I love Ruth Reichl. There, I said it.
If you don’t know Ruth, she was the editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, one of the best food magazines in the print world, until it was shut down by its publisher, the Conde Nast, in October of 2009. Under her guidance, Gourmet went from being a food/lifestyle/travel magazine to being one of the best examples of food journalism in magazine-land. Yes, food journalism. Deep, insightful articles about where food comes from, its preparation, how people feel about it, and the impact food has on people around the world.
Ruth writes beautifully. Reading her prose is like sipping a really wonderful glass of wine, maybe a deep, full-bodied cabernet saugivgnon. I cannot recommend highly enough reading her book Tender at the Bone. Absolutely terrific. Her other books are also excellent, but I think Tender at the Bone, the first of her books that I read, is a glorious work of autobiography. She recently closed the circle begun in that book with her latest volume of autobiography, For You, Mom, Finally. And you may be interested to know that the period at the end of the title is, in fact, part of the title. It means something.
Has she been wallowing in self-pity since losing her job running Gourmet? Absolutely not. She’s been busy. To follow her, I recommend her blog.