Friday, August 20, 2010

Step it up dudes

MidMo might have the busted society pages, but OMF made the real society pages!! The most exciting thing in the new SacTown is the picture of OMF with one of my old professors, Chris Daubert! He was my art teacher at Sierry College (I wrote that accidentally but it kind of captures the country vibe of the place) in 1992 or '93 and I totally had a crush on him. I did my final presentation on Riot Grrl. There was a collage that may or may not have contained a cut-out picture of Rollins.
Did you guys know that Rock The Light is playing their possibly last show on Saturday?!?!? With The Pizzas and Dog Party. At Luigis.

Can I have a teeny little rant here? OK, remember how Chef Kelly at Ella put a beautiful bone marrow dish on the menu quite a few months back? He had to really search to find a purveyor who would give him the bones he wanted, and I'm sure he worked hard on the perfect, very dramatic presentation. It is a wonderful dish. It was written up in article after article, including my profile of him in MidMo. The dish became a signature for them and sold like gangbusters. So....Sac being Sac, what did every other chef in town do? Did they think "wow, Chef Kelly took a risk and it paid off, so now I will take a risk and prepare pate/brains/trotters/tongue/urchin/etc."???

NO! Every other chef just put a fucking bone marrow dish on the menu!!! C'mon guys (it is almost all guys) step up your fucking game!! Step it up! I ate at Kupros on the first night it was open, which is too early to really review it (although I will say they have a couple of good brews on draught), but the only "risky" thing they had on the menu was a marrow dish. It would be funny if it didn't make me sad.

26 comments:

  1. and it makes me sad because I care. I care a lot

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  2. Anonymous9:54 AM

    It can't be the last RTL show because I can't go due to kicking it Flathead style.

    I think I will take my mom to see "Eat Pray Love" instead. Flathead style.

    gbomb

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  3. the women at green boheme had the nerve to open a raw foodist joint! on del paso boulevard no less! and they waste away the day sprouting beans and grains. not quite the bold culinary fare your talking about, i realize, but you can't deny either the risk factor or the effort they put forth sourcing local and quality product. so, if you take the middle road, things aren't as bad as they seem.

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  4. that's great for green boheme, what does that have to do with what I wrote? did my rant seem sexist? i wish that there were more female chefs. there is a lot of debate about why there aren't. if you google "female chefs" the top article is about sexy female chefs. here's a good article from gastronomica called "why are there no great women chefs?"

    http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdfplus/10.1525/gfc.2010.10.1.24

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  5. that is a fantastic article! when i read the title i immediately thought of the nochlin essay of the same subject which unsurprisingly is the thesis for the piece. if you haven't read the nochlin essay it is well worth it:

    http://www.miracosta.edu/home/gfloren/nochlin.htm

    my brief foray into the world of university art history lead me to grade papers on the above. out of a massive art history book covering the 1500s to the present day the students counted a whopping 74 female artists. sigh

    as an aside i was referred to by my nick name "sweet face" by a certain old school local artist last night who shall remain nameless. makes sense right? cause... you know... what else would i have going for me?

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  6. it's a callback to that article.

    i guess sweetface is better than sweetcheeks. or sugartits, if you're talking to drunken mel gibson

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  7. you were lamenting that chefs don't take risks locally. but i think opening a raw foodist joint in sac is a pretty risky, innovative venture ...

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  8. Anonymous11:47 AM

    especially because raw food is the wack

    -chapstick

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  9. Anonymous11:56 AM

    Their raw bone marrow is the bomb.

    -miller

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  10. there's risky and then there's foolhardy.

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  11. Anonymous12:39 PM

    No, really, Del Paso is up & coming! Just wait! One more year! You'll see! Big changes coming!

    -miller

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  12. as soon as the greens hotel sells...

    p.s.-I am investing our nestegg in the greens hotel

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  13. Anonymous12:57 PM

    I can't wait to open our all ages venue in the Greens Hotel! Maybe have a specialty tea shop in there as well. And an art gallery of course.

    -miller

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  14. whenever i think "nest egg" i think "lost in america". i couldn't find that scene online but here's a good one if you're bored

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4RZTNtuZvQ&feature=related

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  15. p.s.-I love DPH and I hope the vegan cafe thrives

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  16. Not sure if these rate on your scale but Mulvaneys has had sweetbreads and I thought foie gras and Magpie had steak tartare last week on the dinner menu.

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  17. http://sacramento.backpage.com/RestaurantRetailJobs/seeking-live-mermaids-and-mermen-for-new-entertainment-venue-in-downtown-sacramento/3511899

    maybe they'll serve mermaid if the living ones in the tank don't make a splash.

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  18. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  19. my last comment was too dumb, even for me.

    I remembered that Kupros has a rabbit terrine on the menu so I take back my rant.

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  20. Anonymous3:08 PM

    Sellout!

    -miller

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  21. It must be national "Take your Mom to Eat, Pray Love" weekend.

    As for female chefs, the two I always think of around here are Biba & Mai Pham, who happen to also be pretty entrepreneurial. But they've also been around since I was a kid, so definitely where's the new generation? Or how would a female chef get the opportunity/experience to run a successful business in this town? Also the only sort of examples I can think of for contemporaries (Kira O'Donnell & Ginger Elizabeth) are pastry chefs - is that a field that women tend to gravitate more towards? Regardless, I'd be curious how much of it depends on access to connections and capital.

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  22. I think Ame, the head chef at the L wine bar/lounge/urban kitchen/whatever is pretty amazeballs. (i had to)
    Maybe she isn't serving up the inside of a cow bone, but how many locals are really eating that shit...aside from restaurant critics?

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  23. bone marrow is delicious and not weird at all, so I hope a lot of customers are eating it

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