"Ruth Reichl" news and stories

Ruth Bourdain, the Twitter sage we've all come to love for lines like "You haven't truly celebrated St. Patrick's Day until you've sous-vided a whole leprechaun" has entered the big leagues with a James Beard award nomination in this year's new humor category.

The hilarious persona is a mash-up of Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain who quickly gained attention by reworking Reichl's zen 140-character tweets into raunchy Bourdain-like missives. But before this nomination, the persona was little more than a lark. Now Ruth Bourdain shares the same James Beard ballot as L.A. food critic Jonathan Gold and renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The nomination is shaking up food circles, with some foodies saying it undermines serious food journalism, while others, like Saveur's Gabriella Gershenson, think it's all in good fun. (She gave the nod a "Bravo! (Brava?)" on her twitter account.)

Talk about a food-critic mash-up -- will the earth tilt and all the restaurants on the Eastern seaboard start sliding toward Key West, Florida, when some of the country's top food critics Ruth Reichl (above left), Jonathan Gold, Frank Bruni (above right), and Gael Greene fill the same space at "The Hungry Muse," An Exploration of Food in Literature, the 29th Annual Key West Literary Seminar (starting tomorrow and running, in two separate sessions, through January 16th)?

Sure, there will be readings, conversations, lectures, and panel discussions with best-selling authors like Calvin Trillin, Roy Blount Jr., Madhur Jaffrey, Molly O'Neill, Julia Reed, Adam Gopnik, Michael Ruhlman, and many others.

But it's this sold-out event that has foodies salivating over their Key lime pie: Reichl, Bruni, and Gold on "The Art & Craft of Restaurant Criticism: Matters of Aesthetics & Taste." Why? Well, not only are these three among the heaviest of the heavyweights in the biz (where are you, S. Irene Virbila?), but, says Reichl, "I get to meet Frank Bruni for the first time, which is kind of a thrill."

For real?

"I've never met Bruni, either," Gold told us. And here we thought all the critics hung out together, like some Skull & Bones society. This talk should be the bomb.

So, ok, you get to finally clap eyes on Bruni, and, well, maybe sparks will fly. But, we asked the former Gourmet editor in chief, why Key West and why this seminar?

When Gourmet shut down abruptly last fall, everyone knew editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl would land on her feet -- somewhere. The only question was where. The answer, revealed this morning, turns out to be the book publisher Random House, where she'll focus (of course) on food.

Reichl has had a relationship with Random House for years -- her memoirs Comfort Me with Apples and Tender at the Bone are both popular Random House titles. Her new role with the publisher will require her to wear two hats as both writer and editor at large -- she'll write new books as well as acquire and edit others.

The first projects she'll be working on will be her own: a cookbook entitled The Tao of Ruth as well as her first novel, Delicious! In an official statement, Reichl said, "I'm especially excited to have the opportunity to participate in the future of food writing as both an author and a book editor. At Random House I'll have the opportunity to connect to food lovers in print, and to participate in the ever-expanding digital world." Hopefully this means her Twitter followers can expect to keep up with her poetic bon mots, even as her schedule heats up.

When Gourmet shut down abruptly last fall, readers expected its celebrated editor, Ruth Reichl, would pop up again soon -- likely in bookstores. Sure enough, For You, Mom, Finally, a memoir about Reichl's career in food writing and her mother's influence, has just been released. A couple nights ago she spoke about her latest book, Gourmet's demise, and her foray into social media with Washington Post food editor Joe Yonan as part of a Smithsonian series.

The first topic was the book. Though the title is new, it's actually the paperback edition of Not Becoming My Mother, a title Reichl says she didn't like and never wanted. Yonan says the new title expresses what Reichl felt she owed her mother -- acknowledgment and gratitude. After Reichl's previous books had (lovingly) criticized her mother's cooking, For You, Mom provides "a truer exploration of a brilliant-but-bored woman who felt trapped by family life...and who was determined that her daughter have anything but that life." The irony is thick: Here was a woman who skipped the cooking so her child could have a brilliant career...writing about cooking.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• Do you speak sushi?
• It's not like you were going to get a reservation at El Bulli anyway.
• Ruth Reichl gets the post-mortem bio-pic treatment -- kinda.
• Slow cook your way to a split pea-chorizo soup.
• The "Top Chef" bearded wonder bails on the Bocuse d'Or USA competition.
• Flay flies onto the pages of the nation's most-read Sunday magazine.
• Forsake the restaurant version after making this veggie take of this Mexican favorite.