Comfort Me with Apples

Now this was a fun book to read! I had read her earlier book, Tender at the Bone, and really enjoyed it. This is one of the few sequels that doesn't disappoint a loyal reader. Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me with Apples is superb.

There is less of her cooking and more stories of restaurant critiques here, how she got into it and various escapades. She bares everything personal as well as professional. This follows her philosophy: "Appetite is not enough. And knowledge is not sufficient. You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one you need to know about life." And I suspect she believes that if you want to really know about a food critic you have to know about her life.

Cooking and dining around the world, in the company of the great (both known and unknown), Reichl regales you with great stories and recipes for tasty dishes. One would not be complete without the other somehow. I'm not a foodie, at least not in the gourmand/snobby sense. But I loved this book.