Tender at the Bone - Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl

 

This book was a pleasure to read. If it is a rainy weekend, just forget about doing anything else and curl up on the couch with a blanket thrown over you with a delicious cup of coffee or a delicate tea with cookies.

By the way, I picked this book up at my local Goodwill. I have found that my Goodwill store has become my new place to find books to read. They are cheap and there are many different genres to choose from. Who knew?

What caught my attention first was the precious cover. Then the title. I picked it up from the pile of books on the table and turned it over to read the back of the jacket cover. It read:

At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world ...".

It went on to say that is was a memoir. That was good enough for me since I just read a biography of Rock Hudson (which I checked out of my small library) and I was on a roll in that area. Also I read that Ruth "is the restaurant critic for the New York Times".

Hmmm. That statement made me want to see how her interest in food as a child propelled her into finally being a food critic as an adult. So I brought it home, opened it up and didn't want to put it down.

Included all along within the stories are delightful recipes that are part of the story being told at that time. It certainly makes you want to stop reading and make something yummy. Some of your choices would be:

Miriam Reichl's Corned Beef Ham
Aunt Birdie's Potato Salad
Alice's Apple Dumplings with Hard Sauce
The Swallow's Pork and Tomatillo Stew

And that's just to name a few. But the stories that go with the food and how Ruth came to cook them is wonderful.

Thank you to Ruth Reichl for writing a book I did not want to put down. Those are the best!