Sun Times

An interesting article on Chicago thin crust pizza and Faulds ovens appears in today's SunTimes. Antonius will be pleased to know that one of the "best," Joe's on Harlem near Midway, uses no yeast whatsoever and that another exemplar, Calo, lists oil, butter and margarine as ingredients.

I was interested in the south side places, but I think I have to take them with a grain of salt given the Calo rave.

Note the discussion of house made Italian sausage. The more I see about Chicago pizza, the more it looks like house-made or at least made-to-spec fresh sausage is somewhere between "not unusual" and "expected" in Chicago. I think that must stand in stark contrast to most pizzarie outside Chicago and goes a long way to explain why the sausage baseline here is so high. You might not like our pizza, but you can hardly argue against the sausage.

Here's the article:

Pizza, the circle of life in Chicago

Best quote, which JeffB mentioned:

"First, you've always gotta start with good dough," Vince says. "Which is basically flour, water, yeast, butter, margarine, oil, salt, pepper. Basic ingredients, just the right amount of each."

basic ingredients, indeed.

JeffB wrote:An interesting article on Chicago thin crust pizza and Faulds ovens appears in today's SunTimes. Antonius will be pleased to know that one of the "best," Joe's on Harlem near Midway, uses no yeast whatsoever and that another exemplar, Calo, lists oil, butter and margarine as ingredients.

Yeastless pizza dough strikes me as no less bizarre than the extra-short dough. Very strange... but I guess one should try it before condemning it... I guess...

Note the discussion of house made Italian sausage. The more I see about Chicago pizza, the more it looks like house-made or at least made-to-spec fresh sausage is somewhere between "not unusual" and "expected" in Chicago. I think that must stand in stark contrast to most pizzarie outside Chicago and goes a long way to explain why the sausage baseline here is so high. You might not like our pizza, but you can hardly argue against the sausage.

You're right there. And sausage on a pizza is far less dominating and caloric than peppreroni, apparently the nation's favourite topping, especially in its usual layer with almost total coveerage.

Thanks for the tip. I was especially happy to get some more info on the Fauld's ovens.

Antonius

Hi,

I just read a comment by Jennifer Olvera on facebook, who has an article in tomorrow's food section, this will be the last Sun Times food section.

I have not found anything else to collaborate this yet, though.

Regards,

Grubstreet apparently pounced on that too
http://chicago.grubstreet.com/2013/03/s ... terin.html

leek wrote:Grubstreet apparently pounced on that too
http://chicago.grubstreet.com/2013/03/s ... terin.html

Yes, I am sure we have the same source.

I'd like this information to be wrong, though I don't have anything yet to affirm or deny.

Regards,

According to The Eater Chicago, it's being replaced with a section called "Taste" which "will cover recipes, wine, shopping, and advertising."

But... no S/T staffers, it's produced by "Custom Media Solutions"

Your mileage may vary

Taste of the future: Sun-Times farms out food section

Another familiar franchise of the Sun-Times has been scrapped: Ending a 65-year run, the paper’s award-winning weekly food section published its final edition Wednesday. Starting March 13, it will be replaced by Taste, an advertorial insert produced outside of the editorial department by Sun-Times Media’s Custom Media Solutions. “Taste combines new food-related content, such as a weekly menu planner and a DeVine Wine column, with new advertising opportunities to gain revenue for the company,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. It follows the recent outsourcing of certain business, sports and other content by parent company Wrapports LLC. The move also means a reassignment for food editor and deputy features editor Sue Ontiveros, a highly regarded 29-year veteran of the paper. Sun-Times Media editor-in-chief Jim Kirk said Ontiveros will oversee a new digital and print initiative, expected to be announced next week.

Well, I guess we can always drop WSJ & add back in the Tribune.

Time Out had some interesting food-related articles, and they too are closing up shop, for the most part.
http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/ ... ut-of-time

Sigh. http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2013/ ... ntimes.php

Disappointing because I thought Michael wrote terrific reviews. But, after absolutely destroying their Wednesday food section (Taste is awful), the next logical step would be to eliminate/worsen your dining reviews. Sad!

They can always add spectacular new talent like this: (http://www.chicagomag.com/Radar/Dish/April-2013/Brindille-First-Impressions/?utm_source=Chicago+magazine+newsletters&utm_campaign=44e1843c37-DISH201305014_30_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a375fce08e-44e1843c37-48725629)

The state of food reporting in Chicago is at an all-time low. Hope Sula, Eng, Todd, Gebert, Chu and Pang hang in there.

boudreaulicious wrote:They can always add spectacular new talent like this: (http://www.chicagomag.com/Radar/Dish/April-2013/Brindille-First-Impressions/?utm_source=Chicago+magazine+newsletters&utm_campaign=44e1843c37-DISH201305014_30_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a375fce08e-44e1843c37-48725629)

The state of food reporting in Chicago is at an all-time low. Hope Sula, Eng, Todd, Gebert, Chu and Pang hang in there.

"Steak tartare had the cutest fried quail egg perched on the crispy rye cracker thingy."

So Chicago mag is now letting their high school interns from the Latin School write reviews on the Dish? Hope she wasn't too tired for 1st period the next day after a 10pm reservation...

Chicago Sun-Times Ends Weekend Section, Begins Agenda Section

For almost two decades, the Chicago Sun-Times published a Weekend section each Friday morning. As of Friday, that section is no more. In its place will be a new section, entitled Agenda, which will be made up primarily of content from that week's Chicago Reader.

Agenda will be a separate insert, running 20 pages. Within the section will be listings of weekend events, reviews, recommendations, and various features. These will all be marked as Reader product and pulled from the issue of the Reader that was released the day before. Agenda is one-part weekend informational and one-part Reader infomercial.

While this change has been known about for a couple of weeks -- it was even mentioned on this website last week as the reason why food critic Michael Nagrant was being released -- Wrapports/Sun-Times Media was still officially denying it. A spokesperson for Wrapports told CRM just this weekend "The Weekend section is still part of the publication."

As of today, they can deny it no longer. Michael Miner, the esteemed media columnist for the Reader unveiled the plans for the new Agenda section today.

Michael Miner's column.

So they're disposing of the Weekend section and replacing it with content you can get for FREE, the day before?????????? Okay...

I hope they continue to place ads on Friday to inform you that, for example, So & So is in concert that night. But it's sold out. So not only are we telling you just 12 hours before, but you can't go anyway.

boudreaulicious wrote:So they're disposing of the Weekend section and replacing it with content you can get for FREE, the day before?????????? Okay...

Well, here's the thing: if you're a subscriber to the Sun-Times, which we are (of course, as I used to write for the paper), I will now have critical Reader content delivered to my home. When I wrote for the Reader, I checked out how much it would cost to have it delivered, and it was incredibly expensive (especially when you consider, as you have, that the paper is free). Of course, if you live in the Reader distribution area, you can just pick one up along the street; in my hood, that's less possible (and sometimes impossible) to do, so having it blown into the Sun-Times is good news for me...except for the fact that this decision led to Nagrant and others leaving, but who knows, some of those people may still have some space in the new Reader-S-T hybrid section.

It's complicated.

David Hammond wrote:

boudreaulicious wrote:So they're disposing of the Weekend section and replacing it with content you can get for FREE, the day before?????????? Okay...

Well, here's the thing: if you're a subscriber to the Sun-Times, which we are (of course, as I used to write for the paper), I will now have critical Reader content delivered to my home. When I wrote for the Reader, I checked out how much it would cost to have it delivered, and it was incredibly expensive (especially when you consider, as you have, that the paper is free). Of course, if you live in the Reader distribution area, you can just pick one up along the street; in my hood, that's less possible (and sometimes impossible) to do, so having it blown into the Sun-Times is good news for me...except for the fact that this decision led to Nagrant and others leaving, but who knows, some of those people may still have some space in the new Reader-S-T hybrid section.

It's complicated.

Ah yes...suburban subscribers. Somehow I always think of the Sun Times as more of a city paper--from the tabloid style to the sports/entertainment heavy content. I guess that makes a bit more sense, though it still seems odd to me.

Yesterday's food section insert had on it "Prepared by the Advertising Department" or something like that.

leek wrote:Yesterday's food section insert had on it "Prepared by the Advertising Department" or something like that.

Yes, it's unabashedly an ad insert, so that's the right way to designate it.

boudreaulicious wrote:They can always add spectacular new talent like this: (http://www.chicagomag.com/Radar/Dish/April-2013/Brindille-First-Impressions/?utm_source=Chicago+magazine+newsletters&utm_campaign=44e1843c37-DISH201305014_30_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a375fce08e-44e1843c37-48725629)

The state of food reporting in Chicago is at an all-time low. Hope Sula, Eng, Todd, Gebert, Chu and Pang hang in there.

Grubstreet shutting down its Chicago operations as of today removes Gebert from this mix, which is really too bad. Instead of locally focussed food and drink information, it is now going national according to this Chicagoist link.

Regards,

Yes, I appreciated Gebert's analysis of news as much as his reporting and "aggregation" of news stories. Despite the fact that food seems to be in the news more than ever, food news sources are dying out at an alarming and (at least to me) unaccountable rate.

I'm bummed to see Grubstreet close it's local hub. It was a smarter, better written counterpoint to Eater and more newsy than Serious Eats.

AlexG wrote:I'm bummed to see Grubstreet close it's local hub. It was a smarter, better written counterpoint to Eater and more newsy than Serious Eats.

This.

http://chicagoist.com/2013/05/30/sun-ti ... _staff.php

Now the photographers have been fired as well. Yikes.

Ursiform wrote:http://chicagoist.com/2013/05/30/sun-times_lays_off_photo_staff.php

Now the photographers have been fired as well. Yikes.

If this continues, what other daily newspaper will be reporting in this city? Oh, & I have nothing against freelancers at all.

Hi- I was in New Orleans for a few days the end of April, staying with one of my sisters who lives down there. When she picked me up from the Amtrack station, she asked me if I wanted to go out to eat somewhere for dinner. I was starved, and so I said yes. While we were trying to decide where we wanted to go, she bought a copy of the New Orleans Times Picayune paper. She used to subscribe to it, and I asked her why she stopped her subscription, and she said she did it in protest, because the Newhouse family that owns the newspaper, and a bunch of other papers, decided to go to a three day a week publication schedule in January, and in the process lay off a ton of people. It was at least 100 people they laid off. New Orleans is the largest city in the country that does not have a daily paper. They claim they did it for financial reasons, even though somebody offered to buy out the newspaper, so they could continue to publish it seven days a week, and the Newhouse family refused to sell it. I did not realize it, but 60 minutes did a segment on this back in January. I watched the segment online, and apparently the Newhouses want to convert the newspaper entirely to digital, even though a third of the residents of New Orleans are not on line.

Just a few weeks ago the Times Picayune started publishing a small paper on the days that they are not publishing their regular paper, but you can not get that edition delivered. It is only available on newsstands.

Apparently the Newhouses also own the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and they are threatening to convert that paper to a three day a week publishing schedule too.

HI,

All newspapers are trying to understand how to continue their business. They have nowhere near the advertising revenue they once enjoyed. A lot of regular paper readers have converted to reading news online and often for free. Expenses don't quit, because your revenues have gone puff. You try to scale back in an effort to survive.

I know several people who don't subscribe to papers nor read the news online. It is surprising how little they know of current events and don't seem to worry about it.

I am sure any offer this Newhouse family received was bargain shopping. They probably have decided to experiment with the format to try to stem the financial bleeding and still be a respectable paper.

What goes missing if newspapers fail? An investigative unit who will peel back the facade to find out why government is not working, unveiling corruption or cover ups. I would miss that more than a well written food section (and I like well written food sections).

Regards,