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
I learned so much in Laos. I learned that fried silkworm larvae are delicious. I learned how to make ant-egg salad.
The critic has to do more of what the book critics and art critics have done in the past. Which is give you a context for understanding the restaurant, give you a better way to appreciate it, give you the tools to go in there and be a more informed diner who can get more pleasure out of the experience.
Given a choice between great food and boring company or boring food and great company, I'll take the great company any day.
We in the media have been guilty about not doing a better job of making people understand how really simple cooking is. We've made everyone feel like they have to be a chef.
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.
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.
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.
The secret to life is finding joy in ordinary things. I'm interested in happiness.
There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them.
Anyone who has ever been an ugly adolescent - and we are legion - knows that the feeling of being unlovely and unlovable never goes away; it is always there, lurking just beneath the surface.
In really good times, you say, 'No, I'm not taking that ad.' But in bad times, you'll take anything.
It takes a great deal of strength to be an optimist.
You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one, you need to know about life.
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.