http://www.nj.com/jjournal-news/index ... d_blogger_who_goes_b.html

Is the food blogger who goes by Ruth Bourdain really the Jersey Journal's Adam Robb?

Published: Monday, October 24, 2011, 3:00 AM
By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal


A photo of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain Photoshopped with a wig is the avatar for the Twitter feed Ruth Bourdain.
The Jersey Journal?s own Adam Robb is caught up in a food-world mystery: Who is Ruth Bourdain?

Ruth Bourdain, an award-winning Twitter feed that combines the names of two boldface names in the gourmet food world, arrived on the scene in March about 2,000 tweets ago and has provided foodies with occasionally profane tweets about restaurants, vegans and the Food Network?s Guy Fieri.

Its avatar is a photo of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain Photoshopped with a wig; its first name an homage to former Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl.

The Wall Street Journal chimed in this summer, calling the Twitter page ?a new, enduring mystery? in the food world. In May, Ruth Bourdain won a humor award from the James Beard Foundation, the Oscars of food writing.

Around then, Ruth Bourdain had more than 7,500 followers, a number that has since grown six-fold.

Food writer Ben Leventhal claimed Thursday on his Tumblr blog that Robb and fellow food writer Josh Friedland are collectively Ruth Bourdain. The item was picked up by New York magazine, and The Atlantic?s website contacted Robb Friday to comment.

Robb a freelance writer who contributes food, fashion and television articles, among others, to The Journal and NJ.com responded on his blog, ?The Life Vicarious,? with a satiric post that neither confirms nor denies he is, in fact, Ruth Bourdain.

But Robb tells The Jersey Journal that he is not the famed Twitter scribe.

?I am not Ruth Bourdain. I think it?s sycophantic, and unfunny,? Robb said in an email.

If he had written something that had won a James Beard award, he would fess up, he said.
The mystery continues ...

(OR)

http://gothamist.com/2011/10/07/did_t ... et_just_reveal_twitte.php

Has Foodie Twitter Phenom Ruth Bourdain Been Unmasked?

Stop the presses! The greatest Twitter parody phenomenon of our time has?maybe?been revealed! The Star Tribune is claiming that the person behind Ruth Bourdain, the potty-mouthed online culinary mashup of Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain, is none other than Village Voice food critic Robert Sietsema. Could it possibly be true?! And why does the Tribune have to go and ruin a perfectly good time?

"How do I know who Ruth Bourdain is? He was tweeting while listening to the same speaker I was, in a closed room in Charleston, SC, at a conference with the Association of Food Journalists," explains Tribune writer Lee Svitak Dean. RuBo, as she's been nicknamed, won a James Beard Award for humor this year (though s/he didn't accept in-person) and was even given her own advice column on Chow.com, "Ask RuBo." (Sample advice: "Let's say you want to be the next Rachael Ray (which is, frankly, a very #OOPS#ing disturbing goal); adding an extra and unnecessary vowel to your first name is just too obvious, not to mention completely unnecessary and way too hard for food writers to remember.")

We're still awaiting comment from Sietsema, who denied the whole shebang to Eater, saying, "I could do better humor wise. And don't forget Ruth was my patr?n." (Sietsema was a former contributor to Gourmet.) He told Grub Street that he thinks it could be "Ben Leventhal or somebody like that. Somebody who never has to worry about working for Ruth." We did speak to his Voice food critic colleague Lauren Shockey, who said "I honestly have no idea, it wouldn't surprise me but I'm just as clueless!"