Reichl and Hollis moved to
Berkeley, California, where her interest in food led to her joining the collectively owned Swallow Restaurant as a chef and co-owner from 1973 to 1977. Reichl began her food-writing career with
Mmmmm: A Feastiary, a cookbook, in 1972. She moved on to become food writer and editor of
New West magazine in 1978, then to the
Los Angeles Times as its restaurant editor from 1984 to 1993 and food editor and critic from 1990 to 1993. with her attention to detail. For Reichl, her mission was to "demystify the world of fine cuisine". Despite her success and tales of how she used to disguise herself to mask her identity while reviewing, eventually she said: "I really wanted to go home and cook for my family. I don't think there's one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner." During her tenure, the magazine sold 988,000 copies per month (as of March 2007) and commissioned works like
David Foster Wallace's "
Consider the Lobster". Reichl's memoirs are
Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (1998),
Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table (2001),
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (2005),
Not Becoming My Mother (2009), and
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir (2019). In 2021, Reichl joined
Substack to begin publishing a newsletter about
food writing. ==Honors==