Word: yorkerism
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...ambience. The temptation to tell can be strong. John McPhee, 48, author of the bestselling portrait of Alaska, Coming into the Country, and other books, not only is a gentleman but a gourmet and a cook; he is also a compulsive describer. He compromised. In the Feb. 19 New Yorker, McPhee devoted a 25,000-word profile to his favorite restaurant, its pseudonymous owner-chef "Otto" and his sommelière-pâtissière wife, Latvian-born "Anne who is not known as Anne...
...disappearance of Agatha Christie did in London. None of the professional eaters-out knew who Otto might be or where. Reporters pumped other reporters, chefs, food authors, anyone who might draw a bead on the wayward cuisinier. McPhee was besieged by calls; so was The New Yorker, which did not, in fact, know Otto's identity. The Washington Post published several guesses-one was correct-but did not pursue the story...
...Princeton, N.J. They sicced a stringer onto the story, says Prial. "He called politicians in the area, figuring they like to eat, too." Indeed. The gastronomic gumshoe tracked down a Pike County Republican bigwig who confirmed the team's suspicion that the bistro described in The New Yorker was the Red Fox Inn, in Milford, Pa. However, the legendary Otto had sold that hideaway last May and hoisted his toque over an old saloon in Shohola, Pa., that he rechristened The Bullhead. The inn is 90.5 miles from midtown Manhattan. The politician, it turned out, was president...
...Lieb's published remark about Lutèce's frozen turbot, that accusation stirred temblors in Manhattan stockpots. Lutece's Chef Andre Soltner indignantly produced fish market receipts to show one and all that his turbot was fresh. Lieb apologized, and the usually meticulous New Yorker, accused of publishing a canard, explained that to preserve Otto's anonymity, it had taken the exceptional step of allowing the author of the piece to do most of the checking...
...Yorker Editor William Shawn, 71-who eats faithfully at the Algonquin -maintains: "I look at McPhee's profile as a beautifully written literary piece, constructed on facts but still a literary piece." He has "no regrets." Nor does John McPhee. "The only reaction I might have," he says, "would be to the shocks we caused, and wonder over the results...