Ruth Bourdain Might Be Friends with Thomas Pynchon

from new york magazine via eaterRuth Bourdain is a Twitter sensation, the amalgam of Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain. Comfort Me With Offal was published last week to Ruth Bourdain's name and now a caption in New York magazine hints that Ruth Bourdain is Village Voice restaurant critic Robert Sietsema.  It's an accusation Sietsema outright denies.  Diner's Journal got in touch with Sietsema to settle the score: “This has been going on for a year now, and the more I deny it, the more people don’t believe me. I would use reverse psychology and say that yes, I am – but the only problem is that I’m not.”

The accusations started in October of last year at a gathering of food journalists in South Carolina.  While Sietsema denies being Ruth Bourdain, a post on Village Voice's blog Fork in the Road from October of last year suggests he knows who Ruth Bourdain is.  He wrote, "I know I'm not Ruth Bourdain because I'm looking at him right now."