Dine & Cook | Alternative food journalism

It was one of those meals-- not the best ever in my life, but perfect for that moment in time.  I didn’t travel far-- less than a block down the street from my apartment-- nor did I go anywhere special-- an inauspicious wine shop that happened to serve food.

I literally drove by this place for the better part of a year, never paying much attention to it.  I’ve eaten at the pizza place next to it several times.  I’ve had coffee at the shop right next door to it.  My dry cleaning gets done three places down.  And I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve used the ATM right in front of the place. 

I’ve wanted to try this place, but I never got around to it.

It took a tip from a work colleague to get me through the front doors that Friday night.  As it turned out, the food was good, really good.  Would the New York Times restaurant critic have found fault in it?  Definitely, actually I’d be surprised if the Times would even consider giving it the time of day.  Would a foodie have torn apart the menu?  Maybe, it seems they live to find fault in everything these days.  Would a Yelp Eliter spend half of their review on the place’s decor?  I wouldn’t be surprised.

There was something about that meal though-- I can’t stop thinking about it. 

The thing is, throughout the meal I wasn’t thinking about the food constantly.  I don’t mean that negatively, everything tasted as what one would expect it to taste like.  I enjoyed every bite, but this was a meal in which there was no need to go all academic on.

I started to think, “this is food.”  Let me tell you, for a food writer and lover of all things epicurean that’s a bit of a eureka moment. 

Food writing seems to have gone to the extremes, lecturing us on what we should like, how things should taste-- where we should go.  Articles seem to shout these days:

“Make your own sausage.”

“Why you need to sous vide at home.”

“The next elBulli.”

“Seven course tasting menus!” 

I could go on and then there’s the other side, dull recipe after uninspired recipe. 

“Spruce up your Velveeta mac and cheese.”

“Grandma’s ‘original’ spaghetti sauce recipe.”

The blogosphere is littered with thousands of articles like these, but really they are all the same. 

There is a time and place for these subjects and at times they merit to be covered but I can’t help but think “has it all been done?”  I mean, take for example, we’re even critiquing fast food now (and by we I mean the established food media).

I may have suffered from foodie fatigue and burnout over the past year but one thing remained constant, my love and appreciation for the culinary arts.

It seems that the food world has gone all topsy-turvy in the year that we took off and perhaps I’m putting too much emphasis on the fact that it took a co-worker’s recommendation to get me into a random place that happened to be very good.  But that meal showed me something-- no matter what the latest trend is, there is always going to be a large group of chefs and home cooks doing their own thing, beating their own drum.  They are the silent majority.

There’s always going to be someone out there to offer a recommendation but we don’t have to wait till we hear it from the food media or see how many reviews it has on the Internet.

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, that’s the niche food writing has neglected.

So here’s to the constant.  To the chef who keeps their head down service after service hoping to provide the best meal that they can.  Here’s to the the home chef who silently toils with each recipe hoping to learn something new.  And here’s to the academic who devours all things food for the sake of their personal enrichment.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the silent majority needs to start being a tad more vocal these days.