NYTimes: Marc Bittman says you don't really need the expensive kitchen stuff

oh hey like every issue bon appetit has a feature on some restaurant in some stupidly far-flung part of the world (well, far-flung if you are american). like, some place in darkest fucking sweden or, this month, some dude cooking with flowers in a strip mall outside of melbourne. every one of these articles is a hilarious and transparently desperate bid to "discover" the next rene redzepi or adria or whoever.

i read this and then i go lie down and read elizabeth david until sanity returns.

mark bittman says
who the hell cares what mark bittman says anymore?
that's what i want to know at this point

i bought some ocean perch at the store yesterday with the intention of doing something lemon-buttery with garlic and dill, and i consulted his book Fish (that's the kind of book title I appreciate), which confirmed what i thought i should do and gave me a few other ideas for next time i want to eat this (very delicious, inexpensive, and tender) fish. It didn't have a stupid name and claim to elongate my life. It just told me how to make the fish in a variety of ways. RIP that mark bittman :(

can you give me an example of the new bittman article

i mean, an article written by the new bittman

he is selling a diet book with a special name that he claims is "his" diet -- isn't that enough?

doesn't really raise any red flags for me

yeah see i guess i feel that's gross -- i can stand personal branding! it grosses me out.

UGH
i meant can't
my outrage (i'm not really that outraged) has made me typo crazy

i guess because i believe in his general philosophies w/r/t food i don't mind that he's building his personal brand

i agree with him and i still think it's gross
he has become a pontificator, and i preferred him as an educator. i realize it's a fine line, but still somehow in my mind he has crossed it

that's probably true but i think the enemies on the other side of the line (corporate food laboratories and taste labs and advertising and etc. etc. etc.) are so numerous, that....

you're totally right -- i realize not everyone would feel the same way
cooking is a basic life skill, imo, and treating it like a program/commodifying it is kind of antithetical to that
again, imo
what could a businessman ever want more, etc. i'm a product of my times! it's inescapable.

How to Cook Everything was the first cookbook that made me feel like I could actually succeed at cooking, and it opened me up to a lot of foods -- it's like the ipad/iphone of cooking in terms of user-friendliness compared to most of the other available stuff, at least when it came out.

I mean, it's not like Julia Child wasn't heavy into personal branding, there just wasn't that term for it yet.

Oh hell no you are not equating MB and JC!

Rachel Ray or Paula Deen, yes. But not Julia Child.

I hate Bittman too.

I'm trying to imagine Julia Child or James Beard "branding" stuff and failing. Links required for proof. The only similar thing I recall from that era is Graham Kerr's spurtle.

i do kind of avoid reading bittman's stuff now that he's less of a cooking writer. not having those weekly minimalist columns let him wander too far into dr. oz land. i still like his videos when he does them.

His minimalist stuff is great; the title of his new "work" has made him my enemy 4evah

Like I will not even type it out here because it makes me spit.

I'm trying to imagine Julia Child or James Beard "branding" stuff and failing. Links required for proof. The only similar thing I recall from that era is Graham Kerr's spurtle.

― Jaq, Monday, May 13, 2013 11:20 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it seems kind of naive to think that a chef with a long-running television series and a number of bestselling cookbooks with her name directly in the title is not engaging in branding

A cookbook or tv show is not a line of cookware, patented spices, tableware, appliances, or "must-have" utensils.

Yeah but the ". . . lose weight in X days" uuuuuuugh fuck that dude.

A cookbook or tv show is not a line of cookware, patented spices, tableware, appliances, or "must-have" utensils.

― Jaq, Monday, May 13, 2013 11:59 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bittman has these things?

The Dr. Oz relationship is omg u dead to me dood

Telling me how to cook something is so very different from telling me what to eat. I'll stick with Harold McGee for now.

It's only a matter of time before Bittman has a line of supplements.

Or he jumps on to homeopathy.

i'd like to know why no one (no public figure at least) seems to be satisfied/gratified by simply teaching people how to cook
that's what he used to do really well, and in a way that wasn't insulting
i no longer care what he says about anything because he's a pontificating weight loss salesman instead of a teacher

Mark Bittman's fearmongering is starting to remind me of Glenn Beck -- what's wrong with this guy?

He's the worst and I hate myself every time I'm baited into clicking one of his articles.

What now? I haven't been paying attention.

Chicken. Fucking chicken.

i.e. DON'T EAT IT U ASKING FOR DEATH

It's just that he's always Mr Everything Is Killing Us and it's really tiresome! I understand that there are battles to be fought, but at this point it just seems like he is riling people up for the hell of it.
I'm bored/somewhat affronted by activism of this nature, I guess.

It really is a shame, because his mac and cheese recipe walked the spouse through making his very first roux, and it all came out great and delicious, and he (spouse) felt very happy and accomplished and no longer intimidated by roux/cheese sauce that isn't microwaved Velveeta.

He's definitely not a teacher anymore. He's a pontificator, and the worst kind! Blech.

Like, "being angry about Monsanto" is not a pastime, and I think he is feeding some people's hunger for outrage-as-pastime, which is both boring and offensive imo.

He could be teaching people to feed themselves and their families.

Which he used to be so good at doing! And I really don't understand why the NYT feels they need a sub-Michael Pollan pontificator when they already have Michael Pollan pontificating.

Ugh. Thx for the update, what a shame.

chicken is awesome, buzz off bittman

What if chicken blood gets on my lettuce in a shopping bag? What if someone else’s chicken contaminates my apples on a supermarket conveyor belt?

then you're a dummy

I don't mind his cookbook but I'll be damned if I choose to read his ideas about food policy.

file under 'nope'

Op-Ed | Mark Bittman
Years Ending in 4

Disaster has been well represented in years ending in “4,” but probably not disproportionately so. Does history give us reason to be optimistic about 2014?

...

geez louise, what's wrong with him?!

That this man, instead of me, got to spend time with Marcella Hazan in her final weeks is just so wrong!