Former Times food critic Frank Bruni, who has served as Rome bureau chief for the paper and also covered two presidential campaigns, will get his own “anchor feature” column in the Sunday opinion pages. It “will be a sharp, opinionated look at a big event of the last week, from a different or unexpected angle, or a small event that was really important but everyone seems to have missed, or something entirely different,” said section editor Andrew Rosenthal. Bruni has bounced around a bit since leaving the food criticism gig — after his 2009 book Born Round came and went, he wrote columns about cocktails and contributed some big Times Magazine pieces on food and personalities. He will be the section’s first openly gay columnist, for what it’s worth. He’ll also have a column another day of the week — probably Thursday. Because he’ll cover topics large and obscure — and not necessarily political — it doesn’t sound like he’s lined up as sort of replacement for departed “anchor” political columnist Frank Rich, who will start here at New York this summer. “At the Times and beforehand, I’ve been lucky to be able to write about many different topics,” Bruni said. “I’m eager to take on a job that will allow me to range across most or all of them in a reflective, analytical and sometimes — I hope — spirited way.”
