[Sca-cooks] Hey, Man, What's for Dinner?

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Heleen Greenwald:

>Clear DayHere's the article for those that don't want to fuss with
>registering to NYTimes. And, btw, what does 'flash fried' mean?
>Phillipa
>August 28, 2002
>Hey, Man, What's for Dinner?
>By PILAR GUZMAN

It's a pretentious, meaningless, made-up term for searing in oil, or,
as we old-fashioned trendless non-initiates might say, quickly fried
to seal the surface.

I think my admittedly extreme feelings on this subject arose when I
listened to the owner of a small Chinese restaurant in my
neighborhood being grilled by an obnoxious Manhattantourist who only
comes to the outer boroughs to sample the quaint atmosphere and tell
her friends about the mahhhvellous little restaurant she found in
[sneer] Queeeeeeeeeeeens...

But I digress. She ordered the fried flounder from the menu. It
arrived. It looked and smelled good, and was accurately cooked.
Before her assembled guests, she called the waiter and asked if the
flounder had been flash-fried. The waiter said it was fried. She
asked to speak to the cook (also the owner). Again, she demanded to
know if the flounder had been flash-fried. The owner said something
like, "well, it was fried."
"Yes, but was it flash-fried?" "I don't understand. You ordered fried
flounder? This is fried flounder. Is something wrong with it?" "I
just want to know if it was flash-fried!" "What is flash-fry?"

It seems the idiot had promised her guests that the fish here was
flash-fried (whatever the h**l that means), and was concerned for her
rep if it came out that the fish was merely fried. Heaven forfend it
should be insufficiently trendy at the little hole-in-the-wall she
had come expressly to deflower anyway...

We had ordered the fried flounder too. It was delicious.

Adamantius

--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER