– Everyone has their own thoughts on the cookbooks/blogs/foodie magazines debate. Nicky:
Read More›I started out with Bon Appetit and Gourmet, but over the years I have fallen for Food and Wine and Fine Cooking. I absolutely love Fine Cooking. I can honestly say there isn’t an issue where I haven’t found a recipe to try. The last issue it was an amazing devil’s food cake. The extra cooking guides they did at the holidays were in my go to pile.
– Nothing gets you ESers riled up like unnecessary lettuce. Says offthemeathook:
SO TRUE. if you get a bagel at my local cafe (which I otherwise love), they put a scoop of cream cheese on a giant piece of wilty lettuce on your plate w/ your toasted bagel. It annoys me every time because it makes the bagel seem less appetizing when I have to scrape cream cheese off of a lettuce leaf to put it on my bagel. I’m kind of a regular there, I think I might tell them to cut it out already.
JoeHoya offers a defense of the practice:
Bar food like wings and skins are usually messy and/or greasy when they’re served. The lettuce addresses both the aesthetic problems (check out those blobs of grease and sauce on the stark white plate in your photos and tell me that’s more appealing) and the functional issues (greasy food items are a lot less likely to slide right off a lettuce leaf’s irregular surface than a smooth, flat plate).
In Kansas City Barbecue Society competitions, several kinds of lettuce are approved as acceptable garnishes. They serve the same purposes – covering up the spots and splatters and allowing the contestants to turn in an aesthetically pleasing plate of food.
But Alex is having none of it:
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I’m an appetizer kinda guy. There is nothing more satisfying than ordering a couple of apps instead of an entree; the variety alone makes the trip worth it. However, there are many downfalls in ordering apps. The quality can be somewhat diminished: fried and often just thrown on a plate without much thought. Despite that, bar apps are my favourite, especially potato skins, nachos and chicken tenders. All deliciously fattening!
My biggest gripe with appetizer dishes is the presentation, mainly lettuce. Why does the kitchen feel the need to serve my chicken, potato skins, guacamole, shrimp…On a bed of lettuce? This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. If there is a reason for this please enlighten me, but for the time being I’m going to bitch…
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