Sublime

I know a vegetarian who can’t pass up the occasional bite of roasted duck, avid carnivores who order soy lattes, and cooks at award-winning earth-to-table restaurants who have a fondness for Coke Slurpees and late-night fast-food drive-thrus. I love that!—it seems very human.

have a theory that the first thirty seconds in a restaurant tell you everything you need to know. I was waiting for a train in the Philadelphia Amtrak station and I was starving, so I went into a deli. The employee at the door pretended he didn’t see me and looked away. The guy at the sandwich counter walked into the back and didn’t reappear.

of passion, greed, an eagerness to please on an industrial scale and a great big heart.

boxes in the States: Tastee

F. Dick makes a good one for about twenty-five bucks.

Shallots are one of the things — a basic prep item in every mise-en-place — which make restaurant food taste different from your food.