Since I didn’t speak with author Thomas McNamee — born-and-bred Memphian — when he was in Memphis to sign his latest book a few months ago, I did the next best thing: reach McNamee by phone in Montana, where he spends his summers. The topic of discussion: McNamee’s The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance (Free Press/Simon & Schuster), and you can read more about McNamee’s life of Claiborne, the first biography of the celebrated New York Times food writer and restaurant critic who died more than a decade ago, in the September issue of Memphis magazine. Here, for now, though, and starting out on a disturbing note:
