Jose Andres in the New York Times today

[Monica Bhide]

Standing on tradition, chef reaches for the sky

I am a huge fan of his work and would like to wish him much success. This is wonderful.

[Tweaked]

I think Jose gets more coverage in the NY Times, than he does in the Wash Post Food Section! This has got to be at least the 3rd or 4th time Jose has been in the NY Times in the last year

[VeryApe77]

I think Jose gets more coverage in the NY Times, than he does in the Wash Post Food Section!  This has got to be at least the 3rd or 4th time Jose has been in the NY Times in the last year

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He also gets some very positive coverage in Frank Bruni's story about futuristic food (or whatever you want to call it).

A very Jose Andres-centric edition of the Times for sure...

[Steve Klc]

I'm not sure that perception is true, tweaked, most of the ground that Apple covered has already been covered by the Post team. It's just Jose has his hand in a lot of activities--the Post told us about Jose's 30-episode television series in Spain, "Vamos a Cocinar" ("We're Going to Cook") before the Times did. (Question for the day: just how many French chefs working in the US have ever had their own TV show in France?)

In the last year you've seen Sietsema reviews and multiple Weekly Dish mentions, there have been Foraging mentions, Eve Zibart has written about him several times, he was in on January's Judith Weinraub olive oil piece, there was a great piece in the Business section which focused on Jose's tireless efforts over the years driving the DC Central Kitchen non-profit (which in terms of sustained giving and commitment to charitable causes just might be without parallel in food for a working chef) and which Jose himself might just say was the most meaningful newspaper mention for him.

I do think this Johnny Apple piece captures Jose and his creative, independent reach really well, and then there is Mark Bittman (also of the New York Times) in his latest book and PBS television series "How to Cook Everything: Bittman Takes On America's Chefs." He picked two chefs from DC among 13 nationally to feature--Michel Richard and Jose Andres--and even calls Jose a "windbag" in the book, which he is, if you can ever get him to slow down enough to just sit and talk passionately about whatever is on his mind at the moment. So no one is going to deny the NY Times gets his significance in the grand scheme of things, but I believe the Post does, too.

Back before Jose won his Beard Best Chef Mid-Atlantic award, Judith Weinraub wrote a very in-depth profile of him in the Post--the best I had seen on Jose outside of Food Arts--so when Jeanne McManus was editor of Post Food she was actually ahead of the Times in terms of recognizing that we had a home-grown talent who would lead on a national stage like Jose. It's true that the new editor of the Post Food section hasn't approved a piece on him that rivals the breadth of this Apple piece, but give her time. It's always tough for a new editor to come in with new ideas and try to break from the perception of the previous regime.

My exact memory is a little shaky on this without looking in my files, but even in terms of the futuristic food angle of Jose, the Post beat the Times to the punch--it was the Post that featured Jose's brilliant deconstructed clam chowder dish years before the Times did, years before the Times ever heard of the term "molecular gastronomy."

So for people who were paying attention locally, we've had Jose's unique talents before us for years and the Post is largely responsible for that. Our local diners (and some in the food media) weren't quite ready to process it or recognize the significance, say, of Jose using Pop Rocks in a frozen strawberry soup or his "Organized salad" wrapped in jicama or Corn nuts with a foie gras soup at Cafe Atlantico--all of which date back to 1998. Maybe not even now, though pieces like these in the NY Times certainly help reveal how influential the experimental path Jose opened up in the US years ago really might turn out to be--because that was years before any of the current corps of Chicago chefs started their experimentations. I'd love to see more nuanced and reflective assessments like the Bruni piece as well, VeryApe77--instead what we get a little too much of locally is the limiting romantic notion of a chef cooking "soulful" food. Food, cooking and creativity are broader than that.

[Busboy]

Hmmmm....maybe the Times decided that DC does have some decent food after all.

Or maybe Johnny's many years here and elsewhere have given him a view of the world a little less Steinberg-like than some of his fellow Times-persons; Johnny also gives Todd Gray and Equinox a little loving in Newsweek this week, as well.

[butterfly]

I caught Vamos a Cocinar last weekend. Very nice job done by José. He has a nice laid-back TV presence--very much like the Adria cooking tapes that came with El Periodico, but even more relaxed and with better camerawork.

P.S. José--if you need a source for corn tortillas next time you are in Madrid--I can hook you up! We make our own...

Edited May 11, 2005 by butterfly (log)