Ruth Reichl

Vocation

Family

American writer, the author of "Tender at the Bone," 1998 and "Comfort Me with Apples," Reichl is the editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, formerly a restaurant critic at The New York Times, and a former food editor and restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times. Reichl’s childhood in Manhattan was primarily responsible for her choice of careers. Her father was a book designer while her mother was a homemaker who suffered from manic-depression. Despite the fact that her mother, who died in 1993, had a Ph.D., she was relegated to cleaning, cooking and childrearing, and cooking wasn’t particularly her strong suit: Reichl learned to cook out of self-defense. All her practice in the kitchen came in handy when she was in college at the University of Michigan. She belonged to a co-op and ran the kitchen for the entire group of 50. In the 1970s, she moved to California where she was chef and co-owner of a restaurant. Small and svelte, with a mass of black hair, Reichl is famous for the disguises she wore to New York restaurants. At one time, she owned 12 wigs, rubber cement to create wrinkles where she had none, and horrible clothes that she got from thrift shops. Sometimes, however, she would show up as herself, leaving the staff to quiver in her presence once they recognized her. She credits her success to being in the right place at the right time for America’s food revolution. Reichl has been married twice. She and her first husband, Doug, divorced in 1985. Her second husband, Michael Singer, is a television news producer. Link to Wikipedia biography