O'NEILL, Molly

PERSONAL:

Female. Hobbies and other interests: Baseball fan.

CAREER:

Journalist, columnist, and writer. New York Newsday, New York, NY, restaurant critic, 1984-89; New York Times, New York, NY, food columnist and reporter, 1989—. Formerly studied cooking and worked as a chef at La Verenne, Paris France; then a columnist for Boston magazine, then Food and Wine Magazine.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Two Pulitzer Prize nominations; Julia Child/IACP and James Beard Awards, for The New York Cookbook.

WRITINGS:

A Feast of Irish Cooking, Doleman Press (Mountrath, Portlaoise, Ireland), 1986.

New York Cookbook, photography by Howard Earl Simmons, Workman Publishing (New York, NY), 1992.

A Well-Seasoned Appetite: Recipes from an American Kitchen, recipes tested by Lee Ann Cox, illustrations by Amy Hill, Viking (New York, NY), 1995.

The Pleasure of Your Company: How to Give a Dinner Party without Losing Your Mind, tested by Lee Ann Cox, Viking (New York, NY), 1997.

Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball, Scribner (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of foreword to Provincetown Portuguese Cookbook: With Recipes from Provincetown's Finest Cooks and Restaurants and Featuring Recipes from the Kitchens of Molly O'Neill and Emeril Lagasse, by Mary-Jo Avellar, Blessing of the Fleet (Provincetown, MA), 1997.

SIDELIGHTS:

Molly O'Neill, who studied cooking in Paris, is a food columnist and the author of several cookbooks and a memoir. In New York Cookbook, the author presents approximately 500 ethnic New York recipes. Michael Schrader, writing in the Nation's Restaurant News, noted that the author "does a wonderful job in marshaling statistics and scouring the boroughs for recipes." Schrader went on to write: "This is a portrait not only of the city's food but its people."

A Well-Seasoned Appetite: Recipes from an American Kitchen presents more than three hundred recipes, as well as author O'Neill's observations on dishes such as rosemary butternut bisque and corn-and-lobster pie in a chile-polenta crust. Paula Chin, writing in People, called the book a "marvelous collection." Booklist contributor Barbara Jacobs noted that the recipes reflect "honesty, eloquence, wit, and deliciousness." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote: "The grandiosity (and prolixity) of the writing might lead a reader to conclude that O'Neill is a weekend poet."

In the The Pleasure of Your Company: How to Give a Dinner Party without Losing Your Mind, O'Neill creates fictional characters, from a caterer to a matron, whose food-group discussions guide the reader in how to cook for a dinner party when dealing with a fast-paced life. The instructions unfold as a story is told about each group member giving a dinner party. In the end, O'Neill has presented 150 recipes, from winter stew to exotic breads. In a review in People, Paula Chin wrote: "In O'Neill's hands, cooking for company is a challenge, not a chore." Mark Knoblauch, writing in Booklist, noted that the recipes "are elaborate and festive."

O'Neill turns her attention to her own life and family in Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball. She tells of growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in a blue-collar family that was engaged in the American class struggle and maintained its equilibrium by a devotion to cooking, writing, and baseball. (Her brother Paul O'Neill became a star right fielder for the New York Yankees.) She also writes of her apprenticeship as a chef in Paris and her career as a food reporter and columnist. In a review of Mostly True in Booklist, GraceAnne DeCandido commented that "this reads like shards of family stories, each one burnished to a deep shine of memory and longing." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the author "meanders lovingly through years growing up," adding: "O'Neill charts a … pleasantly nostalgic trip." Writing in People, Michelle Green commented: "Foodies and baseball fans alike will cheer." A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that the author is successful at "painting an elegant portrait of … an ordinary family."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

O'Neill, Molly, Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball, Scribner (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 1995, Barbara Jacobs, review of A Well-Seasoned Appetite: Recipes from an American Kitchen, p. 1623; March 15, 1997, Mark Knoblauch, review of The Pleasure of Your Company: How to Give a Dinner Party without Losing Your Mind, p. 1216; April 15, 2006, GraceAnne DeCandido, review of Mostly True, p. 20.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2006, review of Mostly True, p. S1; March 1, 2006, review of Mostly True, p, 222.

Library Journal, March 15, 1997, Judith C. Sutton, review of The Pleasure of Your Company, p. 84.

Nation's Restaurant News, December 14, 1992, Michael Schrader, review of New York Cookbook, p. 48.

Newsweek, April 3, 2006, Raina Kelley, review of Mostly True, p. 65.

People, November 27, 1995, Paula Chin, review of A Well-Seasoned Appetite, p. 32; April 7, 1997, Paula Chin, review of The Pleasure of Your Company, p. 33; May 29, 2006, Michelle Green, review of Mostly True, p. 53.

Publishers Weekly, May 22, 1995, review of A Well-Seasoned Appetite, p. 57; March 3, 1997, review of The Pleasure of Your Company, p. 68; March 13, 2006, review of Mostly True, p. 55.

ONLINE

StarChefs.com, http://www.starchefs.com/ (October 1, 2006), brief profile of author.*