I’m a product of the late 50’s — a Baby Boomer who grew up in a simpler time, and a period in culinary cultural history where cooking for the family was all about convenience.
Like many of my generation, one of the “meals” my mother made from time to time was the classic TV Dinner. You know…Swanson… badly cooked proteins (usually greasy fried chicken or salisbury steak with faux grill marks smothered in mystery gravy) coupled with either soggy or dried out vegetables in a sectioned foil tray. Oh yeah, almost forgot the cobbler.
My secret hope is that this experience was the motivation behind my appreciation of finer foods today.
Well, the Loews Regency Park Hotel in New York City is putting a gourmet twist on the TV Dinner by offering its guests three retro-turned-modern dinners: Slow Braised Pot Roast; Park Avenue Fried Chicken; and Wasabi Crusted North Atlantic Wild Salmon.
I gotta say that the sheer novelty of what Chef Andrew Rubin is doing by taking this approach gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling; harking back to my childhood of literally sitting in front of the TV with my TV dinner. An updated difference, however, is that Loews’ gourmet TV dinners are $30 each, not 3 for a buck!
The dose of reality, however, is that my mother would have never ever attempted serving us salmon — unless it came from a can.
Sorry mom.
Great blog!
Think about what’s happening with “country cooking” in France, or with the resurgence of farmer’s markets in neighborhoods around the country — people are reinventing their relationship with food, and we’re getting smarter about what goes into the food, where it comes from, and how it’s delivered to us:
http://connectme.typepad.com/news/2008/06/reliving-the-70.html