I’m aware that these valedictory posts are becoming a little much. How many farewells to the troops can one general make? And yet, you deserve an explanation, having spent over a year listening to the bon mots of Mr. Snitch, the cloudy pronouncements of Gastrodamus, and of course my own brand of daily food writing and reporting. Now, as I prepare to pull the plug on the Feedbag, it’s only right to tell you why, and what to expect from the bottomless well of overwrought and under-informed prose known as Josh Ozersky. Here is what I’m doing.
In the new year, I’ll be launching a new site with Eater co-founder (and current NBC.com managing editor) Ben Leventhal: Ozersky.TV! It will feature a new video every day: visits to great restaurants, barbecue pits, coffee factories, stun lines, fish markets, taquerias, luaus, smokehouses, and any other places that I find interesting. There will also be at least one cooking demo a week, featuring some of the top chefs in America, and my own running commentary as the self-proclaimed “ultimate insider” in American high and low gastronomy. The site will wed the up-to-the-minute immediacy of Eater with the deep-seated convictions and orotund panegyrics of The Feedbag in a multimedia tour de force!
Of course, that’s not all I’ll be doing. I’m beginning my next book, a study of the life and career of Colonel Sanders; I’ll use my liberation from daily blogging to do what I should have been doing all along, which is writing long-form magazine pieces that stand a chance of outliving me; doing the Mr. Cutlets radio show at Heritage Radio Network every Sunday; writing a column on cooking for Rachael Ray.com; and, in the coming months, debuting a massive standalone project for Citysearch that has occupied much of the time in the past few months, an online portrait portfolio of the most important figures in the New York restaurant world. And there might be something else in the works as well.
via www.the-feedbag.com
Above, writer/editor Josh Ozersky's explanation for the death of his year-old way station on the road to spontaneous combustion, ie The Feedbag.
We think it's a little overwritten--"Ultimate Insider", yet!--and we'd like to point out that we, the readers, are not General O.'s "troops" (we are, if anything, his civilian superiors, since we tell him where and how to fight--by voting with our keyboards), but we're not going to come down too hard on the fellow.
We like the way he writes. We like the way he picks up dirty little bits of gossip, we mean, the news that others leave behind. And it is wonderful that at least one of this town's grande bouches actually admits to enjoying food and wine to excess.
(We love the writing of Ms. Ruth Reichl too, but she's always having "nice, light bites" "perfect for a late supper" and we know perfectly well she likes to roll around in hot fudge and whipped cream every now and again, so why not be honest?
Oops. We think we meant "roll them around in her mouth" but that doesn't sound better.
One more thing: when Ms. Reichl's Gourmet magazine was killed, there were weeks of mourning and erudite essays about what this means to the future of food. We, uh, wouldn't expect that in this case.
