SERVING & PRESENTATION

We have a beef with a lot of fancy dining places. Some of them, will grill the best, juiciest, tenderest of steaks that you can think of and they will serve them to you next to some anemic, spineless and frankly, "ugly" French fries. What gives? Did they spend all their money on a world class grill master and where forced to ask the bus boy to fry potatoes?

Or how about hot dogs? One of most American of foods they are being served in the lousiest buns ever invented. What's wrong with some nice a French bun? Or a semolina bun? I know some bakers in New-York do bake that kind of stuff.

We could really go on and on about these things, but the basic problem is this:
A lot of master chefs pay no attention to the small details of serving their masterpiece. So, what we are trying to say is, pay extra attention to the way you serve your dishes.

For instance, if you serve bread with your meal, get a robust Lithuanian bread from your local Polish deli. Or else go to your favorite bakery and buy a baguette, or a nice semolina bread. Just before serving , (your oven is probably still hot,) slice your bread (but only 85% of the way or so,) and toast for 5 minutes.

If you are serving some kind of middle eastern dipping dish, like a hummous or baba-ganouch, make sure to sprinkle some freshly chopped dill, a little powdered cayenne pepper and a generous portion of Extra Virgin Olive Oil over each plate. The pita bread is most important for these dishes. Israelis call them wipers
meaning dishes that you wipe the plate for in order to get all the little morsels that cling to the plate, so a nice somewhat fluffy pita bread is much superior to the packaged stuff. It is difficult to find, so do your best. (In Manhattan, look for Pita Express, in Queens check out Main Street around Jewel Avenue looking for Kosher bakeries (make sure they're Sephardic,) and in Brooklyn cruise down Atlantic Avenue west of Flatbush and look for a nice Arab grocery.

For a Romanian eggplant salad, make sure you garnish it with some tomato slices; not only are the tomatoes a pretty red color, their juices also add a lot to the way your dish tastes.

**Check back once in a while; We are constantly cooking
and learning new things that we would like to share.