Dear Editor,

This is an open letter to Juicy Chef with regard to her column “Adventures in Food Shopping” on January 26.

Your column has grown in depth and style and I want to congratulate you. It is a pleasure to read you each week.

Having said that, last Thursday’s column about your “awful” episode in the supermarket is worth commenting on. If you write each week — sometimes two pages — on food, there should be a reasonable expectation that shoppers would be curious about you if they spot you in the supermarket. It goes with the territory. Forgive the man who felt he had a connection with you so much so that he would go “rummaging” through your cart Jamaican men usually have little interest in food beyond what time dinner will be served and what is for lunch at the cook shop. You have apparently ignited this man about food so much that he wanted to know what the Juicy Chef was cooking and how. Consider it a compliment and not an intrusion.

You may have in fact lost some fans by writing about the incident in the way you have. It has come off quite haughty, and next thing you will be telling us is that you have to shop incognito, wearing a large scarf and huge sunglasses so that you are not recognised. Your e-mail is “juicycheffoodmedia”. Don’t forget that the media need an audience to matter.

While you are entitled to your privacy, you must agree that your claim of “food shopping being personal” is ridiculous, given that you are a food writer. Lighten up!

Jean Paul Gavaigne

jean.gavaigne@gmail.com