Delicious! by Ruth Reichl

I discovered Ruth Reichl when I decided to read only books about cooking for 6 months.  I had read memorable books like The United States of Arugula: How we became a gourmet nation by David Kamp and Julie and Julia: My year of cooking dangerously by Julie Powell before I happened upon Reichl's Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the table.  I loved her succinct style and elegant use of adjectives.  At the time, I really had no idea who she was, but afterwards I wanted to read more about her amazing life.  I quickly followed Tender with Comfort Me With Apples.  A few years later, my book club chose her books as a discussion topic and I read Garlic and Sapphires: The secret life of a critic in disguise.  As always, Ruth Reichl combines knowledge, erudition and humor into a compelling read.  The book club discussion was successful.  The participants had the opportunity to read one or more of her titles and then contribute to the overall discussion of her life and times.
Several weeks ago, I ran across her stab at fiction Delicious!.  I requested the book and jumped it to the front of the queue of books to read ( a list far too long).  I finished Delicious! last night. I haven't perused what other people think of the title.  I wanted to get my thoughts down before I traveled down that road.  I finished the book with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment and find myself confused about how I really feel.  On the one hand, I love the style--the elegant use of adjectives danced around my head pleasingly.  But on the other, I find the story line somewhat stilted and far fetched.  We meet Billie at her hiring interview at Delicious! a long time food magazine that calls Gourmet to mind.  Like Gourmet, Delicious! is also shuttered fairly early in the book.  But back to Billie, Berkeley dropout, who panics when she needs to cook, is in desperate need of a Cinderella makeover, writes unanswered letters to her sister the perfectly beautiful Genie and is a super taster who can discern the nuances of any dish.  Billie fills her massive amounts of free time avoiding her own troubled past moonlight at family owned Fontanari's as the first ever outsider allowed to work behind the counter waiting on regulars like Mr. Complainer--obviously the destined love interest.
The book picks up steam after the shuttering of Delicious! and Sammy's intervention when tweedy, flamboyant Sammy bounces back from his deep fugue state and returns to manse to pick up his belongings. Some late night exploring leads to the discovery of a hidden room in the long locked up library that mysteriously still smells of apples rather than moldering dusty books. The hidden room leads to a magical card catalog and the discovery of a serious of letters written during wartime Ohio to the legendary James Beard by a preteen girl.  The hunt is on as this set of letters has been hidden away.  Will Billie and Sammy find all the letters? Will Billie get a makeover and connect with Mr. Complainer?  Will she ever face the ghosts of her pasts and overcome the panic that entering a kitchen with purpose induces?
Of course, this is fiction where ends are more or less tied up in a more or less predictable fashion.  The writing remains the classic Reichl that I have come to hold very dear but the overall story is at times far fetched and at times mundane.  I smiled at the end of the novel, but really and truly wanted something a bit more from such an outstanding writer.
Now that this has been said, I will see what other people have to say about Delicious!