Amanda Albee

Not going to lie - I am very sad to see @alisoncook hang up her spurs as a restaurant critic for @HoustonChron. She has been a long time friend, a frequent dining companion across the globe, and on the business end of many debates about food I have started (and only sometimes won). But Houston will desperately miss her impact, and most people are not aware of the work she did for Texas behind the scenes. I will try to explain. 1). Critics matter for development of a vibrant restaurant scene, perhaps more than awards. Houston today is a nationally recognized restaurant powerhouse, but there was a 22 year stretch where no Houston chef won a James Beard award. It wasn’t that we had bad chefs, but James Beard was structurally broken, lumping Texas in with far away tourist regions like Las Vegas. Alison Cook was a regional chair at the time and could not get the foundation to change the structure. So she resigned in protest. It took a few years, but Texas was finally carved out as a James Beard region, followed by those Chris Shepherd, Justin Yu, Hugo Ortega and Benchawan Jabthong Painter Best Chef wins, not to mention Aaron Franklin, Tyson Cole and Paul Qui (all influenced Houston). 2). Recall every story you’ve read about the rise of Houston in national press by Brett Anderson, Bill Addison, Pete Wells, Pat Sharpe, John T Edge. These critics were directed to the best in Houston by Alison, and she provided the cultural context on some of those dinners. James Beard Award nominations? It works differently now, but it was then a negotiated process between the committee members. The first round was democratic by a public vote. But the short lists were hotly debated along the critics and writers arguing for the best candidates in their region. Alison was there again, steering Texas nominations and making sure Houston chefs did not get buried in the noise. 3). Beyond the awards and national press, the weekly criticism from someone who knows food is essential. You need to understand so about food, have so much context, yet also have a grasp on how modern cooking is evolving. And at one point I made a case that if Houston wants to be a world class restaurant city, it has to be judged against the best in the world. So she got on the plane and went to experience the best chefs on the planet, mostly paying her own way. We ended up going to ground breaking restaurants together in Paris, San Francisco, Copenhagen and places like In de Wulf deep in Belgium. If there was an exceptional restaurant somewhere, she was going with or without @HoustonChron backing. That’s how we ended up at Noma Mexico together in Tulum, which was a turning point for a lot of Mexican cooking becoming recognized as a world cuisine worth elevating to the highest level. I still think it was a small act of professional courage for her to hilariously write about Guy Fieri’s bizarre restaurant at the Cancun airport instead, because everyone and their cousin was doing such awful takes on Noma Mexico, another piece would have only added to the inanity. Donkey sauce is part of food culture too. So I expect to see more food writing from @alisoncook, and my kids will still call her Aunt Alison. But Houston is losing the best restaurant critic we’ve ever had, and I honestly don’t know what happens next.