Catersource
Email Response To Time.com criticism of caterers
Submitted by Mike Roman on June 18, 2010 - 1:14pm
Below is the letter Catersource emailed to the author of the article on Time.com:
Dear Mr. Ozersky:
After reading your Great Wedding Food: Tips from a Newly Married Critic posted on time.com, we feel obligated to raise objections on behalf of Catersource and the catering industry. I’ve also have received strong comments on your article from the leaders of the National Association of Catering Executives and the International Caterers Association. Your recent article certainly has stirred up many of the 26,000 professional caterers who are subscribers to Catersource Magazine.
It is amazing how many caterers have contacted us after reading your article, which spread virally from coast to coast and Canada at amazing speed. The universal sentiment was that it was inaccurate and unfair to cast aspersions on all caterers with your generalization that “Wedding food is universally understood to be bad” and that “most caterers aren’t really good cooks”.
If you were referring to unlicensed amateur caterers who work illegally from their homes that would be one thing, but you made no such distinction. In catering, as in all professions including food criticism, there are the excellent, the passable, and the mediocre. But professional caterers who open and nurture a catering business are licensed, inspected, insured business people operating in an extraordinarily competitive market. These caterers realize fully that the food they present to a client’s guests needs to be properly prepared and safely handled, with correct flavor profiles, presented and served creatively.
As an award winning food writer with a widely read media platform, you should understand why our industry views your generalizations with such distress. If you were a NYC theatre critic, it doesn’t seem likely that you would write “It is universally understood that all plays are bad” simply because you may have attended some plays that disappointed you. Yet this seems to be the standard you are applying to caterers.
Professional caterers are hard working people who employ hundreds of thousands of workers. They face competitive market pressures that would not let them stay in business unless they excel. Last year even in the midst of a recession the catering industry sold $8 billion of wedding and other event catering to highly discerning buyers throughout the US.
A simple review of weddingwire.com or yelp.com, which now list hundreds of thousands of reviews of weddings, caterers and venues, should convince you to withdraw your statements regarding caterers and catering. It couldn’t possibly be that all of the positive reviews on these sites are inaccurate, so clearly your generalizations must be.
Mr. Ozersky, we would welcome an opportunity to meet with you or provide you with any information or materials about our industry. We believe that in fairness it is incumbent on you to assist us in helping to educate the public that the vast majority of professional caterers are skilled professionals, and that the catering industry is the best possible resource for a successful wedding experience.
Michael Roman
President, Catersource
Submitted by Eric B LeVine on June 18, 2010 - 1:46pm.
Well said Mike. I read the article a few times and tried to hold back my frustration with Mr. Ozersky. I was glad to see that there were many responses to the article from many caterers across the country.
I reserved my response until I had a moment to think instead of react. Surprised, I know :]
I was glad that you said it so well, my response would not have been as nice. Thats why you are who you are and I learn from you all the time.
Thanks again Mike, I think I'll put together a nice e mail now to our new friend.
FIRE IT UP!
Chef Eric
Submitted by Georgia Rafati on June 18, 2010 - 2:12pm.
Excellent. And thank you for standing up for us all at every opportunity!
Perhaps Mr. Ozersky should be invited to attend Catersource 2011???
I can sense perhaps a win/win situation might develop.
Georgia Rafati
Catersource.com Forum Moderator
Submitted by Meryl Snow on June 18, 2010 - 2:50pm.
and... that is why you're Michael Roman. Well done!
Meryl Snow
Meryl@feastivitiescatering.com
MSnow@Catersource.com
Submitted by Mike Roman on June 18, 2010 - 2:55pm.
Thanks Meryl - but everyone needs to know that our Director Of Consulting Carl Sacks was very much involved with the writing and editing of the Catersource response above - Mike
Michael Roman, President
Catersource
Chicago Office: (800) 932-3632
Twitter: catersourcemike
Submitted by Kim H on June 18, 2010 - 3:09pm.
Kim H in California
Mike, Bravo to you and Carl - well said! I agree with Georgia that an invitation to Catersource 2011 would be a great opportunity to continue educating Mr. Ozersky...
Submitted by J-BAR-H on June 18, 2010 - 7:02pm.
Thank you gentlemen for standing up to a bully.
John Homrighausen
J-BAR-H Texas Foods, LLC
Texas Foods, Texas Style
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @jbarh
read our blog @ http://www.jbarhtexasfoods.blogspot.com/
Submitted by Jerry Edwards on June 19, 2010 - 8:04am.
This was a great and clear response. I hope Mr. O decides to contact us and do a little research on caterers. I for one would love to walk him through a Saturday (like today) and have him observe our Chefs cooking in a Library Office, a Museum loading dock, a tent in a back yard and a mountain resort kitchen they have never seen before.
Then let him sit eat the four seated dinner meals that our chefs will put out, that will be as good or better than any restaurants can serve.
Submitted by Mimi M on June 19, 2010 - 8:41am.
Mimi M
I was thoroughly incensed by the article and I so appreciate Catersource standing up for the thousands of caterers who DO know what they are doing. Yes, there will always be someone in a profession who give a bad name (the one bad apple concept), however, to make blanket statements about "wedding food" and catering is reprehensible and unprofessional. What made Mr. O a professional food critic? Is it because he likes to eat food? Is it because he has a finely honed pallate? Is it because he knows food terminology and likes to throw his weight around and get free meals?
Thank you Mike and Carl for taking him to task. Let's see if he can humble himself and apologize for the error of his ways. Mr. O - it's time to man-up!
Submitted by bill pannhoff on June 19, 2010 - 9:02am.
Mike and Carl, Thank you!
As an industry we must stand together. That is why I enjoy and support Catersource so much. I realized along time ago that you’re in it for others. The passion you show is an inspiration. Great job!
Ya Gotta Love it,
Bill Pannhoff
Owner / Senior Event Planner
B&B Catering & Event Planning
web: bnbcatering.com
email: pannhoff@embarqmail.com
office: 910-497-8228
Submitted by JonesGerard on June 22, 2010 - 5:39pm.
I didn't read the article but "“Wedding food is universally understood to be bad” and that “most caterers aren’t really good cooks”.
I think the mistake being made here is to assume most caterers are catersource members. They aren't and they have no idea of whats cutting edge.
9 times out of 10 , one thing will always be different.
Submitted by Eric B LeVine on June 22, 2010 - 5:53pm.
I dont think you need be "cutting edge" to be a Catersource member and you dont have to be a CS member to know what cutting edge is. In fact most CS members arent cutting edge and thats why we attend the conference and seminars to learn how to improve ourselves, our companies and give the customer a better experience.
There are many industry leading caterers involved with CS but the vast majority are medium size to small caterers with clients who are looking for great food at a reasonable price with as much wow as their budget will allow. I see a lot more caterers giving away what use to be charged for when it comes to display and design because they own it.
I guess when you read the article you will see where the reaction comes from or not. It wasnt only CS memebers who responded to the article.
FIRE IT UP!
Chef Eric
Submitted by Mike Roman on June 24, 2010 - 8:23am.
The Author of the Time.com article insulting caterers has been attacked by other food critics saying that the author was unprofessional in the way he wrote the article. In fact, in the authors admission below, he verifies that he received all the food for his wedding for free plus free use of a venue.
Here is the admission from the author:
Clarification: Robert Sietsema's open letter to me in the Village Voice today makes me look unethical rather than dumb, and thus requires some clarification on my part. Some of my closest friends are chefs, and when they asked me what I wanted for a wedding present, instead of a crystal decanter that I would never look at, I told them to just cook some lasagna or bake a few loaves of bread that I could share with other friends. I thought, and still think, that wedding food is almost always awful, and that having the responsibility spread out among a few chefs, each doing a specialty in pans ready for preheating, was the way to go. That said, it was dumb of me not to be more explicit about the fact that I did not pay for any of their delicious contributions, and I was wrong not to make this clear to my editor beforehand. I am not an anonymous critic and I don't review restaurants for TIME (or anyone else). I comment and enlarge on trends on gastronomy, which I stay aware of by being close to chefs. I love my chef friends, and wanted to share their food with my other friends. Michael White's daughter was a flower girl in the wedding; Jeffrey Chodorow said one of the seven blessings under the chupah. It was a mistake, but I was hardly trying to trade column space for goods, as Sietsema is pretending to suppose.
Here is the link for the original article that set off a firestorm of controversy:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996593,00.html
Here is the link for the article taking the Time.com author to task:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/06/an_open_let...
Caterers remained strong and maybe the good people will win.
Mike
Michael Roman, President
Catersource
Chicago Office: (800) 932-3632
Twitter: catersourcemike
Submitted by Georgia Rafati on June 24, 2010 - 11:44am.
I guess he said it best ...."makes me look unethical rather than dumb."
So, he's dumb. Dumb dumb. :)
Georgia Rafati
Catersource.com Forum Moderator
Submitted by Sandy Korem on June 24, 2010 - 2:07pm.
Mike,
Thanks for helping the writer "see the light" and representing all of us.
Submitted by Meryl Snow on June 24, 2010 - 2:14pm.
I love that his peers are onto Ozersky!
Check this link from Anthony Bourdain.
https://twitter.com/ruthbourdain
Meryl Snow
Meryl@feastivitiescatering.com
MSnow@Catersource.com
Submitted by Lisa NYC on June 25, 2010 - 7:06am.
seems that joshie boy ozersky the culinary trend spotter and "food critic" whose article in Time Magazine unleashed a tsunami of negative responses to his blantant misrepresentation of the catering and wedding industry and to his lack of disclosure about his relationships with the chefs that provided the food for his wedding. He even got "spanked with a wet noodle and sent to the corner with his blankie" says the Village Voice but really now Joshie, you are a naive and young child in this industry if you do not realize how that this is not your mama's wedding catering industry any longer.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/06/further_oze...
and please do add your voices to the commentaries on the Voice thread - we need to all speak out for our beloved industry and thank you to Mike Roman, Eric Levine and others for speaking up and politely telling this silly boy what's what - it's not his mama's wedding catering out there anymore - alert - the food trend of the past twenty-thirty years where american food has morphed from merely hamburgers and hot dogs and "continental" cuisine to the state of the union today with local, sustainable, delicious and passionate food and chefs is alive and well in our catering industry and we challenge you to come on in and taste the strawberry lavender lemon-aide from caterers around the world and in your own backyard! Come on in and see what catering with passion is all about -
ost my keys,
lost my mind,
found my keys,
now please help me find my mind!
Life is a journey
let's make it a delicious one
Lisa NYC
www.cuisinetc.net
Submitted by NickBorelli on June 30, 2010 - 3:12pm.
I'm so glad I'm in an industry with professionals at the level of those who posted above. Not only do you have what it takes to be the leaders in your markets, you also care enough about your industry to champion it to the world. Caterers are the best kind of people!
- Nick Borelli
nborelli@executivecaterers.com
Submitted by Gina Omalanz on June 30, 2010 - 10:56pm.
Thank you for addressing this important issue. It is great to know that there are advocates looking out for us. It is sad that there are ignorant people in such high positions in the media that we all need to watch out for. Essence of the Thymes Catering Port Orchard, Wa
Submitted by Tina S. on July 1, 2010 - 11:05am.
Here's an article on the subject from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/dining/30comp.html?_r=1
Submitted by Lisa NYC on July 1, 2010 - 1:59pm.
while the NYT article addresses some of the issues that Joshie boys article brings to the forefront, it does not address his horribly blatant dismissal of the catering industry and specifically the wedding caterering industry.
lost my keys,
lost my mind,
found my keys,
now please help me find my mind!
Life is a journey
let's make it a delicious one
Lisa NYC
www.cuisinetc.net
Submitted by Jody Wimer on July 11, 2010 - 2:06pm.
I was highly incensed by Josh's application of infinitives to the catering industry as a whole. As an English degree holder with a concentration in creative writing and journalism...that is the first thing we are taught NEVER to do, because there is almost ALWAYS an exception.
And as a caterer who contributes to a national blog, I stepped on the soap box a bit...
http://www.weddingaces.com/2010/07/a-weekend-in-the-life/
Jody
Submitted by Lisa NYC on July 26, 2010 - 9:52am.
Just came across this letter from Village Voice Critic
Robert Sietsema to Josh Ozersky chastising Josh for both lac of disclousure,
as well as unfairly maligning caterers in such broad terms.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/06/an_open_let...
for
lost my keys,
lost my mind,
found my keys,
now please help me find my mind!
Life is a journey
let's make it a delicious one
Lisa NYC
www.cuisinetc.net