Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I noticed that too, sadly. I did hear from someone here at Serious Eats that they have "something special" planned with him this week, so hopefully it's not a complete separation. He seems like a great fit here if he's not just too busy!

Livetotravel, you honestly think Slice and AHT are behind where they used to be pre-SE? I'd like to see the stats to prove it. I don't think Adam has lt up, far from it. I belive his overall output has gone up, although the review slots may have decreased a little.

As for Amateur Gourmet. I'm sorry, I just don't geddit. I know I'm not alone in thinking this, but I think he stands out on SE, and unfortunately not in a good way. His writing has been described to me by one prominet NYC editor as a train wreck. I know it's just an opinion and all that, but his prose is shockingly well.... amateur.

Far be it for me to dis' another blogger, but I'm kinda stunned at the total absence of criticism on SE on the contributions made by this blogger.

From the AG's first post:

I'm The Amateur Gourmet: a completely untrained, unaccomplished culinary lout with absolutely no expertise in anything having to do with food. I have an immature palate, an understocked pantry and a penchant for purchasing food that's already been prepared.

Goal #3: To become an internet [sic] phenomenon. ... Thus, my third goal is selfish. Love me, love me, love me!

nuff said

I always take everything with a grain of salt because I am a certified know it all. I frequently see blogs written by people not as skilled as I. By skilled I mean in cooking, baking, technique,palate or writing.
Does this mean I don't appreciate nuiances of their work? No
I somehow realize that people who are very passionate about something tend to be just that passionate. Discerning, critical, vocal and judgemental. I enjoy the levels of professionalism in this blog and others. Somtimes I just enoy talking about grilled cheese for a week. Go figure.

Don't get me wrong either. There's nothing wrong with trying to make money.

I have nothing against the AG either, and frankly, I find the writing to be the best part of his site. I don't, however, pay much attention to what he has to say about food.

But I do have problems with lapses in spelling and grammar if they obscure the meaning of what the author is trying to say. For example, I have no idea what "that's not all down the writer" means. I mean absolutely no offense by this. I make plenty of mistakes myself, and posts, like email, make this all the easier to do.

Totally agree on the video and all the rest of it. My taste buds are as ragged, if not more so, than AG's. But, we came in here talking about the written word. That's the only bit I, and I think some of the other folk in this thread, have an issue with. Remember this is someone who has a book deal. I don't think his writing is up to snuff and I'm wondering how that will translate, or not, into a book.

Well hello---I'm surprised to read some of the comments in this thread. There's been no break-up between myself and Serious Eats: I'm currently working on re-designing my site and temporarily took down the Serious Eats widget while trying to figure out how to clean things up. With the new Serious Eats format (with more focus put on blog updates) I'll now be writing one column a month; but, as someone pointed out above, this week will bring a new contribution from me---I'll let you be surprised.

As for my writing, I've studied writing from my first year of college, when I declared a Creative Writing major, to the two years of writing grad school I did at NYU where I did a masters thesis with Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman. There are lots of ways to evaluate writing: you can look at grammar, you can look at sentence structure, you can look at the nuts and bolts and ignore the larger edifice. I consider myself a stylist more than anything else: I like to tell stories in an idiosyncratic way. Those who like my writing (and that group includes Michael Ruhlman, Ed Levine, Regina Schrambling--all of whom are blurbing my book) admire it because there's lots of life to it. That's what I do. And, if I may say so, many of the blogs that I find dull and off-putting are blogs with no life to them. You can grammar check and spell check all you want, but if your writing is dull, no one care's how much Strunk and White you've digested.

Graham--I'm surprised that you said what you said in a public forum where I'd be likely to read it. That's nice that your editor friend thinks my writing's a "train wreck," I'll keep my thoughts about your writing to myself.

I didn't realize that there was a issue with the AG, I personally appreciate his passion for food and he always has some fanastic contect. I like that in his writing weather the dish was a huge success or a emormous flop, he still blogs about it. And always comes to a conclusion with why it was that way. Why so critical? I don't see any of these people writing a cookbook, or have a blog as well known as the AG.

i enjoy the AG's columns as much as any of serious eats' other contributors. Why the anger, folks? This site is so great because there are a diversity of opinions, writing styles, and food foci.

After following this post, I have been reading AG's blog a little more carefully. I must say, I don't much like some of it.

From
Taqueria Pancho Villa (Or: A Mission for A Mission Burrito)

"The modest, hardworking people of my stomach wanted a revolution--"

I don't know what "hardworking people of my stomach" is supposed to mean. If this is a metaphor, it's a bad one.

"...not every meal has to be hoighty-toighty."

Or even hoity-toity.

"They're not punk kids working after school jobs at Chipolte, they're actually Mexican!"

Wow! Actual Mexicans! You can tell by looking at them!

"And here's what I ordered. A watermelon drink called Sandia:"

The melon is sandia; the drink is aqua fresca de sandia. I didn't need the picture. I know what a soft drink in a paper cup looks like.

"Look at that burrito, filled to the brim..."

Um, burritos don't have brims. How about "stuffed to the max...".

The gratuitous photography is also lackluster. Are you taking your pictures with your cell phone now? The last photo could as easily be an aerial shot of a garbage can. Other photos are so jagged as to be distracting.

I'm not angry, and I'm not trying to be mean. I'm not picking on anyone. I'm trying to be critical. I expect a certain level of quality in what people put out for public consumption, and I don't see it here.

To AG: I'm sure you want your writing to be the best it can be. Like food in a restaurant, writing can be good or not so good. You should be open to criticism, and always willing to improve your work. I tried to avoid sarcasm (and failed in the Mexican bit), and I tried not to sound preachy. This is just my opinion; you may, of course, ignore it.

Lou, I actually agree with your feedback on that post---I'm here in San Fran and trying to blog as much as I can about my trip, while at the same time not wanting to spend too much time on the net when I could be out doing things. So I write posts like that almost like an e-mail--I re-read them once and click post without too much fussing over it. It's just a choice I make and for the most part my readers don't seem to mind.

The work I do for Serious Eats, on the other hand, I do spend lots of time on. And my book, you'll be surprised to see when it comes out, has gone through almost a year of editing---I've been revising, reworking, reshaping, rethinking each chapter so much that you may not even recognize the work as my own. That's because it's just a different medium.

It's funny, Livetotravel started this thread and then slammed me in the video section and slammed me elsewhere too, and then I clicked on my site because "Livetotravel" sounded familiar, and after doing a search I see Livetotravel's left 121 comments on my blog over the course of more than a year. Quite a lot for someone who hates me and my writing.

AG: thanks for the clarification. I took some time to check out some of your stuff on SE, and as you say, it's much cleaner.

I'm glad you didn't take offense at my post: certainly none was meant.