Inside My Table #87 | Excerpt
Editor’s Letter—A Book, Then a Storm
By Teresa Byrne-Dodge
Publishing our 352-page The Ultimate Food Lover’s Guide to Houston has been the most challenging project of my professional life. More than 17 months in the making, it’s a distillation of everything we understand about the Houston food world. It’s not a quickie reference book; we don’t reduce restaurants to a numeric score like Zagat. In fact, you might say we’re the anti-Zagat. We want you to read the book. And if you do, I promise you will have your arms around this fantastically delicious food city.
There are about 550 main listings (including ethnic markets, farmers’ markets, wine bars, coffeehouses, butchers, restaurants, cafes, ice houses, bakeries and more), plus about 250 more places included in the sidebars. How did we decide what to include and what to skip? Our overriding editorial guideline was, simply, Where would we send our best foodie friend?
As I write, we have just returned from a very rewarding trip to New York, where the Waldorf-Astoria was the scene for a two-night event featuring Houston restaurants and debuting our foodie guidebook to the national media, as well as convention and meeting planners. The Waldorf’s executive chef John Doherty was our host, and he invited our Houston chefs to come into the hotel kitchen to prep. Everything went smoothly with both teams cooking together — it was practically a love fest all round. I was very proud to be associated with this remarkable group of men and women.
Among the restaurants that were represented at our NYC event was Brennan’s. As you’ve surely heard, Brennan’s was destroyed by fire the night of Hurricane Ike. Our prayers are with Brennan’s wine guy James Koonce and his young daughter Katherine, who were both severely burned in the fire — they were sheltering at the restaurant, along with GM Carl Walker — and are recovering in San Antonio hospitals. Please see our home page at www.my-table.com for information on fundraisers to help the Koonces with their medical bills.
We also wish our friends in Galveston a speedy recovery and rebuilding. Our June-July cover story featured 17 restaurants along the Seawall. None of them escaped the storm’s fury.
