THE EPICURE Apple remains fond of Rhody, corruption and all BY IAN DONNIS

Evaluating the amount of graft in Rhode Island has become something of a parlor game. Critics say the stuff is practically imbued in the political culture, while prominent Democrats tend to cite the foibles of New Jersey, Illinois, Louisiana, and other places in insisting that we don’t have it so bad. But when New York Times political reporter R.W. "Johnny" Apple used his new travel guide to retrace some of the more colorful elements in Little Rhody’s history, it was more than restaurateur Bob Burke could bear.

Burke, the owner of Pot au Feu and Federal Reserve, invited Apple, a legendary raconteur and gourmand who has covered presidential campaigns dating to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 bid, to defend his aspersions during a luncheon on Monday, April 11, at his ornate Dorrance Street establishment. With barely disguised mock horror, Burke cited how Apple used his book, Apple’s America: the Discriminating Traveler’s Guide to 40 Great Cities in the United States and Canada (North Point Press, 2005), to revisit such hoary depredations as Cotton Mather’s dismissal of Rhode Island as "the sewer of New England." Sniffed Burke, "The worse thing that he says about any of the other cities is that it’s a fabulous place to go."

Apple responded by sharing other bits, some from his book, to show how the wretched and sublime not uncommonly commingle in one community. Henry Miller, he noted, once called Cleveland "a deadly dull, deadly dead place." The great press critic A.J. Liebling cited New Orleans as a mixture of Haiti and Patterson, New Jersey (in Apple’s words, the Crescent City also combines crime, corruption, humidity, and bad schools with a love of good food, good drink, and good times). Detroit, he noted, can be "as bleak as Bucharest." Yet although its banking institutions have been merged, its daily newspaper sold to Texans, and its once-fabled industry almost entirely wiped out, Providence has "a palpable sense of renewal," Apple said, because of such things as Trinity Rep, WaterFires, Atwells Avenue, and a number of outstanding restaurants. Responding to his host, he said, "I like Providence quite a lot, but I don’t work for the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Burke."

Apple, who gained more exposure to Rhode Island by marrying a cousin of local patrician Fred Lippitt, enthused that Providence "is, among other things, a very original place." Describing how he heard from newspaper editors in cities that were not included in his book, Apple added, "See, Bob, it’s a much greater insult to be ignored."