This memoir covers Reichl’s tenure as restaurant critic for the New York Times and includes some of her favorite retaurant reviews and recipes. But what I found even more fascinating were Reichl’s accounts of a critic’s life. To avoid being recognized, she donned a variety of disguises and found herself actually transforming into the people she was pretending to be. All the while, she was eating fabulous meals (and some not-so-fabulous) at New York’s most famous restaurants. The intricate descriptions of the food made me long for a life where four-course, four-wine meals at four-star restaurants is routine. I can also appreciate Reichl’s appreciation for smaller Korean and Japanese restaurants at a time when ethnic food was not so trendy.

Reichl’s book did leave me with one burning question, however: How does a restaurant critic who obviously loves all kinds of food stay so slender?

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I would have read this book in one shot, except I started at 7 p.m. on a weeknight, and at nearly midnight, with only about 100 pages left to go, my husband suggested that we might want to sleep at some point.

Oh Ruth Reichl, who can write so eloquently about restaurants and food and people and relationships, words skipping across the page like drops of water in a hot frying pan. Your voyage of self-examination, put down in a way that the reader can’t help but feel your joys, sorrows, triumphs, and disappointments. Where each of us feels keenly the sinking feeling in our bellies that comes from acting so unlike our true selves.

Thank you for this book. Even without the super! bonus! recipes, it’s a marvel.