Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table - Books

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl shares lessons learned at the hands (and kitchen counters) of family members and friends throughout her life, from growing up with her taste-blind mother to the comfort of cream puffs while away at boarding school on "Mars" (Montreal seemed just as far away) to her most memorable meal, taken on a mountainside in Greece.

Her stories shine with the voices and recipes of those she has encountered on the way, such as her Aunt Birdie's maid and companion, Alice, who first taught Reichl both the power of cooking and how to make perfect apple dumplings; the family's mysterious patrician housekeeper, Mrs. Peavey, who always remembered to make extra pastry for the beef Wellington; Serafina, the college roommate with whom Reichl explored a time of protest and political and personal discovery; and, finally, cookbook author Marion Cunningham, who, after tales of her midlife struggles and transformation, gave Reichl the strength to overcome her own anxieties.

Reichl's wry and gentle humor pervades the book, and makes readers feel as if they're right at the table, laughing at one great story after another (and delighting in a gourmet meal at the same time, of course). Reichl's narrative of a life lived and remembered through the palate will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Product Description
At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world. . . . If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Her deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life determined, enhanced, and defined in equal measure by a passion for food, unforgettable people, and the love of tales well told.Beginning with Reichl's mother, the notorious food-poisoner known as the Queen of Mold, Reichl introduces us to the fascinating characters who shaped her world and her tastes, from the gourmand Monsieur du Croix, who served Reichl her first souffle, to those at her politically correct table in Berkeley who championed the organic food revolution in the 1970s.Spiced with Reichl's infectious humor and sprinkled with her favorite recipes, Tender at the Bone is a witty and compelling chronicle of a culinary sensualist's coming-of-age.

Customer Reviews: Read 104 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Delicious to read August 31, 2008
I've just finished reading Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the Table, by Ruth Reichl (former restaurant critic for the New York Times), and I feel as satisfied as if I'd just had a good meal.

Reichl guides the reader through her early experiences with food. She tells a good story, detailing her mother's manic entertaining style, the comforting aromas of her grandmother's house, her own initial forays into cooking exotic fare, and the wonderful food she encountered while traveling in Europe and North Africa.

I loved reading about Reichl's early adventures in the world of food, and she has a wonderful, self-deprecating writing style that I really like. It's hard to hate her for having an awesome job where she eats fabulous food all day because she's astonishingly honest about her life, her shortcomings, and all the ugly flaws that make her human.

Because Ruth uses food to bookmark events in her life, recipes that have been particularly memorable to her are interspersed throughout the memoir. Some that I've copied to try later include Milton's Pate (a chicken-liver pate. I've never made pate, but this one looks easy enough to try.), Claritha's Fried Chicken (I can tell from the recipe that it's going to be good.), Coconut Bread (This one just sounds so delicious that I want to give it a go.), and Alice's Apple Dumplings with Hard Sauce (which looks easy, yummy, and infinitely eatable).

I so enjoyed this book, and I'll be reading more of Reichl in the future.

5 out of 5 stars

Warning - lot's of gushing to follow June 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I was in love with this book from the first words of the introduction, where Reichl tells us about the story telling tradition in her family. She introduces her book thus: "Everything here is true, but it may not be entirely factual. I learned early that the most important thing in life is a good story". She then proceeds to tell her stories so convincingly, with such candor and feeling, that you completely forget that some of it is embellished for story telling purposes.

The recipes are absolutely charming and wonderful, a very genuine addition. They may not be the best recipes, some of them may well be old fashioned, but they are honest and intended as an illustration; she includes no photos after the one on the cover - the recipes serve as photos of her life as told here.

This book is about Reichl's life with food. It is not a true autobiography, but anecdotes that are slices and bites of her life. We feel we know Ruth while realizing that we don't know everything about her. But then isn't that the reality of most friendships? And Ruth does feel like a friend that you are getting to know.

Anyone who loves food and cooking will get great pleasure from this book. It is always charming, always engaging, always entertaining. I ordered her sequel the minute I read the last word.

4 out of 5 stars

!! May 19, 2008
Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone opened my eyes to a new way of looking at life. I never imagined that a person could find themselves so entranced by food. Her passion for cooking, tasting, eating, and critiquing food is proudly revealed with each word. Although she began her career as a food critic for the New York Times, she impresses me with her versatility when she writes such an intriguing and personal memoir as Tender at the Bone.
Each important relationship she has is usually documented with a recipe or a dish. When Ruth's mother comes to meet her daughter's new and perpetually tan roommate, she jumps to conclusions: "I guess I'm a prejudiced person. It never occurred to me that your roommate would be negro". Ruth replies, " 'Oh, she's not...Her family is from Guyana...They are not negro.' And to prove it I gave her some of the coconut bread that Serafina's mother had sent" (107). On the following page, the coconut bread recipe is provided. I never would have thought that coconut bread could hold such secrets as family heritage!
Reichl also tends to judge people based on their cooking. Her mother, for example, is outrageous and creates equally outrageous concoctions that Ruth must prevent her loved ones from eating, otherwise they will end up in the hospital with food-sickness (as 26 of the guests at her son's engagement party did). Her Aunt Birdie, who is very set in her ways, has her one dish: potato salad. This lack of culinary diversity characterizes Aunt Birdie as the simple, old-fashioned lady that she is. With this memoir I have no doubt become more aware of people's cooking habits, and what it reveals about their personalities.

5 out of 5 stars

I'm Hungry for More! March 11, 2008
I loved reading Tender at the Bone. I felt like I had found a new girlfriend and I was 19 again and wanted her to be my roommate. We had so much in common! I also had grown up in Connecticut. My father was superintendent of schools in Norwalk while she lived in Wilton. Of course Ruth lived in New York City also, and traveled and did tons of things as a child and a young woman that I didn't do. But still I always had this feeling as I read this book that I was with a new best friend. I loved all the intimate thoughts, feelings and disclosures that she shared. I never laughed so hard in all my life, reading a book, as I did reading about the engagement party for her brother, when her mother almost killed off the guests with spoiled food. I hope the story was a bit of an exaggeration! How well I knew Norwalk Hospital, where the poisoned guests went! That's where I had my appendix out at 13 and my mom had a baby when I was seventeen! The book couldn't be long enough for me. I enjoyed her travels, except for her time in school in Canada when I felt so badly for her. I was so relieved when that experience was over. I have to say that I really savored the whole book. Many people have read Tender at the Bone because of me!

If you want a fabulous read, if you want to feel intimate with a stranger, if you want to taste good food without the calories, if you want to travel and learn a new profession without leaving your chair, if you want to have a new best friend, then join me and read Tender at the Bone! The Truth: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know Everything

5 out of 5 stars

Sweet, Funny, Light-Hearted Memoir December 21, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Ruth Reichl has been a food editor and restaurant critic for the LA Times and NY Times and is now the editor of Gourmet Magazine, but if you're thinking that Tender at the Bone is just another foodie book, think again. Sure, it has recipes (18 of them, most simple, all tantalizing) and plenty of mouth-watering descriptions of food, cookery, and dining. It's also a tasty, tantalizing book, a smorgasbord of entertaining character sketches and often hilarious food adventures.

But Tender at the Bone has its serious side. It tells the disturbing tale of a family thrown into chaos by Ruth's manic mother, the "Queen of Mold" whose idea of a gourmet meal is a stewed two-week-old turkey carcass. It is an almost-classic rite-of-passage journey of a lonely young girl whose dysfunctional parents abandon her to the care of others, leaving her to discover that good food can comfort the lonely (Alice's Apple Dumplings), that food can seduce the unwary (Devil's Food Cake), and that food always expresses our deepest cultural and familial longings (Serafina's mother's Coconut Bread). As she meets helpers who encourage her to outgrow her controlling mother, Ruth graduates from waitress to commune cook to restaurant chef to food writer, stumbling into her vocation along the way in this wonderful journey of self-discovery. Food is a "way of making sense of the world," Ruth says in an introspective moment, or as another character succinctly remarks, "I have to keep tasting."

Tender at the Bone is a sweet, funny, light-hearted memoir whose lessons are dished out with a deft hand. At the same time it is a revealing self-study that offers insights into the forces that limited Reichl during her childhood and teen years, as well as those that brought her new experiences. The author's insatiable appetite for life, her compelling need to "keep tasting": to savor adventure, sample many lifestyles, delight in diversity, relish discovery, learn, create, and grow. It is a nourishing book, in all its various dimensions.

by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women

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