Two Best Unnecessary Pop Culture References in a Food Article In the Past Two Days
"And there would be the Bronson Pinchot.
James Jermyn, Maloney’s chef for the last five years, wheeled a cart up to the table. There, armed with a beaker of Cognac and tender slabs of beef, he cooked up a distant cousin of steak au poivre that happens to be named (in that spontaneous fashion that seems to be a signature flourish for the Stillman family) after Mr. Pinchot, the star of the 1980s sitcom 'Perfect Strangers.'"
"Lately, Casey has been championing the theory that mediocre food is better than good, the equivalent of a jaded indie kid extolling the virtues of Barry Manilow."
The mediocre food theory, though, is what made me guffaw aloud alone (embarrassing) because counterintuitive posturing is funny. I do hope that despite the enjoyment I receive visiting Bahama Breeze or Red Lobster, no one thinks I'm trying to argue that standardized chain restaurant jerk chicken is better than its idiosyncratic counterpart on Flatbush Avenue or that Le Bernadin's tasting menu is a joke next to The Admiral's Feast. There is a case to made for mediocrity, perhaps, (I am the living embodiment) just not right now.