Elvis Presley, 21 Club, Clint Eastwood, Foie Gras, and so much more. The Insatiable Gael Greene is
here.
Okay tomatoes, buckle your seat belts. This week’s issue is definitely for “women who aren’t
kids.” (Although, we promise guys will love this one too.) But lock up the kids. The Three Tomatoes
have news, big news. Gael Greene, the long running restaurant critic for New
York magazine, is now featured at The Three Tomatoes. We are foie grasing at the mouth, we are so
excited. So now dear tomatoes, you will get all the inside scoop on New York City restaurants from the Queen
of food and sensuality herself. If you think we are being generous by bestowing her with this title, here is a quote from
Gael’s memoir book: “For me,
the two greatest discoveries of the twentieth century were the Cuisinart and the clitoris.” And oh my, does she have
stories to tell, many of which are in her book, “Insatiable, Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess”. And now you’ll find Gael Greene’s Insatiable Critic at The Three Tomatoes, starting this week with her pick of the best new NYC restaurant in 2007.
Bedding Elivs Presley, Clint Eastwood, and Burt Reynolds – in between the foie gras, black truffles, and the
Armagnac
In our fantasy world, The Three Tomatoes would definitely share the covers with Elvis Presley (the young, thin
one), and Clint Eastwood, even now. And after reading Gael Greene’s book, we’d add Burt Reynolds too.
You see Gael Greene’s reality, is just so much richer than most of our fantasies. At the age of 17 (having already
finished her sophomore year in college) she convinced her parents that she needed to leave her home town of Detroit for a year abroad in
Paris. It was there as she says, “freed from the Velvetta cocoon”, that she first discovered the joys of French
cuisine that began a life long passion for great food and ultimately a career writing about great food. Okay, we hear you. Back to
Elvis.
She returned to Detroit, got a degree from the University of Michigan and a job at the age of 21 as a junior staffer at
UPI. She used her press credentials to get into an Elvis show in Detroit, and then his suite. And as they say, one thing led
to another. But how often does Elvis get to Detroit? As a young aspiring journalist, she wanted to be in the big
time so she quit her job at UPI for the promise of a one week tryout on the city desk at the New York Post, a job she got -- fortunately for
her and New Yorkers.
One of her great joys, right from the start, was exploring New York’s restaurants. She also started
freelancing for publications like Ladies Home Journal, Look, McCall’s and Cosmopolitan. It was an
interview with Look that led her to meet her food hero, Craig Claiborne, who later became a great friend. Her interviews
with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds for Cosmo led her to more of that “one thing leads to another.”
And if you want those delicious details, you’ll have to read the chapter in her book “Men I just couldn’t resist.”
As you can see, she was settling quite nicely into the New York City scene, and life as a journalist.
Then in 1968, she got a phone call from Clay Felker, the founder of a new magazine called New York asking her to be its restaurant critic, a job she felt she had no credentials for, not to mention that
she’d be competing with the food God Craig Claiborne at the Times. But when Clay pointed out that her dining out
adventures could now be expensed, and she realized that meant she could order from the “right side” of the menu, she
accepted. And so began a relationship with New York magazine, and a loyal following of New Yorkers who love food, that
still exists today. For forty years Gael Greene has entertained and educated us about the New York restaurant scene from Le
Pavillion to the 21 Club, Le Cirque to Pastis, crème fraiche and nouvelle cuisine, and the rise of today’s rock star
chefs like Daniel Boulud and Bobby Flay.
Dining with Craig Claiborne, Julia Childs, cooking lessons from James Beard, and eating you way through
France
So in our food fantasy world, we’d sit in Craig Claiborne’s kitchen in the Hamptons telling him about our
cooking class with James Beard while he poured Dom Perignon for us into Baccarat crystal flutes; then we’d jet off to France where Julia
Childs would prepare lunch for us, under a tree of her hillside home overlooking the Mediterranean; and then we’d continue our annual jaunt to
visit the restaurants of the finest chef’s in France, sometimes ending up in their beds too. Where there’s great
food, can sex be far behind? Not in Gael Greene’s world, where these stories are just a few of the highlights of her
extraordinary life. Along the way, she also wrote two best selling novels, one of which, Blue Sky, No
Candy, caused quite a stir in 1976, with its unabashed writing of what sex feels like from a woman’s point of view.
She also wrote a book called Delicious Sex, featuring her two passions, which a tomato daughter recently confessed to having
purchased and read in college when we thought she was reading Faust. (But we might add, tomato daughter is a great cook today, and
has a really hunky husband too.)
A life lived large, in the moment, full of passion
While Gael has lived a “large” life, she herself remains slim and trim, despite all that amazing
food. How does she do it we asked? She tries to remember to just taste and pass the plate along to her guest on
the left or right when reviewing, and she saves healthy eating for breakfast and lunch. That leaves room for tasting whatever
she pleases at dinner. She has a trainer who comes five days a week. And once in a while she sheds a few pounds with ten days or two weeks of
not eating anything white --bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, and no desserts.
Her passion for food extends to helping others too. On a Sunday morning in 1981, Gael read a story in the
Times on how the city was struggling to feed elderly shut-ins. And before you can say New York Times Book Review, she had
called her friend James Beard, which started a chain of friends calling friends, to contribute money and food to feed NYC’s elderly. She
became the mover (along with co-founder James Beard) behind Citymeals-on-Wheels. Gael is a continuing force as board chair of Citymeals, which today is the largest public/private partnership in the country, and has raised $200 million to
help feed the city's frail elderly shut-ins.
Today, Gael shares her life with Steven, her loving protective companion for over twenty years. She still
eats out 7 nights a week, discovering and celebrating New York, which she says is the best city in the world for eating
out. She shares those discoveries in her weekly New York
magazine “Ask Gael” column, and now with The Three Tomatoes at “Gael Greene’s Insatiable Critic. And she fully expects to go on eating and critiquing
forever. How lucky are we?
So here’s to all the men that Gael has loved, food that makes your senses tingle ‘til they hurt, living large,
and the great restaurants of New York City’s past, present, and future.
‘til next week,
The Three
Tomatoes
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