[dharmon]

I just read this and also really enjoyed it.

Pépin heaps praise on Howard Johnson (the person), and has no kind words for his son, whom he blames for the restaurant’s decline. Mainly lack of adaptability as fast food hit the country, but then also drastically cutting quality in ingredients.

Pépin claims that he would take home frozen restaurant food (as it was shipped to the restaurants), reheat it, and serve it to his NYC “foodie” friends, including renowned French chefs, without them being able to tell. I actually believe this since most of the pre-prepared food were stocks and sauce bases which freeze just fine, and also take the most time to prepare.

[Balgair]

Aside: Holy crap, are those french sauces hard to prep at home.

During lock downs I got into french sauces. The mother sauces, specifically the fond brun, are quite time consuming to make. I'm talking 2-3 days worth of time.

I mean, the pay off is amazing. I've had guests literally licking the china. But my lord, is it hard to do.

If anyone out there is looking to really up their cooking game but not also spend days in the kitchen, I recommend this: https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Gourmet-16-Ounce-Packages/d...

It's not as good as home made, but it's ~85% the way there, 90% with filtered tap water (in my experience).

Do be careful with a demi glace though, you do need to get their product for that. Just trying to reduce the water by half for the fond brun and calling it demi glace doesn't taste the same, at least to me.