Los Altos Town Crier » Food for the rest of us: New York critic writes memoir

By Eliza Ridgeway

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Today, the New York Times food section is stocked with food hailing from across the boroughs and the continents. Obscurity and homeliness are the new chic. But when Ruth Reichl began her reign as Times food critic in the early ’90s, the idea that a quiet, second-floor noodle house could compete with haute French cuisine was revolutionary. She had to make her mark in a job with the power to make or break restaurateurs, and one bogged down in tradition. Reichl’s playful but poignant account of her nerve-wracking years at the Times, “Garlic and Sapphires” (Penguin Press, 2005), offers a unique entrée into cultural journalism and New York dining rooms.

The book is worth reading for the culinary gossip alone, and reprints of Reichl’s original reviews, apt companions to her narrative. A sparing selection of recipes comprises the “illustrations” for this text, reminder that this is not your typical memoir.

The central event of this story was an incendiary review that began Reichl’s tenure at the Times, in which she removed a star from culinary titan le Cirque for the shameful treatment of its more humble visitors. She wrote the review in two parts - the rude dining experience of her costumed alias, the hapless Midwesterner Molly Hollis and the royal treatment received by Ruth Reichl, famous reviewer.

Reichl delivers her story with a homey personability likely to tickle most readers. She has organized the book around the different dining personas with which she disguised her famous face. The text is as much about her personal explorations in each identity as it is about the job.

Two Ruth Reichls emerge from this story: a brilliant grand-dame of culinary critique, but also a middle-aged woman just as troubled, nervous and un-self-confident as any other.

Her plainspoken prose replaces artistry with earnestness, and the awkward dialogue sometimes defies plausibility. At times, Reichl unwittingly lampoons her own efforts as a memoirist.

But there is nothing more delicious than criticizing a critic. The current Times restaurant reviewer Frank Bruni has a dedicated blogger shadowing his every move. Julia Langbein has made her fame lampooning his weekly column at brunidigest.blogspot.com. In Reichl’s era, before the Internet explosion, she was lucky to have public vitriol limited to calls to her editor and sniping from her peers.