Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Blue Smoke, always.

I was a fattie first, way before I became a foodie. I'm fine with the cards I've been dealt, if anything my weight have became a lot more manageable since I started being more aware of the quality of the food I'm consuming.

That's right Robyn! You got a whole lifetime of work ahead of you, go play, eat the world, The Man can wait.

Yes! Self cleaning kitchen! My god, if I can have that I'll actually cook more often than once a month!

NYC, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo

AARP bumper sticker:

Food has replaced sex in my life.
Now, I can't even get into my own pants.

Carolina de Witte - chefs can taste if they want to, of course. Some do, some don't. Some do sometimes but not always.

I was never taught to taste during service before sending it out to a customer but rather to be sure that I knew ahead of time by smell and look and by focus on the initial prep and even ordering/checking in of goods that when in the process of putting out anywhere from four orders to 250 orders that they would be good and correct in taste just from the building "from the ground up" so to speak.

As executive chef I worked on instilling this same way of doing things in the chefs and cooks that worked for me. It requires a lot of standardization of recipe and focus on initial ingredients, along with an intensive structure that involves detailed production schedules and a well-trained team who are willing to work together. It's not just about the food itself, its about the people who are putting it together.

This takes away from "creativity" allowed in a free-form way, yes. But the guests get consistency.

It's a beautiful thing when a kitchen of ten can trust each other to come in and together put out a range of meals where some of the plates might be finely detailed "fine dining" and the other plates are fine banquet service for 50 hitting at the exact same time.

Granted, part of this is intuition. But most of it is training, teamwork, knowledge and consistently-implemented procedures that run from step A to step Z.

But to each their own, and to taste on an ongoing basis is one way of doing it, for sure.
But what I said is true and workable also. :)

foodvox said: "No, chefs don't have to taste all the time if they are chefs for they know what they are doing and don't have to double-check." This isn't true. I've been a chef for many years, but I was taught to ALWAYS taste before sending it to a customer. There are many variables in cooking. If you aren't a good 'taster', you can not be a chef. The difference between ordinary, bad and sublime can be just a touch too little or too much salt, nevermind such ingredients as acids, etc. That being said, a 'taste' doesn't mean an entire mouthful of food, it is just enough to judge...a few drops could be sufficient.

I am not overweight, as I usually skip the 'house meals', and I go to the gym several nights a week. I eat the majority of my meals at home with my family, and we love fresh fruits and vegetables, organic and local if possible. I love preparing meals for my family even more than I do for patrons at work. Moderation is always key. I do splurge, but not everyday.

From my perspective, there is absolutely no moral triumph for being thin. You want to be thin, be thin. But when people pat themselves on the back for what they perceive to be better eating habits than someone else... I just find that, in and of itself, self aggrandizement of the grossest variety.

I despise the type pf thinklng which tells people that they look fat simply because they enjoy their food. This is a screw-up of the Puritan ethic, which told us that, if you enjoyed something, it would hurt you.

Today's foodies stand against that. We want to know more about every aspect of our food, not so we can shove rich things down our throats constantly, but so we can have a great salad or cookie or pasta dish or veggie casserole or hot dog or grilled cheese or or or...and makes sure it gives us strength and health as well as the calories.