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?
Post Category → 12th street enron
In the name of the fatback
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?
Everyone on best behavior, honest
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.
Award for best absentee food section
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?
Additional support from Eucharist Inc.
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.
All hands on book
For all my disdain for Enron on 12th Street, I have to say I am impressed that reviewers for the cookbook competition are held to a higher standard than those at a couple of food portals I could name: You wanna say a recipe collection is good or bad, you gotta try at least two recipes. These two have already decided they like the look of the new Citizen Cake cookbook, without ever dusting up the kitchen with flour and cocoa powder, and happily recommend that readers run out and plunk down $35 (oh, wait, that detail is not disclosed). Right now I’m reveling in Kingsley Amis’ “On Drink,” and his take on wine writing applies just as acerbically to cookbook “reviewing:” “You can commit to memory everything Lichine has to say about Gevrey-Chambertin and still have no idea whether you would like the wine. Reading must be combined with as much drinking experience as pocket and liver will allow.” So is it worth trying those chocolate chip cookies I was going to start with before considering the weird shit?