Monday, July 26, 2010

Book 50- Garlic and Sapphires

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise is about former New York Times restaurant critic's adventures in reviewing. It's also about her evolution as a reviewer and the great lengths she went to get get fair treatment rather than the royal treatment reserved for critics and kings. Though in one instance, she received better treatment than a king.


She donned disguises and took friends, family members, and colleagues to eat in the best of the best that NYC has to offer. During this time in her life as being the most important food person in... well, the world, she also went through a personal evolution and realized this wasn't the sort of writer she wanted to be. It also wasn't the sort of "eater" she wanted to be.

Author and former NYTimes critic Ruth Reichl is not the editor in chief of Gourmet magazine.

This is obviously a memoir and try as I might reviewing someone's life doesn't seem right. So basically I can say it was entertaining but still sort of sad. It's sad that such "fancy" and "exclusive" restaurants give crappy treatment and cheat the food to the poor and unknowns who visit their establishments. It was nice for someone like Reichl to go through what she did to give honest reviews. The anecdotes she shared about her son Nicky were some of my favorite parts of this non-fiction story.

I like that she enclosed recipes within her her book, of her favorite foods to fix, since she really loves to cook.

I still liked Julie and Julia and I Loved I Lost I Made Spaghetti better!

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