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" We in the media have been guilty about not doing a better job of making people understand how really simple cooking is. We've made everyone feel like they have to be a chef. "

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" There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them. "

Ruth Reichl

You

Places

Doors

" What I always do in times of trouble or stress is to try and do something I don't know how to do. "

" I like poached eggs, but I'll make scrambled or fried or whatever anybody wants. "

" The truth is, as much as I loved writing restaurant reviews, it always felt very self-indulgent to me. It was so much fun, I loved doing it, but there's so much else to say about food. "

Ruth Reichl

Writing

Fun

" I like to work. I believe that work helps us find our self worth. "

" One of mom's greatest acts of generosity was that she trained me to be defiant. Her great gift to me was encouraging me to be the person that I wanted to be, not the one that she and my father wished I was. "

" I'm a home cook, and I'm constantly embarrassed by twentysomethings who really do know the mechanics of cooking. How to build a sauce. "

" I've been to a couple of restaurants in L.A. that were so loud, I left there with a sore throat; you literally could not have a conversation. I think it's very deliberate: There's this idea that somehow it's more fun if there's a roar in the room. "

Ruth Reichl

Fun

Think

" World War II really fascinated me because it's the only time that everybody in this country sat down at the same table, because eating on rations was your patriotic duty. "

Ruth Reichl

War

World

" You look at the Barefoot Contessa or Lydia Bastianich, and it's just like watching your mother cooking. "

" What does happen in 'Gourmet,' we had eight test kitchens, and at any given time, there were, like, ten or twelve test cooks. And whenever anybody finished something, they would yell, 'Taste!' and everyone would go running towards it, and then taste, and then brutally deconstruct the dish. "

" There is an almost anti-epicurean tradition at the very base of America. For much of the middle part of American history, people who wanted to overcome that went to France. "

" I think that reading is always active. As a writer, you can only go so far; the reader meets you halfway, bringing his or her own experience to bear on everything you've written. What I mean is that it is not only the writer's memory that filters experience, but the reader's as well. "

" Sharing food has always had a central place in civilized societies; it's no accident that so many of our cultural, religious and patriotic rituals are involved with eating. "

" If you're going to tell stuff, you might as well tell the real stuff. "

" My mother's name was Miriam, but most people called her Mim. "

" Ask people to pitch in - hand them a spoon and ask them to stir. Doing things together, having everyone help, makes for a nicer party. "

" What I like best is the challenge of learning something I didn't know how to do, going beyond my comfort level. "

" I loved being at the 'Times,' and they were incredibly good to me. I think it's a wonderful paper, and I was really well edited. "

Ruth Reichl

Think

Paper

" I don't think I hate any food trends. "

" 'Comfort Me with Apples' is a love story, or better, two love stories. And since it deals with a later period in my life, most of the people who appear in it are living. "

" The way we allow children to be advertised to is shocking. Eating is a learned behavior, and we've made these kids sitting ducks for all the bad messages about industrialized food. The fact that we allow that to go on is horrifying. "

" My mother started out by being a very good girl. She did everything that was expected of her, and it cost her dearly. Late in her life, she was furious that she had not followed her own heart; she thought that it had ruined her life, and I think she was right. "

" By the time I met Julia Child, her husband, Paul, was little more than a ghost of a man, so diminished by old age and its attendant diseases that it was impossible to discern the remarkable artist, photographer and poet he once had been. "

" I came from a family where, you know, we sat down at the table every night, and you better have a story to tell. My father never wrote his stories down. And you know, I learned that they went farther if you wrote them down. "

" You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one, you need to know about life. "

" One of the effects of cheap food is, we have food that is so unsatisfactory. We need to go back to flavor. "

Ruth Reichl

Need

Food

" My idea of good living is not about eating high on the hog. Rather, to me, good living means understanding how food connects us to the earth. "

" I've always hated Zagat. If I'm going to listen to someone else's opinions on restaurants, I don't care if I agree or not. I just want to know who they are. "

" People are so used to eating terrible pancakes, no matter how you mess up, they're going to be great. And if you make fresh orange juice, they'll be over the moon. "