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TENDER AT THE BONE

By Ruth Reichl, BDD Audio Publishing, 360 minutes, abridged, $23. Read by the author.

When Ruth Reichl, restaurant critic for The New York Times, was a child, her mother frequently made guests ill by feeding them moldy concoctions such as a stew that contained sour cream, pate and half an apple pie. Soon Reichl began to seek out less-risky cuisine. In one marvelous scene, she visits the home of a wealthy Montreal friend and partakes of a filet of beef whose sauce tastes like “autumn distilled in a spoon.”