What's up with buying tickets to Next instead of just making a reservation? That's creativity as well. Nick, my business partner, said, "you know, Chef, this doesn't make any sense to me. Everybody that opens a restaurant does it exactly the same way. Why don't we identify the elements of operating a restaurant that clearly don't work, rip the whole thing apart and put it back together in a way that makes sense as a business, then maybe we'll have something."
So having five reservationists—a grand total of $175,000 a year—to answer the phone from 9AM to 6PM, and tell people they cannot come to our place to spend money, because we're full, that makes absolutely no sense.
For Next you will have four menus a year, and each one is a different time and place. How much poetic license are you going take with those menus? We're starting out with Paris 1912 Escoffier. Anyone who has read any of Escoffier's cookbooks knows they are incredibly vague. Back in the early 1900s, they didn't have a VitaPrep blender. He pushed everything through a fine screen. Do we use a screen to uphold the authenticity of Escoffier? Or, do we use a blender to uphold Escoffier's philosophy about using the technology we have? Of course you'll use the blender.
When we go into the future, Bangkok 2060, obviously nobody knows what it's going to be like in 2060. So, sure, we're going to take some poetic license. But you can bet we'll do our homework and look at where Thai food has been the last couple of hundred years, identify the way it's swung, and try to extrapolate what WE think it might be like in 2060.
It looks like the Modernist Cuisine cookbook is going to have some adapted Alinea recipes. Do you align yourself with the Modernist movement? I will by no means parallel myself with the Beatles, but they went through their career, starting off in Liverpool playing one kind of music, then came to the States. By the time they did the White Album, stylistically, they were executing from a far different place. Alinea is aligned with the Modernist Cuisine movement but me, personally, I have the opportunity, to be at one time a modernist chef, then over at Next, I can be something entirely different.
Who do you consider to be the target audience for cookbooks like Modernist Cuisine or Alinea's? Do you see the future American kitchen incorporating dishes like these? We understood when we published the Alinea book in 2008 that a small handful of people would cook out of it. But we also know, because that book was published, it lends a little more credibility to the movement. Ten years from now, it might be more popular for people to cook like this at home, for the very reason that we printed those books.
What's the best thing you've recently eaten for under $20? We were in Tokyo about six months ago and had the most amazing bowl of ramen. It was bigger than my head. It would be like four meals for under $20, if you don't count the flight.
Over $150? It was in Sapporo, Japan. When the chef came out at the end of the meal, I felt like I already knew him. I had never met him before, nor could we communicate, but I felt like there was this connection after eating his food. And to me that's magical.
Pizza pizza!
At Slice we profile pizza obsessives with the following question: The Pizza Cognition Theory states that "the first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes ... becomes, for him, pizza." Do you remember your first slice? Where was it from, and is the place still around? Not my very first slice, but I could probably tell you where it was from. It was literally Little Caeser's pizza in my tiny hometown. Every Friday night that was like the go-to in my house.
Are you into deep dish? I am, but I prefer thin. I had the best pizza experience in my life about 3 weeks ago. It was at Great Lake, here in Chicago. It's a tiny little place, husband and wife team, BYOB. They have one pizza they make a night. You walk in, you get your salad, you get your pizza—whatever they're making that night. It's freaking awesome, man.
The Board of Editors of The New York Times is demanding significant cut backs in public sector union contracts, but refuses to recognize the cause of the problem, which is the entire structure of public employee unions:
At a time when public school students are being forced into ever more crowded classrooms, and poor families will lose state medical benefits, New York State is paying 10 times more for state employees’ pensions than it did just a decade ago....
In all, the salaries and benefits of state employees add up to $18.5 billion, or a fifth of New York’s operating budget. Unless those costs are reined in, New York will find itself unable to provide even essential services.Yet The Times Editors, in the subsequent paragraphs, acknowledge that the public sector unions are not willing to make the necessary changes:
To point out these alarming facts is not to be anti- union, or anti-worker. In recent weeks, Republican politicians in the Midwest have distorted what should be a serious discussion about state employees’ benefits, cynically using it as a pretext to crush unions.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pursued a reasonable course, making it clear that he expects public unions to make sacrifices, starting with a salary freeze. He wants to require greater employee contributions to pensions and health benefits, with a goal of saving $450 million.Having secured very sweet contracts for their members through political influence, the public sector unions have no incentive to change. They know from history that politicians eventually back down or move on, and the consumer of public sector services ends up paying through higher taxes and diminished services.
Negotiations begin this month, but so far union leaders have publicly resisted Mr. Cuomo’s proposals. If they don’t budge, Mr. Cuomo says he will have to lay off up to 9,800 workers. That would damage the state’s struggling economy. Some compromise must be found.
The current system also pits older union membership, which has vested in all these benefits, against younger members, who will bear the cost of cutbacks and likely never will see such sweet deals for themselves because there simply is not enough money.
The cause of the problem is not just the terms of a particular public sector union contract, it is the system which allows public sector unions to pass costs onto future generations of taxpayers and union members.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is correct to recognize that collective bargaining for benefits is the cause of the problem, and that it is not enough to treat just the symptoms.
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