Jeffrey Chodorow: Easy Over

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Jeffrey Chodorow of China Grill Management made the top of this week's Dining section in The New York Times, part of a threesome with a PR person and chef Todd English. I suppose for Summer fare it's light enough, but otherwise it's surprisingly leftover news. Guess that's what you get when you add a PR person at the table with a newspaper reporter who usually covers the National Desk and without really watching what you're mixing up. I saw the same kind of treatment on a network news show last night: story revealed that a quarter million Americans are using convenient "quick clinics" at supermarkets and departments stores like Target and let doctors from established offices reply, but the report failed to even mention whether the rise of quick clinics has anything to do with the high level of uninsured citizens in this great nation of ours -- an issue that seems far more riveting (to me) than just the emergence of supermarket clinics. Likewise, Chodorow's adventures deserve a little more than extended treatment as an appetizer: with the chefs he's serving up, a major article on him should be an entree that provokes some real thought -- he's playing with chefs as few have done before (see previous article). So, a little friendly advice, Adam Nagourney, from a fellow journalist who has interviewed scores of chefs: watch the PR people, and make sure you get time with the chef and/or entrepreneur (separately and together, if possible), sans PR. Otherwise, it's like that scene in Soap Dish in which Elizabeth Shue tells Kevin Kline, "That started to sound a little rehearsed." (Click here to read the full New York Times article.) Previous articles: Rocco DiSpirito Apologizes to Jeffrey Chodorow Jeffrey Chodorow: Talent Agent Todd English Winner Gets "English is Italian"? Todd English Slums with Jeffrey Chodorow Claude Troisgros: Riding de Rocco DiSpirito Star Rocco Barred from Reality TV Restaurant Rocco: Trapped in Reality TV's Twilight Zone? Technorati Tags: chefs food restaurants cooking branding --> back to superchefblog