Home > Forklore > Archives > 2011 > July > 06 > Entry
A restaurant critic’s farewell
Now here’s a proud moment. The 30-Day Brain Freeze is my last story as the American-Statesman’s restaurant critic. After 25 years at the paper, I’m taking an early retirement offer. So what do I leave you with? Snowcones. It’s a full-circle thing, really. My first big food story for the paper was eating ice cream with Santa Claus at the mall.
I was an editor and designer for most of my time here, so the food-writing thing I had to pick up as I went along: standing in line with ambulance drivers at Franklin Barbecue, having a doughnut with teenagers outside Mrs. Johnson’s at 2 a.m., drinking Turkish coffee in a hookah lounge with an hallucinatory migraine, eating a whole fried catfish with Uchiko’s Paul Qui, cleaning the fryers at P. Terry’s.
A reporter’s job changes every day. Former Statesman columnist Mike Kelley said it best in a letter to me. “My next-door neighbor says, of you, ‘This guy really knows what he’s talking about.’ I say, ‘No, he’s a reporter. Reporters never know a damned thing. They just try to learn as fast as they can and then translate.’ ”
I’ll keep learning, translating and writing about food in Austin, because after 500 restaurants, taco stands, pizza places and pork trailers, I’m still hungry. Stay in touch at mikesutter@fedmanwalking.com.
Until then, thank you. Drive through.
(Photos from some of my favorite stories, left to right, top to bottom: Lunch with Santa Claus at the mall, the trailer movement at Gourdough’s, hookah lounges, working at P. Terry’s, a liquor-store lunch at Spec’s, following Raymond Tatum as he opened his Three Little Pigs trailer, my taco tour with Armando Rayo and the quest for fried chicken. American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter.)
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By staff
July 6, 2011 10:58 AM | Link to this
I’ll miss working with you, Mike! As my food editor there for a while and a colleague, you challenged me to be a better writer and reporter. I can’t wait to see what this next chapter holds for you!
By Paul Silver
July 6, 2011 11:30 AM | Link to this
You will be missed. Perhaps you can write a commentary on what you have learned and your hopes and expecations for the future of austin foods.
By Alexandratx
July 6, 2011 1:41 PM | Link to this
Aw, happy trails, Mike! Congrats, I’ll miss reading you here.
By Melanie
July 6, 2011 4:49 PM | Link to this
Three words - PLEASE DON’T GO Your reviews are like reading a really good short novel about the things I love best - food and restaurants and all that business in general. Will certainly miss you.