50 Books in a Year: Book #14 Comfort Me with Apples

          I am a lover of food. I'd call myself a foodie, but since our high school Friday fish lunch makes me almost as happy as a seared Ahi tuna steak, we won't go there. I love food.
         You already know how I feel about cookbooks, but I also love a good food memoir and a good book that uses food to propel the plot. Books that are about food have the best of all books  in one neat little package. They are romantic and sexy, intriguing, emotional, and full of delicious recipes. Over the years I've read Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, Like Water for Chocolate, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Chocolat, and Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table.
         I read Tender at the Bone my first year of teaching. The feeling I had then, you know that of a single woman on her first adventure into adulthood was echoed in the adventures of Reichl and reading about her life set my mind at ease because reading about living with such eloquence, passion and drive, even in the dark times led me to have faith in my own little life. It was fun to sit around my apartment (that had been converted from a garage) reading this book, pausing only to buy ingredients to cook up some recipe (and I made several from the book), my favorite being the Deviled Eggs.
         Her second book, Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table, came out a couple of years later, but by then my life had taken over me, and I had all but stopped reading for pleasure. I put it on my list of "To Be Read" and moved on.
         I think it's funny how life works and when I started this blog and then started a reading challenge or two *snicker* I thought of this book. Food, after all, is one of the categories of the Non-Fiction reading challenge. This is the final book for my Non-Fiction challenge. I can't believe I finished it so quickly. I'm looking forward to reading more about Reichl, as I have gotten to know her more through her show on PBS and feel that her adventures will only help me with the rest of mine.

Marion's Deviled Eggs
(from Tender at the Bone)
4 hard boiled eggs
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon ballpark mustard
Salt and pepper

Shell eggs, cut carefully in half lengthwise, and put yolks into a bowl. Mash the yolks with a fork until they are smooth. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. The mixture should be thick and creamy. Fill each egg white half with the with the yolk mixture. Grate a bit of pepper on top. Refrigerate until needed. Makes 8 deviled eggs, or about 6 servings.