Garlic And Sapphires: The Secret Life Of A Critic In Disguise (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
I listened to this on audiobook. The version I got from the library was read by Bernadette Dunne. Apparently there is a version out there that is read by Ruth Reichl, which I bet is superior. Bernadette was, well, mostly adequate but she mispronounced geoduck. Since I live in Olympia, I think I'm required to be offended by that. For the record, it's gooey-duck not geo-duck. Okay, thanks.This book is 1-part meditation on fame and pretentiousness, 1-part hilariously delicious food writing, 1-part love letter to NYC, and 1-part costume/identity crisis. It's a very good combination - too much of any part, and it would be off-kilter, but this works. So this is the story of Ruth Reichl, a NY native who was the food critic for the LA Times. She moves to NY to become a food critic for the NY Times at the urging of her husband and the persuasion of the Times editors and publishers, despite her hesitation and reluctance to take the position. She stays there from 1993 to 1999. The restaurant world in NY is very different from LA, and Ruth finds herself being profiled, stalked, and sought out at every worthwhile restaurant in town. They have flyers up in the kitchen with her picture on it - there are *rewards* for people who can say where she will eat next. She starts wearing costumes to go to restaurants, and compares the service - what does a poorly dressed, meek woman experience at this restaurant - and then Ruth contrasts this with the experience of the NY TIMES FOOD CRITIC at the same restaurant(when she goes as herself). The characters are hilarious, enlightening, sometimes a little sad. The theraputic aspects of costuming and becoming a character really plays out here - when she literally steps into her mother's shoes, and goes out as her mother, she understands better how it felt to move through the world as that difficult personality. Her mom is dead, but I like to think that brought a little peace to their relationship. Some of her characters are the best of herself - a redhead with a wide-mouthed smile and warm laugh - and some of them are the worst of herself - tweed, tightlipped, hypercritical - but the culmination is that they are all parts of herself. I know, it's a little overstated, but still a good reminder for those interested in performative identities. Each review she writes brings a slew of hate mail. Her readers are merciless. Her style is different from the former critic - she writes about more noodle houses, Korean BBQ's and sushi places in the first year than the previous guy did in his whole career. This does not make her especially popular, at first. People hate change. Eventually, she finds a balance between the fancy, award-winning restaurants with all-star chefs and the smaller places that represent really good dining experiences. But the way she writes about food is sexy and luscious. It's like being in the room. It's a whole story told in the description of one meal. I was struck by none of the squeamishness I usually feel when I (a vegetarian) sit through an omnivore's enthusiastic meat writing. Ruth talks about food, the people who cook it, the people who serve it, and the people who eat it with a sense of style and righteousness that thrills me to my toes. We are living in the era of the eaters manifestos, of a foodie renaissance, and Ruth's book fits pretty well into that larger conversation. When she discusses her history - in Berkley, starting out as a friend who fed her friends, a cook, and then a food writer, and then a reviewer, her voice makes a lot of sense. She is definitely seated in a particular moment in American Food History. It is also no surprise when she makes a career change at the end - Gourmet magazine seems like a natural fit for her at this point. I think she has some other memoirs about food, and I'm definitely going to look for them at the library. I really enjoyed this, and everyone who rode in my car while I was playing it seemed to tolerate it well. My thirteen year old stepchild practically had an adolescent tantrum when I told him it had to go back to the library.
Perhaps in the stultifying context of NYT, food critics and privilege Reichl comes as a breath of fresh air . . .what she lacks is class. By class I mean the good grace to have actual humility - not the self-satisfied aww-shucks persona that feigns humility and self-doubt, but the real thing wherein you realize that you don't know shit and you're lucky to be celebrated in any context. Reichl takes pot shots at everyone and everything. . .people (editors, chefs, other diners, etc) emerge as caricatures; myopic to their own shortcomings and the *truth* of world. Riechl presents herself as a great equalizer - bringing so-called "ethnic" cuisine into the dusty halls of the Old Gray Lady but is actually a crypto-snob about people who don't share her view. She creates a myriad of disguises to avoid special treatment at the dining establishments she reviews so she gets a "true" experience - but this book ends up being about the delights of disguises and ends up celebrating her own self-satisfied quasi-ingenuity. She delights in the ways she pulls the wool over various restaurateurs' (and hapless editors') eyes, their silly pretentiousness and their crass imperious ways - however it all leaves a bad taste in the mouth. She clearly has some kind of chip on her shoulder - I have ideas about why but what remains are unflattering portraits of the people who inhabit the world of "the paper of record" and high cuisine. Is that really a problem in the end? Don't these institutions deserve our contempt? Yes they deserve our contempt and yes her stance is a problem. This is a burn-all-bridges kind of memoir. It's not that she peoples this book with a bunch of slobs, it's that she sets it against the assumption that she's such a delectable, desirable and CORRECT navigator. Give me a break. . .she's a critic enamored of the smell of her own stink. . .in this case her smug implications that her's is an unprecedented approach to reviewing restaurants at which we'll never eat a bite. OK - clearly I'm mad at this book but it can be an entertaining read. . .thrift store purchase. . .nothing more. Oh and all the anecdotes taste of pure bullshit. This is a wildly inflated - tall-tale style book - something she mentions in the afterward - which is cheap. Her little son says the most charming and nauseating things! How wonderfully apropos!
What do You think about Garlic And Sapphires: The Secret Life Of A Critic In Disguise (2006)?
We're all nosy gossips at heart. This snappy account of Ruth Reichl's six years as The New York Times restaurant critic won't disappoint those looking for an insider's view of reviewing. Most of the book takes place in various swanky restaurants, but Reichl selects her most creative reviews and rarely wanders into Snobdom. After Reichl was pegged as the new critic for the Times on her flight to New York by the woman sitting next to her, she decided she would be needing some disguises. She created an eclectic cast of characters with the help of some friends, comparing the service she received anonymously to that she received as a VIP. Her dining partners in these food adventures are equally unique personages - an obnoxious "food warrior," who feted his 18-year-old son after his graduation with a 3-star restaurant tour of France, a wine aficionado who files the wines he tastes by the images they evoke, and her good friend, a saucy old dame with a flair for style. Sometimes I like Ruth, sometimes all the foie gras and discerning taste gets to be a bit much for me. Fortunately, it gets to be a bit much for her in the end, as well, and she turns her own critical eye on herself. Overall, a fun, quick read for people who like food, on par with Julia and Julia: My year of cooking dangerously.
—Sierra
Garlic and Sapphires is memoir about a New York Times food critic who "dresses up" as other people when attending restaurants and doesn't just care about how the food tastes, but everything else as well. She looks at the service she is given and at the service the people at the tables around her receive. She originally dresses up in order not to be noticed when reviewing a restaurant in order to not receive special treatment and be able to give a fair review, but soon finds that she is dressing up in order to dig deep into the idea of social class and wealth assumption.This book is unique because unlike other memoirs, Reichl inserts her reviews of restaurants into the book and incorporates them into the story. She describes her job at the office, at home, and in the field (the restaurants). This book is intriguing, yet not as chronological as I would have expected. Good read.
—Ben Canter
I really went back and forth on the rating for this. I like Ruth Reichl, I like what she's done with Gourmet, I like her non-elitist attitude, I like her food writing, and by all accounts, she's a genuinely nice person. But while she has a golden tongue for tasting, she has a wooden ear for dialogue. While her adventures in disguise have been confirmed by outside sources, they seem impossible to believe because her characterization is so wooden and awful. Heck, I almost questioned whether she actually had a son.So, although I hold Reichl in high esteem, I cannot, in good conscience, give this book higher than three stars. I guess this is how food critics feel!
—Summer
