Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

Ruth Reichl may have written her best book yet in this memoir. There are many echoes in her fictional novel Delicious! Taken directly from the incidents and stories she relates of her time at the (real) Gourmet magazine. The book offers glimpses into her life beyond being a critic that are both more insightful and less emotionally personal than her previous memoirs, while still giving remarkably intimate views into her world and who she is as a person (professionally and personally). I truly enjoyed the backstage pass to the food world, and the realistic yet still sunshiney and optimistic fatalism of spirit encapsulated herein. A must read for fans of her previous work and anyone interested in how the food world changed at the turn of the century/millennium.

Gourmet was the favorite magazine in our household for well over 40 years. It helped us plan trips, choose restaurants, craft memorable dinners and dream of a life we could aspire to if not always live. Times have changed, people have many other media channels to experience, attention spans have atrophied, magazines have struggled to survive or disappeared.. So too has Gourmet, and under Reichl's watch.Not that we blame her for its demise. The book portrays her as valiantly attempting to adapt the magazine to the changing times and the sometimes cold and inscrutable rule of Conde Nast. Her account of some of the talented people who worked there in its last decade adds color and depth and a portrait of its methodology.The book lay on my night stand for many months, and I would read a few pages in the evening. The author comes across as kind, passionate and creative, not necessarily suited to be a manager. She supported and extolled the talented people on her staff. But she couldn't protect them or herself from the bottom line driven publisher. Soul and spirit can sustain a dish, a restaurant and a family, but apparently not a magazine.For loyal and ardent readers of the magazine, and I suspect most were in that category, its loss was very sad. It must have been even harder for those who were on the ship when it was sunk. Magazines were meant to be more durable than newspapers if less so than books. The loss of this one was particularly painful.

Ruth Reichl knows about good food, and she knows good food writing. After years as the food critic for The New York Times, and then for years before at the Los Angeles Times, she decided to accept the job as Editor-in-Chief at Gourmet magazine.Reichl had a long relationship with Gourmet, from when she first found the magazine in a dusty used bookstore on an outing with her book designer father, through the years it lost its unique voice, through to her reign as editor. She was able to bring back the spark that Gourmet had, to let her creative team run wild with imagination and panache. She inspired the best young writers to its pages. She brought life to its covers. She helped unite the chefs of New York in celebrations and in charity work.Save Me the Plums is her memoir of her decade at Gourmet, from her early days where she felt she was out of her depth, through the years where the magazine recaptured its spirit and its voice, to the final days, where nothing was able to save the magazine from the depths of the nation’s financial devastation.Reichl’s stories are beautifully told, filled with textures and flavors, nuance and surprise, and just like the best gourmet meal, a dash of magic. I love reading her stories. She has a way of explaining how things change as they stay the same and how you can move forward by staying in place. And that story of Paris and the black dress? Absolutely breathtaking!If you’ve read Ruth Reichl before, then you know how special her writing is. You should buy this and devour it immediately. If you’ve not read her before, then my advice is the same. Start with this one, or a different memoir, or her novel Delicious!, or one of her cookbooks (I adore her 2015 cookbook My Kitchen Year on audio—yes, I do know how that sounds, and believe me, you do want to listen to a cookbook on audio!). But give yourself the gift of Reichl’s writing. After you read one, be prepared. You’ll be left hungry for more.Galleys for Save Me the Plums were provided by Random House through NetGalley, with many thanks.

I loved this book

Una delicia de libro. Literalmente me lo comí.

I adore Ruth Reichl’s writing and this was a welcome addition to her memoirs. The recipes are an added bonus. Her insight into Condé Nast is fascinating and I found her chapter on 9/11 particularly moving. More please.

Quite enjoyed this book.

Good book. Came in with no issues, it’s a great read for someone in there mid 30s and up.