The Best Meal of All Time

[Vinfidel]

hello Ruth

i love your book and magazines

i would like to know which was the best meal you had ever

this is without any qualifications i.e. not due to the company but only for the food and wines and service!!!!

which resto ,which food, which city and country etc.!

i.e. the greatest meal you ever had

thanks in advances

[Ruth Reichl]

hello Ruth

i love your book and magazines

i would like to know which was the best meal you had ever

this is without any qualifications i.e. not due to the company but only for the food and wines and service!!!!

which resto ,which food, which city and country etc.!

i.e. the greatest meal you ever had

thanks in advances

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It's a question I get asked a lot, and the answer always changes. It could be that meal on a hill in Crete, or the one in Shenzen where Bruce Cost and I had to point at the food on other tables, or at L'Ami Louis when the waiter organized all the kids in the room for a game of catch out in the street and the whole place became one big party. Or maybe the New Year's Eve dinner up in the mountains of Tuscany, the one that went on for hours and I gradually lost my voice so that by the time we'd had the 7th fish I couldn't talk, just clap my appreciation.

But today the best meal I ever ate was one that Alice Waters and Paul Bertolli cooked at the Phelps Winery years ago. IT was an incredible meal, served on long wooden tables in amazing golden light, a meal that went on all afternoon and into the night, one slow course after another, served at such a perfect pace that we never got full. The wines were all Joe's, I think, and all wonderful. And the company was fabulous - it was all the California food people, and I think that both Gilbert LeCoze and Barbara Tropp were also there, having a brief romance.

What did we eat? The dish I remember best was the tripe - perfectly cooked with little crisp croutons on top. And the pears with gorgonzola - all that softness, sweetness, flavor.