Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a reading at the Brattle Theatre by Ruth Reichl for her new memoir Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way. It was wonderful. Ruth is so engaging to listen to and I enjoyed myself very much. While there I also had the opportunity to meet Carol for the first time, who only previously knew me via twitter and the cookies CK supplied her with at the office. I also ran into Jess of Sweet Amandine and my friend Emma. I’m sure there were more local bloggers there so if you were in the crowd please delurk in the comments and let me know.
Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to use flash photography during the reading so none of my pictures of Ruth on stage came out. I did manage to snap a few images of her signing Carol’s copies of Gourmet magazine but of course her eyes are closed. Lovely, right? I’m posting it anyway though. My friend Anna assures me that it simply looks as though Ruth is concentrating intently on her signing duties. We’ll go with that…
The best part of the event is that I now have a signed copy of Not Becoming My Mother. Chances are that Ruth Reichl will never in a million years ever know who I am in real life but at least I have proof that I met her (however briefly) once upon a time. Now I just need to find a few moments to devour her book.
If you weren’t able to attend this reading or a comprable event in your area then you should definitely check out the great interview that Ruth did with WBUR or take a moment to read this introspective blog post by Jennifer Adams about the inspiration she has gleamed from Ruth over the years in her own work as a food writer.