On February 23rd, Bon Appétit published an new entry in their series The Receipt. The Receipt is sort like a money diary on what some spends in a week on food. (OP Note: Since media literacy eludes many people who spend too much time on social media, please note that The Receipt series has featured varied incomes from people on food stamps to multimillionaires. Also this guy isn’t trying to be relatable and would you expect him to be? And being enraged is still good publication revenue and The Receipt an interesting series.)
Tasting menus at Michelin star restaurants, $90 glass of brandy, 50 cent frozen yogurt, duck pithivier, dungeness-stuffed squid, and homemade carnitas. The 45-year orchestra conductor, who claims to make $950,000 in San Francisco spent $3506.41 on food. Let me remind you for the week… for the week.
HOWEVER
Who is this man?* The San Francisco Chronicle had doubts about this salary because well no one can pinpoint who this man is despite some personal details listed in the story. There’s superstar conductors who can pull around $2 million like Michael Tilson Thomas and Esa-Pekka Salonen. So with that salary like that, how come this conductor isn’t easily identifiable with such a highly visible and prestigious position?
“I don’t think conductors are making a million dollars a year,” said Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, San Francisco’s Symphony’s resident conductor. The average salary is anywhere from $200,000 to $600,000. The unnamed gourmand could to guest conducting or music directorship. When Joshua Kosman, who covers classical music for the SF Chronicle, reached out to his contacts — no one could conjure up who the man was. Kosman theorizes some of the details may be embellished to not reveal his identity.
Sources: The Receipt (Bone Apple Tea) | San Francisco Chronicle | BA IG
What was your favorite thing from the “transcendent” palate of this conductor? Do you think it was a spendy week for him, a following week relegated to Kid Cuisine?
What’s the most you’ve ever spent on a meal?
*Some transcendent digging resulted in a few believing they confirmed his identity.
