Delicious!

This book tickled me to the bottom of my foodie/cook/historian/mystery-lover/storie-within-a-story-fan/romantic heart. I've really enjoyed Ruth Reichl's memoirs, and her way of bringing her life vividly before the reader. In this, her first novel, much of the details that she perfected in her nonfiction also brings the scents and tastes of the story to life.

Billie has come to New York after her life on the West Coast proved too painful to stay there. As the new assistant to the editor Delicious!, a magazine for food lovers, cooks, and gastronomic adventurers, she thinks that perhaps she can find a new niche. Indeed, the magazine is filled with characters, as is her part-time job at a cheese shop. Life seems to be good, perhaps even show more great, though Billie, who has the ability to taste something and discern all the ingredients, and gives every indication of being a great cook herself, refuses to pick up a spatula, or a whisk, or anything that would necessitate cooking.

Then, suddenly, the magazine folds, the offices are stripped, and the only thing that remains is the "Delicious Guarantee", which since the inception of the publication, has been the venue for readers to voice their complaints, problems, and dissatisfaction with recipes and articles published. Billie is retained as the sole employee, simply to deal with these calls and letters. In doing so, she stumbles upon a hidden room in the library of the old federal style house that used to be home to the magazine, and in that room stumbles upon one more surprise: WWII era letters from a young girl named Lulu to James Beard, who had written for the magazine.

It is these letters, and Lulu, that sealed the deal for me with this book. I learned all sorts of stuff about WWII cooking that I never heard before. (Milkweed pods taste like cheese? Who knew??) Billie heads off on a quest to find Lulu's letters, before the building is sold, and all is lost.

If Lulu isn't real, she should be. And did I mention there's a recipe for an incredible sounding ginger cake at the back of the book?

Many thanks to LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program and the publisher for sending this book along to me. show less

Perfect name for a fantastic book. It's just barely possible that the book is a bit saccharine, but I don't care, don't care, don't care. Wonderfully told, wonderfully strewn with food: descriptions, mysteries, appreciation and tragedies. An absolute delight!

Delightful: a perfect holiday-weekend or summer-at-the-beach read. I can certainly see this novel being picked up by book groups and the like, since it seems to have all the pieces: vivid characterization; a compelling storyline (complete with mystery and intrigue); a fast pace; family and relationship dramas; historical perspectives (the Underground Railroad, life in the USA during World War II); the allure of New York City's eclectic neighborhoods; and plenty of fascinating tidbits about food (including perspectives on James Beard), architecture, cryptography, and more. But read attentively! Reichl successfully executes the dramatic principle of Checkov's gun: no detail is superfluous. The reader wonders how fictitious the whole story show more about Delicious! (the titular magazine) may be, though, given what seem to be parallels with Gourmet (and I'd suppose that folks who voluntarily pick up this novel would know of Reichl's connection to that icon of the US food scene [1941–2009]). (A Q-and-A section with Reichl at the end seems to support my presumptive book-group targeting of this work and helps to address the issue of which content in the book is tied to reality.) As a male reader, I least enjoyed the two sections where the protagonist is made-over (first sartorially, then in terms of hair and makeup); but Reichl handles the well-nigh obligatory (for this sort of work) love scenes with remarkable sensitivity (that is, she leaves most of the action to the readers' imaginations). Brava!

Now, this review is based on having a received an advance reader's copy (ARC) from the publisher (through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers scheme), and I would be remiss if I were not to congratulate copyeditors Loren Noveck and Kathy Lord: This ARC has the fewest errors of any ARC I have ever read. Evidence of attentiveness to detail along all stages of a complex project is one parallel between cooking and literature (qua art) that I particularly appreciate. show less

Having never heard of Ruth Reichl before I read this book, I am now aware that she is a well respected food writer, restaurant critic and non fiction author. This appears to be her first foray into fiction and it clearly draws on her extensive food knowledge. Well judging it purely as a work of fiction with no preconceived ideas - I loved it.

The main character is Billie Breslin, who leaves her family to move to New York for what turns out to be a short lived career as assistant editor with Delicious a well respected food magazine. Her job brings her into contact with the Greenwich Village food community who take her into their hearts. When the magazine folds she is retained purely to answer letters relating to the magazines long held show more guarantee of every recipe a success or you get a refund. Being in the building on her own, she stumbles on a hidden library and discovers a series of letters between a previous Chef employed by the magazine and a 12 year old girl during World War 2. The search for the letters become more urgent when the historic building is put on the market.

During the time Billie is involved in the search to find all these letters she is also building friendships and relationships that help her to come to terms with her past and form the basis of her future.

My love was in no small part down to fact that it dealt with some of my personal interests, food, libraries, history and architecture. Throw in the fact that I visited New York for the first time last year and I was totally smitten. It is a perfect book for curling up with as you let the characters and story envelop you. It's light funny, warm and comforting - highly recommended.

I received a free copy via Netgalley in return for an honest review





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I really loved Ruth Reichl's memoirs and even went to hear her speak so I was so excited to win and review this book. I enjoyed much about this book including the insider New York City foodie knowledge/culture, the behind the scenes bits about a food magazine and the correspondence that the book is based on. I also felt that the book was overly long and there were too many threads to the story. I didn't care for knowing what the heroine was wearing every day once she had her makeover;it felt silly. Still, this is a readable and enjoyable first novel. I would certainly be open to reading more of the authors work, fiction or nonfiction.

Ruth Reichl is one of my food heroes. Her writing on food, so crisp, so evocative; her tenure at the long-lamented Gourmet includes some of the finest food writing ever. She is a thoughtful writer whose sheer love of the joy of eating and of the world that cooking opens up to you is always a joy.

Delicious! is her first novel - a book that briefly considers the assassination of a classic food magazine and is mostly a coming-of-age story rooted in the food world of New York City. Our heroine, Billie Breslin, is delightfully shy - having eschewed college and cooking (despite her miraculous palate) due to an unspecified tragedy in her life involving her sister. She achieves a position as a editorial assistant at Delicious magazine becoming show more part of the magazine's extended family and world. When the magazine is unceremoniously shuttered, she stays behind to honor the Delicious guarantee and discovers a wonderful story hidden among the leftover letters stored away in the building's secret library. Utterly charming without being twee, Delicious! reminds me most of one of my favorite kids' books - Roller Skates (by another Ruth - Ruth Sawyer), in which Lucinda discovers early New York on her roller skates and finds her own family in the city. Simply put, I loved this book - read it all in one sitting - and hated it when it was over. show less

I can almost guarantee that this review will be rife with cooking/food analogies – but with this book – that’s simply unavoidable.

I’ve read all of Ruth Reichl’s non-fiction books and have loved them. She has a way of describing her memories or life events in words that evoke such feeling, that open all of a reader’s senses; she is a natural fit for fiction.
A central element of her stories is food – which is one of the reasons I love them. The tastes, smells, sensations of food and the description of the preparation of it are so evocative and enjoyable that as I started “Delicious!” – I felt a shiver of delight.

“Delicious!” begins with the creation of a very special cake. The main character, Billie, has an show more amazing palate, is able to detect all the elements of a recipe, sense even the most subtle notes of flavor. We meet her as a young girl, with her sister and her aunt as they try and recreate a flavor from the past. We rejoin her life again as she is a young woman embarking on a new life in New York. There, she is dazzled by a world of incredible food, wonderful stories, and colorful people. The reader is lucky enough to take this journey with her.

“I opened them to find Kim dancing with a molten river of chocolate. I stood hypnotized by the scent and the grace of her motions, which were more beautiful than any ballet. Moving constantly, she caressed the chocolate like a lover, folding it over and over on a slab of white marble, working to get the texture right. She stopped to feed me a chocolate sprinkled with salt, which had the fierce flavor of the ocean, and another with the resonant intensity of toasted saffron. One chocolate tasted like rain, another of the desert. I tried tracking the flavors, pulling them apart to see how she had done it, but, like a magician, she had hidden her tricks. Each time I followed the trail, it vanished, and after a while I just gave up and allowed the flavors to seduce me.”

The first section of the book is a treat for the senses as the reader, through Billie, tastes what she tastes, and experiences what she does in one of the world’s most amazing cities. But as the story continues, the focus moves from Billie’s present in the world of food and culinary journalism, to a story – a mystery – from the past. Billie unearths some letters from a young girl named Lulu, who during World War 2, corresponded with James Beard. As Billie reads Lulu’s letters, she has a similar experience as the reader does as tastes, customs, people come alive for her in a way that is very powerful and that brings Lulu and her world to life.

“We could hardly believe that the war was really over and the boys were going to come home, and…well, you’ve seen the pictures. You know how it is when your feet have been asleep and suddenly the blood comes rushing back? You start sensing parts of your body that you had forgotten were there. It was like that. Everything felt good and clean and possible. If you hadn’t lost anyone, you felt blessed. And if you had, for that moment at least the sacrifice seemed noble; after all, we had saved the world.”

There is actually quite a bit going on in “Delicious!” – with many seemingly disparate elements. They shouldn’t work well together - and yet – they do. (A bit like the peppercorn that is used in that very special cake from the start of the book.) All of the characters and stories and sounds, tastes and smells blend together to create something amazing. This is a book that, within a few pages, makes you curl your legs up underneath you and settle in…and never want to leave.

As if the book wasn’t comforting and delightful enough – my copy includes a conversation between Ruth Reichl and Ann Patchett!!!! (One of my favorite writers!)
In “Delicious!”, there is a great deal of information. Details about World War 2, Federalist architecture, food rationing and foraging, cooking (of course), the treatment of Italian Americans during the war years, and more. But like I said, it all works well together. As Ann Patchett comments, “That’s an enormous amount of research, but you didn’t go overboard at all. The information that found its way into the book feels both natural and essential, which is really a trick. I often feel like I’m being punished with the author’s research (I learned all this and so will you!).”

This was such a wonderful book. I consumed it far too fast – but will savor it for a long time to come.

(Sorry – but I did warn you.) show less