Washington City Paper food critic Tim Carman‘s piece “How Not to Hire a Chef” (5/22) has been selected for inclusion in Best Food Writing 2009. It is the second year in a row that Carman’s work has been chosen for the anthology.

Carman’s piece examines, or maybe more precisely spatchcocks, local restaurateur Andy Shallal‘s Top Chef-like contest to choose a toque for his new eatery, Eatonville. Reached in line at the drugstore, where he says he was picking up prescriptions to help him “overcome my lack of palate,” Carman says that Shallal maintained “radio silence” after the piece. “He sent me an email after the Marion Barry cover saying he should consider himself lucky that it wasn’t any worse for him,” Carman says.