Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichlis an American chef, food writer, co-producer of PBS's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, culinary editor for the Modern Library, host of PBS's Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth, and the last editor-in-chief of the now shuttered Gourmet magazine. She has written critically acclaimed, best-selling memoirs: Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise and Not Becoming My Mother. In...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth16 January 1948
CountryUnited States of America
My mother started out by being a very good girl. She did everything that was expected of her, and it cost her dearly. Late in her life, she was furious that she had not followed her own heart; she thought that it had ruined her life, and I think she was right.
You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one, you need to know about life.
The secret to life is finding joy in ordinary things. I'm interested in happiness.
Let's face it: my life tends to revolve around food, and I love feeding people.
I think of fiction as the highest calling. I'm kind of addicted to it. It's the thing that has gotten me through all the hard points in my life.
M. F. K. Fisher was a wonder and a huge influence, and someone I got to know pretty well at the end of her life.
'Comfort Me with Apples' is a love story, or better, two love stories. And since it deals with a later period in my life, most of the people who appear in it are living.
Life is so endlessly delicious
What often, too often, happens in magazines is that you end up with a great editorial product, and then you're selling things that you don't really approve of.
We in America have gotten addicted to cheap food. The result of that is antibiotic-laden fish, foods that are bred to be portable.
What was so extraordinary to me about going through this box of my mother's letters and diaries was meeting my mother not as my mother, but as a real person. And what breaks my heart is that I had no idea how self-aware she was and how protective of me she was.
What does happen in 'Gourmet,' we had eight test kitchens, and at any given time, there were, like, ten or twelve test cooks. And whenever anybody finished something, they would yell, 'Taste!' and everyone would go running towards it, and then taste, and then brutally deconstruct the dish.
To me, cooking is man's natural activity. But I think writing is really hard. Certainly writing fiction is the hardest thing I've ever done.
A real woman is someone who knows what she wants. If you want to stay home, that's fine, but you have to be clear-eyed.