gastropoda

Are those the best new restaurants or are they the most easily shaken down? And can you really judge a cookbook by its filler (I mean, I’m no fan of the Goopster, but she did hire a good cook to do the important writing: the recipes — and besides, when was the last MFK Pulitzer for a Tin Chef collaborator)? And here’s one way to rake in the dough:  Expand your prize categories and charge $100 for every entry — just don’t call it Lotto for bloggers.

I also had to admit to new admiration for the Top Tin among Chefs. For all the Barbaro droppings about kids as critics and cooks these days, he produced the most graphic evidence that they just do not have palates evolved enough to appreciate serious cooking. I have cleaned up similar with my own hands. Cats, of course, are another story.

My biggest fan seemed a bit miffed when I Tweeted that the Beard awards are not the Oscars of food but the Golden Globes. Apparently his great mind had run into the same gutter first. But it struck me on reading all the frothing coverage that the awards would be worth so much more if they were handed out the way the movie Oscars are, by a jury of peers. Instead, you get the industry, the dilettantes, the journalists acting like film critics from furrin countries. Nothing proved my point more than the pen wielder formerly known as Mr. Cutlets jumping into the fray with a “real” story on the awards. He nattered about the NYC winner winning more for her book than her restaurant, then segued into his butt-hurt over not winning for his “journalism.” The FlimFlammer must be so envious. Enron on 12th Street has come up with the perfect scam. Co-opt food writers and they’ll swallow whatever smoke you blow our your ass.

I had torn feelings on seeing a great outlet lose out on an award last week — on the one whisking hand I want the mastermind to rack up every honor imaginable, but on the other I know we’re talking Enron on 12th Street. It’s fool’s gold. And at least @RuthBourdain stayed the hell away from the orgy of self-congratulation, proving him/herself the Stewart/Colbert of the food world in showing “real” journalists everybody knows this is nowhere. In two sentences in the Gray Prison, I never really felt as if I had much impact on the hometown paper, but I did persuade the honchos that cooperating with this Beardshit was all wrong — and who cares if they based their decision on the idea that journalists who cover an industry should not be lauded by it? The important thing is that every year a third-rate newspaper wins is another victory for integrity. As my biggest fan asked: How’s the shrimp?

The food world is gearing up for its annual orgy of self-congratulation, but I guess I’m about as likely to find a Peeps shelter as refuge from the endless dithering about restaurants/books/chefs whose names don’t even ring a dinner bell for me. So I’ll volunteer that changing the location of the announcement of your nominees makes about as much sense as dancing about charcuterie. And that another list of nominees should never have gone out with so many misspellings at a time when copy editors and proofreaders and better are in huger supply than busboys. Coleman? Daries? McMeel? Randon House? Pilgramage? All that spewed, though, I will admit that the idea of a People’s Choice award is smart. It would save the stupid Oscars. And it could be a baby step toward Dancing With the Chefs’ Ghostwriters.

One of the awful truths of the food world is that honey really is more effective than vinegar. Some serious snakes out there know exactly how to play nice to co-opt if not defang critics. Then they can keep on with their snakiness and be assured no one will call them on it. So I got a pretty good laugh seeing how easily the allegedly riled-up counter-”foodies” were led to the Center for the Removal of Rocky Mountain Oysters. A simple ticket to the prom did the trick, and next thing you know they’re profiling a schtick that would not exist if not for the phenomenon they claim to revile. I mean, I had no idea who he even was. But he said some nice things, so he’s a good guy now. Unfortunately, I can’t be too appalled, because I realize I was hesitant to write about a contest proudly judged by someone I met once and liked. First prize was industrial chicken for a year. Second prize, I assume, was two years’ worth?

I guess there’s a video going around of another Texas chef living it up at Enron on 12th Street. I couldn’t bear to watch it, but I do hope the poor guy is not as naive as the last one who came north and believed they liked him, they really liked him. Undoubtedly there’s a Realtor on 21st Street who would happily separate another fool from his million.

Can “I Feel Bad About My Dreck” hustle that movie any harder? Or should the question be: Will there be anyone left to pay to see the thing once the free screenings are exhausted? Countless food bloggers have already been thoroughly co-opted, and food writers with bit parts are doing their swooning part in promoting it, too. But I find it rather amusing that formerly arboreal and other so-called legit media are apparently being asked to keep their reactions to themselves until the official opening (if you can believe one annoyed reporter on the other coast). And I wonder if that all started once the New Yorker got a whiff of turkey.

More proof that you can polish a turd long enough to make a zircon: Every time the latest pizza silliness came up, the number of awards from Enron on 12th Street was trotted out as evidence of the seriousness of the authority tackling the impossible. Consider the source. Friends do let friends self-delude.

I see Enron on 12th Street is throwing up another wall to protect itself from honest scrutiny. Play nice and you might win a prize!

Thanks to my NRN pal, I now know I am somebody. But I disagree on the imperative of obeying the Big Homme: I saw a number of tables sitting empty on at least one side of the room at that amazing lunch. I’ve only been to the place a few times in the 10 years that have just certifiably flown by, but the food this round really was outstanding. As intended, it made me want to head straight for Vancouver that very evening. As for the redesign, the room will always look to me like the swimming pool at San Simeon. But the graciousness on display more than made up for it. Which is why I stayed on my best behavior, even though I did freak a little when the last of my tablemates to be open-seated turned out to be the head of what I heedlessly refer to as Enron on 12th Street. Luckily, she heard only the word “freelance” when she asked what I do and pretty much paid me no mind the rest of the lunch. Nobody is sometimes a very good thing to be.

I assume someone is already at work on the script for the next big wine movie, after “Sideways” and “Bottle Shock.” This one will spin the story of the magazine that followed the Publishers Clearinghouse model: Send money, win big. What I found most fascinating is that Goliath was humbled by a non-MSM David. Mrs. Friend could have nailed this fraud to the international wall if she had been able to use the tools in the new-age arsenal, but it’s fascinating to contemplate why the truth that she couldn’t is both a good and a bad thing. It really isn’t very journalistic to report under false pretenses; there is no way the NYTimes could have or should have let her run a scam. At the same time, though, this insistence on ethics lets an awful lot of Wyle E. Beards get away. If I were the enterprising type, I’d be dreaming up a reality show with a fake restaurateur landing a gig at the Carnegie Hall for chefs. Wait. Isn’t that reality?

Another young ’un sounds astonished that the CIA (the good one) would let the Spamsters slap their gross brand all over a new program. I still remember my week up there for a story on “nutritional cuisine” and how my editors made me excise digs on the branding mania in the joint. This revered institution makes Enron on 12th Street look pure. It’s Ecolab this and Hilton that. What’s a little unnerving is that schools of all stripes have become so dependent on this kind of underwriting even before all the easy loans have dried up for prospective students. Will Walmart and Wendy’s be enough to keep culinary education alive in this country?

Smarter commentators than I have had their say on the live-blogging that went on at the Enron on 12th Street awards. We can only hope the perpetrators are not credentialed for either presidential convention this summer. But right now I’m wondering how pathetic you would have to be to be sitting home at your computer waiting for the latest Kim Cattrall utterance to be transcribed. No one is a bigger defender than I am of food as the third most important thing in life (after air and water). But this is only rock and roll. And it’s silly.

A larger-than-vida chef friend was astonished that the head of Enron on 12th Street did not know who she was. It didn’t surprise me one whit. The job is not about familiarizing yourself with the players. It’s about rigging the game.

Then a cookbook editor friend was looking glum about the business, but that didn’t surprise me, either. When Tony Danza actually gets published, you know it’s grim in Recipeland. Rather than sharing his meatballs, shouldn’t he be dancing with the stars?

This year Enron on 12th Street should dole out a special award, for most shameless self-promotion in catering to the papal piehole. The spirit-moved one might win for sheer volume; every day the self-congratulation masked as “Benny loves me, this I know” was ramped up worse. But the “devoted”  guy down in DC may have beat her by placing his own piece in the Post recounting all the ways he had brought Prada-red coals to Newcastle — plates specially made in Italy, food just the way the Vatican chef does it. Not only was it silly, it was unseemly. The Pope is not exactly Britney (although, as Bill Maher pointed out, they both have underwear issues). I just wonder which restaurateur got the autographed head shot to hang in the window.