I thoroughly enjoyed Ruth Reichl’s Save Me the Plums (reviewed here) and in the great summer bookshelf purge, picked up Garlic and Sapphires, which a friend lent me years ago (lesson here – don’t even lend me books – it often takes me forever to get to them with library books always taking precedence). Reichl was a food critic at the NYT among other awesome editing jobs over her career. Garlic and Sapphires’ subtitle is “The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise,” which tells you everything you need to know about this one. It’s a great memoir, not only because it’s fun and funny, but also because of the wonderful descriptions of food at NY’s finest restaurants, the recipes she sprinkles throughout, and also the actual reviews, which I assume were in the Times. It’s a great book, but not as good as Save Me the Plums.