Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ruth Reichl Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Ruth Reichl.

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Famous Quotes By Ruth Reichl

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I felt that I was really living in the moment. I did not know where my life was going, but right now the future did not trouble me. — Ruth Reichl

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My mother's father was a doctor, and she desperately wanted to be a doctor. — Ruth Reichl

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My idea of good living is not about eating high on the hog. Rather, to me, good living means understanding how food connects us to the earth. — Ruth Reichl

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It takes a great deal of strength to be an optimist. — Ruth Reichl

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I've named my cookies Snowballs, but not because that's what they look like. It's the way they make you feel. You know how it is when a snowball is flying toward you on an icy-cold night? The stars are glittering, and the snow is twinkling, but you're wrapped up in mittens and boots, so you're toasty warm. It's surprise and comfort, all at the same time; that's how I want them to taste. Do you know what I mean? Here's the recipe: It has chocolate, marshmallows, and pecans in a very buttery batter. — Ruth Reichl

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Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious. — Ruth Reichl

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I decided that it wasn't pretty that I felt, but confident. — Ruth Reichl

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I wanted to figure out a way of living where I didn't have to be in an office every day. — Ruth Reichl

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I love breakfast, and I don't see any reason it has to be cereal and eggs and toast. — Ruth Reichl

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One of mom's greatest acts of generosity was that she trained me to be defiant. Her great gift to me was encouraging me to be the person that I wanted to be, not the one that she and my father wished I was. — Ruth Reichl

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Any soul who has survived to the age of eighty - two with nary a secret would be extremely dull. I, for one, would have very little interest in making their acquaintance. — Ruth Reichl

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Plain fresh bread, its crust shatteringly crisp. Sweet cold butter. There is magic in the way they come together in your mouth to make a single perfect bite. — Ruth Reichl

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Were unaware that the room was crowded with ghosts who were about to propel us into the present and force us to face the future. — Ruth Reichl

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I had done this. I had pulled my life apart. I would never, ever be safe again. — Ruth Reichl

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I meet people, and we can get past small talk pretty quickly if they've read my books. It's a great shortcut. — Ruth Reichl

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I have to say I know much more about football than I would like to, because my husband is a rabid football fan, and it's been so horrible. — Ruth Reichl

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You don't want to give people what they want. Give them something that they didn't know that they wanted. — Ruth Reichl

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Hermione was back, holding out a gossamer dress of rainbow chiffon so airy I thought of fireflies on a moonlight night. — Ruth Reichl

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I don't have my own garden; we're on shale and in the woods. And if I did have a garden, the deer and chipmunks and squirrels and bears would eat everything anyway. — Ruth Reichl

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I'm a home cook, and I'm constantly embarrassed by twentysomethings who really do know the mechanics of cooking. How to build a sauce. — Ruth Reichl

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Don't make a big to-do about the turkey; brine it, put it in the oven, and don't think about it again. — Ruth Reichl

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I've been to a couple of restaurants in L.A. that were so loud, I left there with a sore throat; you literally could not have a conversation. I think it's very deliberate: There's this idea that somehow it's more fun if there's a roar in the room. — Ruth Reichl

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By the time I met Julia Child, her husband, Paul, was little more than a ghost of a man, so diminished by old age and its attendant diseases that it was impossible to discern the remarkable artist, photographer and poet he once had been. — Ruth Reichl

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I think it's hard, when you're someone who likes to please people, as I am, to be a boss. I had to learn how to rein myself in and not terrify people. — Ruth Reichl

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That's what I like so much about old libraries - they smell the way we'd like to imagine the past. — Ruth Reichl

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I'd rather be a fool than hard-hearted. — Ruth Reichl

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I loved being at the 'Times,' and they were incredibly good to me. I think it's a wonderful paper, and I was really well edited. — Ruth Reichl

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If you're going to tell stuff, you might as well tell the real stuff. — Ruth Reichl

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You look at the Barefoot Contessa or Lydia Bastianich, and it's just like watching your mother cooking. — Ruth Reichl

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Anyone who has ever been an ugly adolescent - and we are legion - knows that the feeling of being unlovely and unlovable never goes away; it is always there, lurking just beneath the surface. — Ruth Reichl

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She was a great cook, but she cooked more for herself than for other people, not because she was hungry but because she was comforted by the rituals of the kitchen. — Ruth Reichl

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I'm not a big turkey fan, but my husband loves it. Thanksgiving is his favorite meal. — Ruth Reichl

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You'll find that historical research is extremely soothing. When you spend all day among old papers, the people come alive for you, and you begin to see the present through different eyes. You'll see. You view young people knowing that this is only one moment in time and it's passing very quickly. It's comforting. You begin to understand that time is no more than a trick of the mind; some days I'm convinced that my young self is still here, somewhere, just walking down a different street. Anne — Ruth Reichl

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The implications of Americans devoting their lives to fast food are more profound than the fact that our kids aren't eating well. There are real repercussions that we need to know about and think about. — Ruth Reichl

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Don't you just love the idea of cooking flowers? I imagine them bursting into bloom, right in the pan. — Ruth Reichl

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The secret to life is finding joy in ordinary things. I'm interested in happiness. — Ruth Reichl

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I like poached eggs, but I'll make scrambled or fried or whatever anybody wants. — Ruth Reichl

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I loved writing fiction. I mean, once I found the character, or the characters, and knew who they were and knew their back-stories, it really - I mean, I went into my studio every day, thinking, 'What's gonna happen to Billy today?' — Ruth Reichl

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My mother really would make these dreadful concoctions. She really prided herself on something called 'Everything Stew,' where she would take everything in the refrigerator, all the leftovers, and put them all together. — Ruth Reichl

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In the end you are the only one who can make yourself happy. More important, ... it is never too late to find out how to do it. — Ruth Reichl

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My idea of management is that what your job is as the boss is to find really good people and empower them and leave them alone. — Ruth Reichl

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I learned so much in Laos. I learned that fried silkworm larvae are delicious. I learned how to make ant-egg salad. — Ruth Reichl

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I wasn't exactly known for self-confidence, but I could taste the cake in my mind. Strong. Earthy. Fragrant. I remembered the nose-prickling aroma of cinnamon when it comes in fragile curls, and the startling power of crushed cloves. — Ruth Reichl

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When I ate slowly and deliberately, giving myself time to consider whether I actually wanted that next bite, I often discovered that I didn't. — Ruth Reichl

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There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them. — Ruth Reichl

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The American government policy on what we supported and subsidised in agriculture was a social experiment on a whole generation of children. — Ruth Reichl

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The meal began with pickled squid, oyster shooters, marinated anchovies, and scungilli salad. Then Rosalie set an enormous bowl of pasta con le vongole in front of Sal, who ladled it out, talking the entire time. The pasta was followed by huge platters of scampi, which we passed around. It was almost eleven when Rosalie set three enormous stuffed turbots on the table, and it was near midnight when she appeared with a plate of warm sugar-dusted sfinge.
"So our first taste of the New Year will be sweet," Sal whispered in my ear. — Ruth Reichl

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My kitchen was built for my body. It forms a 'U' in the middle of the living room and dining room. It's not huge, because I don't like huge kitchens. — Ruth Reichl

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You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one, you need to know about life. — Ruth Reichl

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World War II really fascinated me because it's the only time that everybody in this country sat down at the same table, because eating on rations was your patriotic duty. — Ruth Reichl

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What I learned is that how we present ourselves to the world is really how we get treated. So if you want to be treated really well in a restaurant, you really have to dress up. You cannot just show up. — Ruth Reichl

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If you start with a great peach, there's nothing you're ever going to do that's going to make it any better than when it comes off the tree. In 1970, that was a revolution. — Ruth Reichl

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The strands of spaghetti were vital, almost alive in my mouth, and the olive oil was singing with flavor. It was hard to imagine that four simple ingredients [olive oil, pasta, garlic and cheese] could marry so perfectly. — Ruth Reichl

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People are so used to eating terrible pancakes, no matter how you mess up, they're going to be great. And if you make fresh orange juice, they'll be over the moon. — Ruth Reichl

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Hunger, I discovered, is very much a matter of the mind, and as I began to study my own appetites, I saw that my teenage craving had not really been for food. That ravenous desire had been a yearning for love, attention, appreciation. Food had merely been my substitute. — Ruth Reichl

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Lulu writes: When Mother, Mr. Jones and I were walking through those strange, crowded downtown streets, where people were sticking their hands into pickle barrels, pointing to smoked fish, and eating sliced herring, I saw the scene in a whole new way. They weren't buying food: They were finding their way home. — Ruth Reichl

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She's always sniffing the bottles in the spice cabinet."
I didn't know she'd even noticed. At first it was just curiosity; why did fennel and cumin, identical twins, have such opposing personalities? I had crushed the seeds beneath my fingertips, where the scents lingered for hours. Another day I'd opened a bottle of nutmeg, startled when the little spheres came rattling out in a mothball-scented cloud. How could something so delicate have such a ferocious smell? And I watched, fascinated, as the supple, plump, purple vanilla beans withered into brittle pods and surrendered their perfume to the air. The spices were all so interesting; it was impossible to walk through the kitchen without opening the cupboard to find out what was going on in there. — Ruth Reichl

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I feel as if there's a huge gulf separating me from all the lucky people in the world; they have so much to look forward to. — Ruth Reichl

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I love to make pies - pot pies, quiches, savory tarts, fruit pies. I use an old-fashioned pastry blender with wires and a wooden handle. I never use a recipe. — Ruth Reichl

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Throughout human history beauty has been seen as a gift from God, but Mom had another notion; she thought that beauty could be earned through self-knowledge. It may be a revolutionary idea, but it has offered me great comfort. — Ruth Reichl

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She designed the cakes and I worked out the recipes. The first year we each created a signature cake. Genie's was called the Goddess: really tall, all white on the outside, wrapped in mountains of coconut and whipped cream, with a passion-fruit heart."
"And yours was called the Shrinking Violet. Unassuming on the outside but pretty special once you worked your way in." She reached over and squeezed my wrist.
"Wish I'd thought of that. You'd understand if you knew my sister." By now I was a little drunk. "One year Genie came up with Melting Cakes. You know, like flourless chocolate, the kind that are melted in the middle? They were gorgeous neon colors, and I made the flavors intense- blood orange, blueberry, lime, hibiscus, and caramel. — Ruth Reichl

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I bake bread nearly every day; I use Jim Lahey's no-knead method and leave it to rise overnight. — Ruth Reichl

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Ask people to pitch in - hand them a spoon and ask them to stir. Doing things together, having everyone help, makes for a nicer party. — Ruth Reichl

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American food is the food of immigrants. You go back a couple of hundred years, and we were all immigrants, unless we're going to talk about Native American cuisine. — Ruth Reichl

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I'm convinced that the main reason we've become so obsessed with restaurants is due to our basic need to get out of virtual space and into a real one. We're not going out to eat merely to share food; we're there to sit at the same table together, slow down, breathe the same air. — Ruth Reichl

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If we make it national policy that we will support small farmers the way we support agribusiness, we'll suddenly see it change in terms of the cost of organic food. — Ruth Reichl

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But when I told her they didn't cost one penny and were very nutritious (I made that part up, but I'm sure it must be true), she ate them up. She packed them into her lunch pail this morning, and when I looked — Ruth Reichl

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We in America have gotten addicted to cheap food. The result of that is antibiotic-laden fish, foods that are bred to be portable. — Ruth Reichl

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What was so extraordinary to me about going through this box of my mother's letters and diaries was meeting my mother not as my mother, but as a real person. And what breaks my heart is that I had no idea how self-aware she was and how protective of me she was. — Ruth Reichl

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Every restaurant is a theater, and the truly great ones allow us to indulge in the fantasy that we are rich and powerful. When restaurants hold up their end of the bargain, they give us the illusion of being surrounded by servants intent on ensuring our happiness and offering extraordinary food.
But even modest restaurants offer the opportunity to become someone else, at least for a little while. Restaurants free us from mundane reality; that is part of their charm. When you walk through the door, you are entering neutral territory where you are free to be whoever you choose for the duration of the meal. — Ruth Reichl

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One of the effects of cheap food is, we have food that is so unsatisfactory. We need to go back to flavor. — Ruth Reichl

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The truth is, as much as I loved writing restaurant reviews, it always felt very self-indulgent to me. It was so much fun, I loved doing it, but there's so much else to say about food. — Ruth Reichl

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When you're a restaurant critic, you're not home at night, so breakfast became really important for us. — Ruth Reichl

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But I have always been persuaded that someday, when I grow up, I am destined for great things. And then I wonder when, exactly, I expect that will be. — Ruth Reichl

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I discovered that endings have their own odd thrill. In the mania of the moment, it's possible to forget what you are losing. — Ruth Reichl

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Really, the only way to face the biggest problems we have is for the government to change the way they subsidize food. The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger than a salad, and that's insane. — Ruth Reichl

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To me, cooking is man's natural activity. But I think writing is really hard. Certainly writing fiction is the hardest thing I've ever done. — Ruth Reichl

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A thousand years ago the Chinese had an entirely codified kitchen while the French were still gnawing on bones. Chopsticks have been around since the fourth century B.C. Forks didn't show up in England until 1611, and even then they weren't meant for eating but just to hold the meat still while you hacked at it with your knife. — Ruth Reichl

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What does happen in 'Gourmet,' we had eight test kitchens, and at any given time, there were, like, ten or twelve test cooks. And whenever anybody finished something, they would yell, 'Taste!' and everyone would go running towards it, and then taste, and then brutally deconstruct the dish. — Ruth Reichl

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When I came to 'Gourmet,' I had no clue how to run a magazine; for television, I am fascinated to learn about editing. — Ruth Reichl

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Some magazines are run from the top down, where the editor-in-chief decides what every article is going to be and who's going to write them, and then they're doled out. My idea is to do it the opposite way, to do it from the bottom up. — Ruth Reichl

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I was in Berkeley when the food energy in America was in Berkeley. Then it moved to Los Angeles, and I went to Los Angeles. It moved to New York, and I went there. — Ruth Reichl

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Writing about food is my default. — Ruth Reichl

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I am telling you that if things can change for the worse, the opposite is also true. But only if you open yourself to the possibilities. — Ruth Reichl

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When a person has lived generously and fought fiercely, she deserves more than sadness at the end. — Ruth Reichl

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Change works both ways. You must accept those moments, experience them, and let them go. Because if you allow yourself to get stuck in that minute, nothing will ever change. — Ruth Reichl

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M. F. K. Fisher was a wonder and a huge influence, and someone I got to know pretty well at the end of her life. — Ruth Reichl

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The way we allow children to be advertised to is shocking. Eating is a learned behavior, and we've made these kids sitting ducks for all the bad messages about industrialized food. The fact that we allow that to go on is horrifying. — Ruth Reichl

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What often, too often, happens in magazines is that you end up with a great editorial product, and then you're selling things that you don't really approve of. — Ruth Reichl

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Reading an audio book is a very odd experience because there are three people sitting out there while you're reading in this glass booth, and you can see their reactions. — Ruth Reichl

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A real woman is someone who knows what she wants. If you want to stay home, that's fine, but you have to be clear-eyed. — Ruth Reichl

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Lacy little green fronds waved up through clear liquid; it reminded me of a forest stream in early spring, just after the ice has melted. I picked up a frond, and as I put it in my mouth, I experienced a moment of cool, pure freshness.
"What is it?" I asked Jake, enchanted.
"Mozuku, a special kind of seaweed from Okinawa. You don't think it's slimy?"
"Slippery, but I love the way it feels in my mouth. — Ruth Reichl

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I got back into the car thinking how lucky I was to be aware of happiness. Most people don't recognize their own good fortune until it has departed. And then it is too late." "What about Remy? What — Ruth Reichl

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If you have caviar, the way to eat it is by the spoonful. Don't combine it with shrimp, pomegranate seeds and huitlacoche. — Ruth Reichl

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For me, cooking is a way to try and please people and tell them I love them. When I fall in love with someone, I want to feed them as well. — Ruth Reichl

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I don't think there's one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner. — Ruth Reichl

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I don't care what a lot of anonymous strangers think about restaurants. — Ruth Reichl

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That's what I like so much about libraries, they smell the way we would like to imagine the past. — Ruth Reichl

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Tommy and I put on a radio play to entertain everyone while they unpacked their cookies. It was about a girl who saves up money for a prom dress, but at the last minute she says, "It's only clothes," and buys war bonds instead. The play was a big success, and my whole school pledged to buy war bonds, which should have made me happy. But it gave me a queer feeling; it's easy to write propaganda when everyone agrees with you. Do you understand? I think I'd rather bake cookies; it feels more honest.
Your friend,
Lulu


Sammy looked down at me. "A girl after your own heart!" he said. "In my experience it is a rare female who can say, 'It's only clothes,' and when the war came, you discovered who you really were. Women changed. Children grew up overnight. I wonder what happened to this one. — Ruth Reichl

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I think I wrote my first piece about food in 1978. — Ruth Reichl