800,000

[Steve Klc]

I read somewhere that the Food section goes out to 800,000 people each week--does the sheer magnitude of that number affect how you and your staff do your jobs each week and why you do certain things?

[Jeanne McManus]

Yes,  that’s a pretty big buffet, isn’t it?  I mentioned that number recently at a symposium full of restaurant professionals and I saw some jaws drop. And I hope it explains to some of you who are reading this forum why 1) we can’t write about restaurant professionals every week, 2) we can’t have a weekly column for vegetarians 3) we can’t write a story every time a local chef wins an award or cooks at the James Beard House 4) we can’t write a story every time someone in our region wins a cooking contest. These are just some examples of the kinds of frustrations that readers have shared with me.

We have about 22 columns of space each week. That’s less than half of what Sports has every day. (They deserve it, believe me.)

But in those 22 columns can we address the needs of  all 800,000 readers every week? No, but we hope each week to have a mix of stories, a combination that will interest as many of those readers as we can … and attract new ones! As I mentioned in an earlier answer, it’s not the Chicken or the Egg, it’s the Buche or the Sugar Cookie. If we run a piece on sugar cookies: nothing but readers. But shouldn’t people aspire to make a buche every now and again? Yes. But how often?

Our “Dinner in XX Minutes” every week is very popular, and that draws many readers to the INSIDE of the section each week, another important goal of mine. A different crowd goes inside to the Wine column, and Tom Sietsema’s Weekly Dish has another loyal following. So it’s my hope that even if only one of the stories on the front captures a reader or, god forbid, none of them do, then at least a reader has destinations inside that he can count on every week.