Photos: Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images; Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune
Talk about a food-critic mash-up -- will the earth tilt and all the restaurants on the Eastern seaboard start sliding toward Key West, Florida, when some of the country's top food critics
Ruth Reichl (above left),
Jonathan Gold,
Frank Bruni (above right), and
Gael Greene fill the same space at "
The Hungry Muse," An Exploration of Food in Literature, the 29th Annual Key West Literary Seminar (starting tomorrow and running, in two separate sessions, through January 16th)?
Sure, there will be readings, conversations, lectures, and panel discussions with best-selling authors like
Calvin Trillin,
Roy Blount Jr.,
Madhur Jaffrey,
Molly O'Neill,
Julia Reed,
Adam Gopnik,
Michael Ruhlman, and many others.
But it's this sold-out event that has foodies salivating over their Key lime pie: Reichl, Bruni, and Gold on "The Art & Craft of Restaurant Criticism: Matters of Aesthetics & Taste." Why? Well, not only are these three among the heaviest of the heavyweights in the biz (where are you, S. Irene Virbila?), but, says Reichl, "I get to meet Frank Bruni for the first time, which is kind of a thrill."
For real?
"I've never met Bruni, either," Gold told us. And here we thought all the critics hung out together, like some Skull & Bones society. This talk should be the bomb.
So, ok, you get to finally clap eyes on Bruni, and, well, maybe sparks will fly. But, we asked the former
Gourmet editor in chief, why Key West and why this seminar?