Sugar overload?

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Maybe all the sugar consumed by Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung and Food Editor Susan Sherill is affecting food coverage in Better Living, the omnibus features section in The Record of Woodland Park. These two consume an incredible number of cupcakes, cake, cheesecake and other desserts that don't start with the letter "c." 



Here is Ung's latest Twitter tweet:

Trying out @ToddWilbur 's Top Secret Cheesecake Factory red velvet cheesecake recipe. My 3rd red velvet in 2 wks.Kitchen taking on red glow about 4 hours ago via web 

On the Second Helpings blog (northjersey.com), Sherill discusses the recent cupcake mix battle:

To cleanse our palates between bites, we sipped two new fortified milk varieties from Farmland Dairy - Skim Plus with Fiber and Skim Plus with Omega 3. A surprise “gift” from the dairy, these had been delivered to me in an insulated container and I was initially skeptical; I prefer my milk organic, whole and undoctored. However, despite the chicory used in the fiber milk and the fish oil in the Omega 3 milk, the taste of each one was indistinguishable from “regular” milk and it made us feel like we weren’t completely on sugar overload as we tasted the cupcakes!

Posted by Susan Sherrill on 10/18 at 11:46 AM

Is she obsessed with sweets?

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Here is a recent tweet from Elisa Ung, restaurant reviewer for The Record of Woodland Park. Anyone who has read her food articles knows Ung loves dessert. She has even said she dreams about dessert. Lately, she has been tweeting about them:

Hey @goodappetite @kkrader - your brownies are RIDICULOUS. I may eat the whole pan in the next 10 minutes.

You can read all of her tweets on Second Helpings, a food blog on northjersey.com, along with those of Food Editor Susan Sherrill.  

See previous post: Appeal filed in age-bias lawsuit. 

Free trip for the travel editor?

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Did Jill Schensul, editor of the Travel section, accept a free trip to Louisiana to report on the 75th annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival -- a direct violation of the newspaper's ethics policy? Is this her first free press junket or has she gone on others without informing readers? 

What about other staffers, such as Graphics Editor Jerry Luciani and Photo Technician Bill Hillermeier, whose work has appeared in Travel; did they accept free trips, too?


Greedy Stevie Borg, publisher of The Record of Woodland Park, folded Food and other weekly sections when he took over in 2006, but he left Travel intact. 

He then downsized and merged The Record and Herald News, the first in a series of cost-cutting measures that may have been necessary after he got a $3.65 million company mortgage to buy a Tenafly McMansion for his family of six.

Has Schensul's travel budget been slashed, too? In her column on the front of Travel today, she notes that in the wake of the massive BP oil leak, the Louisiana Office of Tourism felt it was "the perfect time to bring some travel writers down and let them get a first-hand look" at the Gulf Coast.

Now, I love Louisiana as much as anybody and hope the state can convince the nation that its seafood -- including its extraordinary oysters -- is safe to eat. But should The Record's vegetarian travel editor -- who doesn't eat seafood -- have accepted this free trip or any other, especially when the paper's ethics policy forbids accepting anything of value (airfare, hotel room and all the funnel cake, coleslaw and homemade pickles she could eat)?

There's no denying Schensul is a good reporter and one of the better writers, but here she never even tells readers whether the seafood is safe. (Folks, that photo that runs with her column is like a decade old. Even in 2008, when I would see her schlepping through the newsroom, she looked nothing like that.) 

Talking about features in today's paper, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's Sunday column is basically a rewrite of her Second Helpings blog post Sept. 27 on the suicide three days earlier of Chef Joseph Cerniglia of Campania Restaurant in Fair Lawn. There isn't much new today, because Ung, like all the other reporters who worked on the story, never spoke with the chef's family or restaurant staff.

Is this normal eating or gluttony? If you want to know more about Ung's eating habits, check out some of her tweets on the blog (northjersey.com): 

Breakfast: cold paella right out of the takeout box. I am super classy this week. 8:25 AM Oct 2nd via web Breakfast: leftover lamb chop with pickled onions and eggplant from Maialino. Just slightly better/worse than I usually eat in the morning. 6:51 AM Oct 1st via web This would be a great day to eat cinnamon rolls in bed and then spend hours reading cookbooks. 5:07 AM Sep 30th via web "One of only a few places that I have returned to repeatedly after a review..." http://bit.ly/aHw375 5:23 AM Sep 29th via web Why do I even bother buying trail mix? I just pick out all the chocolate chips. 10:37 AM Sep 28th via web @usclynn Usually buy Crunch bc don't like it/won't eat leftovers. but this was much cheaper, so I gotta suck it up this year :) 6:07 AM Sep 28th via web in reply to usclynn @usclynn Huge bags mixed chocolate (M&M, Crunch, Snickers etc) and mixed Skittles, Tarts etc. from Costco 6:07 AM Sep 28th via web in reply to usclynn Bought 11 pounds of Halloween candy today. Goal is to keep the bags sealed until Halloween. 6:58 PM Sep 27th via web @Sharynsdesserts On bright side, cupcake was great...tried Amici Ho-Ho-Kus few weeks ago and they said no more cupcakes...next time, Wyckoff 1:50 PM Sep 27th via web in reply to Sharynsdesserts Remembering Joe Cerniglia http://bit.ly/d4jWb3 1:46 PM Sep 27th via web Hey @Sharynsdesserts - I stopped by Ridgewood Coffee Co. last week for a cupcake and they gave it to me in a used, greasy box. What the? 11:16 AM Sep 27th via web

Mike Kelly's column on the front of Opinion today notes:

"As we sort through the troubling facts surrounding the death of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi..."

Mike, how about sorting through your retirement paperwork?

I'm having a hard time seeing the relevance of  today's huge, front-page coverage on the trafficking of girls and women. Staff Writer Herb Jackson must have done this takeout by phone from his Washington correspondent's chair in the District  of Columbia.

The paper could have at least gone to the trouble of finding Asian women who have been forced to work in Chinese restaurants. And, unfortunately, the continuation of the story on foreign-born sex slaves, prostitutes, strippers and nannies in New Jersey runs opposite an ad showing makeovers for six young teenage girls, who look a lot older and a lot more alluring than in the "before" photos.

If that's a joke on readers played by Editor Francis Scandale, than the Local section must be one big belly laugh after another from Deirdre Sykes, the head assignment editor. The only Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood news is about high water company fire hydrant fees.

How does Desk Warrior John Cichowki manage to write a second L-1 "blame the victims" column on pedestrians killed by NJ Transit trains without discussing safety measures, assuming there are any?

(Photos: Funnel cake, top, and New Orleans.)

Identifying with a sex addict

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Do Publisher Stephen A. Borg, Editor Francis "Frank The Castrato" Scandale and other male mucky mucks at The Record of Woodland Park identify with sex-addicted golfer Tiger Woods? Why, then, do they give his divorce and a Paramus tournament half of the front page today?


Front and center is sports columnist Tara Sullivan's gentle handling of Woods, starting with a lame lead paragraph. Nowhere in her story does the phrase "sex addict" appear, and none of the reporters who questioned him asked whether he is still screwing around or going for therapy or what.


It's not as if Borg and the editors are unfamiliar with addictions. Former Publisher Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg is a reformed alcoholic who was ordered by his doctor to stop smoking. The elder Borg's behavior when he was drinking was common knowledge in the newsroom, and the paper even ran a story about his DWI arrest.


I recall being invited to lunch in the corporate dining room with the elder Borg and Stephen Berger, who at the time was the new executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (1985-90), an agency I covered as a reporter for The Record. Mac used the F-word to ask Berger, whom he was meeting for the first time, when an aviation museum would open at Teterboro Airport.


The main headline worries if Woods will be able to rebuild his game and life. What about the lives of his ex-wife and the children whom he betrayed? Aren't the editors worried about them, too? Even if you are a rabid sports fan who loves golf, Woods' behavior is reprehensible. His story deserves to be banished to the back pages.

Blaming Obama


Now, Governor Chritie has jumped on the bandwagon of blaming the Obama administration for everything. He says unyielding federal bureaucrats, who denied New Jersey an education grant of up to $400 million, are "the kind of stuff, candidly, that drives people crazy about government...."


Emphatically no. What drives people crazy about government is that a conservative Republican like Christie comes along promising to cut property taxes, then turns around and eases the tax burden on the Borgs and other millionaires. How does he make up for it? He refuses to raise the low gasoline tax, which boosts mass transit, and cuts aid to the middle and working classes, including seniors, women and poor schoolchildren. What a fraud.


Flooding where?

In Local, it took the former Hackensack daily a couple of weeks to report what Pakistanis in North Jersey are doing to to help victims  of flooding (photo).


A day after the death of a Fair Lawn woman in a plane crash  in Nepal was all over Page 1, another Fair Lawn woman, killed by an NJ Transit train on Wednesday, is banished today to L-3, where the photo caption doesn't even give her name. I guess her life isn't worth anything to head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, because she didn't die on her birthday or wasn't headed to Mount Everest.


No Hackensack news


 Local contains no news about the core Bergen County  towns of Hackensack, Teaneck or Englewood.


Reviewer returns



The Second Helpings blog on northjersey.com resumed Aug. 23, with an entry by Elisa Ung, the restaurant reviewer who has been on leave. It's ironic that the highly promotional blog carries the same name of a food-rescue group founded in Indianapolis in 1998 that today serves 50,000 meals to the hungry every month.


With Ung's return and the appoinment of a new food editor, readers can only hope food coverage improves. Since Bill Pitcher left as food editor Aug. 6, what had been poor coverage became pathetically poor.

Bill Pitcher gets down with readers

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The Second Helpings blog on northjersey.com carries a farewell written by Bill Pitcher on Aug. 6, his last day as food editor of The Record of Woodland Park. He refers to it as 50 things that have crossed his mind, and obviously, he didn't do any editing before writing them down. 

It's long-winded, and he couldn't resist slapping the hands of restaurants for typos (without acknowledging he made many mistakes in stories and on the blog himself). 

Keep your eyes peeled. Pitcher throws  lots of curve balls, fast balls and screw balls. Here is the link:


Bill Pitcher's farewell

Familiar setting for food editor's farewell

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Bistro 55 is the setting for Food Editor Bill Pitcher's going-away party -- the same Rochelle Park restaurant he blessed in a highly favorable review in January.


The Route 17 restaurant, which replaced South City Grill, is several notches above the usual places for such farewells. 


Newsroom employees at The Record have staged their send-offs at Tracy's Nine Mile House, General Poor's Tavern, Harley's Irish Pub and Olive Garden. About 15 years into my employment at the former Hackensack daily, I got sick of attending going-away parties, likely because I was stuck in a dead-end, night job on the news copy desk.


Kevin O'Neil


I do recall vividly a party at Tracy's Nine Mile House in Little Ferry. I can't remember who the departing employee was. I do remember watching Kevin O'Neil, husband of Deirdre Sykes, drink more liquor than I had ever seen one person consume. Together, they looked like Laurel and Hardy.


Sykes went on to become head assignment editor and Mother Hen in the Hackensack newsroom, and O'Neil was put in charge of graphics for northjersey.com. 


For years, with no improvement in how the paper's Web site looked or how easy it was to use, many wondered just what O'Neil did -- beside being the husband of one of the most powerful newsroom editors, who could stifle the career aspirations of a news copy editor like me.


Then, O'Neil's job was eliminated without explanation, which is the way things are done at North Jersey Media Group, and he was gone. But Sykes remained, to the relief of all the local reporters she had pampered, including those involved in the failed, outrageously expensive investigation of former lawman Michael Mordaga that dragged on for nearly three years.


Pitcher and Bistro 55


I don't know who chose Bistro 55 for Pitcher's farewell tonight. Did the restaurant give him a special deal, in return for his two-and-a-half star review? And maybe it's only coincidence Bistro 55 is owned by South City Group, which has received a great deal of favorable publicity in the food pages during his tenure as editor. 


On Jan. 22, 2008, Pitcher wrote an article about the ambitious plans of South City Group's owner. But in a March 2008 review of South City Prime, Staff Writer Elisa Ung panned the steakhouse for a "series of too rare steaks and rotten sushi" (one and a half stars, Fair to Good).


Despite the poor review -- or because of it -- South City began buying big ads in The Record's Friday entertainment tabloid.


Then, the paper seemed to reverse course. Pitcher's highly flattering profile of Gregory Webb, the new South City executive chef, ran on Nov. 5, 2008. It started on the front of the Better Living features section with a large, color photo of the chef holding two enormous fish. The moody lighting seemed to say, This chef knows his stuff, and will turn the company around. 


On June 1, 2009, Pitcher used the Second Helpings blog to provide readers with a long "chronology" of South City Group. In the blog on June 15, 2009, Pitcher announced the closing of South City Grill and the hiring of Chef Ken Trickilo. Trickilo would replace Webb as corporate executive chef.


Ung as in tongue


In July 2009, Ung gave two stars (Good) to Fire & Oak in Montvale, a new South City concept, despite "hard, cold rice" in a sushi roll, ribs "without a trace of warmth," overcooked lobster and undercooked peas, soggy romaine in a salad, "outrageously salty crust" in a $30.95 steak and an entree with tuna that wasn't freshly seared. As Ung's supervisor, Pitcher would have edited and approved all of her copy.


At one point, inspired by fireplaces in a South City restaurant, Ung even wrote a ground-breaking Sunday column on such restaurants, appealing to all the serial foot-warmers among her readers.


Then, when South City Group launched a new restaurant or replaced its executive chef, the paper or the blog carried all the breathless details. The blog announced the opening of Bistro 55 on Sept. 10, 2009, and on Sept. 25, 2009, Pitcher ran photos of the bar and food.


On Oct. 2, 2009, the Starters column gave readers a first look at Bistro 55, with Trickilo in the kitchen. Pitcher's highly favorable review appeared on Jan. 1, 2010, in Better Living, and a capsule of that review ran on April 16, 2010.


More ad dollars


The hiring of Ung by Pitcher and Features Director Barbara Jaeger allowed The Record to expand restaurant coverage and turn it into a tool for attracting more advertising. 


The restaurant reviews, which once ran without a photo and took up less than a full tabloid page, were now splashed across two pages of the centerfold in the entertainment tabloid published every Friday, with large color photos on the cover or inside or both, including mouth-watering shots of the food.


There were two problems, however. The expanded coverage coincided with the start of the recession, which would see restaurant patronage plummet. And the reviews clearly had crossed the line from being informative to blatant promotion -- as if designed to attract more advertising, not serve readers. 


Photos lie


Even a poorly prepared dish of questionable quality looked great in a close-up photo, and whether a restaurant was a one-star disaster or a heavenly four-star affair, all got equal editorial billing.


Pitcher's bias toward fine dining also was apparent when the Dining Out on $50 column lost all value to readers looking for ethnic or family restaurants where four people could eat for that amount, including tax and tip. 


As restaurant meals got more expensive, Jaeger apparently was unwilling to reimburse the budget-restaurant reviewer more than $50, so the number of people to be fed for that amount was cut to two. In the past six months or so, columns such as Marketplace and Starters have become less frequent.


When Pitcher was hired in June 2006, he was about 30 years old, and had no food-editing experience, but he fit Jaeger's profile of a young subordinate she could push around. Later, with no opposition from Pitcher, Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded the Food section. In more than four years as food editor, Pitcher never wrote about the obesity epidemic.


Pitcher was paid $70,000 to start -- more than the veteran food editor he replaced, Patricia Mack, who Jaeger forced to retire, in the same way she got rid of other older workers in her department. 


The young food editor also became an unwitting pawn in an age-discrimination suit filed against The Record after I was denied the job.

Drumming up business for the Borgs?

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In one of his last posts on The Record's Second Helpings blog, Food Editor Bill Pitcher appears to solicit business for a wine bar in which his bosses, Stephen and Jennifer Borg, may still have an interest.


In an item Monday, Pitcher wrote that Teresa Guidice, one of the "Real Housewives of New Jersey," was to sign copies of her book that night at Grand Cru, a wine bar in Englewood. There is no mention of whether the Borgs are still investors in the wine bar, which was once featured in the food pages with a disclosure of their role.


Grand Cru is just down the street from Solaia Restaurant, which is owned by businessman Michel Bittan. He reportedly had a relationship with one of those Russian spies who were in the news recently. 

The Record's Giovanna Fabiano was unable to get a comment from Bittan, nor does she seem intent on disclosing his holdings and influence in Englewood's struggling Palisade Avenue business district.