NYT Defense: Alex Witchel: "Variations on a Beloved Theme"

Here is a link to the article I'm defending: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/dining/24feed.html

I was initially drawn to this article in last week’s dining section because of its teaser title, “Feed Me: The Chopped Meat Variations.” I love eating meat, so I was immediately intrigued, and the demanding and to the point tone of the column title "Feed Me" (a monthly column in Dining) suggested that this article would be written efficiently, with the express purpose explicitly of making me hunger for whatever type of chopped meat I was going to read about. I decided to write on this article for my defense when I realized halfway through the piece that Alex Witchel was impressively weaving personal narrative writing with recipe writing, restaurant reviews and a dash of social criticism. Her snarky comment about how Café Boulud’s number one seller is the arugula salad, “The Upper East Side is truly wasted on the rich,” was jarring, hilarious in context, I find to be a good example of her combining many different types of writing to write a successful food column. Alex is a novelist and a writer for the New York Times magazine who resides in New York City. Her husband, Frank Rich is an Op-Ed Columnist for the Times.