I have a friend who is a music journalist. Over the years, she has become quite respected in her field and is often asked to give quotes and interviews on certain bands or music-industry-related issues. She once told me that she refuses to do any interviews for print media, and will only do radio or television, preferably live. This is not, as I had joked to her, that she thought especially highly of herself, but rather that she was frustrated with her words being used out of context in print. Radio and TV allowed her to have more control over how her comments were used. And remember, she is a print journalist herself.
Which makes me wonder if they offer a course at journalism school called “How to make your subjects look like idiots through the wonders of selective editing.” Because the Globe and Mail interview I did is up, and man, did they ever do a fantastic job at making me look like an airhead. (At least in the online version you’re all spared the scary photo that makes me look like I have no neck.)
But, just to set the record straight, here are some “corrections”…
When Sheryl Kirby’s favourite apple omelette disappeared from the menu of her usual brunch haunt, she didn’t waste time mourning.
Little bit of artist license there… Eggspectations in the Eaton Centre was never, and will never be my “usual brunch haunt”. It’s not a great restaurant. They just happened to have one dish I really liked.
…home cooks such as Ms. Kirby are swapping copycat recipes online and buying cookbooks filled with “clones” of dishes from such restaurants as Red Lobster and Olive Garden.
No… we’re not. Or I’m not, at least. That’s the point of the process – to experiment and figure out the recipe on your own. And I don’t think I’ve ever eaten at the Olive Garden, and my annual trip to Red Lobster is something that fills me with embarrassment and shame. I have no desire to eat their food at home, or to swap recipes with folks who do.
“It’s totally fun,” says Ms. Kirby, editor of TasteTO.com, whose culinary sleuthing ranges from high-end gourmet dishes, such as an amazing risotto she ate at a restaurant in San Francisco, to humble fare such as donairs.
“Cuz, like ohmygod, we went to the Galleria and the clothes were all gnarly and I was like, gag me with a spoon!” It really is a shame that they chose to cut out the twenty minutes of the interview where I talk about developing a palate to enable the differentiation of spices, or the experimentation with proportions necessary to achieve a product that is a reasonable facsimile of the original. But nope… let’s make the recipe gal sound like a ditz. Totally.
Now the jist of the piece is about a recipe book by a guy named Todd Wilbur, and most of his recipe copies are of US chain restaurant dishes. But the piece makes me look like someone who cares about recreating Subway’s sauces, or Olive Garden’s pasta, and that’s really a huge distortion of the interview I gave.
What’s worse is that it makes TasteTO look like the kind of site where recipe copying is a topic of discussion. And while I’m always happy and appreciative of the publicity, that’s not what the site is about. Even this blog is not a recipe blog, and the article is really misleading in that context.
Chalk this one up to experience, I guess. But if newspapers come calling and want to do an interview with any of you food blogger folks, be sure you know what you’re getting into beforehand, lest you find yourself made to look like a white trash valley girl with a love of Red Lobster’s cheesy buns.