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PROLOGUE
I stalled finishing this book because it felt frivolous and morally wrong to write about road trips (both stateside and abroad), luxury hotel stays, and magnificent restaurant meals when many Americans were wondering how they would eat at all with millions of people losing their jobs and their homes.
Equally disturbing for those of us who are passionate about food has been the closing of many restaurants (both high and low end) with others barely holding on. Faced with a spiraling downturn in business, restaurants started revamping their menus. The prix-fixe lunch and dinner menu suddenly reappeared and many marketing plans (half priced bottles of wine on Sunday's seemed quite popular) were hatched. "Restaurant weeks" all over the country were extended and bonus points on OpenTable were offered for prime-time dining at even the most exclusive restaurants.
This has resulted in a few of us actually being able to eat out more often at restaurants that were often overlooked because they were just too expensive or were reluctantly classified as "special occasion" places. We figured we might be able to help out the economy and maybe even save a restaurant or two.
Suddenly tables at the most exclusive restaurants were available at nearly any time you wanted to eat and three course prix-fixe menus could be had for under $40.00 a person. Sometimes that even included a glass of wine! Most importantly, even at these price points, portions were generous, the food was just as good, service was impeccable and low and behold, snootiness seemed to be a thing of the past. If the dining rooms were hushed, it was probably because those dining were probably hoping it wouldn't be their last meal out, if they, too, were staring at the shiny blade of an employer's ax.
On the days we weren't traveling and eating out, I noticed a sudden increase in supermarket traffic. An advertised sale of $.99/lb for whole chickens had a line of people in my suburban neighborhood lining up in front of the meat counter; ditto for bags of potatoes, boxes of pasta and rice and two-fers on loaves of bread. I realized people were stocking up on items that kept them feeling, well, full.
Good food is desperately vital in a depression like the one we're currently facing. Suddenly, articles in the food media have started touting $15 bottles of wine ($10 would be even better) and ways to prepare simple inexpensive one-pot meals at home. Of course, it didn't take much to remind me that when I wasn't traveling, this is how I had been cooking (and living) for years. I've always made my own bread and pizza from scratch, and have used cheap cuts of meat to make dishes that have many lives -- leftover pot roast becomes Boeuf Bourguignon becomes BBQ beef or the base for a pasta with meat sauce.
Unfortunately, some of the restaurants I've written about in this book, enjoying truly memorable meals, have closed. I'm deeply saddened by this. Saddened not only for those who have lost their jobs and livelihood but because the experience of eating at many of these places will no longer be able to be enjoyed by so many people.
A colleague of mine heard a rumor the other day that tables, online no less, were to be had at Thomas Keller's temple of gastronomy, Per Se.
Wow.
Julie McCoy
Long Island, New York
May 2009
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