Proof of blog posts' surprisingly long shelf life arrived via e-mail this morning, in the form of a message from Dallas Morning News restaurant critic Leslie Brenner. Brenner had e-mailed last Friday, while I was out of the office for a Southern Foodways Alliance event, still smarting over a perceived slight in my coverage of her KERA appearance three days prior.
Brenner wanted to draw my attention to a "big error" that had resulted in readers "hurling insults" at her. According to Brenner, my use of the present tense in describing an unfortunate seating situation she'd faced in Los Angeles created the false impression that she'd had similar problems here in Dallas.
When a local restaurant worker called Think to explain why Dallas restaurants sometimes refuse 7:30 p.m. reservations -- the comment I used as the jumping-off point for my post -- Brenner didn't leap to clarify that the Los Angeles experience she'd just rehashed with host Yolette Garcia wasn't applicable to the DFW area. But that's apparently what she meant to say. Since I'm a big believer in fairness and accuracy, I'll give Brenner the floor:
"The fact that you report my actions in the present tense strongly implies I was talking about Dallas," Brenner e-mails. "On the radio I was speaking in past tense, as I was discussing a story I wrote years ago at the L.A. Times."
So, to review: When Brenner was talking to Garcia, she was talking about Los Angeles. When Brenner was talking to local restaurant worker "Crystal," she was talking about Dallas. Capisce? Can we all go back to the dinner table now?
