from an article in the Atlantic Magazine

The Dark Side of Benefit Dinners: A Chef's Perspective

Oct 25 2010, 8:44 AM ET 8

Porchetta

To try Sara's recipe for cold cauliflower soup with curried crabmeat, click here.

As people in the food business, we get bombarded with requests to donate our time and food to benefits. Benefits for cancer, benefits for the homeless, benefits for three legged dogs in China, benefits for the hungry (I always think it's weird to gorge yourself to help the hungry but hey, whatever it takes right?). It goes on and on. And fall is the height of benefit season, and it seems to have gotten excessive.

The idea used to be to throw a party, get some press for the cause, some press for the participating chefs and industry people, and raise some money. But there are some very dubious causes receiving money out there, and it's never clear how large a percentage of funds raised actually go to the cause being featured. Recently I was asked to do a benefit for Slow Food (really?). I am all for Slow Food, but I am not sure they need money as much as victims of natural disasters or terminal disease.

For me to participate in an event, I have to come up with amazing finger food that can be served in a setting with no running water, no heating devices, and no storage area.

I was raised to believe in giving back to my community and to the general world community, and I believe in doing so. Some events I wholeheartedly endorse. Every year for the past six years I have participated in a great all-female event to support an organization called SHARE, which helps women with ovarian and breast cancer. The money really does go directly to the cause, plus I love that there's one night every year when most of the famously rare female chefs in New York gather under one roof. In the spring, I do the Taste of the Lower East Side, which benefits the Grand Street Settlement house, an organization that has been helping economically challenged residents of the Lower East Side since 1916. I love supporting the community I work in so directly.

Some of the so-called "benefits" I have participated in seem to be more about throwing giant, self-congratulatory parties. It seems like every time some terrible event happens, everyone gets busy setting up a benefit for the victims and at the same time making sure they get more press themselves. Before you know it, rather than talking about the awful situation in Haiti or Pakistan we are talking about what delicacies such and such restaurant is serving. I also question whether it is really the best thing for my restaurant and me to be a small line on some press release. Isn't it better for my customers and for me if I stay in the restaurant and cook? Isn't that what my business is about?

For me to participate in an event, I have to come up with amazing finger food that can be served in a setting with no running water, no heating devices, and no storage area. Increasingly I am being asked to bring 700 to 2000 portions of said food, which should also represent my restaurant, me as a chef, and maybe the democratic ideal as a whole. I have to prepare it in my restaurant (taking away resources from the day's normal activity), pack it up, haul it over to the venue, stash it under a table, and then reassemble it so it looks beautiful. In order to do this I need to bring one or two cooks with me (who need to be paid because they are not getting anything out of it) so I can stand there and smile and interact with people who have paid a lot of money to be there. One thing I learned early on was that however long it takes you to make the dish, the dish better be easy to serve.

At one of the first events I participated in, I made vitello tonnato, the Italian classic of poached veal layered in tuna mayonnaise. It was great in terms of the ease with which we plated it, but it looked absolutely hideous on the plate, even when artfully garnished with sprigs of parsley. Sometimes I do sfomato, a savory Italian custard that can be served room-temperature, made with whatever vegetables are seasonal. It is easily plated plus very elegant. One year I made ramp sformato. For three days my cooks and I sautéed mounds of pungent ramps and pureed them, mixing in cream and egg yolks and baked them off in rounds late at night when the kitchen wasn't being used. Needless to say after, three days of being smothered in the smell of ramps I have not really ever looked at one again.

For a while I did cold soup at summer events, which was perfect, refreshing, easy to make, and could get jazzed up with an elegant topping of lobster or crabmeat salad if need be. With the opening of Porchetta in 2008, though, all anybody wanted was for me to bring a giant roast of porchetta and make sandwiches at the table. It's pretty easy to assemble, but it's a huge amount of expensive product to give away. Which means I really need to pick and choose where I want to expend my energy. It better really benefit the charity and not just the organizers.

Recently I have been asked to show up with more and more portions, and then only half the portions I have been asked to provide are consumed. This leaves me with excess product that I often cannot reuse. That makes me really sad, and it makes me wonder why I don't just donate the money straight to the charity and cut out all the silliness along the way. I'd rather be in my kitchen making food in an environment designed for it and interacting with the customers, some of whom are there to see me. Making sure the people in my dining room feel warm and taken care of and want to come back rather than chasing some press that might net me a few new customers and might benefit a worthy cause (and they are all worthy—even the three legged dogs in China). And with the exception of SHARE and Taste of the Lower East Side, that is what I am going to do.

ATLANTA BOTANTICAL GARDENS

A few nights ago the botanical gardens here in Atlanta invited it's members to be the first to see and use the new pedestrian bridge that snakes it way through the tree tops of the garden. This project had a sad history before it even opened. About a year ago one man died and many were injured in a construction accident while the bridge was being built. We joined some friends to check out this beautiful work of architecture and then for dinner at the restaurant Social located in downtown Atlanta.
The bridge is amazing. The meal at Social not so much. Like I said this bridge is a great piece of architecture. I hope some how the fellow that died in the accident knows how much pleasure it is going to bring people.
Our friend Pratt took the photos.

LOBSTER BOY

When I was a kid my Mom would find all kinds of things for my brother and I do. On those long summer days when Mom needed a "babysitter" she would often drop us at the multiplex. She instructed us to watch a movie and then move to the next theater and watch another. She would pick us up about 4 or 5 hours later. Everyone in a better mood.

If the State Fair was in town she sometimes dropped us off there. I remember the midway at the fair. The huge ferris wheel, cotton candy tons of lights and my favorite, the air guns that were used to shoot targets.

This was the late 60's early 70's. This was Mobile, Alabama. Things were different. What was different you ask? Well to start with blind faith wasn't just a rock band, but a way of life. Drugs, pedophiles, child slave labor, who knew? And if we did know we had to tell ourselves "not in Mobile, this couldn't happen here". And it didn't happen here. No one ever bothered us, no one ever tried to get us to try drugs or tried to get us to get in their van with the offer a cute puppy or candy. Good thing cause I would have gone for it.

Just like I went for Lobster Boy, god bless his soul.



See my little brother and I are at the fair. Alone. We must have been 9 or 10 years old, so no big deal. It wasn't like it was night time or anything. Back then "freaks" were a big part of these traveling carnivals. You know the bearded lady, the fattest man in the world, the 2 headed cat and so on.
The one that attracted us was a sign for Lobster Boy. Pincher's for hands and feet. Step right up ladies and gentlemen and little kids to see the freakiest freak on earth. Little brother stubbed out his cigarette and said "hell yes" that's for us. So we bought our ticket and entered the tent. I'm am 48 years old now and still remember how weird this was. Just me, my brother and Lobster Boy. He was in a cage like the ones on wagon wheels. He was about 3'tall and was no boy. He was a full grown, 3' tall man with what looked like the meat of lobster claws for hands and feet. They were the shape of pincher's, but all flesh. He was sitting cause who could stand on feet like that? He was smoking a cigarette and told us to come closer. I remember us standing right in front of the glass panel between him and us and my jaw was just hanging. So was little brothers. He spoke through a microphone and it gave his voice a crackly, scary sound. He smoked and told us of his condition. He ask us if we wanted to buy photos of Lobster Boy. I bet we didn't say shit. I bet we just looked at him as if he was some kind of freak. He probably had to tell us to leave cause I'm sure we were to stunned to do anything. Some of you are now saying to yourselves "that explains a lot about those Hartley boys".

The reason I'm telling you this is cause the other day the fair was in East Point, just around the corner from where my wife and I live. It is in town often and often we go for a walk just to check it out. The other night Stacey and walked through the midway at night. I wanted Stacey to get some photos. It reminded me of Lobster Boy. I told Stacey all about it and how much these traveling fairs have changed. No freaks. But, Stacey did get some cool photos.

I remember reading Confederacy of Dunces not long after it was published. I remember the story of how the authors mother talked Percy Walker into reading it which led to Tulane Press publishing it. Dunces won a Pulitzer Prize. This all happened years after John Kennedy Toole, the author, had committed suicide after being rejected by publishers.

The novel was an instant classic and it was passed around among my friends. This was 1980-81. I think about Confederacy of Dunces and Ignatius J. Riley, the main charter in the story, when I'm in NOLA and I come come across a Lucky Dog Vendor. And I laugh out loud. There are lot's of laugh out loud parts of this book. It is such a well written book. It is full of very unique characters. And the dialect of each is perfect. From the well educated , pompous tones of Ignatius to the hip, jive, soul brother talk of Jones the floor sweeper at the local bar. There's the cop, and the mother and her friend and the stripper and the lady bar owner and many others. They each have a very distinct way of talking and it came through in the book. And it is a big part of what makes this such a good read.



So my moms calls and tells me she read that Confederacy of Dunces was being offer as live stage production put on by The Theatrical Outfit. The Theatrical Outfit is in downtown Atlanta, on Luckie St. We caught one of the last shows and enjoyed very much. If you have read the book you would know why I worried if they could pull it off. To start with the characters in the book are so distinct I thought no way they could do them justice. Well they did. All except the jive talking Jones, the "flo sweeper". It was still a great show.

The actors would sometimes bring the stage set with them as they came on stage for their scene. While on the other side the stage was being set for the next scene. It was a brillant way to handle scene changes. The play was in two acts. The background, a New Orleans cityscape with the D. H. Holmes clock in the center, never changed. Like I said some of the set pieces were carried or pushed on stage by the actors in a particular scene. When that scene was finished actors came from another part of the stage with other set pieces, put them in place and started acting. The set pieces were simple. Like a small kitchen table with 2 chairs and maybe a phone, a bottle of booze and and a candle on the table. Just enough to get the setting across. Then the actors grabbed the chairs and pushed the table away when they were done. I thought it was a great way to present a play.

You should go to this link and read a review of the book. It will give you an idea of what Ignatius was like. http://www.spikemagazine.com/1104johnkennedytoole.php

I read the next day in the paper that there is a effort to get the play to NYC. Hope that happens.

WHO KNEW?

By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times

September 28, 2010

If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist.

Heresy? Perhaps. But a survey that measured Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths. In fact, the gaps in knowledge among some of the faithful may give new meaning to the term "blind faith."

A majority of Protestants, for instance, couldn't identify Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation, according to the survey, released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Four in 10 Catholics misunderstood the meaning of their church's central ritual, incorrectly saying that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion are intended to merely symbolize the body and blood of Christ, not actually become them.


Atheists and agnostics — those who believe there is no God or who aren't sure — were more likely to answer the survey's questions correctly. Jews and Mormons ranked just below them in the survey's measurement of religious knowledge — so close as to be statistically tied.

So why would an atheist know more about religion than a Christian?

American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.

"These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."

Atheists and agnostics also tend to be relatively well educated, and the survey found, not surprisingly, that the most knowledgeable people were also the best educated. However, it said that atheists and agnostics also outperformed believers who had a similar level of education.

The groups at the top of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey were followed, in order, by white evangelical Protestants, white Catholics, white mainline Protestants, people who were unaffiliated with any faith (but not atheist or agnostic), black Protestants and Latino Catholics.

Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists were included in the survey, but their numbers were too small to be broken out as statistically significant groups.

Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University and author of "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — And Doesn't," served as an advisor on the survey. "I think in general the survey confirms what I argued in the book, which is that we know almost nothing about our own religions and even less about the religions of other people," he said.

He said he found it significant that Mormons, who are not considered Christians by many fundamentalists, showed greater knowledge of the Bible than evangelical Christians.

The Rev. Adam Hamilton, a Methodist minister from Leawood, Kan., and the author of "When Christians Get it Wrong," said the survey's results may reflect a reluctance by many people to dig deeply into their own beliefs and especially into those of others.

"I think that what happens for many Christians is, they accept their particular faith, they accept it to be true and they stop examining it. Consequently, because it's already accepted to be true, they don't examine other people's faiths. … That, I think, is not healthy for a person of any faith," he said.

The Pew survey was not without its bright spots for the devout. Eight in 10 people surveyed knew that Mother Teresa was Catholic. Seven in 10 knew that, according to the Bible, Moses led the exodus from Egypt and that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

The question that elicited the most correct responses concerned whether public school teachers are allowed to lead their classes in prayer. Eighty-nine percent of the respondents correctly said no. However, 67% also said that such teachers are not permitted to read from the Bible as an example of literature, something the law clearly allows.

For comparison purposes, the survey also asked some questions about general knowledge, which yielded the scariest finding: 4% of Americans believe that Stephen King, not Herman Melville, wrote "Moby Dick."