Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumRuth Reichl Dishes on the Last Days of Gourmet Magazine.
SAVE ME THE PLUMS
My Gourmet Memoir
By Ruth Reichl
Spoiled for choice, Ruth Reichl frets over a major career choice. Should she accept her dream job as editor in chief of a magazine she has loved since childhood and risk becoming a corporate creature? Or stay put in her imperial post as restaurant critic for The New York Times?
We know the ending to this foodie fairy tale, but its still fun to read Save Me the Plums, Reichls poignant and hilarious account of what it took to bring the dusty food bible back to life with artistic and literary flair through the glory days of magazine-making from 1999 to the day in the fall of 2009 when she was informed that Condé Nast had decided to close Gourmets pantry for good.
The first course is served when Reichl is courted at a clandestine meeting with a member of Condé Nasts brass at the Algonquin Hotel, followed soon after by lunch with S.I. Newhouse at Da Silvano, the media moguls favorite downtown watering hole, where she discovers that Newhouse despised garlic (so much that he banned it from Condé Nasts Frank Gehry-designed cafeteria). Undeterred by this and other eccentricities, Reichl peels away the layers of drama that arrive with her new job. (Caution: Former editors might experience indigestion while reveling in Reichls rich servings of publishing world intrigue.)
She wondered whether she was up to the task of managing a large staff of editors, fact checkers and art directors. As 10 years of inspiring Gourmet issues and now this memoir would attest, the answer was an emphatic yes. Magazine junkies will look back in amazement at the groaning board of perks that once were staples of the job. Apparently they pay for everything, Reichl informed her husband. Country clubs
hairdressers, travel. You name it. Other accouterments of the position included a private office bathroom and dining room, a limo and a driver named Mustafa. . .
Working mothers will sympathize with Reichls descriptions of the exhausting rhythms of a dream job in her case, book tours, media interviews and advertising events. One particularly touching moment comes when Reichl realizes that she cant make more time in her schedule for her family and weighs the ultimate compromise: Children, I came to understand, need you around even if they ignore you. In fact, they need you around so they can ignore you.
Tantalizing recipes provide punctuation to the career twists and turns. These include the Thanksgiving turkey chili she and her staff cook for rescue workers at ground zero and the spicy Chinese noodles her young son begs her to make for him on a rare night when Reichl is finally able to fix his dinner.
Cooks will marvel at the tasting-kitchen coup when Reichl dazzles her new staff by guessing the origin of a recipe at a blind chocolate cake test and even suggests using a better brand of chocolate (Scharffen Berger). Readers will wince at Reichls discomfort when, at a signing for a book of recipes, she is confronted by a chef about a review that cost him his job. Bitter salad, he quoted sourly he had memorized the entire review. Mushy sole. Cottony bread. They fired me after your hatchet job, and I havent been able to find work since.
Hard as a restaurant critics job can be, Reichl learns that it isnt nearly as draining as navigating the business side of a magazine. . .
Of course, the French know very well that true luxury is measured in portion size, and Reichl eventually loses her appetite for the hefty perks of magazine life. But before she can sign off with her painful descriptions of the terrible sense of failure that overwhelmed her when she lost her job, each serving of magazine folklore is worth savoring. In fact, Reichls story is juicier than a Peter Luger porterhouse. Dig in.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/books/review/ruth-reichl-save-me-the-plums.html?
leftieNanner
(15,137 posts)Actually had two of my recipes published.
elleng
(131,061 posts)Share them with us? Please?
leftieNanner
(15,137 posts)I'm not at home now, but when I get a chance.