A riddle for the day - Name the famous American who had this to say about E. Dehillerin

Timeless: E. Dehillerin is the same today as it was in 1949 - and perhaps the same as it was when it opened in 1820.

Due to a throat/head thing that I've been fighting all week, I'm taking the day off from writing. In my place, a famous American describes E. Dehillerin, a store specializing in professional cooking equipment:

Eventually we arrived at Dehillerin. I was thunderstruck. Dehillerin was the kitchen-equipment store of all time, a restaurant supply house stuffed with an infinite number of wondrous gadgets, tools, implements, and gewgaws---big shiny copper kettles, turbotières, fish and chicken poachers, eccentrically shaped frying pans, tiny wooden spoons and enormous mixing paddles, elephant-sized salad baskets, all shapes and sizes of knives, choppers, molds, platters, whisks, basins, butter spreaders, and mastodon mashers.

Seeing the gleam in my eyes, Chef Bugnard took me aside and introduced me to the owner, Monsieur Dehillerin. I asked him all sorts of questions, and we quickly became friends. He even lent me money once, when I had run out of francs shopping at Les Halles and the banks were all closed. He knew I'd repay him, as I was one of his steadiest customers. I had become a knife freak, a frying pan freak, a gadget freak---and, especially, a copper freak!

Can you guess the name of the author? The words, "knife freak", are a big clue!

Need another hint? The passage describes the author's visit to E. Dehillerin in 1949, even though these same words could just as easily have been written in 2012.

E. Dehillerin
18 et 20 rue Coquillière - 51 rue Jean- Jacques Rousseau
75001 PARIS

Hours Mon 9am-12:30pm and 2-6pm; Tue-Sat 9am-6pm. Closed Sun and holidays.

Big enough for a crowd!

Steak knives

Whisks

And the "must have" item in a professional kitchen - Eiffel Tower cookie cutters in three different sizes!