Full disclosure: I haven’t read this yet myself (mostly bc I am still several issues behind), but I love Anthony Lane, so I’ll just assume this is great 
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Just read it, thanks for the link. Just one thing I disagree with - please don’t cheapen chicken stock by using bare, left over roasted chicken… Just use fresh, good quality ingredients. The stock is what makes a great risotto!
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The New Yorker has once a year their food issue which I started reading many years ago. As youself learn more and more about food I found these issues less and less interesting as the authors seem to try to write about topics, often basic ones, in a very pretentious way, preferably using some foreign words to show their culinary knowledge but actually saying very little of interest if you are a bit interested in food. This article about risotto is unfortunately not different - very lengthy way to say surprisingly little but using language to “elevate” the author.
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Anthony Lane is one of my favorite writers at the New Yorker, and I’m sad that he doesn’t seem to do the regular movie reviews anymore.
It’s ok not to like his style 
Also, did I miss this year’s food issue?
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It was in April
An excellent read, thanks for the link!
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‘the further you dig into it, the more you realize that risotto, per se, does not exist—that there are only risotti, scores of them, native to their respective regions’
thanks, i enjoy an essay that does a deeper dive into a food or dish that some like to obsess over.
given that the author is interviewing Italian speakers and quoting from Italian publications i see no reason not to use those words in their original form when appropriate. there’s a reason we use words such as schadenfreude or terroir – given that an English translation is awkward or lacking in the full meaning of the word. i suppose one person’s pretension, is another’s, ‘it’s just good writing’.
this piece reminded me of a lovely ode to oeuf mayo i read awhile back.
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Ah. Apparently, I also didn’t find it particularly memorable.
That said, I’ve never looked at the New Yorker Food issue as a source for basic or even advanced cooking instructions. It’s predominantly a literary journalistic magazine touching on any variety of topics, after all.
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I don’t want to assume that @honkman was objecting to the usage of the original Italian terms for food stuffs in the risotto article (although now I should probably really read it 
) — especially when he himself uses ‘foreign’ words when captioning his restaurant endeavors, many of which seem to be Italian.
I don’t expect any cooking instructions in the New Yorker food issue but we written articles about a diverse set of interesting topics around food - over the last few years I found the quality dropping quite a lot and it often seems that the authors were struggling to fill their pages buy writing lengthy non-descriptive/boring pieces (part of the problem will be that those food articles are written for people that are not food nerds as people on this side)
No, but for example the use of “Knackwurst mit Knoblauch” in the risotto article is so out of context (at least for me) and is more “bragging” to add some German words
I srsly doubt one of the longest-employed writers at one of the most respected magazines in this country has any need to “brag” about anything, least of all words any monkey could google these days.
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I don’t know the author (and I am not sure if I have read anything from him before) and so this is just my impression after reading this article which was quite underwhelming
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QED is a complete sentence.
That’s on you. He started writing about film for the NYer in 1993. And like many writers at many publications, he expanded his area of interest.
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What has that to do how I liked his writing in this specific article ? That is independent on his background. Just because somebody might be good at something doesn’t mean that person is good at a very different field
I think it’s a good idea to do at least a cursory search of someone before you denigrate them. So that you are coming from a position of a little bit of knowledge.
I see nothing inherently wrong with the article.
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Not sure if I agree on that in general (not specific on that author or on that article). If you listen to music, watch art, read a book etc you have a very subjective impression if and how you like the song, art or book and I actually think that it is often better to approach it with a “fresh” look to be not overly positively or negatively influenced - either you look something or not independently of the background of the artist or writer
I agree that that it’s fine to go in blind, initially. But if you subsequently just blurt out your opinion without learning at least a little bit about what you’re blurting out about, it’s hard to take you seriously.
So what is the problem with the comment that some of the writing in this article comes over as pretentious and boring ? What would change if I look into his background ? I understand that some people have some favorite authors and feel it as a personal attack if somebody criticizes them but expressing own opinions shouldn’t be normally an issue.
