A Taste of Success

[Sorry, I haven’t posted in a few days—we started our vacation in the “real Florida” (more about that later) where we had no internet access.]

For some ten years when I lived in Florida, I enjoyed membership in a truly wonderful book club.  The First Thursday Book Club, as we called ourselves, was a diverse group of women, who rarely saw one another outside of that sacred first Thursday of every month.  At most, there might be 20 of us; I can remember a couple of meetings in which only six were present.  We chose our books two months ahead, and we did our best to alternate fiction with nonfiction and new releases with books that had been around for a while.  Our membership included the happily married, the unhappily married, the gay divorcee, the gay, the Jewish, the Christian, the stay-at-home mom, the empty-nest mom, the lawyer, the potter, the Realtor.  I guess you get the idea.  I read so many books that I would not have found on my own, and one of those was Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone.
Reichl, of course, went on to become the editor of Gourmet magazine (sadly no longer published), but before that, she was the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times and then The New York Times.  Tender at the Bone chronicles her early years with food, her relationship with her mother, and her experiences at Berkeley, where she had her first serious relationship with a man and with food.   Reichl left me hungry for more, so next I read Comfort Me with Apples and Garlic and Sapphires, in which she tells some hilarious tales about her undercover work as a Times critic.I realize I’m taking a long time to get to the point of this post, but, if some of you dear readers haven’t yet read Ms. Reichl, and you enjoy food and cooking, you should definitely put them on your list.  In the meantime, check your local PBS listings for Gourmet's Adventures with Ruth.  I happened on this program one Saturday afternoon while I was ironing!  I was hooked immediately. The half hour show features Reichl, accompanied by a friend/celebrity, on some sort of cooking adventure.  The first episode I saw took place at the exquisite Blackberry Farm resort in Walland, Tennessee.  Reichl and Frances McDormand worked with the farm’s staff to create an inspiring meal entirely from produce, fish,  and livestock raised within rock-throwing distance. This past Saturday, I managed to catch Ms. Reichl and Diane Wiest as they learned to bake bread at the Bertinet Bakery in Bath, England.  This show is the perfect blend of cooking tips, menu inspiration, travel ideas, and, I’ll admit, a teeny tiny slice of celebrity cool, too.  Future shows will visit
Seattle, Venice, Mexico,

and New York.  You can watch entire episodes online at Gourmet's Adventures with Ruth.  And if you want to read back issues of  Gourmet, well, I have an aunt that has them dating from 1984!  Yikes!