So What Do You Do,
Ruth Reichl? The people in your media neighborhood.
BY
ALBERT LEE |As restaurant critic,
Reichl liberated The New York Times from the Gallic grip of her predecessor,
Bryan Miller, who fairly choked when she granted coveted three-star ratings
to places like Japanese noodle shrine Honmura An. "SHE HAS DESTROYED
THE [STAR] SYSTEM," he raged in a memo to her
boss. But Reichl, the author of two
affecting memoirs, won many fans for her multicultural approach as well
as her distinctive, first-person style of food writing, both of which she brought
with her to Gourmet magazine, where she was appointed editor in
1999.
A brief history: Restaurant critic at The New York Times
(1993-1999), restaurant critic at The Los Angeles Times (1984-1993),
food editor at The Los Angeles Times (1990-1993), restaurant critic at
New West and California magazines (1977-1993), and chef and co-owner
of The Swallow restaurant in Berkeley, California (1974-1977).
Hometown: Greenwich Village. I know
that this is normally considered a part of New York City, but when I was growing
up, the Village really was one. P.S. 41, where I went to elementary school,
was the oldest school building in the city, a pre–Civil War edifice so
small that the principal knew every kid personally. Two of my teachers lived
in my building, and I knew every shopkeeper by name.
First real job: Waitress at La Seine, an extremely
posh restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I went to college. It was a great
job; I learned a lot about food and made an absurd amount of money. The minimum
wage at that time was $1 an hour and I'd usually take home about $30 for a four-hour
shift.
Heroes: The civil rights workers of the early '60s, black
and white, who finally had the courage to stand up to racism.
What I ate for lunch today: Takeout from Grand
Sichuan (I am addicted to their chile peppers in black bean sauce, pure
fire, which I order about once a week. I also like their sauteed loofah and
the tendon in hot oil. I should add that I don't expect you to like any of these
dishes, and my friends tend to favor things like pork buns and spicy dumplings.)
I'll always read a story by: Jane Kramer, Ann Patchett,
Paul Krugman, John Lahr.
About all that hot sauce on her desk: Okay, guilty: I've
got dozens of bottles
stacked behind my desk. And not just because they're pretty.
• Mad Cat ("Not for Pussycats.")
• Pimenta Malagueta (a friend brought it back from Brazil)
• Frank's original red hot cayenne sauce (a friend brought it from Jamaica)
• Smoky Chipotle Barbecue Sauce
• Chile Today, Hot Tamale
• Walker's Wood Jamaican Jerk Sauce (Hot & Spicy)
• Baronhall Farms Jamaica, Hell Hot Pepper Concentrate
• Island Blaze Habanero Super Hot Sauce
• Backyard Dirt Farmers Habanero (Dried, Ground Chile)
• My current favorite is habanero pepper flakes, which were given to me
by David Karp, our fruit detective.
Favorite dishes to cook at home: Blueberry pie,
apricot pie, spaghetti alla carbonara, chicken soup, potatoes of any kind (I'm
a starch freak).
Guilty pleasure: Onion rings. I like even bad ones
so much that Felix, the wonderful grill guy at the Condé Nast cafeteria,
always hands me a couple when I walk through the line. As for a great onion
ring? I'd drive hundreds of miles to get one.
Food she hates: Honey! Just the thought of it makes
me gag.
Favorite "no-star" restaurants: • The Lulling Barbecue place, in Texas, where you buy smoked brisket
by the pound and they give you white bread for free to put it on. The meat is
so rich and soft it has the texture of Jell-O by the time you put it in your
mouth, and it's almost impossible to stop eating.
• Yuca's
taco hut on Hillhurst in Los Angeles, a little shack in a parking lot that
makes the most wonderful bean-and-cheese burritos and cochinita pibil tacos.
I never go to L.A. without stopping in.
• Fried
Dumpling on Allen Street in New York, where the pork dumplings are five
for a dollar. I buy them by the bag and take them home for the freezer. They're
juicy, garlicky, and great.
• El
Rey de las Fritas in Miami, on Calle Ocho. Absolutely addictive little meat
patties with hot sauce and matchstick potatoes right inside the bun.
• Cho
Dang Gol, on 35th Street in New York, where they make their own tofu.
I could keep going, but I think I'll stop now.
Smartest thing I ever did for my career: Tell The
New York Times I didn't want to be their restaurant critic — which
I didn't. That only made them want me more. I must have been the only person
in America who didn't want the job. But the truth is, I had no idea what I was
turning down. Taking the job completely changed my life.
Best moment on assignment: Having a meal at Francis
Ford Coppola's winery — big slabs of foie gras, huge steaks, potatoes
cooked in goose fat washed down with ancient wines — and singing show tunes
with him for raucous hours. "Give me a show, any show," he'd say,
"There isn't one I can't sing a song from." Sometime around 1 a.m.,
he told me that I had a wonderful voice. If you had ever heard me sing, you'd
know how thrilling this was.
Worst moment on assignment: Having Francis Ford
Coppola not remember me (or my fabulous voice) the next time I interviewed him
at the Chez Panisse
30th Anniversary event in Berkeley, summer 2001.
Nuttiest Times-critic restaurant memory: Having
Julia Child come into a very fancy restaurant when I was in disguise and peer
across the room at me. [Reichl wore disguises as a Times critic to
avoid being recognized by the restaurateurs.] After a moment of laser-like
scrutiny she said, in that unmistakable voice, in tones that went ringing through
the restaurant: "There's Ruth Reichl in a wig!" (The wigs, incidentally,
were auctioned off for charity after I left the Times.)
Reichl once wrote that her mother was "the world's worst
cook." How does her son Nick rate his mom's cooking: He's a fan (but
then, I usually let him decide what's for dinner, so why wouldn't he be? I have
yet to poison any of his friends, and I do a lot of baking.)
Three tips for ordering well in an unfamiliar restaurant:
1. Take a bite of butter. If it tastes like the refrigerator, leave.
2. Ask the waiter what they serve for staff dinner, then order the closest item
on the menu. At least you know that you'll be ordering something that the cook
likes.
3. Look for the "restaurant critic traps," the strange dishes that
were put on the menu only because no critic could resist them. Every good restaurant
has one; it might be foie gras doughnuts, oysters in tapioca, or jellied tripe.
They're always great dishes, because only critics order them. As an added bonus,
the restaurant will then think that you're a critic working on a review and
make sure that your entire meal is spectacular.
Five obsessions in the life of Reichl:
1. Wearing old shoes. I've always loved shoes when they were really worn down,
stretched out, and comfortable. Now I think I've earned the right to wear them.
2. Shanghai Tang silk
jackets.
3. The Sopranos.
4. The announcer with the laconic voice on the 1 and 9 line on the [New York
City] subway. This morning he said, "Times Square, Crossroads of the World.
Transfer here for everything," and the entire car burst out laughing. He
makes my day.
5. Trying to tame my curly hair enough to stop straightening it for corporate
meetings.
BY
ALBERT LEE |
