We EAT (revisited)

[Note: This post is in no way intended to be a  serious claim/attack against the author of the article I mention. It is a light-hearted comparison, for fun and laughs; an outlet for me to toot my own horn about choosing a topic that was also chosen by one of my favorite mags.]


Last night as I scoured the pages of the April 2nd issue of New York magazine for some delicious juiciness, I was shocked when I came across an article by Michael Idov entitled "When Did Young People Start Spending 25% of Their Paychecks on Picked Lamb's Toungues: Foodie-ism, as Youth Culture."  Excited to dig into this read since its title echoed the theme of my January 23rd post, "We EAT", I began my perusal.  However, a few paragraphs into the article, I noticed that the article didn't merely echo the observations of my "We Eat" post, but nearly mirrored it!  To illustrate, here are a few excerpts which bear a striking resemblance to my post (great minds think alike if I do say so myself) :) :

#1) NY magazine: "Knowing the newest and finest restaurants to frequent and where to find the very best things to eat have long been essential New York status markers,"  &  "Above all they are avowed culinary agnostics whose central motivation is simply to hunt down and enjoy the next most delicious meal, all the better if no one else has yet heard of it.  Dish snapshots and social-network check-ins are a given."

 Sh*t New Yorkers Do ("SNYD"): ""New Yorkers like to eat.  We take pride in it; not just in the act of eating itself, but in the feat of finding a restaurant that our friends haven't heard of or been to before.  A place we can write about on Facebook or take pictures of and post to our blogs (ummm what? who, me? nooo) or tell our non-New York family members/friends about."

#2)  NY magazine: "Lately, however, food has become a defining obsession among a wide swath of the young and urbane. It's not like golf or opera. It's more like Indie Rock...'It's a badge of honor...bragging rights."          

SNYD:  "Ok, maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but I really do think this desire to discover something cool/novel/exclusive is something most New Yorkers have in common (from my statistical studies, of course).  Like a bragging right of sorts."

#3)  NY magazine: "They abhor restaurant cliches...and studiously avoid chains (Olive Garden, McDonalds), but are not above the occasional trip to either."  

SNYD: "This city isn't filled with the chain restaurants that plague the 'burbs (with the exception of Ruby Tuesdays, Applebees, and Hardrock in Times Square)."

#4)  NY Magazine:  "They consume food media - blogs, books, Top Chef, and other "Quality TV"..." 

SNYD:  "Let me just try to describe this feeling to you: a few weeks ago when I purchased the Jan. 2-9th edition of New York magazine, I got a slight high when I saw it contained a list of the top 101 restaurants (according to Adam Platt). I literally took out my highlighter and permanent marker and began circling places I wanted to eat and jotting down the dates or occasions next to restaurants I had visited. It was like I was literally devouring the list."

Am I the only one who thinks this resemblance is uncanny and absolutely cray-cray?!  I think the similarities between my post and the New York article can only mean 1 of the following things (or 4, if you select the last option below):

1) Michael Idov at New York magazine read my blog and thought it was such an amazing notion (why hadn't he thought of it months ago?!*) that he had to take it and make it his own (not nearly as fabulous as the SNYD original, though, I'm sure he admitted to himself). 

2)  I am unbelievably observant.

3)  I should write for New York magazine because I got to this topic before Michael, due to #2 above.

4) All of the above.

What say you, loyal readers? 

*Michael's story was actually filed November 2011, so he in fact had the idea first. Blast!