Boston Food Community Honors Longtime Monitor Writer, Editor

THE New England food community is honoring Phyllis Hanes, a longtime editor and writer at The Christian Science Monitor, in a celebration of food and the written word at Trattoria Il Panino in Boston on Nov. 7.

Julia Child will chair the event, which will feature food from about 20 of Boston's top restaurants and is expected to attract hundreds of culinary professionals and food enthusiasts.

Ms. Hanes served as food editor and writer for the Monitor for the past 25 years. Prior to that, she was lifestyle editor for the predecessor of the Boston Herald, the Herald Traveler, for 20 years. Now retired from the Monitor, Hanes, who resides in Boston, will contribute stories to the Monitor and other publications.

The event will also serve as a fund-raiser for a scholarship named after Hanes at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.; the scholarship will support a culinary student's schooling.

Hanes has traveled worldwide to report on food, covering spice markets in Marrakech, Morocco, recipe hunting in Katmandu, Nepal, exploring produce markets in Helsinki and Beijing, researching tropical fruits in Rio de Janeiro, and searching out culinary trends in Paris and Rome.

An avid gardener, Hanes recently completed a botanical tour of Slovakia and a culinary barge trip through southwestern France.

She has interviewed countless people, from Euell Gibbons and Arthur Fiedler, (both of whom enjoyed good food), to James Beard, Paul Bocuse, Julia Child, Louis Szathmary, and Jeff Smith (the Frugal Gourmet). She is also the author of the cookbook ``Old American Favorites'' (Barron's, 1984).

What makes a good food editor? ``A gourmet's appetite for the newest, most exotic, and different, as well as a sensitive taste for the subtleties of good, down-to-earth, and traditional cooking,'' Hanes says.

* Donations to the Phyllis Hanes Scholarship Fund may be sent to Peter McNamara at Trattoria Il Panino, 295 Franklin St., Boston, MA, 02110.