Save me the plums My Gourmet memoir

Review by New York Times Review

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 it's still fun to read "Save Me the Plums," Reichl's 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 magazinemaking - from 1999 to the day in the fall of 2009 when she was informed that Condé Nast had decided to close Gourmet's pantry for good. The first course is served when Reichl is courted at a clandestine meeting with a member of Condé Nast's brass at the Algonquin Hotel, followed soon after by lunch with S.I. Newhouse at Da Silvano, the media mogul's favorite downtown watering hole, where she discovers that Newhouse despised garlic (so much that he banned it from Condé Nast's 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 Reichl's 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. Reichl takes us through her crash course in publishing lingo as she discovers the difference between "teeosees" (table of contents), "adjacencies" (ads situated next to text) and "inadequate sep" (when ads are improperly spaced). The ultimate indoctrination into the fraternity of fat expense accounts comes at the airport when Reichl is checking into economy class and the architecture critic Paul Goldberger, standing in the first-class line with the New Yorker editor David Remnick, reprimands her: "You're at Condé Nast now.... You shouldn't be traveling like that." Working mothers will sympathize with Reichl's 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 can't 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 Reichl's 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 haven't been able to find work since.' " Hard as a restaurant critic's job can be, Reichl learns that it isn't nearly as draining as navigating the business side of a magazine. She begrudgingly accepts the necessity of making sales calls with publishers. Of course, the upside of dealing with corporate types is having lunch at the Four Seasons, where Reichl is taken by Steve Florio, Condé Nast's chief executive. Her description of the Grill Room's caviar-stuffed "Florio potato," along with her account of the publisher's hostile relationship with Condé Nast's waiflike editorial director, James Truman, is simply delicious. Reichl also recounts the ins and outs of human resources: the revolving door of publishers, the firing and hiring of staff, and how she lured talent to the magazine - including brilliant writers like Ann Patchett, who puts a turtle on her expense account to save it from certain death in a market on the Amazon, and David Foster Wallace, who delivers 10,000 controversial words on the Maine Lobster Festival. Magazine makers will appreciate Reichl's recipe-like telling of how the art director Richard Ferretti reinvented Gourmet's covers, infusing them with cinematic clarity and drama. When the stock market plunges in 2008 and the housing crisis threatens newsstand sales, Reichl and her staff take a counterintuitive path and head for Paris, jettisoning the Condé Nast ethos of spending as they create an entire issue devoted to budget travel and food. A three-course meal for only 12 euros foreshadows Reichl's final release from Condé Nast's golden handcuffs. When the waitress takes the menu away, announcing that she will decide what's for lunch, Reichl reflects on the barriers money can create: "The more stars in your itinerary, the less likely you are to find the real life of another country." 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, Reichl's story is juicier than a Peter Luger porterhouse. Dig in. KATE BETTS, formerly the editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar, is the author of "My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City on the Seine."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 14, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

Gourmet's final editor reflects on the tumultuous years (1999-2009) she spent at the magazine's helm, transitioning from powerful New York Times restaurant critic to managing a complex editorial job for a periodical in crisis. When Reichl took over Gourmet, it had been absorbed into the world of Condé Nast. At the time, Condé heir S. I. Newhouse needed to expand Gourmet's audience beyond consumers of luxury goods and lifestyles: from gourmets and gourmands to the suddenly burgeoning world of foodies; from households that had salaried cooks to eager, informed people who cooked for themselves and ate in ethnic restaurants as a matter of course. Reichl's coterie of ambitious Manhattanite editors contributed both new style and substance to the magazine, recruiting edgy, avant-garde writers on the order of David Foster Wallace. But just as the magazine seemed poised to triumph, the advent of the internet and an economic downturn combined to deliver the magazine's deathblow. Reichl's sharp eye and descriptive gifts render both food and people vital. A few recipes support her text's narrative.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Author of several previous best-sellers, Reichl is one of the most recognizable names in food writing. Order enough to feed a crowd.--Mark Knoblauch Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this endearing memoir, James Beard Award-winning food writer Reichl (Tender at the Bone) tells the story of her 10-year stint (1999-2009) as editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. Reichl made it her mission to return a stuffy Gourmet to the artistic and culinary glory she remembered from her childhood, taking it online and replacing high-brow guides to hosting with boundary-pushing cultural exposAcs and stories on street food. Recipes mark turning points in her story, like the Jeweled Chocolate Cake that won her credibility in the test kitchen ("the dark, dense, near-bitterness of the cake collided with the crackling sweetness of the praline" topping); the Thanksgiving Turkey Chili that she and her staff delivered to firefighters in the aftermath of 9/11; and Spicy Chinese Noodles-the midnight dish she often prepared for her son. Gourmet magazine readers will relish the behind-the-scenes peek at the workings of the magazine: Reichl details her decision to run "the edgiest article" in Gourmet's history, David Foster Wallace's controversial piece on the ethics of boiling lobsters alive, and shares anecdotes about such writers as the late L.A. food critic Jonathan Gold and novelist Ann Patchett. Reichl's revealing memoir is a deeply personal look at a food world on the brink of change. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

October 5, 2009, was a dark day for food lovers, when Gourmet magazine suddenly ceased publication. No one was more surprised than editor-in-chief Reichl, who had prevailed over its revitalization. This latest memoir focuses on the author's wild ride after leaving her post as restaurant critic for the New York Times to take on the unexpected challenge of leading Gourmet. Initially hesitant and feeling woefully unprepared, Reichl finds herself in the alternative universe of Condé Nast: luxurious, fashionable, and status-conscious in a way that Berkeley-loving, frizzy-haired Reichl never aimed to be. Yet it's her love of what the magazine had been in her youth and could be again-progressive, thoughtful, and forward-thinking-that drives her. During Reichl's tenure Gourmet published some of the most memorable food essays of the early millennium and broke new ground in design and presentation. She offers sharp observations about the magazine world, but none of this is about blame. VERDICT This look back in time will appeal to Reichl's many fans, foodies, as well as general readers. It's part elegy, part picaresque for a recent history that already feels like another era after the Great Recession and the evolution of digital publishing.-Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The renowned food writer recounts her adventures as editor-in-chief of the noted epicurean magazine Gourmet in its last decade.A native New Yorker, Reichl (My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes that Saved My Life, 2015, etc.) grew up reading the magazine, and food soon became her "own private way of looking at the world." While working as a chef in Berkeley, California, in the 1970s, she began writing about food, at New West and then the Los Angeles Times, before returning to New York to become the formidable restaurant critic for the New York Times. In 1999, at age 51, somewhat fearfullyshe lacked magazine experience and faced managing a staff of 60Reichl took the editorial helm of Gourmet, at six times her Times salary plus perks, with free rein from Cond Nast publisher Si Newhouse to revamp the staid magazine. In this fun, gossipy, and beguiling memoir, Reichl offers revealing glimpses of her parents, both introduced in earlier books, but the focus is on the heady process of "magazine making," which meant turning an old-fashioned book into a modern, edgy monthly. She describes the exhilaration of working with talented, quirky staffers, and she provides vivid snapshots of Cond Nast honchos, including publishers Newhouse (supportive) and Gina Sanders (who "relished" fights) as well as the "large, loud," yet appealing CEO Steve Florio, who regaled her with tales of Newhouse ("You know that Roy Cohn was his closest friend?"). Throughout, the author tells winning storiesof goings-on in the celebrated Cond Nast cafeteria, midnight parties for chefs, zany annual meetings, and providing food to 9/11 firefighters. Her success in introducing provocative articles like David Rakoff's "Some Pig," about Jews and bacon, and David Foster Wallace's classic "Consider the Lobster," on the ethics of eating, taught her that "when something frightens me, it is definitely worth doing." A dream job, it ended in the late-2000s recession, when declining ads forced the closing of the venerable publication.An absolutely delightful reading experience. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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1 Magic Door I was eight years old when I first found the magazine, sitting on the dusty wooden floor of a used-­book store. My father was a book designer who enjoyed the company of ancient volumes, and he often took me on book-­hunting expeditions around New York, leaving me with a pile of vintage magazines while he went off to prowl among the dark and crowded shelves. That day I picked up a tattered old issue of Gourmet, enchanted by the cover drawing of a majestic swordfish leaping joyfully from the water. This looked nothing like the ladies' magazines my mother favored, with their recipes for turkey divan made with cans of mushroom soup, or pot roast topped with ketchup, and I opened it to find the pages filled with tales of food in faraway places. A story called "Night of Lobster" caught my eye, and as I began to read, the walls faded, the shop around me vanishing until I was sprawled on the sands of a small island off the coast of Maine. The tide was coming in, water tickling my feet as it crept across the beach. It was deep night, the sky like velvet, spangled with stars. Much later I understood how lucky I was to have stumbled on that story. The author, Robert P. Tristram Coffin, was the poet laureate of Maine and a Pulitzer Prize winner with such an extraordinary gift for words that I could hear the hiss of a giant kettle and feel the bonfire burning as the flames leapt into the night. The fine spicy fragrance of lobster was so real to me that I reached for one, imagined tossing it from hand to hand until the shell was cool enough to crack. The meat was tender, briny, rich. Somewhere off in the distance a fish splashed, then swam silently away. I closed the magazine, and the real world came into focus. I was a little girl leafing through the pages of a magazine printed long before I was born. But I kept turning the pages, enchanted by the writing, devouring tales of long-­lost banquets in Tibet, life in Paris, and golden fruit growing on strange tropical trees. I had always been an avid reader, but this was different: This was not a made-­up story; it was about real life. I loved the ads for exotic ingredients you could send away for: oysters by the bushel, freshly picked watercress, alligator pears (avocados), and "frogs' legs from the frogland of America." Once I actually persuaded my parents to order a clambake in a pot from Saltwater Farm in Damariscotta, Maine. Eight live lobsters and a half peck of clams came swathed in seaweed and packed in ice. It cost $14.95, and all you had to do was poke holes in the top of the container and set it on the stove. I couldn't get enough of those old issues, and now when Dad went off exploring bookstores I had a quest of my own. The day I discovered a battered copy of The Gourmet Cookbook among the ancient issues, I begged Dad to buy it for me. "It's only fifty cents," I pleaded. It came in handy the morning I opened the refrigerator in our small kitchen and found myself staring at a suckling pig. I jumped back, startled, and then did what any sensible person would do: reached for the cookbook. I was only ten, and I hoped it would have some advice on how to deal with the thing. Sure enough, there it was, on page 391: "Roast Suckling Pig Parisienne." There was even a handy photograph demonstrating how to truss the tiny animal. I remember that moment, and not just because the recipe insisted on a lot of yucky stuff like putting a block of wood into the pig's mouth ("to brace it for the apple that will be inserted later") and boiling the heart for gravy. I remember it mostly because that was the day Mom finally admitted she was glad I'd found a hobby. My mother's interest in food was strictly academic. Asked what had possessed her to purchase the pig, she replied, "I'd never seen one before," as if that was an adequate answer. The same logic had compelled her to bring home a can of fried grasshoppers, a large sea urchin with dangerously sharp spines, and a flashy magenta cactus flower. She had little interest in eating these items, but if I was going to insist on reading what she called "that ridiculous magazine," she thought it should be put to use. The fried grasshoppers were not a hit; I suspect the can had been sitting on a shelf for years, awaiting some gullible customer. And while the editors were eager to instruct me in the preparation of eels, bears, woodchucks, and snipe, they were strangely silent on the subject of sea urchins. When I finally managed to pry the creature open, I found the gooey black inside so appalling that nothing would have tempted me to taste it. As for the cactus flower, its great good looks camouflaged a total lack of flavor. But the suckling pig was a different story. I did everything the cookbook suggested and then hovered anxiously near the oven, hoping it hadn't led me astray. When the pig emerged all crackling skin and sweet soft meat, Mom was happy. "I've never tasted anything so delicious," she grudgingly admitted. "That magazine might be useful after all." Excerpted from Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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