Giving Up Food
When Phyllis C. Richman began reviewing restaurants for the Washington Post in 1976, “we’d never heard of balsamic vinegar, and the top restaurants in town served canned vegetables."
By
Carol Guensburg
Lori Robertson
Carol Guensburg (carol.guensburg@verizon.net) is senior editor for the Journalism Center on Children & Families, a University of Maryland professional program - and a nonprofit. It receives primary support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Guensburg spent 14 years as an editor and reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after working for three other papers.
Lori Robertson (robertson.lori@gmail.com), a former AJR managing editor, is a senior contributing writer for the magazine.
When Phyllis C. Richman began reviewing restaurants for the Washington Post in 1976, "we'd never heard of balsamic vinegar, and the top restaurants in town served canned vegetables. There's been enormous change," she says, noting readers' increasingly sophisticated palates. Richman herself has been a constant, assessing the fare from diners to posh spots with judicious, delicious flair. But the 60-year-old critic soon will depart the Washington Post Sunday magazine's table of contents to concentrate on writing fiction; her third novel, in progress, has the working title "Who's Afraid of Virginia Ham?" Magazine Editor Glenn Frankel says a Post committee is conducting "a serious global search" for a successor, but insiders are betting on Post Food section staff writer Tom Sietsema . He'd been her assistant from 1983 to 1988 before handling food and restaurant beats in Milwaukee, San Francisco and Seattle. He returned to Washington in 1997 to head restaurant coverage of Microsoft's late Sidewalk site. ###
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