Book Review: Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl has done it again -- completely mesmerized me with a book I found hard to put down.

The current editor of Gourmet magazine goes from food critic a New West Magazine to the LA Times in this, the sequel to her first memoir, Tender at the Bone. How she reinvents herself from a hippie living in a commune in Berkeley cooking for her housemates to being one of the most respected food critics in the country is told with her usual candor, intelligence, humor, and poignancy. Her essay toward the end about her struggle with infertility left me weeping. An unbearable heartbreak for Ruth and Michael had me so emotional I had to put the book down at one point. But then an act of extraordinary kindness on the part of some of her dear friends several pages later made me sigh.

Thank goodness I had already read her bio and knew that in the end things turn out well for her, but I was struck by how hard it must have been for her to write about some of these episodes and she addresses this in her acknowledgements at the end of the book.

I enjoyed the stories she shares of how difficult it is for one to open a new restaurant and was particularly interested in the story of Wolfgang Puck's wife Barbara (who we met briefly at her now-defunct Seattle restaurant several years ago).

Another excellent read from Ruth Reichl. Her third book, Garlic and Sapphires is next. I can hardly wait!