New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells (below, from a photo from more than a decade ago), after twelve years on the job, has resigned, and tells why in an essay published last week.
    And frankly I’m very glad he did. Not because I want his job—at my age and distance from Manhattan I’d be dead within a year—but because, as he says, his health was fast deteriorating.  After compiling “The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City” (his idea) over the course of a year, he writes, “I wasn’t in the best shape of my life. My scores were bad across the board; my cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I’d expected even in my doomiest moments. The terms pre-diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around. I was technically obese. OK, not just technically.”
         The reasons seem obvious for such a scare. Wells cites the death of Los Angeles Times critic Jonathan Gold (right) at 58 from pancreatic cancer, London Sunday Times critic A.A. Gill at 62 from lung cancer, and A .J. Liebling at 59 from bronchial pneumonia. But he also notes that New York magazine’s Gael Greene (left) died at 88 and Wells’s predecessor at the New York Times,  Mimi Sheraton, at 97. Frankly, none is related, and for the record, Gill  was a reformed drug addict and alcoholic and smoked 60 cigarettes a day until he was fifty, was never required to visit restaurants three times before a review and was lanky as ever when he died.
         I think it goes without saying that those who regard being a restaurant reviewer as a dream job are indulging in sheer fantasy for all the obvious reasons. Eating out for a living is not the same as going out for the pleasure of a good meal. What people forget is that I'm not paid to eat out but to write about the experience—on ever-too-near deadlines—and to describe everything from the quality of the food and atmosphere to the service and decibel level. (Do you have any idea how few adjectives there are for "delicious"?)
       But having been in the profession for 50 years as travel, food and wine writer, I have to state loud and clearly that it’s been a blast. Traveling the globe was a dream for me and eating in all kinds of restaurants from Boston to Bangkok on an expense account could be blissful. The people I met, the chefs and vintners I interviewed, dining with friends, the satisfaction of hearing from readers who took my advice and had the best meals of theirs lives, were all among the giddy virtues of the job.
         Yes, gluttony reared its fatty head, jet lag and fatigue set in, the appetite flagged, with still another meal to go that night. But I can happily say that in all my years on the job I have only had three miserable bouts of gastro-distress, all from shellfish and all of which passed within two days.
         Of course, my weight rose and my suit size changed since I was in college. Everyone’s does. Since I never weigh myself, I only knew things were getting out of hand by the way my pants fit. Still, through successive doctor’s visits, I never came away with any directives more dire than “Try to lose ten pounds.” When I did hit my highest weight four years ago, my internist warned me of the prospect of becoming pre-diabetic (I’ve taken both blood pressure and cholesterol pills in the past few years) and said, “Try to lose ten pounds.”
         Well, I lost twenty, not by dieting or cutting out any food or wine but simply by eating and drinking less of it, taking a smaller portion, tasting a morsel from a guest’s plate. After seeing my blood pressure and cholesterol drop to a healthy level and the pre-diabetic zone shrink, I was delirious that I could fit into my old pants. I went out and had five new suits made that year.    
         I wish I could say I’ve increased my exercise regimen, but I’m still lazy Yet it hasn’t seemed to affect my weight or general health, which my most recent check-up confirmed was very good indeed, especially for a man well past the age of seventy. My doctor says I look ten years younger. (By the way, I quit smoking in my mid-twenties.)
         I’ll tell you something I truly believe has prevented me from becoming decrepit, winded, obese  and, most of all, terrified of food, which is an overwhelming American pre-occupation. First of all, the food I (below) eat at home and in restaurants is of a very high quality (even in not very good restaurants) where the ingredients are fresh and never processed.  I don’t really care if a sixteen-ounce steak is full of fat (as well as good protein and vitamins), because I’ll only eat a third of it—much tougher to do when faced with French fries—and while I adore desserts I rarely finish any of them once I get a satisfying taste of them. I never snack between meals and never eat at junk food chains. And I'm not paid to eat things that grow under rotted logs or from anthills. I am guilty of drinking more wine than I might, but it hasn’t seems to have impacted my liver or kidney at all.      
         Second, I have pretty powerful genes, with all the women in my family—none of whom dieted or exercised—living to their upper eighties or nineties.
         Last, I have always been blessed with an attitude concentrated on pleasure within bounds, and I have everyone in my immediate family nearby, including four young granddaughters who have made it a joy to see them every day—both to share good food at home and at simple restaurants they can enjoy without throwing a fit. 
         If you cannot look forward to a good breakfast, lunch and dinner,  life loses something essential and wonderful. To turn such moments of the day into agonizing decision-making, antagonism towards food and guilt over everything you put in your mouth, you will very likely get sick and be miserable at the same time.
         So I’m happy Pete is giving up what is no longer a wonderful job for him. He was a discerning eater and a damn fine writer in a profession that makes far more personal demands on the job than reviewing movies, theater or art. And when it’s no longer fun and you no longer have an appetite for what you once loved, it’s time to get up from the table and wave goodbye.  And then tomorrow you’ll be hungry again.