Comfort Me with Apples
by Ruth Reichl
published
April 3rd 2003
by Arrow
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binding
Paperback, 320 pages
isbn
0099435950
(isbn13: 9780099435952)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 2046)
Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
people who love food
I can't be sure what I think of this book as a whole until I try some of the recipes, but the memoir parts are pretty good. I want her job! She's met some amazing chefs, including Alice Waters who is a big hero of mine. Ruth Reichl is a decent writer, funny and easy to read. The recipes sound pretty good, although they don't seem to be the main point. She gives a recipe for sweet potato pie and doesn't include a recipe for the crust. Maybe she assumes her readers know how to make a pie cru...more
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Read in April, 2004
recommends it for:
people who like memoirs and food
This followup to Reichl's first memoir, Tender At the Bone, is as lush as its predecessor, if a little sickening as a comforting marriage splinters, a self is reinvented, and a longed-for child is gained and lost.
Though she's well-known for writing about food, Ruth Reichl is just as adept at writing about the self, particularly when the self is caught in unfamiliar, transitional phases.
In the beginning of Comfort Me With Apples, Reichl finds herself embroiled in one extrama...more
Though she's well-known for writing about food, Ruth Reichl is just as adept at writing about the self, particularly when the self is caught in unfamiliar, transitional phases.
In the beginning of Comfort Me With Apples, Reichl finds herself embroiled in one extrama...more
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Read in August, 2008
I love reading and I love eating, so I tend to enjoy these books about wonderful foods. Reichl's memoir begins at her co-op in Berkeley. She's married to Doug, an up-and-coming artist, and is determined to make her own way as a restaurant critic/food writer. Doug's passion takes him all over the country, while Reichl finds herself in the food meccas of Los Angeles and Paris. With their communication strained, Reichl seeks fulfillment through various affairs. The book follows Reichl's rise to th...more
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Note that the title comes from the Song of Solomon, 2:5
"comfort me with apples: for I am sick with love"
That should give a hint of the flavor of what you'll be reading.
Foodies interested purely in exquisite descriptions of gustatory delights should look elsewhere. This book is mostly a belated coming-of-age story: a woman who learns the ropes in a new career, and eventually finds confidence and freedom in it. She discovers unimagined intensity in love affairs, and is swept i...more
"comfort me with apples: for I am sick with love"
That should give a hint of the flavor of what you'll be reading.
Foodies interested purely in exquisite descriptions of gustatory delights should look elsewhere. This book is mostly a belated coming-of-age story: a woman who learns the ropes in a new career, and eventually finds confidence and freedom in it. She discovers unimagined intensity in love affairs, and is swept i...more
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Read in August, 2007
Ruth Reichl has done it again -- completely mesmerized me with a book I found hard to put down.
The current editor of Gourmet magazine goes from food critic a New West Magazine to the LA Times in this, the sequel to her first memoir, Tender at the Bone. How she reinvents herself from a hippie living in a commune in Berkeley cooking for her housemates to being one of the most respected food critics in the country is told with her usual candor, intelligence, humor, and poignancy. Her e...more
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Read in February, 2007
Can I just say that I love that the prompt for these reviews is "What I learned from this book?" It's great!
Anyhow this book has a recipe for an extremely unhealthy mushroom soup which is delicious and the first thing that I ever made for myself that had mushrooms, because I had lived for 26 years pretty sure I didn't need mushrooms in my life. I don't really need them, but I bet that I will cook this soup again and enjoy it. In the book it is a soup for depressed rainy times, and...more
Anyhow this book has a recipe for an extremely unhealthy mushroom soup which is delicious and the first thing that I ever made for myself that had mushrooms, because I had lived for 26 years pretty sure I didn't need mushrooms in my life. I don't really need them, but I bet that I will cook this soup again and enjoy it. In the book it is a soup for depressed rainy times, and...more
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I thought the writing was solid. The book was well paced and easy to move through. But, ultimately, I was left wondering, "So what?" It was relatively entertaining, yes, but the book, on the whole, felt self-indulgent. Another example of someone thinking their life is interesting enough to write about. (Which seems to be everyone and their mother these days.)
Unlike, say, Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential," which weaves its way through the restaurant business and the...more
Unlike, say, Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential," which weaves its way through the restaurant business and the...more
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Read in October, 2007
Having just read "Garlic and Sapphires", I enjoyed reading this account of how Reichl's late 20's/early 30's period led her to becoming the critic in "Garlic..."
In fact, I gained a distinct pleasure from having read "Garlic.." first, even though chronologically (both in terms of subject matter and author date) it comes afterwards. Reading "...Apples", I got to anticipate and wonder what changes would take place to bring her from where she begins to ...more
In fact, I gained a distinct pleasure from having read "Garlic.." first, even though chronologically (both in terms of subject matter and author date) it comes afterwards. Reading "...Apples", I got to anticipate and wonder what changes would take place to bring her from where she begins to ...more
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Read in August, 2007
this is the book that comes before garlic and sapphires, which i read last month. i don’t think i liked it quite as much as garlic and sapphires, but it was ok. i wonder what it would have been like to listen to these books in the correct (chronological) order… it gives a bit more insight into her life. this book deals with her marriage falling apart and her efforts to have a baby with her second husband, as well as her development into a food critic. but there’s much less focus on the foo...more
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I think I need more star options... there may be more than one star worth of difference between this and Moby Dick. That said, three stars is a lackluster rating, and this is a very entertaining, readable entry in the foodie-biography-cookbook niche. I liked Reichl's Tender at the Bone, read years ago, and have actually made 2-3 of its recipes with notable success; just finished CMwA last night, no recipes made yet, but the recipes are good-looking enough that by halfway in I was thinking abou...more
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Read in April, 2008
I read this right after its prequel, Tender at the Bone, and must admit it was a disappointment. I never hated it enough to stop reading, but the only great thing about it was learning about different kinds of food.
The rest was bla. I mean, do you have to be drunk for food to taste good? Is commitment despite discomfort out of the question these days? I could go on, but I'll refrain.
The last thing that bugged me about the book is that there was no triumph over what seemed to me the mai...more
The rest was bla. I mean, do you have to be drunk for food to taste good? Is commitment despite discomfort out of the question these days? I could go on, but I'll refrain.
The last thing that bugged me about the book is that there was no triumph over what seemed to me the mai...more
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Read in September, 2008
recommends it for:
chefs, foodies
I'm supposed to be reading this for book group, but I can't finish it. I don't know if its fair to write a review, since I haven't finished...but here I go anyway.
If I were stuck with Ruth Reichl at a party and I had to listen to her droning on and on about her boring life, my eyes would glaze over and I would try to get away from her as soon as possible. I don't care to hear about every course of *every* meal she has ever eaten! I certainly don't care about her affair. It *was* interesting...more
If I were stuck with Ruth Reichl at a party and I had to listen to her droning on and on about her boring life, my eyes would glaze over and I would try to get away from her as soon as possible. I don't care to hear about every course of *every* meal she has ever eaten! I certainly don't care about her affair. It *was* interesting...more
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Read in February, 2008
Throughout Comfort, I imagined Reichl as someone I would love to have dinner with. The meal would, regardless of whether she introduced me to an amazing new restaurant or whipped up something in the kitchen at her commune home in Berkeley, be one to remember. Her love of food was infectious, and her relationships, dreams, and concerns felt both real and familiar. She was, simply put, someone I wanted to spend time with.
With beautiful writing, delicious descriptions of every food she encounte...more
With beautiful writing, delicious descriptions of every food she encounte...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who loves food, and has a heart
I read this book on one part of a flight, and ended up in tears on the plane. Oh, she is such a beautiful writer, and just the type of writer that I love. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I kept reading sections to my foodie husband, and it was just a delight to, on top of that, read about berkeley and boonville and truckee... living in oakland, my husband cooked at the boonville hotel, and my parents live in tahoe.
Her love stories are ...more
Her love stories are ...more
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Read in August, 2007
I liked the real foodie parts of this book, but it pretty quickly devolved into the sort of memoir where I felt somewhat aghast for Ruth’s friends, family, former and current spouses, and lovers. Yikes!
TMI!
It would have comforted me if she had stuck an apple in her mouth rather than telling me quite so much about her infidelities.
[SPOILERS….:]
I don’t know why this is so…she just seemed so stupidly self-destructive at some points and yet constantly fell forward into better...more
TMI!
It would have comforted me if she had stuck an apple in her mouth rather than telling me quite so much about her infidelities.
[SPOILERS….:]
I don’t know why this is so…she just seemed so stupidly self-destructive at some points and yet constantly fell forward into better...more
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Read in July, 2008
4.00
I really enjoy Ruth's writing style and her descriptions of food are amazing. I might not want to actually eat what she is eating but the way she herself enjoys the food and describes the experience almost makes me think that maybe I could try it someday. I did not enjoy this book as much as her first memoir, Tender at the Bone, simply because the subjects in this second memoir are more challenging. She discusses the death of her father, the extremely slow breakdown of her first marr...more
I really enjoy Ruth's writing style and her descriptions of food are amazing. I might not want to actually eat what she is eating but the way she herself enjoys the food and describes the experience almost makes me think that maybe I could try it someday. I did not enjoy this book as much as her first memoir, Tender at the Bone, simply because the subjects in this second memoir are more challenging. She discusses the death of her father, the extremely slow breakdown of her first marr...more
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I enjoyed Ruth Reichl's three memoirs much more than I'd expected to. She'd always gotten on my nerves as the Times food critic -- I found her prose both purple and utterly solipsistic. However, in memoir format talking about herself and her personal experience of making and eating food is entirely appropriate, and her lifelong relationship with food and cooking is pretty interesting. This volume covers Reichl's diverse education and experience in food -- including everything from living in a Ba...more
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Read in July, 2008
Consumed this book in one sitting.. or lounging rather. It's been too long since I've allowed myself that luxury. While it has food, cooking and food writing as the framework, I found myself thinking of other themes. Relationships, fidelity, monogamy.. part of my own life framework showing up as I read. Of course I also thought about the food and travel.
Interesting and well written book that I couldn't help but filter my own life through as I read. My own choices have been different.....more
Interesting and well written book that I couldn't help but filter my own life through as I read. My own choices have been different.....more
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Read in October, 2007
Reichl writes so well about food, you can almost taste it. And when she sticks to her food stories, it's fascinating. The story of the disintegration of her marriage was sad and well written, but less interesting for me.
I loved her stories about MFK Fisher and Danny Kaye though.
I'm now reading Garlic and Sapphires, and loving it. Mostly because I'm really into the whole evolution of restaurant criticism. I first got into reading them as an art form about 8 years ago and there really is ...more
I loved her stories about MFK Fisher and Danny Kaye though.
I'm now reading Garlic and Sapphires, and loving it. Mostly because I'm really into the whole evolution of restaurant criticism. I first got into reading them as an art form about 8 years ago and there really is ...more
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Read in January, 2005
really successful people were fucked up in their 20s, too! no, seriously... this book was courageous in its honesty, and impressive in that it effectively takes readers through a wide range of emotions. you feel excited when she feels excited, you feel an experience begin to deflate when she begins to feel it deflate, you fall in love with food when she falls in love with food. in fact, why live at all? ruth reichl has done it and summed it up very nicely for you. oh yeah. there are recipes, too...more
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