UPDATE: Cross-posted at Seattlest.com, where Jonathan Raban himself weighs in with a long, delightfully funny comment (number 9). My own apologies follow.
What does the Noo Yawk Effing Times have against Seattle?
Frank Bruni, their restaurant critic, puts together a list of ten hot new restaurants around the country. Geographic balance, gotta find one in the Pacific Northwest, let's see: green corner of the country, organic is hot, women chefs are hot, anything fit the bill? Wow! A two-fer, right in Seattle: Tilth, all green and a woman at the stove to boot.
They send Matt Richtel to write about a winter's day in Seattle; he starts his piece thus: "Drink coffee. Put on another layer of dry clothes. Repeat." Hit snooze button. Repeat.
They send their "Frugal Traveler," Matt Gross, to Seattle for the express purpose of sampling happy hours. He goes to Cascadia, but finds their $1 miniburgers "bland and overcooked," even though the dollar miniburgers haven't been around for well over a year. (They're $2.50.) Don't they have fact-checkers at the Times? Or can't the Frugal Traveler afford to google "Cascadia Miniburgers"?
Which brings us to The Times's "local" observer of our local economy. The thought being that newsroom editors in New York are out of touch with what's happening around the country and can't be bothered actually reading online editions of papers in other towns or asking their own bureaus; they need "local" stories with a fresh perspective. And who better than a Hungarian-born British travel writer and novelist to spy on Seattle?
That would be Jonathan Raban, who moved from London to Queen Anne in 1990 and wrapped up a series of conflated Seattle vignettes in Sunday's paper.
Here we have the author of two overpraised works of fiction conveniently set in Seattle (Waxwings and Surveillance) writing now about a poetry-spouting homeless man, whose favorite poem just happens to be a rambling piece of proto-feminism reinterpreted as an attack on materialism (Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"). The observer who interpreted the dot-com bust--in fiction--as a medieval morality play would now have us believe--in non-fictional reality--that Seattle is a Gomorrah of overwrought selfishness. The Gucci counter at Nordstrom's aside, Raban and his homeless alter ego paint an unreasonably upbeat picture of Seattle, lusting after expensive new baubles while the rest of the country pawns its jewelry.
The fault doesn't lie with Raban, who has every right to his vision, but with the editors who print this nonsense. Fine when a critical essay appears in a local blog like Crosscut; not so much when it's massaged for national exposure.
Fair is fair. Cascadia is one of the most pretentious, mediocre, and - for what you get - overpriced rooms in Belltown. A poke in the eye with a good sharp stick is well-deserved for yet another damned Seattle "it doesn't taste good enough... put some more butter on it" restaurant.
If they'd gone after Lark... well *those* would have been fightin' words. But they did not, and you're lookin' more than a mite defensive.
Ronald--
Nice perspective piece. I typically read the NY Times mostly for its take on the U.S. as a whole, and understand that often, there will be an often strong bias toward the east coast in general, and New York City in specific. This does come at the expense of the editors seemingly pumping out pieces just to get a geographic balance as you say, which is entirely unfortunate. Actually, I missed the article to which you are referring, but going back and reading it through your links does get me fired up! (kudo's to your backing up Cascadia's burgers, which are in my opinion some of the best sliders around--try the salmon with truffle butter--Mmmm!).
In any case, thanks for the nice piece, and a hearty welcome back to your own northwest home after what sounds to be a fun time romping around France's best foodie haunts!
Cheers,
Jacob Young
How come you dwell on Cascadia's miniburgers so much? This is the second post about that article. What about all the great meals the Frugal Traveler had around Seattle? I wouldn't think you can really say that his article was an insult to the city when he found so much else to rave about.
And Cascadia's miniburgers are bad - dried out and tasteless, with no condiments, spices, or anything to impart flavor. Seems to me that calling them "$1 miniburgers" is being charitable, since who wants to pay more than that for crummy food?
Snap! It's not exactly Jason Blaine phoning in his war correspondence from around the corner of the NYT but gee, were those writers even here? We put on our GoreTex, go out for coffee, then dawdle over oysters at Ettas? More like drink alone, sleep heavily and watch old movies until April rolls around.
Speaking of Jonathan Raban, one of my favorite books is one he wrote in the early '70s called Soft City. In part, it's about the way we create spaces, especially dense urban dwellings through imagination and memory and (sometimes) misinformation, as much as with brick and mortar. We try to live in the Seattle we imagine it to be...
So, I'm going to go put on my GoreTex now. I'm not exactly sure why.
what about Portland?