Knife's Edge - Restaurant Rants & Raves

Fish & Chip Papers

Judging from today's food section in the SF Chronicle it appears that rumors of Grace Ann Walden's ousting are confirmed. Amanda Berne will now be dishing out the "Inside Scoop".

If only other newspapers would do a little New Year's housecleaning. If we as a nation are firmly obsessed with food it would do us well to have commentators on that obsession who actually know what they are writing about. And who can actually write.

The thought that a fool like Jeff Cox from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat continues to make a living covering the restaurant scene in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties is revolting. That cedichou's whipping girl, Meredith Brody, is allowed to receive money for the absolute crap she writes at the SF Weekly is likewise astonishing.

It's true that blogs and aggregators like Chowhound and CitySearch are providing other sources of information. But it's also true that a piece printed in the newspaper gives a restaurant a more significant boost (or bust) than coverage by a blogger.

The real rub for me is the money. Poor writing, scanty knowledge and various biases are acceptable in on-line forums or blogs. No money is changing hands. But when someone is being paid I believe in a higher standard. Particularly when someone is being paid to critique the work of others.

Perhaps if the publishers heard often enough from readers tired of poor writing (about food or any other topic) some of these rejects from their community college's creative writing programs would improve or move on.

There are good critics out there, and independent review is a vital element in assessing your business. Certainly a customer's perspective is ultimately more valuable than any critic, but for the time being the published review is still the fastest way to get or lose new customers.

Busy, for a Slow Month

The holidays have wound down here in a deluge. Not as bad as for our neighbors to the south but fairly unrelenting rain and roads closed in and out. Power, miraculously, has not gone out. In years past a gentle breeze was enough to knock us out of commission. Although the grey weather can have a deleterious effect on my mood I'm enjoying the rain. It reminds me of when I first moved here and winter was nothing but one long rainstorm.

With winter comes seasonal closures. My chef friend came by last night with a lobe of foie gras from his kitchen, now closed for 6 or so weeks. Although he'll still have plenty of work to do he will get to go to Oaxaca for two weeks. I'll stay here in the rain. January and early February while slow, are usually not too bad for us because so many places close. March is the killer, since everyone is open.

We've got some fun events coming up in January. The first, not actually an event, is feeding crab to the key staff of The Girl and The Fig next week. I met owner Sondra Bernstein very briefly 7 or so years ago when I was putting our place together. An artist friend put us together so I could see how her funky set-up in Glen Ellen looked. Another friend put her in touch with us so they can have a crab feast during what I believe is some sort of management retreat for them. It's always fun to serve other people in the business. I hope the bad weather is not making them change their plans.

Later in the month we're doing a brewer's dinner with the Anderson Valley Brewing Company. The challenge here is to be able to serve 5 courses of food with beer and not have the guests literally roll out the door. The kitchen staff is excited, since the drinkers among them are microbrew fans rather than wine geeks. They drink wine, but they're far more knowledgeable about brew.

Then at the end of the month we'll have our 7th anniversary party with an amazing local circus. This year is going to be really spectacular. They've got this whole Wild West show scripted, with lots of games for the guests to be involved in, dazzling aerial feats, sharpshooting, wheelbarrow races to clear tables (the GM and I will try not to blanch too visibly), as well as juggling, unicycling and other circus standards.

After that I'll be headed to Seattle for 5 days. Any must do's, must eat, or must see's there would be appreciated.

We had food bloggers from Portland in for New Year's Eve. Haven't seen the review on their site yet since they're exhausted after being stuck here for a few days then making the mad dash home. I didn't know about them while they were in the restaurant, just saw a link to their site on our hit tracker on the restaurant's website.

I haven't made any resolutions this year, there's too much up in the air right now, but I'm glad I was able to faithfully keep at least one from last year. The dogs and I have gone for a walk every evening I've been home. Not a big deal it's true, but the previous year I was much more lackadaisical about getting them out.

Not only did no one identify the musical post titles from the past year, no one even tried. So I'll keep all my candy cap mushrooms. Now, off to a foie gras breakfast.