For those of us who derive great pleasure from eating and talking about it, today's New York Times is a veritable smorgasboard, a feast for our stomachs, brains and heart. Let's start with Mimi Sheraton's cover story on eating in Rome in the Travel section . I've met Mimi Sheraton on a few occasions, even broken bread with her, and she has been nasty and unpleasant towards me each time. Why I don't know. That said, she often writes very well and very passionately about the lusty pleasures so many of us derive from life around the table. I still have a yellowed clipping of the piece she wrote for New York Magazine about New Orleans food many, many years... More

New York Times food reporters Kim Severson and Julia Moskin (full disclosure here; I know both of them and the three of us have broken bread together) had a front-page story today detailing the growth of meal assembly centers around the country. People looking to save time and money and still put what can only loosely be called a "home-cooked meal" on their family table go to one of these centers and make "12 dinners for six in two hours for under $200." I wonder what Alice Waters, who has been saying for years that the disappearing "family meal" is one of the chief causes of the de-evolution of family life in this country, thinks about these centers, which use... More

Last Wednesday's (March 15th) New York Times featured a cover story on Charleston food by R.W. Apple. Johnny, as he is known to his friends, had been missing from the old gray lady's pages for too long. He's one of the country's great reporters, food writers and, most of all, one of our greatest eaters. Welcome back, Johnny. We missed reading about your Falstaffian eating and drinking adventures. Reading your piece made me so hungry. I can't wait to eat the fried local shrimp at the Seawee Restaurant and the gumbo at Gullah Cuisine Lowcountry Restaurant.... More

Alice Water's piece on the Op Ed page of today's NYTimes is required reading. She wants schools to consider giving course credit for lunch, which Alice would make into an interactive learning experience. What a delicious notion! If I had gotten credit for lunch when I was in school, I definitely would have graduated Pie Bita Kappa.... More

Marian Burro had a terrific piece today in the "A" section of the NY Times about yet another food process that's bound to confuse consumers. Apparently some packaged beef in supermarkets is being sold in "airtight packages treated with a touch of carbon monoxide to help the product stay red for weeks." The picture accompanying the piece is truly strange, two steaks bought on the same day, February 3rd, and photographed on February 16th. The treated steak is bright red, and the untreated steak is a mottled combination of brown and red. This is not my idea of dry-aging.... More