- Author : Ruth Reichl
- Binding : Paperback
- Dewey Decimal Number : 641.5092
- EAN : 9780375758737
- ISBN : 0375758739
- Is Eligible For Trade In? : Yes
- Label : Random House Trade Paperbacks
- List Price : $14.95 (USD)
- Manufacturer : Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Number Of Items : 1
- Number Of Pages : 302
- Package Dimensions : 0.80 inches (Height) x 7.90 inches (Length) x 0.40 pounds (Weight) x 5.20 inches (Width)
- Publication Date : 2002-04-09
- Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Release Date : 2002-04-09
- Studio : Random House Trade Paperbacks
Ruth Reichl's first book, the autobiographical Tender at the Bone, disarmed readers with its droll candor. The former restaurant critic of The New York Times and editor in chief of Gourmet magazine told great stories about growing up and loving food. Comfort Me with Apples begins where the first book ended, tracing Reichl's evolution from chef to food writer while detailing the dissolution of her first marriage, the start of a second, and motherhood at the age of 40. The book also limns a sensual journey, Reichl's awakening to the pleasures of sex as well as food, and also to love. Reichl interweaves her diverse coming-of-age narratives with passion (especially on the subject of food), wit, and a no-nonsense grace, all of which add up to a wonderful read--entertaining, but moving, too. The story begins when Reichl, living in a '70s Berkeley commune, gets her first real job as a restaurant reviewer. Despite the incredulity of her in-the-movement roommates ("You're going to spend your life telling spoiled, rich people where to eat?" asks one), Reichl persists, traveling widely to polish her palate. In the doing she meets food luminaries such as Wolfgang Puck (a mad encounter in a produce market), M.F.K. Fisher (lunch and sweet reminiscences), and Alice Waters (a garlic feast), among others. Her trip to China, which includes clandestine dealings with a former chef, is particularly well handled. The ungluing of her first marriage is depicted in adroit emotional counterpoint to her soaring career, as is her discovery of love with her second husband, unspooled against her father's death. Reichl also provides recipes, such as Fall Mushroom Soup (made to comfort herself and her mother) that, unexpectedly and delightfully, deepen the narrative. --Arthur Boehm
- Amazon.com Review
In this delightful sequel to her bestseller Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl returns with more tales of love, life, and marvelous meals. Comfort Me with Apples picks up Reichl’s story in 1978, when she puts down her chef’s toque and embarks on a career as a restaurant critic. Her pursuit of good food and good company leads her to New York and China, France and Los Angeles, and her stories of cooking and dining with world-famous chefs range from the madcap to the sublime. Throughout it all, Reichl makes each and every course a hilarious and instructive occasion for novices and experts alike. She shares some of her favorite recipes, while also sharing the intimacies of her personal life in a style so honest and warm that readers will feel they are enjoying a conversation over a meal with a friend.
- Product Description
Customer Reviews:
Customers rated Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table 4.0 stars out of 5.0 based on 93 reviews:Comfort Me with Food
by Terri J. Rice (WA United States) - 2010-08-24
This was a beautiful book. The combination of love, sorrow, travel and food all seamlessly woven together was a delight to read. Ruth Reichl is brave enough to be truthful and it makes you love her. A hippie gal living in a commune suddenly gets the job she's always wanted, restaurant critic. Her "family" and her husband think she's sold out to the bourgeois. She takes it anyway, absolutely loves it and wears her Goodwill finds to some very incredible restaurants to review their food. Very similar to Julia Child's, My Life in France, Ruth Reichl weaves the ups and downs of her life in with food and then ends with the recipe. For example on her breakup with her husband: "There will never be a day when we won't miss each other," I said, savoring the melodrama of the moment. He drove me to the train station and we stood there on the platform, like in all the movies, waiting for the train to pull in. "It's too good," he replied, "we have to save it." "A week from now," I replied, "you won't feel that way." The train arrived. I climbed on. I was going back to town, going to make mushroom soup. And then right there on the page, poignantly, is the recipe for Mushroom Soup. Foodies understand Ruth Reichl, we realize that of course she would know what she made when her first husband, Doug, called and said he would be staying on a few more days in Omaha. Crab cakes. Or the time Ruth was going to make Doug an apricot pie but he was off to Buffalo: "Will you bake me another when I come back?" he asked. I shook my head. "By the time you come back," I said, "apricots will be out of season." And then follows her recipe for apricot pie. Ruth Reichl has led an incredibly interesting and full life and she manages to tell you all about it without sounding like a braggart. That alone is quite an achievement. I hated for this to end and am ready to start her next, Tender at the Bone.Rotten Apples...
by Emmeline Sun - 2010-03-19
While I deeply enjoyed Tender to the Bone, Comfort me With Apples didn't strike the same lovely note. Though (I'm assuming) Reichl meant for this to be a food memoir, it was more of a messy, manic biography- a tiny sample of food here, a tasty paragraph tossed there. She is brazenly candid about her errs, and that is refreshing, yes, but the moral ambiguity of her actions still dampens the flavor of the wonderful foods she describes. She expects you to sympathize with her, or at least understand where she's coming from, but who is to say that all her readers are left-leaning liberal Berkeleyans? There are many who just love food, but don't wish for the verbal barrage of PDA and infidelity. My biggest complaint is that her writing is not executed well enough to get you to sympathize with her, or her meandering storyline. This is not to say there weren't heartbreaking parts in the novel. (Ie, situation with Gavi... I was horrified) But I expected a food memoir and that wasn't what I got. Also- the recipes and anecdotes in Tender to the Bone were just much more deliciously captivating. Perhaps it's because having a job as a restuarant critic makes your experiences repetitious- I felt that every other page, I was reading about "intense, melt-in-your-mouth" caviar. Champagne. Foie Gras. Terrine of Duck. The average person (read, poor, and that's exactly what she was calling us) will taste these delicaies maybe once in their lifetime. While in Tender to the Bone, I felt as though I were sharing in Reichl's experiences, Comfort me with Apples just seemed to want to expose me as an amateur layman. And I was bored. That is hard for me to accept; I've been to Paris. I've had the croissants and bread and foie gras that Reichl describes. But while the food was indeed remarkable, her writing didn't conjure up any of those delicious memories for me. Still a solid second novel...Delectable read
by Felting Mom (Monterey Peninsula, CA, USA) - 2010-02-15
This, and Ruth Reichl's other autobiographical books, is delightful, engrossing and fun reading. I did not think I'd be particularly interested in a "foodie" book, but her writing and storytelling is so involving that I'm hungry for more. And the recipes are wonderful, too! Buy (or borrow) this book with confidence. You'll love it!SPOILER ALERT!
by H. Gerety (Colorado) - 2010-02-03
** spoiler alert ** For me this was a much more difficult book than "Tender at the Bone," emotionally speaking. I have an eight-and-a-half month old daughter, which is very near the same age Reichl's daughter, Gavi, was when they had to give her back to her birth parents. I was also more deeply troubled than Reichl probably wanted her readers to be by her affairs. Even as she seemed happier with Michael, I never felt quite settled, and wanted things to be back the way they had been earlier in her relationship with Doug. I do appreciate that she was unwaveringly candid about her affairs, but the months (years?) of dishonesty were almost surreal for me to imagine (but then, I'm applying that to my relationship). My very favorite parts were Reichl getting used to her job as a restaurant critic, learning what things were "expected" of her position and how that conflicted with her hippie lifestyle, and, as always, her writing about her family. Her writing about her father is so tender and realistic that I really got invested in their relationship. She also writes about her relationship with her mother well, and I think she does a good job of making the reader understand their old arguments and the roles they make the other fall into -- like "PussyCat" -- on a very emotional level. I would give this three-and-a-half stars if I could, because I felt troubled throughout the book by her (and her husband's) affairs in a way that wasn't ever really resolved for me. Not that I expected it to be taken care of neatly -- these are real human lives, after all -- but I just never felt comfortable because of it.Fabulous
by mL (chicago, il United States) - 2010-01-11
I absolutely love all of Ruth Reichl's food memoirs. And even though I read all of them through the library, I've gone back and purchased them for friends and a copy of my own to read and reread again.
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