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ohtorvald's Profile

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Favorite foods: pungent cheeses, cured meats, red wine, fresh fruits and vegetables, crusty bread

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The Ten Most Recent Posts By ohtorvald

From Talk

86?

How did 86 become restaurant lingo for 'out of stock'? What's the story here? How did it become universally (or maybe just nationally?) accepted? HELP!

From Talk

What are your likes/dislikes about restaurant servers?

I recently became a waitress at a fairly chic Mediterranean-inspired restaurant. Tough clientele. What constitutes good service? What's a faux pas from a waiter/waitress?

From Talk

What do you think is contributing to obesity in America?

Fast food? The virtual dissapearance of family dinner time? Stress? Lack of exercise? What's your opinion?

The Ten Most Recent Comments By ohtorvald

From Serious Eats

Waitering, Part Two

Exactly...you can't just melt into a puddle because someone wanted an extra piece of bacon. As a waiter you get paid nothing on salary...maybe two bucks or so an hour...you're working for your tips, and you earn tips by pleasing your customers. An extra piece of bacon? That's nothing. If you're new, you may not know how to make special requests like that, but you ask, you learn...because I'm sure that 'evil' professor wasn't the first man ever to ask for an extra piece of bacon.

From Serious Eats

Waitering, Part One

Part of what I love about being a waitress is the banter back and forth with the kitchen. I work in a small, privately owned restaurant so no computer system exists, and from reading your post, I'm glad my orders don't just escape into cyber-space. We 'fire' tables by word of mouth- pacing is definitely one of the hardest parts of being a server. Kudos to you, a regular restaurant eater, for walking in a waiter's shoes for a bit.

From Talk

I know everyone dreams of owning a restaurant of their own..

a tiny bakery in which I could somehow make enough money to not have to constantly slave away at the ovens at 4 am. A girl can dream...

From Talk

What are your likes/dislikes about restaurant servers?

Mr. K- it's Mediterraneo in...New Jersey. We do have grilled octopus as well as lamb. And thanks for the advice everyone. Dining is certainly a subjective experience, so there are bound to be different opinions.

From Talk

Latex gloves in the professional kitchen?

It's only the culinary school graduates in the kitchen of the restaurant where I work who wear latex gloves while cooking. I've always found it odd- haven't people been handling food with their bare hands for centuries? Putting an extra barrier between you and the food you are preparing for people to ingest always seems a little iffy. Yet, I am aware of the dangers of food poisoning and outbreaks...

From Talk

Question of the Day: Do you have a food-related pet name for your sweetheart?

From Talk

Question of the Day: What's the worst meal someone's ever cooked for you?

Pulverized mashed-potato-paste. My brother and I built string-bean forts with it as glue.

From Talk

Who else saw Adam's pretty/ugly mug on the FRONT page of yahoo?!

oh, that mug!

From Talk

Question of the Day: Not for the squeamish--ever get food sickness?

As a native New Yorker, I thought I would be adventurous, and try the pizza at a local restuarant in Colorado while I was on vacation there. Needless to say, it was like eating Texas Toast with Campbell's condensed tomato-soup on top and could hardly compare to the New York's pizza, if the comparison can even fairly be made. I literally could not stomach it- I spent the whole rest of the night in the bathroom. Some kind of New Yorker karma?

From Talk

Question of the Day: Other people say it's 'gross,' but you love it. What is it?

almost rotten apples

Responses to Comments by ohtorvald

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

Oh god. There really are a lot of things I will not eat. There is not just one. But, here are a few:

~Roasted Peppers - I will not eat them or anything they touch. AWFUL
~Mushrooms
~Asparagus
~Water Chestnuts
~FISH (but I do eat the Shellfish family-MMMM)
~Anything that has nuts in it. Hate it when people put nuts in bownies! No. This ruins the taste. But man, do I love nuts by themselves.
~Miracle Whip

I could go on, but I will stop here...

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

it's a very very...very long list... it's probably quicker/easier to list what I will eat.

One thing I absolutely refuse to pick around is mushrooms, if anything has mushrooms in it, I would rather starve than consume.... it's tainted.

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

W. Who wants to eat anill eat bananas and pineapple and peaches; but nothing with them as an ingredient.

I too, try to stay away from organs (except liver.) Oh, and lima beans.

Crabs have brains large enough to extract and serve?!?

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

Fish. Fish sauce. Anything remotely fishy.

Also, I HATE runny egg yolks, they remind me of mucous.

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

Beets and turnips. Can't get around the metallic taste either. Used to hate brussels sprouts, but found a way to make them yummy (roast them!).

As to the "sea urchin roe" detester, I can guarantee you have never tasted nor even seen sea urchin roe. Uni, which is the food that comes from the sea urchin is, in fact, gonads. When you order sea urchin in a sushi restaurant, you are getting the testicles from the hermaphroditic aquatic hedgehog. But I know what you mean. Uni is not my favorite either. Nor are crab brains, which I was served many times when I lived in Japan. For that matter, any kind of brains--sweatbreads from cattle, etc.

Back to gonads. There's a lovely restaurant in Oklahoma City, OK called Cattlemen's. They serve a dish called "lamb fries." We ordered it and ate it up with relish without knowing it was, you guessed it, lamb testicles. All I can say is they were incredibly tender and tasty.

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

I won't eat bananas or anything with bananas in it. They don't agree with me and even the smell turns me off. Yuck!

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

I will absolutely not eat beets, oatmeal, raisins (or any other dried fruit for that matter) and chunks of cooked carrots (when I use carrots in soups, I grate them or cut into tiny matchsticks, then they don't bother me, but I simply cannot bite into a chunk of a cooked carrot). I will not eat most cooked fish (other than Chilean sea bass, but only prepared in a certain way). Oops. it was supposed to be "the one food" I won't eat...[hanging head in shame]

From Talk

What's the one food you just won't eat?

Olives and mushrooms.

You know, I just can't stand their...texture.
It's sort of like tomatoes.
I mean, it took me a while to tolerate tomatoes, but olives and mushrooms are "new" to me, I guess, considering tomatoes have been pushed on me since I was a kid.

Also, raisens and cotton candy. Ew.

From Serious Eats

Waitering, Part Two

I can completely sympathize with Adam. I waitressed for half a year and finally decided it just wasn't worth it and found a job not in the service industry. Not liking a job doesn't mean you're spoiled, it could just mean the job sucks. And it would be both stupid and masochistic to stay in a job you hated if you didn't have to do it. I considered myself a friendly, competent server and often went out of my way to do little things for customers. But so often people are cheap or just mean and will not tip well, regardless of how well a server does his job. Also, our kitchen was terrible and would constantly screw up orders or take forever to cook food, all of which I was blamed for. Waitressing is terrible and at times made me doubt that nice people actually existed in the world. Maybe it is better at some restaurants, but at the one I worked at, I wouldn't recommend a job to my worst enemy.