1. Gael Greene was an American restaurant critic, author, and novelist.
14 Facts About Gael Greene
1. 2.
Gael Greene became New York magazine's restaurant critic in fall 1968, at a time when most New Yorkers were unsophisticated about food and there were few chefs anyone knew by name, and for four decades both documented and inspired the city's and America's growing obsession with food.
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Gael Greene said that her passion for food was awakened by a year abroad in Paris while she was an undergraduate.
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Gael Greene worked as an investigative reporter for UPI then the New York Post, for example pretending to be single and pregnant for an investigation of baby trafficking, and was made a food writer after her editor liked an article she wrote about chef Henri Soule.
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Gael Greene became food reporter at New York soon after its launch, in fall 1968.
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Gael Greene was a passionate early "foodie" and is sometimes credited with being the first to use the word, in the early 1980s.
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Gael Greene famously went to great lengths to conceal her identity from restaurateurs, reserving and using credit cards under other names and wearing hats that covered her eyes.
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Gael Greene both received love letters from readers and praise from chefs and was known as a "merciless" critic, "the Dorothy Parker of restaurant critics".
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Gael Greene then moved to Crain's New York, where she contributed reviews from 2008 to 2012, and appeared as a judge for the first two seasons of the TV show Top Chef Masters.
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Gael Greene was a major contributor to The Cosmo Girl's Guide to the New Etiquette in 1972.
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Gael Greene remained an active chair of the company's board, hosting an annual Power Lunch for Women.
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Gael Greene received numerous awards for her work with Citymeals and in 1992 was honored as Humanitarian of the Year by the James Beard Foundation.
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Gael Greene was the winner of the International Association of Cooking Professionals' magazine writing award and a Silver Spoon from Food Arts magazine.
14.
Gael Greene died from cancer in Manhattan on November 1,2022, at the age of 88.