Product Description

This is a story of a life determined, enhanced and defined by a passion for food, unforgettable people and the love of tales well told. Reichl introduces us to the characters that shaped her world, from Monsieur du Croix, her mother and those who championed the organic food revolution.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #893139 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl shares lessons learned at the hands (and kitchen counters) of family members and friends throughout her life, from growing up with her taste-blind mother to the comfort of cream puffs while away at boarding school on "Mars" (Montreal seemed just as far away) to her most memorable meal, taken on a mountainside in Greece.

Her stories shine with the voices and recipes of those she has encountered on the way, such as her Aunt Birdie's maid and companion, Alice, who first taught Reichl both the power of cooking and how to make perfect apple dumplings; the family's mysterious patrician housekeeper, Mrs. Peavey, who always remembered to make extra pastry for the beef Wellington; Serafina, the college roommate with whom Reichl explored a time of protest and political and personal discovery; and, finally, cookbook author Marion Cunningham, who, after tales of her midlife struggles and transformation, gave Reichl the strength to overcome her own anxieties.

Reichl's wry and gentle humour pervades the book, and makes readers feel as if they're right at the table, laughing at one great story after another (and delighting in a gourmet meal at the same time, of course). Reichl's narrative of a life lived and remembered through the palate will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Excerpted from Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Author’s Note

Storytelling, in my family, was highly prized. While my father walked home from work he rearranged the events of his day to make them more entertaining, and my mother could make a trip to the supermarket sound like an adventure. If this required minor adjustments of fact, nobody much minded: it was certainly preferable to boring your audience.

The good stories, of course, were repeated endlessly until they took on a life of their own. One of these stories I grew up on was a family legend about myself. Its point was to demonstrate my extraordinary maturity, even at the age of two. This is how my father told it:

“One Sunday in early fall we were sitting in our house in the country admiring the leaves outside the picture window. Suddenly the telephone rang: it was Miriam’s mother in Cleveland, saying that her father was gravely ill. She had to go immediately leaving me alone with Ruthie, who was to start nursery school the next day.

“I, of course, had to be in the office Monday morning. Worse, I had an appointment I could not cancel; I simply had to catch the 7:07 to New York. But the school didn’t open until eight, and although I phoned and phoned, I was unable to reach any of the teachers. I just didn’t know what to do.

“In the end, I did the only thing I could think of. At seven I took Ruthie to the school, sat her on a swing outside and told her to tell the teachers when they came that she was Ruthie Reichl and she had come to go to school. She sat there, waving bravely as I drove off. I knew she’d be fine; even then she was very responsible.” He always ended up smiling proudly in my direction.

Nobody ever challenged this story. I certainly didn’t. I was not until I had a child of my own that I realised that nobody, not even my father, would leave a two-year-old alone on a swing in a strange place for an hour. Did he exaggerate my age? The length of time? Both? By then my father was no longer available for questions, but I am sure that if he had been he would have insisted that the story was true. For him it was.

This book is absolutely in the family tradition. Everything here is true, but it may not be entirely factual. In some cases I have compressed events; in others I have made two people into one. I have occasionally embroidered.

I learned early that the most important thing in life is a good story.

Customer Reviews

Once again ....delicious!
I first read Ruth Reichl's 'Garlic and Sapphires' and loved her writing style and passion for food so much that I bought her earlier books!

I wasn't disappointed. This is another beautiful memoir describing Reichl's early years and experiences with food. It will be a while before I forget Alice's apple dumplings, her mother's totally orange Halloween dinner or her travels through Tunisia. The book also includes a smattering of recipes.

Absolutely delicious, a must for foodies!

Good luck, Ruthie
I first heard of Ruth Reichl during her radio interview on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross. Later, a friend told me that Reichl also has a radio show in New York. Ah, those lucky New Yorkers...

In this book, Ruth Reichl's stories cut across the many planes of her world: food, family, self, cities, friends, and last but definitely not least -- mental illness.

Though each story in this set of memoirs is nominally "complete" with a starting and ending point that lets it stand on its own, there is nonetheless a sense of skittishness and patchiness that permeates the collection. Characters enter and exit the book with scarce, absent, or post-facto introduction. Episodes end abruptly, and suddenly Ruth is somewhere else -- in a different place and time.

These effects are surely intentional. Because they are a part of how Ruth has lived and continues to live in a life influenced by her mother's manic depression, her own emerging mental crises which! ! are mentioned in the closing chapters, and the places and times within which she lives.

Most of the stories-with-crises that Riechl tells from childhood through adulthood end on hopeful notes, but you often don't find out what happens afterward. The same with the greater story of Riechl's life -- we are hopeful that she will come out of this ok, but we can't be sure.

Readers of this book may also be interested in Ron Suskind's _A Hope in the Unseen_ (also reviewed by a few folks on this website) which ends in a similar way.

A great book!
I thought this book was great! I guess I wasn't disappointed with the ending because I then went on to read "DINING OUT" by Andrew Dornenburg -- another great book in which Reichl is featured prominently, both on the cover and in the text as one of America's leading restaurant critics. After reading how she developed her passion for food in "TENDER AT THE BONE", I loved learning what her life as a restaurant reviewer was like in "DINING OUT"!