Comfort Me With Apples

Ruth Reichl is a food writer/critic. As such, I was quite surprised that Comfort Me With apples wasn't what I thought it would be. Sure there was food, but there was a lot of personal too. Shortly after becoming a food critic, Reichl begins to explore food and the restaurants where she lives. As she grows, she meets more people (some famous, some only known in their circle) and starts branching...more

Ruth Reichl is a food writer/critic. As such, I was quite surprised that Comfort Me With apples wasn't what I thought it would be. Sure there was food, but there was a lot of personal too. Shortly after becoming a food critic, Reichl begins to explore food and the restaurants where she lives. As she grows, she meets more people (some famous, some only known in their circle) and starts branching out to other areas aside from her city. She also travels around the world and explores the communities and cultures and food that China, Spain and other places bring. Inter-weaved through all of this is her personal stories and relationships, the life she leads when she is not being a food critic. Unfortunately, despite her writing and love of food, I could not bring myself to like Ruth very much. She was consistently unfaithful throughout the book and having been on the wrong side of that type of relationship far too many times I lost a lot of respect for her. Yes she may have eventually been honest but it made the book less than perfect for me and I couldn't enjoy it. When she talks about food she's great, but some of her personal stories I wish she would have just let be, or at least gave warning, before I picked up the book. I was happy that there were tons of recipes in this book. They all sounded delicious and I can't wait to try some of them. Reichl really makes you feel as if you're there with her eating the food and enjoying it. I can definitely tell why she's in the line of business that she is. Its where she excels. The writing, aside from being highly personal is easy to read and for the most part non offensive. Which is good when you're talking about food. This was a good book, there were just parts of it I wasn't comfortable with and that my own feelings cloud the enjoyment. Maybe it won't bother some, but people should know its there. Comfort Me With Apples Copyright 2001 302 pages Review by M. Reynard 2011   hide