Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy indulging in good food and drink. And often expensive food and drink. But the article I just wrote for Cork & Knife features something even I couldn't imagine ordering, even if my wallet would support it. It's a $7,450 cocktail.
Slight change of plans in the order of launches in the properties in the new media company I'm starting. StartRocket, the site focused on web entrepreneurship East of the Rockies, had been slated to begin producing content this week. However, I have opted to delay for a few weeks to address some logistical/infrastructure issues, as well as to try to line up additional contributors before going public.
While those things are getting sorted out, I decided to release the new media site that I had slotted to launch second, Cork & Knife. This site is focused on the people that make a difference in your professional or amateur fine dining experience. Chefs, sommeliers, bartenders, servers, authors, purveyors, winemakers, and even the food media will be profiled to help foodies and gourmets learn more about the philosophies and personalities that impact the food and wine.
So, check out Cork & Knife and let me know if you are interested in becoming a contributor to that site or especially to StartRocket.
I'll keep you updated in this space on developments on both fronts.
Two items showed up in my reader that may interest not only foodies, but those interested (as I am more and more) in the online video space. They're almost diametrically opposed, though, which makes it more fun to watch and see how it plays out. One is offered by a major brand focused on brand-name chefs. The other is from an unknown company focusing on food, not personalities.
First, the more food-focused offering. A Canadian startup called Rouxbe is producing approximately 4 instructional videos each week, according to Josh Catone over at Read/Write Web.
The videos are presented as multi-part, indexed flash movies in an attractive video player (see this free video for pan-seared cod
as an example). Videos are shot mostly from an overhead angle and narrated, step-by-step. Using the player, users can jump to any specific step in the video, pause, rewind, skip, or replay.
Cristina Ledesma of 901am writes about the other offering, this one from Food & Wine magazine. 
It sounds interesting as well, though it packs star power behind both its magazine title and the video talent.
Foodandwine.com is currently airing video segments of [Bobby] Flay, [Emeril] Lagasse, Mario Batali, Jacques Pépin and other star chefs preparing their signature dishes at the 2006 Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen. This month, the epicurean website began adding more original content, starting with a series of videos with Chef Joey Campanaro from New York’s The Little Owl demonstrating a full romantic menu, and Chef Shea Gallante of Cru demonstrating a summer menu. In addition, coverage of the 2007 Food & Wine Classic and interviews with other prominent chefs will also be available as foodandwine.com expands its Web 2.0 offering, which includes podcasts, blogs and a Wiki-enabled portion of the site.
Two very different approaches to a similar vertical video space. One aimed more at the home cook, the other at the foodie who may or may not wield pots and pans himself. It will be interesting to see how it pans out (I really didn't originally intend the pun there, but I had to leave it once I noticed it).
In the Web 2.0 world, when you get angry with the mainstream media, you have some recourse. You can blog to communicate your unfiltered message. But how do you equalize the audience for your message with the audience for the outlet that wronged you?
If you're Jeffrey Chodorow, known to some as Rocco DiSpirito's business partner in the NBC TV reality show "The Restaurant," you declare a blog war on the New York Times. In a costly full page ad in today's paper, Chodorow savages restaurant critic Frank Bruni and the rest of the crew in the food section. He announces that he's started his own blog to shadow their work (and presumably ridicule them).
Furious at a scathing review of "Kobe Club" by Bruni in the February 7 edition of the Times, Chodorow decided to get even -- or at least fight back. Here's how he describes his blog:
This blog was born partly out of my love for food and for great restaurants (from neighborhood joints to the world’s finest) and partly in response to an increasingly negative, downright nasty climate that has surfaced in the world of restaurant journalism. My intent is to provide a different perspective—from a restaurateur’s point of view—as well as to share some of the great food experiences I have been exposed to because of my success in the business. I’ve also made it my mission with this blog to comment on reviews that I feel are not-fair, not-objective and not-constructive.
Certainly Bruni poked his finger squarely in Chodorow's eye in the review:
Kobe Club occupies the Midtown space once inhabited by Mix in New York, Mr. Chodorow’s cheeky, ill-fated collaboration with the French chef Alain Ducasse.
Mix wasn’t even Mr. Chodorow’s flashiest recent failure. Who can forget Rocco’s on 22nd, scene of “The Restaurant,” where Mama’s meatballs were sauced with acrimony and eventual litigation? Or its short-lived successor in that location, Brasserio Caviar & Banana?
Brasserio Caviar & Banana — the name really does bear repeating — tried a grill-from-Ipanema approach and foreshadowed Mr. Chodorow’s fascination with sharp objects. Meats came on disturbingly, dangerously long skewers.
No doubt Chodorow has many in the New York restaurant community silently rooting for him, while others are cringing. It will be interesting to see what approach the Times takes. They can try to ignore it; seek retribution using the pen as a sword; or they can tone down future reviews. One certainly wonders whether Bruni -- or anyone else at the Times -- can objectively review a Chodorow establishment after this broadside.
As a "foodie" and a proponent of blogs as a medium to circumvent the mainstream media, I find this story fascinating and look forward to watching it continue to unfold.
It's a bit off-topic for this blog, but I suspect many readers will be entertained by New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni's blog post today about what diners steal as they eat. I was especially amused by the tale of a woman who repeatedly attempted to walk away with a $300 silver serving dish shaped like a miniature stove at David Burke and Donatella.
Recent Comments