Garlic and Sapphires - The Best Gift Ever

by Sarah J. Gim, Posted Dec 1st 2005 @ 12:35PM

garlic and sapphires by ruth reichl It's time to start thinking about Holiday gifts. If you're like me, that brings on a sort of temporary December bi-polarism. I love to shop for gifts for others because I get this odd sense of victory when I find The. Perfect. Gift. for someone. But on the other hand, I hate Holiday shopping for all the reasons people hate Holiday shopping - traffic, crowds, maxed out credit cards, and well, as much as it's a victory to find something, sometimes I can't find a single thing and I feel utterly defeated.

Obviously here at slashfood, we'll be blogging about all the food-related gifts, but Ruth Reichl's book, Garlic and Sapphires, is a gift that works for food freaks and normal people alike. I received this book as a birthday gift earlier this year, and love love love it. The book is a memoir of Ruth's life as the restaurant critic at The New York Times, and she writes as if she's sitting down chatting with you over a cup of coffee.

The beauty of the book is that she writes about her experiences with her family, the background interaction with the people she takes to the restaurants, everything regarding a certain restaurant experience, then includes the actual restaurant review that was published in the Times. The way the chapters are written and the inclusion of her own recipes makes the book seem like a very well-written food blog. Minus the photos, of course.

Filed Under: Spirit of Christmas, Books