Fat Guy

What I'm saying is that you don't define the standard for anyone other than you. It's nice that you pursue a policy of disclosure of everything you feel might be a conflict of interest, but that doesn't make someone else a lesser journalist for not doing so. It is emphatically not the norm to disclose every comp and instance of special treatment. Food writers at every level -- even those in the employ of the New York Times -- spend time with chefs, eat food they haven't paid for, etc. In general, you are more likely to see disclosure of such things on message boards than anywhere else. Certainly you don't see it much in Gourmet or Bon Appetit. I happen to think such disclosures can be healthy. But I think it's downright silly to demand them across all media.

I don't see it as an all-or-nothing proposition either. But we have people saying Josh is "in those people's pockets," a "shill for Pat Lafreida" (you have said this too), and that he publishes "false information based upon rumors." So the faux-even-handedness of later comments -- oh, I don't mean anything personal against Josh -- rings hollow.

But that's the same reductionist position that Sneakeater is taking, where all food journalism gets held up to the standard set by Frank Bruni and the New York Times. That's the tail wagging the dog. Yes, if you present yourself as an anonymous, arms-length critic the public has the right to expect you to be anonymous and arms-length (forget for the moment that most so-called anonymous reviewers aren't most of the time). But if you don't present yourself that way -- and Josh certainly doesn't -- then there should be no such expectation. Josh is not out there to expose what's bad. If that makes the information he provides less appealing to you, so be it.

If that's your translation of what I said, perhaps it's your definition of "journalism" that needs examining. Because bloggers absolutely do practice a form of journalism. What most of them don't do is act like Frank Bruni, who is an atypical case. Dedicated reviewers like Frank Bruni represent a fraction of a percent of people writing about food. Most people writing about food (or talking about it in broadcast media) are not in that sort of oppositional role. Journalism includes a lot of things. It includes what Frank Bruni does but it also includes what Maureen Dowd does, and what Josh Ozersky does. Even on its own terms that argument doesn't add up to "our interests are opposed." At most it establishes that your interests can sometimes be opposed. That your assumptions about what publicists do are false doesn't even enter into the picture yet. That nobody has actually established a factual pattern of Ozersky catering to publicists doesn't either.

So you're either for or against "the restaurant industry" or "the PR side" thereof? That presupposes, doesn't it, that "the restaurant industry" is against you? This all seems quite Manichean.

Is that the role you envision for food bloggers? That they're like regulators or public advocates? If so, then that might warrant a certain code of conduct, in which case it wouldn't be completely nonsensical to call a blogger out for not adhering to that code.

It's hard to have an argument when we're not speaking the same language. At a bare minimum, in the language I speak being in somebody's pocket implies a degree of control. "to have complete control over someone." "if you are in someone's pocket, you do everything that they want you to do" http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/pocket I also associate it mostly with bribery/influence situations, for example the book "Is That a Politician in Your Pocket?: Washington on $2 Million a Day." I just don't think Josh is in anybody's pocket in that sense. Does he have relationships with people in the industry? Yes. So does every mainstream food journalist who's not operating under a reviewer-anonymity system (and so do most of them). But to say he's in anybody's pocket as a result of that is pretty far out. I would still be interested to hear of an example of a situation where this is happening -- where a restaurant that gave Josh extra attention somehow got better-than-it-deserved coverage as a result.

Why? Because he wants to write good things about bad food, so that he can get more of it for free?

Oh totally. Everybody knows that. I would much rather dismiss you as a shill than actually engage you on the merits. It's so much easier to question motives than to have a conversation. You're also a shill for cocktails.

Who cares? It's also possible for two people to disagree without one of them resorting to a conspiracy theory to explain away the other person's positions.

What you said was: To me that's a clear personal criticism and deserves either to be substantiated or retracted.

I'll be the first to agree that Mr. Cutlets did a terrible job defending/explaining himself. But to go back to the accusations: Is the claim that he's taking bribes? That he trades favorable coverage for free meals? That publicists are trading sexual favors with him? Those claims, or any permutation of them, are nonsensical. I've known Josh for something like a decade and have never seen even a hint of such conduct from him. He writes favorably about meals he pays for, as well as comped meals, just like the overwhelming majority of food writers. He likes some restaurants that have nubile publicists, and some restaurants where the publicist is a Yahoo! mail account administered by an ugly guy who can't speak English. Moreover, Citysearch gives Josh the budget to dine wherever he wants so there is no need for him to beg for food. By any definition of "shill," this accusation implies that Ozersky is engaged in some sort of disingenuous attempt to promote Pat La Freida. In other words, that he is motivated by something other than the belief that Pat La Freida has awesome meat. I think it's much more likely, in fact I think it's 100% likely, that Mr. Cutlets simply thinks Pat La Freida has great meat. Mr. Cutlets is a fan of Pat La Freida, simple as that. There's no conspiracy here. Now I happen to think Pat La Freida is overrated, but that's just an honest disagreement. It doesn't mean Mr. Cutlets is a shill. Here there have been no examples cited, so there's nothing to dispute.

In reverse chron order here are the most recent Feedbag entries: "Veritas Rolls Out Major Bar Menu" "Where to Eat in Williamsburg" "How to Use a Wine List 101" "Now Here’s the Flaming Cocktail You’ve Been Missing Out On" "Metromix Scores First Marea Food Porn" "Craig Hopson Rolling Out One Very Trippy $74 Menu at Le Cirque" "Times Hails Bars With No TVs" "Tony Bourdain and I Hit Keens on No Reservations" "Who Will Be Food and Wine’s Best New Chefs?" "Black Truffles and Blue Jeans at Daniel: The Slideshow" "Heading to Orwasher’s, In Search of the Perfect Bun" "John Tesar is Coming to a Fishtail Near You" "Txikito Produces a Genius Hamburger in My Own Backyard" "New Review Fridays: Raines Law Room" "Is This Sculpture At the Armory Show Me? Or No?" I'm having an extremely difficult time finding anything objectionable there. I see no rumormongering, shilling or anything of the sort. Does anybody else? So far we have heard the following accusations: So now I think those who are making such accusations might think about either substantiating them or retracting them. After all we wouldn't want to publish unsubstantiated rumors, would we?

I can think of several instances where the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and 60 Minutes have done that. The Feedbag probably gets some stuff wrong, though no clear examples are coming to mind and none have been cited. But the Feedbag is certainly not a rumor mill. Most of the information is either fact or opinion.

That's the current sum of my knowledge but I'll report anything else I learn. You could compare the 2008 topic to see if anyone else is missing: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=114176

The 7th annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party will be held on June 13th and 14th, 2009, in Madison Square Park. The mailing we got today says this year’s event features two additional hours each day, so it will run 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM. There will be 14 pitmasters: • Kenny Callaghan, Blue Smoke , New York, NY o Kansas City Ribs • Pete Daversa, Hill Country, New York, NY o Beef Brisket • Joe Duncan, Baker’s Ribs, Dallas, TX o Beef Brisket • Jimmy Hagood, BlackJack BBQ, Charleston, SC o Pulled Pork Shoulder • Chris Lilly, Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q, Decatur, AL o Pulled Pork Shoulder • Patrick Martin, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint, Nolensville, TN (NEW) o Whole Hog • Mike Mills, 17th Street Bar & Grill, Murphysboro, IL, Memphis Championship Barbecue, Las Vegas, NV o Baby Back Ribs • Ed Mitchell, The Pit, Raleigh, NC o Whole Hog • Garry Roark, Ubon’s “Champion’s Choice”, Yazoo City, MS o Pulled Pork Shoulder • Drew Robinson, Jim ’N Nick’s Bar-B-Q, Birmingham, AL (NEW) o Smoked Sausage • Michael Rodriguez, The Salt Lick BBQ, Driftwood, TX o Beef Brisket & Sausage • John Stage, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, New York, NY o Pulled Pork Shoulder • John Wheeler, Rack & Soul, New York, NY o Baby Back Ribs • Ed Wilson, Wilson’s Barbeque, Fairfield, CT o Texas-Style Brisket FastPasses are on sale now for $100 each (plus shipping) at www.bigapplebbq.org. (A FastPass guarantees exclusive access to express lines for FastPass holder and one guest throughout the entire weekend.) There will also be seminars and cooking demos, live music, book signings and merchandise. Details will be posted as they become available at www.bigapplebbq.org and we will try to stay on top of all that as well.

Darn, I just remembered about the small amount of frozen chicken that needs to be repurposed as chicken fried rice at some point. Even next week at the end of week 4 I'm going to be left with a surplus of junk in the freezer and pantry unless I get aggressive about feeding other people. Today I actually did some cooking. For lunch we had "biscuit dogs." This is where we encase hot dogs in biscuit dough and bake them into the biscuit equivalent of pigs in blankets. I should also note that biscuit dough is one application where it's not really possible to detect that powdered dry milk was used. For dessert we had the remaining stuff from our Purim gift platter project. When planning dinner I noticed that we had a small bag of frozen ravioli (we also have several larger bags) and a small bag of frozen tortellini. The cooking times on both are the same so I threw them in the pot together and we had both for dinner, along with the last bit of sauce from a dinner last week (or was it the week before).

Just have a look at the first page of the Feedbag blog right now. Do you think all those Williamsburg restaurants are represented by Bullfrog & Baum? Do you think the Susan Magrino agency represents Orwasher's? I have no idea who if anybody represents Txikito. Lots of restaurants get good exposure without publicists. People like Mr. Cutlets are constantly and enthusiastically pursuing leads in the hopes of discovering unrepresented restaurants, where every other blogger in the world hasn't already received the press release.

It seems unreasonable to claim that Mr. Cutlets is a "shill" or in anybody's "pocket." Those are serious accusations of unethical conduct, which don't even remotely reflect his work or approach. I am confident that he is neither accepting bribes nor acting as a plant for anybody. The absolute worst thing that can be said about Mr. Cutlets is that he is, possibly, sometimes influenced, by his relationships with the people and restaurants he's writing, to be more positive than he should be. I'm not even saying this is true. I'm just saying it's the worst-case scenario. Me, I sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with what Mr. Cutlets likes. He definitely has his favorites, as do we all. My favorites are not always the same as his. That's normal. It has never led me to question his sincerity or motives. There's room for simple disagreement in this world without the need to personalize it and label it unethical.

I was just sitting here drawing up an idea list for possible dinners for the next 10 days worth of meals at home and filled it surprisingly quickly. These are just my personal notes, not in chron order, so may not make a lot of sense. 1- chili 1 (in freezer) 2- chili 2 (in freezer) 3- lentil soup (in freezer) 4- hot dogs (in freezer) / biscuits (Bisquick + dry milk) 5- fritatta (using misc. frozen veg) 6- Swedish meatballs (in freezer) 7- pasta 1 (frozen ravioli?) 8- pasta 2 (w/ canned tuna?) 9- beans 1 (black beans w/ rice?) 10- beans 2 (garbanzos somehow?)

Just one possible way to estimate: Let's say there are 111,162,259 households in the US. And let's say each one has an average of $100 of food in inventory that's being carried unnecessarily. That's $11,116,225,900 (eleven billion dollars). I'm guessing the real number is much higher.

It's not that I have such a big freezer, refrigerator or pantry -- I don't even have what could properly be called a pantry -- but going into the third week of this challenge it still just isn't challenging. In part it's because I've allowed the 10% exception (spending 10% of a normal week's grocery budget on supplemental fresh ingrediens) and in part it's because my food-writing and social obligations have led to quite a few meals out of the house -- some with leftovers that I've been able to take home. So, for example, last night I was at a Chinese banquet -- this is something where I was a guest, because remember as part of this experiment I'm not actually spending any money on dining out but I'm accepting the free meal opportunities that come along -- and there were so many leftovers that the group pushed pretty hard for me to take some home. Just my portion of the leftovers could feed a normal family for a week or mine for two days. I'm toying with the idea of pushing this out to a month, if anybody else is with me. I'll be cooking for real tomorrow, I think.

Thanks to our 3.5-year-old sous chef the Hamantashen this year are rather rustic in appearance. They taste good, though.

As I mentioned before I've had very little food at home the past few days, so not only do we still have a ridiculous inventory but also we have leftovers from that $18.25 worth of stuff we bought last week. Still, we needed it, particularly for the eggs. This morning PJ wanted apple sauce for breakfast. We have plenty of it, but he has a fondness for the individual-serving cups from the supermarket, which we stopped buying long ago in an effort to eliminate all individual-serving purchases. So I filled an old individual-serving cup with better product. I don't do this covertly. PJ knows what's happening but still likes it served in that crummy plastic cup. I thought for sure I'd need to shop this morning because this week is Purim and we are making small food-gift plates (shalach manos) for about 10 families. But it turned out we were just able to eke out the baking with what we had on hand. Ellen already made the blondies the other day. Today Ellen and PJ made Hamantashen, the traditional triangular jelly-filled Purim cookies. Our flour and butter supplies were exhausted by the effort, and we used passion-fruit jam from the back of the cupboard instead of the more traditional apricot, and our pastry assistant didn't make quite the sharp, tight corners called for (as a result some of the cookies charmingly came apart during baking), but it worked. So each small plate consists of blondies, Hamantashen, almonds, dried pineapple rings, dried peach slices, dates, chocolate-covered cashews and anything else we find in the cabinet between now and tomorrow afternoon. I did go shopping this afternoon, primarily to top off the baking supplies and get another head of lettuce. I actually ran into Ed Levine, as I often do at Fairway, and he must have thought my cart oddly empty (if he noticed). More on that later -- I have to run.

The reason I started this topic is that today we made Hamantashen (the triangular, jelly-filled cookies traditionally made for the Jewish holiday of Purim), and I did research both online and in several books, both baking books and Jewish cookbooks. I found the online research more straightforward, and I couldn't discern any qualitative improvement that could have resulted from using the cookbook recipes. Indeed, if we'd relied on just one cookbook we could have, depending on the cookbook, wound up with a pretty strange result. Whereas, cross-referencing several online recipes, it became clear quickly what the consensus approach is. It got me thinking that, for the past decade, I've been operating under the assumption that internet recipes are free but cookbook recipes offer superior quality. Thinking more about that assumption, I realized it may no longer be valid. I agree with some of the comments above about chef cookbooks, however I'd hasten to add that in the overwhelming majority of cases the chef did not test the recipes. There is almost always a co-author who adapts the recipes. Busy chefs just don't have the time to do that kind of recipe testing. So take the recipes with a grain of salt unless you really know a given chef was very involved in the recipe testing. Also, in terms of cookbooks being good for ideas, I think that's true of some cookbooks but for the past few years it has also been becoming true of many websites. I am now routinely getting a lot of my best ideas from online sources, eG Forums of course chief among them, but also from sites like http://www.ideasinfood.com/ and http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ I get a lot of cookbooks for free, as review copies. I have one of the bigger cookbook collections of anybody I know. But given all the available online materials, I'm not sure if, absent my supply of free books, I'd actually spend any money on cookbooks except for the occasional Alinea-type book.