Ruth Reichl Quotes

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Ruth Reichl

Profession : Chef

Birth : January 16, 1948

What I learned is that how we present ourselves to the world is really how we get treated. So if you want to be treated really well in a restaurant, you really have to dress up. You cannot just show up.

Ruth Reichl

I don't think there's one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner.

Ruth Reichl

It takes a great deal of strength to be an optimist.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

When you're a restaurant critic, you're not home at night, so breakfast became really important for us.

Ruth Reichl

I think I wrote my first piece about food in 1978.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

Anybody who believes Yelp is an idiot. Most people on Yelp have no idea what they're talking about.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

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.

Ruth Reichl

M. F. K. Fisher was a wonder and a huge influence, and someone I got to know pretty well at the end of her life.

Ruth Reichl

We in America have gotten addicted to cheap food. The result of that is antibiotic-laden fish, foods that are bred to be portable.

Ruth Reichl

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

Ruth Reichl

For me, cooking is a way to try and please people and tell them I love them. When I fall in love with someone, I want to feed them as well.

Ruth Reichl

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

Ruth Reichl

I was in Berkeley when the food energy in America was in Berkeley. Then it moved to Los Angeles, and I went to Los Angeles. It moved to New York, and I went there.

Ruth Reichl

The implications of Americans devoting their lives to fast food are more profound than the fact that our kids aren't eating well. There are real repercussions that we need to know about and think about.

Ruth Reichl

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