by Ruth Reichl
I’ve tried to be as honest as I can throughout this book. In a few cases I’ve changed names, and I have occasionally altered the setting or the timing of a story. But all my friends know this about me: I can always eat, and I can always exaggerate.
One more thing. I took the title of this book from the Song of Solomon, which has a lot to say about both food and love.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. When Ruth Reichl tells her housemates that she is going to become a restaurant critic, her roommate Nick responds, “You’re going to spend your life telling spoiled, rich people where to eat too much obscene food?” Discuss Reichl’s transition from chef to critic and the effect it has on her lifestyle. To what degree is Nick’s response a reflection of the era (the 1970s)? Thirty years later, does your reaction differ from Nick’s?
2. Reichl is known for her restaurant reviews and other food writing. In Comfort Me with Apples, do you find her writing about food to be straightforward? Consider her use of metaphor (eggs that taste like sunshine, raspberries like spring) to describe food. Do you find this to be an effective means of conveying her sensations to the reader?
3. How is Reichl’s background in journalism reflected in her prose style in this book?
4. Reichl has said that Comfort Me with Apples is about women and work. Throughout her personal ups and downs, she always returns to work as a source of solace, continuity, and fulfillment. Consider her trip to Barcleona after she has had to return her adopted daughter to the girl’s birth parents. How does the trip console her, and how is she different upon her return?
5. Reichl includes recipes at the end of each chapter, recipes that each signify a specific event in her life and relate to an event in the book. In Comfort Me with Apples, cooking is often therapeutic. Think of your own relationship with food and cooking. Are there particular meals that, for you, elicit memories or strong emotional responses?
6. Ruth Reichl’s first memoir, Tender at the Bone, dealt to a great extent with her often difficult relationship with her mother. How does their relationship evolve and change in Comfort Me with Apples? Consider the relationships that dominate her life in this book, including those that intersect with her relationship with her mother, and how they reflect on Reichl’s life and character.
7. The author has called Comfort Me with Apples “a love story.” What is the nature of this love story? Think of the ways in which love pervades the book—love of food, friends, lovers, spouses, chidren, and self.
8. In an interview, Reichl has said, “I believe privacy is overrated. I did hold back when I thought what I was writing would be hurtful for someone else, but I believe that the biggest hope for mankind is for us to learn to know each other, to tell each other the truth.” Consider the responsibilities an author has in writing an auto biography. What decisions has Reichl made in shaping her own story, and what effect do they have on the reader’s perceptions of her and the other people she features in her book? Is it ever possible to preserve the objective truth (if there is such a thing) in writing a memoir?’
Instants Out of Time
Can you remember a time when balsamic vinegar was so exotic that only one person in America had ever tasted it? Probably not. That’s why the recipes are here; as I was writing this book based on taste memory, I wanted each chapter to have its own unique flavor. I wanted you to be able to savor the words and taste the time, so I pored through my recipes, looking for the basic essence of each chapter. Remembering the delight and shock of encountering balsamic vinegar, I wanted you to be there with me as that peculiarly attractive sweet tanginess hit my mouth for the first time.
Similarly, when I was trying to describe the agony of ending my first marriage, it occurred to me that I could do it most simply in recipes: One year, five recipes—and everything changes.
Looking back, though, I recognize that tasting and seeing are very different experiences and that even as you’ve tasted the past with me, my family, and my friends, what we all looked like, what clothes we wore, and where we lived are equally important. Fortunately, I’m a person who never throws anything away, and when I went through my files I discovered some wonderful snapshots. They are a record of a time when the food world was very small and we were discovering new flavors every day. The joy and the energy we felt just radiate from these images and I’m so happy to share them with you here.
Duth and Rug, in the kitchen. I’ve always loved this picture.
Restaurant critic and pals, circa 1977. (From the left, Doug, Buster Simpson, Chris Jonic, me, Paula Wehrer, Nick Bertoni.)
Not a new rock group called The Chefs, but the publicity photo for the opening of Michael’s. Michael McCarty is in front; behind him, left to right, are Jonathan Waxman (now chef-owner of Barbuto in New York), Mark Peel (chef-owner of Campanile in Los Angeles), and Ken Frank (chef-owner of La Toque in the Napa Valley).
Me and Jonathan Waxman, playing hooky during the opening of Michael’s.
With Les Blank, heading off to Truckee and the garlic restaurant. Maureen Gosling, Les’s longtime collaborator, took this photo while we loaded the equipment.
In the kitchen in Taishan, trying to identify the vegetables. Note the Mickey Mouse T-shirt, which I gave to Mr. Lee before I left.
Me, Alice, and Cecilia, just after I got back from China.
Michael, when I first met him.
Pictures from a wedding: Me, Alice Waters, Cecilia Chiang, Wolfgang Puck.
Danny Kaye at the wedding.
First visit to the New Booneville Hotel. On the left is Judy Rodgers, now chef at Zuni Café (at the time she was at the Union Hotel in Benicia). Marion Cunningham is next to her. Then John Hudspeth, who was briefly the owner of Bridge Creek Café. Alice Waters, and her then husband, Steven Singer.
First Thanksgiving at the house in San Francisco.
First Thanksgiving in the little house in San Francisco. The group includes the director Wayne Wang (who had just finished Chan Is Missing), his wife Cora Miao, Susan Subtle, and Sherry Virbila (who later replaced me as restaurant critic of the Los Angeles Times).
Michael with Gavi.
Me with Gavi.
Just another night in Barcelona: Alice Waters, Colman Andrews, me, Jonathan Waxman. How much did we have to drink? I don’t remember.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RUTH REICHL, former restaurant critic of New West magazine, California magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times, is now editor in chief of Gourmet magazine. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, her son, and two cats.
ALSO BY RUTH REICHL
Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table
Mmmmmmm: A Feastiary
Copyright © 2001 by Ruth Reichl
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reichl, Ruth.
Comfort me with apples: more adventures at the table / Ruth Reichl.
p. cm.
1. Reichl, Ruth. 2. Women food writers—United States—Biography. 3. Cookery. I. Title.
TX649.R45 A3 2001
641.5092—dc21 [B] 00-053355
Random House website address: www.atrandom.com
eISBN: 978-0-375-50704-5
v3.0_r1