Rating: 
Summary: Ruth Rocks!
Review: This is one of the best books I've ever read and I found it fascinating on many levels. It IS a food memoir. If you are not a foodie or don't like personal bios, you shouldn't be reading it, so get off your high horse and go find another author to pick on. As for other naysayers, I say, let he/she who is without sin cast the first stone. People DO make mistakes in life and Reichl makes it clear she is unhappy and ashamed over the unraveling of her marriage to Doug and her affairs. Also, Doug was having affairs at the same time, so to take on a "poor Doug" attitude is discriminatory and misogynistic.
I think a career as a food writer would be amazing so every word of this book held me spellbound. I loved her descriptions of the people and food in Thailand, China, France and more. I've never been to these places so it was exciting to visit them through the author's eyes.
I am also interested in culinary greats such as Wolfgang Puck and Alice Waters, so I WANTED to know about her exploits with them. Few people get to live a life such as Reichl's, I didn't see it as bragging but as sharing. I will probably never get to meet these people, but now I know more about them.
Also, I am a foodie, so I loved that recipes were included. I had a dinner party last night for ten and used two of the book's recipes. I made a batch of chicken curry and a batch of shrimp curry, both from the Channing Way Shrimp Curry recipe. Ruth's proportions and ingredients were right on. I only made double curry because two guests do not eat poultry or red meat. There was TONS left over, even with ten people. Most guests raved about it, though a friend and I found it too spicy. Keep in mind that she says in the book she loves spicy food.
I also made the Big Chocolate Cake. I made the whole recipe, which makes two 9X13 cakes. One actually served all ten guests, though my friends who chose to hang around late and drink wine appreciated the extra cake to nosh on. I personally found the cake a bit bland but the icing is fabulous, best I've ever tasted. My guests thought it was the best cake they'd ever had. Keep in mind, I'm a foodie and very picky about what I eat.
This will remain one of my favorite books and I will try other recipes in it. It is ideal for anyone who dreams of becoming a food writer or well known restaurant reviewer and enjoys seeing how others live their lives. Or for anyone who simply enjoys great food.
It is not for those who are wide eyed Pollyannas with morally perfect lives or for those without a great passion for food. Grow up, move on.
Rating:
Summary: Honest Cooking Is The Best Kind
Review: "Honest cooking is the best kind" a great gastronome once taught me. Ruth Reichl's memoir is exactly that: honest, simple and totally captivating. Her lucid and vivid style makes the open and direct narration so compelling and poignant.Epicurus once remarked "Happiness begins at the stomach". Ruth Reichl's latest contribution amply demonstrates the fact that food can unleash happiness, passion, tragedy and a whole spectrum of human emotions. In fact, her title "Comfort me with Apples" epitomises this succinctly. One of the most direct ways to provide comfort, share kindness or demonstrate love is through offering a simple meal. This theme is subtly woven into the book. Food becomes a kaleidoscope for human feelings. A refreshing and particularly attractive feature of Ruth Reichl's work is her inborn natural aptitude to enjoy cuisine from the four corners of the world. The universality of the palate is one of the few things that all people share. It is a joy to see Ruth Reichl operate in the global village's kitchens. She tucks into the cuisines of China, France, Spain and other countries with equal enthusiasm, elegance and a natural ease. In addition, her flair for evoking culinary creations provides fun-filled insights into the workings of some famous chefs' kitchens. A must read for foodlovers and romantics!
Rating:
Summary: Audio version
Review: I recently listened to the audio version of CMWA and I recommend it highly. The reader, Lorelei King (I think), has a mellifluous voice with a good emotional quality that well complements the enjoyable narrative. As far as the story - Ruth, you rock. All I have to say.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining enough
Review: Although not the greatest book in the world, it was entertaining and easy to read. I have the same gripes as many of the other more negative reviewers do so I'm not going to repeat them. However, I would like to to remind all those who feel so sorry for poor Doug that he was cheating on Ruth probably longer and with more partners than she was cheating on him. I certainly don't applaud her behavior but obviously there was a problem with her marriage and rather than deal with it, the two of them seemed to seek comfort and excitement through other partners.
Rating: 
Summary: Mid-career with a food giant
Review: No bones about it, Ruth Reichl is a food hero to me. I would have found her life fascinating if she had been a server at Mc Donalds. Luckily that was not the path she took. This book details the section of her life and career where she came to be a food writer. She writes passionately and with great personal exposition about food, life and love. The details of her life and the characters in it are captivating, from Berkley hippies to hollywood superstars, Reichel has food experiences that cross many cultural divides. This was a very quick moving read that left me a little hungry. It was over so fast it left me wanting more.
Rating: 
Summary: Will do in a pinch
Review: I travel a great deal and am always looking for an entertaining book to pass the time. I am also an avid cook and love reading about fine dining and travel. This book bored me to tears! It did have some lovely descriptions of travel and food and I enjoyed the recipes but there was too much information about her love affairs, marriage and infertility problems. Who cares? Either write a book about food or write about your screwed up personal life but don't combine the two. The book struck me as the ramblings of a self-absorbed, wanna-be celebrity food writer.
Rating:
Summary: Table, Bed or Other Venue Memoirs
Review: Ruth certainly can write and her life has been exciting with many twists and turns. Captivating though it is to read, when one wishes to hear more about the food industry and less about a food critic's sex life. The parts about food were exquisite, leading me to desire more of the book would have been about these, e.g. Wolf's 2nd restaurant opening and the whole Barcelona affair. Less about Doug and Michael, et al. Very touching was the section on the adoption, and then the wonderful surpise with Nick. She certainly has an appetite for life which is refreshing and vibrant. One can she how and why she got where she is.
Rating: 
Summary: Unabashed navel-watching
Review: Even as memoirs by living people go, this book is borishly self-congratulatory and self-absorbed. As the narratively jolts and grinds along, Reichl throws recipes in at random parts of the quasi 'plot', as if to give us something in return for the money wasted on buying the book. It's not that she can't write, for she clearly can. It's more that I couldn't get interested in another person's not very interesting life, as told by Reichl, and I felt as if I were watching the food network blindfolded, with the sound turned off - except that it's just not as much fun. Tedious.
Rating:
Summary: Danger ... Food Exploding!
Review: Comfort Me with Apples reads like a continuation of Tender at the Bone (a fantastic memoir). I found myself enjoying it but at the same time, wondering why it was published. It is mostly about how she met the famous chefs who created American cuisine in the 70s and 80s, the main message put across being, 'I was there at the beginning. I saw it all. I have a right to write about food.' The stories about her sex life were put in disguised as explanations as to her life choices but still made me wonder why they were there, when she is still so young. She sounded as if she believed she was being judged. But by whom? Was it to convince people that she had lived and wasn't just a nerdy writer? I couldn't tell... The chapters about her short travels to Thailand and China read like articles in Gourmet magazine -- again, I wondered why they were here, when that's really what they were. I think this book would have been better if she'd waited a few years and not been in a hurry to tell so much, so soon. But I still read it through to the end, and did find the stories at the end very touching.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT READING!
Review: This book is a page turner--you will never get bored because it is so interesting! And it is written in a way that flows from one page to the next, but never slowly! I enjoyed the honest and refreshing commentary she makes on her own life and the events and emotions that she is going through. I'm going to read her first book next.
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