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Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl Books

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“She designed the cakes and I worked out the recipes. The first year we each created a signature cake. Genie's was called the Goddess: really tall, all white on the outside, wrapped in mountains of coconut and whipped cream, with a passion-fruit heart." "And yours was called the Shrinking Violet. Unassuming on the outside but pretty special once you worked your way in." She reached over and squeezed my wrist. "Wish I'd thought of that. You'd understand if you knew my sister." By now I was a little drunk. "One year Genie came up with Melting Cakes. You know, like flourless chocolate, the kind that are melted in the middle? They were gorgeous neon colors, and I made the flavors intense- blood orange, blueberry, lime, hibiscus, and caramel.”

CakeSistersBakingFlavorsBillie BreslinGenie Breslin
Book:Delicious!
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“Standing there…it was as if Victorine was looking right through time, staring straight at me. I could almost hear her voice. She’s been erased from history and it just seems so wrong. I felt she was daring me to do something about it.” “…she put the napkin over her head and the tiny creature [ortolan] into her mouth. Then every other thought was driven from her head by the sheer physical effect of the hot bird burning her overstuffed mouth…Her teeth came down and a spurt of juice shot across her tongue. She almost jumped out of her seat; the flavor was so strong, so primal. She chewed again and the sound of bones crunching clanged in her ears….It was all hazelnuts, sweet-edged with bitter…figs, Armagnac, blood shot through her body. Another shatter of bone and she was tasting dark meat—the thigh perhaps—with its gamey flavor.”

ArtCulinary
Author:Ruth Reichl
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“The soft, smooth substance filled her mouth. Chocolate cream, she thought. The flavor grew richer, rounder, louder with each passing second. It was like music, the notes lingering in her mind long after the sound itself had vanished. He was openly staring at her. "You eat with such concentration and intensity. And, dare I say it, joy?" Joy? The word was so foreign, especially in relation to food. It embarrassed her; she took a sip of the wine and concentrated on the way the flavors changed. She thought of music again. The sweet wine was like the trill of a flute, and suddenly the foie gras, which had reminded her more of pastry than meat, became robust, substantial.”

JoyWineFrench FoodFoie Gras
Book:The Paris Novel
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“Every restaurant is a theater, and the truly great ones allow us to indulge in the fantasy that we are rich and powerful. When restaurants hold up their end of the bargain, they give us the illusion of being surrounded by servants intent on ensuring our happiness and offering extraordinary food. But even modest restaurants offer the opportunity to become someone else, at least for a little while. Restaurants free us from mundane reality; that is part of their charm. When you walk through the door, you are entering neutral territory where you are free to be whoever you choose for the duration of the meal.”

Food
Author:Ruth Reichl
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“I lay there unable to move, reading about disasters in the far corners of the world. What could I do? Write letters, send checks. But there will never be a time when terrible trouble is not stalking the earth, and I began to see how important it is to appreciate what you have. For too long I'd been waiting for the wonderful. But there is so much joy in everyday occurrences: a butterfly in the sun the first crisp bite of an apple, the rich aroma of roasting meat. Maybe I had to break my foot to open my eyes, but I finally understood why cooking means so much to me. In a world filled with no, it is my yes.”

Life LessonsFood
Book:My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life
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“Dear Mr. Beard, On the radio last spring, President Roosevelt said that each and every one of us here on the home front has a battle to fight; We must keep our spirits up. I am doing my best, but in my opinion Liver Gems are a lost cause, because they would take the spirit right out of anyone. So when Mother says it is wrong for us to eat better than our brave men overseas, I tell her that I don't see how eating disgusting stuff helps them in the least. But, Mr. Beard, it is very hard to cook good food when you're only a beginner! When Mother decided it was her patriotic duty to work at the airplane factory, she should have warned me about the recipes. You just can't trust them! Prudence Penny's are so revolting. I want to throw them right into the garbage. Mrs. Davis from next door lent me one of her wartime recipe pamphlets, and I read about liver salmi, which sounded so romantic. But by the time I had cooked the liver for twenty minutes in hot water, cut it into little cubes, rolled them in flour, and sautéed them in fat, I'd made flour footprints all over the kitchen floor. The consommé and cream both hissed like angry cats when I added them. Then I was supposed to add stoned olives and taste for seasoning. I spit it right into the sink.”

CookingHard TimesIngredientsWorld War IiLetterLiverWartimeRecipePresident Roosevelt1942Lulu SwanJames Beard
Book:Delicious!
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“I wish you could have seen the kitchen when I was done: It looked like a hurricane had blown right in the door! But I cleaned it all up, and when Mother came home the whole house smelled warm and spicy, Bing Crosby was singing "White Christmas" on the radio, I was wearing a clean apron, and she called me her "little homemaker." What would you think about tomato mincemeat cookies? I bet no one else will think of that!”

CookiesHomemakerTomatoLulu SwanMincemeat
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“The meal began with pickled squid, oyster shooters, marinated anchovies, and scungilli salad. Then Rosalie set an enormous bowl of pasta con le vongole in front of Sal, who ladled it out, talking the entire time. The pasta was followed by huge platters of scampi, which we passed around. It was almost eleven when Rosalie set three enormous stuffed turbots on the table, and it was near midnight when she appeared with a plate of warm sugar-dusted sfinge. "So our first taste of the New Year will be sweet," Sal whispered in my ear.”

ItalianSeafoodDinner PartyNew Year S Eve
Book:Delicious!
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“A waiter set a small tart of caramelized pears before each of them and added a dab of licorice ice cream. Next came bananas topped with passion fruit and black pepper, little pirouettes of pleasure. The meal was as large and generous as the chef himself, and by the time he was serving them aged Armagnac with a ripe Roquefort, Stella's head was spinning. Although they were now surrounded by people eating dinner, new dishes kept arriving. Petit fours appeared, and then chocolates. A basket of fruit. Jules and the chef toasted each other with fragrant fruit brandies.”

DessertsFruitsFrench Food
Book:The Paris Novel
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“She took a sip of wine and held it in her mouth, straining to identify the flavors. Cherry, she thought. Licorice. Thorns. She imagined a forest in late autumn, damp leaves on the ground, a blaze of color. She took another sip. The man--- he must be Robert--- set a dish in front of her and she looked down, dismayed. What could it be? She'd never seen anything like it. It glistened up at her, a red-black sausage bursting from a shiny case. She inhaled the aroma: It was exotic, mysterious, almost intoxicating. "Taste it," he urged. It was pillow-soft, very rich, laced with spices. She identified the prickle of black pepper, the sweetness of onions. Parsley, she thought, nutmeg, and... was that chocolate? Bite by bite she chased the flavors, but they kept skipping away. "Did you like it?" Robert was back. She gestured at the empty plate. "It was wonderful. What kind of meat was in it?" "Not meat, exactly." He watched her face as he said, "That was blood sausage.”

WineFlavorsFrench FoodEarthyBlood Sausage
Book:The Paris Novel
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“This is Portland pizza. Sarah Minnick barrels down I-5 last summer, fast and furious, homebound from a conference on Cascading grains in Mount Vernon. She can't wait to get back to Lovely's Fifty-Fifty, her North Mississippi Avenue restaurant, a sort of locavore pizza think tank. In the back seat: a cache of multicolored snapdragons. Flour to flowers, what grows around here drives Lovely's strange and wonderful flavor expeditions. Who puts snapdragons on pizza? (Who puts snapdragons on anything?) But Minnick is lost in a reverie. "Snaps, man, they're really hard to explain," she says when I happen to cold-call in the moment. "A little sweet, a little rosy, very floral." Her plan: confetti them over a bacon-cheese pizza--- a princess birthday party, with pork.”

ToppingsFloralPizzeriaLovelysSnapdragons
Book:The Best American Food Writing 2018: An Anthology of Wondrous Essays on How Food Redesigns Our World
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“Remembering the careful way the cooks she'd met chose their ingredients--- the snails at L'Ami Louis, Taeb's saffron, Baldwin's asparagus--- Stella thought Django was more like a magician, conjuring dishes out of thin air. By the time George nudged Stella aside to poke his nose in the door, Lucie was strewing crisp breadcrumbs on top of a thick vegetable potage, and Django was stirring a tart lemon pudding. Downstairs, customers lingered, people who had intended on stopping in for a moment stayed on as increasingly seductive scents wafted through the shop. Unwilling to admit that he was pleased, George tasted the pudding and grumbled, "You've used up all the eggs. And I wanted gingerbread for tonight's reading." "Gingerbread!" Django pulled a face. "Nous sommes en France. I will make something more appropriate." Still standing in the doorway, Stella wondered how he would manage this; he'd used everything in the kitchen except an aged pound cake resembling a rock, a handful of desiccated dried apricots, and the sour milk. "We'll make some coffee." Django was tearing up the stale cake. As she watched, he produced curds from the sour milk, cooked the apricots into jam, and soaked the cake in coffee. With a flourish, he pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket. "J'ai toujours du chocolat sur moi." He melted the chocolate, stirring in the last of the coffee. "I always have chocolate. You never know when you will need it." Against her better judgement, Stella was charmed. Lucie stood close by, watching him layer the coffee-drenched cake with jam, curds, and chocolate, grabbing each spoon as he finished. "Will you make this for my birthday?" she asked. "No." "Please," she begged. "For your birthday I will make something better.”

FatherChefImprovisingFrench CookingFrench LanguageLittle GirlCreative Tasks
Book:The Paris Novel
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“The oysters arrived on a deep bed of ice. She had never eaten an oyster, and she stared down at the platter. A ruffle of black encircled each opalescent heart; she thought of orchids. Triangles of lemon sat on the ice, and she picked one up and squeezed it, inhaling the prickly aroma. Then she reached for an oyster, tipped her head, and tossed it back. The oyster was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean. She closed her eyes to savor the experience, make it last.”

FlavorsOystersSavory
Book:The Paris Novel
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“The fat was bubbling in a pot on the stove. The potatoes went in, were snatched out, then plunged back in. They emerged crisp and golden; Richard sprinkled them with salt and piled them on a platter, then set a heap of tiny marinated fish on the side. They ate with their fingers. The potatoes were burning hot, the insides nearly melted, making the contrast with the cool, slick anchovies almost erotic.”

PotatoesFriesFrench CookingFish And ChipsAnchovies
Book:The Paris Novel
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“The plate the waiter now set before her looked like an abstract painting: vivid green shot through with bright-coral slashes. "Taste!" he urged. It was clearly a fish but so sweet she did not recognize it. Looking at the color, she hazarded a guess. "Salmon? Or maybe not. It doesn't taste like salmon." Troisgros looked very pleased. "That is because it was caught just this morning in the Allier, our local river. But also because we preserve the color by slicing the fish very thinly and searing it for just a few seconds." "So it's almost raw?" She wasn't sure about this. "In Japan they eat their fish raw." She took another bite; the herbal sauce flirted with bitterness. "The flavor is so green I feel I'm eating color." "Sorrel." He gestured to the waiter, who removed the plates and then set a single small bird surrounded by sliced fruit in front of each of them. "Sarcelle aux abricots," he announced. "Sarcelle?" Stella did not recognize the word. "It's a freshwater duck," said Jules. "I can't remember the word in English." "Teal," Troisgros supplied. Stella closed her eyes and tried describing the flavor. "It tastes wild." She began to dream herself into the dish as if it were a painting, imagining a golden field in the sunshine, feeling the air rush past, hearing the sound of her own wings. Circling in a great joyous arc, she spotted a tree covered in tawny fruits, breathed their perfume in the air. "I wanted---" the chef was watching her--- "to give you the essence of the animal. To let you taste what the duck ate on her flight through life.”

DuckColorfulFrench FoodVisualizeGastronomieRaw Fish
Book:The Paris Novel
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“Lacy little green fronds waved up through clear liquid; it reminded me of a forest stream in early spring, just after the ice has melted. I picked up a frond, and as I put it in my mouth, I experienced a moment of cool, pure freshness. "What is it?" I asked Jake, enchanted. "Mozuku, a special kind of seaweed from Okinawa. You don't think it's slimy?" "Slippery, but I love the way it feels in my mouth.”

JapanSeaweedOkinawaMozuku
Book:Delicious!
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“I remember the pissaladière. We stood there watching them cook and eating that soft, oily bread. Back then I was so poor I was living on bread and cheese, and the flavor of olives and anchovies went straight through me." He stopped, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower, as if he was summoning the words from the air. "The wine was flowing, and the celery was crisp. Richard had found some old farmer who gave him a great ripe wheel of Brie that dripped off the edges of the bread. Richard and that crazy chef kept arguing, but it wasn't a fight, it was a seduction." Stella wanted to ask what they had argued about, but she was afraid to interrupt the rhythm of his words. "Richard wanted to keep it simple--- you know how he is--- but that chef had his own ideas. I remember he started dicing fish and mixing it with onions, tomatoes, and little bits of celery. 'Limes!' he said. 'I must have limes!' None of us had ever heard of ceviche, and we were astonished. Then Richard concocted a chicken gratin with a cheese custard on top, and the chef made the most beautiful salad I'd ever seen. He threw everything into it--- pieces of lemon, bits of cheese, and then he took the violets out of the vase and tossed in the petals. It was beautiful.”

CookingCreative ProcessReminiscingPast Story
Book:The Paris Novel
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“At Lovely’s, Minnick has emerged as the Alice Waters of pizza, with a near-spiritual connection to Oregon’s most adventurous farmers. She builds toppings from whatever they drop off— stinging nettles, quinoa greens, maybe bok choy raab, backed by unusual regional cheeses. Lovely’s makes its superb sourdough crust with locally milled grains that change with the season. The results may not be pizza as you know it. But I’m embarrassed for most other pies when I dig into one of these chewy, sour, flavor-rich wheels, and I may not be alone.”

ToppingsSourdoughPizzeriaHerbs And VegetablesLovelys
Book:The Best American Food Writing 2018: An Anthology of Wondrous Essays on How Food Redesigns Our World
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“When I went to Passard's restaurant, the meal began with slices of raw scallop topped with caviar; that reminded me of how shocking it was when Django fed us raw fish all those years ago. Then there was a marvelous Saint-Pierre. Passard had peeled away the skin and prepared the fish with hundreds of bay leaves before covering it back up and steaming the fish until it had absorbed all the flavors of the herb. The man loves herbs and uses them in the most fascinating ways. That also reminded me of Django. There was a fat sweetbread skewered with a sprig of rosemary until it was nothing more than an herbal cloud. And the salad was the tiniest herbs, all different. Beautiful simplicity." Stella was tasting the flavors in her mind as he described them.”

FatherChefLong Lost
Book:The Paris Novel
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“Tommy and I put on a radio play to entertain everyone while they unpacked their cookies. It was about a girl who saves up money for a prom dress, but at the last minute she says, "It's only clothes," and buys war bonds instead. The play was a big success, and my whole school pledged to buy war bonds, which should have made me happy. But it gave me a queer feeling; it's easy to write propaganda when everyone agrees with you. Do you understand? I think I'd rather bake cookies; it feels more honest. Your friend, Lulu Sammy looked down at me. "A girl after your own heart!" he said. "In my experience it is a rare female who can say, 'It's only clothes,' and when the war came, you discovered who you really were. Women changed. Children grew up overnight. I wonder what happened to this one.”

KindnessWartimeThoughtfulnessLulu SwanWar Bonds
Book:Delicious!
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“I've named my cookies Snowballs, but not because that's what they look like. It's the way they make you feel. You know how it is when a snowball is flying toward you on an icy-cold night? The stars are glittering, and the snow is twinkling, but you're wrapped up in mittens and boots, so you're toasty warm. It's surprise and comfort, all at the same time; that's how I want them to taste. Do you know what I mean? Here's the recipe: It has chocolate, marshmallows, and pecans in a very buttery batter.”

IngredientsCookiesRecipeLulu SwanSnowballs
Book:Delicious!
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“I know you're a chocolate lover. I can always tell. I'm about to temper the chocolate. I have my own method; want to watch?" "Could I?" Inside my head, a little voice was reminding me that I had to get back to the office, but it was drowned out by the scent of chocolate, which flooded all my senses with a heady froth of cocoa and coffee, passion fruit, cinnamon and clove. I closed my eyes, and for one moment I was back in Aunt Melba's kitchen with Genie. I opened them to find Kim dancing with a molten river of chocolate. I stood hypnotized by the scent and the grace of her motions, which were more beautiful than any ballet. Moving constantly, she caressed the chocolate like a lover, folding it over and over on a slab of white marble, working it to get the texture right. She stopped to feed me a chocolate sprinkled with salt, which had the fierce flavor of the ocean, and another with the resonant intensity of toasted saffron. One chocolate tasted like rain, another of the desert. I tried tracking the flavors, pulling them apart to see how she had done it, but, like a magician, she had hidden her tricks. Each time I followed the trail, it vanished, and after a while I just gave up and allowed the flavors to seduce me. Now the scent changed as Kim began to dip fruit into the chocolate: raspberries, blackberries, tiny strawberries that smelled like violets. She put a chocolate-and-caramel-covered slice of peach into my mouth, and the taste of summer was so intense that I felt the room grow warmer. I lost all sense of time.”

ChocolateSpicesFlavorsFruitsChocolate LoversBillie BreslinKim Wong
Book:Delicious!
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“Django handed her a heap of parsley and she stood next to him, allowing his rhythm to become her own until they were moving together. In the air, the tang of lemons. The aroma of chicken stock. Beeswax mingling with butter. Chocolate melting into oranges. Her spirits rose with the scents swirling through the kitchen. They spoke little; they had no need. They were a team, their minds melded more effortlessly than Stella had imagined possible. They massaged butter into chickens, boned fish, opened oysters. Django set a flat of speckled eggs on the counter. Next to it, a ceramic bowl. He opened his hands and Stella broke the eggs, dozens of them, across his outstretched fingers, watching yolks separate from whites. It occurred to her that she had tortured herself for no reason. She was happy.”

True HappinessFrench CookingFather Daughter Bond
Book:The Paris Novel
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“He showed me how each wheel was stamped with the month and year, and then he cracked the first one open to reveal its pale cream-colored interior. He chipped off a hefty shard and handed it to me. I took a bite, and my mouth filled with the hopeful taste of fresh green grass and young field flowers welcoming the sun. "That's the spring cheese." Sal was cracking the next wheel, which was stamped with an autumn date; he chipped off a little piece. The color was deeper, almost golden, the texture heavier and nubbier. When I put the cheese in my mouth it was richer, and if I let it linger on my tongue I could taste the lush fields of late summer, just as the light begins to die. Sal sliced off a slab of winter cheese and put that into my mouth. It felt different on my tongue, smoother somehow, the flavor sharper. "It's like a different cheese." I was savoring it. I tasted again; there was a familiar flavor. "It tastes like hay!" "Yes!" Sal was openly delighted. "I knew you were going to be able to taste how different this cheese is! Most Americans don't even notice, but that cheese is so different that, back in the old days, it was sold under a different name. The Parmesan made from December to March, when the cows were in the barn, was called 'invernengo'- winter cheese- because the flavor is so distinct.”

ItalianCheeseFlavorsSeasonalParmesan
Book:Delicious!
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“You'll find that historical research is extremely soothing. When you spend all day among old papers, the people come alive for you, and you begin to see the present through different eyes. You'll see. You view young people knowing that this is only one moment in time and it's passing very quickly. It's comforting. You begin to understand that time is no more than a trick of the mind; some days I'm convinced that my young self is still here, somewhere, just walking down a different street." Anne”

ResearchHistorical Research
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“Growing up, I was utterly oblivious to the fact that Mom was teaching me all that. But I was instantly aware of her final lesson, which was hidden in her notes and leters. As I read them I began to understand that in the end you are the only one who can make yourself happy. More important, Mom showed me that it is never too late to find out how to do it.”

ImportantEndsFactsGrowing UpGrowingTeachingMomLessonsLateNotesFinalsToo LateObliviousNever Too LateMake Yourself Happy
Book:For You Mom, Finally
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“A thousand years ago the Chinese had an entirely codified kitchen while the French were still gnawing on bones. Chopsticks have been around since the fourth century B.C. Forks didn't show up in England until 1611, and even then they weren't meant for eating but just to hold the meat still while you hacked at it with your knife.”

YearsHas BeensStillsShowsCenturyThousandEatingYears AgoEnglandBonesChineseMeatKitchenKnivesFourthThousand YearsForksHackedChopsticks
Author:Ruth Reichl
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