Talk:Milk Bar (bakery)

Awards

You might also want to add in any awards Momofuku Milk Bar has won in the introduction. I know it won the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year in 2012. Nsiu (talk) 16:18, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Too much detail on Tosi's individual accomplishments

Hi, Nwells. I wrote on your Talk Page about how this article as you've written it would be better served as an article about Christina Tosi before I realized that she already has a wikipedia page. For this reason the extraneous information about her life and individual accomplishments does not belong on the Momofuku-Milk Bar page. JesseRafe (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 19 October 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. I've history swapped the pages so the old history of the redirect is located at Momofuku-Milk Bar, although I'm not sure it was completely necessary because my cursory investigations didn't find that the content was actually merged anywhere, contrary to the edit summary. It never really hurts to preserve the history though. Jenks24 (talk) 16:53, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

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Momofuku-Milk Bar → Momofuku Milk Bar – This page was created with a typo in the title, and on move I noticed there was actually an existing redirect with a previous deletion decision (seemingly made without any discussion.) Looking at the old redirect, the original article was started from a request at WikiProject: Food and Drink. This bakery has received plenty of coverage in national news sources, and the head chef has produced two cookbooks based on the desserts, so I'm surprised at the previous deletion-without-discussion. I'd like to move the article to the correct spelling, but want to acknowledge that it's potentially controversial due to the previous deletion decision. In full disclosure I am a campus ambassador that helped the student that wrote the current Momofuku-Milk Bar. AmandaRR123 (talk) 13:31, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

• Support. There is no hyphen in any reliable source I can find. This appears to me to have been a good candidate for a technical request – completely non-controversial. AmandaRR123: I do not see how the redirection (not deletion) you note has anything to say with respect to the appropriateness of the title change (though it does have the copyright-based side effect of requiring a history swap or other procedure to preserve the redirect's non-trivial page history as an apparent source of merged content).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:29, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks, Fuhghettaboutit -- on re-read I'm wondering if I was overly-cautious. I felt like I should acknowledge the previous deletion decision, that that made it "potentially controversial", but I'd be happy to just make the technical request, if there aren't any dissenters. AmandaRR123 (talk) 12:45, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Anytime. Since this is already here and already at a week, I see no reason to change anything. I expect it will be closed soon. I can't because I've already commented (so I am involved).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:49, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Pandemic

Hey, Specifico, re: Special:Diff/1121111704, the source at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/milk-bar-cookies-are-coming-to-fill-supermarket-shelves does say "Although Tosi had planned a supermarket presence for almost a decade, she didn’t envision it would be under the circumstances of a pandemic." Is 'during the pandemic' okay? Valereee (talk) 02:04, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Hell, @SPECIFICO...didn't realize it had to be al caps! Valereee (talk) 02:06, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Sounds incidental to me. And since there were many food purveyors who did cobble together online mail-order due to the pandemic shutdowns, I think the juxtaposition would be misleading. Unless the timing of the launch had some lasting effect on the outcome, which is not reported. SPECIFICO talk 02:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The fact many did the same doesn't seem like it makes the fact incidental? I mean, everyone was doing it because of the pandemic. Why would the fact some RS is connecting it to the pandemic mean we shouldn't? Valereee (talk) 02:26, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Anderson Cooper mention

This actually isn't trivia, although I'd get why someone would think it might be. Cooper mentioned the thing on the Regis & Kelly show, went on for like 3 minutes about it, and multiple RS mentioned AC mentioning the dish, and that his on-and-on discussion of it was called by the NYT as "the seminal moment" causing it to become notable. Mentions of the incident:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/dining/christina-tosi-milk-bar.html "the seminal moment in 2009 when Anderson Cooper swooned over her famous Crack Pie on “Live With Regis and Kelly.”
• https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-crackpie11-2010feb11-story.html "partly because anyone who has tried it, including myself, CNN bigwig Anderson Cooper and the people who are buying the 60 to 90 Crack Pies sold each day or two, can’t stop raving about it."
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb8jk3/christina-tosi-has-changed-crack-pies-name-to-milk-bar-pie "The Crack Pie quickly gained high-profile fans including Anderson Cooper, who talked about how much he loved it in a 2010 appearance on Regis & Kelly. At a dinner at the Reagan Library, Cooper said, “They presented me with a Crack Pie, and I felt a little weird accepting ‘crack’ in front of Nancy Reagan.”
• https://fordhamobserver.com/5673/recent/features/the-year-of-the-pie-a-little-slice-of-america/ "Take it from celebrities like Anderson Cooper and Martha Stewart, who have raved about the famed dessert all over the media."
• https://parade.com/35068/darylchen/14-recipe-killer-cornflake-cookies/ "Anderson Cooper says he's hooked on Milk Bar's Crack Pie"
• http://www.gourmet.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/food/gourmetlive/2012/091212/restaurant-signature-dishes-essential-or-dispensable.html "And it was consumers (most vocally, Anderson Cooper, who proclaimed his love of the treat on a national morning show) who chose the Crack Pie—gooey butter filling, toasted oat crust—to become Tosi's defining dessert. The recipe has been unchanged since she dreamed it up while working at New York City restaurant WD-50 in 2006."
• https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/momofuku-milk-bar-review "It didn’t hurt that in 2009 Anderson Cooper announced his love for her (since renamed) Crack Pie on morning television."
• https://www.eater.com/2019/4/19/18507779/crack-foods-offensive-milk-bar-legally-addictive-hopcat "Anderson Cooper famously shilled for the Crack Pie on Regis and Kelly"
• https://ny.eater.com/2010/2/11/6743767/the-regis-kelly-love-affair-with-momo-milk-bar-continues?_gl=1*blkj53* "Last month, when Anderson Cooper did a guest stint on Live with Regis and Kelly he shilled Momofuku Milk Bar no fewer than three times, singing the praises of Christina Tosi's compost cookies and crack pies."
• https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tagged/health/shine-food/the-secret-behind-momofukus-crack-pie-2406211.html "When Anderson Cooper revealed on national television that both he and his mother were addicted to "crack," no one tried to haul him off to rehab. That's because he was talking about Crack Pie, Momofuku Milk Bar pastry chef Christina Tosi's most buzzed-about dish." Valereee (talk) 18:11, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, I removed it because it was unsourced. However, I still don't see solid sources. The NYT piece reports that Tosi used it in her self-promotion -- so what? The LA Times is a 12 year old throwaway line in a food column full of nonsense "taken NYC by storm" -- not really.

Public figures, especially talkitive ones or ones who go on shows like morning talk TV say all kinds of things that we do not put into our articles. If there's real RS reporting that this daytime TV thing was significant to the success or development of this business, let's look at the non-foodie sources that describe that. Otherwise, why is it not trivia? It's not the NY Times calling it seminal. It's the promo from a reality TV show that was promoting her as a big personality. I don't consider that an encyclopedic fact about the bakery business. How did it affect the busienss? Even if you believe the puff pieces, the business was already successful among its cohort before the tv mention. SPECIFICO talk 18:25, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

The NYT is calling it seminal. It isn't quoting Tosi; it's discussing the training video in its own voice, I think? Valereee (talk) 19:29, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

The training video is promotional. What kind of encyclopedia would quote everything from The Apprentice, Shark Tank, Dancing with the Stars, etc? What is the significance of Anderson Cooper to the bakery's business? Nothing that I have seen explained in any RS. Indeed the sources say it was already booming. AC didn't discover it on an exploratory trawl of the unknown and undiscovered storefront. The critical and seminal "discovery" was when Chang promoted her from the desk to the kitchen, not when a famous customer chatted about her on daytime gossip TV. SPECIFICO talk 22:30, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

But we aren't quoting from the training video. The source is an NYT story about Tosi onboarding people, and it discusses the video she uses. It refers to a portion of the video -- the AC appearance on R&K -- as "the seminal moment" in NYT's voice. Also I'm not suggesting we even quote the NYT. I'm suggesting that their description, along with the other ten sources I've listed, means the AC thing wasn't trivia and should be included. Valereee (talk) 22:33, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

It's not about training people to get a TV shout out. It's about welcoming new employees. She created the training video. She picked the content. That doesn't add NPOV weight. Chang is an acknowleged culinary and restaurant industry leader. Anderson Cooper not. We do have worse content on Wikipedia -- video game reviews, rock song articles, etc. My view is that Tosi and Milk Bar deserve more respect than a fan piece encyclopedia page, and there's enough substantive content and sourcing that she should not be described by narrow-focused, self-originated, UNDUE and marginally sourced content with no demonstrated significance. Maybe await some other editors' views. SPECIFICO talk 22:38, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I just took another look at the LA Times. It says Cooper "can't stop raving about it" -- well, that's nonsense. No due weight from that. For comparison, consider our article on 21 Club. This place has had countless mentions by celebrities, politicians, business people, etc. Donald Trump went there after his election President to promise tax cuts to the assembled notables. The article is not laden with the hundreds of glowing references to the place in media and popular culture. SPECIFICO talk 22:47, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we load the article with glowing references. I'm suggesting we mention something that was mentioned in a dozen RS: that he talked about it at length, to the point that media repeatedly pointed it out. Eater said "famously shilled", NYT said "seminal moment", Fordham Observer said "raved about the famed dessert all over the media", LA Times said "can't stop raving about it". I'm not suggesting we use any of those terms. I'm suggesting that what we did say, "In December 2009, Anderson Cooper appeared on Regis and Kelly professing his love for Milk Bar and its Crack Pie", wasn't undue or trivia. "Professing his love" is a little over the top, but I'd be satisfied with "In December 2009, Anderson Cooper appeared on Regis and Kelly and talked about Milk Bar and its Crack Pie." Which we can support with literally a dozen RS. Valereee (talk) 12:26, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Most of them are not good sources for determining NPOV weight. Fordham student paper of sugar-craving undergrads? I've already rebutted the other points. It would be disappointing if Wikipedia is just going to elevate our breathless celebrity culture with stuff like this. I don't hear what significance it has for the development of the bakery. Think of the tens of thousands of witless anecdotes scripted on to the supposedly spontaneous daytime talk shows. I hope that'd not what we want for this encyclopedia. SPECIFICO talk 13:21, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe someone else will weigh in. Valereee (talk) 13:29, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Also I see that her personal bio article is better developed than this page. Maybe they should be merged. But for this page, there must be some expert reviews or other clearly noteworthy content about the business that hasn't been used. SPECIFICO talk 14:00, 14 November 2022 (UTC)