'World's best chef' Benoit Violier dies aged 44

bbc ^ | 02/01/2016

[Liz]

Don’t think we/ll ever get that recipe.

[Jamestown1630]

I guess not - been looking for it, and the one bgill posted ;-)

-JT

[Liz]

L'Arpege's Apple Tart / Memorble Paris restaurant dessert

Delectable flaky puff pasty tarts topped with skillfully-crafted
apple rosettes plated on a swirl of rich buttery caramel sauce.

[Jamestown1630]

And a plainer version, for those of us less artistically capable:

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2015/05/baked-apple-roses-by-any-other-name-is.html

[Liz]

Those are nice.

[Billthedrill]

I'm fairly sure that one's Le McMuffin du Egg. Just a guess.

[dfwgator]

Le McMuffin du Egg

That’s “Le McMuffin du oeuf”

Those French have a different word for everything.

[Covenantor]

Le McMuffin du Egg
That's "Le McMuffin du oeuf"
Those French have a different word for everything.

That's right. and with sausage it's called "Le Oaf Royale"

[Billthedrill]

Those French have a different word for everything.

Yeah, I used to mock, but they're pretty smart over there. Every one of them speaks a foreign language. :-o

[trisham]

I don’t know if this has any relevance, but:

Beau Geste
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowing from French beau ‎(”beautiful”) + geste ‎(”gesture”)

Noun[edit]
beau geste ‎(plural beaux gestes)

A gracious gesture, noble in form but often futile or meaningless in substance.  

[Jamestown1630]

I don’t think Wilde was quite correct. I don’t even think art is impractical, when one figures on the power of inspiration.

I read a good article a few years ago by Gay Talese, on why he spends thousands on beautifully tailored clothing. To many people, the details of the clothing might seem useless and a waste of money; but when these old tailors die out and nobody replaces them, something very lovely will be gone from the world:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/08/talese200708

(You can do a google image search on Gay Talese, and see him in his beautiful, perhaps useless, clothes ;-)

-JT

[Ezekiel]

it's a 'spirit' kind-of-thing.

Yes, it's the elevation of the soul of an otherwise ordinary object or substance. Now when a restaurant charges $100 for a "salad" consisting of a couple of "artfully" placed lettuce leaves topped by one knotted chive, it has profaned the entire concept.

No good spirit in that sort of scam.

[x]

I guess if you put some unexpected ingredient in that works out particularly well, that could be regarded as "beau geste" or a beautiful gesture.

Vatel also committed suicide. They say it was because the fish for Louis XIV's banquet didn't arrive in time.

I think it was because he realized he wasn't a natural born citizen*.

[Jamestown1630]

Well, in that post I was speaking of language in translation, not the ‘art of food’, bastardized or not.

But to your point: the buyer colludes; so is anyone really guilty, or is it just a game between willing participants?

-JT

[GreenHornet]

I never even heard of this fellow. Does the article say what drove him to suicide?

He was despondent because not too many people ever heard of him.

[Jamestown1630]

He may have been despondent because both his father and a good friend had both died within the last year.

-JT

[GreenHornet]

You’re right. I should have been more sensitive.