Salvage Heart

A piece on corner groceries that I spent a few months researching finally ran on the cover of The Oregonian's weekly inPortland section, with lots of nice photos. If anyone can actually find the photos online...Pinkerton awaits your call.

The article looks at new ownership of a couple older stores...Cherry Sprout Produce Market, owned by two former employees of Big City Produce, and e.moreland market & kitchen, a neighborhood grocery since the 1920s.

The article also included a sidebar of other small groceries that run the gamut from for sale, to stable, to opening this fall.

It's been a longtime since , but if there's a time for the traditional neighborhood grocer to stage a comeback, it would appear to be now. Rising fuel, food, and shipping costs have undercut some price advantages by bigger stores. And, bigger chains are also looking to establish a 10,000 square foot model...with some even eyeballing the 3,000-5,000 s.f. range.

I don't think anyone I talked to relies exclusively on their corner market for all their goods, but I met a number of people who adapted their shopping behaviors to suit what was available locally--not just from farmers, but from their neighborhood grocer.

I had a photo of the Taylor Court Grocery, somewhere, but now can't find it.

Labels: groceries, journalism, neighborhoods, Oregonian, Portland

Staff at Salvage Heart have been pursuing solo projects recently, including scrambling to make the mortgage, spending our way out of recession, trying to beat the heat, and trying balance caffeine and alcohol intake with OTC allergy meds.

Also, wondering who might like to purchase a travel article on Clatskanie/Cathlamet (note: need to update LinkedIn status).

Also, being pulled slowly but inexorably into the social networking abyss of facebook and linked in.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW?
I...don't...know....

So anyway, let's re-connect.

Iron Man, the movie: loved it. Big Robert Downey, Jr. fan, and not just because everyone else is. Other favorite RDJr films include
Wonder Boys
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
that one with Ryan O'Neal and Cybil Shepard (Chances Are)
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1790771481/

Mary Stuart Masterson...what's she up to these days? Thanks to a crummy Comcast connection, I can't search online and update this without Firefox freezing.

Other news: local elections, in which I discovered that the ballot initiative descriptions made more sense upside down. That is to say, I have not yet begun to file. But thanks to the candidate(s) who have stopped by and checked me off their clipboards.

What else? A slew of Oregonian articles, and some in the Business Journal (which I never see).

One was an update on progress along N.E. MLK Blvd. (apologies to our Uruguayan readership as we detour into local news for a moment...), in which I tried to cram a 3,000 word article (and several weeks of intermittent reporting) into 800 words or less. It doesn't work. Asked my spouse whether people I interviewed would be mad about the piece and she said yes, because no one got to make their full case.

So, more where than came from, but here's the piece.

And here's the Portland Development Commission video about the MLK project.


Other articles of note of late:
A review of Cynthia Ozick's Dictation
A profile of Portland writer Marc Acito
A piece about the PDX Fire Jam getting shut down
...and other news about a donut shop, an arboretum, a heritage tree, a bunch of new businesses, and who knows what else.

It's almost race time for The Preakness Stakes, which means that the horse racing conversation will grind to a halt just in time for Memorial Day, or will continue into summertime.

As someone who grew up around horses, I can tell you that they will find a way to get hurt if there is one. Thoroughbreds are spooky and skittish. And they'll run all day long.

Racing is like so many other businesses, where the model has shifted to a swing for the fence mentality. The fact that the owners at the big races are sheiks and hedge funds should tell you something about who can make money racing (very few). The industry has sold itself as a gambling venue. The only personalities are the handful of trainers whose stables have dozens of horses around the country.

Racing should be selling the experience, of standing at the rail when the horses go past, of the morning workouts, of the history. People love to cheer and bet (look at the popularity of the racing video screen icons at other events), but racing has to find them. Instead, it puts together a sloppy show (the increasingly embarrassing Derby broadcast), and disappears except for the Triple Crown and the Breeders Cup.

I remember watching John Henry, the famous gelding, race on network television. Local radio used to broadcast the races at Keeneland. Ask anyone whose ever been to one of the premier tracks what they thought, and if they'd go back: Churchill Downs, Keeneland, Del Mar, Saratoga. The allure of the sport's history is undeniable, but its path to the future unsustainable.

Anyway, it's almost post time.

Labels: horse racing, Iron Man, journalism, Marc Acito, movies, northeast, Oregonian, Portland, Portland Development Commission, Robert Downey Jr.

I recently reviewed Michael Pollan's new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto for The Oregonian. Liked it. We're making an effort to eat more collards and kale, and less meat. That seems like a good place to start. And we went out to the Hillsdale Farmers' Market last Sunday, where it was clear that he who skips church shall get all the good greens. We made off with some nice yellow onions and some old apples from October.

One thing that struck me about Pollan's book is that he places a lot of blame, but the one person who comes away unscathed and blameless is the consumer. Now, that may be because until recently eating locally grown food was not much of an option. Or it may be that we are unable to relent in the face of a multi-billion-dollar ad campaign to get us to buy processed things in boxes.

Maybe. But from here on out, I think we can consider ourselves warned. Eating right (and eating real foods) can safely be lumped in with "go get some exercise" as things we now know to do. Or can't pretend we don't know to do.

I also bought goggles and a swim suit this week, and signed my oldest up for swim lessons. I don't think I can lose a Huckabee Hundred, but maybe I can lose a Conservation District Dozen.

Labels: books, food, journalism, Michael Pollan, Oregonian

My article on small-scale winter farming ran in Tuesday's FoodDay, the Oregonian's food section. It ran in tandem with another piece, by Kathleen Bauer who writes the Good Stuff NW blog, on some of the local markets that go through winter.

Good story for me, in that I took a lot away that I didn't know before. Seems like ten degrees is the make-or-break temp for veggies outdoors, which means that some Willamette Valley crops are now broke. (I know the beet and turnip greens, mint, and other odds and ends still in my garden are pretty scroungy looking at this point).

Probably the biggest surprise to me was the prevalence of winter shares in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs...and the number of farms who have added or will add them in the next year or so. A good resource for finding what's close is the Local Harvest site.

I visited (and clumsily photographed) Shari Sirkin's Dancing Roots Farm, out at the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge, and took some pictures. She's raising greens in a couple unheated greenhouses (hoop frames), and the rest is out in the open.

Labels: agriculture, farm, farmers markets, food, journalism, Oregonian, Portland, winter

For those passing through the neighborhood who thought this was going to be some sort of reclaimed brick warehouse, wrong. The exposed brick was just getting its lead paint off. And now it's coming down.

We'll always have superheros and snack cakes though.

Here's a piece that I wrote about it, but that didn't run.

The snack cakes have outlasted the warehouse.

The one-time Hostess distribution facility at 103 N. Ivy St. gave way in
mid-January to demolition equipment, but what will replace it remains in question.

Owner Ivy Street Partners LLC, of Woodinville, Wash., had envisioned a mixed-use development blending condominiums, apartments and retail space when it purchased the site in 2006.

But with “market conditions changing,” the project has shifted to an apartment-retail model, says Brendan Lawrence, development manager for the project. Current plans call for approximately 350 units.

The grocery outlet, hailing North Vancouver Street’s morning commuters with discount powdered doughnuts, still stands for now. Hostess has the retail space leased through March 2008, after which time the new owners may tear the store down or use it for construction offices.

Lawrence says that plans could change again, depending on the market, but that the company hopes to go before the city’s Design Review board by late spring.


So anyway...favorite Hostess product? I think I've just discovered a preference for Dolly Madison...Zingers and Donut Gems. And who makes those Orange Cup Cakes (and the baseball-themed ones in summer)? Little Debbie?

Maybe we'll open a separate thread on snack crackers packs. Nekots, anyone?

Labels: Hostess, journalism, Portland, real estate

A piece on the Irvington Squire condo project ran in this week's inPortland section of The Oregonian. Good example of a project that meets code, but not (necessarily) the design hopes and dreams of (some) neighbors. Particularly next-door neighbors.

A discussion on the proposal drew over 130 people to the Irvington school cafeteria last Saturday to talk zoning.

The issue is in part a legacy of the 1993 Albina Community Plan, which called for increased density (by 10%), as the flight to the suburbs continued from north and northeast Portland.

Different times. A Bureau of Planning rep told the crowd that this tension (density...or destiny) is happening all over the city. When it comes time to re-work the comprehensive Portland Plan (and it's time is nigh), the city will likely revise the way it looks at density to accommodate a 3-D perspective (beyond just height and mass).

Meanwhile, Irvington may follow the Alphabet District's lead in NW Portland and strike out for historic status. Being a Conservation District, it turns out, doesn't carry quite as much weight as some Irvingtonists would like it to.

Labels: historic, Irvington, journalism, Oregon, Oregonian, planning, Portland, real estate

A piece on Marco Shaw that I've had simmering for awhile (on my assignment list and then in the editor's queue) finally ran today, in the inPortland section of The Oregonian.

Shaw is the owner and chef at Fife, co-owner of a relatively new take-out place called Full Plate, and has plans to open Hard Shell in the Vanport Square Development down on MLK sometime this spring...hopefully.

I'm hardly the first to write about him (Nancy Rommelmann did a really nice interview that ran on Portland Food and Drink, back in Feb '06), but I've watched that restaurant since its build-out in 2002, and have spoken with Shaw (and interviewed) a number of times. In this era of celebrity and hysteria, his solid, straightforward style paradoxically stands out.

Labels: Fife, food, Full Plate, Hard Shell, journalism, Marco Shaw, Oregon, Portland, restaurant

With the bar set admittedly low, Parade, the Sunday circular that appears in newspapers across the nation (including The Oregonian, featured a story on January 6, 2008, that must've appeared timely and insightful when first assigned, when turned in, when pasted up.

A cover profile on Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto: who she is, why she's important, and what her election might mean for the country.

The piece did omit one minor detail, however: She's dead. In fact, she's been dead since her assassination on December 27.

In its only concession, the piece did allow that there was more information available at the Parade Web site.

Sure enough, readers will find explanations from the editors that the piece went to print on Dec 19, and that they had alerted the newspapers to perhaps run a story about that. Also, that Parade posted the entire piece in advance online.

What I didn't see? A Howard Huge archive. Boy is he big!

In a telling episode (and movie) of the Family Guy, in which the megalomaniacal Baby Stewie meets his adult self, he is horrified to discover this: "You read Parade?!"

Hey, Parade? Stop the presses.

Labels: Benazir Bhutto, Family Guy, Howard the Huge, journalism, Oregonian, Parade

A few articles piled up now that I wanted to post, but have not gotten around to getting around to yet.

But, as coffee talk continues to brew in the new year here in Stumptown, I thought I'd link to this piece on Courier Coffee Roaster's Joel Domreis, which ran in The Oregonian a few weeks back (Nov 29?). Plus pictures, which I thought were cool, but were too dark for the newsprint edition.

Labels: bike, coffee, Courier Coffee Roasters, journalism, Little Red Bike Cafe, Oregonian, Portland

My article on the return of letterpress ran in The Oregonian on December 31st, with a nice photo of Jean Sammis at Lark Press. What I submitted was too long (sometimes you roll the dice), and so a few paragraphs were cut, including an interview with Carye Bye, of Red Bat Press and the coordinator for the Independent Publishing Resource Center in downtown Portland.

The IPRC's letterpress workshops are the most popular of any it offers, and it also has open studio hours a few times a week for people to come in and press their hearts out. Some, Bye says, come in for a single invitation project. Others use it to launch a business (as she did).

Inge Bruggeman, who runs Textura Printing and teaches at the Oregon College of Art and Craft (the temptation to put an 's' on one of those words is almost too much to bear), points out that the fine arts wing is also starting to co-opt letterpress. She is co-curating an exhibit at OCAC for the end of February. In doing so, it places the work in a context, historically...letterpress signals a certain time and place. Coming to a biennial soon?

The piece I wrote was based on a personal interest in the subject, and the "Let Her Press" show at OFFICE PDX right now (thanks to Kelly for the image, which I tweaked in Preview). Since I am forbidden to bring home any more stuff (something about 27 boxes of vinyl records tipped the scales...Winston Churchill speeches anyone? Scott Joplin's Treemonisha?) I have to live vicariously.

Labels: journalism, letterpress, Oregonian, Portland, printing

Couple of bylined items in today's inPortland section of The Oregonian....

• An update on the SunRose condo project, on the half-block where the Hungry Tiger once growled. Local developer Randy Rapaport was consulting on it...and now he is not. The project is a go, though, says everyone still on board, including Ann Cohen, who represents the Wong Family. Should be interesting to watch develop, particularly if it doesn't start construction by Thanksgiving, which was the latest planned date. Probably more to this story, but probably not much more that could appear (attributed) in print.
• Also, the Storefronts feature, with new businesses galore (if you call "seven or eight" galore). Features Seven Virtues, at N.E. 60th and Glisan. (And feel free to click on that storefront link...I spent about 15 minutes trying to find the right OregonLive front door that actually listed the inPortland section...maddening.)
• One other note: I'm now serving as the Northeast Portland correspondent for inPortland, which means I'm looking for interesting items about NE Portland, out to about 82nd (which will be covered by someone else). Hot tips welcomed.
  

Labels: journalism, Oregonian, Portland, Randy Rapaport, storefronts, SunRose

Could it be that the Portland Tribune, the once-mighty challenger to The Oregonian (at least on Tuesdays and Fridays), could be gearing up for another assault?

In the Tuesday, October 24 edition, the paper included a letter from Steven Clark, Community Newspapers and Portland Tribune president, that, to the unknowing reader might sound like a re-commitment to the paper's purpose. Key points include (quoted from the letter):

• The hiring of additional reporting, editing and photography staff.
• The hiring of a company executive editor to grow and improve local news coverage within our many newspapers.
• The expansion of our Web sites, including more local news, information services and the addition of Reuters national and international news coverage.
• Expansion of editorial and opinion pages.
• Enhancement of newspaper distribution.
• And expansion of partnerships between our many newspapers.

And to its credit, the paper has gradually evolved into a Portland "community" paper rather than a seldom-published daily, albeit still the flagship enterprise. Combined with the 15 or so other properties in the Community Newspapers chain, you're generating content for a lot of neighborhoods. It will be interesting to see how Reuters content is folded in...does this mean that Trib content then goes to Reuters?

Also worth noting: not one but two investigative/enterprise reporter positions open at the paper right now, as posted at JournalismJobs.com. These positions will be based at the Trib, but will "serve as a resource" to the other 16 Pamplin papers as well.

One caveat: Owner/Doctor/Reverend Robert Pamplin, Jr., has engaged in vigorous bloodletting in the past at his media properties, including KPAM 860 am (at one brief time the home of the largest radio newsroom on the West Coast), and the periodic purges at the Trib (Business section, we hardly knew ye....), including the downtown Portland editorial offices.

A final note: tip of the hat to Ellison Weist, who had the guts to tackle that massive Daniel Boone biography (I couldn't land the assignment at the competitor paper) by Robert Morgan, a review of which ran yesterday as a preview to tonight's reading at Powell's City of Books. Daniel Boone rules! Kit Carson drools!

[Semi-full disclosure: I've written for the Trib, and my spouse once worked at KPAM. Also, we both appeared on the cover back in 2005, which I may post if I go back and scan it in.]

Labels: journalism, newspapers, Portland, Portland Tribune

Meant to post this sooner, but my interview with the newish executive director at the Oregon Council for the Humanities, Cara Ungar-Gutierrez, ran in The Oregonian this past Sunday.

By "interview ran," I mean that probably less than ten-percent of the interview ran. Now, part of what didn't run was meta-interview (is the red light on? Can you see it?). But there were some interesting parts that also didn't make it.

One thing is that she had previously applied to work at OCH, as a development person, but had no experience raising money. She ended up at the Oregon Historical Society, which gave her a chance to "become human," as she put it, by virtue of being around people rather than academics (she had just finished her dissertation for a PhD in rhetoric), and then replaced Christopher Zinn (or, replaced the interim, Carrie Hoops, who filled in when Zinn left).

OCH is currently embarking on a two-year program called "Borders and Boundaries," sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, that will lead in to the Oregon sesquicentennial in 2009. Look for that theme to stretch across the magazine that they publish (Oregon Humanities, which is going to publish three times/year rather than twice, and will incorporate the OCH newsletter), as well as lectures like Commonplace. It may even have some bearing on the somewhat-lackluster Chautauqua lectures.

This Friday, Mark Trahant (who edits the editorial page at the Seattle P-I) will give the season's first Commonplace lecture at Portland State University's Native American Student and Community Center. He will discuss the plight of the urban Indian, and why anyone should care: "Roads, Interstates, and the Oregon Trail: The Urban Indian Experience in the Rural West." The lecture ties in with the second edition of the book The First Oregonians.

Ungar-Gutierrez also noted that she'd been interviewed by a couple of nondaily papers, both of which seemed more interested in her husband, who goes by the moniker DJ Rafa, and who djs around town. She laughed about it, but when I called to fact-check one thing (his name), I don't know that she was feeling the third time as a charm.

Charm, though. Charming. Fun to talk to, lots of good ideas, and an implementation that will no doubt tread softly but assuredly.

Labels: journalism, Oregon Council for the Humanities, Oregonian

As mentioned in the Little Red Bike Cafe post (I continually want to call it "Little Red Wagon"), I'm now the Storefronts correspondent for the inPortland section of The Oregonian, which runs on Thursdays.

This week's featured shop is Blackbird Wineshop, very nice, with the added bonus of tremendous art, hanging by the co-owner Amelia Craigen.

Feel free to pass tips along on new businesses in the Portland area: restaurants, bars, retail outlets, and other places that have opened in the last month or so (or better yet, are going to open in the next month or so). E-mail them to the paper, and they'll pass them to me. That seems direct, doesn't it?

Labels: journalism, Oregonian, Portland, storefronts

In week three of the home office era, a story finally runs:
"Qi whiz--acupuncture made more affordable," The Oregonian, 9/27/07

I interviewed folks at Working Class Acupuncture and a couple other clinics here in Portland.

Lots more "around town" stuff where that came from, though productive ground to a standstill as a virus wiped out the office staff this week.

Labels: journalism, Oregonian

For the first time since 1999, I don't have a job to go to this morning.

Or, I have a job, and at 6 a.m., I'm there.

It's the beauty of self-employment and the luxury of a home office, and today they are mine.

Last day at the day job was this past Friday. A nice send-off: gifts, bowling (they let me win with a 168, including my first turkey), and so forth. Lots of people grabbing my sleeve whispering where you are going is there room for me?

I'm going nowhere, and no, there's only room for one in this back office.

Here we go. The launch of a career writing. Or, "writing career" as our high school guidance counselors clarify, shaking their heads.

So what better time than now to show off our latest fashions:
A review of Sherman Alexie's new young adult novel: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, in the September 9, 2007 Oregonian;
A feature on the Portland Fruit Tree Project, in the September 6, 2007 Oregonian (also featuring my own photography, which is what you get with last-minute articles);
An update on the commercial condo market in Portland (please, control yourself) for the August 31, 2007 Portland Business Journal.

Lots more in the pipeline. But, will it be enough to keep shoes on Baby? And his older sister? And their older brother? And the two little ones' mother? And me? And, Abraham Lincoln shoe-boiling fables aside, what about groceries, and health care, and all those other bills?

Labels: Business Journal, career, journalism, Oregonian, Portland, reviews, Sherman Alexie, writing

"You can't know who you are if you don't know where you are." --Wendell Berry

Fishing around online, looking to see when Wendell Berry might next push West, when I found a citation of his work by Timothy Egan, journalist-turned bookist whose The Worst Hard Time account of the Dust Bowl won last year's National Book Award.

Turns out Egan is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's July writer in residence, which entitles him to absolution from word counts.

Egan's ode to Seattle, the once and future emerald city, is at 2,500 words a little baggy for newsprint (that's what, over 70 column inches?) but worthwhile.

Timothy Egan on Seattle

Egan is the 7th of 12 writers in the P-I's series. His piece veers from timeless to topic, with a jab at a certain Mariner 6'10" tall.

"I like the fact that a few boo-birds have started to infiltrate the censorious nest of Safeco Field, especially when a first baseman is getting paid something like $14 million a year to hit -- what? -- barely .200."

Also of note: four short video interviews with Egan, in which he explains why he got into journalism--to write books, of course!

"I didn't want to go to the Iowa Writers School [sic] and get in to the navel-gazing school of minimalist fiction where you write about what other navel gazing graduate students are thinking about. And--I know I'm putting down a huge part of contemporary fiction....I was really influenced by Tom Wolfe's essay some time ago, 'Stalking the 10,000-footed beast' [sic] (Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast, which ran in the November 1989 Harper's)...where he said 'The problem with most American writers now is that they don't mix it up with the public.' Dickens, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Dorothy Parker, Joan Didion--you name any terrific writer, and you find those people are reporters at their core."

Let's see...I got in to journalism because, well, did I? We'll see, won't we.

With both feet, beginning September 10. The thumping sound is my heart racing, and the creditors already beating a path to the front door.

Labels: journalism, newspapers, Seattle authors, Timothy Egan, Wendell Berry, writing

My profile on Matthew Stadler, man behind Back Room, founder of Clear Cut Press, author, etc., ran in today's Oregonian. It's a piece that I spent a lot of time on, and one that at 1,500 or so words, left a lot on the cutting-room floor. Thanks to those who took time to speak with me, even if you didn't appear in print.

The article can be viewed here>>
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/1181163316186660.xml&coll=7

Labels: authors, Clear Cut Press, fiction, journalism, Matthew Stadler, Oregonian

The biggest disappointment of last night's season debut for the FOX network's "Hell's Kitchen" was the discovery that this was Season 3. It stands to follow, then, that last season was...Season 2?

So I missed an entire run?

"Hell's Kitchen," the reality show in which a dozen would-be chef's compete for the adoration (and restaurant) of Chef Gordon Ramsay, was hands-down the best reason to watch television last summer. And that includes Basic Cable (take THAT! WGN! Hallmark Channel! E!!).

The format: twelve goofs caught in a cross between "The Apprentice" and "America's Next Top Model," with men and women divided into the Blue (bleu?) and Red teams. They compete to prepare and deliver dinner service to cheeseballs in LA that get to ham it up for the camera. "We ordered over an hour ago and don't want any more bread!" one table complained.

Not sure what the oddsmakers make of this season's crew, but few appear to have any real cooking chops. Early sentimental favorite for me: Julia, 28, Short-Order Cook, roundly dismissed by the others with, "She cooks at the Waffle House."

You ever eat at the Waffle House? If you had, you wouldn't say something stupid like that. Instead, you'd say, "God DAMN, get Tiffany, 27, Kitchen Manager, off that station and let this girl fry them quail eggs!"

And then the producers would cut that part out to make it look like Julia STILL didn't have a friend in the world. Hey, that's life in the real (TV) world.

What's the appeal of the show, anyway? Well, swearing, for one (it works for HBO). Lots of bleeping, blurring, and things that are "ucking" this and "ucking" that (nice glottal stop at work there). But also, it's action packed, and the tasks seem more gerund than the jackassery that Trump puts his apprenticii through (though by the end of the season we know who could best organize a car wash...it's always the cheerleaders, isn't it?). And I think it's safe to say that this batch has been selected for something besides looks...or talent...geographic distribution maybe?

The real question: how long before Ramsay calls some befuddled greaseburner "Donkey!"? Not long.

Two literary-related notes:
Bill Buford's excellent April 2, 2007, New Yorker article ("The Taming of the Chef") on Ramsay shows that the act is either real or at least consistent. (Worth reading online here...although most Salvage Heart readers probably still have the April 2 New Yorker piled at the foot of the bed as they doggedly make their way through back issues...is it March yet?)

Ramsay's goal was to land three stars in the Guide Michelin for his new New York restaurant, Gordon Ramsay at The London. A native of Glasgow, his own cooking (rarely reflected in "Hell's Kitchen") celebrates English cuisine, "for two centuries the most mocked cuisine in the world," writes Buford.

Ramsay came to cooking after discovering Marco Pierre White (or a photo of him). And it just so happens that White has a new book out this May, The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness and the Making of a Great Chef. The relevance of White, according to Buford, is that it gave Ramsay something no other top British chefs had had: a Brit as a mentor rather than a Frenchman.

But back to the business at hand. Melissa, 28, Line Cook? Wow, if she was a skillet she could fry both sides of the egg at the same time...told Tiffany to her face that she wouldn't get kicked out, then put her up as a weak link. Tiffany, I think you're alone now...there' doesn't seem to be anyone around.

*************
Hell's Kitchen, FOX, Mondays at 9pm (check local listings)

Labels: authors, food, Gordon Ramsay, Hell's Kitchen, journalism, television