Did you see the brilliantly written review of several new foodie books by B.R. Myers in the most recent Atlantic?  I learned about the story and the thread of electronic havoc it’s causing from food politics writer Hannah Wallace, in her weekly round-up for Faster Times.

Where do I begin? His basic thesis is that foodies have formed a tribe whose value system is focused on creating an exclusive community, brutal moments of violence (killing their dinner, for instance), and elitist experiences only affordable if you have trustifarian rootstock.

Many of Myer’s  comments and observations contain grains of truth but he seems to be expanding those little grains into fully developed absolutes, which they’re not. I’d like him to stop and consider the simple quest for flavor and those who seek it.  I know that most of his attacks are directed at what he calls “fringe foodies,” and perhaps I’m talking about more mainstream foodies, but it seems ill-informed and unhelpful to lump all degrees of “gourmets,” “foodies,” or “flavor seekers” into one  scorn-deserving pot.

The f-word has long been banned  from my vocabulary because it doesn’t describe me, my company or how we think about the food system and why good food matters (though we still have we call “Foodie Fridays” at which we learn new craft food and drink techniques as a continuing education practice — the name just sounds too good to change!). So, perhaps the big idea Myers meant to convey was not that Gabrielle Hamilton’s poetic appreciation of raw flesh is pornographic, inappropriate and the emblem of what’s wrong in the national food conversation but that the club of those who relish cooking, sourcing, writing about food is one whose door was shut on him for some reason — not sure why — and he wants membership.

And, it’s probably good news for him that there are a lot of recipes  available for bitters on most cocktail websites, because as Robert Sietsma says (speaking for so many of us, thank you) in his rebuttal in the Village Voice, “Myers’ real problem is dyspepsia. He really, really doesn’t enjoy eating. And resents those of us who do. ”

Enjoy, and let me know what you think after you read both Myers and  Sietsma.  Both are worth the read.

For those who care:  Gabrielle Hamilton is doing a book dinner for her new book Blood, Bones and Butter, at Nostrana in Portland on March 13th.

That’s a question that we don’t necessarily hear directly from restaurant clients, but we know it’s something that many restaurant owners ask themselves. In a recent New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/dining/30comp.html that addressed the issue, chefs are squawking a bit:

“No one can afford to give food away in this economy,” said Scott Conant, the chef and an owner of the Scarpetta restaurants in the meatpacking district and in Miami.”

We can understand why – when a writer comes in for dinner, either on their own or with a publicist, why shouldn’t they pay, just like a regular customer? They gets to eat delicious food!

We thought we’d offer up a mini-case study to demonstrate how a “free meal” might look from the writer’s perspective, and to highlight the potential long-term value that can come from this comped transaction.

One of our account managers brought a freelance food and lifestyle writer to a client’s restaurant. The writer was doing general research for a future article in a local magazine, and also wanted to get familiar with this restaurant in an effort to stay abreast of the scene at large.  The writer’s agenda was just discovery, nothing specific.

The next week, this writer got an assignment from The New York Times (to keep this anecdote anonymous, let’s say the topic was vegetarian lunches). Though the writer hadn’t been assigned the Times story at the time of their free meal, they now have our restaurant fresh in their mind and in fact, while there, they had gotten a chance to learn that the vegetarian lunch menu looked excellent. So who do you think will be one of the examples in the Times story?

But let’s be clear: with a serious writer, it’s never a case of quid pro quo. This writer is not including our restaurant in the article as thanks for the free meal. They’re including it because the restaurant is a perfect fit for the story. The reason they knows it’s a perfect fit is because they now have a fresh, first-hand experience as a reference.

And the reason the writer was able to get that experience was because the meal was comped. There are very few writers, if any, who can afford to pay full freight to eat and drink in all the places they need to know about. Bigger publications have dining budgets, so their writers generally don’t accept comps, which makes it even easier for everyone, but the freelance world isn’t so (and those dining budgets are shrinking, too).

So when a restaurant owner is authorizing that comp meal, they should remember that it’s not really a “free meal” to the writer, it’s a tool that lets them do their work.

Believe us, most freelancers would prefer NOT to be dining out on a Tuesday night with a publicist, turning a meal into a reporting session—even if the food is great. Sure, there may be a few genuine freeloaders in the world, but legitimate writers are out seeking information, not freebies. The writer is the advocate for their audience and they need to experience the same thing a paying customer will experience so they can write with authority. Whether that experience results in publicity for a restaurant in the short or long term, it’s always a good investment.

Yes, it’s true.  In addition to running Watershed, Lisa also runs the coolest wine event in town.  Lisa founded the festival in 2004 to celebrate Oregon’s incredible independent craft winemakers – many of these guys do not have tasting rooms and all make fewer than 2500 cases of wine per year.  The Indie Wine Festival is modeled after the Sundance Film Festival (it’s the only juried wine festival out there) and is set up like a farmer’s market (you can buy direct from the winemakers while you have your fill of bites from PDX’s top chefs).  This is one ticket you won’t regret buying, so if you haven’t already, get to it!  The festival is THIS Saturday at the Bison Building.  Buy tickets here.

Last Friday, The Oregonian’s Sara Perry caught up with Lisa to chat Indie wine.  Check it out here and see below.