Ruth Reichl on Writing You Can Taste (and it’s our 400th episode!)
About this episode
In this 400th episode, Ruth Reichl discusses her pioneering role in food writing and shares insights on sensory writing.
It’s our 400th episode and we’re celebrating with celebrated food critic and author Ruth Reichl! Ruth wrote her first food memoir before food memoir was a thing, and she takes us back there to when bookstores didn’t know what to do with her work. Ruth is a pioneer of the food movement in America, and is known for her mission to demystify the world of fine cuisine. This is a generous interview, full of history and story—as well as some encouraging tips about the art of sensory writing. For Ruth, it’s all about creativity. Ruth Reichl wrote her first cookbook in 1972. She spent the seventies as restaurant critic for New West Magazine and the eighties as restaurant critic and food editor of the Los Angeles Times . From 1993 to 1999 she was the restaurant critic for The New York Times before moving to Gourmet Magazine as Editor in Chief. A defining voice in American food writing and journalism over the past several decades, she’s written five memoirs, two novels and two cookbooks, edited a dozen books and hosted two television series. Her movie Food and Country is available on streaming and she produces a weekly newsletter, La Briffe, on Substack. The recipient of 7 James Beard…
People in this episode
Hosts: Brooke Warner, Grant Faulkner
Guest: Ruth Reichl
Topics covered
- food writing
- memoir
- creativity
- sensory writing
- American cuisine
Keywords
- Ruth Reichl
- food memoir
- sensory writing
- American food movement
- cooking
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: New West Magazine, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Gourmet Magazine, La Briffe, Substack
Books & works: Food and Country
More episodes of Memoir Nation
- Beth Ann Fennelly on The Micro Memoir
- Brandon Deyette on Writing in Another Voice
- Gail Butensky and Grant Faulkner on Telling Stories to Photos
- Caroline Paul on the Tension Between Obsession and Letting Go
- Danielle Bainbridge on Defying the Formula to Find Your Form
- Rich Benjamin on Writing a Memoir Centering Events That Transpired Before You Were Born
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