Mother Knows Best

Categories: Cookbooks

Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way is Ruth Reichl's all too brief account of her mother's life.   Having dined out for years (see Tender at the Bone, her first memoir) on what she called "Mim stories" that hilariously detailed her mother's cooking and housekeeping fiascos, Reichl's discovery of her deceased mother's hoard of long-kept letters leads her to a new appreciation of her mother's fierce struggle to find her way in life.

Miriam Brudno was sixteen when her doctor father told her it was unfortunate that she was an intellectual and homely, to boot.  No man would want to marry her if she became a physician, her lifelong dream.   Instead, fulfilling her domineering mother's wishes, she studied violin, achieved a doctorate and never played again.  
Despite her father's predictions, Miriam found two men to marry, though the first left her shortly after their son was born.  Eventually, she married Reichl's father and found some happiness in family life, though she was frustrated by her lack of career and plagued with bipolarism. 

 Reichl speculates that her mother's eccentric behavior was a message for the daughter to not make the same mistakes of the mother.   She took that to heart and has had a full life, combining family and career as one of the leading food writers of her era.   She has written a tender and touching story that will ring a familiar chord for many who think about lost opportunities and chances in life.