The New Yorker special culinary archival issue

Run, don’t walk, to your local newsstand and buy a copy of this week’s The New Yorker (or sign up for a free trial). The current issue is a tantalizing smorgasbord of food and drink writing, culled from the magazine’s long and storied history. There are throwback articles from Anthony Bourdain, Nora Ephron, M.F.K. Fisher, Calvin Trillin, Madhur Jaffrey, and other food writing giants.

Reading Bourdain’s 2000 word epistle titled ‘One Day–and One Night–in the Kitchen at Les Halles’ made me wistful – it’s Bourdain at his best, describing the work in a restaurant kitchen with such skill that you actually want to go work in one despite knowing how difficult it is. The piece came out on April 9, 2000, just about a month before Kitchen Confidential was released to critical acclaim and launched Bourdain’s career out of the kitchen and onto the road.

Now I will just wait for a rainy day when the garden doesn’t demand my presence after work so I can savor some of the remaining articles, letting them take me down memory lane and perhaps allowing me to rediscover a favorite writer that I have not read in a while.