Ruth Reichl Quotes

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Ruth Reichl

Profession : Chef

Birth : January 16, 1948

The way we live is changing. Each year, our free time shrinks a little more as computers clamor for an increasing percentage of our attention.

Ruth Reichl

If you go back in American history, oysters were the food of poor people. New York was filled with oyster saloons in the 1800s.

Ruth Reichl

The first time you make something, follow the recipe, then figure out how to tailor it to your own tastes.

Ruth Reichl

American food is the food of immigrants. You go back a couple of hundred years, and we were all immigrants, unless we're going to talk about Native American cuisine.

Ruth Reichl

I love breakfast, and I don't see any reason it has to be cereal and eggs and toast.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

If you start with a great peach, there's nothing you're ever going to do that's going to make it any better than when it comes off the tree. In 1970, that was a revolution.

Ruth Reichl

The American government policy on what we supported and subsidised in agriculture was a social experiment on a whole generation of children.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

'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.

Ruth Reichl

I love to make pies - pot pies, quiches, savory tarts, fruit pies. I use an old-fashioned pastry blender with wires and a wooden handle. I never use a recipe.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

In really good times, you say, 'No, I'm not taking that ad.' But in bad times, you'll take anything.

Ruth Reichl

I bake bread nearly every day; I use Jim Lahey's no-knead method and leave it to rise overnight.

Ruth Reichl

My mother really would make these dreadful concoctions. She really prided herself on something called 'Everything Stew,' where she would take everything in the refrigerator, all the leftovers, and put them all together.

Ruth Reichl

Writing about food is my default.

Ruth Reichl

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

I loved writing fiction. I mean, once I found the character, or the characters, and knew who they were and knew their back-stories, it really - I mean, I went into my studio every day, thinking, 'What's gonna happen to Billy today?'

Ruth Reichl

I don't think I hate any food trends.

Ruth Reichl

You don't want to give people what they want. Give them something that they didn't know that they wanted.

Ruth Reichl