In Garlic & Sapphires, Ruth Reichl writes of her experiences as the food critic for the New York Times. As a native Michigander, I didn't realize that power that the NYT food critic holds. Reichl begins the book by telling a tale of being recognized on an airplane while en route to her new home in New York City. The lady on the plane advises Reichl that restaurants will have pictures of her in their kitchens, so that the staff will know if she is there and can treat her accordingly. This story was a great hook for me and got me interested in the book. I like to think that my (adopted) hometown of Ann Arbor is pretty cosmopolitan and that we take our food pretty seriously; however, I would not know the Ann Arbor News food critic if he or she walked up to me and whacked me over the head with a dead fish.
Reichl spends part of the book telling us about the disguises the she uses when dining at various restaurants. I enjoyed reading about how the restaurants treated Reichl's "characters" as opposed to how they treated Reichl the critic. While our book group did find the characters a little repetitive by the end, the creations themselves were fantastic---from the bold and brash "tourist" to the mousy and meak, Reichl paints a vivid picture of who is going to be.
Intertwined with stories of how she created and designed her characters, Reichl tells about her experiences as a food critic. Our book group appreciated how Reichl really pushed her editors to let her review an assortment of ethnic restaurants. While many of us are "meat and potato" kind of gals, we loved reading about the variety of food. We were amazed that Reichl could discern so many tastes in the foods that she ate. I mean, the woman even identified squid ink! Another nice touch was the recipes that were included throughout the book. While my entire book group found the book to be an easy read (we all finished it! Truly a marvel!), we didn't all necessarily fall in love with it. Personally, I felt that something was missing. Much like a full meal is incomplete without a soup course, this book lacked a little je ne sais pas. Perhaps the book could have been improved by fleshing out the background characters a little more, or by talking more about the inspirations for her various characters. For instance, early in the book, Reichl makes a comment that she can move back to New York now that her mother is no longer alive. What, huh? All of us in the book group wanted to know more about that statement. Late in the book, Reichl talks about how she became burnt out and spent many weeks avoiding writing a food column. I would have liked to known more about what she was experiencing, and what she did during those weeks. Overall, the book club decided that one needs a certain amount of expertise to truly appreciate some of the "strawberry and champagne"-type food that Reichl describes. However, even a "beer and burger" girl like me enjoyed the descriptions and the chance to eat vicariously at four star restaurants. It would be cool to finish this review by saying something like "for the review of the four star restaurants, we gave this book a four star review of our own." Unfortunately, I can't, because we rated it: