Chewing the Fat: Tasting notes from a greedy life

Description

Why are gravy stains on your shirt at the dinner table to be admired? Does bacon improve everything? And is gin really the devil's work? In this rollicking collection of his hilarious columns, the award-winning writer and Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner answers these vital questions and many, many more. They are glorious dispatches, seasoned in equal measure with both enthusiasm and bile, from decades at the very frontline of eating

Jay Rayner is an award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster with a fine collection of shirts. He has written on everything from crime and politics, through cinema and theatre to the visual arts, but is best known as the restaurant critic for the Observer. For a while he was a sex columnist for Cosmopolitan; he also once got himself completely waxed in the name of journalism. He only mentions this because it hurt. Jay is a former Young Journalist of the Year, Critic of the Year and Restaurant Critic of the Year, though not all in the same year. In 2018 he was named Restaurant Writer of The Year in the Fortnum and Mason Food and Drink Awards. Somehow, he has also found time to write four novels and five works of non-fiction. He performs live all over the country, both with his one man shows and as a pianist with his jazz ensemble, The Jay Rayner Quartet. He is a regular on British television, where he is familiar as a judge on MasterChef and, since 2012 has been the chair of BBC Radio 4's food panel show The Kitchen Cabinet. He likes pig.

PRAISE FOR JAY RAYNER'S LAST SUPPER A glorious book! Delicious nourishment for every cell in the body. -- Jeff Goldblum Peerless. -- Literary Review I love Jay Rayner. And a new reason to love him can be found here: in Chewing the Fat, his most entertaining and brilliant collection of musings about food, people and how they go together. And now, I'm hungry. -- Phil Rosenthal A sophisticated palate and a fiery, comic tongue. Jay Rayner's food writing is brilliant. -- Stanley Tucci This is Rayner at his rambunctious best: upfront, full-fat, and always deliciously written. -- Nigella Lawson