April Reads

APRIL READS

APRIL READS

It’s the last Friday in April, which means I’m sharing my recent reads! April was a hectic month for me. I got married last month, and my honeymoon is next month, so April was just all the  crazies that I had to squeeze in between the two. I read four books, but there were about four others I really wanted to read. But life just didn’t allow that this month. It’s cool. 

So, recently I figured out that I love love love reading food writing. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out, but now that I’ve put my finger on it, I can’t get enough of it! I read 4 books this month that all relate to food in one way or another. (And three of them were by the same author…haha! #HiRuthReichl.)

1. CELEBRATE BY LAUREN CONRAD

 

Lauren Conrad, star of MTV’s hit show The Hills (oh man, y’all…who else desperately wanted to move to LA in high school while watching that show??) wrote this book all about hosting events. From baby showers to weddings, and everything in between, she talks about what a good host needs to think about before hosting a big event.

The good: she has a lot of experience hosting parties,  so her check lists are pretty practical. (She even has a great little math equation to figure out the perfect amount of liquor to buy before a party).

The bad: LC draws mostly from her own experience of hosting, so even her most basic birthday party thrown for her BFF would have cost more than my entire annual salary.. I mean, I loved reading about every little detail of her fairy tale wedding, but after just having my own wedding last month, I  remember all too welhow much all of that stuff cost. This book didn’t exactly inspire me to host as much as it left me mesmerized by her life. (Similar to what The Hills did to all of us, right?)

2. TENDER AT THE BONE BY RUTH REICHL

 

Ok, here we go… You probably won’t be able to get me to stop talking about Ruth Reichl’s books until I’ve read every one! Last month I read her memoir Garlic and Sapphires, which was about Ruth’s years as a restaurant critic for The New York Times. Well, this month I read three more of her books. #kindamaybeobsessed. The first was her memoir of childhood. I wanted to read it first because it gives the back story into how she became so obsessed with food, and later spent her life cooking it, writing about it, editing writing about it, and eating it! If you haven’t read any of her books yet, this is a good place to start.

3. MY KITCHEN YEAR BY RUTH REICHL

 

After I read about her childhood, I jumped to her most recent book, My Kitchen Year. This is actually a cookbook, but it reads like a memoir. Reichl served as the Editor of Gourmet magazine, and when it was abruptly closed by its parent company, she recovered from the shock by doing what she does best: cooking and writing. Even if you don’t love reading cookbooks (I don’t..), this is a beautiful story about the power that food has to heal and nurture.

4. Delicious! A Novel by Ruth Reichl

 

I finished the month with the only novel Ruth Reichl has written, which was published in 2014. Y’all, this book is so much fun! If you have a passion for food, you need to add this to your summer reading list! It’s the story of a young girl from California who takes a job at New York’s most iconic food magazine. The plot has some of the same events that marked Reichl’s life, so it was fun to read this book after reading some of her memoirs. But the parts that I loved the most were the descriptions of NYC’s food scene… And it’s written by someone who knows it best: a former New York Times food critic! I adored this book. This might be my go-to when someone asks me to suggest a fun, light, easy vacation read.


So that’s “READS” for April! Maybe I’ll read something other than Ruth Reichl in May…. We’ll see. 😉

I’m heading to the Austin Food and Wine fest this weekend! I’m sure I’ll be oversharing on Instagram, so follow along over there. Talk to you back here on Monday!

Happy, happy Friday!!

Kelsey

 

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Emily
6 years ago

Okay, now I want to read some food writing… I really haven’t read much of it before, but you make it sound so great! I’ll add some of these to my hold list at the library! Enjoy Food and Wine Festival. We thought about going but have heard mixed reviews. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts, and maybe we will get to go next year!

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