BookCon: And all of the Magic it Inspired

I thought it fitting to write my first entry about what sort of started this all. While aimlessly scrolling through Twitter while waiting for a colleague to return a phone call, I noticed a strange hashtag. #BookCon started appearing in various feeds and tweets from the numerous authors and publishing companies I follow because I'm a nerd. So as any other bibliophile would do, I googled around until I finally came across the website that confirmed for me that yes BookCon is a real thing and yes it would be happening in May and yes it would be in New York where my oldest sister happens to live. Naturally we bought tickets.

As the days crawled by before this nerdy-extravaganza of books and authors, we attempted to read as many books as we could before we embarked on our journey of literary excess. This is how I found Ruth.

Cooking and reading are tied for my favorite activities. Ruth Reichl managed to combine them for me. Ms. Reichl was on the list of authors who would be at BookCon, so naturally we both checked out "Tender at the Bone" from our respective libraries. Claire started first and was finished in a matter of days. Have you ever read a review of a restaurant that made you so hungry that you were halfway out of your chair before you finished reading it? That's what Ruth's writing is like. I don't eat meat, but her descriptions of butchers shops and meals made me want to say to hell with it and go find the nearest place that serves brisket. Her memoirs tell the story of her life through food, which if I were ever interesting enough to write a memoir, I like to think mine would be rooted in my mother's pension for Indian cooking, and my sister Annie's inability to cook when we were growing up.

If you like food (which if you don't you're doing life wrong) and if you come from a family with just a touch of crazy, you should read "Tender at the Bone". If Jennette Walls and Julia Child got together to write a book, it would probably turn out very similar to Reichl's writing.

Not only is she a wonderful author -but I was lucky enough to get a picture with her and have her laugh at me for having a Polaroid camera. Like the bumbling idiot I am, I was incapable of telling her how amazing her writing is and how it affected me. She was a sociology major (like me) and sort of fell into cooking (like me) and comes from a slightly off balance family (like me). She gave me hope that no matter where your life is now, it could still end up in New York City as a food critic.

Ruth Reichl and me at BookCon (you can't tell, but I'm wearing a purple crayon costume because Claire and I were under the impression people would dress up for this. Harold and the Purple Crayon was our book of inspiration)