My kitchen year : 136 recipes that saved my life

Summary: "In the fall of 2009, Gourmet magazine was abruptly ended by its parent company. No one was more stunned than its beloved editor in chief, Ruth Reichl, who suddenly faced an uncertain professional future. As she struggled to process what had seemed unthinkable, Reichl turned to the one place that had always provided sanctuary. "I did what I always do when I<U+2019>m confused, lonely, or frightened," she writes. "I disappeared into the kitchen." My Kitchen Year follows the change of seasons -- and Reichl's emotions -- as she slowly heals through the simple pleasures of cooking. She now had the time to rediscover what cooking meant to her. Imagine kale, leaves dark and inviting, sautéed with chiles and garlic; summer peaches baked into a simple cobbler; fresh oysters chilling in a box of snow; plump chickens and earthy mushrooms, fricasseed with cream. Over the course of this challenging year, each dish Reichl prepares becomes a kind of stepping stone to finding joy again in ordinary things. The recipes collected here represent a life's passion for food: a blistering ma po tofu that shakes Reichl out of the blues; a decadent grilled cheese sandwich that accompanies a rare sighting in the woods around her home; a rhubarb sundae that signals the arrival of spring. Part cookbook, part memoir, part paean to the household gods, this book reveals a refreshingly vulnerable side of the famous food editor as she shares treasured recipes to be returned to again and again and again. Ruth Reichl lives in upstate New York"--