO BATALI EAT EDGAR?

Meeting Mario Batali (Where Does He Eat?)
We throw the term "celebrity chef" around a lot, but I'm switching to plain old "celebrity" for Mario Batali. He barely made it out of the elevator at the Inn at the Market earlier this week without fans coming to say how they admired his food, and it was rare that 60 seconds passed in the quiet courtyard without someone tentatively approaching to ask for an autograph or say thanks.
Batali was easygoing and laid-back throughout. Why not? His fans are nice people, he said, not weirdos -- and at his restaurants they'd be hugging him, not shaking hands.
When we met he was running on the fumes of one-third of a porchetta sandwich that he grabbed at Salumi earlier in the day, waiting for dad Armandino to pick him up for a family dinner at Elliott's Oyster House. No molecular gastronomy for him -- in Seattle, "I like places with 20 oysters and four kinds of salmon." That includes the likes of Elliott's and Steelhead Diner and Etta's -- places that are "easy to love." And, it goes without saying that he's a fan of Salumi. "I knew Dad was going to do something (with food). I didn't know he was going to become a national icon."
Batali has a restaurant empire on the East Coast, and I told him I'd been struck by the recent changes in Seattle's restaurant scene, how a few years back only Tom Douglas could claim the emperor's title, but others are finally taking the plunge. I asked what made Batali go ahead with more than one place of his own. His response was remarkably similar to what Ethan Stowell said when Stowell opened Tavolata -- that he had great chefs under him who needed an opportunity to move up, and he didn't want to lose them to another chef or another city.
"What happens is, you grow, and all of a sudden you have all these people ready for a great challenge," Batali said. He added that he hopes Seattle chefs are also sharing equity in the new ventures with those chefs. One of the most important things he's learned over the years, he said: "You don't need to make all the money."
Batali was mainly in town promoting his latest book, Italian Grill, getting props for recipes that range from herb-rubbed T-bone to grilled radicchio to a recipe for homemade ricotta to serve over grilled bread. To Batali, it was a chance to collect "what I really make at my home, all summer." The mussels he's grabbing bare-handed from the piastra in the cover shot really are being cooked on the 41-inch Viking grill at his summer home, the sweetie-pie kids in the food photos are his own sons, Leo and Benno. ("Do they cook?" I asked. Oh, yeah -- with recipes, without recipes -- and, Batali swears, when he was back in New York for stretches of time last summer, assuming his wife was cooking every night, she was having the boys do Iron Chef competitions to see who could make the best dinner.)
So where does Batali stand on gas vs. charcoal? The book's recipes, surprisingly, neutrally, all give the option of either.
"I don't mind gas. Gas works," Batali said. The ingredients and the recipe are what matter here. "I don't want people to obsess about the wrong thing -- which is going out and buying the 41-inch Viking."
Batali's own favorites in the book include the mussels (recipe below), the fresh rabiola wrapped in mortadella, and a spit-roasted duck with orange and rosemary. The two that have grabbed my interest the most so far, though, are a pizza crust recipe that includes white wine (he credits the daughter of an Italian colleague for the tip) and roasted corn "as Italians would eat it", the point being, Italians don't eat corn this way, but, if they did, they might do it like this -- rolled in olive oil and vinegar, dredged in Parmigiano, and sprinkled with fresh mint and hot red pepper. I had to ask if he gets heat for departing from pure Italian food. He said no -- at least not any more now than ever. He thinks he cooks "in a way Italians understand," whether it's traditional or not.
I also couldn't resist asking about his feelings toward what I think is one of the best food books ever, Bill Buford's Heat, which started off as a profile of Batali. In 30 years, Batali knows he'll feel honored by it. But it's the last time he'll give a writer complete access to his life. Reading the book in the end felt as though he was standing in a room full of mirrors, he said. Up on a pedestal. Naked.
During the reporting, "I wasn't really paying attention, thinking 'Oh man, he's writing everything down'," Batali said. And it's amazing how different what you're saying sounds when it's drawn out on the page.
Batali's a native of Federal Way, and I was cheered to hear him say how much good food he enjoys in our region. "It's a great time to be in the Pacific Northwest," he said. We have great restaurants, great markets, people doing great things with all sorts of food. (Our cheeses, for one -- "Wherever there's a good wine culture, there's a good cheese culture," he said.) So why, I asked, do Seattleites have such an inferiority complex when it comes to our food? He says it's a function of our lousy roads and terrible drivers. ( I know. This, from a New Yorker?)
Next step for Batali is the airing this fall of the Spain-based PBS food show he made with the bizarrely dream-sequence-like combination of Mark Bittman and Gwyneth Paltrow. (Can't you picture waking up, blinking, saying 'I had the weirdest dream ... that Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Gwyneth Paltrow and I all went on a road trip to Spain!) It's not as strange as it sounds, Batali said. He knew he could work well with Bittman, and Paltrow is an old customer and friend who told him at a dinner party she'd like to be involved. And talk about celebrity? When they're in Europe, it's all reflected toward her, not him.
Want to gain your own Mario-related fame and spend some of your own time with the man himself? Enter his grilling contest. Details here.

5 MADE UP STORIES ABOUT COWS

HEY THIS GUY BULL#@&*^$%"S BETTER THAN YOU EDGAR!
"BRING IT ON CHAUNCY"
Five made-up stories about cowsPosted on August 13th, 2007 by John Cow

A big cow
The largest cow in the world was super-sized Maureen who measured over 14 feet in length in Kentucky in 2002. Maureen was the result of selective cow breeding and was fed on genetically modified grass. At over seven feet tall and weighing almost two tons, Maureen scored a number of cameo appearances in Jackie Chan movies before her death in 2005.
An old cow
The oldest cow in the world, named Betty, lived to be more than 100 years old. Betty, from Houston, Texas, was fed on a diet of plum tomatoes and corn by her owners Ted and Dorris Whitewater. Born in 1894, betty was passed on from generation to generation until her death in a motorcross accident in 1995 at the age of 101. Ted and Dorris’ farm was being used for a junior motorcross event when Betty wondered from her enclosure and onto the motorcross track where she had a heart attack and died instantly. Ted and Dorris were said to be devastated. “She was lucky for the family,” said Ted. “That’s why we never ate her.”
A cow rampage
Residents of a small village in England’s West Country were left bemused when a gang of cows outwitted a farmer and wreaked havoc at the village fete in December 1999. Farmer Jerry Danson had been in his cow field when one of his cows approached him walking with a limp. Concerned that the cow had been in a cow fight, Farmer Jerry opened the gate and led the cow out of the field away from the other cows. The rest of the herd then took their cue and charged toward the gate. Before Jerry realized what was going on, the entire herd of 112 cows had escaped and was making its way to the cricket field where the fete was being held.
Stunned villagers watched as the cow mob destroyed stalls, ate entries in the vegetable contest and began jumping on the bouncy castle. The cows eventually got bored and returned to their field by their own accord.
A silly cow
The first ever cow to attempt a bungee jump died after the bridge she bungeed from collapsed in April last year. Mertyl ignored the advice of friends and family and found a bungee jump company that would assist her to live achieve her lifelong dream of bungee jumping. The jump took place on a bridge over a river in New Jersey. A short bungee cord was used to allow for Mertyl’s above-human weight. After jumping from the bridge, the bungee cord extended and Mertyl approached the ground at such a rate that the entire bridge was pulled down with her, killing the cow and two other people. This was the only time a cow has ever tried to bungee jump.
Cow warfare
In March 1975, infamous cow mobster Dorris was bitten and trampled to death by members of a rival cow-mafia family in Holland. The killing marked the beginning of a bloody, 30-year battle between two cow-mafia families living in fields next to each other. The violence peaked two years ago when one cow was pushed under the wheels of a tractor. The two families decided enough was enough and signed a pact to not harm each other’s cows. Two years on and the peace remains.
This post was written by Angel
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BRAVE PIG BITES BUTCHER

A brave sow which bit a butcher in order to save a boar from being slain has been placed at the top of a selection of the most moving animals of 2007 in China, organised by an Internet user on a well-known domestic online community.

On Valentine’s Day this year, the pig rose to fame by rushing towards a butcher who was preparing to slaughter a boar, knocking him to the ground.
The pig's owner later had to pay 800 yuan (US$108) for the butcher’s medical bills and the pig was confined to its sty.
Brave big piggy!!!