As a food judge, how do you deal with food that doesn’t appeal to you? For example, if any chef set any kind of raw fish in front of me, I would gag. And I have eaten tuna crudite before. YUCK!

Has this ever happened to you, Michael?

If Michael doesn’t answer, has anyone else here been in this position?

Thanks.

“As a food judge, how do you deal with food that doesn’t appeal to you?”

At the start of “The Man Who Ate Everything”, Steingarten talks about when he first got the job as food critic for Vogue; at the time, he had a whole list of foods that ranged from “absolutely would never put in my mouth” to “only if I were starving”. However, he felt it was his responsibility to overcome these (largely irrational) phobias and forced himself to try pretty much all of them (he goes on about the research showing you need to try something X [8 or 9?] times before you can really know for sure if you don’t like it).

I suspect any judge will be in a similar mindset – even if it’s not their preferred food, they have an obligation to try and give an unbiased answer. More to the point, I suspect most people who end up food judges are the type of folks who will try just about anything, repeatedly…

It also helps not to think about what it is either – I don’t refer to sushi and other rare foods are “raw” this or that. I like the name they’ve been given, rather than their descriptions. Do you think about what’s in sausage or a hot dog? And please don’t call it stuffed intestines – that would deliberately make a food unappealing.

There’s a chapter in Kitchen Confidential that talks about Bourdain’s daring and adventurous palette. He’s willing to try anything and everything, and he’s been that way since childhood when he set out to prove something to his parents. In the process he found he liked a lot of the foods he tried, and one of the worst things he’s ever eaten is Chicken McNuggets. LOL. So you may wanna check out that book. It’s great.

Still loving this blog, gonna get Mr. Ruhlman’s book, and enjoy reading all of your comments.

First, I doubt that these judges are particularly accustomed to being openly critical of food they are evaluating. They are all probably more along the lines of “It’s all quite nice, but Dish A just has that special something….” In this competition, though, the judging is about justifying selecting which chef is to be eliminated. That’s quite a different job than glorifying good vs. better vs. best food. If all the comments were vanilla, the outcry would be louder than it is now.

Secondly, I see a pattern to the editing. If I asked you to name a judge on American Idol, who comes to mind first? Gotcha… it’s Simon, isn’t it. I suspect the editing of NIC is aimed at trying , in a foodie sort of way, to copy that pattern. I know that in several cases where comments seemed abrupt or aggressive, they were taken out of context. For instance, the “lobster roll comment” was taken from a playful, friendly interchange among the judges, but comes off as being quite aggressive when taken alone. From the attention it has received, I’d say the editing worked to create interest. Remember that the film collected from the judging was around an hour per episode, and was edited down to 2 or 3 minutes of air time.

The selection of Besh and Symon as the two finalists seems to be meeting with general approval, all of the carping along the way notwithstanding. So, these judges whose abilities have been questioned in blogs from everywhere have arrived at selections with which most of us agree from our observations sans tasting.

Finally, as concerns blogs…. Ruhlman’s blog is great. Ruhlman’s work is as an author and food commentator. He’s good at it. I’ve ordered the latest book from Amazon to go with all the other Ruhlman books I own. Hopefully it will arrive tomorrow. He makes his money by selling books and by giving lectures. Good for him. He earns it.

Knowlton works for a magazine. His job is, ultimately, to sell magazines so that Conde Nast can sell ad space in those magazines for more cash. I suspect he’s good at that job also. The blogs on the BA website are clearly an afterthought. The content, however, of Knowlton’s blogs is excellent. I doubt that any of you who have read them would disagree. Neither, in the blogs, does he come off as he does in the edited NIC episodes. Pithy, edgy, yes… but mean, grumpy, etc… no. Listen to the podcasts he’s done. He’s a friendly, knowledgeable interviewer who does interesting podcasts.

I’d be happy for either Ruhlman or Knowlton to recommend me a restaurant for a great meal. If I had to choose one to go with, though, I’d pick the more critical, the one who’s harder to please. You decide for yourself.

If you listened to the Tampa podcast interview with Ruhlman, he talks about how time-consuming this whole blog thing can be. I am amazed and impressed by his commitment to his readers.

I’m looking forward to reading the new book, it’s exactly what I need.

I noticed that when she was leaning forward her boobs looked WAYYYY better. But I really, really liked that dress.

It’s on his home page with one hop off the main site. http://ruhlman.com/ -> click blog. The site is simply, easy to navigate. His books are popular amongst bloggers. Many people link here. The blog layout is simple and easy to read and fills the window with readable whitespace on either side.

On the flip side, Knowlton’s blog is http://www.epicurious.com/bonappetit/blogs/editor. Got all that? Okay… maybe you go to bonappetit.com… how to get to Knowlton’s blog — first dismiss the huge full-screen flash advertisement that’s blocking the view, mouse over features and select blogs. There, you’re at the blog and he’s listed in tiny text. There’s ads all over the place and the entire format is scrunched left. On my screen, full screened, the adds are center screen. And on top of that, as well known as Knowlton may be in the food world, his foodie exposure is hidden behind a masthead with only NICA and a couple appearances on ICA.

If you went to epicurious.com first, good luck getting to the Bon Appetit blogs.

Online communities tend to build geometrically. Ruhlman got a good start with a good layout, frequent posts that interest people, some entertaining guest interludes (built in fan base!), and tops it off with frequent response to guests in the form of replies and replies *inside* the article (or next). Solid community building skills.

Knowlton’s blog is just another corporate blog on a confused corporate page. It’s not its own entity, like this one is.

We know these people through their work. Ruhlman has won many a fan with his writings and continues to bolster that with his call and response here. Knowlton has ‘the bad edit’ and that’s all we know about him. I personally don’t want to waste my time on the website of a (unjustly perceived) brat.

I hope Ruhlman’s theory is right, and they happily off trysting together. Hope that answers Ava’s question as well your roiling issues about my perceived “problem” with Knowlton.