A food critic denies the criticism she receives in letters to the editor
Keep Those Cards and Letters......Please
I received a letter last week from one of my readers. Well, she wrote, you beat me to it. I was just finishing up my review of Papa Tatoni’s restaurant, when I saw yours in the paper. Why didn’t you mention the singing waiters?
Ah, I thought as I slipped it into my drawer stuffed with similar epistles, yet another fan.
I review restaurants for a medium-sized newspaper and receive more than a few letters each month explaining the error of my ways. This was typical: I was the food critic - the column is not open to other writers, therefore the hard work she put into her review would have been a waste except for the giggles it might recieve posted in the newsroom. I called the restaurant to ask about the singing waiters. Once the owner stopped howling with laughter, I was informed there were none. Typical.
We ran a contest - vote for the best pizza in town. I wanted to require some creativity on the parts of the contestants. I asked them to write a 50-word poem or love letter to their favorite restaurant. I received over 200 entertaining, in one way or another, entries. After the winners were announced and the best pizza celebrated, I received two letters from non-winners claiming a winning entry went over 50 words. One even sent in a photocopy with the words numbered (52, 53, 54, 55!). Both writers claimed they would have won if they had also cheated and included five more words. Being a diplomat, I chose not assure them they would not have won under any circumstances, but apologized sincerely and passed along a gift certificate for their favorite pizza. What was the coveted prize that inspired such acrimony? You guessed it, a pizza. Curiously, one of the complainers wrote me a note with her entry: “Thanks for having such a fun contest, I just love being creative!” And no, there was no money attached. Maybe if there had been.......
Readers and letter writers call me blind, declare my taste buds DOA and organize write- and phone-in campaigns. Sadly, most complaints are simply without merit, and I’m speaking objectively here, of course. I rated one restaurant very high; a patron railed against my obvious attempt to shut that place down by giving it three out of four stars. A light-hearted, slightly sarcastic look at the nutrition of county fair food resulted in a scathing retort from a food stand owner. She wrote not about food, but about how my easy life was nothing compared to her own hard luck story. One woman called to tell me I had no right to expect the food to be served the way I ordered it; if she had to eat burned burgers, then so should I. More than a few people demanded that I rewrite a negative review because it appeared at the end of December, and as everyone knows, we should only be jolly during that time of year. Most recently, a note curtly objected to my graceful refusal to review a nursing home’s cuisine. “Everybody needs to know that the food here is five star,” the manager insisted. No matter that my scale peaks with four stars.
Still all that (dare I say it?) hate mail has thickened my skin. Dealing with insults, accusations and absurd misspellings of my name has increased my resolve to write the truth as only I can see it.
But, honestly boss, do the letters have to be published in the paper?
About the Author
Author Notes: Pamela White is a home-based freelance writer focusing on food, parenting and writing topics. Her ebooks, including Making Money Mystery Shopping, and Operate Your Own Paint and Wallpapering Business are available exclusively from Bizymoms.com. “Become a Food Writer” is available at Fabjob.com. She is the marketing and promotions director of Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine.