... when I would have something even slightly negative to say about Alton Brown... but that day is here.
It's 9:25 Friday night, and I am sitting in the newsroom of a Boston TV station that shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. It's where Kevin works, writing news stories for the talking heads to read on air. There seems to be a lot of not-working here tonight... but it is late, and the crew is a lot smaller for an 11:00 newscast than for early evening shows. Supervision is at a minimum. I know this, as I see it first-hand every day where I work. Apparently there aren't many differences between the tiny market stations and the Big City Stations. But I digress...
I knew I would be spending a few hours here tonight, as I have been dying to see this place, and this is really the best time for it (when fewer Important People are around!). I brought a good amount of reading material -- "Rainbow Valley," #7 in the "Anne of Green Gables" Series (I have decided there are 5 books too many in the series, but I'm reading them all anyway), the October issue of "Organic Style" magazine, and the October issue of "Bon Appetit." Imagine my excitement when I saw in the table of contents for "Bon Appetit" that AB is a guest contributor in this issue! And he wrote about BREAD! Well, mostly about yeast, but close enough. How good is life?
The article is pretty much an episode of "Good Eats" on paper. He tells of his first experience with yeast (when he mixed flour, water, and yeast into dough, and wanted to keep it as a pet when he saw how much it "grew"), and then goes into the inner workings of yeast. Nothing I didn't know already, but I love anything he writes/produces/stars in. I was glued to the pages...
The last page of the story is dedicated to sourdough, a subject that has recently become near and dear to my heart. Would you believe that he actually off-handedly disses purely wild starters? He claims that they "can often result in a nasty-tasting and dangerous bread brew" because of the potential for "bad bacteria" getting into the starter. He describes his solution to this problem: "Proto-Dough." I won't divulge the gory details, but it uses commercial yeast!
GASP!
Sigh. As much as I admire and respect AB, this is very disappointing. I never saw it coming. Anyone who has read anything about wild starters should be able to recognize if "bad bacteria" invade. I don't see how there could possibly be anything to fear, and I am the most food-borne-illness-paranoid person I know!
On the bright side, AB's third book will be on a bookstore shelf near you (and me) later this month.
Obviously, I am still in Boston, hence the lack of pictures -- I have no computer to upload them into (as I said, I'm on a TV newsroom computer right now!). Well, there really isn't anything to photograph for my AB rant, anyway. But Kevin and I did, in fact, make it to Algiers (no website!) for dinner Wednesday night, and to Finale for dessert. I didn't take pictures because, frankly, I would be embarassed to be seen photographing my food in a public place.
At Algiers, we ordered the Combination Salad Plate, highly recommended by Kev's dad. It's a large plate with ever-so-artfully-arranged portions of hummus, baba ganoush, tabouleh, and mujadara surrounding a lovely falafel ball. The salads are served with a basket of warm pita bread, of course. It's a complete meal for 2, and very reasonably priced. All I have to say about it is "happy, happy, happy." I love mid-eastern foods like these, and could eat the stuff for dinner every night. Algiers is at 40 Brattle Street in Cambridge, just off Harvard Square, occupying a building called "Brattle Hall."
And speaking of happy, Finale Desserterie is a beautiful thing. There are two locations, one in Boston (Park Plaza) and one in Cambridge (30 Dunster Street). I get the feeling from the website that the Park Plaza restaurant is a bit more hoity-toity than the Cambridge location. Fortunately, we were in Cambridge. =) Of course, the Cambridge one is frequented by the college crowd, which more than likely contributes to the more casual atmosphere. Unfortunately, it was a bit too crowded and noisy for my taste, but we stuck it out. And I'm glad we did. After much indecision, I chose creme brulee. Would you believe I'd never had it before? I've always been afraid that it would be too slimy for my taste. But for some reason, it seemed like the thing to do. Wow, was it ever! The custard was the smoothest thing ever to have passed my lips, and it was extra-super vanilla-y. It was topped with a variety of fruit and berries, which mixed beautifully with the cool, creamy custard and slightly bitter, crunchy burnt sugar. I am a convert.
Kevin had the "Italian Teaser," a plate of baby cannoli, lemon curd gelato, and tiramisu. The cheese in the cannoli was tragically undersweetened, and the gelato was more like sherbet than like the silky-smooth frozen treat we've enjoyed so often in Europe. But the tiramisu... oh, yeah. It was as good as anything we've had in Italy.
JoAnna October 3, 2004 09:47 AM PDT I imagine Alton is speaking from a professional (read CYA) perspective.
Consider if every self-proclaimed culinarian decided to make his or her own sourdough with pink, slimy, stinky starter because they didn't know any better?
That would be the end of Alton, and the end of the view-from-the-inside-of-the-oven cam.
Politics, lawsuits and the american way, I'm afraid!
Alice October 2, 2004 11:23 AM PDT Wow, I'm equally as disappointed with AB and commercial yeast in a sourdough starter. What a pity! I heard about his article in Bon Appetit and have been meaning to check it out...maybe I shouldn't. I still plan on buying the new book, though.
