During July, I slacked on the Witchel Watch, and had pretty much forgotten all about her and her annoying tendency to write about shallow socialite eating (or not-eating) habits. So it was a pleasant surprise to open the NY Times food section last week and start reading an essay, then realize it was hers, then realize it was not so terrible after all.

See, in this essay (“Childhood Was Just Around the Corner”), she talks about her life pre-social status. Turns out she went to Zionist summer camp for six years straight, which sounds to me like just the recipe for making you hate food for the better part of your life.

The weird thing is that she actually hankers for food from that era, which all sounds bland and white in her description, but I guess we all have our strange imprints (right now I really, really want an Italian sub from Sam’s in Seaside Park). The nostalgic-look-back-at-childhood-food theme is a bit of a tripe, I mean trope, but she does it with humor and self-deprecation, and a nice twist. And she made me consider white pepper in tuna salad, which is a little funky.

The long-term problem, though, is that Witchel has just one childhood to mine for essay material, but countless dull socialite dinner parties to attend in the future. Here’s hoping she keeps looking back.