Someone Eats Out

I do marvel a bit at the beat obituary writers in the New York Times. They can turn out pieces on subjects whose lives and fame are from such varied pursuits that I sometimes think no one can possibly learn all that about these people without already be an expert in the field themselves.

And while I know some of them them are experts in certain fields, when someone like William Grimes pulls double duty, like today, and writes about a famous architect and a famous chef I can only marvel at how much information can be artfully spliced together to inform us about someone's life.

I suspect Mr. Grimes heart is with the chef, Jean Vergnes, 88, who passed away after a lifetime of working in restaurants, being nearly every kind of chef there is in restaurants, starting restaurants, and most importantly, and what surely helped prolong the life we read about, escaping from the Nazis by trying on a German officer's coat and wandering away from the forced labor mine he was detained at in occupied France in 1943. Given the chance to keep cooking, he did.

And when I have to look words up that are used in an obituary, it's even more entertaining. I suspect Mr. Grimes might eat out quite a bit, while I don't. The dictionary becomes where I get a happy meal.

One of the restaurants Jean Verges helped get underway was The Cirque. I always suspected this meant 'circus,' and it does. It was never obvious to me that the name implied breaking with stuffy haute cuisine. Even if the restaurant was named 'Hot Dog' in French (chien chaud) I still wouldn't have gotten it without Mr. Grimes's explanation.

And then there was the word 'soigne' socialites. Turns out that means "sleek, well-groomed, elegantly maintained." Perfect description of the people who eat out in those places, because from anything I've seen, there isn't much on the plate, but it is STACKED up high and is great to look at. And I'm sure they don't sketch a HAPPY FACE with sauce drippings, either.

None needed. By all accounts, Jean Vergnes was the happy face.

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