What's in Ruth Reichl's Fridge? A Few Bottles of Minor Embarrassment

Salon.com

Is that Miller High Life up there on the top shelf, between the organic milks, directly in front of the tonic? Naw, couldn't be....

​Salon launched a food section last week, headed up by Francis Lam, former Gourmet scribe. It's fitting then that for one of his inaugural features, Lam dials up his old boss Ruth Reichl for yet another episode of "What's in Your Fridge?" -- that perpetual pilot of fledgling food blogs, wherein übergourmands, famous or otherwise, swing open the doors to their iceboxes to reveal whatever cornucopia of staples and guilty pleasures lurks within. In Reichl's case, "warty but delicious" heirloom apples, strawberry elderflower jam, three kinds of butter, "a hunk of really good Parmigiano," and leftover pasta puttanesca fight for space with her husband's vile Durkee dressing, sriracha, and bottled salsa from Old El Paso -- for which Reichl apologizes. Of course.

Truthfully, we're not that interested in what Reichl keeps in her fridge. By comparison, we're quite obsessed with what she keeps in her glove compartment, in her desk drawer, and in her purse -- what she eats when time is short and no one is looking. There are shopping choices one can conveniently blame on a spouse's bad taste, and then there are secret pleasures about which one should truly feel at least a little guilty. What, say, does Ruth Reichl scarf when she comes home from a cocktail party after a few too many toasts? Does she roast a few marrow bones and butter some good bread? Or does she squirt a bit of that sriracha on a microwaved tortilla and call it a night?

"I do like hot dogs," says Reichl when Lam asks her if she's embarrassed by her fridge's contents, adding the helpful caveat: "But they're outdoor food; they're not home food."

Sure, we believe you. If you say so. She probably eats them for breakfast, right out of the package.