Marilyn Haggerty's amazing Olive Garden review and the subsequent viral shitstorm

I was craving meat and vegetables when I went to the Blue Moose at the beginning of the year.The steak was good. The broccoli was nice. The onion rings were great.

the idea that hagerty is some kind of prose genius with a tamped-down, everything-is-subtext style is so condescending. i like the cadences of her writing, which speaks to her training as a reporter. she's a good local reporter, and i like some of her observations of other humans. but her job is to write about food -- and she uses the blandest, least descriptive adjectives available. (the only thing worthy in that passage--potentially--is "the broccoli was nice," which sounds like a criticism to me.)

she reminds me sissy spacek's line in "badlands": "this place is nice. the flowers make it nice."

lolol

"Some people go to the Broken Drum Bar and Grill on North Washington Street to drink. I go there to eat."

This is now the opening of my novel....

the idea that hagerty is some kind of prose genius with a tamped-down, everything-is-subtext style is so condescending.

I revived the thread because eating at a tapas place on Sunday night I tried the mussels and thought, "OK, these are nice" and immediately thought of Hagerty.

She isn't a master but I enjoy anticipating what tricks she'll use to avoid discussing the mediocre food. I mean, "As I waited, I noticed one server with a tray held up to her shoulder by one hand and pouring water with her other hand into a glass on the tray"? She's used 50 words of her count.

amateurist, you're missing the first line, which is what makes the whole description good:

There comes a time in January when a person just wants something basic to eat. I was craving meat and vegetables when I went to the Blue Moose at the beginning of the year. The steak was good. The broccoli was nice. The onion rings were great.

The boring basic way of describing the food is meant to evoke the january ennui of the small town food reviewer. It's good writing. It's nice. It's not great, no.

But I like her. She keeps her head down, and does the work. As someone who writes arthouse reviews in Danish for an internet audience in the tens, I kinda admire that attitude. Plus, when she writes about herself, instead of the food, which is honestly most of the time, she does it in a refreshingly banal and unglamorous way. If I lived there, I would read her column year in and year out.

remember: her nickname is "The Appetite."

i'm not convinced that hagerty really dislikes the food she reviews, or rather that she is really that discerning. she seems equally uninterested and non-descriptive when she goes to better places. in a way she reminds me of some of my relatives who enjoy eating well enough for the company etc., but don't seem any more excited or pleased by really good food as by something completely pedestrian. my GF is sometimes a little sad because she'll whip up something marvelous when we're visiting her family, and they will enjoy it, but not really any more than if she brought home some Subway sandwiches or something.

maybe I am projecting, but I've yet to read a Hagerty column that seems either particularly enthused or particularly descriptive; I'd buy Frederik's argument about the "january ennui of the small town food reviewer" more readily if so many of her columns don't read the same way without the pretext. maybe i'm just missing the subtle gradations.

i agree about her refreshing honesty and un-glamorous way of writing about herself. i do like her writing, i just don't think that she's a good food critic, even though her articles seem to be halfway between reporting and review. (as someone notes upthread, local papers usually have two types of restaurant articles: "news" articles announcing new places, revised menus, etc.--which often read like advertising copy. and reviews. hagerty seems to think she's just a reporter, but the structure and content of her articles suggests that the paper wants you to think of her as a reviewer.)

the "January ennui of the small town food reviewer" is a better phrase than anything I've read in Hagerty tbh

a challenger appears: http://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/what-s-on/food-and-drink/meal-review-mumbai-flavours-narrowgate-alnwick-1-7354035

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with not venturing away from the village pub or local fish-and-chip shop, but it certainly helps to be a bit more adventurous when dining out.

I'm hooked already.

Doesn't have the passive/aggressive, is she or isn't she character of Haggerty, though. "The waiting area was really nice."

granted, just wanted to post it somewhere really

M-Hag reviews KFC:

Mashed potatoes and gravy have not gone away. It's just that they are hard to find in this world of burgers and French fries.

So I swung into the parking lot where Col. Sanders, with his red and white stripes, presides. It was early afternoon, and I joined a few late lunch people in the dining room that looks out on Washington Street.

One group of five was seriously eating a big bucket of chicken. They were obviously hungry and obviously enjoying a full meal. They didn't talk much, but one of the women occasionally slithered over to the drinks counter to refill glasses.

When they left, they carefully tucked food they had left into one of the red-and-white-striped buckets to take along with them.

There is a wide range of customers at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and long-time manager Rick Hanson says 40 to 45 percent of the business is done through the drive-through window.

I especially like the light brown gravy that comes with the mashed potatoes. The chicken tenders are tasty, although you have to bite through a lot of crispy breading before you get to the chicken.

"slithered over"!

Maybe a table of snakes hoping for a deep-fried rat?

Kevin Hoffman would've thought that KFC review finger lickin' good if she'd published it in '12.

I find her writing to be Hemingway-esque

the parking lot where Col. Sanders, with his red and white stripes, presides

ok that is glorious

The chicken tenders are tasty, although you have to bite through a lot of crispy breading before you get to the chicken.

sick burn

i want her to write a detective novel tbh

One group of five was seriously eating a big bucket of chicken. [

no this is

the sick burn, that is

TBH though the voice is more Andy Rooney than Hemmingway

I disagree; it's much more observational than querulous.

yeah fair point, but I mean it's like Hemingway if you strip away most of the subtext.

I would be afraid of eating with The Appetite. I can imagine the review.

"I ate with my companion, who was hungry. Until the waitress brought our ice-filled glasses of water, he could not stop talking. I thanked her for the both of us."

OK, no bullshit, this is out of a George Saunders story but, yeah, no subtext:

ST. THOMAS, N.D.—If it's Thursday, there's a turkey dinner waiting at the cafe next to the post office here on the main street.

And the last sentence!

There are homey looking curtains on the front windows of the cafe. The booths with padded seats look comfortable. And at the rear of the restaurant, there is an area for group gatherings. The restroom off to the side is OK and is for both men and women.

Near the kitchen, patrons with a sweet tooth find Special K bars that are said to "go like hotcakes." Along with them, customers might find homemade desserts such as apple or rhubarb crisp or maybe homemade donuts.

You help yourself to water and coffee, which is made fresh and does not sit around and grow stale during the day.

In the current harvest season, there are customers who take food out to the fields.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/accent/food/3844921-eatbeat-head-st-thomas-perfect-turkey-dinner

I don't want to rehash the whole thread, but her flat style mostly strikes me as typical of very small local newspaper writing. She seems like a reasonably nice and smart person doing a little restaurant reviewing to pass the time, an ordinary life made to appear funny through the distorting peephole of the internet.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/accent/food/3894240-eatbeat-suit-your-tastes-subway

for some reason this made the front page of the mpls star-tribune today

The manager, Andrew Goren, says the place is busy between 7 a.m. and midnight.

lol:

Like the many national food chains, Subway is bulwarked online by all the information you could possibly want. There are serving sizes, calorie counts and cholesterol reports readily available. They mean little to most who stand through the lines at a Subway. They are important to others who have health concerns.

she told you!

"With an eye to the busy holidays ahead, Subway shops are promoting 50 percent more meat for a sandwich for 50 cents, Goren said."

Because nothing says "Season's Greetings" more than extra processed turkey on your processed bread-food roll.

she hits Panera:

In the morning, some customers make quick pickups at the drive-up window, while others settle down inside the bakery cafe. There's a long table where friends meet up with friends throughout the day. And along the sides, there are tables and booths, all with a lookout on the passing scene in front of Walmart and Sam's Club.

The food has a medium to medium-high range in price. A medium-sized bowl of soup I had recently was $3.79. A turkey, apple and cheddar sandwich with chips came to $9.49.

When eating with friends, it's sometimes wise to split a sandwich order to go with a serving of soup. And salads are a good selection—long on nutrition and lower in cost.

she has an assistant!

On Wednesday and Thursday evenings, they offer a pound of wings and a pitcher of domestic beer for the low price of $12.

And that helps pack the house at Parrot's Cay, a small eating and drinking place on 36th Avenue South. The wings are coated, most often in a Shark Sauce. It comes in various levels of spiciness, from three to 40. And the menu warns anything over the level 12 will leave you sweating.

Customers also can get wings with buffalo garlic ranch, Thai, jerk, blackened, peanut butter or captain's barbecue sauce.

"But honestly," said Carrie Sandstrom (CS), my Eatbeat assistant, "I don't know why anyone would ask for anything other than Shark Sauce. I don't know what's in it, but I could eat that sauce on anything."

shark sauce: the donkey sauce of the sea

Fanfic time.

Does Marilyn know her assistant is a CRIMINAL?

http://www.collegemediamatters.com/2014/01/29/after-arrest-editor-at-university-of-north-dakota-student-newspaper-steps-down/

^^^ Fanfic time!

First irony alert: Apparently, Sandstrom is a past “Student of the Year” recipient for the group Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) and is part of the Grand Forks Community and Campus Committee on High-Risk Alcohol Use.

Second irony alert: Sandstrom penned an op-ed about drinking responsibly published only five days before her arrest. As she wrote, “As sad as it makes me to type these words, high-risk drinking is a fact of student culture here at UND. The decision to drink in a risky way is one far too many students make; and, unfortunately, personal decisions often have consequences for many mo

i don't want to start a rumor based on pure speculation and potential for entertainment value, BUT i heard sandstrom's uncle owns Shark Sauce Ltd.

https://cdn4.ukf.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/darude-sandstorm.jpg

There were six of us around the table for lunch at Del's recently. And there were no holds barred. That is, we went for the glistening brown gravy over mashed potatoes in traditional hot meat sandwiches There's a choice of hot beef, turkey, hamburger or meatloaf. My advice is to make it a half sandwich for $5.29. If you go for the $6.59 version, you need to go home and mow the lawn. Or run half way to Hillsboro and back.

The day at Del's begins with early morning breakfast specials, including biscuit and gravy for $3.50.

I found a bottomless cup of pretty good coffee for $1.99 while I was waiting for my friends. The whole pot was left on my table.

LAKOTA, N.D — The creamy cabbage and ham soup was thick.The macaroni salad was just like people used to make at home.There is a Reuben sandwich on rye bread, and a turkey ranch wrap.

All of this was at Elaine's House of Dreams on U.S. Highway 2 in Lakota. On a recent Tuesday, there also was a french dip or chipotle hoagie.The chef salad came with turkey and ham.

And the dessert! It was memorable. A choice of the best blueberry pie or a fluffy cream pie. Homemade.

I get the sense that Hagerty allowing herself to use an exclamation point is like a man released from a hospital after an enema diet.

She sounds like she's on the verge of giving up just prior to getting to the dessert

"pretty good coffee" in alfred's last revive was an ominous hedge.