A hearty welcome

Squawking VFR would like to take a moment and announce the arrival of his sister on the World Wide Web. Rachel VFR has started a blog devoted to recounting her favorite comfort food experiences.

While she may not be much for seafood and spice, Rachel is a Garden State native, and I'm willing to bet her space will fawn over Jersey diners, raise pizza-by-the-slice to mythic proportions and revel in Taylor-ham-on-a-hard-roll excellence.

Welcome, Rachel.

For those of you who have never left Jersey on a permanent basis, you may not grasp that the aforementioned foods are not readily available on every street corner elsewhere in the country. A shock, I know. I ran into that problem in the Rockies, and my frustrations boiled over in a letter to Denver Post food critic Greg Henry.

To welcome a blog that I believe will honor the sanctity of diners everywhere, let's take a walk down memory lane and review that letter now:

July 29, 2004

Greg,

I'm writing to convey my disappointment with your recent review of the Cheesy Jane's restaurant in Centennial.

Aside from my bewilderment as to how you could endlessly gush over such an ordinary fry-pit -- let them pay for an ad if they want undeserved, unvarnished praise! -- there was one particular sentence that caught in my throat, as it were.

"Like any diner, Jane's serves scrumptious shakes and malts."

My problem is with the use of the word 'diner' to describe Cheesy Jane's. Burger joint? Sure. Luncheonette? That would work.

But diner is wholly incorrect. I have eaten there. I know.

By the strictest definition, a diner is a restaurant shaped to look like a railroad car. Cheesy Jane's, situated in the middle of an urban-sprawl strip mall, certainly is not that.

I'm willing to cut you some latitude there. But even a looser definition of what constitutes a diner would certainly include the following stipulations:

1. It is open 24 hours a day (Cheesy Jane's is not).

2. It serves breakfast all day long (Cheesy Jane's does not).

3. It has pies prominently displayed in a case near the cash register -- prefereably spinning. (Cheesy Jane's does not).

Not even the vile Gunther Toody's diner chain would qualify under those basic standards. That place is a sorry excuse of a restaurant chain, and its owners should be prosecuted for mutating the proud history of authentic diners, but I digress.

In conclusion, I find it utterly unpalatable that a restaurant reviewer at a newspaper with the stature of The Denver Post could make such a fundamental error. Please be more thoughtful with your future choices in wording.

Sincerely,

Squawking VFR

Mr. Henry responded with a one-word answer: "Whatever."

That necessitated a response of: "It's reassuring to know you put an iota of thought into your job, you sorry excuse for a hack."