And I guess I have to do my bashing of the section formerly known as DI/DO, so I’ll start by saying sometimes a cutlet is just a cutlet and a column cannot be inflated without collapsing (but I understand why a more significant topic got tucked inside like a cutlet in a bra — been there, edited that shit). Worse was that the genesis of the eating-kosher-cuz-it’s-better nonsense was plain to see. Fishing for sources to back up your thesis is like hunting for quail Cheney style. (How soon they forget the immensity of the Agriprocessors scandal. But I’ll never forget the friend in Lincoln, Nebraska, who once worked in a slaughterhouse and talked constantly of the rabbi overseeing the kosher beef. You don’t want details, but they involved bathroom, hands, No. 2.) And then there was the JGold Wannabe. Twice in one day the same rating was given, in almost the same words: Reads like writing-class exercises. RIP, Britchky. You are now certifiably inimitable.
Post Category → jgold wannabe
There’s always ammonia
Meanwhile, the JGold Wannabe continues to turn some winsome phrases, but too often his sentence-stringing makes me wonder if anyone editing him has ever diagrammed a sentence. You cannot mention “a recipe” in one between-the-caps-and-the-period construction and, in the next, say “even made by an amateur . . . they can approximate.” Subjects, verbs, objects kinda need to connect. Maybe not in a deep kiss in a bar somewhere, but grammatically. Worse, as smart as he is about cooking, cockiness is dangerous: Advising blog readers to grind their own hamburger meat is absurd without a warning that the beef itself has to be carefully sourced. Someone trekking home from the supermarket with a “nice-looking” side of E. coli will not be saved by a clean Cuisinart. Shit’s shit, for crap’s sake.
If it’s Wednesday, it must be Danny
The JGold Wannabe tried out yet another new voice in mystifying readers like my consort, who braved a few grafs and could not understand why the rave added up to only three stars. Poor Britchky’s fingers must have been twitching in his grave. I’m so naive I believe even a Poor would not have hurt a restaurant that does what it does so well, and has for so long — I will not soon forget walking out of the deserted Four Seasons last summer and seeing the floral Frog jammed; if you’re going somewhere for a scene and not cuisine, flowers are a fixed face’s best friend (I ate there for my long-ago Allure story on how restaurants make women look good or bad). What was most surprising is that no attempt was made to connect the news dots between that review and the profoundly depressing information that the chef on whom Ruth once lyrically bestowed four stars is now slaving at a Midtown East joint one step up from Tout Va Bien. Of course I’m so old I got addicted to quenelles before I ever had to face down gefilte fish. But I do know that there’s a whole food truck devoted to schnitzel and that people make special expeditions to Cafe Sabarsky for the strudel alone. I just can’t tell the Egotist from the Drivelist sometimes. Or understand how “blackened fruitcake” saw print. Sloppy is as sloppy ledes.
Style du jour
And I’m really happy it’s not just me losing it over Panchito’s poor successor, flopping around trying to fill those outsized sneakers. First there was the meh mess; 27 years here and I never knew it was a New York expression. And then there’s the new Bruni Digest, a Miami blogger who has nailed the tics big time. You have to read it to get it. While the ghost of Britchky not so gently weeps. . .
Break out the Italian Champale
I have to confess I felt a pang after forging on beyond a cringe-inducing simile and finding a couple of nice turns of phrase by the critic with the small sneakers to fill. Maybe, I thought, he has evolved beyond the old “get out the dick, start pounding the keys” days. Then he had to go and ruin it by letting that T.G.I.Friday’s handout get printed after acres of contorted prose. Forget the Party of No lawn jockey. This guy is the Rich Little of food writers. (I have not done due diligence with Kerouac, but the words on the wall at the outstanding Robert Frank exhibition at the Met did make me suspect yet another fount of imitation.) I always thought he at least has eaten enough to do a credible job, but even that notion came into doubt when I was lured to Diner’s Journal and read the drooling over “lard-fried tortillas.” What is it with NYC “culinary journalists” that makes them so clueless about Mexican food? The manteca belongs in the beans, for chinga’s sake.
And attention was plural
I was never happier that I had chosen a trek to the New Amsterdam Market over finishing the Sunday Times than when I started spotting the scorn online for that monster whine about the Park Slope co-op. I remember Panchito’s successor once saying the place made his fingers twitch, so maybe it’s no coincidence the hardy perennial was trotted out yet again now that he wields real power. But it’s no wonder circulation is dropping precipitously when the paper chooses to run that megaturd at a time when more people than ever are on food stamps and food pantries are hurting big time. The editors must believe the advertising and think all readers can afford mother-daughter coats at $1,350 and $665. Don’t they realize no one cares if a privileged twit can’t spare a little time?
Nighttime in Harvard yard
I take it all back. Nice guys don’t have such colossal egos that they actually use the “Ratatouille” Rayner as their Twitter avatars. Can they please just fast-forward and give the JGold wannabe the Pulitzer now to spare us five years of this tortured cleverness and overwrought writing? I hear the other Ivy Leaguers are attaboying away down there, but I could not get past the jump for all the straining at stool. When I pleaded for the Bruni Digester to come back, she Tweeted that it was like your laid-off Uncle Mark taking a stab at writing a press release in his spare time. I think it’s worse: It was as if Michael Steele tried to “what up” on eating out.