Raymond Sokolov is a journalist who has written extensively about food. He wrote the "Eating Out" column for The Wall Street Journal's weekend edition from 2006 until March 2010. Sokolov grew up in the city of Detroit, and, while still in elementary school, finished 26th then 2nd in consecutive years in the National Spelling Bee. He attended secondary school at Cranbrook, in suburban Detroit, whence he graduated in 1959. After graduating from Harvard College summa cum laude in classics, and spending a year as a Fulbright Scholar at Wadham College, Oxford, Sokolov spent two years back at Harvard pursuing a doctorate in classics. In 1965 he passed his orals and went to work as a foreign correspondent for Newsweek Magazine in its Paris bureau. Sokolov returned to the U.S. in the summer of 1967 and worked for Newsweek as an arts writer until he became restaurant critic and food editor of the New York Times in 1973 where his pieces covered the decor, lore, and politics of New York restaurants as well as the productions of their kitchens. His reviews first noted the arrival of Sichuanese and Hunanese food in North America. 

August 1st, 1941 in Detroit (Age 82)