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Jay Rayner

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Jay Rayner
Born (1966-09-14) 14 September 1966 (age 58)[1]
London, England
NationalityBritish
EducationThe Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School
Alma materUniversity of Leeds
Occupation(s)Broadcaster, writer, journalist, food critic
Years active1988–present
Employer(s)BBC, Channel 4 and The Observer
SpousePat Gordon-Smith[2]
Children2
Parent(s)Desmond Rayner (deceased)
Claire Rayner (deceased)

Jay Rayner (born 14 September 1966) is a British journalist, writer, broadcaster, food critic and jazz musician.

Early life

Rayner is the younger son of Desmond Rayner and journalist Claire Rayner. His family is Jewish.[3] He was brought up in the Sudbury Hill area of Harrow and attended the independent The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School.[4]

Career

He joined The Observer newspaper after graduating from the University of Leeds in 1988, where he was editor of the student newspaper. As of 2014 he was restaurant critic of The Observer. He has written for a wide range of British newspapers and magazines, including GQ, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, the New Statesman and Granta. In 1992 he was named Young Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards.

His first novel The Marble Kiss, published in 1994, was shortlisted for the Author's Club First Novel Award and his second, Day of Atonement (1998) was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Prize for Fiction.[5] His first non-fiction book, Stardust Falling, was published in 2002; this was followed by his third novel The Apologist, published in the US as Eating Crow, in 2004.

In 1997 he won a Sony Radio Award for Papertalk, BBC Radio Five Live's magazine programme about the newspaper business, which he presented.

He was one of the panel of critics who made up the eponymous "enemy" on the daytime cookery show Eating with the Enemy, and performs a similar role on the UK version of MasterChef. His television appearances have earned him the nickname 'Acid Rayner' owing to his sour demeanour.[6] He is the food reporter on the BBC magazine programme The One Show, and was on the panel of judges on the American programme Top Chef Masters.

He chairs a BBC Radio 4 programme called The Kitchen Cabinet.[7]

He was awarded the title Beard of the Year for 2011 by the Beard Liberation Front.[8]

Books

Fiction

  • The Marble Kiss (1994), ISBN 0-333-62134-4
  • Day of Atonement (1998), ISBN 0-552-99783-8
  • The Apologist (2004), ISBN 1-55278-416-9
  • The Oyster House Siege (2007), ISBN 1-84354-566-7

Non-fiction

  • Star Dust Falling (2002), ISBN 0-552-99908-3
  • The Man Who Ate the World (2008), ISBN 0-8050-8669-2[9]
  • A Greedy Man in a Hungry World (2014)
  • My Dining Hell: Twenty Ways to Have a Lousy Night Out (2015)
  • The Ten (Food) Commandments (2016)

Awards

References

  1. ^ "Researcha". Web.researcha.com. [dead link]
  2. ^ Neustatter, Angela (3 November 1996). "Is it time confessional man shut up?". The Independent. London.
  3. ^ http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/lifestyle/the-arts/books/the-big-interview-jay-rayner-1-5716032[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ Rayner, Jay (2 March 2003). "Tales my mother never told me". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
  5. ^ "The Jewish Quarterly". The Jewish Quarterly). 16 March 2009. Retrieved 3 July 2012.
  6. ^ "Inside Pulse". 28 June 2009. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
  7. ^ The Kitchen Cabinet at BBC Archived 15 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 6 June 2015
  8. ^ "2011: a good year for facial hair". Open Road. 29 December 2011. Retrieved 3 July 2012.
  9. ^ "Interview with Jay Rayner". digyorkshire.com. 27 May 2009. Retrieved 17 June 2009.