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jayrayner

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Everything posted by jayrayner

  1. The line to which I was objecting, but which did not paste in above was: Once again you bring your professional integrity into question, but worse still you debase the observer, a once great newspaper.
  2. Unsurprisingly, being a journalist, I find this suspicion of media interest in chefs rather odd. No one questions the media's interest in film directors, writers, actors etc. they may accuse the media of hype occasionally. But they do not suggest outright that they are not desreving of coverage. And yet I detect here a certain beliefe that a chef who shows an interest in the media is somehow a traitor to his craft. restaurants are businesses with difficult margins. Chefs, those at the top of their game, tne dot be business-people with a large number of employees to maintain. I can see nothing wrong or unpure about pursuing that interest. But, as I say, I'm a hack. I would think like this. Fat Guy: your point about lots of different things eeling newspaper is, of course, right. The distinction I was tryting to make was between writing about restaurants for an expert/academic readership and writing for the general crowd. If I were writing for those with expertise, obviously I would have to apporach the job in a different way. On the plagiarism point, we all seem to be agreeing that all chefs stand on the shoulders of others. incidentally weren't the Mayans some of the first to use chcoclate (albeit dark) in savoury meat dishes? Finally the boring MLewis thing. I'm not expecting anybody to defend me. But he did finish one very early post with the line <<Once again you bring your professional integrity into question, but worse still you debase the Observer, a once great newspaper.>> I don't see anybody else being attacked like this, anywhere on the board. If you think I'm being overly sensitive fine, I'll piss off out of it. Tell your friends I'm a whimp and don't buy the Observer. I only pitched in because you were discussing something with which I was involved. But I see no particular reason why I should put up with plane old ranting. My solution - simply not to respond to him - is more considered than my response to it on chowhound, giving up, but I'm happy to do the same again if it would be less controversial.
  3. Picking up on FG's last point, I'm not going to be responding to anything from Michael Lewis. I really don't need the personal abuse which is all he can come up with where I'm concerned. Before anybody argues that it's a bit rich for a restaurant critic, who sometimes writes sharp reviews, to object to abuse, I'm posting on this site in my free time. If you wish to abuse me proefessionally feel free to do so via the email address at the bottom of my newspaper reviews, or via snail mail to me at 119 Farringdon Road London EC1 3ER. Be sure to do it in green ink on lined paper so I know what I'm getting. A few saliva stains also help. To other stuff. Cooking is very different to literature or music, in that there is a body of work upon whcih everybody draws. I haven't yet been into a restaurant kitchen - however high flying - which didn't have a stack of cook books on a shelf in the corner. There are very few places which have nothing on their menus that you cannot find elsewhere. They may do it better. THey may use better ingredients. But the fundementals remain the same. For what it's worth I described the Fat Duck as the most exciting in Britain (Not Europe, not the world) and I think that stands. It's irrelevant whether it draws upon things going on elswhere. (Although from conversations I have had with Heston I do believe he is a free thinker, pursuing a similar route to others, not a knock off merchant.) To return to the literature analogy, saying that you can't have two or three chefs working through the same ideas is a little like saying we don't need Salman Rushdie because Gabriel Garcia Marquez has already done the magic realism thing. As to how one goes about judging restaurants as a newspaper critic, I have said this before elsewhere but I will say it again. I am employed to write a column that will sell newspapers. that is all. Not to serve gastronomy or the restaurant business; sell newspapers. How one does that is an issue for debate. I do it by trying to relate my experience to the expectations of most ordinary people. That means, in short, that my column probably is not aimed at most of the people who post here. By the level of your interest you are not most normal people. Most of you probably know more about food than I do. However my editors reckon I write a good column and, for them, that's what counts. Naturally my level of knowledge has increased as I have gone on in the job. Funnily enough I don't think that has improved the column. I have to remind myself not to become too propeller head about it all because experience has shown me that, when I do, the readers switch off. When they do that I am no use to anybody. I do believe it is possible, based on average experience of restaurants, to judge whether a place is any good or not. Somewhere along the line I may have hijacked this thread. It wasn't the intention.
  4. Ignoring the rather tiresome personal attacks Michael may have raised an interesting question here. So... which restaurants does everybody think a restaurant reviewer must have visited before they have the right to do the job? Ps. Michael - are you really a Lord?
  5. First a quick response to Michael Lewis's primal scream therapy (I'm sure barking at me is a lot cheaper than getting a shrink): the pitch was to take kids to the most gastronomically ambitious restaurant in Britain. I chose the Fat Duck because it is doing things that others aren't. And I went to Heston; he didn't come to me. So you can't accuse him of seeking the publicity. But on the more general point, accusing Blumenthal of being derivative or simply of copying: does that mean that we can't have gastronomique French restaurants in britain - Petrus, say, or Champignon Sauvage or even Gordon Ramsay - because Ducasse, Savoy and the rest have already done that stuff in france? Are we only allowed one of each? You want me to go to El Bulli. I'd love to go (you paying?). I suspect you'd like me to go because you think it's better, more experimental, more developed than the Fat Duck. In other words, the mere fact that you suggest I pay homage to Catalonia, implies that the Fat Duck is not doing the same thing. Lots for you to rant on there, Michael: go to, go to. Re Jon's analysis of the differences between OSM and OFM you are, of course, spot on. While more people eat in restaurants (of all kinds) than, say, attend football matches they do so less obsessively. Food and drink is clearly a boom area for newspapers but working out how to do it poses problems. At the Observer two out of the three most senior people have been sports editors of one kind or another. They know how to do sport. They understand it. They don't understand food and so the only way they feel they can approach it is through the prism of celebrity. As a hack of old I would accept we need some of that. But we could also be a little more lush, a little more adoring of food for food's sake: the Steingarten approach if you like. The cook book reviews idea is both obvious and therefore v. good. I will swiftly steal it and claim it as my own. The toruble is of course that they'll go 'oh yeah, lets have books by Jamie, Nigella, Gordon...' Ho hum. I tell you, its much less complicated playing news feature reporter (my other role on the paper). Jay
  6. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger. I've been lurking for weeks and now you drag me out of the wood work. Michael Lewis can rest easy though; pressure of work means I won't be troubling him too much with my presence. I agree with much of what both of the first two of you have to say: that OFM has improved but that it has a long way to go. (I'm afraid I can't bring myself to agree with simon, not because he is not a throughly wise chap but because he admits to not having seen OFM recently. It undermines his rant a little.) The mag is still way too obsessed by celebrity. There are structural reasons for that to do with tiresome power structures at the Observer whch I won't bore you with. I argued, when the idea for the classic restaurants space came up (of which Rules was the first; probably Harry's Bar to follow) that it should replace the My favourite Table feature which really is celebrity drivel at its worst. So far I have been completely unsusccesful. I will continue to argue. On the restaurant reviews point, personally I would prefer them to stay in Life so that readers know where to find them. The theory - as with the Sports mag - is that the food mag is a supplementary to the weekly food and drink regulars in Life. I think that's generally right. As to whether there should be longer restaurant reviews a la Saveur or Gourmet I'm really not convinced. I really do think 1000 words is enough, certainly in a national newspaper. That's it from me Jay
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