Famous restaurant critic Ruth Reichl delved into her mother's past to figure out some life lessons.
The title of her most recent memoirs sounds contradictory but reveals some of the most intimate details of what she learned from her late mother's diaries. Reichl, the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, cooked up the revealing book and returns to Revelle Forum at UC San Diego on May 11 to discuss the latest in her series of bestselling memoirs, "Not Becoming My Mother, and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way".
Reichl, who once was the L.A Times and New York Times restaurant critic, looks back at her mother’s life, piecing together the journey of a woman she realizes she had never really known. Her mother’s letters and diaries reveal the painful transition she made from a hopeful young woman to an increasingly unhappy older one, according to the UC San Diego Extension Web site.
Having relinquished a career in order to marry and have a family, she joined the ranks of smart, educated women of her generation who were often bored, miserable and silently rebellious. In this intimate and compassionate study, Reichl comes to understand the life-affirming lessons of independence and self-acceptance that her mother, who was unable to apply them to her own life, succeeded in teaching her.
