Join us for a conversation with Ruth Reichl, beloved cookbook author, six-time James Beard Award-winner, former editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, and one of the most influential restaurant critics of her generation, and Mark Kurlansky, best-known for national bestsellers that explore history through the lens of a single subject, including Cod (1997), Salt (2002), Milk! (2018), and Salmon (2021).

The conversation will be moderated by Times Union Senior Writer Steve Barnes.

Reichl's new book is the New York Times bestseller, The Paris Novel (2024), about a young American woman’s unexpected adventures through the food, art, and fashion scenes of 1980s Paris. Julia Louis-Dreyfus said, “This is a sumptuous book that I simply could not put down. C’est formidable!”

Her previous bestsellers include the memoirs, Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (1998), Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (2005), Save Me the Plums (2019), and the novel, Delicious! (2014).

Kurlansky's newest book is the novel Cheesecake (2025), the story of the inhabitants of a single block on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1970s. A neighborhood already known for its poppyseed strudel, praline ice cream cake, and New York cheesecake, is forever changed by the rediscovery of a cheesecake recipe recorded by the Roman historian Cato the Elder (234-149 BC).

7:30 p.m. Monday, October 6
Page Hall - University at Albany Downtown Campus
135 Western Avenue, Albany NY 12203

Free and open to the public.

Books will be sold at the event. A signing will follow the conversation.
https://www.nyswritersinstitute.org/reichl-kurlansky