From Gourmet To Chef

Ruth Reichl went from the glamour of magazine editor to the coziness of home chef.It was a boon to her  as it led her to write  another cookbook My Kitchen Year:136 Recipes That Saved My Life..It is  chock full of delicious recipes and drool worthy pictures of her creations. As always , when one kitchen door closes another opens to a better one.

Kin Severson wrote about this in her article in yesterday's New York Time Food section.At one time Ms. Reichl was the ultimate foodie writer, being editor in chief of the famed Gourmet Magazine as well as  food editor of the LA Times . She also  was a restaurant critic at the New York Times too. Everything changed in 2008 when Gourmet closed its doors after sixty nine years in publication. To this day she still does not know why it shut down.Luckily she relied on her "hippie" ways , getting over the firing and going back to her true love cooking The writing wasn't pushed aside though and she kept an emotional cooking journal, a season by season account of her recovery from losing her job. She embraced Twitter , letting fans read her haiku like food posts (and also provided fodder for parody from those not familiar with her style). An editor gently pushed her into creating a full fledged cookbook It paid off.

The cookbook is deeply personal, appealing to many home chefs who love her recipes and identify with her. There are pictures of  Ms. Reich trudging through her snow filled yard to her backyard cabin where she writes along with tossing autumn leaves in the air, her two beautiful Russian Blue kitties ,Cielo and Zaza posing and her  cooking her recipes. The recipes are amazing There is a lush chocolate cake iced with rich cream cheese infused frosting . This would make a great holiday and a fantastic birthday cake. It has a 1 1/2 cups(!) of butter in it along with brown and white sugars. Home chefs will love making her  chicken diavolo , a spicy dish ripe with jalapeno and serrano peppers along with paprika and lemon.Another recipe is an Asian influenced eggplant salad that has a trio of interesting flavors such as fish sauce brown sugar and chile flakes. I can see this salad being served with the chicken . The book is filled with other great recipes that would be perfect to make as we ease into fall.

Cooking has always been a form of therapy and that was never more true than it was for Ruth Reichl.It inspired her and got her through a difficult transition period of going from star editor to home chef. It paid off in the form of a yummy cookbook, chock full of tasty recipes!