#National Culinarians Day

[rabbitcruiser]

National Culinarians Day 

Today we honor culinarians! They are cooks or chefs who are experts in cooking, preparing, presenting, and serving food. Today we celebrate and thank them for the many ways they use food to satisfy us!

While professional culinarians tend to work in restaurants or commercial kitchens, the culinary arts have a much humbler beginning. It is believed that the roots of culinary arts sprouted when someone either threw a piece of meat on a fire or found an animal that had been cooked by a forest fire. From there, advancements in agriculture, the expansion of culinary techniques, the domestication of livestock, and the introduction of earthenware and stoneware all helped with culinary development.

Chefs were first employed by kings, aristocrats, and priests. In contrast, the lower classes cooked for their own families. The distinct approaches to cooking by different classes helped nurture the development of many different types of cuisine. Jean Anthelme had a great hand in getting culinary arts started in Europe. Others expanded on his work through the study of food science and gastronomy. In Asia, a similar path of study and advancement took place.

Culinary arts in the Western world began expanding at the end of the Renaissance. There was a shift from chefs working exclusively for nobility, to them also working in inns and hotels. It was at this time that the studying of culinary arts as its own field also began. At first, studying happened by apprenticeship, with students accompanying professional cooks. In 1879, Boston Cooking School opened, becoming the first cooking school to open in the United States. Today there are thousands of culinary arts schools around the world, and many colleges and universities offer culinary arts degrees as well.

Cooks and chefs are both involved in the culinary arts. Although a cook is sometimes referred to as a chef, this is not necessarily the correct term for them in the culinary world. Cooks prepare food, help chefs, and manage food stations. They may have names related to the food stations they work at, such as broiler cook, fry cook, and sauce cook. In the United States, one doesn't need to achieve a certain set of accomplishments to become a cook. Some cooks study for two to four years, learning sanitation, food safety, hospitality, and advanced cooking. Others participate in culinary apprenticeships that last about a year, where they receive on-the-job training.

A chef is a type of trained and professional cook. They have knowledge of food science, nutrition, diet, and of preparing and presenting meals. Although they are knowledgeable in all types of food preparation, they often focus on a particular cuisine. They may be formally trained at an institution, or they may learn their craft by being an apprentice of an experienced chef. They work in restaurants, but also in delicatessens, as well as in somewhat large institutions such as hotels and hospitals. They wear a toque blanche hat, neckerchief, double-breasted jacket, and an apron.

There are different types of chefs, and there is a system called a kitchen brigade by which the hierarchy of chefs are classified. The chef de cuisine is sometimes also known as an executive chef, master chef, or head chef. They are in charge of the kitchen and may be in charge of the menu, managing the kitchen staff, and ordering inventory, among other things. The sous-chef is second-in-command and fulfills various duties to keep the kitchen running smoothly. They may fill in for the chef de cuisine, and also may help the chef-de-parties when needed. A chef-de-partie is known as a line cook or station chef. They take care of a specific area of production. They may have their own hierarchy, such as "first cook," "second cook," and so forth. If they work in a large kitchen, they may have assistants; range chefs may work under them as well. There are many other titles in the brigade system. No matter if someone is a cook or one of the many kinds of chefs, today we celebrate them for all the culinary joy they bring us!

How to Observe Culinarians Day

Celebrate the day by presenting a cook or chef with a gift or simply some words of thanks. You could do this for a culinarian you know, or for one at a restaurant or at another place that you eat today. You could even prepare a meal for a chef or cook today, to give them a little break from their everyday work. If someone usually cooks meals for you at your home, you could also consider cooking for them today.

If you are a chef or cook, or are looking to become one, you could become involved with the American Culinary Federation. You could also enroll in a culinary arts program or look into how to become an apprentice. This is also a good day to watch famous television chefs, or to read a book on professional cooking and culinary arts, or a book recommended by the American Culinary Federation. You could also visit the Culinary Arts Museum or another museum related to food.

Source

[murderousink23]

07/25/2024 is International Mezcalita Day 🌎, National Culinarian's Day 👩‍🍳👨‍🍳🇺🇸, National Hot Fudge Sundae Day 🍨🇺🇸, National Merry-Go-Round Day 🎠🇺🇸, National Threading the Needle Day 🛩🇺🇸, Christmas in July 🎄🇺🇸, National Chili Dog Day 🇺🇸, National Refreshment Day 🥤🇺🇸, National Intern Day 🇺🇸, National Wine and Cheese Day 🍷🧀🇬🇧

[gpstudios]

Celebrating National Culinarian's Day: Honoring the Art of Cooking and Culinary Professionals 🍴👩‍🍳

Happy National Culinarian's Day! 🍴👩‍🍳 Celebrate the art of cooking and honor the chefs and culinary professionals who bring creativity and flavor to our lives. #NationalCulinariansDay #CulinaryArts

Introduction Happy National Culinarian’s Day! 🍴👩‍🍳 Celebrated annually on July 25th, this day is dedicated to honoring the chefs, cooks, and culinary professionals who bring creativity, passion, and skill to our tables. From the kitchens of world-renowned restaurants to home kitchens, culinarians play a vital role in our daily lives, transforming ingredients into delicious and memorable meals.…

[brookston]

Holidays 7.25

Holidays

Act Like a Caveman Day

Antifascist Pasta Day (Italy)

Bayreuther Festspiele begins (Wagner festival; Germany) [thru 8.28]

Be Adamant About Something Day

Community Day (Galicia, Spain)

CTNNB1 Awareness Day

A Day Out of Time (Last Day of the Year; Mayan, Galactic)

Ebernoe Horn Fair (Sussex, UK)

Feed the Country Ducks Day

Festival of Picaresque Animality

Health and Happiness with Hypnosis Day

International AfroLatinx, AfroCaribbean & Diaspora Women’s Day

International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners

International Red Show Day

International Sop Rapping Over Vocals Day

John Knill Day (Cornwall, UK) [Every 5 Years]

Jumatul Bidah (Bangladesh)

Jumat-ul-Wida (India)

Merry-Go-Round Day [also 5.17]

Mugwort Day (French Republic)

National African American Hepatitis C Action Day

National Campus Press Freedom Day (Philippines)

National Carousel Day

National Clay Day

National Day of Galicia (Spain)

National Hire a Veteran Day

National Houston Day

National Schizophrenia Awareness Day (UK)

National Video Game Team Day

Occupation Day (Puerto Rico)

Rain of Black Worms Day (Romania)

Red Shoe Day

Republic Day (Tunisia)

Rosiland Franklin Day

Santiago Apóstol (Spain)

Test-Tube Baby Day

Thread the Needle Day

Traditional Palestinian Dress Day

World Drowning Prevention Day (UN)

World Embryologist Day

World IVF Day

World Youth Days 2023 begins (Lisbon, Portugal; Roman Catholic; until 7.31) [Varies; @Every 3 Years]

Food & Drink Celebrations

Candles on a Cake Day

Culinarian’s Day

Frozen Fruit Freeze Day

Indie Beer Day (Australia)

National Hot Fudge Sundae Day

National Wine and Cheese Day

4th Tuesday in July

Waterton-Glacier Science & History Day [4th Tuesday]

Independence Days

Abode of Heaven (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Andany (Declared; 2017; Dissolved Sep. 2018) [unrecognized]

Commonwealth Constitution Day (Puerto Rico) 

Rathunis (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Anne (Eastern Christianity)

Christopher (Western Christianity)

Cucuphas (a.k.a. Cueufas, Cougat; Christian; Saint)

Feast of Formation of Saint Ann (Mother of the Virgin Mary; Byzantine Rite)

Furrinalia (Old Roman Goddess of Springs)

Glodesind (Christian; Saint)

Holbein (Positivist; Saint)

Hot Fudge Sundae Day (Pastafarian)

Ilyap'a Festival (Inca thunder god)

James the Great (Western Christianity)

John I Agnus (Christian; Saint)

Julian of Le Mans (Christian; Translation)

Magnerich of Trier (Christian; Saint)

Maxfield Parrish (Artology)

National Baha’i Day (Jamaica)

Nissen, Abbot of Mountgarret, Ireland (Christian; Saint)

Paul (Christian; Martyr)

Shylock Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Slippery Slim (Muppetism)

Thea and Valentina (Christian; Virgins)

Thomas Eakins (Artology)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Premieres

The Adventures of André & Wally B. (Pixar Cartoon; 1984)

Air Force One (Film; 1997)

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (Film; 2008)

Armor Wars (Film; 2025)

Back in Black, by AC/DC (Album; 1980)

Batman: The Killing Joke (Animated Film; 2016)

Broken Quest (Animated tV Series; 2013)

Caddyshack (Film; 1980)

China Grove, by the Doobie Brothers (Song; 1973)

A Chorus Line (Broadway Musical; 1975)

Drinking Buddies (Film; 2013)

Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (WB MM Cartoon; 1953)

Fame, by David Bowie (Song; 1975)

First Lensman, by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Novel; 1950) [Lensman #2]

Good Burger (Film; 1997)

Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man (Film; 1962)

Justice League: Warworld (WB Animated Film; 2023)

Kill ‘Em All, by Metallica (Album; 1983)

Lara Croft Tom Raider: The Cradle of Life (Film; 2003)

Last Train to Clarksville, recorded by The Monks (Song; 1966)

Lego Scooby-Doo! Blowout Beach Bash (WB Animated Film; 2017)

Lucy (Film; 2014)

Maximum Overdrive (Film; 1986)

Paul’s Boutique, by The Beastie Boys (Album; 1989)

Porky’s Spring Planting (WB LT Cartoon; 1938)

Ruby Sparks (Film; 2012)

Seabiscuit (Film; 2003)

Step Brothers (Film; 2008)

The Tree’s Knees (WB LT Cartoon; 1931)

X-Files: I Want to Believe (Film; 2008)

Yes, by Yes (Album; 1969)

You Can’t Hurry Love, by The Supremes (Song; 1966)

Today’s Name Days

Jakob, Jakobus, Thea, Thomas, Valentina (Austria)

Ana, Yana (Bulgaria)

Beata, Jakov, Krsto, Valentina (Croatia)

Jakub (Czech Republic)

Jacobus (Denmark)

Jaagup, Jaak, Jaako, Jaap, Jako, Jakob, Jass (Estonia)

Jaakko, Jaakob, Jaakoppi, Jimi (Finland)

Jacques, Valentine (France)

Jakob, Valentine (Germany)

Anna (Greece)

Jakab, Kristóf (Hungary)

Cristoforo, Giacomo (Italy)

Jēkabs, Marika (Latvia)

Aušrinė, Jokūbas, Kristupas (Lithuania)

Jack, Jakob, Jim (Norway)

Jakub, Krzysztof, Nieznamir, Sławosz, Walentyna (Poland)

Jakub (Slovakia)

Jaime, Santiago (Spain)

Jakob (Sweden)

Jac, Jack, Jacki, Jackie, Jackson, Jacky, Jacques, Jimmie (Universal)

Coby, Colby, Diego, Israel, Jacob, Jacoby, Jack, Jackie, Jackson, Jaclyn, Jacqueline, Jacquelyn, Jacques, Jaime, Jake, Jakob, James, Jameson, Jamie, Jaquan, Jaqueline, Jaxon, Jaxson, Jim, Jimena, Jimmie, Jimmy, Kobe, Koby, Kolby, Santiago (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 206 of 2024; 159 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 30 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Tinne (Holly) [Day 16 of 28]

Chinese: Month 6 (Ji-Wei), Day 8 (Jia-Shen)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 7 Av 5783

Islamic: 7 Muharram 1445

J Cal: 26 Lux; Fiveday [26 of 30]

Julian: 12 July 2023

Moon: 50%: 1st Quarter

Positivist: 10 Dante (8th Month) [Holbein]

Runic Half Month: Ur (Primal Strength) [Day 12 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 35 of 94)

Zodiac: Leo (Day 4 of 31)

[bradfoe]

Annals of Gastronomy

Don’t Eat Before Reading This

A New York chef spills some trade secrets.

By Anthony Bourdain

Monday’s fish has been around since Friday, under God knows what conditions.Illustration by Adrian Gill

Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay. It’s about sodium-loaded pork fat, stinky triple-cream cheeses, the tender thymus glands and distended livers of young animals. It’s about danger—risking the dark, bacterial forces of beef, chicken, cheese, and shellfish. Your first two hundred and seven Wellfleet oysters may transport you to a state of rapture, but your two hundred and eighth may send you to bed with the sweats, chills, and vomits.

Gastronomy is the science of pain. Professional cooks belong to a secret society whose ancient rituals derive from the principles of stoicism in the face of humiliation, injury, fatigue, and the threat of illness. The members of a tight, well-greased kitchen staff are a lot like a submarine crew. Confined for most of their waking hours in hot, airless spaces, and ruled by despotic leaders, they often acquire the characteristics of the poor saps who were press-ganged into the royal navies of Napoleonic times—superstition, a contempt for outsiders, and a loyalty to no flag but their own.

A good deal has changed since Orwell’s memoir of the months he spent as a dishwasher in “Down and Out in Paris and London.” Gas ranges and exhaust fans have gone a long way toward increasing the life span of the working culinarian. Nowadays, most aspiring cooks come into the business because they want to: they have chosen this life, studied for it. Today’s top chefs are like star athletes. They bounce from kitchen to kitchen—free agents in search of more money, more acclaim.

I’ve been a chef in New York for more than ten years, and, for the decade before that, a dishwasher, a prep drone, a line cook, and a sous-chef. I came into the business when cooks still smoked on the line and wore headbands. A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books. In fact, it was the unsavory side of professional cooking that attracted me to it in the first place. In the early seventies, I dropped out of college and transferred to the Culinary Institute of America. I wanted it all: the cuts and burns on hands and wrists, the ghoulish kitchen humor, the free food, the pilfered booze, the camaraderie that flourished within rigid order and nerve-shattering chaos. I would climb the chain of command from mal carne (meaning “bad meat,” or “new guy”) to chefdom—doing whatever it took until I ran my own kitchen and had my own crew of cutthroats, the culinary equivalent of “The Wild Bunch.”

A year ago, my latest, doomed mission—a high-profile restaurant in the Times Square area—went out of business. The meat, fish, and produce purveyors got the news that they were going to take it in the neck for yet another ill-conceived enterprise. When customers called for reservations, they were informed by a prerecorded announcement that our doors had closed. Fresh from that experience, I began thinking about becoming a traitor to my profession.

Say it’s a quiet Monday night, and you’ve just checked your coat in that swanky Art Deco update in the Flatiron district, and you’re looking to tuck into a thick slab of pepper-crusted yellowfin tuna or a twenty-ounce cut of certified Black Angus beef, well-done—what are you in for?

The fish specialty is reasonably priced, and the place got two stars in the Times. Why not go for it? If you like four-day-old fish, be my guest. Here’s how things usually work. The chef orders his seafood for the weekend on Thursday night. It arrives on Friday morning. He’s hoping to sell the bulk of it on Friday and Saturday nights, when he knows that the restaurant will be busy, and he’d like to run out of the last few orders by Sunday evening. Many fish purveyors don’t deliver on Saturday, so the chances are that the Monday-night tuna you want has been kicking around in the kitchen since Friday morning, under God knows what conditions. When a kitchen is in full swing, proper refrigeration is almost nonexistent, what with the many openings of the refrigerator door as the cooks rummage frantically during the rush, mingling your tuna with the chicken, the lamb, or the beef. Even if the chef has ordered just the right amount of tuna for the weekend, and has had to reorder it for a Monday delivery, the only safeguard against the seafood supplier’s off-loading junk is the presence of a vigilant chef who can make sure that the delivery is fresh from Sunday night’s market.

Generally speaking, the good stuff comes in on Tuesday: the seafood is fresh, the supply of prepared food is new, and the chef, presumably, is relaxed after his day off. (Most chefs don’t work on Monday.) Chefs prefer to cook for weekday customers rather than for weekenders, and they like to start the new week with their most creative dishes. In New York, locals dine during the week. Weekends are considered amateur nights—for tourists, rubes, and the well-done-ordering pretheatre hordes. The fish may be just as fresh on Friday, but it’s on Tuesday that you’ve got the good will of the kitchen on your side.

People who order their meat well-done perform a valuable service for those of us in the business who are cost-conscious: they pay for the privilege of eating our garbage. In many kitchens, there’s a time-honored practice called “save for well-done.” When one of the cooks finds a particularly unlovely piece of steak—tough, riddled with nerve and connective tissue, off the hip end of the loin, and maybe a little stinky from age—he’ll dangle it in the air and say, “Hey, Chef, whaddya want me to do with this?” Now, the chef has three options. He can tell the cook to throw the offending item into the trash, but that means a total loss, and in the restaurant business every item of cut, fabricated, or prepared food should earn at least three times the amount it originally cost if the chef is to make his correct food-cost percentage. Or he can decide to serve that steak to “the family”—that is, the floor staff—though that, economically, is the same as throwing it out. But no. What he’s going to do is repeat the mantra of cost-conscious chefs everywhere: “Save for well-done.” The way he figures it, the philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam.

Then there are the People Who Brunch. The “B” word is dreaded by all dedicated cooks. We hate the smell and spatter of omelettes. We despise hollandaise, home fries, those pathetic fruit garnishes, and all the other cliché accompaniments designed to induce a credulous public into paying $12.95 for two eggs. Nothing demoralizes an aspiring Escoffier faster than requiring him to cook egg-white omelettes or eggs over easy with bacon. You can dress brunch up with all the focaccia, smoked salmon, and caviar in the world, but it’s still breakfast.

Video From The New YorkerTroy: A Couple Obsessed with the Sex Worker Next Door

Even more despised than the Brunch People are the vegetarians. Serious cooks regard these members of the dining public—and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans—as enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit. To live life without veal or chicken stock, fish cheeks, sausages, cheese, or organ meats is treasonous.

“It’s been done, but I don’t think it’s been redone.”Copy link to cartoon

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Like most other chefs I know, I’m amused when I hear people object to pork on nonreligious grounds. “Swine are filthy animals,” they say. These people have obviously never visited a poultry farm. Chicken—America’s favorite food—goes bad quickly; handled carelessly, it infects other foods with salmonella; and it bores the hell out of chefs. It occupies its ubiquitous place on menus as an option for customers who can’t decide what they want to eat. Most chefs believe that supermarket chickens in this country are slimy and tasteless compared with European varieties. Pork, on the other hand, is cool. Farmers stopped feeding garbage to pigs decades ago, and even if you eat pork rare you’re more likely to win the Lotto than to contract trichinosis. Pork tastes different, depending on what you do with it, but chicken always tastes like chicken.

Another much maligned food these days is butter. In the world of chefs, however, butter is in everything. Even non-French restaurants—the Northern Italian; the new American, the ones where the chef brags about how he’s “getting away from butter and cream”—throw butter around like crazy. In almost every restaurant worth patronizing, sauces are enriched with mellowing, emulsifying butter. Pastas are tightened with it. Meat and fish are seared with a mixture of butter and oil. Shallots and chicken are caramelized with butter. It’s the first and last thing in almost every pan: the final hit is called “monter au beurre.” In a good restaurant, what this all adds up to is that you could be putting away almost a stick of butter with every meal.

If you are one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers fondling your food, you shouldn’t go out to eat. As the author and former chef Nicolas Freeling notes in his definitive book “The Kitchen,” the better the restaurant, the more your food has been prodded, poked, handled, and tasted. By the time a three-star crew has finished carving and arranging your saddle of monkfish with dried cherries and wild-herb-infused nage into a Parthenon or a Space Needle, it’s had dozens of sweaty fingers all over it. Gloves? You’ll find a box of surgical gloves—in my kitchen we call them “anal-research gloves”—over every station on the line, for the benefit of the health inspectors, but does anyone actually use them? Yes, a cook will slip a pair on every now and then, especially when he’s handling something with a lingering odor, like salmon. But during the hours of service gloves are clumsy and dangerous. When you’re using your hands constantly, latex will make you drop things, which is the last thing you want to do.

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Finding a hair in your food will make anyone gag. But just about the only place you’ll see anyone in the kitchen wearing a hat or a hairnet is Blimpie. For most chefs, wearing anything on their head, especially one of those picturesque paper toques—they’re often referred to as “coffee filters”—is a nuisance: they dissolve when you sweat, bump into range hoods, burst into flame.

The fact is that most good kitchens are far less septic than your kitchen at home. I run a scrupulously clean, orderly restaurant kitchen, where food is rotated and handled and stored very conscientiously. But if the city’s Department of Health or the E.P.A. decided to enforce every aspect of its codes, most of us would be out on the street. Recently, there was a news report about the practice of recycling bread. By means of a hidden camera in a restaurant, the reporter was horrified to see returned bread being sent right back out to the floor. This, to me, wasn’t news: the reuse of bread has been an open secret—and a fairly standard practice—in the industry for years. It makes more sense to worry about what happens to the leftover table butter—many restaurants recycle it for hollandaise.

What do I like to eat after hours? Strange things. Oysters are my favorite, especially at three in the morning, in the company of my crew. Focaccia pizza with robiola cheese and white truffle oil is good, especially at Le Madri on a summer afternoon in the outdoor patio. Frozen vodka at Siberia Bar is also good, particularly if a cook from one of the big hotels shows up with beluga. At Indigo, on Tenth Street, I love the mushroom strudel and the daube of beef. At my own place, I love a spicy boudin noir that squirts blood in your mouth; the braised fennel the way my sous-chef makes it; scraps from duck confit; and fresh cockles steamed with greasy Portuguese sausage.

Ilove the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam. Admittedly, it’s a life that grinds you down. Most of us who live and operate in the culinary underworld are in some fundamental way dysfunctional. We’ve all chosen to turn our backs on the nine-to-five, on ever having a Friday or Saturday night off, on ever having a normal relationship with a non-cook.

Being a chef is a lot like being an air-traffic controller: you are constantly dealing with the threat of disaster. You’ve got to be Mom and Dad, drill sergeant, detective, psychiatrist, and priest to a crew of opportunistic, mercenary hooligans, whom you must protect from the nefarious and often foolish strategies of owners. Year after year, cooks contend with bouncing paychecks, irate purveyors, desperate owners looking for the masterstroke that will cure their restaurant’s ills: Live Cabaret! Free Shrimp! New Orleans Brunch!

In America, the professional kitchen is the last refuge of the misfit. It’s a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family. It’s a haven for foreigners—Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Chinese, Senegalese, Egyptians, Poles. In New York, the main linguistic spice is Spanish. “Hey, maricón! chupa mis huevos” means, roughly, “How are you, valued comrade? I hope all is well.” And you hear “Hey, baboso! Put some more brown jiz on the fire and check your meez before the sous comes back there and fucks you in the��culo!,” which means “Please reduce some additional demi-glace, brother, and reëxamine your mise en place, because the sous-chef is concerned about your state of readiness.”

Since we work in close quarters, and so many blunt and sharp objects are at hand, you’d think that cooks would kill one another with regularity. I’ve seen guys duking it out in the waiter station over who gets a table for six. I’ve seen a chef clamp his teeth on a waiter’s nose. And I’ve seen plates thrown—I’ve even thrown a few myself—but I’ve never heard of one cook jamming a boning knife into another cook’s rib cage or braining him with a meat mallet. Line cooking, done well, is a dance—a highspeed, Balanchine collaboration.

I used to be a terror toward my floor staff, particularly in the final months of my last restaurant. But not anymore. Recently, my career has taken an eerily appropriate turn: these days, I’m the chef de cuisine of a much loved, old-school French brasserie/bistro where the customers eat their meat rare, vegetarians are scarce, and every part of the animal—hooves, snout, cheeks, skin, and organs—is avidly and appreciatively prepared and consumed. Cassoulet, pigs’ feet, tripe, and charcuterie sell like crazy. We thicken many sauces with foie gras and pork blood, and proudly hurl around spoonfuls of duck fat and butter, and thick hunks of country bacon. I made a traditional French pot-au-feu a few weeks ago, and some of my French colleagues—hardened veterans of the business all—came into my kitchen to watch the first order go out. As they gazed upon the intimidating heap of short ribs, oxtail, beef shoulder, cabbage, turnips, carrots, and potatoes, the expressions on their faces were those of religious supplicants. I have come home. ♦

https://1152600814e3066a8b5008bac502819a.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.htmlPublished in the print edition of the April 19, 1999, issue, with the headline “Don’t Eat Before Reading This.”

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 7.25

Holidays

Act Like a Caveman Day

Arthouse Theatre Day

Battle of Isted Day (Denmark)

Bayreuther Festspiele begins (Wagner festival; Germany) [thru 8.28]

Be Adamant About Something Day

Carousel Day

Chicory Day

Community Day (Galicia, Spain)

CTNNB1 Awareness Day

Ebernoe Horn Fair (Sussex, UK)

Feed the Country Ducks Day

Festival of Picaresque Animality

Fire Service Day (Belarus)

Grotto Day (UK)

Guancaste Day (Costa Rica)

Health and Happiness with Hypnosis Day

International AfroLatinx, AfroCaribbean & Diaspora Women’s Day

International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners

International Red Shoe Day

International Stop Rapping Over Vocals Day

John Knill Day (Cornwall, UK) [Every 5 Years]

Jumatul Bidah (Bangladesh)

Jumat-ul-Wida (India)

Merry-Go-Round Day [also 5.17]

Miracle Treat Day (Canada)

Mugwort Day (French Republic)

National African American Hepatitis C Action Day

National Campus Press Freedom Day (Philippines)

National Carousel Day

National Clay Day

National Day of Galicia (Spain)

National Day of the Writer (Brazil)

National Hire a Veteran Day

National Houston Day

National Schizophrenia Awareness Day (UK)

National Video Game Team Day

Occupation Day (Puerto Rico)

Patient Safety Day

Rain of Black Worms Day (Romania)

Red Shoe Day

Republic Day (Tunisia)

Road Transport Workers’ Day (Tajikistan)

Rosiland Franklin Day

Santiago Apóstol (Spain)

725 Day (Las Vegas)

Test-Tube Baby Day

Thread the Needle Day

Traditional Palestinian Dress Day

World Drowning Prevention Day (UN)

World Embryologist Day

World IVF Day

World Youth Days 2023 begins (Lisbon, Portugal; Roman Catholic; until 7.31) [Varies; @Every 3 Years]

Food & Drink Celebrations

Antifascist Pasta Day (Italy)

Candles on a Cake Day

Culinarian’s Day

Frozen Fruit Freeze/Juice Day

Indie Beer Day (Australia)

National Hot Fudge Sundae Day

National Wine and Cheese Day

Independence & Related Days

Abode of Heaven (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Andany (Declared; 2017; Dissolved Sep. 2018) [unrecognized]

Atlia (Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Commonwealth Constitution Day (Puerto Rico) 

Rathunis (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]

Revolution Anniversary Day (Cuba)

New Year’s Days

A Day Out of Time (Last Day of the Year; Mayan, Galactic)

4th & Last Thursday in July

Berne Swiss Festival begins (ends Saturday; Indiana) [4th Thursday]

International Digital Adoption Professionals Day [Last Thursday]

National Chili Dog Day [Last Thursday]

National Intern Day [Last Thursday]

Great Texas Mosquito Festival begins (ends Saturday) [4th Thursday]

National Refreshment Day [4th Thursday]

Shiraz Day (Australia) [4th Thursday]

Weekly Holidays beginning July 25 (4th Week of July)

Quilt Odyssey Week (thru 7.28) [Last Thursday thru Saturday]

Festivals Beginning July 25, 2024

Antigua Carnival (St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda) [thru 8.6]

Bangor State Fair - Bangor, Maine) [7.28 & 8.1-3]

Beer Garden (Jackson, Wisconsin) [thru 7.26]

The Big Seafood Festival (Manitowoc, Wisconsin) [thru 7.26]

Burn in the Forest (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) [thru 7.29]

Calgary Folk Music Festival (Calgary, Canada) [thru 7.28]

Cambridge Folk Festival (Cherry Hinton, United Kingdom) [thru 7.28]

Camp Bestival (East Lulworth, United Kingdom) [thru 7.28]

Cave City Watermelon Festival (Cave City, Arkansas) [thru 7.27]

Down to Earth Summer Conference & Trade Show (Wachusett Mountain, Westminster, Massachusetts)

Elkader Sweet Corn Days (Elkader, Iowa) [thru 7.28]

Glier’s Goettafest (Newport, Kentucky) [7.28 & 8.1-4]

Iron River Lions Blueberry Festival (Iron River, Wisconsin) [thru 7.28]

Kneading Conference (Skowhegan, Maine) [thru 7.26]

Labadie Rib Fest (Bay City, Michigan) [thru 7.28]

Latitude Festival (Southwold, Suffolk, England) [thru 7.28]

Munger Potato Festival (Munger, Michigan) [thru 7.28]

Plumas Sierra County Fair (Quincy, California) [thru 7.28]

San Diego Comic-Con International (San Diego, California) [thru 7.28]

Southeast Alaska State Fair (Haines, Alaska) [thru 7.28]

Stan Rogers Folk Festival (Canso, Canada) [thru 7.29]

Sugar Grove Corn Boil (Sugar Grove, Illinois) [thru 7.28]

Viljandi Folk Music Festival (Viljandi, Estonia) [thru 7.28]

Whole Hawg Days & Poker Run (Eufaula, Oklahoma) [thru 7.27]

WOMAD (Wiltshire, United Kingdom) [thru 7.28]

Feast Days

Alexander Rummler (Artology)

Anne (Eastern Christianity)

Christmas in July

Christopher (Western Christianity)

Cucuphas (a.k.a. Cueufas, Cougat; Christian; Saint)

CW Apple Day (Celtic Book of Days)

Elias Canetti (Writerism)

Eric Hoffer (Writerism)

Feast of Formation of Saint Ann (Mother of the Virgin Mary; Byzantine Rite)

Festival of Paper Dolls (Japan; Everyday Wicca)

The Festival of the Knee Knockers (Shamanism)

Furrinalia (Old Roman Goddess of Springs)

Glodesind (Christian; Saint)

Grand Fête des Escaldes (Andorra)

Holbein (Positivist; Saint)

Hot Fudge Sundae Day (Pastafarian)

Ilyap'a Festival (Inca thunder god)

James the Great (Western Christianity)

Jane Frank (Artology)

John I Agnus (Christian; Saint)

Josephine Tey (Writerism)

Julian of Le Mans (Christian; Translation)

Magnerich of Trier (Christian; Saint)

Maxfield Parrish (Artology)

National Baha’i Day (Jamaica)

Nissen, Abbot of Mountgarret, Ireland (Christian; Saint)

Paul (Christian; Martyr)

Shylock Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Slippery Slim (Muppetism)

Thea and Valentina (Christian; Virgins)

Thomas Eakins (Artology)

Unveiling Day (Satanism)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Premieres

The Adventures of André & Wally B. (Pixar Cartoon; 1984)

Air Force One (Film; 1997)

Alice the Whaler (Ub Iwerks Disney Cartoon; 1927)

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (Film; 2008)

Armor Wars (Film; 2025)

Auto-da-Fé, by Elias Canetti (Novel; 1935)

Back in Black, by AC/DC (Album; 1980)

Batman: The Killing Joke (Animated Film; 2016)

Broken Quest (Animated tV Series; 2013)

Caddyshack (Film; 1980)

China Grove, by the Doobie Brothers (Song; 1973)

A Chorus Line (Broadway Musical; 1975)

Drinking Buddies (Film; 2013)

Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (WB MM Cartoon; 1953)

Dylan Goes Electric (at the Newport Folk Festival; 1965)

Einstein on the Beach, by Philip Glass (Opera; 1976)

Fame, by David Bowie (Song; 1975)

First Lensman, by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Novel; 1950) [Lensman #2]

Good Burger (Film; 1997)

He Can’t Make It Stick (Color Rhapsody Cartoon; 1943)

Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man (Film; 1962)

Justice League: Warworld (WB Animated Film; 2023)

Kill ‘Em All, by Metallica (Album; 1983)

Lara Croft Tom Raider: The Cradle of Life (Film; 2003)

Last Train to Clarksville, recorded by The Monks (Song; 1966)

Lego Scooby-Doo! Blowout Beach Bash (WB Animated Film; 2017)

Life is Elsewhere, by Milan Kundera (Novel; 1973)

Lucy (Film; 2014)

Maximum Overdrive (Film; 1986)

Much Ado About Mutton (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1947)

The New Car (Ub Iwerks MGM Cartoon; 1931)

Paul’s Boutique, by The Beastie Boys (Album; 1989)

Porky’s Spring Planting (WB LT Cartoon; 1938)

Red Dawn (Film; 1984)

Ruby Sparks (Film; 2012)

Salmon Pink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1975)

Seabiscuit (Film; 2003)

Step Brothers (Film; 2008)

The Tree’s Knees (WB LT Cartoon; 1931)

Twelve O’Clock and All Ain’t Well (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1941)

X-Files: I Want to Believe (Film; 2008)

Yes, by Yes (Album; 1969)

You Can’t Hurry Love, by The Supremes (Song; 1966)

Today’s Name Days

Jakob, Jakobus, Thea, Thomas, Valentina (Austria)

Ana, Yana (Bulgaria)

Beata, Jakov, Krsto, Valentina (Croatia)

Jakub (Czech Republic)

Jacobus (Denmark)

Jaagup, Jaak, Jaako, Jaap, Jako, Jakob, Jass (Estonia)

Jaakko, Jaakob, Jaakoppi, Jimi (Finland)

Jacques, Valentine (France)

Jakob, Valentine (Germany)

Anna (Greece)

Jakab, Kristóf (Hungary)

Cristoforo, Giacomo (Italy)

Jēkabs, Marika (Latvia)

Aušrinė, Jokūbas, Kristupas (Lithuania)

Jack, Jakob, Jim (Norway)

Jakub, Krzysztof, Nieznamir, Sławosz, Walentyna (Poland)

Jakub (Slovakia)

Jaime, Santiago (Spain)

Jakob (Sweden)

Jac, Jack, Jacki, Jackie, Jackson, Jacky, Jacques, Jimmie (Universal)

Coby, Colby, Diego, Israel, Jacob, Jacoby, Jack, Jackie, Jackson, Jaclyn, Jacqueline, Jacquelyn, Jacques, Jaime, Jake, Jakob, James, Jameson, Jamie, Jaquan, Jaqueline, Jaxon, Jaxson, Jim, Jimena, Jimmie, Jimmy, Kobe, Koby, Kolby, Santiago (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 207 of 2024; 159 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 4 of Week 30 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Tinne (Holly) [Day 19 of 28]

Chinese: Month 6 (Xin-Wei), Day 20 (Geng-Yin)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 19 Tammuz 5784

Islamic: 18 Muharram 1446

J Cal: 27 Red; Sixday [27 of 30]

Julian: 12 July 2024

Moon: 79%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 10 Dante (8th Month) [Holbein]

Runic Half Month: Thorn (Defense) [Day 2 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 36 of 94)

Week: 4th Week of July

Zodiac: Leo (Day 4 of 31)

[jazzynook]

The Essay that Made Bourdain Famous

"Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay. It’s about sodium-loaded pork fat, stinky triple-cream cheeses, the tender thymus glands and distended livers of young animals. It’s about danger—risking the dark, bacterial forces of beef, chicken, cheese, and shellfish. Your first two hundred and seven Wellfleet oysters may transport you to a state of rapture, but your two hundred and eighth may send you to bed with the sweats, chills, and vomits.

Gastronomy is the science of pain. Professional cooks belong to a secret society whose ancient rituals derive from the principles of stoicism in the face of humiliation, injury, fatigue, and the threat of illness. The members of a tight, well-greased kitchen staff are a lot like a submarine crew. Confined for most of their waking hours in hot, airless spaces, and ruled by despotic leaders, they often acquire the characteristics of the poor saps who were press-ganged into the royal navies of Napoleonic times—superstition, a contempt for outsiders, and a loyalty to no flag but their own.

A good deal has changed since Orwell’s memoir of the months he spent as a dishwasher in “Down and Out in Paris and London.” Gas ranges and exhaust fans have gone a long way toward increasing the life span of the working culinarian. Nowadays, most aspiring cooks come into the business because they want to: they have chosen this life, studied for it. Today’s top chefs are like star athletes. They bounce from kitchen to kitchen—free agents in search of more money, more acclaim.

I’ve been a chef in New York for more than ten years, and, for the decade before that, a dishwasher, a prep drone, a line cook, and a sous-chef. I came into the business when cooks still smoked on the line and wore headbands. A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books. In fact, it was the unsavory side of professional cooking that attracted me to it in the first place. In the early seventies, I dropped out of college and transferred to the Culinary Institute of America. I wanted it all: the cuts and burns on hands and wrists, the ghoulish kitchen humor, the free food, the pilfered booze, the camaraderie that flourished within rigid order and nerve-shattering chaos. I would climb the chain of command from mal carne (meaning “bad meat,” or “new guy”) to chefdom—doing whatever it took until I ran my own kitchen and had my own crew of cutthroats, the culinary equivalent of “The Wild Bunch.”

A year ago, my latest, doomed mission—a high-profile restaurant in the Times Square area—went out of business. The meat, fish, and produce purveyors got the news that they were going to take it in the neck for yet another ill-conceived enterprise. When customers called for reservations, they were informed by a prerecorded announcement that our doors had closed. Fresh from that experience, I began thinking about becoming a traitor to my profession.

Say it’s a quiet Monday night, and you’ve just checked your coat in that swanky Art Deco update in the Flatiron district, and you’re looking to tuck into a thick slab of pepper-crusted yellowfin tuna or a twenty-ounce cut of certified Black Angus beef, well-done—what are you in for?

The fish specialty is reasonably priced, and the place got two stars in the Times. Why not go for it? If you like four-day-old fish, be my guest. Here’s how things usually work. The chef orders his seafood for the weekend on Thursday night. It arrives on Friday morning. He’s hoping to sell the bulk of it on Friday and Saturday nights, when he knows that the restaurant will be busy, and he’d like to run out of the last few orders by Sunday evening. Many fish purveyors don’t deliver on Saturday, so the chances are that the Monday-night tuna you want has been kicking around in the kitchen since Friday morning, under God knows what conditions. When a kitchen is in full swing, proper refrigeration is almost nonexistent, what with the many openings of the refrigerator door as the cooks rummage frantically during the rush, mingling your tuna with the chicken, the lamb, or the beef. Even if the chef has ordered just the right amount of tuna for the weekend, and has had to reorder it for a Monday delivery, the only safeguard against the seafood supplier’s off-loading junk is the presence of a vigilant chef who can make sure that the delivery is fresh from Sunday night’s market.

Generally speaking, the good stuff comes in on Tuesday: the seafood is fresh, the supply of prepared food is new, and the chef, presumably, is relaxed after his day off. (Most chefs don’t work on Monday.) Chefs prefer to cook for weekday customers rather than for weekenders, and they like to start the new week with their most creative dishes. In New York, locals dine during the week. Weekends are considered amateur nights—for tourists, rubes, and the well-done-ordering pretheatre hordes. The fish may be just as fresh on Friday, but it’s on Tuesday that you’ve got the good will of the kitchen on your side.

People who order their meat well-done perform a valuable service for those of us in the business who are cost-conscious: they pay for the privilege of eating our garbage. In many kitchens, there’s a time-honored practice called “save for well-done.” When one of the cooks finds a particularly unlovely piece of steak—tough, riddled with nerve and connective tissue, off the hip end of the loin, and maybe a little stinky from age—he’ll dangle it in the air and say, “Hey, Chef, whaddya want me to do with this?” Now, the chef has three options. He can tell the cook to throw the offending item into the trash, but that means a total loss, and in the restaurant business every item of cut, fabricated, or prepared food should earn at least three times the amount it originally cost if the chef is to make his correct food-cost percentage. Or he can decide to serve that steak to “the family”—that is, the floor staff—though that, economically, is the same as throwing it out. But no. What he’s going to do is repeat the mantra of cost-conscious chefs everywhere: “Save for well-done.” The way he figures it, the philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam.

Then there are the People Who Brunch. The “B” word is dreaded by all dedicated cooks. We hate the smell and spatter of omelettes. We despise hollandaise, home fries, those pathetic fruit garnishes, and all the other cliché accompaniments designed to induce a credulous public into paying $12.95 for two eggs. Nothing demoralizes an aspiring Escoffier faster than requiring him to cook egg-white omelettes or eggs over easy with bacon. You can dress brunch up with all the focaccia, smoked salmon, and caviar in the world, but it’s still breakfast.

Even more despised than the Brunch People are the vegetarians. Serious cooks regard these members of the dining public—and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans—as enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit. To live life without veal or chicken stock, fish cheeks, sausages, cheese, or organ meats is treasonous.

Like most other chefs I know, I’m amused when I hear people object to pork on nonreligious grounds. “Swine are filthy animals,” they say. These people have obviously never visited a poultry farm. Chicken—America’s favorite food—goes bad quickly; handled carelessly, it infects other foods with salmonella; and it bores the hell out of chefs. It occupies its ubiquitous place on menus as an option for customers who can’t decide what they want to eat. Most chefs believe that supermarket chickens in this country are slimy and tasteless compared with European varieties. Pork, on the other hand, is cool. Farmers stopped feeding garbage to pigs decades ago, and even if you eat pork rare you’re more likely to win the Lotto than to contract trichinosis. Pork tastes different, depending on what you do with it, but chicken always tastes like chicken.

Another much maligned food these days is butter. In the world of chefs, however, butter is in everything. Even non-French restaurants—the Northern Italian; the new American, the ones where the chef brags about how he’s “getting away from butter and cream”—throw butter around like crazy. In almost every restaurant worth patronizing, sauces are enriched with mellowing, emulsifying butter. Pastas are tightened with it. Meat and fish are seared with a mixture of butter and oil. Shallots and chicken are caramelized with butter. It’s the first and last thing in almost every pan: the final hit is called “monter au beurre.” In a good restaurant, what this all adds up to is that you could be putting away almost a stick of butter with every meal.

If you are one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers fondling your food, you shouldn’t go out to eat. As the author and former chef Nicolas Freeling notes in his definitive book “The Kitchen,” the better the restaurant, the more your food has been prodded, poked, handled, and tasted. By the time a three-star crew has finished carving and arranging your saddle of monkfish with dried cherries and wild-herb-infused nage into a Parthenon or a Space Needle, it’s had dozens of sweaty fingers all over it. Gloves? You’ll find a box of surgical gloves—in my kitchen we call them “anal-research gloves”—over every station on the line, for the benefit of the health inspectors, but does anyone actually use them? Yes, a cook will slip a pair on every now and then, especially when he’s handling something with a lingering odor, like salmon. But during the hours of service gloves are clumsy and dangerous. When you’re using your hands constantly, latex will make you drop things, which is the last thing you want to do.

Finding a hair in your food will make anyone gag. But just about the only place you’ll see anyone in the kitchen wearing a hat or a hairnet is Blimpie. For most chefs, wearing anything on their head, especially one of those picturesque paper toques—they’re often referred to as “coffee filters”—is a nuisance: they dissolve when you sweat, bump into range hoods, burst into flame.

The fact is that most good kitchens are far less septic than your kitchen at home. I run a scrupulously clean, orderly restaurant kitchen, where food is rotated and handled and stored very conscientiously. But if the city’s Department of Health or the E.P.A. decided to enforce every aspect of its codes, most of us would be out on the street. Recently, there was a news report about the practice of recycling bread. By means of a hidden camera in a restaurant, the reporter was horrified to see returned bread being sent right back out to the floor. This, to me, wasn’t news: the reuse of bread has been an open secret—and a fairly standard practice—in the industry for years. It makes more sense to worry about what happens to the leftover table butter—many restaurants recycle it for hollandaise.

What do I like to eat after hours? Strange things. Oysters are my favorite, especially at three in the morning, in the company of my crew. Focaccia pizza with robiola cheese and white truffle oil is good, especially at Le Madri on a summer afternoon in the outdoor patio. Frozen vodka at Siberia Bar is also good, particularly if a cook from one of the big hotels shows up with beluga. At Indigo, on Tenth Street, I love the mushroom strudel and the daube of beef. At my own place, I love a spicy boudin noir that squirts blood in your mouth; the braised fennel the way my sous-chef makes it; scraps from duck confit; and fresh cockles steamed with greasy Portuguese sausage.

I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam. Admittedly, it’s a life that grinds you down. Most of us who live and operate in the culinary underworld are in some fundamental way dysfunctional. We’ve all chosen to turn our backs on the nine-to-five, on ever having a Friday or Saturday night off, on ever having a normal relationship with a non-cook.

Being a chef is a lot like being an air-traffic controller: you are constantly dealing with the threat of disaster. You’ve got to be Mom and Dad, drill sergeant, detective, psychiatrist, and priest to a crew of opportunistic, mercenary hooligans, whom you must protect from the nefarious and often foolish strategies of owners. Year after year, cooks contend with bouncing paychecks, irate purveyors, desperate owners looking for the masterstroke that will cure their restaurant’s ills: Live Cabaret! Free Shrimp! New Orleans Brunch!

In America, the professional kitchen is the last refuge of the misfit. It’s a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family. It’s a haven for foreigners—Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Chinese, Senegalese, Egyptians, Poles. In New York, the main linguistic spice is Spanish. “Hey, maricón! chupa mis huevos” means, roughly, “How are you, valued comrade? I hope all is well.” And you hear “Hey, baboso! Put some more brown jiz on the fire and check your meez before the sous comes back there and fucks you in the culo!,” which means “Please reduce some additional demi-glace, brother, and reëxamine your mise en place, because the sous-chef is concerned about your state of readiness.”

Since we work in close quarters, and so many blunt and sharp objects are at hand, you’d think that cooks would kill one another with regularity. I’ve seen guys duking it out in the waiter station over who gets a table for six. I’ve seen a chef clamp his teeth on a waiter’s nose. And I’ve seen plates thrown—I’ve even thrown a few myself—but I’ve never heard of one cook jamming a boning knife into another cook’s rib cage or braining him with a meat mallet. Line cooking, done well, is a dance—a highspeed, Balanchine collaboration.

I used to be a terror toward my floor staff, particularly in the final months of my last restaurant. But not anymore. Recently, my career has taken an eerily appropriate turn: these days, I’m the chef de cuisine of a much loved, old-school French brasserie/bistro where the customers eat their meat rare, vegetarians are scarce, and every part of the animal—hooves, snout, cheeks, skin, and organs—is avidly and appreciatively prepared and consumed. Cassoulet, pigs’ feet, tripe, and charcuterie sell like crazy. We thicken many sauces with foie gras and pork blood, and proudly hurl around spoonfuls of duck fat and butter, and thick hunks of country bacon. I made a traditional French pot-au-feu a few weeks ago, and some of my French colleagues—hardened veterans of the business all—came into my kitchen to watch the first order go out. As they gazed upon the intimidating heap of short ribs, oxtail, beef shoulder, cabbage, turnips, carrots, and potatoes, the expressions on their faces were those of religious supplicants. I have come home."

Published in the print edition of the April 19, 1999, issue.

[bestmessage]

Happy Culinarians Day Messages and Quotes

Share with these food magicians Culinarians quotes and Happy Culinarians Day messages which make a wonderful share on National Culinarians Day.With the amazing collection of Culinarians Day wishes and greetings, share the best Culinarians Day messages on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram with chefs and cooks.

[ami-ven]

Happy National Culinarians Day!

[potassium-pilot]

Bonus Prompt, Yeehaw!

Prompt 31: Suspicion

“Wait!” Haurchefant called out and ran for Dia as she and Alphinaud began their return to Revenant’s Toll, eager to report the day’s events to Minfilia, and figure out strategy surrounding the possibility of Iceheart summoning a primal.

“Is something wrong, Haurchefant?” Dia asked concernedly.

“Nay, merely…might I convince you to stay in Camp Dragonhead for a while?”

She raised her eyebrows at the proposition. “What for? Did something else happen?”

“Thankfully, no. Rather, I…I had hoped I might, er, interest you in dinner.”

“Dinner?” she repeated in disbelief.

“Indeed. The culinarians would most likely start preparations in but a moment, and we always have leftovers. What say you?”

“Well, that sounds lovely”, piped in Alphinaud, “But I’m afraid the Antecedent would need word on the happenings of the heretics sooner rather than later.”

“I see”, Haurchefant hung his head. His intention was not to invite both Alphinaud and Dia, but the two seemed to be a package deal.

“But…she need not have both of us reporting to her. If you’d like, Dia, I can go on ahead while you stay behind.”

“Sounds good to me. I like the sound of someone treating me to free food, especially you, Haurchefant.”

His eyes lit up, and he enthusiastically replied, “Wonderful! Please, step inside. You will want for nothing.”

“We’ll see about that”, she teased as she stepped towards the camp entrance. She recently provided a feast for the Sultana and Chefsbane himself, Lolorito. Her expectations of Camp Dragonhead’s culinarians’ abilities were quite low, but she thoroughly enjoyed food as a concept. She’d happily eat whatever they made.

**********

“So…it’s hot yak’s milk, then?” Dia stared down her Ishgardian tea inquisitively.

“Nay, it’s tea.”

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the milk can’t possibly absorb the tea leaves as well as water. It’s about liquid properties.”

“Water doesn’t provide the same richness, the same warmth as yak’s milk in a tea. Not to mention, water highlights the bitter taste of the leaves more.”

“…that’s the point.”

He sighed and told her, “I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree on this point.”

“All right, I’ll drop it”, Dia conceded and merely sipped on it. When she requested tea, she didn’t expect yak’s milk at all, but she was never one to shy away from food. Despite her protestations as to the validity of the tea, it was still quite good, though as she predicted, the yak’s milk overpowered the tea leaves.

“Now, then, how are you feeling?” asked Haurchefant.

“Pretty good. The…tea…is lovely.”

“I’m glad you think so, but I meant in a broader sense.”

She hummed a curious tone.

“Dia, I’ve heard many a tale from many a source about your deeds. You took down four different gods-and you may very well be on your way to a fifth-, the Black Wolf himself, and an ancient Allagan weapon called Ultima that contained the power of three different primals. That you would sustain yourself after such feats beggars belief, and I simply want to ensure that you are, in fact, all right.”

She smiled. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head. I’m perfectly all right.”

“You’re sure? I want to do anything I can to aid you further, particularly if you are on your way to killing yet another primal for the sake of my countrymen.”

“Ah, there’s our misunderstanding. I’m not doing this for Ishgard.”

“Well, I figured as much. The Scions are an organization separated from the interests of the different nations. Regardless of your intentions, however, this still serves my fellow Ishgardians. Yet, I am curious why you would wish to take on this burden.”

Dia shrugged her shoulders. “Such is my fate. Hydaelyn chose me to be her Warrior for whatever reason, and it would be remiss of me not to act as such.”

Haurchefant sipped on his wine, then returned to the discussion. “Well, ‘tis noble of you to fight in her stead, but does being a Warrior of Light strip you of your free will?”

“What?”

“Surely, you must have had other goals, other dreams. Children don’t necessarily grow up thinking they’ll be god-slayers when they’re older.”

She sipped her tea as well. “I wanted adventure. I spent a lot of time cooped up in one small part of Gridania, and I wanted more. I’ll be damned if I didn’t get it.”

Haurchefant chuckled to himself. “Of course. To question the adventurous nature of an adventurer, how foolish of me.”

Dia chuckled lightly as well. “At any rate, I consider my reasons not too different from yours or Ser Aymeric’s. As you fight for Ishgard, I fight for Hydaelyn.”

Haurchefant closed his eyes and let out a small breath. “About that…”

“About what?”

“Dia, know that I say this out of concern for you and your wellbeing. You seemed rather…tense, to say the least, in both meetings with the Lord Commander.”

She wanted to kick herself. Was it that obvious?

“Was everything all right?”

“Pshh, of course it was, it’s allll good.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

She sighed loudly. “Look, I just- it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Dia, I promise you, if you tell me what the matter is, it shall be kept in the strictest of confidence. On my honor as a knight, I shall not break your trust.”

She stared down at the table. “You won’t report this to anyone? You’re not gonna run off to Ishgard and go wherever people go to talk to whoever’s in charge?”

“I swear to you, whatever you tell me will not leave this room.”

She hesitated for a few seconds.

“I don’t trust Ser Aymeric as far as I can throw him.”

Her confession took Haurchefant aback.

“See? I didn’t want you to tell him that.”

“I would never. But…might I know what cause he has given to earn your apprehension?”

She grunted in frustration, “He’s-he’s hiding something, and I can’t tell what, and that bothers me.”

“What could he possibly have to hide?” Haurchefant questioned in disbelief.

“I don’t know. It’s a gut feeling, I admit, but there’s more. When he came in, he told me outright that he was watching me. What did he say? With ‘an interest bordering on fascination?’”

“And what’s the problem with that?”

“You know who tells me that they’re watching my activities? Garleans.”

“They told you that?”

“Aye, they did. Livia, Nero, and Gaius himself, they all told me that they followed my activities. At any rate, your Lord Commander is keeping tabs on me, and I want to know why. What purpose does it serve Ishgard’s government to keep an eye on my movements?”

He took a moment to process her accusation. “I do not wish to make it seem as if I’m invalidating your feelings on the matter, but…might it be possible that he simply found your adventures intriguing? That mayhap it was a personal interest in your deeds?”

“But then why bring it up like that in an official setting? And why say it like that? ‘I’ve enjoyed hearing tales of your deeds’ is one thing, but ‘I’ve been watching your activities’? Quite another.”

“Perhaps the phrasing was more formal than you’re used to hearing from people who simply enjoy your tales.”

“Too formal, if you ask me.” She took another sip of her tea. “I hope you’re right, but at the moment, it seems like he’s following my moves, and there’s a reason, and I’m bothered by the fact that I don’t know his motives other than for the Holy See.”

“I see.”

“Why did he specifically request me there, anyways? Keeping an eye on the Keeper of the Lake seemed more of a request for the Crystal Braves than I. If they think I’m fighting that thing, they can think again.”

“The Scions and the Crystal Braves are near interchangeable in the eyes of many, considering how entangled the two organizations have become.”

“Maybe so, but it still could have just been Alphinaud. Why was I needed? Really, it wasn’t until the caravan was hijacked that anything requiring my attention happened.”

Haurchefant couldn’t answer that one.

“It didn’t help that he and that other knight of his kept a near-constant eye on me during both of those meetings. Only time he looked away was when Alphinaud started in on talks of rejoining the Alliance.”

He shook his head as he remembered how the boy nearly exploded at the Lord Commander.

“Regardless of my own feelings, I could scarce believe that Alphinaud would treat someone he’s trying to convince to join us like that. He’s not a master of persuasion, that’s for sure”, Dia admitted her own second-hand embarrassment for the boy. “He kept us all there for way longer than needed and he barely let Ser Aymeric have a word in edgewise, even though he was the one who called the damn thing in the first place.”

Haurchefant laughed to himself, “I must confess, ‘twas mildly entertaining to watch the boy lose his patience. He usually keeps on a rather cool demeanor in a normal setting.”

She smiled and let out a laugh, “Alphinaud’s still a teenager, no matter what titles you throw at him.”

“Indeed, he is. Anyways, I do apologize for whatever concerns the Lord Commander may have given you. He’s proven rather popular with quite a number of the Temple Knights.”

“Maybe one day, I’ll know why.”

**********

Shiva was defeated, Midgardsormr stripped her of the Blessing of Light, Moenbryda died because of Dia’s lack of strength without it, and it was a sunny day in Coerthas. Dia had tried to take her mind off of the events of the last few weeks by collecting materials for both weaving and selling to her fellow adventurers. After all, she didn’t feel much like a Warrior of Light. A weaver, perhaps. A botanist, sure. But Warrior of Light seemed all but gone. That damn dragon wouldn’t stop following her either. He seemed to pop in whenever he liked.

With her materials in hand, she stepped away, and headed for Revenant’s Toll, climbing down several malms-high hills and passing through rocky terrain. At one point, Dia looked around, taking a moment to see just where she was, instead of glancing at her surroundings in her usual tunnel vision focus on gathering components. Did I just climb this mountain for cheap weaving, she thought. She shook her head and continued her descent when she spied some figure kneeling on the edge of a cliff.

I should just walk away right now.

But she didn’t. She kept walking to see just what that figure was doing, making sure the person didn’t have an agenda that could land them in the craggy aether surrounding Ishgard. As she grew closer, the figure became clearer and clearer. It was a man, and he looked familiar from behind, but it wasn’t obvious who she was thinking of that so resembled him until he finally turned around.

There stood the Lord Commander out of his usual regalia and into a wine red alpine coat, a white tunic underneath, and black thigh-high boots with black hose underneath. He looked utterly flabbergasted to see the Warrior of Light stand behind him.

“Oh! Ser Aymeric! I didn’t-uh-you-“ she stumbled, and immediately saw just what he was doing there- there was a gravestone at the end of that cliff. “Oh, I’m-I’m sorry, I-I didn’t realize that you were, uh, visiting someone. I’m so sorry, I’ll leave you be.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Dia” Aymeric said calmly after she turned around and tried to leave.

Godsdammit, Dia.

She stopped and turned back around to face him. “You interrupted nothing. I was visiting my father, and my visit was at it’s conclusion.”

She stared down the gravestone. The first name was unclear, but “Borel” stood out. “I see. I’m sorry for your loss”, she offered her condolences after giving herself a chance to calm down.

“He passed not long after the Calamity. He and my mother were rather…how should I put this…elderly by the time it came about.” He turned back around and looked down to the gravestone.

“I don’t always understand why the men I command fight their battles- plenty do it for prestige, some do it to rise above their station in life, some do it because it’s the only thing they know how to do. My father did it for an undying devotion to protect his country. He may not have always agreed with the Church, but he fought so Ishgard might come to see peace for the first time in a millenium. I think he did everything he could to instill these beliefs in his only son, and I hope that I can come close to doing right by his hopes for me. I owe him that much, at least.”

Dia just stood there and listened. This was the most clarifying moment she had in a long time.

What do you know? He’s mortal.

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to place all that on you, Dia. What I really wanted to do was thank you personally.”

“For what?”

He scoffed. “For taking down the Father of Dragons himself, Midgardsormr.”

She swore she could hear the little bastard snickering behind her.

“Oh, think nothing of it. It’s pretty much all the gift of Hydaelyn at this point”, Dia brushed off.

Aymeric hummed and crossed his arms. “Forgive me if this broaches on heresy, but somehow, I disagree.” She raised her eyebrows at the thought. “How so?”

“Let’s say, hypothetically, it was my duty to bestow a mighty sword unto a champion.” Before he could continue his example, a nearby tree dropped a decently thick branch. Aymeric walked over and picked it up, using the branch to help give a visual to his metaphor. “This sword”, he said, aiming it at her as though it were real, “is the mightiest sword in all the land. It can defeat any enemy you wield it against in combat, and has the potential for the betterment of all mankind.”

He lowered his stick sword and placed it horizontally into both of his hands. “If I were to create criteria for choosing my champion, I would want more than merely the physical strength required to wield it. Nay, I would needs trust my champion to use it properly, in the name of all people, and only use it against those who would bring great danger unto us all. I would needs know if this champion has the fortitude to fight and keep fighting for all the realm. I would needs know if this champion has the heart to love the realm even when it seems the realm has forsaken her. Most of all, I would needs know if she truly needed the sword to be the champion of the land.”

Aymeric kneeled down and presented the stick sword. “To that end, I would entrust it unto you, Dia Sito.”

Dia didn’t know what to make of the display, but played along and took it from him, holding it like a real sword. He stood back up and looked her in the eye.

“I won’t pretend to understand Hydaelyn. If it were me, however, I would consider any blessing as little more than a formality. I’ve seen you face down danger and march into it personally. I simply refuse to believe that your bravery and determination only come from her gift. Mayhap there was something your soul did in another body some time ago, but she knew who to select as her blessed, and personally, I don’t think she would give such a gift lightly. She chose you for a reason. If her reasoning is anything like mine, she knows you won’t entirely need it to be the Warrior of Light.”

She blinked. Yes, he was being presumptuous about the nature of the Echo, but still, Dia found his faith in her rather endearing.

“I…thank you, Ser Aymeric.”

“For what?”

She swished the stick sword around for a moment and answered, “For your sentiment. It’s…been hard goings, you know?” she admitted, trying to avoid mentioning how her blessing was stripped of her.

“I doubt not the difficulty of your tasks. I know I’m not always available, but know that you have support from behind Ishgard’s walls, and people who believe in you.”

She smiled. It did help to know that. She didn’t immediately trust him wholeheartedly, but she was glad to understand him a bit better.

“‘Twould be remiss of me not to thank you for one more thing, Ser Aymeric.”

“What would that be?”

Dia thrusted the stick to lightly touch it against his heart. “For this all-mighty sword.”

Did she just…make a joke, he thought. Aymeric laughed aloud for a few seconds, “But of course. ‘Twas my sacred duty to bestow it upon you”, he returned with his own joke. She grinned and laughed herself.

What started as a rather solemn visit for him ended in laughter. Perhaps this was her real gift, he thought.

“Might I ask you to accompany me back to the Gates of Judgment? I would be delighted to hear your tales of derring-do from the lips of the hero herself.”

She supposed if he was indeed working for Garleans, she could probably take him. “Very well”, she responded. Aymeric’s eyes lit up like a child at the sight of his Starlight presents, and stepped beside her and requested, “Please, tell me of the primal, Ifrit. That was one of the first that I had heard.”

Dia couldn’t help but be a bit amused. She debated telling Alphinaud of their discussion and how this rather cold and calculating man they met before became an entirely different person in nothing more than a few minutes with a story. Perhaps Haurchefant was right, and he merely had a vested interest in her adventures not as an agent of the Ishgardian government, but as someone who fully enjoyed these stories on his own time.

Maybe he’s not working for Garleans, after all.

[rabbitcruiser]

National Culinarians Day 

Today we honor culinarians! They are cooks or chefs who are experts in cooking, preparing, presenting, and serving food. Today we celebrate and thank them for the many ways they use food to satisfy us!

While professional culinarians tend to work in restaurants or commercial kitchens, the culinary arts have a much humbler beginning. It is believed that the roots of culinary arts sprouted when someone either threw a piece of meat on a fire or found an animal that had been cooked by a forest fire. From there, advancements in agriculture, the expansion of culinary techniques, the domestication of livestock, and the introduction of earthenware and stoneware all helped with culinary development.

Chefs were first employed by kings, aristocrats, and priests. In contrast, the lower classes cooked for their own families. The distinct approaches to cooking by different classes helped nurture the development of many different types of cuisine. Jean Anthelme had a great hand in getting culinary arts started in Europe. Others expanded on his work through the study of food science and gastronomy. In Asia, a similar path of study and advancement took place.

Culinary arts in the Western world began expanding at the end of the Renaissance. There was a shift from chefs working exclusively for nobility, to them also working in inns and hotels. It was at this time that the studying of culinary arts as its own field also began. At first, studying happened by apprenticeship, with students accompanying professional cooks. In 1879, Boston Cooking School opened, becoming the first cooking school to open in the United States. Today there are thousands of culinary arts schools around the world, and many colleges and universities offer culinary arts degrees as well.

Cooks and chefs are both involved in the culinary arts. Although a cook is sometimes referred to as a chef, this is not necessarily the correct term for them in the culinary world. Cooks prepare food, help chefs, and manage food stations. They may have names related to the food stations they work at, such as broiler cook, fry cook, and sauce cook. In the United States, one doesn't need to achieve a certain set of accomplishments to become a cook. Some cooks study for two to four years, learning sanitation, food safety, hospitality, and advanced cooking. Others participate in culinary apprenticeships that last about a year, where they receive on-the-job training.

A chef is a type of trained and professional cook. They have knowledge of food science, nutrition, diet, and of preparing and presenting meals. Although they are knowledgeable in all types of food preparation, they often focus on a particular cuisine. They may be formally trained at an institution, or they may learn their craft by being an apprentice of an experienced chef. They work in restaurants, but also in delicatessens, as well as in somewhat large institutions such as hotels and hospitals. They wear a toque blanche hat, neckerchief, double-breasted jacket, and an apron.

There are different types of chefs, and there is a system called a kitchen brigade by which the hierarchy of chefs are classified. The chef de cuisine is sometimes also known as an executive chef, master chef, or head chef. They are in charge of the kitchen and may be in charge of the menu, managing the kitchen staff, and ordering inventory, among other things. The sous-chef is second-in-command and fulfills various duties to keep the kitchen running smoothly. They may fill in for the chef de cuisine, and also may help the chef-de-parties when needed. A chef-de-partie is known as a line cook or station chef. They take care of a specific area of production. They may have their own hierarchy, such as "first cook," "second cook," and so forth. If they work in a large kitchen, they may have assistants; range chefs may work under them as well. There are many other titles in the brigade system. No matter if someone is a cook or one of the many kinds of chefs, today we celebrate them for all the culinary joy they bring us!

How to Observe Culinarians Day

Celebrate the day by presenting a cook or chef with a gift or simply some words of thanks. You could do this for a culinarian you know, or for one at a restaurant or at another place that you eat today. You could even prepare a meal for a chef or cook today, to give them a little break from their everyday work. If someone usually cooks meals for you at your home, you could also consider cooking for them today.

If you are a chef or cook, or are looking to become one, you could become involved with the American Culinary Federation. You could also enroll in a culinary arts program or look into how to become an apprentice. This is also a good day to watch famous television chefs, or to read a book on professional cooking and culinary arts, or a book recommended by the American Culinary Federation. You could also visit the Culinary Arts Museum or another museum related to food.

Source

[murderousink23]

07/25/2023 is National Culinarian's Day 🍳🇺🇲, National Hot Fudge Sundae Day 🍨🇺🇲, National Merry-Go-Round Day 🎠🇺🇲, National Threading the Needle Day 🧵🇺🇲, Christmas in July 🎄⛱, National Wine and Cheese Day 🍷🧀🇬🇧

[doc-avalon]

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Holidays and Items of Note for July 25, 2021

*   Hot Fudge Sundae Day (U.S.)

*   Merry-Go-Round Day (U.S.)

*   National Wine and Cheese Day (U.S.)

*   National Parent’s Day

*   Aniversario de la Revolución "Revolution Anniversary" (Cuba) wonder how that's going to go this year.

*   Father's Day (Dominican Republic)

*   Constitution Day (Puerto Rico)

*   Culinarians Day (International) holiday that honors all cooks and chefs who bring good taste and great food in people's lives.

*   Day of Aegir and Ran (Celtic) also known as Haymonath.

*   Furrinalia (Ancient Rome) For Furrina, a river goddess about which we now know little if anything.

*   Day Out of Time (Mayan) The last day of the galactic year in the Mayan and Galactic calendar.

*   Plant Turnips Today (American folklore) This use to be the day that farmers thought was the best day of the year to sow turnip seeds.

[brookston]

Holidays 7.25

Holidays

Act Like a Caveman Day

Arthouse Theatre Day

Battle of Isted Day (Denmark)

Bayreuther Festspiele begins (Wagner festival; Germany) [thru 8.28]

Be Adamant About Something Day

Carousel Day

Chicory Day

Community Day (Galicia, Spain)

CTNNB1 Awareness Day

Ebernoe Horn Fair (Sussex, UK)

Feed the Country Ducks Day

Festival of Picaresque Animality

Fire Service Day (Belarus)

Grotto Day (UK)

Guancaste Day (Costa Rica)

Health and Happiness with Hypnosis Day

International AfroLatinx, AfroCaribbean & Diaspora Women’s Day

International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners

International Red Shoe Day

International Stop Rapping Over Vocals Day

John Knill Day (Cornwall, UK) [Every 5 Years]

Jumatul Bidah (Bangladesh)

Jumat-ul-Wida (India)

Merry-Go-Round Day [also 5.17]

Miracle Treat Day (Canada)

Mugwort Day (French Republic)

National African American Hepatitis C Action Day

National Campus Press Freedom Day (Philippines)

National Carousel Day

National Clay Day

National Day of Galicia (Spain)

National Day of the Writer (Brazil)

National Hire a Veteran Day

National Houston Day

National Schizophrenia Awareness Day (UK)

National Video Game Team Day

Occupation Day (Puerto Rico)

Patient Safety Day

Rain of Black Worms Day (Romania)

Red Shoe Day

Republic Day (Tunisia)

Road Transport Workers’ Day (Tajikistan)

Rosiland Franklin Day

Santiago Apóstol (Spain)

725 Day (Las Vegas)

Test-Tube Baby Day

Thread the Needle Day

Traditional Palestinian Dress Day

World Drowning Prevention Day (UN)

World Embryologist Day

World IVF Day

World Youth Days 2023 begins (Lisbon, Portugal; Roman Catholic; until 7.31) [Varies; @Every 3 Years]

Food & Drink Celebrations

Antifascist Pasta Day (Italy)

Candles on a Cake Day

Culinarian’s Day

Frozen Fruit Freeze/Juice Day

Indie Beer Day (Australia)

National Hot Fudge Sundae Day

National Wine and Cheese Day

Independence & Related Days

Abode of Heaven (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Andany (Declared; 2017; Dissolved Sep. 2018) [unrecognized]

Atlia (Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Commonwealth Constitution Day (Puerto Rico) 

Rathunis (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]

Revolution Anniversary Day (Cuba)

New Year’s Days

A Day Out of Time (Last Day of the Year; Mayan, Galactic)

4th & Last Thursday in July

Berne Swiss Festival begins (ends Saturday; Indiana) [4th Thursday]

International Digital Adoption Professionals Day [Last Thursday]

National Chili Dog Day [Last Thursday]

National Intern Day [Last Thursday]

Great Texas Mosquito Festival begins (ends Saturday) [4th Thursday]

National Refreshment Day [4th Thursday]

Shiraz Day (Australia) [4th Thursday]

Weekly Holidays beginning July 25 (4th Week of July)

Quilt Odyssey Week (thru 7.28) [Last Thursday thru Saturday]

Festivals Beginning July 25, 2024

Antigua Carnival (St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda) [thru 8.6]

Bangor State Fair - Bangor, Maine) [7.28 & 8.1-3]

Beer Garden (Jackson, Wisconsin) [thru 7.26]

The Big Seafood Festival (Manitowoc, Wisconsin) [thru 7.26]

Burn in the Forest (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) [thru 7.29]

Calgary Folk Music Festival (Calgary, Canada) [thru 7.28]

Cambridge Folk Festival (Cherry Hinton, United Kingdom) [thru 7.28]

Camp Bestival (East Lulworth, United Kingdom) [thru 7.28]

Cave City Watermelon Festival (Cave City, Arkansas) [thru 7.27]

Down to Earth Summer Conference & Trade Show (Wachusett Mountain, Westminster, Massachusetts)

Elkader Sweet Corn Days (Elkader, Iowa) [thru 7.28]

Glier’s Goettafest (Newport, Kentucky) [7.28 & 8.1-4]

Iron River Lions Blueberry Festival (Iron River, Wisconsin) [thru 7.28]

Kneading Conference (Skowhegan, Maine) [thru 7.26]

Labadie Rib Fest (Bay City, Michigan) [thru 7.28]

Latitude Festival (Southwold, Suffolk, England) [thru 7.28]

Munger Potato Festival (Munger, Michigan) [thru 7.28]

Plumas Sierra County Fair (Quincy, California) [thru 7.28]

San Diego Comic-Con International (San Diego, California) [thru 7.28]

Southeast Alaska State Fair (Haines, Alaska) [thru 7.28]

Stan Rogers Folk Festival (Canso, Canada) [thru 7.29]

Sugar Grove Corn Boil (Sugar Grove, Illinois) [thru 7.28]

Viljandi Folk Music Festival (Viljandi, Estonia) [thru 7.28]

Whole Hawg Days & Poker Run (Eufaula, Oklahoma) [thru 7.27]

WOMAD (Wiltshire, United Kingdom) [thru 7.28]

Feast Days

Alexander Rummler (Artology)

Anne (Eastern Christianity)

Christmas in July

Christopher (Western Christianity)

Cucuphas (a.k.a. Cueufas, Cougat; Christian; Saint)

CW Apple Day (Celtic Book of Days)

Elias Canetti (Writerism)

Eric Hoffer (Writerism)

Feast of Formation of Saint Ann (Mother of the Virgin Mary; Byzantine Rite)

Festival of Paper Dolls (Japan; Everyday Wicca)

The Festival of the Knee Knockers (Shamanism)

Furrinalia (Old Roman Goddess of Springs)

Glodesind (Christian; Saint)

Grand Fête des Escaldes (Andorra)

Holbein (Positivist; Saint)

Hot Fudge Sundae Day (Pastafarian)

Ilyap'a Festival (Inca thunder god)

James the Great (Western Christianity)

Jane Frank (Artology)

John I Agnus (Christian; Saint)

Josephine Tey (Writerism)

Julian of Le Mans (Christian; Translation)

Magnerich of Trier (Christian; Saint)

Maxfield Parrish (Artology)

National Baha’i Day (Jamaica)

Nissen, Abbot of Mountgarret, Ireland (Christian; Saint)

Paul (Christian; Martyr)

Shylock Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Slippery Slim (Muppetism)

Thea and Valentina (Christian; Virgins)

Thomas Eakins (Artology)

Unveiling Day (Satanism)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Premieres

The Adventures of André & Wally B. (Pixar Cartoon; 1984)

Air Force One (Film; 1997)

Alice the Whaler (Ub Iwerks Disney Cartoon; 1927)

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (Film; 2008)

Armor Wars (Film; 2025)

Auto-da-Fé, by Elias Canetti (Novel; 1935)

Back in Black, by AC/DC (Album; 1980)

Batman: The Killing Joke (Animated Film; 2016)

Broken Quest (Animated tV Series; 2013)

Caddyshack (Film; 1980)

China Grove, by the Doobie Brothers (Song; 1973)

A Chorus Line (Broadway Musical; 1975)

Drinking Buddies (Film; 2013)

Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (WB MM Cartoon; 1953)

Dylan Goes Electric (at the Newport Folk Festival; 1965)

Einstein on the Beach, by Philip Glass (Opera; 1976)

Fame, by David Bowie (Song; 1975)

First Lensman, by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Novel; 1950) [Lensman #2]

Good Burger (Film; 1997)

He Can’t Make It Stick (Color Rhapsody Cartoon; 1943)

Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man (Film; 1962)

Justice League: Warworld (WB Animated Film; 2023)

Kill ‘Em All, by Metallica (Album; 1983)

Lara Croft Tom Raider: The Cradle of Life (Film; 2003)

Last Train to Clarksville, recorded by The Monks (Song; 1966)

Lego Scooby-Doo! Blowout Beach Bash (WB Animated Film; 2017)

Life is Elsewhere, by Milan Kundera (Novel; 1973)

Lucy (Film; 2014)

Maximum Overdrive (Film; 1986)

Much Ado About Mutton (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1947)

The New Car (Ub Iwerks MGM Cartoon; 1931)

Paul’s Boutique, by The Beastie Boys (Album; 1989)

Porky’s Spring Planting (WB LT Cartoon; 1938)

Red Dawn (Film; 1984)

Ruby Sparks (Film; 2012)

Salmon Pink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1975)

Seabiscuit (Film; 2003)

Step Brothers (Film; 2008)

The Tree’s Knees (WB LT Cartoon; 1931)

Twelve O’Clock and All Ain’t Well (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1941)

X-Files: I Want to Believe (Film; 2008)

Yes, by Yes (Album; 1969)

You Can’t Hurry Love, by The Supremes (Song; 1966)

Today’s Name Days

Jakob, Jakobus, Thea, Thomas, Valentina (Austria)

Ana, Yana (Bulgaria)

Beata, Jakov, Krsto, Valentina (Croatia)

Jakub (Czech Republic)

Jacobus (Denmark)

Jaagup, Jaak, Jaako, Jaap, Jako, Jakob, Jass (Estonia)

Jaakko, Jaakob, Jaakoppi, Jimi (Finland)

Jacques, Valentine (France)

Jakob, Valentine (Germany)

Anna (Greece)

Jakab, Kristóf (Hungary)

Cristoforo, Giacomo (Italy)

Jēkabs, Marika (Latvia)

Aušrinė, Jokūbas, Kristupas (Lithuania)

Jack, Jakob, Jim (Norway)

Jakub, Krzysztof, Nieznamir, Sławosz, Walentyna (Poland)

Jakub (Slovakia)

Jaime, Santiago (Spain)

Jakob (Sweden)

Jac, Jack, Jacki, Jackie, Jackson, Jacky, Jacques, Jimmie (Universal)

Coby, Colby, Diego, Israel, Jacob, Jacoby, Jack, Jackie, Jackson, Jaclyn, Jacqueline, Jacquelyn, Jacques, Jaime, Jake, Jakob, James, Jameson, Jamie, Jaquan, Jaqueline, Jaxon, Jaxson, Jim, Jimena, Jimmie, Jimmy, Kobe, Koby, Kolby, Santiago (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 207 of 2024; 159 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 4 of Week 30 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Tinne (Holly) [Day 19 of 28]

Chinese: Month 6 (Xin-Wei), Day 20 (Geng-Yin)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 19 Tammuz 5784

Islamic: 18 Muharram 1446

J Cal: 27 Red; Sixday [27 of 30]

Julian: 12 July 2024

Moon: 79%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 10 Dante (8th Month) [Holbein]

Runic Half Month: Thorn (Defense) [Day 2 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 36 of 94)

Week: 4th Week of July

Zodiac: Leo (Day 4 of 31)

[amolcurioussole]

Fine dining, extraordinary ambience,

high-end services, whiz culinarian, vogue recipes, value food and satisfying taste buds under one ceiling is the standard portrayal of the restaurant. The concept restaurant is highly esteemed with the value of social integrity. Restaurants are the splendid symbol of civilization, where people feel honoured for each other. Human love to enjoy food with family and friends. Love to cherished the occasion and appreciate every single moment. But, this time something is very serious. Presently, we are on the odd side. Global restaurant business is on a ventilator. Many players have already run out of business. Some are still sustaining on water-thin liquidity reserves.

But, how far? Don't know, Pray for them.

According to the latest restaurant market research reports, the global restaurant Industry stands for $2.7 trillion sales in the year 2019 and predicted to grow at 3.8% every year.

India

        In terms of sales value, after the USA ($987 billion) and China ($897 billion), India is the third-largest contributor in the restaurant business to the global economy. Around 50% of the total restaurants in the country are going to shut in the coming days, if the situation does not control in time. National Restaurant Association of India is assessing the future of 500000 members who are going to lose 800 billion in the current year. Approximately 90% of restaurants in the country are operating on a lease basis. Out of which many are located in malls and few are on high streets and commercial areas. Even NRAI has requested landlords to forgo rentals and common area maintenance for over 100 days till June end, but the request is still on hold. Online food delivery Platforms like zomato and swiggy has suspended operations in several states across the country due to static operational failures.

USA

         Billion-dollar baby. The USA fetched $987 billion solitary from the restaurant business in the last year 2019. Current situation is not looking good. Many popular restaurants around the USA are experiencing a big swoop in business.

Cafe la Trova

Miami Beach, Florida based restaurant who gained immense regional popularity with its divergence of Cuban Cuisine, as well as the Signature cocktail, is closed indefinitely. 

Canlis

Seattle, Washington based restaurant which is famous for a bagel in breakfast, burger in lunch and a family meal in dinner theme. The restaurant is popular for Queen Anne dining services, which earned A design award from the James Beard Foundation, is also closed for an indefinite duration.

               Global restaurant business has already slumped. From procurement of essential supplies to delivering services everything has devastated. In short global supply chain has entirely frightened. The year 2020 is the worst-ever year for the global restaurant business. Global restaurant business will decline at least by 54% in the current year. 

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 7.25

Holidays

Act Like a Caveman Day

Antifascist Pasta Day (Italy)

Bayreuther Festspiele begins (Wagner festival; Germany) [thru 8.28]

Be Adamant About Something Day

Community Day (Galicia, Spain)

CTNNB1 Awareness Day

A Day Out of Time (Last Day of the Year; Mayan, Galactic)

Ebernoe Horn Fair (Sussex, UK)

Feed the Country Ducks Day

Festival of Picaresque Animality

Health and Happiness with Hypnosis Day

International AfroLatinx, AfroCaribbean & Diaspora Women’s Day

International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners

International Red Show Day

International Sop Rapping Over Vocals Day

John Knill Day (Cornwall, UK) [Every 5 Years]

Jumatul Bidah (Bangladesh)

Jumat-ul-Wida (India)

Merry-Go-Round Day [also 5.17]

Mugwort Day (French Republic)

National African American Hepatitis C Action Day

National Campus Press Freedom Day (Philippines)

National Carousel Day

National Clay Day

National Day of Galicia (Spain)

National Hire a Veteran Day

National Houston Day

National Schizophrenia Awareness Day (UK)

National Video Game Team Day

Occupation Day (Puerto Rico)

Rain of Black Worms Day (Romania)

Red Shoe Day

Republic Day (Tunisia)

Rosiland Franklin Day

Santiago Apóstol (Spain)

Test-Tube Baby Day

Thread the Needle Day

Traditional Palestinian Dress Day

World Drowning Prevention Day (UN)

World Embryologist Day

World IVF Day

World Youth Days 2023 begins (Lisbon, Portugal; Roman Catholic; until 7.31) [Varies; @Every 3 Years]

Food & Drink Celebrations

Candles on a Cake Day

Culinarian’s Day

Frozen Fruit Freeze Day

Indie Beer Day (Australia)

National Hot Fudge Sundae Day

National Wine and Cheese Day

4th Tuesday in July

Waterton-Glacier Science & History Day [4th Tuesday]

Independence Days

Abode of Heaven (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Andany (Declared; 2017; Dissolved Sep. 2018) [unrecognized]

Commonwealth Constitution Day (Puerto Rico) 

Rathunis (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Anne (Eastern Christianity)

Christopher (Western Christianity)

Cucuphas (a.k.a. Cueufas, Cougat; Christian; Saint)

Feast of Formation of Saint Ann (Mother of the Virgin Mary; Byzantine Rite)

Furrinalia (Old Roman Goddess of Springs)

Glodesind (Christian; Saint)

Holbein (Positivist; Saint)

Hot Fudge Sundae Day (Pastafarian)

Ilyap'a Festival (Inca thunder god)

James the Great (Western Christianity)

John I Agnus (Christian; Saint)

Julian of Le Mans (Christian; Translation)

Magnerich of Trier (Christian; Saint)

Maxfield Parrish (Artology)

National Baha’i Day (Jamaica)

Nissen, Abbot of Mountgarret, Ireland (Christian; Saint)

Paul (Christian; Martyr)

Shylock Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Slippery Slim (Muppetism)

Thea and Valentina (Christian; Virgins)

Thomas Eakins (Artology)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Premieres

The Adventures of André & Wally B. (Pixar Cartoon; 1984)

Air Force One (Film; 1997)

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (Film; 2008)

Armor Wars (Film; 2025)

Back in Black, by AC/DC (Album; 1980)

Batman: The Killing Joke (Animated Film; 2016)

Broken Quest (Animated tV Series; 2013)

Caddyshack (Film; 1980)

China Grove, by the Doobie Brothers (Song; 1973)

A Chorus Line (Broadway Musical; 1975)

Drinking Buddies (Film; 2013)

Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (WB MM Cartoon; 1953)

Fame, by David Bowie (Song; 1975)

First Lensman, by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Novel; 1950) [Lensman #2]

Good Burger (Film; 1997)

Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man (Film; 1962)

Justice League: Warworld (WB Animated Film; 2023)

Kill ‘Em All, by Metallica (Album; 1983)

Lara Croft Tom Raider: The Cradle of Life (Film; 2003)

Last Train to Clarksville, recorded by The Monks (Song; 1966)

Lego Scooby-Doo! Blowout Beach Bash (WB Animated Film; 2017)

Lucy (Film; 2014)

Maximum Overdrive (Film; 1986)

Paul’s Boutique, by The Beastie Boys (Album; 1989)

Porky’s Spring Planting (WB LT Cartoon; 1938)

Ruby Sparks (Film; 2012)

Seabiscuit (Film; 2003)

Step Brothers (Film; 2008)

The Tree’s Knees (WB LT Cartoon; 1931)

X-Files: I Want to Believe (Film; 2008)

Yes, by Yes (Album; 1969)

You Can’t Hurry Love, by The Supremes (Song; 1966)

Today’s Name Days

Jakob, Jakobus, Thea, Thomas, Valentina (Austria)

Ana, Yana (Bulgaria)

Beata, Jakov, Krsto, Valentina (Croatia)

Jakub (Czech Republic)

Jacobus (Denmark)

Jaagup, Jaak, Jaako, Jaap, Jako, Jakob, Jass (Estonia)

Jaakko, Jaakob, Jaakoppi, Jimi (Finland)

Jacques, Valentine (France)

Jakob, Valentine (Germany)

Anna (Greece)

Jakab, Kristóf (Hungary)

Cristoforo, Giacomo (Italy)

Jēkabs, Marika (Latvia)

Aušrinė, Jokūbas, Kristupas (Lithuania)

Jack, Jakob, Jim (Norway)

Jakub, Krzysztof, Nieznamir, Sławosz, Walentyna (Poland)

Jakub (Slovakia)

Jaime, Santiago (Spain)

Jakob (Sweden)

Jac, Jack, Jacki, Jackie, Jackson, Jacky, Jacques, Jimmie (Universal)

Coby, Colby, Diego, Israel, Jacob, Jacoby, Jack, Jackie, Jackson, Jaclyn, Jacqueline, Jacquelyn, Jacques, Jaime, Jake, Jakob, James, Jameson, Jamie, Jaquan, Jaqueline, Jaxon, Jaxson, Jim, Jimena, Jimmie, Jimmy, Kobe, Koby, Kolby, Santiago (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 206 of 2024; 159 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 30 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Tinne (Holly) [Day 16 of 28]

Chinese: Month 6 (Ji-Wei), Day 8 (Jia-Shen)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 7 Av 5783

Islamic: 7 Muharram 1445

J Cal: 26 Lux; Fiveday [26 of 30]

Julian: 12 July 2023

Moon: 50%: 1st Quarter

Positivist: 10 Dante (8th Month) [Holbein]

Runic Half Month: Ur (Primal Strength) [Day 12 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 35 of 94)

Zodiac: Leo (Day 4 of 31)