Curated Cuisine is a monthly series examining all things edible, from the chefs cooking the food to the writers reviewing the recipes. Meet the people shaping the food industry, both local and national and enjoy a post-show bite inspired by the conversation.
Six-time James Beard Award winner Ruth Reichl sat down for a conversation about her long career and her perspectives on how restaurant culture and food publishing is changing.
Reichl is a New York Times bestselling author of five memoirs, two novels (“Delicious!”; “The Paris Novel”) and the cookbook “My Kitchen Year.” She served as restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times in the 1980s and The New York Times in the 1990s before becoming editor in chief of Gourmet magazine in 1999 until it shuttered a decade later. Despite holding some of the most prestigious jobs in food writing, Reichl has always written in the voice of the ordinary cook and embraced an outsider persona.
Tania Ralli, WBUR managing editor of arts and culture and a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City, moderated the conversation.
This event is produced in partnership with Boston University’s Metropolitan College Programs in Food & Wine.
About “The Paris Novel”
Stella reached for an oyster, tipped her head, and tossed it back. It was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean. Oysters, she thought. Where have they been all my life?
When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading “Go to Paris.” Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a traumatic childhood has kept her confined to the strict routines of her comfort zone. But when her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her mother’s last wishes.
Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store, where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella and for the first time in her life Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress — and embarks on an adventure.
Her first stop: the iconic brasserie Les Deux Magots, where Stella tastes her first oysters and then meets an octogenarian art collector who decides to take her under his wing. As Jules introduces Stella to a veritable who’s who of the Paris literary, art and culinary worlds, she begins to understand what it might mean to live a larger life.
As weeks — and many decadent meals — go by, Stella ends up living as a “tumbleweed” at famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company, uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a Manet painting and discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to living deliciously, taking chances and finding your true home.