| Joshua Ozersky | |
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Ozersky in January 2009 |
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| Born | Joshua Ozersky August 22, 1967 Miami, U.S. |
| Education | Rutgers University New York University |
| Notable award(s) | James Beard Award for New York Magazine's Grub Street blog |
| Spouse(s) | Cynthia Kachelmyer (1997–2001) Danit Lidor (May 23, 2010–present) |
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ozersky.tv |
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Joshua Ozersky (born August 22, 1967) is an American food writer and historian. He first came to prominence as a founding editor of New York magazine's food blog,Grub Street, for which he received a James Beard Foundation Award (with co-editor Daniel Maurer) in 2008.[1] He is the author of several books, including "The Hamburger: A History" (2008 ISBN 0300117582), "Meat Me In Manhattan: A Carnivore's Guide to New York" (2003 ISBN 0970312571) (as "Mr. Cutlets") and "Archie Bunker's America: TV in an Era of Change, 1968-1978" (March 2003 ISBN 0809325071). Currently, he writes for Time, hosts a video website, Ozersky.TV and has a column on home cooking on television host Rachael Ray's website. He is especially well-known for his expertise in the area of meat and meat cookery, and is often referred to by the sobriquet "Mr. Cutlets," after a minor character in Herman Melville's story, "Bartleby, the Scrivener." He is known for his sometimes grandiloquent pronouncements and strongly held, sometimes controversial opinions. Although read primarily as a food writer, he has said in numerous public appearances that he disliked "food writing" as such, and that his strongest influences have been G.K. Chesterton, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and A.J. Liebling.[2][3]
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Ozersky was born in Miami, Florida in 1967. He moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1979 when his father, the painter David Ozersky, got a job as a stage technician in the first of the area's casino-hotels, Resorts International. He attended Atlantic City High School and Rutgers University. His mother, Anita Ozersky, died suddenly when he was 14 years of age. Of his interest in food, he has said in interviews, "I was a friendless child, and a solitary and celibate teenager...my father and I only spoke about movies and food, and food far more than movies. He was a great gastronome and taught me to self-medicate my loneliness with steaks and sausages."[4] He later attended New York University's School of Journalism and the University of Notre Dame,[5] where he received a master's degree.
After graduating from Rutgers University in 1989, Ozersky wrote for several publications on media and cultural history topics, most frequently in Tikkun. From 1990 to 1993 he wrote two weekly columns for the West Side Spirit, a free weekly newspaper in New York City: a semi-humorous "TV Picks" column and a cheap-eats column called "The Impoverished Gourmand" under the name "Casper Gutman." Many consider this guise, which was loosely based on the character from The Maltese Falcon, as a forerunner of "Mr. Cutlets," his later fictive persona. In the mid 1990s, he wrote for Suck.com under the name "The Boob", as well as for Newsday, where he frequently contributed essays on culture and media. His book "Archie Bunker's America: TV in an Era of Change" (2003 ISBN 0809325071), a cultural history of television programming, received a disappointing critical reception. Although his ambition at this time was to establish himself as a public intellectual after the example of his mentors, Neil Postman and Mark Crispin Miller, he eventually turned to food writing full-time with the publication of his 2003 book "Meat Me in Manhattan" (ISBN 0970312571). 2008's "The Hamburger: A History" (ISBN 0300117582) was a critical success, receiving positive reviews in publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Economist,[6] The Times,[7] The Observer,[8] and Forbes.[9]
Subsequent to "Meat Me In Manhattan"'s publication, Ozersky was the restaurant critic for Newsday (2004–2006), and wrote regularly for the website Slashfood and the New York Law Journal. He became the founding editor of New York's food blog Grub Street,[10] a position he held until 2008, when he moved over to Citysearch as National Restaurant Editor. There he ran a daily food blog on the model of Grub Street called The Feedbag, along with his regular Citysearch duties.[11] He left in 2009 to start Ozersky.TV and pursue other projects, including a book-length study of Colonel Sanders. Ozersky TV, a venture with Eater founder Ben Leventhal, is a video website which featuring short films about restaurants and cooking debuted in July 2010.[12] He has also continued to write for numerous magazines, including Time, and was included in "The Best Food Writing 2009" (ISBN 0738213691).
In 2010, Ozersky was criticized for writing about his wedding in Time without disclosing that the chefs who participated donated the food as wedding gifts.[13] Ozersky defended himself, saying that the chefs involved were among his closest friends, and that the most prominent of them, Michael White, had his daughter in the wedding party as a flower girl.[14]