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DIARY
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RUTH REICH!.

Jewish spiritual journey, Through the
tual life. "I enjoy my children," she
Unknown, Remembered Gate.
says. "I listen to them and watch
After regaining her sight, she begins
them, I let them take the lead. I think
psychoanalysis with a religious
in a way that's a religious experience."
Christian psychiatrist who helps to
— Sandee Brawars k
inspire her Jewish path. The author of
two previous books, The Wind Won't
COMFORT ME WITH APPLES
Know Me: A History of the Navajo-Hopi
By Ruth Reichl
Land Dispute and Beyond the Four
(Random House; 302 pages; $24.95)
Corners of the World: A Navajo Woman's
s restaurant critic for the Los
Journey, Benedek comes to realize that
Angeles Times and then the
her interest in Native American culture
New York Times, and now as
and religion masks an untapped interest
ditor of Gourmet magazine,
in her own story, in Judaism.
Ruth Reichl's passion, humor, intelli-
Benedek's story is multi-layered and
gence, whimsy and vital sense of food
complex; the narrative moves back and
as culture have revolutionized a nation
forward in time, sometimes filling in the
raised on Betty Crocker cookbooks.
blanks, at times raising new mysteries.
Reichl's 1998 memoir, Tender at the
Briefly, she reaches back to her own
Bone, was a bestseller. It chronicled her
family history. A fourth-generation
story of growing up the daughter of a
Harvard graduate, Benedek describes
manic-depressive mother who was a
her background as a "family of con-
terrible cook, and touched on her days
verts"— not converts to or from
at the University of Michigan, where
Judaism, but converts to America,
she earned her undergraduate and
whose "religious practice, if not our
master's degrees. In Ann Arbor, she
Jewish identity, trickled out of the
also waitressed at a series of restau-
family, generation by generation."
rants, and managed the kitchen at the
She signs up for a class on Jewish mys- co-op where she lived, broadening her
ticism at the Jewish Community Center
knowledge about food.
in Dallas and is moved to tears when the
Her follow up, Comfort Me with
teacher begins the class with the blessing Apples: More Adventures at the Table,
for the privilege of studying Torah.
derails her affair, the breakup of her first
The following Saturday, she attends
marriage and her romance with and mar-
her first Sabbath service. The elderly
riage to her second husband. The mem-
rabbi plays an electric guitar, and the
oir is both bittersweet and almost hilari-
music resonates powerfully. "There I
ously indulgent.
was, unexpectedly, at home," she says.
Consider the way she writes about
Benedek is curious, thoughtful and
her affair. At 31, she meets a man she
honest, and a good storyteller. She
refers to only as "the food editor." He's
recounts her sessions with her analyst,
pompous, she thinks, and older; she,
where she probes deeper and deeper
in her turn, tries too hard to seem
into her self, and ultimately finds heal- knowledgeable and finds herself wax-
ing and new ways to see.
ing fervent about black truffles, cham-
She also writes of her explorations of pagne vintages and tiny-gauge caviars
Jewish life. Benedek is skilled at artic-
— subjects she knows nothing about.
ulating ideas and silent yearnings
But when they have dinner at LA's
shared by many people searching for
legendary Ma Maison, all pretenses drop
religious meaning. "I am animated by
away. The beluga caviar was "seductively
people who believe," she says.
fruity." There were "baked oysters
As the memoir concludes, Benedek
wrapped in lettuce, sprinkled with caviar
is well into a new chapter of her life.
and bathed in beurre Blanc [and] terrine
She is married and hopes her two
de foie gras. The flavors danced and the
young daughters "will lead us into the
soft substances slid down my throat."
next step" of observance. These days,
The next morning, waking up in his
she has no problems with her eyes.
bed, she is momentarily horrified.
Busy with the kids, she admits she
"What was it that I found so irresistible
has less time to think about her spiri-
about this man? I replayed the night in

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my head — the caviar, the oysters, the
foie gras, the cigars. It had been like a
wonderful dream, all my fantasies made
real."
Comfort goes on to the harder parts —
the divorce, the new marriage, the adop-
tion and then loss of a baby whose birth
parents successfully reclaimed her — as
well as the happier stuff, her hiring by
the L.A. Times and the birth of her
son, Nick.
It is also sprinkled with recipes —
dishes that remind her of people,
places and life-changing events — and
remembrances of special meals, like a
dinner prepared for her by entertainer
Danny Kaye. "I think it's the best
meal I've ever eaten," she told him.
Reichl took her title from a line in
The Song of Songs
"Comfort me
with apples, for I am love-sick" — and
she does indeed write about the
restorative powers of good food as,
throughout, she obviously tries to be
honest and even-handed.
In Tender at the Bone, Reich' details
a rather bohemian life with an
ambivalent attitude toward fine food
(although her ire is raised as she
recounts the story of a non-Jewish
boyfriend who refers to her succulent,
matzah brei as "fried cardboard").
In Comfort Me with Apples, palate
wins over principle.
The book ends with Nick's birth in
the late '80s. As for whether she will
write a '90s volume, Reichl says,
"Well, not right away.
"When I started working in a news-
room I quit keeping journals. It just
isn't compatible with a computer. So I'd
have to depend more on other people."
She laughs. "The next book may
have to be fiction."
—Eve Zibart, BookPages

—

FRAGILE BRANCHES: TRAVELS
THROUGH THE JEWISH
DIASPORA

By James R. Ross
(RiverheadBooks; 229 pp.; $23.95)
s he was walking up the dirt
path to a synagogue in the
hills of Uganda on a Friday
night, journalist James R
Ross could hear strains of "Lecha

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