You Are What You Eat, Mr. Cutlets

Name: Mr. Cutlets

Occupation: New York's Most Conspicuous Carnivore

Relationship status: Single

Borough: Brooklyn

What did you eat today?

Thick, irregular slices of Hebrew National salami uneasily arranged on a soft onion roll; coffee; Chinese jerky treats; water; wild cherry Diet Pepsi; Malaysian sliders at 230 Fifth Avenue; Robbie Richter's leftover deckle brisket from Grill Kings, grossly undervalued by its judges, slowly reheated in a toaster oven. And, at the time of writing, a Heath bar.

What do you never eat?

Vegetables.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Diet soda; bacon; a container of something I can't identify; good butter; a tub of parkay margarine; a can of evaporated milk (for coffee); a well-intentioned, decaying piece of fruit; sliced American cheese; air bread; a Kossar's bialy; chow mein noodles. No wonder Ruth Reichl gets more house guests than I do.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My cast-iron skillet, beaten and bent, the closest thing I have to a "life partner."

Where do you eat out most frequently?

I actually bought an apartment just a few blocks from Di Fara so that I could go there every day, but once a week in this heat is about all I can take. I receive frequent deliveries from the Newkirk Plaza Restaurant, which makes good pancakes and adequate club sandwiches. Veselka....All this is me eating out as a civilian. In my professional capacity, I'm called upon to constantly eat in different places, and rare is the day when I can settle in on a familar counter stool like everybody else.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

I actually think about this very frequently. I suspect that indecisiveness, rather than fear, would kill my appetite. But assuming that I had Ricky Ray Rector's blissful presence of mind, I would certainly include large portions of all of the following: Waffle House hash browns, smothered, doubly oily;
a white nectarine from The Orchard;
thick slices of Benton's bacon;
a slice of Katz's pastrami;
pork ribs and prime rib from Kreuz market in Texas;
a slice each of Dom DeMarco's plain pie, round pepperoni pie, square pepperoni pie, and square artichoke pie, all inspected to avoid burn spots;
four Old English Garlic Rounds with corresponding squares of American cheese;
a glass of whole organic milk with plenty of Fox's U-Bet carefully mixed in, with no blotting;
Michel Rostang's epigram of lamb;
french fries from Lila's of Miami;
a tub of Kozy Shack pudding;
a good chilean sea bass;
one of Charles Gabriel's chicken thighs;
a briny Cape May oyster;
a limousin rib steak, cut from rib number 5, browned in my cast iron pan, and then finished in the oven.
Maybe another grape.

At that point I would welcome death.

Visit Mr. Cutlets at his web home, where he has his own fancy theme song. Soon you will also be able to visit him at New York magazine, where he'll be the new online food guru.