"NewYorkMagazine" news and stories

All good meals must eventually come to an end. And so it is that Gael Greene, the New York Magazine critic who shaped the taste of a generation of New York foodies, has been sacked.

Greene, now in her mid-'70s, was hired by by Clay Felker in 1968 to be the restaurant critic of his just launched New York Magazine. According to the New York Times, "It was as if New York magazine had found its own version of Colette when it came to food. She created an entirely fresh new voice, one that has never staled."

True, she dallied with more than one celebrity chef. And although that should have presented a grave conflict of interest, Greene embraced the frisson by working it into her copy. Her 1977 review of Le Cirque was deliciously titled, I Love Le Cirque, but Can I Be Trusted?" and let her readers into her fling with chef de cuisine Jean-Louis Todeschini. Her readers loved it.

Over the course of her long career, Greene could be thought of as a early prototype of Carrie Bradshaw: eating and sleeping her way through 70's-80's era New York City. Her 2006 book "Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess" goes into her sensual exploits in detail.

Although she gave up her gig as weekly chief reviewer eight years ago, Ms. Greene continued to write about food for the magazine. Her final column will run in New York's December 1 issue.

Fans of her wit, writing and legendary palate can continue to follow her musings on, where else, her own food blog: called the Insatiable Critic.

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As someone whose second meal yesterday was a late supper at a local sushi bar, preceded by a lunch of a succulent chicken shawarma platter chock full of bits of crunchy skin, the very idea of a near-starvation diet that may increase longevity engenders nothing less than sheer horror.

Adherents of Calorie Restriction follow a diet that leaves their bodies close to starvation in the hopes that such a regimen will radically increase their life span. Or so I learned yesterday after reading a fascinating article about it in this month's New York Magazine.

The author, Julian Dibbell, gives the movement a fair shake. He cites scientific evidence that curtailing caloric intake in mice increases their life span 50 percent. He also makes what I consider a monumental sacrifice by toeing the CR line for two months.

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This is the season for egg nog (I just bought some this weekend, actually). It's probably good that we only drink the stuff one month out of the year. It's not exactly a health food.

New York mag taste tests a bunch of store-bought egg nogs and gives the results. I'll leave the best for you to see when you click, but I will say Ronnybrook, Silk Soy Nog and Horizon get a big thumbs down. (Hey, no Hood egg nog? Maybe it's a regional thing - I live near Boston - but I think it tastes great!)

Waterfront Ale House's Sam Barbieri is the judge, and he gives his recipe for the ultimate eggnog. (Side note: is egg nog one word or two? I see it both ways everywhere; in fact, it's both ways on the cartons shown in the pics in this article. Hmmm...)