Her entry begins:It’s typical for me to keep several disciplinary tracks of readings going simultaneously, and for the sum of these commitments to get out of control. I might be on page 108 in a book about restaurants and page 9 in an anthology on art or design while ten other books and numerous articles on various Zeitgeist-defining concerns from The New Yorker or from Food, Culture & Society or from Design and Culture or Art Journal are forming a pile. I regularly move stacks of books and articles that have recently accumulated to larger ones made in previous weeks standing farther away. When the far heap reaches a height that frightens me or threatens to topple onto one of my dogs, I create a clearing in my schedule and get to work on the ones I deem crucial.About Smart Casual, from the publisher:
It’s also not unusual for a book to so appeal to me that I read it in full immediately, losing myself to it for a full, hermit-like day. That’s how I recently read Back of the House: The Secret Life of a Restaurant by Scott Haas. Haas spent...[read on]
Fine dining and the accolades of Michelin stars once meant chandeliers, white tablecloths, and suited waiters with elegant accents. The stuffy attitude and often scant portions were the punchlines of sitcom jokes—it was unthinkable that a gourmet chef would stoop to plate a burger or a taco in his kitchen. And yet today many of us will queue up for a seat at a loud, crowded noodle bar or eagerly seek out that farm-to-table restaurant where not only the burgers and fries are organic but the ketchup is homemade—but it’s not just us: the critics will be there too, ready to award distinction. Haute has blurred with homey cuisine in the last few decades, but how did this radical change happen, and what does it say about current attitudes toward taste? Here with the answers is food writer Alison Pearlman. In SmartLearn more about the book and author at Alison Pearlman's website and blog.Casual: The Transformation of Gourmet Restaurant Style in America, Pearlman investigates what she identifies as the increasing informality in the design of contemporary American restaurants.
By design, Pearlman does not just mean architecture. Her argument is more expansive—she is as interested in the style and presentation of food, the business plan, and the marketing of chefs as she is in the restaurant’s floor plan or menu design. Pearlman takes us hungrily inside the kitchens and dining rooms of restaurants coast to coast—from David Chang’s Momofuku noodle bar in New York to the seasonal, French-inspired cuisine of Alice Waters and Thomas Keller in California to the deconstructed comfort food of Homaro Cantu’s Moto in Chicago—to explore the different forms and flavors this casualization is taking. Smart Casual examines the assumed correlation between taste and social status, and argues that recent upsets to these distinctions have given rise to a new idea of sophistication, one that champions the omnivorous. The boundaries between high and low have been made flexible due to our desire to eat everything, try everything, and do so in a convivial setting.
Through lively on-the-scene observation and interviews with major players and chefs, Smart Casual will transport readers to restaurants around the country to learn the secrets to their success and popularity. It is certain to give foodies and restaurant-goers something delectable to chew on.
The Page 99 Test: Smart Casual.
Writers Read: Alison Pearlman.
--Marshal Zeringue
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