Food critic. While the study, pursuit and practice of the culinary arts are, clearly, worthy of scholarship - the words food critic still conjure up, in the mind of the uninitiated, an image of some haughty, tweed-spun dandied-up gastronome, complaining about the firmness of the broiled tilapia, holding forth as if he was discussing the wisdom of Patton's armored columns' advance into Berlin - instead of, as it were, dinner.
It's not like that anymore, for the most part (though if I ever get a hold of Frank Bruni, I'm gonna stuff him full of oranges and cilantro and roast him on a spit.) Take Ruth Reichl, for instance, who, for a time, helped make New York appear to be, at least on the pages of the NYT, a town full of miracles, served one course at a time.
Then again - who knows what food tastes like to someone who has lived like this:
Reichl, a former restaurant critic of The New York Times and current editor in chief of Gourmet, is positively abrim with delight at the life she's led. In her first two memoirs, ''Tender at the Bone'' and ''Comfort Me With Apples,'' she cast herself as the sensual, irrepressible protagonist of a swoony gastro-sexual voyage of discovery, a bountifully tressed free spirit who lived in a Berkeley commune, took extramarital lovers, tussled with her wacko but endearingly flamboyant mom, consternated the Chinese culture police by not wearing a bra during a press junket to the People's Republic and, all along the way, cooked and ate some seriously good meals.Her new book recounts the many lengths she had to go to perform her duties as the NYT's front-line restaurant reviewer - and the toll a life of constant subterfuge can take. I know we're just talking about talking about a good meal - but hearing Reichl tell it, a good meal is a glimpse of something more than itself, of something akin to art that nourishes soul as well as body, and that is worth talking about - and enduring a lot of ridiculousness for.
Tell me more, Ruthie - tell me more.
No comments:
Post a Comment