Whoa...

I have been meaning to give this place a try. I just hope I have nothing but good things to say about it when I do!

hungryinchicago wrote:OK, fine so if they're out on Saturday, what are the chances they'd be out on Sunday too?

Once you understand the nature of the establishment and consider the circumstances, this would be relatively easy to gauge, IMO. They are a very small, 2-person operation. There's only so much they can produce in a 24-hour period. Given the extraordinarily warm weather/resulting foot traffic and the fact that they'd run out the previous day, if it had been me, calling before going there on Sunday would have been a requisite move. Frankly, I'm thrilled to know this news. Not only am I happy for Natalie and Nick but it's also nice to know that the very nature of how they've chosen to do things all but guarantees unparalleled freshness in their products. This is how little shops in countries all over Europe operate. I find it refreshing to see this mindset in local foodservice and wish it were more common. In the specific case of PN, I also consider it an integral part of their authenticity. If you want a guarantee that goods will be in stock when you arrive at the store -- and that's the most important criterium for you -- either call first or go to Jewel.

=R=

mtyf wrote:Whoa...

I have been meaning to give this place a try. I just hope I have nothing but good things to say about it when I do!

I don't think anyone here objects to legitimate criticism, including dislike, of the food. In fact, if you scroll through this long thread, you will find that on more than one occasion. Early on, many were legitimately peeved by inconsistent hours as well. But accusing owners of getting a "sick ego boost" because you happen to be disappointed isn't the kind of thing that impresses many people. Cheap shots at owners who, I think it fair to say, have demonstrated over and again to many in this community, their care, concern, and affection for their customers, aren't especially welcomed. Particularly when, given plenty of opportunity to--at the least--tone down his or her personal attack, he or she refuses to do so. This site is about the food, good or bad, and self-indulgent hissy fits aren't appropriate. If you're unhappy, fine. If you're disappointed, fine. Criticize away. But ad hominem attacks aren't legitimate.

Elfin wrote:Tag's in Evanston makes a thin round cookie that has a chocolate bottom and thin sliced almonds with a carmel glaze and a small red cherry piece in the middle that is my favorite cookie in the world.

Sparky offered a somewhat disconnected review of this cookie in the Friday Cookie Gazette.

Pasticceria Natalina has received quite a bit of LTH love since it opened. My personal opinion is that it has deserved that love. However, it is now up for GNR renewal and, although lots of people have looked at the renewal thread, I'm the only person who has posted. That not only astonishes me, it disappoints and saddens me. More important, if that continues to be the case, I don't see how its GNR status can be renewed. So this is a plea to all of you who have visited, to all of you who have posted, and to all of you who have enjoyed PN, Natalie and Nick, and--most of all--the pastries, candies, etc., PLEASE post your opinions on the renewal thread (not here)!

Gypsy Boy wrote:Pasticceria Natalina has received quite a bit of LTH love since it opened. My personal opinion is that it has deserved that love. However, it is now up for GNR renewal and, although lots of people have looked at the renewal thread, I'm the only person who has posted. That not only astonishes me, it disappoints and saddens me. More important, if that continues to be the case, I don't see how its GNR status can be renewed. So this is a plea to all of you who have visited, to all of you who have posted, and to all of you who have enjoyed PN, Natalie and Nick, and--most of all--the pastries, candies, etc., PLEASE post your opinions on the renewal thread (not here)!

GB,

I'm pretty sure the voters are savvy enough not to do a mere tally of the responses in the renewal thread. They'll certainly be looking at the history of posts in this thread and others over the last 2 years, and PN ought to be a slam dunk. I've been posting within the renewal threads only when I have something to say that I haven't already said (multiple times) in the body of the forum.

Kenny

Kenny is correct. I'd wager that PN has nothing to worry about. It's gotten continued positive reviews (and lots of 'em) since the award was given. In fact, I can't think of another GNR that better defines every quality of what goes into becoming a GNR.

Gypsy Boy wrote:So this is a plea to all of you who have visited, to all of you who have posted, and to all of you who have enjoyed PN, Natalie and Nick, and--most of all--the pastries, candies, etc., PLEASE post your opinions on the renewal thread (not here)!

GB,

Settle down soldier, GNRs are not based solely on posts in the specific GNR thread, be it renewal or newly awarded, its overall board discussion and tenor of discussion over the course of time that matters.

Enjoy,
Gary

I had the Tiramisu and the Aragostine tonight. Fantastic as always.

More importantly, Nick said that the special Easter menu will be out around the beginning of March. Nick said he is tempted to make a Lamb Pie again this year, but they are a lot of work so he wasn't sure he would do it. I wish I could just pressure him into it by promising to buy a few, but as with most items there, sales are not the issue. Now if anyone was willing to go and lend a helping hand for some of the harder items to make...then we might be able to get somewhere.

Anyone check out the easter goodies yet? If not, I will try to report once I get back tonight since I will be heading up to there after reserving some stuff this morning and studying for finals.

Pastry princessses bare fangs: http://chicago.grubstreet.com/2009/10/n ... ah_le.html

Wow! Now this might inspire me get Tweeterer. I have to say that while I agree with Natalie's sentiment about Sarah's, her choice to voice it in this way strikes me as uncalled for.

Kennyz wrote:Wow! Now this might inspire me get Tweeterer. I have to say that while I agree with Natalie's sentiment about Sarah's, her choice to voice it in this way strikes me as uncalled for.

Unkinder, even, than David Tamarkin's savaging of bacon days before the Seth's bacon event at Publican. Knives are out.

David Hammond wrote:Pastry princessses bare fangs: http://chicago.grubstreet.com/2009/10/n ... ah_le.html

To be fair, it was only one pastry "princess" (Zarzour) that bore her fangs.

From Zarzour: I want to see a greater appreciation for this art form. Everyone's afraid to start the conversation because it creates hostility — I don't care. the conversation needs to be had.

Applause.

David Hammond wrote:Pastry princessses bare fangs: http://chicago.grubstreet.com/2009/10/n ... ah_le.html

Wow. Clearly I'm following the wrong people (or at least much less angry people) on Twitter. I'm surprised and disappointed that Natalie would slam a competitor like that. That's yucky energy to put into food. I think I'm pretty critical of pastry, and Sarah's is far from my favorite, but even I wouldn't dismiss it as cheap and trashy.

It would strike me as obnoxious if it came from anyone other than Chicago's niche Sicilian/Italian pastry MVP. I mean for Allah's sake, last week I picked up a orange blossom custard beignet with a crisp sugar coating. Who the hell else makes that? Definitely not this Leventhal character.

Habibi wrote:I mean for Allah's sake, last week I picked up a orange blossom custard beignet with a crisp sugar coating. Who the hell else makes that? Definitely not this Leventhal character.

I've had that beignet three times, and I agree it's one of the best pastries I've ever had, would eat one once a week if I lived closer, but what disappoints me most about Natalie's attack is that Sarah's isn't even trying (or pretending to try) to do remotely the same thing as Pasticceria Natalina. Sarah's is a totally different enterprise that I think is pretty upfront about their heavily frosted cookies and saccharine packaging. They make sweet things available to people who need a break from shopping on Michigan Avenue and State Street. Natalina's is interested in Sicilian traditions, finer ingredients and caters to a completely different crowd. I'm fine with Natalie's call for more critical discourse on pastry. The slam, however, was uncalled for.

This is one of those threads where you subconsciously watch it build for days on the front page without ever clicking inside to see what's happening, just kind of caught in the reverie that new posts can contain nothing other than reminders of Natalie's cuteness and excellent sugarplum-and-sunlight confections.

Then you wake up and realize Steve Plotnicki has burned Smoque to the ground after a dinner dispute with Michael Jordan and Skip Bayless over barbecue and hot dog toppings.

Kennyz wrote:I have to say that while I agree with Natalie's sentiment about Sarah's, her choice to voice it in this way strikes me as uncalled for.

I agree completely with what Natalie said about Sarah's, but I also think she should have kept her mouth shut . . . certainly in public. No good can come from this criticism and it was very unprofessional. Moreover, if it takes Natalie's comments to help you realize that Sarah's sweetened lump of corn flakes is neither candy nor pastry, then you were probably not going to become a student of the fine art of pastry.

Bill wrote:

From Zarzour: I want to see a greater appreciation for this art form. Everyone's afraid to start the conversation because it creates hostility — I don't care. the conversation needs to be had.

Applause.

With all due respect to someone who clearly has a put a lot of thought (and well-thought out responses) into the discourse here at LTH, I disagree. I'm all for a higher appreciation of pastry makers and their art form, it would be hard for anybody to argue against that. And we all realize that the more we know about where/who our food comes from, the more we appreciate and understand the effects our purchases have on the culinary (as well as economic) landscape that those of us here love to talk about every day.

But Natalie Zarzour is saying that the average home baker (who probably bakes what, ~6-10 times a year max?) should be buying baking textbooks instead of cookbooks. This person does not care about the science behind pastrymaking; this person wants to bake a cake for a kid's birthday or cookies at christmas. This person does not care about the science behind the rising of the dough and does not want to pore over chapters of a textbook. This person wants to throw a bunch of stuff in the stand mixer at medium-high speed, pour it into a pan, stick a toothpick in after 30 minutes, and frost it before the company shows up. Should they have an appreciation for what a real pastry chef does while they're stuffing their craws? Sure. But as far as pastries are concerned, the outcome for them is the same whether they're eating the result of a day's work from an heirloom sfogliatelle recipe or the result of an hour's work from the back of the Domino Sugar canister. They enjoyed something sweet and if they're lucky, they shared it.

If they're interested in going further down the rabbit hole, that's obviously the next step. But I think part of the reason behind things like the cupcake craze is that pastries are an indulgence, a comfort pursuit, and most people are just as happy eating something with cream cheese frosting as they are eating something with an artisan-crafted pastry cream.

Well, we certainly wouldn't want snarky opinions about restaurants on the internet.

Mike G wrote:Well, we certainly wouldn't want snarky opinions about restaurants on the internet.

Yes, but this one comes from one colleague to another, which puts it in a different category. Frankly, it just seems like Zarzour is jealous of Levy having published a cookbook. I think Oculi's comments ring true.

But as far as pastries are concerned, the outcome for them is the same whether they're eating the result of a day's work from an heirloom sfogliatelle recipe or the result of an hour's work from the back of the Domino Sugar canister.

Or requesting a side of cookie dough.

Mike G wrote:Or requesting a side of cookie dough.

Well, not everybody gets such unfettered access as Chicago's PREMIERE food blogcasting personality

As such, I don't think it's fair to classify somebody who doesn't want to spend three hours baking and who doesn't give a damn about those who do as a World-Class Ass.

Having literally just walked in my house from Pasticceria Natalina, I knew nothing of this controversy.

I say brava Natalina! If it's not politically correct, fine with me. If more people called it as they saw it, particularly those that really do have the talent or are in the know, maybe the state of mediocrity in the United States of Generica would diminish slightly. She's hypersensitive on the subject of her art and her opinion is valid. I know that feeling well. Easy to sit on the couch and criticize her lack of good manners, or whatever the complaint is. Much harder to do something superb.

As my grandmother would say "the truth you can say on anybody".

Flattery will get you everywhere, Oculi. That said, I'm kind of surprised that people are so dismissive of whether Natalie ought to be slagging on a competitor. Yeah, it may be kind of catty, but it also represents her real zeal for excellence as manifested in disdain for somebody who turns out an inferior product-- and remember it's not just the existence of this Michigan Ave. tourist trap that prompted her to attack it, but the fact that this woman is passing on her Sandra Lee-esque bad habits by way of a cookbook.

As someone who firmly believes that the second-best thing you can do for the cause of good food on the internet is subject someplace crappy to ridicule, I'm happy to see chefs join in without speaking in guarded marketingspeak.

and remember it's not just the existence of this Michigan Ave. tourist trap that prompted her to attack it, but the fact that this woman is passing on her Sandra Lee-esque bad habits by way of a cookbook.

Seems then the right response would be to write your own cookbook to get across your point of view rather than twittering. I'd buy it if she published one.

rickster wrote:Seems then the right response would be to write your own cookbook to get across your point of view rather than twittering. I'd buy it if she published one.

I agree. The classiest options would be to either show people how a proper pastry cookbook should be done, or keep her mouth shut and let her superior product do the talking. That way she'd either come off as a true artisan who actually knows what she's talking about and wants to share that knowledge with home cooks, or a true artisan who cares too much about her craft to concern herself with petty b.s..

To passive-aggressively talk smack on SpaceBook or TweetFace instantly reeks of sour grapes to me.

rickster wrote:Seems then the right response would be to write your own cookbook to get across your point of view rather than twittering. I'd buy it if she published one.

Denigrating a cookbook that uses boxed mix as an ingredient is fine, but how can you possibly justify the desire for every home baker to get a pastry textbook instead of a cookbook?