In her new book, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life, Ruth Reichl writes “In the fall of 2009, I’d been the editor in chief of Gourmet for 10 years.” Despite falling revenues throughout the publishing industry, “it never crossed my mind that Condé Nast might close the magazine. Gourmet was a 69-year-old institution.”
And yet, with no warning at all — just a cryptic phone call from her boss demanding that she return from a promotional tour for Gourmet’s newest cookbook, which had recently been released — that is what happened. Gourmet was shut down. The publisher didn’t even distribute the issue that was being printed at the same time that the staff huddled into a meeting to learn that they were unemployed, effective immediately.
“Boxes had appeared, as if by magic,” says Ms. Reichl (RY-shel), “and one by one people straggled out of the conference room, picked them up, and went off to start packing their possessions.”
Ms. Reichl, who felt personally responsible for having let her friends and colleagues down, went off to start picking up her life.
Mysterious misty morning. Crows wheeling, cawing. Storm is on the way. Coffee black. Eggs fried. Toast burnt. Gourmet’s over. What now?
This was just one of the sad, shocked tweets Ms. Reichl sent during the early, uncomfortably open-ended days of her new reality. She has become famous now as much for her poetic Twitter presence, it seems, as for her writing and her depth of knowledge about cooking.
Having been the food editor of the Los Angeles Times and restaurant critic for the New York Times before taking the helm at Gourmet, Ms. Reichl was accustomed to a frantic pace, “rushing home from work to throw quick meals together for my family,” she writes.
Suddenly, though, she had “no responsibilities, nowhere to go” ... she had time. Time to think, time to worry. And time to cook.
Ms. Reichl says: “I did what I always do when I’m confused, lonely, or frightened: I disappeared into the kitchen.”
Her kitchen year — an instinctive form of meditation and therapy — began.
She spent time with her husband, Michael Singer, primarily at the family’s country house in upstate New York. Guests, including their college-age son, Nick, came to visit; holidays were celebrated. But Ms. Reichl isolated herself to a significant degree as she sought refuge.
A variety of comfort foods featured in the book — “perfect pound cake” and fragrant cider-braised pork, slow-rising no-knead bread and the “pure guilty pleasure” of a creamy rice pudding that served as dinner one night — provided sustenance and nurturing. Ms. Reichl’s inspirations were dependent upon the seasons, her cravings, and what she found at farmers’ markets, as well as her continued healing.
Sun coming up. Hawks hovering outside. Dancing in the kitchen with gnocchi and the blues. Good way to start a Sunday.
She let her love of food shine in another arena, too. Despite having written several autobiographies, each dealing with a different period in her life, Ms. Reichl had long wanted to write a novel. She’d always said she had no time to do so. But now, she had nothing but time. “I tentatively began to write, heading off to the market whenever I ran out of words,” she says.
Delicious!: A Novel, which was published in May of this year, tells the story of a young woman who worked for a failed food magazine, who finds a treasure trove of letters from the famed chef James Beard. Past and present intersect to help the heroine resolve issues in her life, as the book helped Ms. Reichl with her own efforts to find closure.
In the midst of a tour to promote the paperback version of one of her earlier books, Ms. Reichl tweeted: “Tripped. Fell. Emergency Room.” A bone in her foot had shattered into five pieces. Instead of the busy life she’d created for herself from the emptiness of unemployment, suddenly she was forced into bed rest. Another round of having her life disrupted.
“I long[ed] for the feel of a knife in my hand, the heft of water splashing into a pot,” she writes. “Yearned for the joyous sizzle, burble, and hiss that are the ever-changing soundtrack of the kitchen. ... I’d always thought of these elemental pleasures as minor diversions, but now I understood that they’re the glue that holds my life together.”
Ms. Reichl ultimately recovered, both from her physical injury and from the emotional toll of Gourmet’s demise. She produced the novel, as well as a cookbook filled with the recipes that had helped to rejuvenate her. And she learned important lessons about herself along the way.
“My kitchen year started in a time of trouble, but it taught me a great deal,” she writes. Cooking can be an allegory for life, especially a life as the high profile editor of one of the country’s foremost — now former — food magazines.
Ms. Reichl says, “you’re not a chef in your own kitchen, trying to please paying guests. You’re a traveler, following your own path, seeking adventure ... Alone in the kitchen, you are simply a cook, free to do anything you want. If it doesn’t work out — well, there’s always another meal.”
Strawberry morning. Sunshine and butterflies. Clean air. Flour, butter, cream: the scent of a very fine future. Everything seems possible.
Contact Mary Bilyeu at mbilyeu@theblade.com or 419-724-6155 or on Twitter @foodfloozie.
RECIPES
The Diva of Grilled Cheese
“I can’t think of a single other simple dish that equals the everyday opulence of a grilled cheese sandwich,” Ruth Reichl writes. Covering the outside of the sandwich with cheese “will create a wonderfully crisp and shaggy crust, giving your sandwich an entirely new dimension,” she says.
Shallot
Scallion
Onion, any color
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/4 pound cheddar cheese
Butter, at room temperature
2 slices sturdy sourdough bread
Mayonnaise
Gather small amounts of shallot, scallion, and onion - as many members of the allium family as you have on hand — and chop them into a small heap totaling 1/4 cup. Add the garlic.
Grate the best cheddar you can afford. Set a little aside, then combine the rest with the onion mixture.
Lay the bread slices on a work surface and lightly butter each slice. Top one slice with the onion-cheese mixture, then sandwich together with the other slice; press together. Lightly spread mayonnaise on the outsides of the sandwich, then press the reserved cheese onto both sides of the sandwich. Fry the sandwich on a heated griddle or in a skillet for about 4 minutes per side, until the cheese is softly melted and the outside is golden brown.
Yield: 1 sandwich.
Source: Adapted from Ruth Reichl, My Kitchen Year.
Pork and Tomatillo Stew
Ruth has been making this recipe since she was in her twenties, living in a commune and working at Swallow Restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., while “intent on becoming a writer.” Each time she makes it, she says, she is reminded of a time when “nothing seemed impossible.”
2 pounds pork shoulder, butt, or loin
Salt
1 pound tomatillos
1 pound Roma tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 12-ounce bottle dark beer
1-1/2 cups fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 to 10 garlic cloves, peeled
2 large onions, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 jalapeños, seeded, minced
Pepper
1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
Zest of 1 lime
1 cup sour cream, for serving
White rice, for serving
Chopped scallions, for serving
Begin by cutting the pork into 2-inch cubes. Sprinkle with salt, then set aside.
Remove the husks from the tomatillos, wash the sticky surface off, and quarter them. Put them into a 3-quart pot with the tomatoes, beer, and orange juice. Let that stew over medium-low heat for half an hour or so, until everything has become tender.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Brown the pork along with the garlic, then add it to the pot. Sauté the onion along with the cilantro and jalapeños; add salt and pepper to taste. Add mixture to the pot. Partially cover the stew and cook over low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Add the beans, then cook for 1 more hour. Squish the garlic cloves into the stew with the back of a spoon.
Stir the lime zest into the sour cream and serve as an accompaniment. Serve the stew over rice, topped with scallions.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings.
Source: Adapted from Ruth Reichl, My Kitchen Year.
The Cake That Cures Everything
“In times of stress, only excess will do: this is an enormous cake,” says Ruth. But it is “impossible to hold on to gloom with so much chocolate wafting its exuberant scent into every corner of the house,” she says. “And there is no such thing as too much chocolate cake.”
Cake:
1-1/8 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 cups of boiling water
3/4 cup whole milk
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
Salt
1-1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
1-1/2 cups dark brown sugar
1-1/2 cups white sugar
6 eggs
Frosting:
10 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1-1/2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 8-ounce containers whipped cream cheese
2 teaspoons vanilla
Salt
5 cups powdered sugar
Milk, if needed
Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 13x9x2 inch baking pans and line them with parchment paper. Grease the paper and dust the pans with cocoa. Hold the pans over the sink and give them a gentle tap so the excess cocoa floats off.
Measure the cocoa powder into a bowl, and whisk in the water until it is smooth, dark, and so glossy it reminds you of chocolate pudding. Whisk in the milk and vanilla.
In another bowl, whisk the flour with the baking soda and 3/4 teaspoon salt.
Put the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer and beat in the sugars until the mixture is light, fluffy, and the color of coffee with cream (it will take about 5 minutes). One at a time, add the eggs, beating for about 20 seconds before adding the next. On low speed, beat in the flour mixture in 3 batches and the cocoa mixture in 2 batches, alternating flour-cocoa-flour-cocoa-flour.
Pour half of the batter into each pan and smooth the tops. Bake in the middle of the oven until a tester comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Let the cakes cool completely before frosting.
Make the frosting: Chop the chocolate and melt it in a double boiler. Let it cool so that you can comfortably put your finger in it.
While the chocolate is cooling, beat the butter with the cream cheese. Add the chocolate, vanilla, and a dash of salt; mix in the powdered sugar until it looks like frosting. If the frosting is a bit thick, add a splash of milk to soften it to the desired consistency.
Assemble the cake by placing one layer upside down onto a serving board; remove the paper. Spread about a third of the frosting on top of this layer. Turn the remaining layer upside down over the frosted layer and remove the paper. Swirl the rest of the frosting over the top and sides.
Yield: 20 to 25 servings.
Source: Adapted from Ruth Reichl, My Kitchen Year.
First Published October 20, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
