Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

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Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

4.03 of 5 stars 4.03 · rating details · 15,608 ratings · 1,411 reviews

At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world. . . . If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Her deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life determined, enhanced, and defined in equal measure by a passion for food, unforgettable people, and the love of tales well told....more

Paperback, 282 pages

Published March 2nd 1999 by Broadway (first published February 17th 1998)

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Apr 24, 2012 Roberta rated it 4 of 5 stars

Let me say first of all that this book made me realize (sadly) just how dull my own life has been. Ruth Reichl has certainly had an interesting and rather bohemian lifestyle, picking up and traveling here and there without much deliberation and tasting all manner of exotic dishes. There's a real sense of joy in that. The freedom! The unconventionality!

Since cooking is most definitely NOT my thing, the recipes were incidental to me. It was Ruth's lifestyle and relationships that interested me muc...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyeone

Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by: Ultimate Reading List - Biography

Shelves: biography, memoir, non-fiction, ultimate-reading-list, travel

This is a memoir built around food--and as Reichl put it, she decided that instead of pictures she'd give recipes throughout to paint a picture of her relationships. The Author's Note tells us, "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." That sort of thing usually bugs the hell out of me. It didn't here. Maybe because Reichl was open about it from the beginning--...more

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Aug 03, 2007 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reichl is the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, and this is her memoir about "Growing up at the table." As she tells the stories of her life, growing up with a manic depressive mother, going to boarding school in Montreal, and surviving in a commune in Berkeley, she includes recipes she loves and describes her unique and constant connection with food. Reichl is a good story-teller, and I look forward to trying some of her recipes. I was, however, deeply disturbed by the portrayal of her mothe...more

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Feb 14, 2008 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, foodgloriousfood

Having thoroughly enjoyed Garlic and Sapphires, I was thrilled to find this first of Reichl's memoirs on the 2-for-3 table at Barnes & Noble.

In the preface, Reichl admits to modifying certain stories for dramatic effect. But unless she's made entire years out of whole cloth, she's lived one hell of an interesting life. Throughout it all, the power of a meal -- sometimes spectacular, sometimes spectacularly bad -- has been a constant.

And to be honest, I don't care if the tale's been embroider...more

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May 09, 2008 Wynne rated it 4 of 5 stars

My cousin Colette recently recommended this book and I am really enjoying it. It is a memoir by Ruth Reichl, who is Editor-in-Chief of Gourmet magazine. She is the only child of a manic-depressive mother, who is a absolutely horrendous cook, but doesn't know it and always makes her guests sick with her creations, even scraping mold off old food before adding it to a casserole dish! She learns to cook from other people and loves every minute in the kitchen. I can say without reservation that her...more

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Jul 31, 2008 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: food lovers

Shelves: food

What a life! Being banished to learn French at a boarding school in Montreal? Lunatic New York mother fixing spoiled sea urchin and suckling pig? Traipsing through Morocco? Working and living in lunatic communes in Berkeley? And all the while eating, eating, eating.
Ruth Reichl lives to cook and eat and feed people. Not a shabby life!
I liked this MUCH better than her [Comfort Me With Apples] by the way. Call me wimpy but... coming of age, getting married, finding your life passion-- that's a muc...more

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Apr 07, 2007 Amanda Coppedge rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2007

Great memoir by a restaurant critic. She has used food as a vehicle and a metaphor to talk about her life, often jumping from place to place and time period to time period, leaving you to fill in the gaps between recipes and memories of meals she cooked and ate. Most interesting I think is the story of her college roommate who was of West Indian descent. Later on her parents admitted that she was adopted and was actually the child of a black man and a white woman. Her roommate quickly shed her W...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Derek rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs

The memoirs of food writers have a particular poignancy, for the child really is father to the man. The tale of the growth and development of appetite, while always personal and specific, is universally interesting -- as is proved by the work of writers as various as Jeffrey Steingarten, A. J. Liebling, Barbara Kafka and M. F. K. Fisher. But while all good food writers are humorous -- it's a feature of the genre -- few are so riotously, effortlessly entertaining as Ruth Reichl.

Unlike her counter...more The memoirs of food writers have a particular poignancy, for the child really is father to the man. The tale of the growth and development of appetite, while always personal and specific, is universally interesting -- as is proved by the work of writers as various as Jeffrey Steingarten, A. J. Liebling, Barbara Kafka and M. F. K. Fisher. But while all good food writers are humorous -- it's a feature of the genre -- few are so riotously, effortlessly entertaining as Ruth Reichl.

Unlike her counterparts in London and Paris, who are rarely recognized, even by the waiter, until they pay the bill with a credit card bearing their bylines, the restaurant critic of The Times is a person with such power that she must be a mistress of subterfuge. Judging by this meaty memoir, Reichl is also witty, fair-minded, brave and a wonderful writer. New York's restaurateurs can count themselves lucky.

I laughed a lot while reading her sometimes achingly funny book. But I was also moved, and drew a sharp breath of sympathy from time to time at the candor of some of the tougher passages. She is honest about a wide range of subjects, from her fear of driving and panic attacks on bridges to more serious worries about her mother's failure to take her lithium and her venomous warnings that manic depression can be inherited.

All autobiographers have a problem conjuring with the truth. Reichl's is contained in her first sentence (''Storytelling, in my family, was highly prized'') and in the conclusion to which it leads her: ''Everything here is true, but it may not be entirely factual.'' She admits to compressing events, combining characters and indulging in a bit of embroidery. Never mind. I believe all her stories -- and if your mouth has ever watered when you smelled something good or you've ever been overwhelmed with curiosity about how something will taste, you will too.

Memoir writing gives us a chance to play God and re-create our own families, especially our parents, and Reichl has triumphed in her portrait of her unstable mother, Miriam, a Ph.D. unfazed by moldy food, ''taste-blind and unafraid of rot.'' Her economies (scrape off the decay, throw nothing away, cater large parties with leftovers from the automat) taught her daughter many things: ''The first was that food could be dangerous, especially to those who loved it. . . . My parents entertained a great deal, and before I was 10 I had appointed myself guardian of the guests. My mission was to keep Mom from killing anybody who came to dinner.''

Jane Grigson used to say that no good food writer ever set out to be one, but invariably fell into the profession by accident. Reichl's career path was straighter than most. Despite degrees in sociology and art history, she worked in restaurants as a waitress and then a cook. Waiting on tables, she learned that the cooks regard running a restaurant as warfare, but when she became a cook herself in the 1970's it was in a pacific, though class-conscious, Berkeley collective. Married to an artist, living in a commune and cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 12 with food rescued from Dumpsters, she was at last able to sympathize with her mother's view of the undesirability of waste.

As her readers will have guessed (but she didn't at the time), all this was an apprenticeship for the one job at which she was bound to excel -- restaurant reviewing. She knew how restaurants worked. Childhood vacations in France and a stint at a French boarding school in Canada, plus travels in North Africa, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, had also endowed her with a terrific taste memory. And she knew she could write -- after all, she started her life in Berkeley by ''writing term papers for a living.''

After that, it was just a question of meeting a few people: the generous Marion Cunningham, Cecilia Chiang and Kermit Lynch, the odious James Beard. (She tells it like it is.) Yet part of the charm of Reichl's memoir is her refusal to name-drop on the usual scale. Instead, she concentrates on the characters of the people she loves. Chief among these is her mild-mannered, long-suffering, scholarly German Jewish father. Eventually, she comes to realize that he has been a willing accomplice to his more flamboyant spouse, enjoying ''the tumult Mom created.'' And Reichl discovers that her father kept some secrets of his own: he had flown with Wilbur Wright and -- very satisfying for a daughter who was a veteran protester against the Vietnam War -- been a draft dodger back in Germany.(less)

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Jan 04, 2013 Wrennan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography

Well, how do I begin? Having grown up with a bipolar mother myself (with a completely different set of manic triggers and vehicles), I could certainly relate to the author. Also, similar age bracket...I believe Ms. Reichl may be a few years older. But there the twain shall never meet. She grew up in New York, is Jewish, and loved cooking. I grew up in a military family (my father was an officer in the Air Force), was forced into hideously damaging atheism via Ayn Rand, related more to my Souther...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Penny Lane rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a treat of a book. The book includes many of the recipes author Ruth Reichl grew up with as well as the stories behind the people who created them. An autobiography of perfect portions, just enough humor and wit, seasoned with interesting locations, characters and experiences. There is a small town, feel good sort of a groove one gets when reading this book. It’s not only enjoyable but also educational.
As I read it I made many of the recipes I found on the pages, each one was a delight. My...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

Charming and amusing account of how food critic Reichl got tuned into cooking through her family experiences and explorations in her young adult period. Her manic depressive mother was hopeless as a cook, even dangerous, as when she wasn’t using canned ingredients, she used bargain foods dangerously past their expiration dates. Instead, her inspiration came from an elderly aunt and her maid. What she learned at an early age she used to great advantage in her teen years to draw a good social crow...more

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May 26, 2012 Robyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: culinary, nonfiction, biography-or-memoir, given-away

The culinary memoirs I've read prior to this one have been written by a different sort of chef. Julia Child, Jacques Pépin, Marcus Samuelsson. With that kind of background, it's probably not too surprising that I feel let down by Reichl's first memoir. The beginnings (of both the book and her life) were pretty good. Interesting, fun, funny, and one anecdote seemed to lead to the next easily. The stories of Alice and Aunt Birdie were the best parts of the book. My main complaint with the early ye...more The culinary memoirs I've read prior to this one have been written by a different sort of chef. Julia Child, Jacques Pépin, Marcus Samuelsson. With that kind of background, it's probably not too surprising that I feel let down by Reichl's first memoir. The beginnings (of both the book and her life) were pretty good. Interesting, fun, funny, and one anecdote seemed to lead to the next easily. The stories of Alice and Aunt Birdie were the best parts of the book. My main complaint with the early years was a pet peeve of mine: authors who insist on peppering their English writing with non-English conversations that can only be guessed at. Agatha Christie was a big offender in this way with her Poirot novels, but at least the context made it clear what Poirot was saying for those of us who don't speak French. Reichl did not do the reader that favour, and I ended up using the Google Translate app in order to truly understand Reichl's time in Montreal. Otherwise, I found the first part of the book to be enjoyable.

Then Reichl returned from Montreal and, frankly, became someone I wouldn't want to know. Throughout the rest of the book she seemed so self-satisfied and arrogant. She also seemed to feel that it was important that she constantly remind the reader that this was the 1960s and while everyone around her was racist, SHE just was NOT! ~rolls eyes~ After all, SHE had a black best friend, and a black close friend who was nearly a boyfriend, and a black family that she welcomed into her house as their social worker, and she visited all sorts of Puerto Rican establishments and and and...blech. Just too proud of herself and not seemingly aware at all of her massive privilege. She grew up in a family that summered in a different home than they wintered. She was sent, impulsively, to a boarding school in another country. She was taken, again impulsively, to Europe. She knew she was headed to college as a matter of course, and was able to do so out-of-state. She vacationed in North Africa. She was able to live in her parents' New York apartment because they lived elsewhere. With that background, a lot of her talk of drunk partying, bohemian lifestyles, and stopping in at filthy neighborhood fishmongers felt like she was slumming self-congratulatorily.

I did get a kick out of some of the New York neighborhood bits, in that I recently watched an episode of some Food Network show that visited culinarily-historic NYC businesses, and several of those were places Reichl mentioned. It was funny to read her 1960s memories of those places compared to the public 2012 face of the same spots.

I had hopes that the NorCal section would make up for the negative Ann Arbor and post-Masters-degree NYC years, since I'm a Bay Area girl born and raised and Berkeley is a part of me. But no. She seemed to be both full of pride in her crunchy-hippie lifestyle and full of judgment for the crunchy-hippies she lived with.

Much of the book was a denouncement of her bi-polar mother, and yeah, life with an undiagnosed "manic-depressive" (as it was still being called at the time) parent is not a picnic. But all sympathy that was built up on that score was lost when Reichl wrote that if her mother had been normal, she (Ruth) wouldn't have been present for the 100th birthday celebration of one of her favourite people. She wrote that her mother's illness was the dysfunctional glue that held them all together. If that's true, and with a "normal" mother she would have just walked away from her family and ignored all holidays, events, etc., then it doesn't say much for Reichl. Even as a married woman of 29 she was presenting herself as a spoiled child, grumpy and snotty when she wasn't getting attention but her husband was, shouting at people who suggested she help her mother, ignoring her father's pleas for assistance, and metaphorically stomping her feet about not getting to just do what she wanted and instead having to go straighten out the mess of a loved one's special day.

An impulsive wine-tasting trip to France with a near-stranger was a story that seemed shoehorned in, and the dumpster-diving politically-correct vegetarian bohemian suddenly eating shark's fin soup and sea turtles was a jarring ending. If I didn't know there was a second volume I'd have been very confused at the abrupt finish.

Because I enjoyed the beginning of this one, and because I already have it, I'm giving Comfort Me With Apples a try. Here's hoping that she relaxed about herself a bit in the 3 years between writing the two books.(less)

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May 16, 2012 Mallory rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this memoir which centered around the author's discovery of her passion for food of varying types and styles. Ruth Reichl is clearly a strong writer and makes the people who populate her pages feel like old friends. Characters are clearly--sometimes starkly--drawn and handled with (apologies!) the tenderness indicated in the title. Reichl clearly loves the people who she chose to include in these pages; some for better than others! Even when recounting stories which seem dysfunc...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Marsha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cooking-food-wine, memoir, non-fiction

“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Ruth Reichl was Editor-in-chief of “Gourmet” magazine. Bringing her writing skills to novelistic form, she makes her eccentric mother, long-suffering but oblivious father, knowing stepbrother and the various personalities she encountered in her existence live in this tale about food, family and obsessions.

Ms. Reichl realized quite young that you can learn a lot about people from watching how and what they a...more

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Dec 15, 2011 Josephine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I think I love Ruth Reichl — and yes, I’m saying this in a completely gushy way.

Yes, she’s one of the most influential food critics of our time, but what I like best about her is her writing.

In her memoir, “Tender at the Bone,” she describes how “food could be a way of making sense of the world” and you’re introduced to the characters in her life — and how, they in turn, introduced her to her love of cooking.

Beginning with her mother, the Queen of Mold — a manic depressive who refused to think a...more

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May 09, 2011 Cindy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked Garlic and Sapphires better, but, I truly enjoyed reading this food memoir. It helped me understand and appreciate Garlic and Sapphires even better! The fragile poignant moments of self discovery through cooking were delicious. The recipes, caused me to become prolific in the kitchen...I couldn't resist the veal, and Gary and I supped divinely on chicken, potato salad and other delights. I think this would be a fun Book club read, if everyone brought one of their favorite recipes and we...more

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Mar 17, 2011 Betsy rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's nearly impossible to read Ruth Reichl's memoir of her childhood and early adulthood without hearing your stomach growl. Her book is often funny, very touching and filled to the brim with tales of discovering great food and recipes for the dishes that shaped her life's path. The book follows Reichl's life from her tumultuous childhood through her self-exploration in her early 20's. Tales flow from her days at a Canadian boarding school, her years living essentially on her own as a high schoo...more

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Feb 11, 2011 Esutterlin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I discovered this book through a "blind date" program at my local public library in Maplewood, NJ. Unlike many other readers, I had never read any of the author's restaurant reviews as I am new to New Jersey. Right up front I must confess that it was my love for biographies, travel, personal perspectives on history, and storyweaving that made me like this book, rather than any interest in food or recipes. I was brought up more gourmand than gourmet, and my preference for bland taste and limitati...more I discovered this book through a "blind date" program at my local public library in Maplewood, NJ. Unlike many other readers, I had never read any of the author's restaurant reviews as I am new to New Jersey. Right up front I must confess that it was my love for biographies, travel, personal perspectives on history, and storyweaving that made me like this book, rather than any interest in food or recipes. I was brought up more gourmand than gourmet, and my preference for bland taste and limitations from food sensitivities and allergies make me an unlikely audience for an autobiography of a New York Times food critic filled with her "foodie" discoveries.
Nevertheless, Ruth Reichl's autobiographical memoir reveals a woman who grew up with a manic-depressive mother from whom she escaped and rebelled in a number of ways. Reichl asserted her early independence in a number of ways, including guiding dinner guests away from food choices which could actually poison them and throwing wild parties and cooking for her friends when her parents were away from home. Her mother's eccentric food experimentations did not turn Rachel off all food, fortunately, as she discovered the joy of cooking at the knee of two different mentors as a young child -- Alice, her father's first wife's mother's cook, and Mrs. Peavey, a cook and housekeeper for Ruth's family. Young Rachel was spunky, and when her mother tricked/surprised her by taking her to Montreal for a weekend only to leave her there to learn French by immersion in a boarding school, Rachel discovered the joys of eating and cooking a wider repertoire of gourmet foods, along with the realization that she could not only survive but thrive apart from her family.

Through her years at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Tunisia; Berkeley, CA; France; upstate New York; and back in New York City, Ruth discovered her way of connecting with herself and other people was through food, which she describes in rapturous details, sharing recipes liberally as though by cooking these foods the reader, too, might unlock some mysteries that she could not describe in words. She expanded her palate even as she tucked away anecdotes which she could later fantasize, expand, and analyze. Her character depictions bring to life many people in less-than-flattering fullness, including herself. Reichl spins a tale that she warns right at the onset she has embellished as did the storytellers of her childhood, who might not be proud of how she described them but would probably agree that it makes for a more interesting accounting than if she had told her story straight.
Two drawbacks were Reichl’s tone of self-righteousness even while admitting to driving while drunk, while having panic attacks while driving across a bridge, and her over-stressing her openness to interracial relationships despite her mother's prejudices while revealing her awkward relationship with her college roommate's painful discovery that she was an adopted African American, and not Caribbean as she had thought. I found her storytelling narrative flowing, making for easy reading, and intriguing enough to want to read her sequel.

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Sep 30, 2010 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: attempt-at-non-fiction

Ah Ruth. Like Kim Severson (See my last review), I have a total girlcrush on Ruth Reichl. It goes back to when I was in the Columbia Publishing Course, and my magazine project team made a food magazine called "ginger" that was about bringing Asian cuisine into the american home kitchen, in an authentic way. (I think we phrased this worse back then, if you can believe it.) And the head of the CPC took our mockup and showed it to Ruth, and said she LOVED it. Sadly, never verified this and never go...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

My friend Megan gave me this book a while ago, when I had my wisdom teeth removed, and I'm so glad she did! "Tender at the Bone" is the really sweet, rich memoir of Ruth Reichl, renowned food and wine writer and last editor-in-chief of the now departed Gourmet magazine.

Ruth is a witty writer, and there were lots of moments when I laughed out loud as I read her remembrances of her eccentric mother, "The Queen of Mold," and the other quirky characters in her life. Despite a conservative upbringin...more

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Dec 20, 2009 Jennifer D. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-borrow

Light, yet rich and tasty. Restaurant critic Ruth Reichl's memoir is all of these. Easy to read, yet filled with insight and well-rounded characters. The author's mother suffered from manic depression, and one way it manifested itself was in bizarre - and often downright poisonous - culinary creations. The author describes herself as having been shaped by her mother's handicap, beginning at an early age to use food as a way of making sense of the world. She effectively conveys this food-sense in...more

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May 13, 2009 Jackie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read any of Ms. Reichl's previous books. But this one received glowing reviews so I figured it was a must read. That said, I wish I could have given it a half star, so my review would be 2 1/2 stars instead of three.

She has an amazing way with words. I love her descriptions, and came to feel like some of the people in her books were old friends. But--in the end I was getting a little impatient to be finished. I grew a little weary of her parading her philosophies. Not everyone who gre...more

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Oct 27, 2008 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Minta

Again, so wonderful! Her descriptions of the food are so magical I can taste everything. To live in Berkley near Chez Panisse, to eat at Ma Maison when Puck was just getting his foot in the door, to go to France and happen upon cheese that has become a myth, to be introduced to balsamic vinegar when almost no one in the US has even heard of it, what a journey and I am so glad I am along for the ride! I am starting Comfort me with Apples and I am already sad that it will come to an end.

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Mar 13, 2012 Karyl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Karyl by: Kassie

Shelves: borrowed-reads, 2012, favorites, non-fiction

What a lovely peek into the life of Ruth Reichl! Perhaps it's a given that those of us who grow up in homes where food is simply sustenance will one day be people who love food. Reading about Reichl's childhood meals, scavenged from sales and served as one large mismatched entree admittedly turned my stomach a bit. I turned green with envy when Reichl visited a school friend whose father knew how to eat, and all of a sudden a whole new world was opened up to her. I thoroughly enjoyed Reichl's jo...more

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Jun 10, 2009 Marni rated it 4 of 5 stars

Another thrift shop find....and what I really wanted to read was Ruth's accounts of being a food editor at the NY Times (I heard her interviewed about this book multiple times on NPR, but I took what I could get. And I ended up being very pleased that I chose this book. I've read a lot of memoirs in the past few years, but this one was really fascinating, giving a good background to a fascination with, and love of, a variety of tastes.

I was also amazed at how fearless Ruth was. From her travels...more

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Nov 17, 2011 robyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: coming-of-age, food

I've never read Ruth Reichl's food column, and the recipes included in this book don't tempt me - maybe if I was a more seasoned cook - ! but I liked her writing, I enjoyed her story-telling, and I found myself staying up past my bedtime to finish the last couple of chapters.

Writing your memoirs has got to be the trickiest writing job of all; you need a healthy dollop of conceit to actually think anyone would want to read them, but if your self-conceit is obvious, nobody WILL want to read them....more

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Jun 04, 2012 Storey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wonderful memoir of the editor of "Gourmet" magazine. (I found it for 10 cents at a garage sale and I'm so gald I did.) I've never heard of this woman but she's led a fascinating life. One would expect someone who grows up to be such an accomplished foodie must have been the child of chef or at least a halfway decent cook but Ruth's mother's fare was much closer to food poisoning than haute cuisine!

Bonus: This book is peppered with Ruth's favorite recipes from different times in her life - she p...more Wonderful memoir of the editor of "Gourmet" magazine. (I found it for 10 cents at a garage sale and I'm so gald I did.) I've never heard of this woman but she's led a fascinating life. One would expect someone who grows up to be such an accomplished foodie must have been the child of chef or at least a halfway decent cook but Ruth's mother's fare was much closer to food poisoning than haute cuisine!

Bonus: This book is peppered with Ruth's favorite recipes from different times in her life - she puts one or two in each chapter as she guides you through the different avenues of her life that have led her to her current vocation. Her mom was an undiagnosed manic depressive that would do quirky things like dump Ruth at a french speaking boarding school in Canada...for several years! Voila. Ruth learned French. She also toured North Africa with her college roommate who wanted to get back to her roots after finding out she was black; she lived in a hippie commune in Berkley; went broke in Greece on an extended honeymoon; and taught some of Andy Warhol's crew at "The Factory" in New York how to cook. Somehow she became a food critic after all that.

Here are some of my favorite passages:

The odd thing is that if she hadn’t been so mean to me I would have admired her. She was constantly collecting “mauvaises notes” for whispering in class, for not being prepared, once for daring to talk back when Madame Cartet spoke of Australian savages. “They’re not savages!” said Beatrice, “I’ve been there.” ~ pg. 61

The eating went on all day. It was the main activity; Maison Heureuse offered no sports, no games, no crafts, no organized activities of any kind. The island was wild and beautiful, a tangle of thick virgin forests bordering endless miles of empty beach, and the campers were expected to entertain each other. Our job was merely to make sure that none of them got lost and all of them gained weight. ~ pg. 95

“(A restaurant) is a war zone,” he replied. “Never forget that. They,” he pointed to the kitchen door, “are on one side. These people,” sweeping the dining room with his arms, “are on the other.” He paused, stared straight at me and said, “Us? We’re nothing but go-betweens. The kitchen never forgets the enemy, but you do your job right and the customer gets out the door without even knowing he’s been at war.” ~pg. 136

The tea came; it was achingly sweet and filled with mint but it did not seem to contain dangerous drugs. “Everybody in Tunis comes to the souk for tea,” said Noureddine, leaning back like a pasha. “It is a custom. You will see. Once you get to know Tunis it is impossible to leave.” I glanced at Serafina; it sounded like the beginning of an evil fairy tale. ~ pg. 155

“We’ll never have to have real jobs again,” Doug exulted. “Never!” The plan was to grow our own food; it would be cheap and we would not be dependent on evil agribusiness. Meanwhile Martha and I baked bread every day and learned how to stretch a single chicken to feed fifteen. We discovered the joys of the cheaper variety meats and experimented with tongue and squid and heart. ~ pg. 218
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Sep 02, 2009 Sri rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-memoir

Suka!!! Buku ini berisi memoir Ruth Reichl sejak Ruth kecil hingga berusia menjelang 30 tahun. Dalam setiap bab ada resep masakan yang dipelajari Ruth dari orang-orang di sekitarnya. Dari ibunya, si Queen of Mold. Dari nenek, para pembantu, teman-teman dan orang-orang yang dia jumpai dalam perjalanan hidupnya. Kreativitas Ruth dalam memasak mungkin diperoleh dari ibunya yang super kreatif dalam mencampur-campur bahan makanan tapi hasilnya? Ruth kecil sibuk menjadi polisi makanan, mencegah para t...more Suka!!! Buku ini berisi memoir Ruth Reichl sejak Ruth kecil hingga berusia menjelang 30 tahun. Dalam setiap bab ada resep masakan yang dipelajari Ruth dari orang-orang di sekitarnya. Dari ibunya, si Queen of Mold. Dari nenek, para pembantu, teman-teman dan orang-orang yang dia jumpai dalam perjalanan hidupnya. Kreativitas Ruth dalam memasak mungkin diperoleh dari ibunya yang super kreatif dalam mencampur-campur bahan makanan tapi hasilnya? Ruth kecil sibuk menjadi polisi makanan, mencegah para tamu sakit perut gara-gara masakan ibunya.
Sejak kecil Ruth sudah dipaksa oleh ibunya untuk berpetualang di negeri-negeri asing, berjumpa dengan banyak orang baru, tapi dalam masa mudanya Ruth malah kesepian. Hingga suatu saat dia bertemu Doug, menjadi kekasihnya, lalu istrinya. Doug ini mirip sekali bapak Ruth dan sangat disukai bapak Ruth. Banyak sekali kisah istimewa yang tak pernah diceritakan oleh bapak Ruth kepada Ruth namun diceritakan kepada Doug. Ruth kesal pada bapaknya. Tapi juga kasihan karena sang bapak harus hidup bersama ibu Ruth yang mengidap manic. Segala sesuatu dalam hidupnya bergantung pada mood istrinya.
Setelah menikah Ruth dan Doug jalan-jalan ke Eropa sampai uang mereka habis. Lalu tinggal di kawasan hitam di New York. Ruth mendapat resep-resep baru dari lingkungannya yang heterogen. Tak tahan dengan ibunya sendiri, Ruth & Doug pindah ke Berkeley. Hidup berkelompok bersama teman-teman mereka. Menjalani hidup secara idealis. Menanam sendiri sayur-sayuran yang akan mereka santap. Menganut paham hemat energi, menjalankan konsep recycling, sampai-sampai memasak dari bahan-bahan makanan yang dibuang oleh supermarket karena cacat. Wew, dengan kata lain mereka memakan sampah. Se-edible apapun, yang mereka makan itu sudah masuk ke tempat sampah.
Lalu Ruth melamar menjadi koki restoran yang aneh. Dikelola oleh sebuah kelompok. Semua orang adalah koki. Semua orang adalah manajer. Semua orang adalah pekerja. Ruth keluar setelah ada pengunjung restoran yang selalu menguntitnya.
Singkat cerita, kehidupan Ruth seru sekali. Tapi menjelang akhir buku, diceritakan bahwa Ruth beberapa kali mengalami panic attacks. Pat, teman Ruth & Doug, mengatakan ini gara-gara ibu Ruth. Di akhir buku, Ruth yang waktu itu sedang mengalami panic attacks saat menyetir mobil, menyebutkan, "I thought of my mother. And then, suddenly, she seemed very far away. The bridge was strong. Doug was waiting on the other side. I was not afraid. If I wanted, I could just keep driving. I stepped on the gas."(less)

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Apr 22, 2013 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

I started Comfort Me With Apples while staying at Syl and Gary's house, and she made me put it down after a chapter or two because she said I should read the first one first. So, I made myself go get Tender at the Bone from the library, tried racing through it so I could resume reading Comfort. Turns out the first book is interesting because it is about her high school and college experiences, including time spent in Ann Arbor at U Mich, and time spent picking morel mushrooms on the lawns of hou...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Rori rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

I love food writing. It effectively combines 2 of my favorite things. To me, there are few things more agreeable then a good food memoir. Book # 8, Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl, the former editor of Gourmet magazine, has been one of the most enjoyable, and easily likeable I've read. Because though this book is essentially about food, it's really about life and how a good meal is more then just nourishment for our bodies, but is a rich experience that can create memories and change our lives...more

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About Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl is an American food writer, the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine and culinary editor for the Modern Library.
Born to parents Ernst and Miriam (née Brudno), she was raised in New York City and spent time at a boarding school in Montreal. She attended the University of Michigan, where she met her first husband, the artist Douglas Hollis. She graduated in 1970 with a M.A. in art history...more

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Books by Ruth Reichl

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table

The Gourmet Cookbook: More than 1000 recipes

Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way

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“She was a great cook, but she cooked more for herself than for other people, not because she was hungry but because she was comforted by the rituals of the kitchen.” — 5 people liked it

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