Ruth Reichl - Comfort Me With Apples [Kindle azw3]

Her unorthodox style -- writing reviews that read like short stories and introducing the Reluctant Gourmet as a presence in the reviews, for example -- elicits both praise and criticism, but led to later positions as restaurant critic of The New York Times and then editor-in-chief of Gourmet.Not only does Reichl chronicle her apprenticeship as a critic (including travels to France, China, and Thailand); she also covers the major personal events in her life: the long, slow dissolution of her first marriage; the affair with her food editor boss; the death of her father; and the electrically charged meeting with the man who would become her second husband. Some of these moments are so personal you may feel like an unwitting voyeur. Most heartbreaking is the story of the baby that Reichl and her second husband adopt -- only to have the natural parents show up before the final papers are signed and take her back. As final proof that food cannot be separated from life, Reichl ends each chapter with one or two recipes from that time in her life, like the dacquoise she ate in Paris, the mushroom soup she made for her mother, the appetizer Wolfgang Puck served at the White House in 1983, and Danny Kaye's lemon pasta.