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
For me, cooking is a way to try and please people and tell them I love them. When I fall in love with someone, I want to feed them as well.
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.
The hardest part of cooking is shopping, and if you organize yourself and shop once a week, you're halfway there.
You don't want to give people what they want. Give them something that they didn't know that they wanted.
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.
...it was so rich and exotic I was seduced into taking one bite and then another as I tried to chase the flavors back to their source.
I felt that I was really living in the moment. I did not know where my life was going, but right now the future did not trouble me.
It is not 'only' food, I said heatedly. There's meaning hidden underneath each dish.
The single most useful ingredient on the planet. In a pinch you can scramble them and call it dinner. But it only takes five eggs, a little milk and a handful of cheese to make a fat, sassy cheese soufflé.
You look at the Barefoot Contessa or Lydia Bastianich, and it's just like watching your mother cooking.
World War II really fascinated me because it's the only time that everybody in this country sat down at the same table, because eating on rations was your patriotic duty.
When you're a restaurant critic, you're not home at night, so breakfast became really important for us.
What I always do in times of trouble or stress is to try and do something I don't know how to do.
When I ate slowly and deliberately, giving myself time to consider whether I actually wanted that next bite, I often discovered that I didn't.