Everything but the fish wrapper
Why going digital lets me tell you even more about food in Buffalo, a city where you should never waste a meal
As a lifelong newspaper person, it hurts to admit that the daily newspaper is going the way of the dinosaur.
At least dinosaur lovers didn’t have to watch their favorite triceratopses chewed to death by velociraptors, or stumble into tarpits to die of their own slow-witted missteps.
But here we are. Instead of waiting for a comet, or praying for a miracle, I decided to evolve. Go digital. The only downside is that my work is no longer useful for wrapping fish.
Why “Four Bites”?
“Four bites” has been my internal shorthand for getting my doors completely blown off by a dish.
My standard restaurant assessment involves covering the table with dishes. It’s an absurd amount of food for a meal, but I’m working, gathering data, not dining like a civilian.
One bite is enough to know if I want a second. Two bites for decision-making. Three bites means it’s thrillingly delicious.
If I took three bites of half of the dishes I’d fail at my professional mission. A bloated eater cannot thrill to any desserts.
Four bites means I’ve abandoned professionalism entirely, and sold out to the dish. Me and this plate want to get a room where we can be alone.
Going four bites deep is rare. It is also the moment that I crave walking into every restaurant. That prospector’s rush when diligent excavation reveals a glorious nugget to share with the backers who bankrolled their journey, thereby enriching us all.
Each week, I’ll share a Four Bite dish with you, in words and images. You’ll get a review, too. Plus two more food-centered features. For $50 a year, all my words and pictures and videos.
Then things really get interesting, because I’ve dreamed up some digital features to enhance journalist-audience interactivity. Every week, subscribers will be invited to the live taping of a talk show featuring a guest who has something worth sharing about our foodways. On Zoom, which always reminded me of Hollywood Squares.
Introductory video sets the scene, guest pops into their window, we interview each other. Then take questions audience members have typed into chat, making them part of the show. Quiz segments will give subscribers a chance to win cookbooks, gift certificates, and other lagniappe.
When we run out of questions, or time, the show will end with a brief video teaser of next week’s guest. Then we’ll edit out the boring parts and post the whole shebang to the Four Bites YouTube channel, for anyone anywhere who wants to watch.
Plus, the monthly Galarneau Invites You to Dinner Sweepstakes. But first, the meat and potatoes.
More, better articles
Four articles per week exploring the eating potential of the world, starting from Buffalo, N.Y. Marijuana and related consumables are within the scope of Four Bites’ coverage, too.
Sunday brings the news column, free for all, and the review, for subscribers.
Reviews: Here’s a place I love, for a specific articulated reason, and I’ll do my best to convince you to patronize this establishment. (500-800 words, photos, video.)
Every week will brief subscribers on a dish that blew my doors off.
Four Bites Deep: Here’s a deepish dive on a genius dish that keeps turning up in my memories after making me go four bites deep, and it’s still available for your consideration. Argument, history, cooking details, plus a word from the author, if possible. (300-500 words, photos, video.)
Other weekdays, subscribers will receive at least two more stories, primarily from these categories:
Providers: Here’s an operation that gets you what you need to fulfill your own food mission, from halal to gluten-free to vegan to carnivore. Best practices for hooking up with their output. (300-500 words, photos, video.)
News: Something’s popping off that can’t wait for Sunday. Intel must be timely to be actionable, and despite the watchful eyes of more than 100 tipsters, stuff sneaks by. So if there’s something fantastic cooking worth a bulletin, you’ll get the sort of heads up that I formerly only texted friends. (As needed, photo.)
In search of: As a finder of things, and the people who make them, every quest from a reader is a gift. Until you name your hunger, I can’t add it to my reporting queue. I hit Google, send a few texts, and make calls until I hit paydirt. Or, less frequently, a dead end. Results reported to questioner immediately. Sometimes those quests are worth sharing, with its originator credited, if desired. (300 words, photo.)
People: Here’s someone you should know, not just because they’re a lovely human being, but because their story tells us something useful about the eating landscape around us. Dish dog and prep cook nominations especially invited at noms@fourbites.net. (300-500 words, photos, video.)
Events: Here’s a chance to check out something special in Western New York foodways. Hopefully at least a week ahead, but less if it can’t wait. All the information you need to get there and what to look for on arrival. (200-500 words, photo, video.)
Opinions: Here’s my view on a current issue in restaurants, food, eating, and related matters. Limited to timely essays that point out possible solutions to ongoing problems or opportunities. (300-500 words, photos, video.)
Recipes: Here’s a dish you should learn to make, with a specific place in your repertoire. With argument, sourcing, required techniques, optional shortcuts, and the recipe. (300-500 words, photo, video.)
Cookbooks: Most cookbooks are straight trash, but there are exceptional works worth buying and splattering with sauce while you cook through them. Here’s what I’d buy for the people I know who cook and still have space left on the shelf. (Game-changing recipes might appear in Recipes.) (300-500 words, photo.)
Newfangled digital access
Four Bites is also an information service: Andrew Galarneau as your concierge for eating intel in Western New York.
My job includes getting your foodish questions answered so you can decide how to spend your precious spare time, and your entertainment and grocery budgets.
Subscribers will get questions answered within 48 hours via email. Not just softballs like “Where should I take my dad for a good steak?” Hard questions people need answers for, like: “Is Foo Restaurant safe to take my celiac grandma?”
Old style media: “Read a guide, if we wrote one, look at the publication date and take your chances.”
Four Bites: I’ll get a restaurant principal on the phone, even if they’ve previously been celiac-rated. I’ll walk them through the gluten checklist (Separate fryers? Separate workspace? Do you use flour or other gluten powders in your kitchen? What’s the ventilation like?). If I don’t get the right answers, no deal. Then I’ll direct her party to places that do have safe tables, like Kith & Kin Bakeshop & Bistro in Lockport, the only gluten-free full-service restaurant and bakery in the area.
Drop by and chew the fat
Or join my live weekly drop-in Zoom chat. It will be my first real talk show, each 60-minute episode headlined by an interesting person who’s meaningful to our community’s foodways. We’ll grill each other, then answer questions audience members have typed into chat, opening the floor to one guest at a time.
If you’re shy, you don’t have to turn on your camera, but my mug will be there, answering questions, trying to prove myself useful.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
Annual subscribers are entered into the Galarneau Invites You to Dinner Sweepstakes. Once per month, a subscriber drawn at random will get an invite to dinner, on me. That comes with a plus one, of course.
If you’re not feeling restaurant-y, we can cook at your house. Or grill chicken souvlaki in the park, whatever works for the winner. My repertoire ranges from vegan to gluten-free to carnivore, and I’m a terrible show-off when cooking for company.
If the winner so chooses, we’ll turn the evening into a story for Four Bites. Photos, videos, recipes, insights shared, stories told, could all be ways to share the experience. If so chosen.
Four Bites is more than content. It’s bummer avoidance technology. Save you from one bad restaurant decision for a table of four, and I’ll earn my keep.
Why go digital?
(Let me put on my journalism teacher hat for a minute.)
After 44 semesters of teaching University at Buffalo undergrads the facts of American journalism, I boiled it down to this.
When newspapers owned the main means of mass communication, profits compensated for the fact that newspapers are three businesses: a media enterprise, a printing firm, and a trucking and last-mile distribution company offering daily doorstep delivery of a package of fresh information every morning by 9 a.m., weather notwithstanding.
The collapse of print advertising revenue, rising costs, and increased profit demands were already killing the newspaper business. Executives used to Easy Street remained on cruise control, blind to the demands of a new information-age audience while they served stockholders first. Writing off non-core assets and the communities they serve in favor of stockholder profits is the endgame.
On Feb. 20, 2023, people in Buffalo found out that the highest-paid people at Lee Enterprises, headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, had decided to print The Buffalo News in Cleveland, Ohio. Put the daily press run into tractor-trailers, and send them on a three-hour journey through the definition of a lake-effect snow belt before getting to Buffalo-area distribution centers.
To make that work, the hard-working staff of The Buffalo News must wrap up their work before dinnertime. If City Hall blasted off into the sky like Michael Morgulis’ iconic artwork at 5 p.m., it wouldn’t make the front page. Or any page, at all.
Whether that made sense for The Buffalo News was never the question. The reason was to delete 160 printers and print-related union jobs from the cost side of the business, thereby making the next quarterly report to shareholders look better.
The Iowa braintrust didn’t have its eyes on Buffalo, N.Y., because they were gazing lovingly into their shareholders’ eyes, bottomless pools of emerald-green dollar bills.
So. Digital it is.
That is not a sigh of resignation. Quite the contrary.
For the last decade, in the last session of my University at Buffalo journalism class, we’ve turned to the question: Where do we go from here?
This semester, I told my students, it was time to take my classroom brainstorms to the street, and see how they fared after colliding with reality. To be revisited in the Spring 2024 edition of ENG 213: Fundamentals of Journalism, Clemens 438.
Will Four Bites soar into the sky, or stall, pitch, and burst into flames at the end of the runway?
I don’t know either. Stay tuned.
So excited for this new evolution of your work!!
Congratulations my friend.... wishing you delicious adventures!