A real woman is someone who knows what she wants. If you want to stay home, that’s fine, but you have to be clear-eyed. – Ruth Reichl
I’ve been to a couple of restaurants in L.A. that were so loud, I left there with a sore throat; you literally could not have a conversation. I think it’s very deliberate: There’s this idea that somehow it’s more fun if there’s a roar in the room. – Ruth Reichl
Given a choice between great food and boring company or boring food and great company, I’ll take the great company any day. – Ruth Reichl
There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you’re open to them. – Ruth Reichl
I came from a family where, you know, we sat down at the table every night, and you better have a story to tell. My father never wrote his stories down. And you know, I learned that they went farther if you wrote them down. – Ruth Reichl
My idea of management is that what your job is as the boss is to find really good people and empower them and leave them alone. – Ruth Reichl
If we make it national policy that we will support small farmers the way we support agribusiness, we’ll suddenly see it change in terms of the cost of organic food. – Ruth Reichl
The first time you make something, follow the recipe, then figure out how to tailor it to your own tastes. – Ruth Reichl
People are so used to eating terrible pancakes, no matter how you mess up, they’re going to be great. And if you make fresh orange juice, they’ll be over the moon. – Ruth Reichl
One of mom’s greatest acts of generosity was that she trained me to be defiant. Her great gift to me was encouraging me to be the person that I wanted to be, not the one that she and my father wished I was. – Ruth Reichl
It was through cooking food and sharing it with each other that our ancestors learned how to become social animals. – Ruth Reichl
My mother started out by being a very good girl. She did everything that was expected of her, and it cost her dearly. Late in her life, she was furious that she had not followed her own heart; she thought that it had ruined her life, and I think she was right. – Ruth Reichl
The way we allow children to be advertised to is shocking. Eating is a learned behavior, and we’ve made these kids sitting ducks for all the bad messages about industrialized food. The fact that we allow that to go on is horrifying. – Ruth Reichl
The thing I like most in my kitchen is my marble counters. Everybody said not to use marble because it’s fragile, it stains, it cracks, and it doesn’t remain beautiful. But I love marble. – Ruth Reichl
For me, cooking is a way to try and please people and tell them I love them. When I fall in love with someone, I want to feed them as well. – Ruth Reichl
World War II really fascinated me because it’s the only time that everybody in this country sat down at the same table, because eating on rations was your patriotic duty. – Ruth Reichl
Really, the only way to face the biggest problems we have is for the government to change the way they subsidize food. The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald’s and get a hamburger than a salad, and that’s insane. – Ruth Reichl
My idea of good living is not about eating high on the hog. Rather, to me, good living means understanding how food connects us to the earth. – Ruth Reichl
I was in Berkeley when the food energy in America was in Berkeley. Then it moved to Los Angeles, and I went to Los Angeles. It moved to New York, and I went there. – Ruth Reichl
Anybody who believes Yelp is an idiot. Most people on Yelp have no idea what they’re talking about. – Ruth Reichl
One of the things I really love about restaurants is that in many ways, they are the ultimate democratic institutions, where you get to walk in the door, plunk down your money, and for however long that you’re there, you can be anyone you want to be. – Ruth Reichl
If you go back in American history, oysters were the food of poor people. New York was filled with oyster saloons in the 1800s. – Ruth Reichl
