During her tenure as food critic for the New York Times, she ate as many as four restaurant meals per day. But not in the same sitting. That would have been silly. She once tasted all 1,196 products in Bloomingdale’s food department – not a bar bet, an article. And a darn fine one. We spoke at Macaulay Honors College, accompanied by the accordion playing of Melissa Elledge.

•   PERSON: Robert Louis Stevenson
•   PLACE: Midwood High School
•   THING: a mortar and pestle

RANDY’S THING: spent hens