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Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
Unavailable
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
Unavailable
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
Audiobook10 hours

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

Written by Ruth Reichl

Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is Ruth Reichl's riotous account of the many disguises she employs to dine anonymously. There is her stint as Molly Hollis, a frumpy blond with manicured nails and an off-beige Armani suit that Ruth takes on when reviewing Le Cirque. The result: her famous double review of the restaurant: first she ate there as Molly; and then as she was coddled and pampered on her visit there as Ruth, New York Times food critic.

What is even more remarkable about Reichl's spy games is that as she takes on these various disguises, she finds herself changed not just superficially, but in character as well. She gives a remarkable account of how one's outer appearance can very much influence one's inner character, expectations, and appetites.

As she writes, "Every restaurant is a theater . . . even the modest restaurants offer the opportunity to become someone else, at least for a little while." GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is a reflection on personal identity and role playing in the decadent, epicurean theaters of the restaurant world.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 19, 2005
ISBN9781415925300
Unavailable
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

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Reviews for Garlic and Sapphires

Rating: 3.864615282051282 out of 5 stars
4/5

975 ratings78 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loved it! Really enjoyable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book! It was exactly what I had hoped for, a dishy memoir starting with how Ruth Reichl got her job as food critic of the New York TImes, and detailing the different personas she used to avoid detection when exploring restaurants. The food is lovingly described, as are the restaurants she visits, and the book is peppered with a few of her actual reviews, as well as a few of her personal recipes at relevant points (and I literally want to try every single one of them, as they sound both tasty and fairly simple). By the time I finished the book, I felt like Ruth and I were old school chums who'd just spent a weekend catching up on each other's lives -- that's how approachable and open this book is.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    a good read; makes you hungry
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Marvelous, wonderful recounting of Ruth's time as a restaurant critic for the NYTimes. A fantastic read, it's not just about food and disguises, but what she learned about herself along the way, and the people she met... really really fun read. I'd stay up till 2am to finish a chapter, it was so good!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I enjoyed reading this book so much -- wished the stories would go on and on. Having lived on northern New Jersey and day tripped into NYC for movies, musicals, or meals, I could visualize Ruth's experiences.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Ruth never disappoints. What a wonderful view of the restaurants in New York. A fun insight to her disguise’s and the growth they created in her personal life!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was an engaging listen of a world I will never understand or experience. A lot of fancy food, and I’m not sure if it was just the 90s or what because I don’t think chic restaurants are like this now. Reichl’s disguises were interesting, but I kind of felt offended for the people she was basing them on as how a person looks does not a character make.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I want to meet this woman! I've read both memoirs and now these stories about how she would disguise herself so she wouldn't get recognized at restaurants as the NY Times food critic. Fascinating - I didn't want the book to end!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A memoir about life as a professional food critic for the most prestigious paper in America. Though it sounds glamorous, eating anonymously often means being slighted, humiliated and doesn't guarantee good food. Add to this the stress, many evenings away from home and family, and the habitual critical attitude and you have a recipe for eventual burnout. Walk with the author as she tries on different personalities and goes to some of the most famous restaurants in New York.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Love books with crazy mothers and food.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked listening to her talk about her process for going to restaurants in disguise and writing their reviews.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love reading about food, and Ruth Reichl's food writing is some of the best there is. I will probably never eat in the restaurants she reviews, nor even understand how to do so, but it is amazing to see food through her eyes.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is about Reichl's experience as the New York Time's food critic from 1993-1999. It primarily focuses on her attempts to dine without being recognized and on the culture of the Times. It's interesting but I've already read her book about the next step in her career as editor of Gourmet magazine, and it remains my favorite of the three books I've read by her so far.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I adored this one! The famous New York Times food critic describes dining experiences that left her in ecstasy or agony. She wore disguises to her meals, easing wigs on to her head and new shrugging on new personalities. Her descriptions make you taste each morsel alongside her. She describes taste and texture, the tiniest notes in each dish along side the bustling streets of the city. Just wonderful!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Really enjoyable read about how the author came to the job of a New York Times restaurant food critic. To be able to give the best reviews she chose to go in disguise to find out not only how well she would be treated but just how good or bad the food really could be when eating at the establishment she was reviewing. Thoroughly enjoyed her stories and how much fun she had creating new disguises for her job. Picked this one up from the library wanted to read after having read her earlier book Tender at the Bone.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was a pleasant visit. I do enjoy food criticism when it's well done. Reichl seemed to develop an identity crisis though.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another food book. I was actually reading this and MFK Fisher's The Gastronomical Me together, for an online reading group. Turned out to be a very nice combination.

    Ruth Reichl was the restaurant critic at the New York Times for quite a while (I'm sure the book says how long, but I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look), and this book tells the story of that time. I was surprised by how much I liked the book. At one or another point, in fact, I thought about stopping reading it, but I'm glad I never did. Some of the problems I was having, which I thought was just me, she actually took on directly in the book (and in her NYT column, apparently). Namely, is it a good thing to be spending all that time writing about meals most people could never afford to have? Just about the time that question was really starting to bother me, she addressed the fact that it also bothered her. From that point on, especially, I liked the book.

    There's a lot going on in this memoir, psychologically, which made it an interesting read far beyond the food-talk. If you're interested in food, restaurants, journalism, theatre (yes, theatre), or memoirs, I would recommend the book. If you're interested in more than one of those things, I'd recommend it all the more strongly. If you're not particularly interested in any of them, you still might like it. It is a well written, well filled-out book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A book which doesn't disappoint. It meets expectations. But nothing else. If you expect to read about restaurant critics, their bitching and moaning, if you expect to read about poor service in restaurants and perfect service once they discover the food critic in their dining room then this book won't disappoint.

    Ruth Reichl writes about her time at the New York Times. She pulls all the cliches and stereotypes. Life at a big American newspaper is described exactly as you would expect it. Throw in a husband not really into fancy food, a little son, a colleague who has cancer and you get the mix for a Hollywood romance. Maybe that's what Reichl was writing for, the movie contract.

    There is nothing surprising, no excitment, no clever twists, the plot just flows along the soft bends in the story's little creek.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Absolutely wonderful. When Reichl agrees to become the restaurant critic for the NY Times, she has no idea how her life will change. Forced into disguises to see how the non-celebrity actually experiences a restaurant the story becomes unexpectedly analytical. But the gustatorial experiences are more than you can possibly imagine. Reichl brings the food to life, and we share her delight in the exquisite and her dismay at the meals that are hype with nothing to appreciate. She even includes recipes! I found myself wishing this book would go on and on.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I found this on the street, so I didn't have especially high hopes, but I found her writing enjoyable and compelling. I wish I could've seen photos of Reichl in her different disguises to see if she was as amazingly transformed as she claims. I also found it interesting how many of the top restaurants she mentioned in the book are now closed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A memoir of Reichl's days as a restaurant critic with the New York Times. This is more than just a fantasy of fine food and dining, although it is that, it is a book of self discovery. As Reichl adopts various persona and dresses up in disguises to avoid being known at the restaurants she wants to review, she discovers aspects of her character which she hadn't explored before. She describes this with humor and self-depreciation. I never thought about the process of writing up a critique of a restaurant. You would think it would be a dream job, but I can see how eating out so many times would begin to wear on a person. Especially if they had a family. As the author dressed up as older women, redheads, blondes, mousy women, she discovered that each persona was treated differently. An eye-opener to the ways wait-staff view their customers.If you love food, and reading about food, this is a terrific book for you. Reichl knows how to describe food so that you can smell, feel, taste and see it. There are a few recipes included, but they are not by any means the focus of the book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Really fun book. Loved the ability to take on new people. Loved the food information.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have enjoyed all of Reichl's books. This book goes into her need to develop various disguises so she is not recognized when she is reviewing restaurants and she finds that her appearance influences many aspects of her life.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The author describes food in such a way that it makes me hungry. At the same time, it's enough to just read it - I didn't feel the need to go out and eat. She sprinkles (ha!) recipes throughout the book. It's interesting to read about New York in the mid-90's, when the new kids were chefs like Rocco DiSpirito.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    My main issue with this book is its redundancy. Why must Reichl tell the story of one particular column, disguise, or review in elaborate detail, then follow it with the article itself which she is revealed to have cannibalized freely for the composition of the preceding chapter? Bo-ring.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Thoroughly enjoyable if you enjoy food writing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Audio Book performed by Bernadette Dunne

    Subtitle: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
    Well, that’s a pretty good synopsis of this memoir of Reichl’s tenure as the restaurant critic for The New York Times in the 1990s.

    I loved her stories of the various restaurants, from tiny noodle shops to elegant restaurants, where even the King of Spain is kept waiting at the bar. What I really appreciated about the book, however, was the “secret life” part – her own growth as a person. As Reichl tried on various disguises she found that she was also revealing different personalities – timid or demanding, happy or dour, compassionate or selfish. She learned much about herself, what she liked and what she didn’t like. And she was fearless in revealing these various facets of herself to the reader.

    Her writing really shines, not surprisingly, when she is describing food. I am in awe of her palate, her ability to tease out and identify the subtle flavorings in a complex dish:

    (Describing the risotto) It tasted as if a chef had stood at the stove, stirring diligently as he coaxed each grain of rice into soaking up stock. As a finale he had strewn plump little morsels of lobster through the rice, giving it the taste of the ocean.

    (Gougeres) And then I didn’t say anything else because I had taken a bite of one of the little puffs and I was concentrating on the way they simply evaporated into hot, cheesy air when my mouth closed over them.

    (Quenelles de brochet) Very few restaurants still make these ethereal dumplings, a marriage of air and ocean, and even fewer do them right. … I take a bite and the softness surrounds my mouth with the taste of lobster, of fish, of butter and then it just dissolves, disappears, leaving nothing but the memory in my mouth. And I take another bite, and another, and suddenly I’m floating on the flavor, and the world has vanished.

    (Venison) Surrounded by chestnuts, apples, a fruity puree of squash, the meat is so delicious that I find myself eating as if it is the first course. When I look down, I realize that I have eaten everything, even the single aromatic grape that decorated the plate.

    A delicious memoir, and I devoured every word. I think I’ll make lamb for dinner tonight….

    Bernadette Dunne does a marvelous job performing the audio version of this book. She has reasonably good skill as a voice artist to give the various characters unique and believable voices, though her 4-year-old Nicky sound like an adult imitating a little boy. Her pacing is good, and she even makes the recipes sound interesting.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    wanted to like this but it was just too much about her job and not enough of anything else. sometimes in her disguise she was downright rude to wait staff.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read all three of Ruth Reichl's books in one go, as if they were one big book. I really enjoyed all three, but this title is different from the first two. In Tender at the Bone and Comfort me with Apples, Reichl spends more time talking about her personal life and her struggle to figure out what she wants to do with her life. Her personal relationships are in flux and her feelings about California and her beloved Berkeley are up and down.
    By Garlic and Sapphires, she has moved to NYC and taken the job as the restaurant critic at the Times. This book touches on her personal life, but focuses mostly on her reviews and her experience coming up with different disguises so she can review restaurants in anonymity. I liked it, but I liked the first two books much better. :)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A quick fascinating read. Made me want to go eat in NYC. Yum!