[Sca-cooks] Pirozhki`s (was Maybe It Is Rocket Science: Bread)

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Martin G. Diehl:
>Well ... what I said *was* true ... ahhh errr mumble
>mumble years ago.

"Vera, I swear to you on my life, you don't look a day over 65!"
	--Max Bialystock

Yes, what you say used to be the case.

>  > But I discovered to my great chagrin just a week or two
>>  ago that Christine's is no more. There is a little
>>  Polish/Ukranian restaurant about half a block south of
>>  where Christine's used to be, but the neighborhood is
>>  changing. Much of the Polish community that used to
>>  occupy that area is now in Greenpoint, Brooklyn...
>
>I remember a Polish restaurant near the southwest corner
>of Tompkins Square Park ... still there?

Will check. I haven't gotten that far recently...

>I also remember the time in the 1982 or 1983 that a group
>went to the row of Indian restaurants -- IIRC, East 6rd
>street ... and BYOB meant bring your own beer.  The
>Chartered Public Accountant (British speak for CPA) in
>the group ordered, "Beef vindaloo, hot!"  The waiter
>wondered, "How hot would you like it, Sahr?" and was
>told, "As hot as you can make it."

That kind of situation is guaranteed to make good performance art.

>I was seated across the table from him, watching the
>moisture run down his face as he ate ... very British,
>very stoic ... he would have done the "stiff upper lip"
>bit but I think it had burned off by that time.

It's conceivable that he was uncomfortable on some levels but 
considered the burn therapeutic on other levels...

>A few times, as he paused, I asked him, "This is really
>good, isn't it?"  ... To my amazement, He finished it all.

Yep. I find I'm getting old, and not able to handle that burn as well 
as I used to. I've had to downgrade to the fried, dried red chilies 
that sometimes turn up in Chinese cookery. My days of eating fresh 
habaneros and Scotch Bonnets like cherries may be over...

I remember, years and years ago, a similar incident I witnessed while 
working for one of the brokerage houses downtown, except, again, it 
was a Chinese restaurant where Mandarin was spoken in the kitchen. 
The rash speaker was right out of Central Casting, with white 
Western-cut suit and hat, and while I never actually saw the 
limousine with the longhorn hood ornament, you knew it was parked 
somewhere nearby. The gentleman ordered, and made rather a show of 
telling the waiter that whatever the cooks and waiters were 
accustomed to having in the way of chili-induced heat, that was what 
he wanted, only a little more so, because this was what he was 
accustomed to. The waiter opened his mouth to speak, then decided not 
to say anything.

You haven't lived until you've seen a man in a white Western-cut suit 
being applauded by a roomful of strangers, hopping around and being 
given friendly advice by the crowd. "Eat some rice! Drink some tea!" 
"No, that one's a myth! Try..." "Try some beer!" "A piece of lemon!"

I think it was a co-worker I was with who said to the waiter (who 
also served our table), "Good job" The waiter responded, "I guess 
they even grow idiots bigger there..."

Adamantius
-- 






"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread, you have to say, eat brioche."
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", pub 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04