Cooking
Restaurant critics are the most visible food writers. Even people who don't subscribe to seven food and wine magazines read local restaurant reviews. And probably no American critics are more visible than those at the New York Times. For decades this paper's food section has influenced the country's food-conscious citizens. It seems inevitable that the Times reviewers become icons, and they dutifully release their memoirs so that we may daydream of hobnobbing with prominent food people in between extravagant meals eaten on someone else's tab. Mimi Sheraton's Eating My Words offers up plenty of opportunities for fantasy, but none of them stuck with my internal daydream apparatus. I read the book with the mental equivalent of a shrug. Perhaps it's Ms. Sheraton's tone. I'm sure chefs dreaded her direct and no-nonsense attitude when she was reviewing their restaurants, but in the book it comes across as dry and curmudgeonly. Not in a humorous Jeffrey Steingarten kind of way, either. She cavalierly dimisses California cooking as "grill and stack" in a way that struck me as that most tired of clichés, the New Yorker who believes that only one city in the U.S. has good food. Of course there's a fair amount of truth to her blanket description, but it grated on me. Like much of the book, it felt vaguely smug. I'm inclined to blame her editor for some of this. A chapter about a visit to China quickly felt like a montonous "and then we went and then we went and then we went and then we went". It's easy to fall into this trap, but the editor should have caught it. Her quick comment about Bernard Loiseau bothered me. Many considered his suicide a reaction to the pressure of maintaining the high ratings of one of France's best restaurants. Though she expresses sorrow at his passing, she can't seem to remember that it was Gault-Milau that reduced his score, not Michelin. It's probably my barely contained pedant, but factual errors like that niggle at me. How many are there that I missed? Didn't the editors double-check these things? But there were some things about the book I enjoyed immensely. My favorite chapter was her description of how a restaurant staff can fix a vast array of things about a critic's dinner when she's recognized. Here on the west coast, our reviewers seem to think that "they can't learn to cook at the last minute." Ms. Sheraton's own background in the restaurant industry adds considerable weight to her long list of exactly what the staff can do to enhance the dining experience for a recognized critic. The book is informative in other ways. The back cover lists the twenty most common questions people ask her about life as a restaurant critic (despite the fact that she's enjoyed a rich food-centric writing life even when not at the Times), and she answers them, in one form or another, within her narrative. Perhaps that, ultimately, is why the book failed to grab me. These twenty questions are a central theme, and maybe the memoir has been stretched too thin over this framework. Though the book is good reading material for the would-be restaurant reviewer or food writer, it ultimately didn't feel like her heart was in it.
- My Berlin Kitchen Review & Giveaway
If you are a fan of The Wednesday Chef blog, there's no question, you will enjoy My Berlin Kitchen: Adventures in Love and Life by Luisa Weiss now out in paperback. The book is a memoir with recipes and Weiss traces her journey through her memories...
- Michelin Missed The Mark
Ok, so I've finally gotten a chance to really dive into the Michelin Guide San Francisco: Bay Area and Wine Country 2007 and I now have a bit more of an opinion. While most critics and bloggers are focusing on the issue of "who got how many stars"...
- Overheard At The Michelin Preview Reception
I won't tell you who said what, but I swear to you, the following statements were all made by chefs whose restaurants received one star in the Michelin Guide San Francisco: Bay Area and Wine Country 2007. "Give back a star? Non!" "I agree that only...
- Book Review: Mindless Eating
A common joke has an overweight woman stepping up to a fast food restaurant's counter and saying, "I'll have a bacon double cheeseburger, large fries, and a Diet Coke." We have a complex relationship with food and weight issues. Millions of...
- From Here You Can't See Paris
We often look to travel magazines for the undiscovered secrets, the places untrammeled by the bustle of tourism. But it is easy to forget that even as we learn of these gems, so too have tens of thousands of other readers. And so, during the summer...
Cooking
Eating My Words
Restaurant critics are the most visible food writers. Even people who don't subscribe to seven food and wine magazines read local restaurant reviews. And probably no American critics are more visible than those at the New York Times. For decades this paper's food section has influenced the country's food-conscious citizens. It seems inevitable that the Times reviewers become icons, and they dutifully release their memoirs so that we may daydream of hobnobbing with prominent food people in between extravagant meals eaten on someone else's tab. Mimi Sheraton's Eating My Words offers up plenty of opportunities for fantasy, but none of them stuck with my internal daydream apparatus. I read the book with the mental equivalent of a shrug. Perhaps it's Ms. Sheraton's tone. I'm sure chefs dreaded her direct and no-nonsense attitude when she was reviewing their restaurants, but in the book it comes across as dry and curmudgeonly. Not in a humorous Jeffrey Steingarten kind of way, either. She cavalierly dimisses California cooking as "grill and stack" in a way that struck me as that most tired of clichés, the New Yorker who believes that only one city in the U.S. has good food. Of course there's a fair amount of truth to her blanket description, but it grated on me. Like much of the book, it felt vaguely smug. I'm inclined to blame her editor for some of this. A chapter about a visit to China quickly felt like a montonous "and then we went and then we went and then we went and then we went". It's easy to fall into this trap, but the editor should have caught it. Her quick comment about Bernard Loiseau bothered me. Many considered his suicide a reaction to the pressure of maintaining the high ratings of one of France's best restaurants. Though she expresses sorrow at his passing, she can't seem to remember that it was Gault-Milau that reduced his score, not Michelin. It's probably my barely contained pedant, but factual errors like that niggle at me. How many are there that I missed? Didn't the editors double-check these things? But there were some things about the book I enjoyed immensely. My favorite chapter was her description of how a restaurant staff can fix a vast array of things about a critic's dinner when she's recognized. Here on the west coast, our reviewers seem to think that "they can't learn to cook at the last minute." Ms. Sheraton's own background in the restaurant industry adds considerable weight to her long list of exactly what the staff can do to enhance the dining experience for a recognized critic. The book is informative in other ways. The back cover lists the twenty most common questions people ask her about life as a restaurant critic (despite the fact that she's enjoyed a rich food-centric writing life even when not at the Times), and she answers them, in one form or another, within her narrative. Perhaps that, ultimately, is why the book failed to grab me. These twenty questions are a central theme, and maybe the memoir has been stretched too thin over this framework. Though the book is good reading material for the would-be restaurant reviewer or food writer, it ultimately didn't feel like her heart was in it.
- My Berlin Kitchen Review & Giveaway
If you are a fan of The Wednesday Chef blog, there's no question, you will enjoy My Berlin Kitchen: Adventures in Love and Life by Luisa Weiss now out in paperback. The book is a memoir with recipes and Weiss traces her journey through her memories...
- Michelin Missed The Mark
Ok, so I've finally gotten a chance to really dive into the Michelin Guide San Francisco: Bay Area and Wine Country 2007 and I now have a bit more of an opinion. While most critics and bloggers are focusing on the issue of "who got how many stars"...
- Overheard At The Michelin Preview Reception
I won't tell you who said what, but I swear to you, the following statements were all made by chefs whose restaurants received one star in the Michelin Guide San Francisco: Bay Area and Wine Country 2007. "Give back a star? Non!" "I agree that only...
- Book Review: Mindless Eating
A common joke has an overweight woman stepping up to a fast food restaurant's counter and saying, "I'll have a bacon double cheeseburger, large fries, and a Diet Coke." We have a complex relationship with food and weight issues. Millions of...
- From Here You Can't See Paris
We often look to travel magazines for the undiscovered secrets, the places untrammeled by the bustle of tourism. But it is easy to forget that even as we learn of these gems, so too have tens of thousands of other readers. And so, during the summer...