Garlic and Sapphires

Loved this book! I can see why she was such a successful food critic because her descriptions of the food she tried and loved had me looking up the restaurant or chef to see if they were still open in NYC. In addition to getting a wonderful insiders view of the life of a food critic in NYC, she also successfully described how it can be hard to slip into and out of disguises without it affecting you and learning, perhaps, more about yourself. I loved the way she explained the ties many of us have with food and our heritage or our history. I found myself hearing my dad talk about how to pick a good piece of meat at the store by looking at the ‘marbling'. The trip through Brooklyn (of the 1990's) and the specialty shops had me wishing I could have tagged along. If the author set out to bring the reader into the life of a food critic and share all the pressures and craziness and wonderful food experienced, she succeeded!