Medium Raw

She is also very funny—and, frequently, right about things. And always, even when I strongly disagree with her, worth reading. She rarely if ever commits the first and most common sin of food writing—being boring.

For inventing cute names for her targets, though, and not having the stones to simply say what everybody knows she is saying, she’s a villain. If you’re going to piss on Mario every other week, say “Mario Batali.” Not “Molto Ego.” Stand up fucking proud and tell us why you hate Mario Batali and everything he touches. Which also makes her a villain in my book: because it’s all fine and good to loathe Mario in person and in principle, but to deny any value at all in any of his enterprises is criminally disingenuous—particularly for a food writer.

His name is “Frank Bruni,” not the funny name “Panchito” she refers to him by. And for the unpardonable act of being insufficiently critical of George W. Bush in the run-up to the election (a transgression Bruni was hardly alone in committing), his every word as the eventual Times dining critic was (for Ms. Schrambling, anyway) utterly worthless—or worse.

I think Alan Richman is a douchebag. Writing the chapter about him in this book felt really good. Regina should try to be as specific as possible and clearly identify the targets of her derision.

Hero/villain, with Regina Schrambling it doesn’t matter. She is—even at her crankiest, most unfair, and most vindictive—good for the world of food and dining: a useful emetic, a periodic scourging, the person shouting “Fire!” repeatedly in a too-crowded room. You have to respect the depth and duration of her scorn. I do.

She is, unfortunately, a return to that vanishing breed of food writer and “gourmet” who claims to love food yet secretly loathes the people who actually cook it.

While this might, if you think about it, be an indicator of good instincts on her part, it is unlovely, to be sure. But somebody has to call “bullshit”—regularly—on those of us who cook or write about food or talk about it. Even when wrong. There needs to be someone out there, constantly watching. It may as well be Regina.

I can’t wait to read her next blog entry.

14 Alan Richman Is a Douchebag

The intersection where chefs, writers, restaurant reviewers, publicists, and journalists meet has always been a swamp, an ethical quagmire where the lines between right and wrong are, by unarticulated consensus, kept deliberately permeable. It’s like a neverending hillbilly joke: we’ve all fucked each other’s sisters. Everybody in the family is aware of it—but we delicately avoid the subject.

The New York Times struggles mightily to remain above the orgy of pride, vanity, greed, gluttony, and other sinful behaviors around it—traditionally by keeping its critic as anonymous as possible. False identities, wigs, and other disguises are employed in an effort to keep their writer from being recognized. It doesn’t always work, of course. Any restaurant with serious four-star aspirations always has someone on staff who can pick out Frank Bruni or Sam Sifton from across a crowded room. To what degree that helps, however, is debatable. To the Times’ credit, I’ve never heard of anyone “reaching” a full-time reviewer, influencing the review through favors, special access, or things of value. From what I’ve heard, lavishing extra attention on them is risky—and not necessarily rewarding. Knowing the Times guy by sight is useful mostly for making extra-sure you don’t fuck up—rather than providing you with a real edge. Those chef-players who do dare to send extras are very careful to do the same for all the surrounding tables as well. Anonymity does not provide 100 percent protection from special treatment. But it’s an extra layer, an added degree of difficulty—the ethical version of a wet suit or hazmat garment, keeping the Times man (or woman) safe from contamination in the primordial soup of free food, bodily fluids, and slow-festering morals they must swim in.