Last week I was fortunate to meet iconic food critic, Ruth Reichl as I was invited to attend two events that she was participating in during her Vancouver visit. She was here on a book tour, to promote her latest book “Delicious”. Within the past year I was fortunate to meet 3 Jewish women all of which are prominent food critics or cookbook authors as they each visited Vancouver. From my wonderful tasting with Mollie Katzen, to lunch, an afternoon and an evening with Bonnie Stern, to an evening and an afternoon with Ruth Reichl, I am honoured to have met these wonderful and inspiring women. Over the years I was an avid reader of Gourmet Magazine which I subscribed to up until it’s closure, my love for food began at a young age and I cooked many dishes from recipes in Gourmet. I had also read and cooked the recipes from both Mollie Katzen and Bonnie Stern, some of these were to celebrate the Jewish holidays and others were vegetarian and such.

Ruth Reichl is a legend. An award winning writer, Ruth was the restaurant critic for The Los Angeles Times (1984-1993) and The New York Times (1993-1999) before she was Editor in Chief of Gourmet Magazine for the ten years before its closing in 2009. Her previous books include the following bestsellers: Garlic and Sapphires, Comfort Me with Apples, Tender at the Bone and For You Mom, Finally. Ruth’s writing is at once hilarious and insightful, full of stories that beg to be retold aloud after being read.

An evening with Ruth Reichl was presented by Books to Cooks at The Vancouver Club where she signed copies of her new book “Delicious”.

This was followed by a reception of wine and canapes. Robert McCullough, Publisher of the Appetite imprint at Random House Canada introduced Ruth.

Ruth then spoke about her new novel “Delicious” which is about a young Californian who travels to work for an iconic food magazine in New York and finds a series of letters written during WWII to renowned chef, James Beard. She then read from the book and a Q&A then followed.

The next afternoon I attended a small reception with some other food bloggers at Books to Cooks where Ruth and I had a chance to talk again. I asked her how her gingerbread recipe came to be in the book, “Delicious” and why there was only one recipe. Ruth explained that she didn’t want any recipes in the book, however her publisher did and they wanted at least one. Somehow Gingerbread was the recipe to be, she didn’t exactly have the recipe published so she set out to perfect it. The night before all the guests and I received some of her gingerbread as a parting gift. During the afternoon visit, I had another piece of this delicious cake.

You can find Delicious at Books to Cooks Bookshop located at 1740 West 2nd Avenue (just East of Burrard) in Vancouver.

You can follow Ruth Reichl on twitter @RuthReichl

By: Richard Wolak