Happy as I was to see Mme Child top the bestseller list at long last, I did have to laugh at the front-page announcement. The average blooming onion is far scarier than any mousseline sabayon (and has anyone checked that sacred dictionary lately for the definition of decadent?) The story was a total salmagundi. “French and American bodies respond differently to the same fatty ingredients?” You gotta be kidding me, and Darwin, too. Arrogant idiots making beef stew with cream o’ mushroom and onion soup because bacon fat is so scary? They set cooking back to 1961. But beyond the content, the quality was amazingly flawed. In my two stints at the paper held in highest self-regard, no coverage of Time’s man of the year was allowed because it was not news, just promotion for the publication. And what would you call billboard coverage of your own bestseller list? Worse, the treatment of butter rivaled that of WMD. The reader came away thinking it was lethal. But not once did the reporter stop to analyze why and inform either way. Yellowcake must be on the cafeteria menu every day.