(Photo: Graham Elliot)
. . . to the brouhaha caused by the Chicago mag critique of the "Lollapalooza" dishes.
The celeb chef actually posted his remarks in the comments section in the original story on 312DD, but I felt the need to give it a post on its own:
"When toiling in the restaurant trenches, nothing is more abhorrent, more boring, more flaccid, than programmed cynicism. Wait! No – you know what? There’s something deeper, more repugnant; a quality so malignant that people literally waste years of their precious lives in its delusive grasp: Self-Importance. If we were to fuse these shining traits in an unholy marriage not unlike Frankenstein or Will Smith’s Wild Wild West – we’d only begin to scratch the surface of the article in question.
"Who cares if we’ve tweaked the food offerings at Lollapalooza (whose home lies in Chicago), with an amazing lineup of Chefs that represents…wait for it...Chicago? And seriously, why worry about the tens-of-thousands of dollars these independent restaurateurs are putting on the line by trying to make a music festival even better by serving inspired food? Pretty blasé when compared to the collective inhale of the entire city, holding its breath for a "writer" to critique/rate sampling portions of the food that will be offered.
"Aside from meddling with the parasitic formula that affords her a job in the first place – Cassie Walker has donned the garb of a fourth-rate Joan Rivers covering the Daytime Emmy’s. What was supposed to be a fun gathering of Chefs, foodies, bloggers, writers and musicians celebrating the fact that our town now sports the best food offerings of any music fest in the country, sadly turned into a opportunity for a catty, reckless blog post fueled by a sick self-importance for insidious and prosaic journalism."
Wow.
indeed
ReplyDeletewow, so rare for a chicago chef to stand up to a major media outlet so vocally. so many chefs keep their thoughts inside but making this public is RARE. i have to applaud chef bowles for standing on his own feet.
ReplyDeletei think this is also a warning to all the self-entitled journalists out there in the city (ahem time out chicago), people are just not going to take this bullshit anymore. i love it.
Uh, has anyone read Cassie Walker's actual comments? Other than daring to critique an obvious prima donna, she didn't say or do anything that's out of the ordinary. In fact, she gave most of the food pretty good reviews, even if she did note that some of it will be tough to eat a festival. So what. Bowles reaction is WAY WAY out of line. Does he really think that he's above criticism? Seriously, this is one restaurant I will NOT be visiting anytime soon. Celeb chef. Hah.
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