Bakerina

I am currently reading the entire archives of Prepare to Meet Your Bakerina, the blog of one Jen McAllister, a baker who revels in all things foodie. She also has a fun, arch writing style, describing herself as “the Biggest Baking Nerd in the World” and working on a history of the egg in baking for a fellowship in Arkansas. (I haven’t gotten to the entries about how the fellowship went, yet.)

I have mentioned before that I am not a fan of faux populism, the idea that haute is automatically inferior to bistro, which is automatically inferior to home. (Granted, I *do* tend to favor home-cooked food, particularly the kind known in France as “cuisine de mere;” it is what I’d prefer to eat and certainly what I’d prefer to cook, but I believe that you can love your grandma’s beef stew without spitting all over the daube at your local four-star.) But if I don’t like faux populism, I absolutely, positively hate faux gourmandism, the idea that a high price tag justifies splashing about expensive ingredients hither and yon without considering basic principles of taste and balance. If my Italian local is lucky enough to procure fresh white truffles in season, I have no problem with ordering a plate of spaghetti dressed with nothing but butter and a few shavings of those white truffles, and I understand that those shavings are going to put some serious additional change on the bill. But I don’t want those truffles on every damn dish on the menu. Nor do I need foie gras in a burrito, or ground Kobe beef in a hamburger.

Most of all, I don’t need caviar in a frittata. I haven’t had too much exposure to caviar, but I’ve had enough to know that if you’re shelling out big bucks for beluga or sevruga, you don’t want to gunk up those little pearls with cream or meat or vinaigrette or chopped hard-boiled egg. (Why this compulsion to serve egg with egg? Why?) Apparently, though, someone at the Parker Meridien, one of the most expensive hotels in Midtown, has decided that what their frittata special really needs is caviar. And lobster. And cream sauce, plenty of cream sauce. Thus it is that the P-M openly, freely and without shame, invites you to order this on your next visit.

The hotel’s general manager, Steven Pipes, has admitted that he doesn’t anticipate too many takers on this frittata, that he and the executive chef came up with this dish as a way to keep the menu from getting too “stale” (I still dream of the day when this sort of food fashion, “is it in or is it out?,” falls out of fashion), and that the whole thing is just a bit of a joke. I agree that it’s a joke. But it’s not funny. What it is is a waste: a waste of a good lobster, a waste of almost ¾ pound of caviar, a waste of butter and heavy cream, a waste of six eggs, all in pursuit of a stunt we should have got over playing 30 years ago.

She mentioned the book The Taste of America often enough and in enough intriguing ways that I actually went ahead and ordered a copy. (Dudette! Get an Amazon ID! Get recognition of the American sort when your recommendations are followed up! Although, I have to admit, in the case of Taste of America, I ordered off of Alibris, where the copies were much cheaper.)

Downside: not enough recipes! She mentions making incredible edibles but then mutters about “copyright” and “permission to reprint.” But…but…this is the Web! We have Fair Use! (Until such time as the Administration can repeal it, and believe me, they’re working on it.)

Since I’ve been on a baking tear of late, Jen’s writing about baking, the history of baking, and what she’s been baking are of extreme interest to me these days.

I need to become one of Bakerina’s best friends, so I can her to mail me some of her goodies…

(Btw, Jen: if you do open your own bakery, forget about calling it “Baked Goods”—it’s “Bakerina” all the way!)