by Ruth Reichl
Marion waved her long hands as if she were pushing the thought from her. “Oh, hon,” she said. “Nobody knows why some of us get better and others don’t.”
I thought of my mother. And then, suddenly, she seemed very far away. The bridge was strong. Doug was waiting on the other side. I was not afraid. If I wanted, I could just keep driving.
I stepped on the gas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Everybody I have ever known has helped me write this book. But, for their practical help and advice, I want to thank:
Paula Landesman and Jerry Berger, who were endlessly encouraging.
Frank Assumma and Karen Kaczmar, who gave me a room of my own in the country.
Ann Vivian and Andy Dintenfass, for the cottage in the Vineyard.
My agent, Kathy Robbins, who put the proposal on a table and walked around it, worrying.
Betsy Feichtmeir, who tested the recipes for the sheer fun of it.
And my editor, Ann Godoff, who kept saying, “Keep going.”
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The first two chapters of Tender at the Bone feature the culinary shortcomings of Ruth Reichl’s relatives, particularly her mother. To what do you attribute prowess in the kitchen? Is the ability (or inability) to cook a reflection of other traits? Who are the most notorious cooks in your family?
2. Besides a perfect recipe for wiener schnitzel, what other gifts did Mrs. Peavey impart to Reichl?
3. How was Reichl affected by her three years at boarding school in Montreal? What, do you think, was her mother’s true motivation in enrolling her there?
4. In the absence of parents, what role did cooking take while Reichl was a teenager? Why did feeding her friends become her primary joy? Does chapter 5, “Devil’s Food,” express unique or universal notions about adolescence and self-image?
5. In what way does the topic of mental illness shape the memoir overall, particularly the bipolar disorder that afflicted Reichl’s mother? What do the book’s images evoke regarding the psychology of indulgence and hunger?
6. How does the tenderness mentioned in the title manifest itself throughout the book? How do Reichl’s sense of humor and her wry honesty play off each other?
7. What were Reichl’s early impressions of France, including her summer on the Île d’Oléron? How did her casual immersions in French cooking shape her attitudes toward cuisine in general? How did they help her on the job at L’Escargot and when she later embarked on the vineyard tour?
8. At the end of chapter 7, Serafina writes, “I hope you find your Africa,” in a note to Reichl. How was Reichl’s view of humanity being transformed by Serafina and Mac?
9. Did traveling in North Africa bring Reichl closer to or farther from a sense of fulfillment? How did this travel experience compare with her previous ones?
10. As Reichl watched Doug bond with her parents (he even elicited previously unknown details about her father’s life), she felt a new level of exasperation with her family. What models for marriage did she have? Was winter in Europe, with Milton often at the helm, a good antidote?
11. Reichl writes that in 1971 lower Manhattan was a cook’s paradise. What did life on the Lower East Side, from the gefilte fish episode to Mr. Bergamini’s veal breast recommendation, teach Reichl about how she would define a successful meal? Why was the Superstar so insistent that great cooking was a sure way to seduce a man? With Mr. Izzy T as navigator, what did the Superstar and Reichl both learn about themselves?
12. How does the idealism of Channing Way compare with the organic food movement of today? Have any of Nick’s tenets become part of mainstream life in the twenty-first century?
13. The now-legendary Swallow Collective was as innovative in its management style as in its menus. What chapters in culinary history are captured in Reichl’s recollections of working there?
14. Tender at the Bone ends with an image of Reichl conquering her bridge phobia while accompanied by Marion Cunningham, who says, “Nobody knows why some of us get better and others don’t.” What ingredients in Reichl’s life may have helped her “get better” and achieve such tremendous success in the years that would follow this scene?
15. Food writing presents the unusual challenge of conveying distinct, intangible flavors through mere words. How would you characterize Reichl’s approach to the task? Does she approach haute cuisine and comfort food in the same way? How would you have responded to her mother’s comment that by developing a career as a food writer Reichl was “wasting her life”?
16. How would you characterize the recipes Reichl selected for Tender at the Bone? Do they possess a common “personality”? What recipes represent the most significant turning points in your life?
A Thousand Words
It’s hard to remember a time when food memoirs were not part of the general landscape, but when I was writing Tender at the Bone, the genre did not exist. As I was trying to think about telling my story through food, it occurred to me that the recipes could function the way photographs did in other people’s books. I wanted readers to get to know the characters through the food they cooked and ate, to be able to taste the time. I might not be able to include a recipe for Mom’s Everything Stew, but it seemed to me that if you made her Corned Beef Ham, you might begin to understand the way her mind worked. So I took down the big, messy folder that contained the recipes Mom had torn out of magazines, the handwritten file cards that Alice once gave me, and the scraps of paper on which my own favorite recipes were scrawled and discovered that each one was an instant passport to the past.
Over time I’ve heard from many readers who have cooked the recipes, and they’ve all said how much these dishes have enhanced their enjoyment of the book. But almost all of them have added, “I wish there were photographs as well.”
That sent me to a shelf filled with a motley collection of photo albums. I bought most of them at thrift stores, and their covers are torn, the pages so loose that each time I pick one up photos go tumbling to the floor. The pictures have been thrown in at random, so I’ll often find people who never met each other staring out from the same page. It always makes me happy to spend time among those I’ve loved best, and each time I go through the albums I discover something new. Here’s my mother looking glamorous, Aunt Birdie even tinier than I remember, Doug and me with a group of friends looking into the camera as if our whole lives are still ahead of us. Which, of course, they were.
This picture of my parents was taken at a cocktail party in the late forties a couple of years before I was born. Mom saved her clothes, and I remember this dress well; it was black with gray chiffon sleeves. Note the size of the martinis and the fact that the cigarette Mom is holding is unfiltered.
To my distress I could not find a single photograph of either Alice or Mrs. Peavey. What I did turn up is this wonderful woodblock print that Hortense Ansorge, Dad’s first wife, made of Alice sometime during the forties.
Hortense herself, holding a portfolio.
Scenes from Maison Heureuse: my “equipe” (Nikili, the terror, is center front).
Danielle on the beach.
Counselors having a drink in the café at Boyardville (I’m in the back, wearing sunglasses because I thought they made me look mysterious).
This is the only photo I have from the trip that Serafina and I took to North Africa. The handsome man on the left is Dris. On the back it says, “This is a photo that we took together in the street. It was a surprise photo. A little souvenir from Dris. Love.”
Doug and me flanking Aunt Birdie at our wedding. Pat made my dress: It had a rainbow skirt and a cummerbund with a road running right up the middle, symbolizing Route 7, the road on which we were married.
The wedding, on the road.
Wedding, surrounded by my parents and various friends.
Milton, with a neighbor, in Crete.
Washing dishes at Paradise Loft.
Doug, me, and friends just down the street from Paradise Loft, 1971
.
Cooking pancakes on hot glass at The Pilichuck Glass Workshop, 1972.
The house on Channing Way.
Me cooking, Thanksgiving 1975, Channing Way.
Doug relaxing in a piece he did at the University Art Museum in Berkeley.
Doug with his wind harp, Artpark, 1977.
Marion Cunningham.
A lunch at Fournou’s Ovens at the Stanford Court, the year I met James Beard (1978?).
RUTH REICHL was editor in chief of Gourmet magazine for ten years and is currently the host of Adventures with Ruth. She lives in New York City with her husband, son, and two cats.
2010 Random House Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 1998, 2010 by Ruth Reichl
Reading group guide copyright © 2010 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
RANDOM HOUSE READER’S CIRCLE & Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover and in different form in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1998.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reichl, Ruth.
Tender at the bone: growing up at the table / Ruth Reichl.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60420-4
1. Cookery. 2. Cooks—United States—Biography. 3. Reichl, Ruth—Biography. I. Title.
TX714.R444 1998
641.5′092—dc21 97-14720
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