I was 33, too tired to walk anywhere, too jet-lagged and weary from travel to get myself to a bistro of any kind. Ruth Reichl. top 20 worst suburbs in perth 2021. nick singer son of ruth reichl. I did, and hated it it felt like swallowing another persons tongue. Her hair is big and black and kinky, but she has taken to blowing it out so it looks sort of wild but manageable. After the spelling bee in bed, I had lox and bagels that I had picked up from Zabars. I went to the studio to work on my novel. I use Plugra for baking. She's contracted to write three more books, including a cookbook called The Tao of Ruth, a title given to her by chef/TV host Anthony Bourdain and the name of a segment on his Sirius satellite radio show during which he reads aloud Reichl's Twitter messages. Food and Country Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Reichl and Singer began a prolonged court fight. I folded the spine of the lemon over the dish. I think Im going to like it here, my son announced. She has been the recipient of four James Beard Awards: in 1996 and 1998 for restaurant criticism, . American food is the food of immigrants. The issue exploded into a news story portrayed on Spanish-language television as two wealthy American journalists trying to take a baby away from a poor Mexican woman. You talk to people at the next table. Ruth Reichls writing studio at her Spencertown home. In the pantheon of Times food critics, Reichl is known as one of the strongest democratizing forces. I stopped a man as he threatened to knock the walker out of a womans hands and said, Dude? Lunch is more important than dinner, dairy at the end of the meal (cheese, yogurt), a slice of ham in the evenings, a salad, an omelet and especially soups, arising out of a frugal cultures resolve to waste nothing (broth-making from the chicken bones, jam from the summers bounty). 1050. James Truman, Ruth Reichl and Gray Kunz attend Gourmet Magazine's celebration release of March 2004 New York Issue with the world's greatest chefs at. To submit a letter to the editor for publication, write to, The Book of Eating: Adventures in Professional Gluttony, Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking. The waiters stood on the sidelines, watching us with fond eyes. They circled a martini glass full of ice; each one was massive, practically a small lobster. In September 2010, she was named editor-at-large at Random House, which will also be publishing her next three books. Today I Zoomed with Saru Jayaraman, the writer and president of One Fair Wage, Danny Meyer and chef Brandon Jew. There is congee, apricot pie and an easy version of sausage Bolognese that she cooked after the grim day that friends from Los Angeles helped her pack her office at Gourmet. But one older woman had a local recommendation for Reichl. People are really fascinated by the notion that we witnessed the transformation.. My love affair with the Cheesecake Factory had begun much like everyone elses: A girl in my suburban high school took me there for my 17th birthday, and it was the most glamorous, luxurious place I had ever been, I was genuinely in awe of the 72-page menu, couldnt believe they bring you a literal goblet of ice water and refill it every 30 seconds 10-out-of-10, would go again. In preparation for the interview, a woman applies Reichl's make-up. All of my books were written at 4 in the morning. Abel, which has been serving food since 1726 (and there are few, if any, older eating establishments in the world), was a jumble of oddly configured rooms Ive counted at least five, on two floors, but there might well be more low-ceilinged, a fireplace in each, history nailed on every wall space. Sitting there, I realized with a small jolt that I had never dined alone before, and drunk with a sudden sense of times terrifying advancement, ordered the most adult thing on the menu: a bowl of mussels, clams and oysters, swimming in a milky, buttery broth, with a bright wedge of lemon tucked on the side of the plate. When Reichl arrives at the restaurant, she is horrified. Ruth Reichl busts me within a minute in my apartment. She's now an editor-at-large at Random House. Imagine being given a bowl of stew made from a two-week old turkey carcass, half a can of mushroom soup, droopy vegetables scraped from the back of the fridge and half a . The cats sneak onto the counter. Ruth Reichl (left)with close friend, chef Nancy Silverton (right), and chef and "Top Chef" host Tom Colicchio. Her spouse is Michael Singer. New York certainly does. It is informal and noisy and a crazy good value, and diners, especially the regulars, tend to change the moment they step inside, as though leaving their inhibitions and their formal Lyonnais reserve in a heap by the door. A freshly constructed Cheesecake Factory, the ruler of the reheated, prepackaged mall chains, opening only an hourlong car ride and a half a tank of gas away from where I live? I usually go in and say What great cheese do you think I should have today? I love their focaccia too, and their homemade crackers. Michael and I spend much of our days apart. And, OK, maybe I exaggerated the number of menu pages, but you could easily go there once a week for the rest of your life and never get the same thing twice. We delivered to just one customer Madonna and our assistant manager took her order and brought it to her personally. 6. You know restaurants arent really about the food. After the Navy, he returned. In as much time as it takes to peel a peach, she went from the top of the heap into free fall. nick singer son of ruth reichl. This is one of Paul Grimes' recipes, and that's a surprise. Are we the kind of people who do anything?. Some say that their mothers, too, were manic depressive. Last year, in the middle of the book tour for my memoir, In the Dream House, I found myself staying in a hotel in a mall. In a used book store, her father, a book designer, thrilled her by spending 50 cents on a Gourmet Cookbook. I have people over for dinner at least once a week. tiny black tadpole looking bug in bathroom; ff14 plasmoid iron lake location; top 10 most dangerous areas in cape town; cockapoo rescue michigan; floris nicolas ali, baron van pallandt cause of death; Notably, she is perfecting a pork and Chinese noodle dish that is her husbands current favorite. Reichl left her job as restaurant critic for the New York Times in 1999 to assume the helm at Gourmet, the 60-year-old grand dame of American food magazines. Her carefully curated team of writers, designers and cooks, many of them close friends, were gone, off to find work elsewhere with varying degrees of success. Ruth Reichl is wandering through her $1,800-a-night suite atop the Campton Place Hotel on Union Square. What can I cook with this sad cabbage?). It was the first time any of us had been in a restaurant indoors in 14 months. When we built the house in 2002, my husband Michael and I decided we both needed our own work space. The photographer has asked her to pose in front of a rack of pans. Bacon and Cheddar Toasts, May 2004. Like her good friend Alice Waters, the baker Dorie Greenspan and Paula Wolfert, the cook with Alzheimers disease whose work is being turned into a cookbook thanks to a Kickstarter campaign, Ms. Reichl is a revered icon among younger cooks. There was that moment when there werent greenmarkets, and the only stuff you could get was in the supermarket. I made the mistake of asking one hostess why the menu had no prices; I couldnt bring myself to go much further after that. English; nick singer son of ruth reichl. Then I stopped at Rubiners to get some of their delicious gorgonzola. Im usually up by 6 a.m. and I do the New York Times Spelling Bee in bed. Reichl always has dressed in a style that people politely describe as "vintage." The parents of Ruth Reichl are Miriam Reichl, Ernst Reichl. Morandi is home to my comfort meal (blistered shishito peppers, cacio e pepe, Negroni). (Bryan Miller, her hidebound predecessor, was so outraged he wrote a letter to Reichl's editors accusing her of "destroying the system.") People were scheduled to live in the couples New York apartment that winter. Dan Barber is one of the people Ive been talking to regularly for my film. Ruth Reichl (pronounced RYE-shil) is an American chef, food writer, co-producer of PBS's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, . They are wonderful people who really care about the people who work for them. When I was a child, my family went to Red Lobster exactly once, but I have no memory of it. For dinner I made Thai noodles. It is there she decided to be a food critic in spite of her politics, and to leave her first husband, Douglas Hollis, a sculptor who still lives in San Francisco. I will now remind the ladies and gentlemen of the jury that this tiramis came with a declaration of love. participative ethical decision making model / how to find blood type on mychart / how to find blood type on mychart They paid their $95 and they got her. Her memoir about her years at Cond Nast is in the works.). Forget the clothing allowance and fancy hotel suites. I watched an interview with Michael Moss. We all worked lunches as something of a favor to the restaurant, as there wasnt as much money in it as dinner. Its like our own Town Hall, central meeting place. nick singer son of ruth reichl. We would probably be gone by the time she got it. YES, I WAS. I have something like 850 audiobooks. They are the ones who created a market for micro greens (basically, by accident). In "Save Me the Plums," she writes about her years as editor of Gourmet magazine. Make the most of your downtime. And the shrimp! I tasted fresh scallions for the first time at that long-ago restaurant, and sprigs of coriander that I still associate in a small, Proustian way, with that long-ago time back in Taiwan. She writes in a little cabin set a few dozen paces behind the sleek house with glass walls that the couple built 11 years ago here on a shale plateau between the Hudson River and the Berkshires. Personal: Reichl was once married to a sculptor named Douglas Hollis. One rainy wintry night during our first year in Lyon, when my wife was in London, I arranged a sitter for our children and went on my own to a favorite, le Caf Comptoir Abel. Ruth Reichl. I dont recall the year, but I remember his face as he sat and drank it, in his new suit, just happy and lit up from the inside out. At this point in your life, she said, you have to have as much fun as you can because you dont know whats coming down the road.. My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life. I was seated at a small table by the door, with a happy view of a crowded and happy dining space. Writing is never fun for me, but right now I am having the best time with this. Fisher's house in Sonoma. Her new book, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life, which will be released by Random House on Sept. 29, is the baby conceived in that first painful post-Gourmet year. But so it is with Morandi, in the West Village. The minute you pass the GW bridge, its like, wow, you are in pretty country. The restaurant was a chain out of Texas, and the house cocktail, a frozen Bellini called the Sfuzzi, was allegedly fresh peach, peach schnapps and Prosecco, though the bartenders assured us it was also spiked with vodka. Reichl's two Russian blue cats named Zaza and Cielo. As it got dark, the sounds of crickets and frogs used to fill the air, and you could see fireflies playing high up in the trees. I am partial to Land O Lakes unsalted butter. its my perfect midnight snack. It felt like a real celebration. New York restaurants have never been lacking in celebrity patrons. And their normal is pretty much how most of us are eating lately: at home. No more Cond Nast salary, black cars at her beckoning and $30,000 budgets to shoot a Thanksgiving spread. Ruth Reichl, author of the new book "Save Me the Plums," her memoir of her 10 years as the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. I ordered an old-fashioned, a Caesar salad my old book-tour standby and a shrimp cocktail. But there is a glitch. Cats get fed. What should I tell her? asked our waiter, once we selected the tiramis. The experience, she says, has unexpectedly been the biggest food learning experience of her life. For the past year Ive been working on a documentary about the food landscape, Zooming with food people across the country. Isnt that Carole Bouquet? Michael pointed across the room to a family seated with a boy about Nicks age. But I made enough to live on while writing my first novel. The waiter pointed in our direction. This is a story about the importance of getting ones vision checked as much as its a story about a restaurant. Her most recent book, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir . We lived in an old Japanese house on the outskirts of the city, and in the early evening, wed drive out to our favorite barbecue through rice paddies and fields of sugar cane. One woman, being interviewed on CNN, carried a sign which read "If Ruth Reichl Knowingly Lives With Him, How Bad Could . Ms. Reichl spent another year recreating what she had done the first year, this time during visits from the photographer Mikkel Vang, who captured her tossing leaves in the air, trudging to her writing cabin in the snow and cooking the books recipes. I never understood the magic of the place, but I knew it was durable. Callers want to know about the art of restaurant reviewing and the difference between balsamic and red wine vinegars. He missed his friends, he missed his room and he missed familiar food. I dont feel that old, she said. Plates arrived, first courses (foie gras and artichokes, or a salade lyonnaise), more wine and then the plat principal (various chickens, kidneys, a blood sausage called boudin noir, quenelles made from the local lake fish, sweetbreads, tripe), cheese (a fromage blanc, the first fresh cheese, often from the Alps, or a Saint-Marcellin, Brie-like and a Lyonnais favorite), more wine, dessert (that apple tart, baba au rhum, fondant au chocolat no one in the room saying no to dessert), and an after-dinner spirit made by the monks of Chartreuse. She was Editor in Chief of Gourmet magazine. Im hoping not to miss any of the upcoming residencies where the chefs are exploring the intersection of cooking and farming and culture. Ms. Reichl, who often invokes her hippie bona fides, said she always knew she was a visitor in that world. Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table. I'm interested in happiness. I wished Fortunes Ice Cream was open but no such luck. But you will learn so much. These are filthy, she said. I watched frustrated packs of tweens sighing and grimacing at their watches, angrily punching orders like mom get me NOW, k? into their phones as they stormed away from the host in a huff. During a lull, we announced that wed leave them to it. Toss in a teaspoon of vanilla. After decades as an editor who encouraged readers to apply elaborate cooking methods to the Thanksgiving turkey, Ms. Reichl breaks free from the tyranny of innovation and admits that simply shoving an unseasoned bird into a 450-degree oven is the best way to go. [She bought the rights to Garlic and Sapphires, Reichl's 2005 memoir about reviewing restaurants for The New York Times .] But all you ate was French fries and chocolate cake, I pointed out. Adults pressed their impatient faces against the brand-new cold cases housing the more than 30 legendary cheesecakes as their toddlers wailed and tugged at their pant legs, begging them to just feed them the bag of Cheerios theyd left behind in the car. Debes escanear el cdigo QR, haz clic en Continuar para adjuntar la captura de pantalla (es el nico comprobante de pago) y podrs completar la compra. I bought him a glass of Chianti, a Solaia, to surprise him with a truly fine glass of wine. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. A bouchon is a unique local venue. Just tell her we love her, I said, satisfied, my biggest concern being Amy Poehlers tolerance for lactose. I drove over to North Plains Farm for chicken liver and eggs. But those who do freeze. Barely the size and shape of Amy Poehler. And, for five years, we routinely ate at the citys many bouchons. I was new and hadnt waited tables like this before. nick singer son of ruth reichl. He wasnt making much money yet. Eater. I just like salami.. "And if you can't get a booth in the back, tell them Shirley sent you.". Before I began doing research for my film I didnt know that in some places some servers earn as little as $2.13/hour which means they didnt even make enough to be eligible for unemployment. "I had no idea we would have a real kitchen. I cracked shell after shell against their hinges, soaking thick bread in the broth when I noticed another patron an older woman, looking as content as I felt doing the same. "We were a collection of overeducated, passionate cooks," she said. She leaves plenty of time for good meals, of course, and a daily walk at the Ooms Conservation Area in Chatham. Want to know where to start? She can afford to eat and travel as she pleases. I asked for some Beaujolais, and ordered from a menu written on a chalkboard. The waiter studied him for a moment and disappeared. Ive heard that all the Mongolian barbecues in Taiwan are gas operations now, but in those early days, great braziers were heated with wood and charcoal, and as you got closer, you could smell the wood smoke in the air and the faint sweet, sizzling smells of burning lamb and chicken and beef, the way you sometimes do at the great old barbecue joints around the United States. Just to keep her honest, he pulled out her first book, a volume called "Mmmmm: A Feastiary," published in 1972. Our mail doesnt get delivered, so we all go to the post office every day. We decided the perfect thing to do would be to send her a dessert. While we tucked into a plump chicken with crackling skin, Nick ran in to say the woman upstairs had shouted out the window. Reichl the former food editor at The Los Angeles Times, restaurant critic of The New York Times, six-time James Beard winning author, best-selling memoirist and, for a decade, the editor of. Im going to the Bay Area soon to meet him and go to his restaurant. She is a writer who chronicles life. There were things like seaweed stipes with pickled rhubarb, and an intense mussel broth that was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. Younger food enthusiasts are drawn to less artifice and showmanship in cooking, which has led to an appreciation for old-fashioned cooks in a playing field that has been dominated by professional, celebrity-seeking chefs, she said. A troubling trend that will continue for the rest of the day begins at the first interview. The monthly program features food from current cookbooks, prepared under the direction of chefs Roland Passot and Steven Obranovich. She made a point of reviewing Japanese, Korean, Indian and Chinese restaurants rather than. Its a beautiful road. Exotic, Flavor, Rich. 16 Copy quote. That was fine with us; we were sipping Cognac strolling from table to table, making friends. But they shy away. I am writing an op-ed about this at the moment. My 8-year-old son, Nick, was tired of traveling. Ruth Reichl is an American chef and food writer. Now I talk to him every two weeks. She has a smile for everyone, most of whom tell her how much they adored her first book. But every city where Reichl wrote claims her as its own. I was 19, in college in Washington, D.C. One evening, some friends invited me to join them in Georgetown, and then halfway through a two-bus journey to get there bailed. Refresh Page She is also a very close friend of mine. Who: Formerly the chief food critic for the Times, Reichl was the editor-in-chief of Gourmet until the magazine's closure in 2009. The mall parking lot was surprisingly packed for a non-last-minute-holiday-shopping day, and I cursed my poor planning as I was forced to park several miles away from the closest door. As she releases her first cookbook since 1971, the former Gourmet editor opens up her rich bank of food memories to explain why a steak sandwich is never just a steak sandwich, and why chocolate cake is the most delicious way to end a marriage. Her new cookbook, she said, is as close to an authentic and unvarnished accounting of her life as she has produced. And she spends a lot of time engaged with the couples cats, two Russian Blues she got from a shelter named Cielo and ZaZa, who look exactly like what would arrive if you called central casting and ordered up cats for Ruth Reichl. As restaurant critic for The Los Angeles Times and then The New York Times, and now as editor of Gourmet magazine, Reichl's passion, humor, abandon, intelligence, whimsy and vital sense of food as culture have revolutionized a nation raised on Betty Crocker cookbooks and school cafeterias. Try to beat that. I then Zoomed with Cliff Pollard, the founder of the Unconventional Meat Company. It was in the pages of that magazine that she developed the proletarian, experience-based literary style that came to be her trademark. Another overpriced French meal, he grumbled, making it clear that this was his idea of hell. The kind of seafood I wanted shellfish in huge, heaping mouthfuls felt as far away from me as adulthood. I realize, Ms. Reichl said, I gave myself the view., Recipes: Eggplant Salad | Chicken Diavolo | Ruth Reichls Giant Chocolate Cake, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/dining/ruth-reichl-my-kitchen-year.html. I dragged my friend Emily with me because looking at stuff I cant afford alone makes me depressed. The stores another terrific local resource. She was editor in chief of Gourmet magazine for ten years.She lives in upstate New York with her husband and two cats. ruthreichl.substack.com/welcome Posts Reels Videos Tagged The car has 100,000 miles on it. A favorite fast dinner that Reichl makes at home: pasta with anchovies, lemon, chiles and bread crumbs. Good fortune such as this simply doesnt happen to me, and now all of a sudden Id accidentally stumbled across the grand opening of the luxurious, wicker-chaired faux-Egyptian-mall-restaurant fantasy of my dreams? Finally, it's on to Left Bank in Larkspur for the last event of the day: Cooks with Books. Back at home, I Zoomed with chef Nancy Silverton for the film. So a woman who calls herself relentlessly urban moved to the country, defeated. It was Nick Singer, Michael Singer's son. Jan 24, 2023 Expert Insight Expert Insight Michael Singer, a television . Working in a restaurant in this part of New York is like starring in a film about yourself where the extras are all stars. 19 Copy quote. Failing meant only one seating before curtain, or diners missing their shows both unforgivable outcomes. Ruth Reichl. She grew up there, and moved back in 1993 to become the restaurant critic for the New York Times. Who was Ruth Reichl's first husband? Then I would get the guys up (Michael and my son Nick) and make breakfast and go off to the office. The women, confused by the gesture but game to accept it, invited us to sit. It's easy to see why friends and family, including her son, Nick, make the annual trip to the 2,475-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bathroom home in Spencertown, NY, that Reichl and her. And now that we are all vaccinated, its so nice to be able to welcome people back into the house. Ruth Reichl (/ r a l /; born January 16, 1948), is an American chef, food writer, co-producer of PBS's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, culinary editor for the Modern Library, host of PBS's Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth, and the last editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. To choose a restaurant and get there on your own steam and order a meal and pay for it with your money and then to eat every single bite. &quot . Personal: Reichl was once married to a sculptor named Douglas Hollis. She has a cadre of young friends, and was on the cover of the girl crush issue of Cherry Bombe, the indie magazine about women and food. Danny is so thoughtful, so decent, and he has such an interesting mind. Like us, of late, the Lyonnais buy their ingredients, make their food, eat it at home, clean up afterward. The book was an accident, really. I do remember throwing some abstract women supporting other women rhetoric on top like a sprinkling of cocoa powder. Without warning, Cond Nast closed Gourmet, after 69 years, on her watch. Pt made from the livers of local pastured chickens is set out next to cold salmon roe that will be folded into butter-soaked buckwheat blinis she is cooking on a pan that is nearly black from use. Reichl the former food editor at The Los Angeles Times, restaurant critic of The New York Times, six-time James Beard winning author, best-selling memoirist and, for a decade, the editor of Gourmet magazine decided it was time to make a big change. One electrifying night, as I picked up the signed check from the table, I saw the name Madeleine LEngle the author of a favorite childhood novel and looked up, but she was already gone, whisking herself across the street to the opera, and universes beyond. I buy a lot of ros from Michael Albin. Date of Birth: 01/16/1948 Sweet, Food, Perfect. Cooking is my favorite activity for me its pure pleasure. But an overpriced chunk of glycerin was as good a reason as any. So instead of fessing up, we latched onto the coattails of this parallel truth. When my large, hungry brothers and I were of a young, impressionable eating age, my father, who was working for the United States Foreign Service at the time, would make a point of taking us out to restaurants in the far-off places where we lived. Reichl is introduced with a line that basically goes like this: From a hippie commune in Berkeley to the editor of Gourmet -- Ruth Reichl! I forgot that one of the reasons we go to restaurants is to experience food we couldnt create on our own or even imagine. When we got out on the street, my friend and I doubled over laughing, tears in our eyes. Now I set my car on 62 miles per hour and have a very relaxed drive up listening to audio books. She offers a precise accounting of both a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the recipe for the chef Eric Riperts sea urchin pasta, the dish she fantasized about most when she spent two months away from the stove recovering from a broken foot. Its a magical place. One emotional listener argues the politics of adoption. Ruth Reichl (/ r a l /; born January 16, 1948), is an American chef, food writer, co-producer of PBS's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, culinary editor for the Modern Library, host of PBS's Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth, and the last editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. Sun 12 May 2002 11.33 EDT. At heart, she is a not a fancy food maven, a chef name-dropper or a foie gras addict. I also bought some squid. The menu Reichl has selected is too simple for the evening. Filed Under: Food, Media, Publishing. An editor helped her nudge it into a full-fledged cookbook. Later that night, I texted a friend who sometimes works with Amy Poehler. All of them are immediately appealing, written with lyrical notes that are both reassuring and exacting. Cook. And then I was an adult. I stopped at the Berry Farm for parsley and oregano to plant. When the meal was over, I walked for a while, because it seemed that adults who dined alone also sometimes walked for a while, with no destination in particular. Later, when she returned undisguised, Maccioni kept King Carlos of Spain waiting at the bar while he personally seated her. Chris Schonberger. Ruth Reichl Alex Ulreich In 2009, Cond Nast shuttered its premiere food magazine Gourmet after 68 years in business. They circled a martini glass full of ice; each one was massive, practically a small lobster. SPENCERTOWN, N.Y. Ruth Reichl was in the kitchen she designed as both command center and comfort station, making a salami sandwich for her husband, Michael Singer, 75, a former CBS News producer who has been recovering from back surgery. But on weekends, I pass people on the trail.. At a local television station, her status in the food world is lost on the young staffers in the green room. I am eating dinner next to the water. Of note: The old guard wasn't terribly thrilled when Reichl arrived at the Times: She shocked traditionalists by awarding three stars to Honmura An, a noodle shop in SoHo. When we lost restaurants this spring when their doors closed and many of their workers were sent home we didnt just lose places to be fed. Thai noodles that Reichl, who says she fell in love with Thai food in the 1970s, made at home. They are much more interested in Alicia from "Survivor," who goes on just before Reichl. Grate the rind of one lemon into 2 and a quarter cups of flour. Afterward I drove to Hudson to get wine from Hudson Wine Merchants. The secret to life is finding joy in ordinary things. "You have gorgeous eyes," she gushes. She signed books. Backstory: Reichl's mother didn't know how to cook, which probably explains why Ruth recalls frequent bouts with food poisoning as a child. Still, the house provides much of the backdrop for the first half of "Comfort Me With Apples." Reichl has been working for 14 months on a documentary about the American food system. For five years, I lived with my family in Lyon, France. I mean, it wasnt about the soap as much as it was about needing an excuse to spend a Saturday morning any place other than my house. Food happens to be her medium: "Given a choice between great food and boring company or boring food and great company, I'll take the great company any day.".