Sunday, October 5, 2014

Delicious by Ruth Reichl

Billie has an incredible palate.  She can take a few bites of a complex dish with obscure ingredients and quickly and easily identify exactly what's in the dish and what might improve the dish.  Yet she refuses to cook.  Why?  I would tell you, but that would be a spoiler and I'm not a big fan of spoilers. She has left everything and moved to New York, where she lands a job as an assistant at a renowned culinary magazine, Delicious.  The offices for the magazine are housed in a historic mansion in the city.
Although the magazine is shut down, Billie is asked to stay on to continue providing customer support.  While filling this role, Billie and a former co-worker discover a long-forgotten, hidden room in the library on the top floor of the mansion.  There, they discover some strategically hidden letters from a young girl corresponding with James Beard during WWII.  The process of discovering these letters from the past is a catalyst to making deeper connections with the people in her life and facing her own past.

Pros:
Appealing characters
Strong sense of setting
Lots of references to cheese

Cons:
Pace is very slow at times, especially in the first half of the book.


Recipes in the book:
"Billie's Gingerbread"

No comments:

Post a Comment