THE GURGLING COD

Buddhist Andy Rooney lives!

Anchower, I know. I got a nice cleaver for Christmas. The cinetrix (look for bookoo PHC in the next two weeks at pullquote) and I have been running around like idiots, w/ stops to tell you about in Charleston, Vermont, and ATL. But we're on the way to Boston, so that will have to wait. 

But I will pause to mention a remarkably dimwitted thing that seems to be getting some traction. Sarah Sprague, of Football Foodie fame, sent it along, and I don't have the energy to fisk it, but note: 

1) Ritual evocation of Julia Child as the source of all things good, pure and innocent. (She is, but you don't get to claim her cred just b/c you saw her getting beatified pre-posthumously at the Radcliffe one time. 

2) Discussion of how we have fallen. The hook of the article is how food bloggers sap the joy from food, and then names Gordon Ramsay, reality TV chef shows, the Huffpo, and DI/DO byproduct Food52 as the food bloggers who are the main culprits. Also, those 80s food stylist bloggers. Seriously - as Pete Wells can tell you, food bloggers are the most trollable online community this side of Notre Dame football fans, but the author's issue here appears to be with any technology of media reproduction other than the original papyrus scroll upon which Ms. Child inscribed MTAOFC. 

3) Re-invocation of Julia Child:

Julia’s tribute was held at Radcliffe College, which had amassed the largest collection of community cookbooks in the world. The culinary historians saw these as sociological treasures: anthropological documents that revealed the inner secrets of a neighborhood. Their insight was that ingredients and utensils in recipes provide a financial, educational, and social portrait. This is also true of the Internet’s food blog buffet. On full display is how hungry we are to be seductive and to be number one; how obsessed we are by excitement. Sadly, what’s harder to see or taste is the way to cook.

Evidently,  the author of this piece is a Buddist, and presumably reflects that religion's values. What is remarkable is how much those values resemble those of a late-stage Andy Rooney bit, or a newspaper column from one of those older sportswriters who wears a lock of Stan Musial's hair in an amulet, blaming the NFL's concussion crisis on flouridation.  

I don't think the world needs more food blogs, but there are some good ones -- take the source of this article, for instance -- look at Sarah Sprague's recipes, and you and your friends will have a better time the next time you get together. I would encourage Sandra Garson to get out of the cultural criticism business, and stick to her vegetarian ministry. 

A potentially award-winning post? Probably not.

So, it's one thing waking up to the NPR that someone your age you've never heard of has won a Nobel. But then via Eater, the National Association of Food Journalists announces its awards for 2011. On the print side, some unfamiliar names, and some usual suspects. But:

Best Food Blog
First: seattletimes.com/allyoucaneat, Nancy Leson, Food & Restaurant Columnist, The Seattle Times
Second: blogs.dallasobserver.com/cityofate, Staff, Dallas Observer
Third: voices.washingtonpost.com/all-we-can-eat/, Food Staff, The Washington Post

The Seattle one is at least an individual who works for a newspapers, but the other two are blog appendages of print newspapers. The Cod has been wondering about this back since when Bruni was the sole contributor to Diner's Journal.* I scratch my head not out of a sense of being overlooked, b/c there are hundreds of actual food blogs that are superior to this grab bag of cranky reflections and obsessions, but because on what planet does it make sense to announce that all of the best electronic food journalism is an offshoot of fishwrap food journalism? Well, the outfit giving the prizes did start out as:  "the Newspaper Food Editors and Writers Association, Inc." Play us off, Soundgarden. 

*Interestingly, the link from the orig post chronicling Bruni's trip to Hooters generates a big ol 404, and a suggestion to check out the latest Paul Krugman jawn from America's Paper of Record. 

Staph infections are contagious, or calling all Philadelphia lawyers

It's the kind of day that has the Cod checking the color of his parachute. One job I would be good at is being a social media consultant for (allegedly) douchey chefs. Here is my advice: "If an anonymous blogger calls you a scumbag, don't sue him and make the allegation into news." (Chefs -- if you are reading this, look for an invoice 7-10 days after someone calls you a scumbag and you choose not to sue them.)

Based on this situation in Philly, I might add "hire a lawyer who understands libel law when you file a libel suit." The attorney representing the alleged scumbag: 

"It’s not our intention to infringe on the protected right of free speech, but it is our intention to hold people accountable for defamation," Cohen told us earlier.

"These kids don’t seem to understand there is a real difference between being a professional journalist working within the bounds of the law and being an uninformed, immature anonymous typist," says Cohen, who is refered to as "a douche," on Staph Meal since engaging in legal threats with the blogger.

The Cod is not a lawyer, but if being an uninformed, immature or even anonymous typist prevents you from being a professional journalist, then the newsrooms of America would be even emptier than they are. More seriously, the distinction the lawyer draws points to a problem w/ all media, but esp w/ food, (and maybe sports). The pros are the ones with the access, and can be trusted to play by the rules, and say nice things almost all the time. The "anonymous typists" tend to be on the outside, and say what's on their minds, b/c why the fuck not?

Like I said, a mistake to bring the suit in the first place, and a bigger mistake to hire a lawyer who implies that cozy relationships w/ big name chefs are a prerequisite for being a real food writer. 

Welcome thoughts anon or non, from lawyers on the merits of the case. 

The Internet is for... lorn? Pt. 2 Or, it's never too late for bloggers to get off The Economist's lawn.

 

It's August, 2011, and for some, the Internet, and the social media that are possible because of it, continue to stump some folks like Shaggy 2 Dope and a magnet. 

 

Elsewhere, dudebro named Tom Harrow, the, you know, Winechap founder, wants people to stop writing about food on the Internet. Is there a German word for "very slight nostalgia?" Reading this took me back all the way 2007, when there was maybe still a little pepper in the salt, and Tawm Brady and Randy Moss were going through the regular season like a school of bluefish through a shoal of menhaden.

Me? I can't believe the noise. I'm nostalgic for the days when criticism was an art. Most blogs about food and wine offer ceaseless narrative with little insight. A good critic, however, does not merely catalogue dishes but assesses them in a way that's illuminative. "I wish the critics of today would taste a little less and think a little more," said Elin McCoy, an author and critic at Bloomberg, at an international bloggers conference last year. I would then add: And write a little less. In some cases, it would be best if they didn't write at all. 

It's like the epic Pete Wells cheese sandwich troll, rebooted for the age of Obama! But on a website spinoff of the Economist, not Food & Wine. Because, you see, these guys:

The critic, once the arbiter of good taste, has become a mere citizen in the blogosphere. Now the disparate opinions of an engaged—if not quite engaging—online community (such as the appropriately shrill-sounding Yelp, or Yell in Britain, and Amazon's own enthusiastic customers) have displaced the authority of experts. 

Took over for these guys:

The dining (or drinking) experiences of Kingsley Amis, Keith Waterhouse and later Will Self could yield illuminating and even philosophical observations. 

I agree, that Kingsley Amis vs Yelp is not a fair fight, prosewise, but who the hell looks at Yelp for the writing? Yelp is on the Internet, but it is not a food blog, so maybe Harrow's beef is that people use the Internet to communicate about food, rather than wait for Kingsley Amis to tell you the deal. As far as actual blogs go, 

 "anyone who heralds the meritocracy of the blogosphere fails to appreciate the density of inarticulate and inexpert writing now out there. Amid so much scum, it is difficult for the cream to rise."

Cream rising amid the scum? That's one jacked-up dairy. But "difficult" is the key word here. There are jillions of bad food blogs nobody reads, and some good ones that lots of folks read. (Also, arguably, bad food blogs lots of folks read, but I digress.) If you read blogs using the "next blog" thing on Blogger, and have an Aspergerian compulsion to read each blog all the way through to the end, it would be hard to find blogs you like.) Fortunately, it's not a blind search. This part should be obvious to anyone who uses the Internet, but Harrow evidently missed the part where blogs can list favorite links. Lists on Twitter allow the same kind of thing. Actually, this kind of connection is bad, turns out: 

Some also appear to write less for the public’s benefit than for other bloggers—a bizarrely incestuous cabal. Thus Twitter's re-tweet function offers a new outlet for the solipsistic.

I cannot understand how re-tweeting is solipsistic, or for that matter, what a solipsist would want with an "outlet." Perhaps "narcissistic" works, but unless you only retweet nice things people say about you (TheAtlantic, hollerr!), it's not really that either. I also cannot understand how these networks form the aforementioned mat of scum from whence the cream cannot escape. 

Harrow hazards another metaphor to explain the difference between bad food writing and good food writing: 

What's worse, their reviews of a mediocre or frustrating meal are often mediocre and frustrating in themselves, and often appear just as visibly in online search results. When Adrian Gill skewers a sacred cow like L'Ami Louis in Vanity Fair, the result is an electric, hilarious clash of the Titans. The sniping of waggish bloggers is often more like horseflies on mules. 

This very passage is frustrating, in a mediocre sort of way. The utility of famous critics writing about Paris restaurants in glossy monthlies cannot be denied, but for those moments when one finds oneself peckish in another arondissment, it can be handy to refer to non-famous critics writing about food in weeklies, dalies, or even online, or "horseflies on mules," as Harrow puts it. Some sample "snipes" from these "wags" might help, but Harrow can't be bothered. 

The takeaway?

Everyone has the right to an opinion, few the sense or sensibility not to express it. Perhaps I am a curmudgeon, but all these frivolously documented sips and mouthfuls are becoming harder to swallow.

It may or may not be worth it to suggest to Harrow that one way around his problem would be not to read all of these frivolously documented sips and swallows. However, a notion like "there are things on the internet that don't interest me, so I ignore them," seems like something most of us understand intuitively and move on with our lives.  Instead, taking a page from Frank Bruni on Harry Potter, Harrow's move is "there are things on the internet that don't interest me, so here is a column about them." 

The Internet is for... lorn? Pt. 1 Or, Twitter is not a cocktail party.

It's August, 2011, and for some, the Internet, and the social media that are possible because of it, continue to stump some folks like Shaggy 2 Dope and a magnet. 

1) Definitely the most momentous thing that happened last week was Alton Brown deleting his Twitter. The Cod made fun of this before clicking through on the story, and it's even better than one might expect:

"The way I see it, Twitter is like a big cocktail party," Alton Brown wrote on his blog. "If I was at a cocktail party and someone puked on my wife’s shoes, odds are excellent that we’d leave. Does that mean I won’t attend any more cocktail parties? Maybe not. Maybe I’ll just have to figure out a way to host my own cocktail parties where people have to actually be accountable for their behavior."

(Brown does not account for people who seek out parties where people puke on their spouses' shoes, but I digress.) The problem, for Brown, is actually that Twitter is not like a big cocktail party, in that a cocktail party with millions of folks who do not necessarily have a material existence would be a hard one to get a drink at. The advantage of the cocktail party analogy is that it allows Brown to imagine the world of social media as one where everyone knows everyone, and agrees to abide by the same standards of etiquette. When Alton Brown figures out a way to host his own cocktail party -- moderated comments on ThereaintnopartylikeanAltonBrownparty.com? -- it will be interesting to see if it gets the same kind of traction as Twitter? 

Also, "get over it" might not be a bad piece of advice. A spoof Twitter account is a sign you've arrived. Just ask Tony Bourdain and Ruth Reichl. Hell, even the president of the University of New Hampshire has a fake twitter. 

Eric Ripert: can also probably explain how magnets work*

A paper in DC finds a guy named Eric Ripert who seems to have a solid grasp on new media:

ER: You know, some bloggers are credible and have created a certain following. Some bloggers have no credibility whatsoever, and then naturally they limit themselves from the scene of the bloggers. I think the more people talk about their experience, the more we learn, the more we understand what people feel. We have a relationship with our clients in the dining room. It’s not like someone comes and nobody is asking, ‘How was the experience?’ So we already have a little bit of feedback. It’s basically additional feedback from the blogs. I see that with a very positive eye. It doesn’t bother me at all. I think it’s a good thing to have people writing about their experience, and to have some blogs which are, like, more kind of official….I have no complaints at all.

What's this? The credibility of a blog is a function of who writes it and who reads it, rather than a function of  the medium that brings writer and reader together? This guy knows more about the internet than Chris Kimball,** Pat Bruno, and Joe Paterno put together! Joe Pa, for all of his success, struggles with the distinctions this guy Ripert makes intuitively, based on reading blogs. Paterno:

"It's impossible to tell the difference between a good blogger and a bad blogger," he said. "The media has to figure out a way to teach students about the impact of blogging on legitimate journalism."

But Ripert seems to have some sort of sixth sense, or "gaydar," except for telling if blogs are good or bad. Smart guy. I wonder if he can cook fish? 

*Violent J wants to know.

**We are an issue or two away from the Cooks Illustrated that consists simply of the phrase KILL YOURSELF NOW repeated over and over again. 

Kimball to bloggers: No, seriously, get the FUCK off my lawn!,

 Grub St. follows up on the Kimball kerfuffle with

It was rather brilliant of Cook’s Illustrated publisher Christopher Kimball to knock the food blogosphere yesterday — after all, a sure way to get attention for your print magazine is to call out bloggers so they can give it attention on the web.

Brillliant, I guess, though I'd quibble and argue that the real brilliance lies in convincing the NYT to give you free real estate to whip up a souffle of self-promotion and a Dole-level understanding of the Internet.

And Kimball holds his nose, and wades into that darn internet to expand/clarify/backpedal from the NYT op-ed that attracted so much derision. In his response we learn that Chris is a) busy, b) misses Walter Cronkite, and finally:

 In terms of recipes, no, I do not believe in a Wiki website, with a community opining on recipes as a means of creating a valuable database. Making a recipe 75 times in a test kitchen under controlled circumstances (yes, this is deeply self-serving) is vastly better than the voices of millions under less the ideal circumstances, with kitchens with a host of different problems/equipment/etc. Go ahead and make that broccoli casserole off your Google search and see how you like it! In cooking, as in all things, there is a right way and a wrong way. Very little in life is truly relative.

Kimball can't stay away from that broccoli casserole. What's more interesting, however, is Kimball's focus on a pre-internet episteme:

I also have zero interest in reading the public’s opinion regarding Iran, global warming, or the economy., For that, I will stick to the New York Times and a handful of folks who have spent a lifetime investigating these issues.

In my day job, I am tussling with defining "social media," as part of a larger interest in the mythology of the public sphere.  What's striking here, and in Kimball's movietrailerish "What scares me the most, however, is that in a world without editors — just the unfiltered voices of millions — it can be harder to find insightful commentary and get at the truth" is just where these ideas are coming from.

I will drop some n+1 type bombs, and suggest that this is epistemically retrograde -- not just in a 1999 vs. 2009 way, but in a 1789 vs. 2009 way. If we take Habermas seriously, (just for a moment), Kimball is suggesting a pre-public sphere moment, where fact exists by decree of the monarch, or in this case the NY Times, for global warming, or Chris Kimball, for broccoli casserole. Indeed, and skip the rest of this graf if you are not a giant nerd, it could even be a 1609 vs. 2009 epistemic backslide, for Kimball denigrates the authority of experience that does not emanate from America's Test Kitchen. 

The problem with Kimball, and what makes him think in this way, is the fundamental joylessness that permeates every corner of his enterprise. I use and like some of his recipes, but they generally emanate from a presumption that eating is a burden, and food is nasty, and only relentless experimentation can preven you from failing as a cooking by revealing the least intolerable way to prepare a given dish. If you doubt my argument, conduct the thought experiment of imagining the America's Test Kitchen Kama Sutra.

Precision is great, but when, say, Judy Rogers fusses at you, it's with the idea that the results will be transcendent, not with the idea that you will fail if you do not do it her way. In real life, sometimes cooks are precise, sometimes not, and the joy of the meal is in the making and sharing, not the perfection of it. Pleasure and the joy of experimentation vs. fear and relying on a script, rather than print vs. pixels is what what makes it difficult for Christopher Kimball to understand the way food writing works in 2009.

Kudos, as always to Penny Pascal for the Peerless Photoshopping.

Christopher Kimball to bloggers: "Get off my lawn!"

Ed Levine, at Serious Eats, and Hamilton Nolan, at Gawker, do a decent job of busting up Christopher Kimball's notion that Gourmet = Kenny, and The Internet = you bastards. I will add only that the Cod is surprised that another struggling print organization would donate space to the owner of Cook's Illustrated for what amounts to an advertorial for his magazine. I will call out one favorite:

Google “broccoli casserole” and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing.

The notion that users of the Internet, in 2009, are incapable of evaluating content is like suggesting that magazine readers will pluck Cook's or Outlaw Biker off the newsstand indiscriminately. For the record, here's the first hit for broccoli casserole. It looks nasty. (I'm pretty sure that broccoli casserole is inherently nasty, but I digress.) But it's hard to imagine that anyone would cook by using the first Google result, even if they were a pervert who wanted to make broccoli casserole.

Pat Bruno is full of shit

Following the kerfuffle about the Chicago restaurant critic who went on TV using his real name, the critic fired back with a response:
Helen: thanks so much for the publicity re my appearance on the Flay Throwdown. And, of course, bringing it to the attention of one and all at the Sun-Times. Keep that blog mill churning.
Of course, practically everyone in the restaurant business knows what Phil Vettel and Penny Pollack and Dennis Wheaton look like. And, too, a few restaurant owners know what I look like--after all, at one time I had a cooking school here in Chicago, and also owned a chain of cookware stores and some of my best customers were chefs and restaurant owners.
Actually, the person you see on the video is me, but not really me. I was wearing a very clever disguise to, of course, protect my anonymity. Study the video carefully. Then should it happen that Pat and Helen are dining at same restaurant, try and pick me out of the crowd. If you can, dinner is on me. But what difference does it make should I be recognized? Will the restaurant in question suddenly, like magic, put out better quality food? Will inept service suddenly become "ept?" Nah. On the other hand, I can count on one hand the number of times I have been "made" while reviewing a restaurant. Methinks you have brought up a tempest in a crockpot. But then it takes a lot of gossip to fill up a blog.* Keep up the good work. [all emphasis added]

To summarize: 
    1) Everyone already knows what I look like.
    2) I was wearing a disguise.
    3) It does not matter if people know what I look like.
You simply cannot make all of these arguments. Any one of them on its own is bullshit, and easily refuted on its own terms, but to advance them simultaneously is to demonstrate a contempt for readers, the press, and the language, so contradictory are they.
*Bonus bloggers off my lawn swipe from someone working in an industry only slightly more viable than the US whaling industry gets the early nod for the January Bissinger Prize.

Joe Pa at the Beard Awards

Oddly enough, it's Joe Paterno that has the definitive word on the James Beard Foundation's autoliveblog, opining:

"It's impossible to tell the difference between a good blogger and a bad blogger," he said. "The media has to figure out a way to teach students about the impact of blogging on legitimate journalism."

OK, actually Joe Pa was talking about  how he is "amazed at the way information appears on the Internet, where searchers can read his biography, research his teams' statistics... It worries him, because anonymous bloggers can post whatever they want. More than once, he said, he has had to respond to a reporter's question concerning something inaccurate that was written about him online."

It's those darn bloggers again, writing without any authorization or credentials. But not at the Beard awards -- these livebloggers are  fully credentialed, and there are pictures to prove it.

Except for Powell getting peckish, all the entries I managed to read were upbeat, bordering on giddy, and made even Ed Levine's two thumbs 85 degrees up account seem sort of grumpy.

So, long story short, well played, James Beard Foundation. As an organization with its picture in the dictionary next to the word "embattled," you recognized that the center of gravity in the world of food writing is moving from the fishwraps to the interwebs, and so you invited some folks with iPhones to the party, and got them to say nice things. That's some good PR for the price of a few laminates. However, even Joe Pa could tell you that this has as much to do with "liveblogging" as Robin Leach has to do with Jacob Riis. In every other case I can recall, like this one from last night, there is some sort of critical distance, or perspective, that differentiates the liveblog of the event from, say, the broadcast of the event. The Oscars are a useful example.  The Beard folks, however, skipped the broadcast and relied on its cadre of bloggers for the hype. It's a clever move, but it is press releases written on the fly, rather than liveblogging. While Joe Pa is concerned about the "impact of blogging on legitimate journalism," he might want to consider the impact of public relations on legitimate blogging. (Fin tip to Orson.)