Ruth Reichl > Quotes

“I close my eyes and feel the flavors somersaulting through my mouth, a circus of sensations.”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“Laurie was the nurturer, mopping up behind me, always calm, always available, always ready to talk. And Larry was the disciplinarian who kept us all in line.”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“whenever a woman smiles, her dress should smile with her.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Because all the talk about “quality time” is utter nonsense; children don’t need quality time. They need your time. Lots of it. And they let you know it.”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“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, Delicious!

“The more stars in your itinerary, the less likely you are to find the real life of another country.”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“He was a tall, thin stork of a man who stalked into my office, disapproval etched into every line of his body. His head was small, the hair so closely cropped that you couldn’t help noticing his compact, neat ears. His face bore so few distinguishing characteristics I thought that if you tried to describe him you’d end up noting his impeccable posture and that he was very, very clean.”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“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, Delicious!

“I got back into the car thinking how lucky I was to be aware of happiness!”
― Ruth Reichl

“I remember the pissaladière. We stood there watching them cook and eating that soft, oily bread. Back then I was so poor I was living on bread and cheese, and the flavor of olives and anchovies went straight through me."
He stopped, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower, as if he was summoning the words from the air. "The wine was flowing, and the celery was crisp. Richard had found some old farmer who gave him a great ripe wheel of Brie that dripped off the edges of the bread. Richard and that crazy chef kept arguing, but it wasn't a fight, it was a seduction."
Stella wanted to ask what they had argued about, but she was afraid to interrupt the rhythm of his words.
"Richard wanted to keep it simple--- you know how he is--- but that chef had his own ideas. I remember he started dicing fish and mixing it with onions, tomatoes, and little bits of celery. 'Limes!' he said. 'I must have limes!' None of us had ever heard of ceviche, and we were astonished. Then Richard concocted a chicken gratin with a cheese custard on top, and the chef made the most beautiful salad I'd ever seen. He threw everything into it--- pieces of lemon, bits of cheese, and then he took the violets out of the vase and tossed in the petals. It was beautiful.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“The difference between talking about it and doing it is doing it.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I was the cheerleader, the instigator, creating chaos, insisting we make changes right up to the last minute when someone came up with a better idea.”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“Cover the pot and set it back into the oven. Bake for 30 minutes, remove the cover, and bake for another 15 minutes or so, until the loaf has turned a deep golden caramel color. The scent of the baking bread will be almost shockingly delicious, but you’re going to have to control yourself. You need to let the bread cool on a rack for at least an hour before eating it. But once that hour has passed, this bread, with some cold, sweet butter, will be one of the best things you have ever tasted.”
― Ruth Reichl, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life: A Cookbook

“The portrait is the only clue we’ll ever have to how she saw herself.” Although paint was not Stella’s medium, she wondered, for just a moment, how she might portray herself.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“It sounds so much better in French.” “Most things do.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“A year earlier, restaurants had been asking if he wanted a booster seat; now they asked if he’d like a drink.”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“But when people flatter you constantly it is very tempting to think that you deserve it.”
― Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

“Mom ignored this as she shifted into the aggressive tone she used at her most manic. By then we’d learned to read Mom’s moods; after years on a psychiatrist’s couch she’d finally been diagnosed as bipolar, and we’d come to expect the extreme swings that moved through her like weather, altering every aspect of her being. The”
― Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

“The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“In her walks through Paris, Stella had not seen anything that remotely resembled Le Sauvage. The house seemed to merge with the landscape, walking so lightly on the land it nearly vanished. The interior had the same effect; as they entered, the walls seemed to melt away. It was an astonishing architectural trick, creating the illusion that they were not going inside a building but merely inhabiting a new space.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“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, Delicious!

“CAKE whole black peppercorns whole cloves whole cardamom 1 cinnamon stick 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 3 large eggs 1 large egg yolk 1 cup sour cream 1½ sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 cup sugar 2 large pieces fresh ginger root (¼ cup, tightly packed, when finely grated) zest from 2 to 3 oranges (1½ teaspoons finely grated) Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 6-cup Bundt pan. Grind your peppercorns, cloves, and cardamom and measure out ¼ teaspoon of each. (You can use pre-ground spices, but the cake won’t taste as good.) Grind your cinnamon stick and measure out 1 teaspoon. (Again, you can use ground cinnamon if you must.) Whisk the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt in a small bowl. In another small bowl, whisk the eggs and egg yolk into the sour cream. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar in a stand mixer until the mixture is light, fluffy, and almost white. This should take about 3 minutes. Grate the ginger root—this is a lot of ginger—and the orange zest. Add them to the butter/sugar mixture. Beat the flour mixture and the egg mixture, alternating between the two, into the butter until each addition is incorporated. The batter should be as luxurious as mousse. Spoon batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes, until cake is golden and a wooden skewer comes out clean. Remove to a rack and cool in the pan for 10 minutes. SOAK ½ cup bourbon 1½ tablespoons sugar While the cake cools in its pan, simmer the bourbon and the sugar in a small pot for about 4 minutes. It should reduce to about ⅓ cup. While the cake is still in the pan, brush half the bourbon mixture onto its exposed surface (the bottom of the cake) with a pastry brush. Let the syrup soak in for a few minutes, then turn the cake out onto a rack. Gently brush the remaining mixture all over the cake. GLAZE ¾ cup powdered sugar, sifted or put through a strainer 5 teaspoons orange juice Once the cake is cooled, mix the sugar with the orange juice and either drizzle the glaze randomly over the cake or put it into a squeeze bottle and do a controlled drizzle. AUTHOR’S NOTE This is a work of fiction.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“if things can change for the worse, the opposite is also true. But only if you open yourself to the possibilities.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“vision she’d had. Volumes were stacked everywhere: on shelves, in great heaps on the floor, in a zigzag line running up a ramshackle flight of stairs. Books owned the space. She took a long, deep sniff; this was not the industrial scent of ink, paper, and cleaning fluid of ordinary bookstores. She took another breath: People had eaten sandwiches and onion soup here, they’d drunk wine and beer as they paged through the books, fallen in love around them. Moving into the shop, she noticed a small blond girl roaming around, picking up volumes with grubby hands. Nobody seemed to mind; nobody stopped her. These books were not destined to sit sedately on tables or be shelved in alphabetical order; these books were meant to become part of your life.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“One lost soul looking for another. Doesn’t that describe us all?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“When Ruthie and I went for the final fitting at Balmain”
― Ruth Reichl, Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

“be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“There are many kinds of crime.” Her voice was gentle. “I’ve always thought the most unforgivable is to have a gift and turn your back on it.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“He was like a jazz musician, joyfully improvising, imagining tastes that ordinary people could not. He pulled ingredients apart and reconstructed them in endlessly surprising ways: clear little cubes that tasted of just-picked tomatoes still warm from the sun, or cheese puffs that floated into your mouth and simply vanished, leaving a trail of flavor in their wake. One day he melted chocolate, mixed in chilies, and wrapped the sauce around tart orange ice; people begged for seconds.
She'd never met anyone like him, and as she watched him cook, Stella saw that in the kitchen all the qualities that made him a poor choice as a parent or a partner turned into strengths. Utterly unafraid of failure, he was willing to try anything. It was the source of his creativity. He was a confident person who pleased himself; if it didn't work out, he simply moved on.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“He showed me how each wheel was stamped with the month and year, and then he cracked the first one open to reveal its pale cream-colored interior. He chipped off a hefty shard and handed it to me. I took a bite, and my mouth filled with the hopeful taste of fresh green grass and young field flowers welcoming the sun.
"That's the spring cheese." Sal was cracking the next wheel, which was stamped with an autumn date; he chipped off a little piece. The color was deeper, almost golden, the texture heavier and nubbier. When I put the cheese in my mouth it was richer, and if I let it linger on my tongue I could taste the lush fields of late summer, just as the light begins to die.
Sal sliced off a slab of winter cheese and put that into my mouth. It felt different on my tongue, smoother somehow, the flavor sharper. "It's like a different cheese." I was savoring it. I tasted again; there was a familiar flavor. "It tastes like hay!"
"Yes!" Sal was openly delighted. "I knew you were going to be able to taste how different this cheese is! Most Americans don't even notice, but that cheese is so different that, back in the old days, it was sold under a different name. The Parmesan made from December to March, when the cows were in the barn, was called 'invernengo'- winter cheese- because the flavor is so distinct.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!