Carolina Alumni Review - November/December 2009

One of the editors involved in the hiring process knew about Bruni’s struggles with his weight and asked him point-blank if he was willing to sacrifice his current shape to become a professional eater. “I was sure I wasn’t,” he wrote. “And for reasons I was still working out in my head, I’d come to believe I wouldn’t have to.”

Those “reasons” included Bruni’s ability to turn his harmful compulsions into healthy ones. Bruni used the job of restaurant critic to force himself to monitor his eating in a healthy way, steering away from his old compulsions to binge and starve.

“As a critic, I have X number of meals a day and a week that I have to eat. So I can’t fast. I can’t do a 900-calorie-a-day diet. I have to eat steadily,” he said. “My only option for maintaining a decent weight is proper pacing and portion control.”

Perhaps the most extreme example of Bruni’s new discipline occurred when he took a road trip across America to sample the specialties of each region, which he dubbed “Transfatamerica.” His method of sampling was “taste and trash” as he and his traveling companion allowed themselves no more than three or four bites of any one item before tossing it in the garbage.

Food still gave Bruni a thrill, no doubt about that.

“I was always surrounded by delicious food, many nights a week, and my heart would beat a little faster and often do a little dance as I saw the lamb chops being put in front of one companion, the lobster in front of another, and thought: I can’t WAIT to try all of this,” he wrote in an e-mail response. “But because I had a focus and mission other than just GOBBLING IT ALL DOWN, my passion for and fascination with everything in front of me had a healthier, more analytical channel — I didn’t feel the same impulse to PIG OUT.”

But fear also lurked in the gut of the new Frank. So afraid of slipping into his old habits was Bruni that for a while each Wednesday morning he boarded the train to D.C. to work out two hours straight with his former trainer before catching the 3 p.m. train back to New York — a $440- a-week ritual. Now he exercises just as much, about an hour to 90 minutes a day, five days a week, but varies his routine among runs in Central Park, pilates classes and weightlifting.

‘At least for now’

The title of the book comes from one of Grandma Bruni’s favorite sayings: “Born round, you don’t die square.” Frank Bruni was born round, a baby with a ferocious appetite who grew up in a boisterous family where overflowing platters and endless portions meant love, happiness and success.

“I was clearly a template. Whatever my biochemistry was, whatever my appetites were, whatever my psychology was — all of those things were sort of a ready template for overeating,” he acknowledged. “That whole kind of psychology and culture of plenty I think grafted itself onto a tendency to overindulge in food and then produced the kind of problem I had for most of my life.”

But having come to terms with his food-related compulsions and risen to the challenge of eating daily in some of the world’s finest restaurants without gaining weight, Bruni has moved on to his next job and a new stage in his life. The Times restaurant critic’s fork has now passed to culture editor Sam Sifton, so Bruni has even had a little fun emerging from his former anonymity by making an uncredited cameo appearance in Julie and Julia, the summer film about a modern woman trying to emulate Julia Child.

Bruni, who turned 45 in October, is now a full-time staff writer for the Times’ Sunday magazine again and has found a man he considers a “keeper — like the first keeper in a very long time,” he writes. He’s going to continue eating and exercising sensibly, he said, and is committed to a 34 waist.

The man who was born round seems determined not to die that way, but Bruni knows the challenge will continue for the rest of his life. “When I give up this job and I no longer have these ritualized meals, will I find I’m in more danger?” he said. “I’m hoping that my consciousness of it will be my salvation.”

In the last sentence of the book, Bruni writes, “I took another bite of the dessert, just so I didn’t seem to be avoiding it. But I stopped there. Somehow I’d learned to do that. At least for now.”

SUSAN HUDSON HOUSTON ’ 84 of Chapel Hill works for UNC News Services. She was food editor for The News & Observer of Raleigh for eight years and was features editor of The Daily Tar Heel in 1982.