Secrets of the City

I’ll still go back to Barbette–it is just too insanely good. =)

agreed

Two friends and I got the norwalk virus at The Loring Pasta Bar once. The restaurant sent us $100 gift certificates as an apology.

I suppose food poisoning is a risk you take when you choose to eat out.

We did the Barbette story Monday night. It’s interesting… we tried to be really careful, knowing that this kind of attention could kill a business. Good eatin’ there.

Best Twins game I’ve seen this year last night.

No such thing as a business that doesn’t make a mistake, or have a technical glitch. Barbette’s one of the best places in town, and I’ll be going back soon.

At least they didn’t charge everyone 6 times for their Salmonella

Yes, it was an excellent baseball game last night. Santana was on! Perhaps this is the start of something good…

knock on wood

Knock on some Red Sox some more and they might start looking better.

I got E. coli from a pancake breakfast sponsored by my college. Then again, they did decide to hold it in the Stock Pavillion.

Salmonella is a fact if life, unfortanatly. This could very well bankrupt the place, unless they have a hell of a war chest.

Or forgiving diners. They are still on my short list of places to get food.

I think Barbette will pull through. The Hog’s Breath gave people Hepatitis and it’s still alive and kicking.

Regarding KSTP -

I’ve learned that you never talk to the media – ever. They will say one thing to your face, and ask you certain questions that might be innocuous during an interview, but later they will take all of your answers/comments out of context to make the sexiest news report possible. Way back in 2001, the Pioneer Press did an article on a computer security convention I was at. One of the reporters interviewed me, and I gave him some intelligent comments about how computers, hacking, and general geekery are a real passion for a lot of people, how it wasn’t about destruction or malice but just for intellectual stimulation… but in the paper I was quoted, “man, it’s all about passion, man…”, making me sound like an idiotic kid with no language skills. The rest of the article misquoted everyone at the show, and painted us as a bunch of idiots. However small this was in the grand scheme of things, it gave me a sour taste for the media that I still hold.

This is pretty much universal. Journalism is so slimy these days.

I love Barbette’s fries (yummm) but as a quasi-vegetarian their menu is a little underwhelming.

That’s odd; I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian, and never have much trouble finding something to eat there. Of course, it’s possible that I just get over-excited at the sight of more than one vegetarian option on a menu….

Does anybody honestly give a rat’s ass about the Twins?

The team is going nowhere.

Ugh! I rather watch the World Cup and I hate soccer!

Does anyone else need to be reaffirmed that raindog66 doesn’t like the Twins? or is it all of MLB?

He needs to change his name to OTP … One Trick Pony.

Cary, I’m sorry that you had a bad experience with a journalist. But to paint all of us with such a broad stroke is probably worse than misquoting you.

My stories tend to be sexy just because… well, have you seen my picture? (kidding). But I try not to be slimy.

Well said Mpls Simpleton!

Now get off your knees and fetch me a cocktail!

Sexy is impossible without slimy.

I’d work for the Pohlad’s in a second. If they need a manservant to fly around the world and make cocktails I’m that manservant! I’ll even be your food taste tester. “Oh no, this lobster thermador is substandard, I shall finish it for you while they bring out the truffled duck breast with thyme.”

“Does anyone else need to be reaffirmed that raindog66 doesn’t like the Twins? or is it all of MLB?”

You don’t have to like baseball. That’s OK.

But he’s openly hostile. That something else. But then he hints that he might watch it if the team were doing better.

The Twins have enough followers (they’re not fans) like that. They’re all over the place when they’re winning.

jderusha: I saw your report last night on the apt. building, you didn’t seem slimy there, but the sound was off at the gym so maybe your tone of voice was slimy.

I’d like to know what the two girls at View thought they were getting themselves into when they agreed to let you sit at their table.

(Because it’s a tactic I’d like to try myself)

If I don’t exfoliate, my skin can become slimy. As can the skin of all journalists.

Aaah vegetarians… will they ever win?

mike – it’s not like they don’t have anything, but we get tired of getting the same thing every time. Note: this does not apply to the fries, I would eat those every day until my arteries explode or I died of salmonella poisoning.

The Twins have enough followers (they’re not fans) like that. They’re all over the place when they’re winning.

As evidenced by last night’s pathetic attendance of only 23,000. Maybe I’m not the only fan who has taken offfense at this concept of paying more to watch certain teams (Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs).

________________
Anyone live or know someone who lives in one of these? I’m surprised we dont’ have more.

Luke, you’re probably right. I only go there every month or two, so it probably just doesn’t register with me. There are definitely places I go more often (e.g., Town Talk Diner, Ike’s, Mission) and it feels like there are only a few options.

There really is a NEED for more diverse and Vegitarian-friendly venues in our fair city. I wish I could have the same number of awesome choices at other places like they have at French Meadow and the Birchwood.

The reason why we Veggies get the shaft in this city?

The fuckin’ Twins.

If Barbette is reopened by tonight, I’ll stop by. I hear such good things about the fries. And I like a sparsely populated place better!

“There really is a NEED for more diverse and Vegitarian-friendly venues in our fair city.”

Create demand. Are they vegetarian-hostile now?

“The fuckin’ Twins.”

You eat sacred broccoli with that mouth?

The fuckin’ Twins.

This is all well and good but the article is over a year old and they Twins didn’t end up on that site. I think the hold up in the Whole foods is that the condo that was supposed to be built on the top of it is lagging much like the Nicollet that is only 12% sold and a total of 30% reserved.

And since any grocery story I know of sells vegetables, it’s pretty hard to blame the Twins for not being able to get them.

This is the midwest, Raindog…there aren’t as many vegetarians as you might think. I cater downtonw, and less than 3% of our banquet guests request. I would venture to guess that the 3% of vegetarians is already appropriately represented by the number of vegetarian and vegetarian-friendly spots in town. Hard enough to run a successful restaurant, even harder when there’s not a market for it.

And Mpls Simpleton, if you want to tast Carl Pohlad’s food, you’d do well to travel with a lot of wide-gauge straws. I’ would guess that he ain’t chewing much these days.

jderusha: I guess I see the kind of situation that happened to me again happen ALL THE TIME to others. I guess saying ALL journalists are slimy is inaccurate, but I think on the whole the “news” industry is just falling apart into the abyss of mindless fluff and sexy news.

But I still hold firm that I’m never talking to a news reporter again… Just not worth it. So many ways for them to make you look bad, and absolutely zero recourse unless you have a rock solid libel case.

Maybe in 10 years if the news cleans up its act will I change my mind, but with so many people like KSTP and Fox 9 around, it’s just…ish.

Also, when I listen to what MPR reports, and then I see WCCO or KSTP or KARE or whatever, usually on accident, it’s hilarious how sensationalist and negative the TV news networks are especially. They spend so much time on things that matter very little, and glaze over the more important news.

It makes me angry, actually. It makes the situation for simple folk who might not know they’re being spoon-fed crap even worse, an endless cycle of mindless stupidity.

We don’t need any more stupid people.

Vegetarianism is a luxury diet availble to the western world, much like “low fat” and atkins. Not all restaurants have the skill, budget, and manpower to cater to niches like this. Some do, but don’t bother anyway. (Chef’s really can be a cantankerous lot sometimes!)

How many kosher options will you find at Barbette? Halal Options? Indian (as in, no beef) friendly options? And those are world religions, not dietary choices made by well meaning eco-warriors.

That said, vegetarians tend to be highly educated and have cash, and their zealotry cuts both ways. A smart resaurant (The Modern Cafe, for example) caters to them becuase the money is good. If I owned a restaurant, I would make sure I offered killer vegetarian food. I barely have an opinion on it personally, though I have a feeling that vegetariamism is a case of people not seeing the forest through the trees ecologically speaking.

But I still hold firm that I’m never talking to a news reporter again… Just not worth it. So many ways for them to make you look bad, and absolutely zero recourse unless you have a rock solid libel case.

I see where you’re coming from, Cary. But I think Jason (and others) will agree with me when I say that you make matters much worse when you refuse to work with the media. A “no comment” or a “refused to comment” is much more damning that virtually anything you can say. And in a situation where there’s conflict — a political race, a lawsuit, whatever — letting the other side be the only voice is tantamount to suicide.

The trick is to think carefully in advance as to what you want to say. And if there’s someone sticking a camera in your face, just say you need a few minutes and then you’ll be ready to go on. Reporters just want a good story, and it’s generally a hell of a lot better for all concerned to make your sources look good than smear them all over the airwaves. Of course, making people look like inbred morons is entertainment, but Fox really has that down to a science, so few bother competing anymore.

I’m personally a no red meat eater and have been for over 15 years.
By no red meat I don’t eat mammals. It sounds kind of odd but it’s rather easy to maintain. If its got teats I don’t eats.

The choices available to no red meat eaters has grown massively in the last 7, 8 years. It’s no longer a frozen chicken puck or a house salad at many places, although I still don’t understand the fascination with putting bacon on everything.

My suggestion for great vegetarian / vegan food is the Triple Rock.

Damn this will probably lose me that sweet Pohlad tasting gig!

Regarding vegetarian food:

Another thing to keep in mind, lots of people who don’t consider themselves vegetarian enjoy food that happens to be meatless, so catering to vegetarians isn’t necessarily directly in conflict with catering to the masses.

Regarding gated communities:

I thought the comment about the Uptown shooting by the guy who lives in Bearpath was inane. Living in a gated community only keeps you safe if you never leave it. If you want to go out for dinner, you’re still going to have to leave your little enclave and venture into the big bad city.

Vegetarianism is a luxury diet availble to the western world, much like “low fat” and atkins.

Not true. Vegetarianism makes appearances in the diets and lifestyles of MANY cultures, several of them third world. India, for example, has a long history and tradition of vegetarianism. The same goes for Japan, Shogun.

That said, I could never give up my seafood. Delicious fishies.

I wonder how rare the vegitarians are around here. I have lots of veg friends. I hate how hostile people get at veg. people. What do you care if this guy doesn’t eat meat? Don’t even get me started on how my vegan friends get harassed.

Anyway, here are some good veg friendly restaurants:

The Triple Rock was just mentioned, yum.
Cafe Brenda
The Good Earth
Udupi
Thai food joints
Maria’s
The Uptown Bar
Coffman Union
The Holyland
Flameburger…oops, not that one.

As much as I don’t really like the food…

Bryant Lake Bowl has quite a few decent things that can be prepared Vegan.

As much as I don’t really like the food…

Bryant Lake Bowl has quite a few decent things that can be prepared Vegan.

The third world eats whatever is available. In India, a vegetarian diet is dominant, thusly, the country eats a small amount of meat. Sort of subconcious when you are raised that way. In the US, vegetarianism is a concious descision for most practitioners.

My post was intended primarily to flambait anyhow… I like getting people riled up. Makes the work day go faster.

My personal luxury diet is to eat anythng, as long as it was grown on a sustainably maintained family farm, and ideally, didn’t travel very far.

Not many restaurants cater to my diet either… though, like vegetarian options, things are getting a lot better on the free-range/organic/sustainable/slow food/ect ect front.

I view processed foods with the same revulsion and disdain a veg might feel about the practice of eating red meat.

shogunmoon, you troll.

Anyway, for whole foods, Trotters on Cleaveland and Marshall is great for lunch and breakfast.

If only we could find some vegetarian reporters, then I think the MNSpeakosphere could finally be at peace.

Is flamebaiting how Burger King prepares the Whopper?

And Cary, I understand your frustrations. But I don’t think most journalists work these silly hours at low pay in order to twist people’s words and misrepresent their thoughts.

However, sadly, there are a few people who care more about getting the word “exclusive” mentioned in their lead-in than they care about the people they cover. Those few people make all of us look bad.

I encourage you to go to wcco.com/energy and look at some of the important news we’ve been covering. It’s hard to respond to what you’re saying without a specific example. But It’s easy to generalize.

“What do you care if this guy doesn’t eat meat?”

I can respect their choice but I think vegetarians do get ribbed a lot (couldn’t resist the pun) because they become so dead serious and humorless about it. A small minority are pretty damned preachyt, too.

They end up a punching bag because of it.

I am a total troll

I do think it is odd some of the practitioners of “sustainable/local/ect” do not always have many veg options. Seems to me that we are all sort of on the same team. (This is assuming vegetarianism chosen for ecological and cruelty reasons.) Places like Alma do have pretty awesome veg apps, but sometimes no entrees.

Part of the problem though is the aforementioned lack of vegetarians generally.

One trick that I know works- make a reservation, and tell them you are a veg, or ask if they can do something for a veg. Most decent local chefs will make sure they have something for you (besides another gosh darned portobello sandwich), and be prepared with mushroom stock or what-have-you.

I know it is an extra step, and doesn’t help for on the fly descisions, but it DOES work for “that special night.” (Don Saunders at Fugaise, for example, will do this.) I suppose though, a veg might want to give money mostly to those chefs that are a bit more proactive.

Thank god for Lucia Watson and the Brenda Langton- it’s always the chics that get it right! Sustainable/organic AND veg friendly. It does surprise me that Barbette lacks veg items… it seems like that kinda place.

At any rate, I would rather spend an hour hanging out with several militant raw-vegen evangelists then spend 10 minutes watching network news.

(total troll)

If God didn’t want us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat???

Kim Bartmann, owner of Barbette’s, also owns Bryant Lake Bowl, and she’s a real gem. I’m sure she’s completely busted up about this. But she has many fans who will come out in droves to make sure they bounch make in no time.

Journalists and especially broadcast journalists just like people who give good quotes. Doesn’t matter if the people being quoted don’t know fuck about anything.

Also, someone should fix Dara’s link to cue. Either that or domain park cueatguthrie.com.

Oh, here is the link to the shirt.

It seems to me that Meat Heads (couldn’t resist the pun either) are the ones who are threatened by Vegetarians.

Whenever someone asks me if I am a Veggie (usually after they notice I’m eating a Bocca burger at the barbeque) they immeditaely begin to confess to me how little meat they eat and how much they have cut down on their meat consumption.

This is always amusing cuz personally I don’t give 2 shits what other people eat and I, myself, dig me some fishies on occassion as well.

So just cuz I don’t eat what you’re having don’t ASSume I am judging you for your blood thirsty ways.

And don’t do the same with my tofutti cutey obsessed ass!

Spoon River, Brenda’s new place next to the new Guthrie. Dara wrote about it. Matt posted it. Nobody commented. Has anyone been there yet?

So, how did you arrive at the decision to become a vegetarian?

I heard Brenda talking about it on the radio… sounds awesome. I didn’t know it formally opened… it was “soft launching” when Brenda was on WCCO radio last week.

Just got home from dinner at Spoonriver. LOVED it. The food was wonderful, they have incredible mixed drinks (my dinner companion had a gin & tonic with muddled sage and Hendricks gin — sounds weird but tasted fabulous), the service was lovely, and the room is great. Plus, there’s a delightful riverside stroll to be had after dinner. The restaurant will be overrun soon, I predict. Go there now.

I look forward to trying Spoon River. Brenda needed a new creative outlet…the menu @ Cafe Brenda has been the same for 15 years.

Jason, “soft launch” sounds like trying to have sex after downing 12 shots of whisky.

Why have gated communities when you can force an entire suburb to look as well-kept as your house?

Hooray the Boston bat boy!

Hey Cary, this might seem like a personal attack, but please don’t take it as such — that’s certainly not the intent.

But given that it was a reporter from my paper who soured you on journalism forever, I had to do a little research and find out what happened. So I looked up the story in our archive.

Indeed, you were quoted pretty much as you said you were — “It’s a passion, man. It’s all about passion.” — but you’re not really giving the whole context here.

The story was spot-news coverage of a hackers convention in St. Paul (in 2000, not 2001). And you weren’t even addressed in the body of the story — you had your photo taken and you were quoted in the cutline. It’s entirely possible you didn’t even speak to the reporter who wrote the story, it may have been the photographer. In general, a photo caption isn’t the place you would typically find a whole lot of in-depth discourse. The “story” of a photo really is the photo itself, if that makes any sense.

Whatever the case, again, you weren’t a subject in the actual story which — and I suppose you could say I am biased here — read to me as a pretty straightforward, if a bit cheeky, “scene setting” news piece. In very general terms, daily newspapers provide news and “slice-of-life” type pieces about the community at large, written for a general readership. And in those terms, the story was a great success in my eyes.

The reporter who wrote it covers tech issues and certainly knew what he was talking about, and went out of his way to humanize hackers and point out that — unlike some people think — the vast majority are pretty damn smart and are more concerned about making the computer world a better, not worse, place.

All of that said, you were upset. And that’s a drag — it’s never a good thing for my industry to see someone from the general public (as opposed to a murderer or crooked politician or whatever) emerge from the experience of talking to a reporter feeling like they’ve been misrepresented or violated.

But when you paint an entire industry in such negative terms, it’s really not fair. (And this is this is the point in my windy reply where I’m talking about some of the anti-MSM discussion here in the broader sense, and it’s no longer aimed at Cary alone.)

Some people seem to have this idea that the mainstream media is inherently evil, but when it comes down to it, the media ultimately consists of a bunch of people who are your neighbors, friends and relatives. Yes, the bigger the newspaper/TV station is, the more likely it is to be owned by a major company (that’s located outside of the area) but the newsrooms are filled with people who live and breathe the same air as everyone else. I’ve worked for a family-owned paper, and I’ve also worked for a paper owned by the largest newspaper company in the business. (Now I work for the second-largest chain, and in a few weeks it’ll be the fourth-largest.) But in every case, the vast majority of decisions about how and what and why news is covered have been made on a local level, not from some faceless corporate office hundreds of miles away. Indeed, I might even say some of the heaviest handed decision making from above came from that family-owned newspaper.

And most of those people who make those decisions got into the business because, well, it’s all about the passion, man. Very few people on the frontlines — I’m talking about writers and editors — ever get rich from working in the media. If they’re lucky, they’ll eventually get to a point where they make a comfortable living.

I can tell you personally, my first newsroom job after graduating from four years of college was as a part-time features clerk where I made $3.85 an hour. I made more money in my other part-time gig as a cashier/stockboy at a liquor store (and, ironically enough, I had a stricter dress code there as well). The first few years of my full-time employment, when I was a general-assignment arts and entertainment reporter and columnist, my salary was barely above that of a shift manager at a fast-food place. It’s a similar story for smaller-market TV reporters. And radio people — well, they usually are at the bottom of the media payscale, and they have the least amount of job security.

Many of the people in my journalism classes from college never even made it into media jobs in the first place, and throughout my career, I’ve been surrounded by co-workers who have left the industry because when it comes down to it, you really have to want to be a reporter. The hours can suck — it’s never a 9-5 job — and it can be really difficult and draining and, at times, soul killing.

I kept at it because I really love what I do and, eventually, all that hard work started to pay off. I’m busier and work harder now than I have in my 12-year career, but I do it because I love it and I can’t imagine doing anything else for a living. I would say the same about the majority of my colleagues and friends in the industry.

I’m not trying to get sympathy here — that’s not my intention at all. Just trying to shine a little light and maybe put a human face on this industry so many people get so angry about.

I had planned to go off on a whole ‘nother tangent about how newspapers are totally different beasts from TV stations, as are commercial radio stations from public radio stations — not to mention alt-weeklies and independent publications like The Rake and whatnot. They all serve different needs and, quite honestly, are often staffed by very different types of people with different goals. But I’m tired, and I’ve already blathered on too much. I’ll just wrap up by saying I wish there were even more media outlets. The more voices out there, the better it is for everyone.

Oh, and the KSTP piece was pretty sleazy! But it is what it is — one sleazy TV news report, not an indictment of an entire industry.

I do have to admit some pleasure in the fact that the “meat is muder… tasty tasty murder” t shirts are hopelessly sold out.

There is always hope that our fading republic still breathes.

Matt, do you still have your PETA t-shirt? As I recall, it stood for People Eating Tasty Animals.

Ross: Well said. Thank you.

People should also be aware when they speak to any member of the media that, just as a movie camera ads eight pounds, unless you are remarkably self-possessed and witty or brilliant off-the-cuff, appearing in the media seems to reduce your IQ by about 20 points. If the best quote to come out of your mouth is something like “Wow, man, that was, like, totally bitching,” that’s what’s going to get printed, no matter how witty a rejoinder you may have preferred to have said. It’s why many celebrities essentially pre-script their media appearances. As common citizens, we don’t have the luxery, clout, or money to prepare in advance for our media appearances.

It’s actually amazing how many people claim to be misquoted when the published or broadcast quote is fully documented. Then they’ll argue that the quote was out of context, when, in fact, a look at the record shows it to be perfectly in context. Ultimately, they just wish they had said something different, or better, or didn’t fall over when the camera was trained at them.

Barbette is open.

Ross…perhaps you can submit your next explanation-via-autobiography to your Editor before you post it…it’s a wee bit lengthy for this web format.

I got sick at Barbette in April and when I called the man or woman ( I couldn’t tell…) was pretty rude and seemed to not want to even talk to me. The food is nothing special and the service is even *worse*…. Brenda’s great places will be my new home. Especially after the Salmonella outbreak, I will not patronize that place anymore….. “Salmonella is a fact of life”?…. a preventable one that wasn’t prevented