In every critic's life a moment emerges when she realizes that her carefully refined opinions — judicious and elegant as they may be — aren't worth doo-doo. The revelation hits with the force of a piano shoved off a third-floor balcony; you look down at those shiny, grand preconceptions in smithereens on the sidewalk, all the music gone out of them, and understand that something has ended. This critic (let's for the sake of argument call her a food writer) might as well toss in the tea towel at this point. She could be rebuilding shotgun shacks in the Ninth Ward or mowing down poppies in Afghanistan or teaching deaf children to sign the lyrics to "We Are Family"; instead, she realizes, she's spent the best years of her life fussing about whether the... More >>>