Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl

Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table
by Ruth Reichl

Short Review

Read If: you love reading about food and eating, you enjoy hearing stories of others' interesting lives, you like hearing about food magazine editors having sex

Don't Read If: you could care less about the gritty insides of the food business, you dislike voyeurism, you want this book to be about only food and not life's trials


Long Review

Yet another sequel on my blog, shame on me! Comfort Me with Apples is the direct follow-up of Ruth Reichl's first memoir, Tender at the Bone. A bit more disjointed and wandering than Riechl's first memoir, Apples still provides a vibrant and honest telling of one woman's search about finding her place in life. This memoir covers Reichl's life through her 30s, following the point in her life when she became seriously employed in the restaurant critic scene. The reader gets to follow Reichl as she visits far-off countries and meets famous chefs and celebrities, learning much about the up-scale restaurant business on the way. However, the book is not solely concerned with food; much of the book chronicles Reichl's personal journeys at the time, from affairs and divorce, to new love and trying to start a family.

Reichl writes beautifully about food, and plainly and honestly about love, sex, and life's hardships. The author has a strong personality and great sense of humor, which definitely come through in the writing. She does have some issues with time management in this book, as sometimes months pass by without any indication (without even paragraph breaks!), and at worst the book becomes overly self-absorbed (although to be fair it is a memoir), but I will admit to being unable to put it down. It feels a privilege to be invited so intimately into this woman's life. Reichl takes her readers through a roller-coaster ride of wild successes and failures, and deep love and heart-rending pain. I am not usually a memoir fan, but I greatly enjoy reading Reichl's life story. If you enjoy modern memoirs and especially food, this is a great pick.