This is such a waste of newsprint. A new Chicago Trib reporter hosts, her “foodie” friends, under the auspices of giving readers tips on hosting gourmand visitors. The idea is fine. The execution is horrible. The article would be much better if the reporter actually knew something about Chicago. Basically, it’s the blind leading the blind. Also, if the reporter’s friends were really foodies, would they have J. Alexander, Bandera, and Grand Lux Cafe on their eating wish list? I can just see the pitch meeting.
New Trib Reporter: Um, like, my college friends are coming to town and like they like food.
Editor: Should be a fun weekend.
New Trib Reporter: Well, like what if we did a story on eating a lot in 36 hours, and what it’s like to host out of towners.
Editor: Informative service piece. I like. Do it.
New Trib Reporter: Cool, but like they don’t know anything about food and neither do I, so can we just go to places on the mag mile like Grand Lux Cafe and Bandera, of oohhh how about a national chain like J. Alexander’s which is so emblematic of Chicago? Oh, and we’ll hit the trendiest breakfast place in Chicago and wait an hour in line for breakfast, and we’ll cap it off with one of my favorite eats from when I was a U of Chicago marooner, a second tier cajun/creole restaurant in Hyde Park.
Editor: Sounds awesome.
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ab
Hilarious piece. A parallel to the terrible food reporting being done at the Sun-Times and Tribune is the great exposure of the death of the Daily Newspaper in this season Wire (on HBO). All the frustrations you see here on Hungry and other sites about the local coverage of food is exposed as the corporate beast rearing its head into the quality of writing, coverage and more generally, a reduction in staff that creates gaping holes in virtually every newspaper beat.
I’ve seen people on LTHforum write 10x more interesting and informative “people visiting, we ate like kings” posts than this crap.
Cynthia
How is it that, with so many amazingly good food writers in this town, the newspapers can’t figure out how to put out really good food writing?
Helge
Another victim of the Food Network carnage. Now everybody is a “foodie” even if they can’t boil water or find Argyle St. to “urban” for a meal. Just because somebody went to Alinea for a birthday doesn’t make them an expert on anything. I wish the mass media would stop dumbing down the food industry.
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