The thought was in fact a memory. I write fiction now, mostly, but back in the nineties I worked for a magazine in New York, one that sent me to France to profile Bernard Loiseau, after he earned his third Michelin star. I was picked because I was half French and spoke the language, not because I was good. But I wanted to be good, and writing a profile was a major step for me, so I did a lot of research on Loiseau. I concluded that interviewing him would be easy: the guy was funny, passionate, generous in his answers. The piece would write itself. A piece that wrote itself was dubious to me, though, even as a mostly inexperienced young writer. I needed to introduce conflict, I thought, something abrasive, get Chef Loiseau off balance.
I asked him about food, of course, but then I quickly jumped to questions of ambition, of jealousy and envy. Those were the kinds of things that were on my mind at the time. I was seeing too many people around me sign book deals and make connections while I was stuck cataloguing everyone else's successes in hundred-words-or-less reviews for our culture pages. That was my story back then: twenty-four years old and already bitter. I don't remember exactly how I phrased it to Bernard (he'd asked me to call him that), but I remember the sentiment, I remember wanting to get this honest man, this man who'd done nothing but work hard and make it to the top, to talk shit. I wanted to know if he was angry at another chef's success, if there were dishes that others got famous for which he thought were crap.
"Do your readers need to know this?" Loiseau had answered, the way he'd answered all my questions-not taking a split second to think about them.
"Pardon me?"
"Your readers should they hear this? Do they want to know this?"
Esta historia es de la edición July 10 - 17, 2023 (Double Issue) de The New Yorker.
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Esta historia es de la edición July 10 - 17, 2023 (Double Issue) de The New Yorker.
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The Football Bro - Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
If, on a cool weekend morning in autumn, you happen to be watching “College GameDay,” on ESPN, don’t worry about figuring out which of the broadcasters behind the improbably long desk is Pat McAfee. He’s the one with the roast-pork tan, his hair cut high and tight, likely tieless among his more businesslike colleagues. The rest of the onair crew—Lee Corso, Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, and, newly, the former University of Alabama coach Nick Saban—tend to look and dress and talk like participants in an old-school Republican-primary debate. McAfee, though, favors windowpane checks on his jackets and a slip of chest poking out from behind his two or three open buttons. If the others are politicians, he’s the cool-coded megachurch pastor who sometimes acts as their spiritual adviser.
The Dark Time. - On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging. The point of contact between NATO and Russia's nuclear stronghold is the small town of Kirkenes. For years, Russia has treated the area as a laboratory, testing intelligence and influence operations before replicating them across Europe.
MIRROR IMAGES
‘A Different Man” and The Substance.”
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
EYES WIDE SHUT
How Monet shared a private world.
WITH THE MOSTEST
The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
On the Autobahn outside Frankfurt. November. The fields were covered in a thin sheet of snow.
TRY IT ON
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.