Reichl Ruth Quotes & Sayings

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

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

Thank you American Library Association for naming The Gluten-Free Revolution one of the "Top 10 Food Books of 2014" Thrilled to share this honor with Alice Waters, Mark Bittman, Ruth Reichl, Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, et al — Jax Peters Lowell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While cooking demands your entire attention, it also rewards you with endlessly sensual pleasures ... The seductive softness of chocolate beginning to melt from solid to liquid. The tug of sauce against the spoon when it thickens in teh pan, and the lovely lightness of Parmesan drifting from the grater in gossamer flakes. Time slows down in teh kitchen, offering up an entire universe of small satisfactions. — Ruth Reichl

Let's face it: my life tends to revolve around food, and I love feeding people. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

The way we live is changing. Each year, our free time shrinks a little more as computers clamor for an increasing percentage of our attention. — Ruth Reichl

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

The critic has to do more of what the book critics and art critics have done in the past. Which is give you a context for understanding the restaurant, give you a better way to appreciate it, give you the tools to go in there and be a more informed diner who can get more pleasure out of the experience. — Ruth Reichl

I came from a family where, you know, we sat down at the table every night, and you better have a story to tell. My father never wrote his stories down. And you know, I learned that they went farther if you wrote them down. — Ruth Reichl

The first time you make something, follow the recipe, then figure out how to tailor it to your own tastes. — Ruth Reichl

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

One of the secrets to staying young is to always do things you don't know how to do, to keep learning. — Ruth Reichl

My yogurt was nestled into a bag, waiting to turn into aushak, and all around us were sausages and pastry, lollipops and spices, chicken and cheese. Any world that contained all this, I thought surveying our loot, was a very fine place. I felt reinvigorated, alive, optimistic. The though of getting back to work suddenly seemed like fun. — Ruth Reichl

It is not 'only' food, I said heatedly. There's meaning hidden underneath each dish. — Ruth Reichl

I have to admit I've never had a Fruit Loop. — Ruth Reichl

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

If you really taste a doughnut, it's pretty disgusting. They taste of grease. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

The hardest part of cooking is shopping, and if you organize yourself and shop once a week, you're halfway there. — Ruth Reichl

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

Given a choice between great food and boring company or boring food and great company, I'll take the great company any day. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

I couldn't live without butter. Butter is probably my single favourite food. — Ruth Reichl

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

When I was younger, I read all the great food memoirs, by M.F.K. Fisher and Laurie Colwin and Julia Child and Nicolas Freeling and Ruth Reichl, and felt flooded with a sense of comfort and safety. — Kate Christensen

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

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

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

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

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

What I like best is the challenge of learning something I didn't know how to do, going beyond my comfort level. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

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

Sharing food has always had a central place in civilized societies; it's no accident that so many of our cultural, religious and patriotic rituals are involved with eating. — Ruth Reichl

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

Writing about food is my default. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

I was not prepared for the feel of the noodles in my mouth, or the purity of the taste. I had been in Japan for almost a month, but I had never experiences anything like this. The noodles quivered as if they were alive, and leapt into my mouth where they vibrated as if playing inaudible music. — Ruth Reichl

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

My mother's name was Miriam, but most people called her Mim. — Ruth Reichl

We were having a class on civics, talking about what makes America a great country. I said I thought one important reason is that we've all come from different places in the world and that we learn from one another. — Ruth Reichl

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

In really good times, you say, 'No, I'm not taking that ad.' But in bad times, you'll take anything. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

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

We in the media have been guilty about not doing a better job of making people understand how really simple cooking is. We've made everyone feel like they have to be a chef. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

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

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

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

The thing I like most in my kitchen is my marble counters. Everybody said not to use marble because it's fragile, it stains, it cracks, and it doesn't remain beautiful. But I love marble. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

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

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

When people flatter you constantly it is very tempting to think you deserve it. — Ruth Reichl

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

I don't think I hate any food trends. — Ruth Reichl

There is an almost anti-epicurean tradition at the very base of America. For much of the middle part of American history, people who wanted to overcome that went to France. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

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

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

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

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

We slid along water reds and greens, the changing lights captured in the canvas of wet tar. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

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

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

Life is so endlessly delicious — Ruth Reichl

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

It was Mac who first made me think about the way food brought people together - and kept them apart. — Ruth Reichl

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

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

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

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

That's the most terrible thing about being a child; you're convinced that it's all your fault. Lulu — Ruth Reichl

Laos is a country where everything is eaten. When I came back, I would find myself chopping parsley and thinking: 'Why am I throwing these stems away? They're perfectly edible.' — Ruth Reichl

I like to work. I believe that work helps us find our self worth. — Ruth Reichl

I wish you could have seen the kitchen when I was done: It looked like a hurricane had blown right in the door! But I cleaned it all up, and when Mother came home the whole house smelled warm and spicy, Bing Crosby was singing "White Christmas" on the radio, I was wearing a clean apron, and she called me her "little homemaker."
What would you think about tomato mincemeat cookies? I bet no one else will think of that! — Ruth Reichl

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

We're in a transient state - why hate our present selves? Let's save the energy for when we are eighty, when we are perhaps above, or beyond, changing. Then we can hate, if hate we must. — Ruth Reichl

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