This is Fresh Air. I'm David Beane-Kooly, Infra Terry Gross.

Today, we're going to remember a restaurant critic and food writer Mimi Sheraton,

who died last week at the age of 97.

When she was a child, one of her favorite dishes was her mother's chicken ala king.

She went on to die in a many of the finest restaurants in the world.

She wrote about food for New York Magazine for five years.

Then, from 1976 to 1983, she was the food and restaurant critic for the New York Times.

She was the first woman to review restaurants for that paper.

Her verdicts were reputed to have the power to make or break new restaurants,

and she often dressed in disguise to make sure she got the treatment of her regular diner.

Over one 11-month period, she tasted everything in the Bloomingdale's Food Department,

1,961 items. It was the subject of one of her best-known articles.

Sheraton wrote 16 books, including cookbooks and a memoir.

When she became food critic for Time Magazine in 1984, she broadened her focus

to national and international eating trends.

But she continued to cover the New York restaurant scene with her subscription only newsletter,

Mimi Sheraton's Tastes. Terry Gross spoke to Mimi Sheraton in 1987.

When you're reviewing a restaurant, what's your method of ordering so that you can really judge

how the food is prepared? Well, usually we're four people. My husband and I usually go first to

see if it's going to be worth reviewing, but then it's usually four people.

And I ask people to order what I want to see, and as the visits progress, the choices narrow.

But what I try for is in across the board sampling of the menu. I want to see obviously different

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