Just one example: In my review of China Jade (on the stands right now), I poked a little gentle fun at what I thought was a particularly winning example of phonetic spelling on the menu: the "cuminum cyminum flavored beef." Setting aside the fact that this was a particularly fantastic dish, I simply thought the description was funny. You know...goofy misspelling on a Chinese menu? Comedy gold, right? So, because I am a sucker for any grammar or spelling-based humor, I went for the cheap joke and moved on with the rest of my review.
But then, a couple days after it hit the web, I got a comment from
someone calling himself Camdon, and scolding me for not knowing my Latin
herb names. "For the record," he said, "cuminum cyminum is the herb
that cumin comes from. Think coriander and cilantro."
Three
cool things about this comment. One, Camdon is right. Two, I learned
something new from reading his message. And three? Camdon was educating me
from Anchorage, Alaska. Fucking awesome.
Oh, and one other
thing I should note? I also got the phone number for China Jade
wrong. It's 303-755-8518. But no one (except my editor) caught that -- and she was too late for the print copy. Although thanks to the awesomeness of the Interweb, it's correct in the online review.
