This book itself is an acknowledgment of the many, many people in my life who opened doors and taught me about food and restaurants, who permitted me to write about food and gave me the money to eat it. So I will limit myself here to thanking those whose generosity contributed directly to the work at hand. Jason Epstein steered me enthusiastically away from the laziness of a simple compilation of my restaurant pieces for the Wall Street Journal and toward the soul-stretching labor of a memoir, “a real book,” he said. (God knows I tried, Jason.) Judith Jones at Knopf agreed that it would be a good idea. She was in a position to know something about my past, since she had presided with wisdom and undeserved fondness over two earlier books, the first of which, The Saucier’s Apprentice, I proposed to her in 1972, almost at the start of my professional life in food, forty years ago. This time out, I continued to benefit from her care and feeding, which continued after her formal retirement from Knopf in 2011. Then, I also benefited from a new association with Jonathan Segal, a veteran editor at Knopf, who oversaw the meticulous preparation of this book’s text for publication with the energy and taste I have known him for since we met at the New York Times, more than forty years ago. His assistant, Joey McGarvey, provided invaluable help as well.
Stuart Karle, a great Journal pal and a greater attorney, stooped to represent me with Knopf and offered much other wise counsel. Another Dow Jones friend, John Geddes, pointed me to the right people at the New York Times, who granted permission for the quotations from my work there and for an extract from a Times article by Charlotte Curtis. Tom Weber, yet another WSJ mate, made this book’s happy ending possible, by hiring me as a bornagain restaurant critic at the Journal’s Pursuits section in 2006.
Still other friends, John Henry of Time and Hendrick Hertzberg of The New Yorker, helped me secure rights for illustrations.
Some material in chapter four appeared in a slightly different form in Natural History; similarly, some material in chapter five derives from my restaurant columns in The Wall Street Journal.
Finally, I thank my wife, Johanna, for sharing meals, sage advice and so much else. Commensalis, contubernalis, coniunx.