Book 27 - Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

We're on to the second half of the quest now - 26 books down, 26 to go. Or, I guess 25 since I'm writing about 27 now! Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl is the story of the Gourmet critic's move from LA to New York (and to the much vaunted New York Times food column) - before her move to Gourmet. As many of us know, LA and NYC are two very different places - in almost all things - layout, history, attraction, food...

Reichl struggles with her new post but never once do you think she'll fail. In fact, she treats the whole experience with a certain curious detachment (or at least writes as if she does) and even at the worst, it all feels a little non-serious. Reichl acknowledges this in a very honest way, admitting that, in the end, she's still writing about food and getting paid to go to fancy restaurants.

Reichl's writing is not the star of the book. Her style is fine and her grammar, editing, etc. are perfectly reasonable but the writing is easy to overlook as you're being taken into the back rooms of New York's finest (and not so finest) and best restaurants. I love food writing and I was there with her the entire time, testing out the new dishes and concoctions, experimenting, nosing out the best (and worst). I found the costuming (Ruth had to hide her true identity to get honest service) cute but it was the food, the FOOD that was the best part.

I've heard Reichl's other books are equally entertaining (great for planes by the way) and I will definitely be checking them out.