Behind the Vines

Bones That Are Tender, Meat That Is Spoiled

by Farley on May 29th, 2008

I recently finished my second Ruth Reichl book—Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table.  However, I think I would rather have read it before devouring Garlic and Sapphires. Tender started off strong with a wonderful story about Ruth’s mom forcing her dad to taste food she knew was spoiled and the engagement party for her brother, which she turned into a fundraiser for UNICEF, complete with half a baby goat, crab meat left out for days, and phone calls from food poisoning victims.  Some of my favorite moments were centered around Ruth’s embarrassment over her mother’s lack of culinary skills, maybe because it reminded me of being in church with my mom, singing hymns.  I silently willed my mom to not sing so loudly and so badly,  (sorry, Mom, if you’re reading this), just as Ruth wanted to protect friends and family from her mother’s cooking disasters, steering them away from certain dishes.

I wanted more stories like those, though.  It seems that her childhood only took up a fourth of the book and then she was off to French boarding school and working at a camp and getting jobs because of boys.  It’s not that those stories weren’t entertaining.  I especially liked how she learned from the older French waitress Marielle and Henry, who knew everything about restaurants.

We do get more of her family later, and see how their relationships have changed, when she brings a boyfriend home.  The part I didn’t care for so much was the section of the story where she moved to Berkeley and began working in a co-op restaurant.  Then there was a strange tangent where she met Kermit Lynch and went on a winetasting trip with him.  While I enjoyed reading about the wine regions, etc, it didn’t flow into the story easily.  

Actually, that would be my one complaint: the story often seemed disjointed.  Having read Garlic first, I went into this one expecting more, looking for the bigger picture that the other book so beautifully displayed.  Though having read that, I think that she was probably writing this book at the end of her tenure at the New York Times, and the lack of continuity reflects how she was feeling then.

I still enjoyed it and plan to read her other book, Comfort Me With Apples sooner rather than later.

Image source: Farley Walker  

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POSTED IN: Ruth Reichl