Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
CHRIS SHERMANMimi Sheraton, who was a certified interior decorator before she began her journalism career, has written about food for 50 years.
Mimi Sheraton, the pioneering food critic, dishes out opinions faster than a short-order cook.
Now in her 70s, Sheraton was her characteristic tell-it-like-is self during an interview before the Association of Food Journalists in Puerto Rico this month.
Sheraton, who was actually a certified interior decorator before she began her writing career, has written about food and, especially, New York restaurants, for 50 years in the Village Voice , New York Times , Vanity Fair and Food and Wine . Her newest book is Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life (William Morrow, $23.95).
What's on her plate today?
-- "Appearance is a much bigger motivator than health for diet and exercise."
-- "Fried eggs are great comfort food; so is linguine and clam sauce."
-- "China has the greatest cuisine in the world, the most ingenious and diverse. I think they could make tables and airplanes taste good."
-- "My mother always took the side of the restaurant owner. "This woman has a family, works hard to build something and then you come in."'
-- On noise level in restaurants: "Some are deliberately ear shattering. Some people think they are having a good time when it's too noisy."
-- "There is a new American service, egalitarian, not intrusive, sane and reasonable, not demeaning. I like them (waiters) to go away."
-- On the New York Times ' decision to name Rome bureau chief Frank Bruni as its restaurant critic: "I don't understand why he did it. I would have given up the food beat to be the Rome bureau chief. It's more diverse, more exciting and more important."
-- "Food is 80, 85 percent of a restaurant for me. I do want a restaurant to be clean, well-lit and pleasant. Then leave me alone."