August 16 & 23, 2010 Issue

Dana Goodyear is in the magazine twice this week. She has a “California Postcard” in The Talk Of The Town called “Down The Aisle” and she has an “Annals of Gastronomy” piece titled “The Truffle Kid.” Both these items are much better than her “Killer Food,” which appeared in the April 26, 2010, issue. Goodyear kept herself out of “Killer Food,” and as a result, the piece lacked the subjective element that separates great journalism from basic reportage. “Killer Food” features several interesting scenes – the Möet & Chandon party, for example – that are well-described, but would’ve benefited from a few additional words sketching Goodyear herself into the frame, so that we know she’s actually there witnessing everything she’s reporting. This week’s “The Truffle Kid” is a much different piece, peppered with numerous discreet indicators of Goodyear’s personal involvement in the story: “We passed dozens of small towns …”; “Raúl Martín … led us down to a basement dining hall …”; “Adam Carmer, Steve Wynn’s first hotel sommelier and, as he told me, ‘the No.1 maître d’ in town for a decade’ …”; “I heard a story about …”; “I went to see him …”; “When I visited a few months ago …”; “Alessandro Stratta told me ….” Goodyear even provides this wonderful anecdote from her own life: “A relative of mine who lived in Buffalo and went by the name Shorty Plumb used to run booze across the border to Canada in the back of a pickup truck loaded with horse manure, and never got caught.” I smiled when I read that; I felt myself relaxing the way I do when I know I’m in the company of a good story-teller. Goodyear really hits her stride in the last third of “The Truffle Kid.” Here are two sentences I find absolutely inspired:

“Wearing a brown suit, a Bic behind his ear, and a pair of glasses tucked into the neckline of his shirt, and carrying a foam cooler loaded with duck breasts and foie gras, Ottolenghi led Gonzalez across the hectic, dimly lit casino floor and around a corner to a fifteen-foot-tall locked door.”

“He wound his way past giant carnival masks and fixated smokers staring at the slots, and through an unmarked door to the loading dock, where crates of plucked chickens sat waiting next to plastic bags of chili.”

Description like that is art; I eat it up. And consider the ending Goodyear created for her delightful Talk story “Down The Aisle,” also in this week’s issue: “Meanwhile, the streets and courthouses were quiet, as people waited to see if the marriages would be allowed to resume, and bruised purple jacaranda blossoms, rather than wedding confetti, clogged the gutters of Boys Town.” Wow! That last clause – “and bruised purple jacaranda blossoms, rather than wedding confetti, clogged the gutters of Boys Town” – is astounding. However she conceived the joining of quiet courthouses and people waiting to see if their marriages could resume with confetti, jacaranda blossoms, and the gutters of Boys Town, I don’t know – but it’s sheer genius. That closing sentence of “Down The Aisle” is probably the best-written single sentence to appear in the magazine this year.