Garlic and Sapphires recounts Reichl's 1993 move from the Los Angeles Times, where she was a restaurant critic and editor, to become head restaurant critic of The New York Times. Seated next to a waitress on the flight to New York, Reichl learns that the city's restaurants have been on the lookout for her in her newly powerful role and she finds that she receives special treatment as a consequence. In order to visit restaurants without being recognized, she enlists Claudia, an acting teacher and friend of Reichl's late mother, to help her devise disguises. Reichl takes on a series of different personas, which allows her different perspectives on specific restaurants as well as her own personality as she steps into someone else's shoes. Times Living section secretary Carol Shaw often accompanies her on her outings and the book also follows the development of their friendship. They visit high-end restaurants like Rocco DiSpirito's Union Pacific as well as less recognized cuisine, exploring the Chinese food of Flushing, Queens. These experiences are interspersed with recipes and reprints of Reichl's reviews for the Times. The book concludes with Shaw's death and Reichl's departure from the Times to become the editor-in-chief role at Gourmet magazine in 1999, ending her days as a restaurant critic.
