[foodmonster]

The tone of this article is in fact a little different than most of what's on HN - as are most articles from the NYTimes Magazine.

The magazine enjoys a much wider audience than most of the technology articles found here. Articles from the magazine are often framed as stories, following the path of individuals to show the purpose of the article. This also helps hold the attention of the reader through the article's longer length.

The embellishments you list out here are other tools the writer and editors use to appeal to the magazine's reader base.