Comfort Me With Apples - Ruth Reichl

You have probably deduced from reading this blog that I love books. Here's a new fun fact about me: I also love food. And when the two come together it's like a delicious explosion of bibliofoodaphilia. (Yes, I did just invent a new word.)

One of the things that's so great about reading is that words have the ability to make you feel emotion and let you experience something you otherwise might not. Imagine you're holding a peach; it's firm yet soft in your hand, a beautifully orangey-pink color. You take a bite and your teeth sink through the fuzzy skin, feeling the burst as the fleshy insides dance in your mouth with their sweet flavor delighting your taste buds one by one. A drop of juice escapes through the corner of your lips and begins to roll down your chin. You try to catch it with your tongue but it's too late, and all you can do is giggle at the simple pleasure that comes from eating a perfectly ripe peach.

There. I made you hungry didn't I? The power of language at work...and no one does this as well as Ruth Reichl. From her first book of stories about growing up, "Tender at the Bone", followed by "Comfort Me With Apples", to her third book, "Garlic and Sapphires", chronicling her life in disguise as the New York Times food critic, her writing is filled with humor, wit, and touching stories about how food can bring families together (or pull them apart).

I read the 'trilogy' out of order, beginning with Garlic and Sapphires, then Tender at the Bone, and I just finished Comfort Me With Apples. But it didn't even matter. The writing is so poignant, honest, and approachable she probably could have written about her love of anthills and I would have been fascinated.

Reichl has an amazing gift that allows the reader to enter her world of food, letting us experience that first bite of peach time and time again. It left me desperately wanting to be a part of it all...and also pretty hungry.