Gourmet Magazine Comes Back from the Dead

I have been reading obituaries for a good part of my life, and by some standards, it is getting to be a long life. Ever since I was a teenager I read obituaries, principally in the NYT, but also I'm sure in The Herald Tribune. I always found the history that follows people around like a shadow to be very revealing when their mortal coil had been shuffled off and we get to read about them from cradle to grave.

This interest of mine has been considered somewhat strange, but only until I explain it. The day Robert McG. Thomas Jr.'s obituary about The Goat Man appeared and I told my cubicle mates about something they had to read showed others what the attraction was about.

So today, when we have the obituary about a chef, Judy Rodgers, who passed  away at 57 from what has to be something rare, cancer of the appendix, the thinking is, well, poor Judy, she lit her last burner. Instead, we get all of Judy's life, plus a full detailed recipe of a famous chicken dish of hers. Her life lives on through her cooking, which apparently to those who follow that sort of thing, she was one of the greatest at.

I knew something was up when I spotted the byline, Eric Asimov, a name I remember who always seems to be, or has been writing about food for the NYT. His byline is seldom seen on the obit page. Then, at the bottom, there is a recipe below a centered horizontal line, that looks like a muffed layout: part of the Wednesday food section has been served onto the obit page.

No mistake. The recipe is intentionally there. I am not our household's cook, but I know that something that requires 1-2 days of dry brining has absolutely no chance of being tried in our kitchen. That's why there are restaurants. To get what you won't make for yourself.

So credit the obituarist, and credit the editors for finding the space to include the recipe. Ms. Rodgers may have left us, but she apparently has left instructions on how to feed ourselves well.

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