Jeffrey Steingarten trained to become a food writer at Harvard College, Harvard Law School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Harvard Lampoon. For the past eight years he has been the internationally feared and acclaimed food critic of Vogue magazine. He has been the food correspondent for the online magazine Slate. For essays in this collection, Mr. Steingarten has won countless awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. On Bastille Day, 1994, the French Republic made him a Chevalier in the Order of Merit for his writing on French gastronomy. As a man who ate everything, Chevalier Steingarten has no favorite food, color, or song. His preferred eating destinations, however, are Memphis, Paris, Alba, Chengdu--and his loft in New York City.