46 pages • 1-hour read
Save Me the Plums
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “Severine”
The Gourmet team took an editorial trip to Paris for a special edition of the magazine, which became the best-selling issue of all time. During the trip, Reichl and the other editors patronized Michelin-starred restaurants, exclusive hotels, and world-class food markets. While out shopping one day, Reichl found a stunning vintage cocktail dress from Yves Saint Laurent’s time at Dior, embroidered with the name Severine. The dress made her feel like the woman she wanted to be, and she considered buying it until she learned it cost $6500. Reichl left without purchasing the dress, though she took the saleswoman’s card.
That night, she visited a restaurant she was too scared to patronize when she first came to Paris at age 17. She met an older man who told her that she reminded him of his late wife, an elegant, powerful woman named Severine. Reichl tore up the saleswoman’s business card, feeling that the dress had already given her the inspiration that she needed.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Why We Cook”
Reichl was in Gourmet’s offices in Times Square on September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the Twin Towers in New York City. Reichl sprang into action, urging her staff to contact their families to establish meeting places before the lines were jammed. She couldn’t reach her own husband, but later learned that he picked up their son after the first plane hit, and took him and several classmates to their country home upstate. After ensuring that her staff had safety plans in place, Reichl stopped at home to grab her family’s cats and drove out of Manhattan. The journey from her home to the bridge, normally only 10 minutes, took four hours.
After several days upstate, Reichl began to feel restless. She invited all Condé Nast employees to join her in the Gourmet test kitchens to cook for the first responders working at Ground Zero. Together, Reichl and the others made turkey chili, cornbread, and brownies, which they personally delivered to Ground Zero. Reichl affirms the value of food in spreading comfort and love. The chapter ends with the turkey chili recipe.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Food People”
After cancelling the September 2001 gala celebrating Gourmet’s 60th anniversary, Reichl oversaw a lavish party in December. Although she was proud to see New Yorkers gathering in defiance of terrorism, the party felt like work, and she left wanting to have fun. Along with chef Daniel Boulud, she organized an impromptu afterparty for the Gourmet staff and a group of young chefs. The party inspired Gourmet’s director of media relations, Karen Dannick, to establish a series of after-hours parties for chefs, which became a staple in the New York food scene.
Reichl attended one memorable chef’s party with Giulio Capua, recently hired as the new publisher for Gourmet after Sanders left to found Teen Vogue. Formerly the publisher of GQ, Capua was excited to attend a party for Gourmet, but he was shocked to find rival chefs chatting and sharing ideas. Reichl reflects that her role as restaurant critic at the New York Times prevented her from engaging socially with the food scene there, unlike in Los Angeles, where, as editor, she was friendly with everyone.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Enormous Changes”
When executive editor Ochoa casually mentioned that she’d found her perfect replacement, Reichl assumed she was talking about the distant future. Reichl agreed to meet with Ochoa’s suggestion, Cooks Illustrated editor John “Doc” Willoughby, but assumed that it was a casual meeting rather than a formal interview. She brought Willoughby to the Condé Nast cafeteria, an exclusive space filled with celebrities and well-known creatives. To Reichl’s delight, Willoughby recognized that the cafeteria food was not good and asked to eat elsewhere. Reichl took Willoughby to a low-key oyster bar via the subway and was pleased to find that he matched her appetite and energy. She left the meeting liking Willoughby and telling him that she hoped they could work together in the future. Willoughby was less sure, unwilling to leave his life in Boston.
When Ochoa learned that Reichl liked Willoughby, she revealed that she had accepted a position as editor-in-chief of LA Weekly. Although proud of her friend, Reichl felt shocked and unprepared for life at Gourmet without Ochoa.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Just Say It”
Willoughby transitioned smoothly to executive editor, and although Reichl worried that she would fall to pieces without Ochoa, the Gourmet staff continued working as efficiently as usual. Reichl finally acknowledged that the success of Gourmet was not just luck, but actually the product of her hard work. However, she had doubts about her new publisher, Giulio Capua. When Reichl questioned Capua about strategy before their first advertiser meeting together, Capua was nonchalant, telling her to be honest and not worry about how to pitch the magazine. Reichl worried that Capua didn’t fully understand how important advertisers were to Condé Nast.
Despite these worries, Reichl was grateful that Capua allowed her to publish investigative articles alongside their recipes, as when they published an exposé on salmon farming practices. Capua believed that the magazine’s seasoned readers would appreciate knowing where their food came from, while younger readers would realize that Gourmet had adapted with the times. When Reichl defended Capua against Florio’s suggestion that he be fired due to low ad sales, her husband worried that Florio would now hold her responsible for Capua’s failures.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Hello, Cupcake”
When art director Diana LaGuardia announced that she would also be leaving Gourmet, Reichl began to worry that the magazine was crumbling around her. She interviewed a string of unpromising candidates, ending with Richard Ferretti, who had been out of the magazine industry for years. When Reichl asked why Ferretti wanted to work at a magazine again, he replied that he wasn’t interested in magazines: He was interested in Gourmet. Ferretti told Reichl that Gourmet needed to take more chances and tell stories through art design. He proposed shooting with photographers from outside the food world and designing shoots like movies. Inspired by Ferretti’s new ideas, Reichl pitched a controversial shoot featuring chefs posed like rock stars before Ferretti even began as art director.
Early in his tenure, Ferretti produced two spreads based on movies: an elaborate French dinner inspired by the movie Gigi, and a casual TV dinner inspired by the audience at home. Reichl details the five rounds of taste-testing required to perfect the TV dinner, and the chapter ends with a recipe for homemade biscuits.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Setting the Record Straight”
Reichl describes her friendship with the socialite Stevie Kaufmann, her mother’s oldest friend. At age 25, Kaufmann inherited a large sum of money from his parents and decided to quit working. In his seventies, Kaufmann was forced to get a job when his family’s money ran out. Kaufmann explained to Reichl at the time that he hadn’t expected to live so long, as both his parents had died early. Kaufmann was an ardent supporter of Reichl and so well-connected that he learned of her appointment to editor-in-chief minutes after she accepted the job.
Reichl explains that Kaufmann was best friends with American fashion designer Bill Blass until Blass’s death, and Reichl’s mother speculated that they may have been lovers. After Blass’s death, Kaufmann complained bitterly to Reichl that Blass didn’t leave him enough money. Decades later, Reichl learned that Blass secretly left enough money to pay Kaufmann a salary even after his death, without Kaufmann’s knowledge. She reflects that close-knit communities exist all over New York, not just in the food world.
Chapter 22 Summary: “DFW”
When Gourmet editor Jocelyn Zuckerman suggested asking literary icon David Foster Wallace to write for the magazine, Reichl felt sure he would decline, despite Gourmet’s history of publishing famous authors. Wallace turned down offers to write about whiskey in Scotland and pasta in Italy before accepting an assignment to cover the Maine Lobster Festival. The resulting article challenged the ethics of the traditional method of lobster preparation: boiling them alive. Although Reichl loved the piece, she received pushback from other editors, including executive editor Willoughby, who argued that the piece was condescending and elitist, and managing editor Karol, who believed it would turn off older readers. Reichl pushed for the piece, which was ultimately a success.
Reichl reflects that the success of the David Foster Wallace article emboldened her to publish other pieces that challenged the status quo, including pieces by writers of color like Junot Diaz and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She argues that the pieces that frighten her are the ones most worth pursuing.
Chapters 15-22 Analysis
The chapters in this section foreground the building tension between the creative success of Gourmet and the Changes in American Publishing in the 20th Century, raising the stakes of the narrative. The shifting landscape of print journalism triggers changes in the team Reichl puts in place. The magazine faces back-to-back personnel changes at the highest level, as John “Doc” Willoughby replaces Ochoa as executive editor, Ferretti replaces LaGuardia as art director, and Capua replaces Sanders as the magazine’s publisher. Although the sudden and cumulative nature of these changes leaves Reichl “feeling frightened and betrayed” (154), she emphasizes that these personnel changes ultimately result in an exceptional magazine.
Reichl asserts that her time at Gourmet corresponds with a golden age in the magazine’s history despite its sudden demise. She details the production of a special Paris-themed edition of the magazine, which ends up becoming “the bestselling issue in Gourmet’s history” (126). Reichl claims that the magazine “sold out so completely that months later people were still calling, begging for copies” (126). Her obvious pleasure at the success of this issue, which she pitched personally, reflects her sense that Gourmet flourished under her leadership. Even her descriptions of less successful editions, such as one with celebrity chefs on the cover, suggest that Reichl considers the magazine to be at the forefront of the industry. She explains that although the cover didn’t sell, it was nevertheless “a watershed moment” (166) because the cover “did not look like any epicurean publication of the past” (166). Her suggestion that this moment was “only the beginning” (166) of celebrity chef culture indicates that her leadership of Gourmet brought the magazine to the cutting edge.
For Reichl, the most obvious evidence of the exceptional nature of her time at Gourmet is the publication of the essay “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace. Although she name-drops a long list of well-known writers, including Ray Bradbury and Anne Patchett, who have published with Gourmet, she considers the publication of the Wallace piece to be its greatest achievement. She describes Wallace as “a legend, a brilliant, iconoclastic writer with a devoted following” and the piece as a “brilliant, difficult article” (181, 184). Reichl’s description of the piece, which challenges the ethics of eating lobster, stresses the fact that it differs dramatically in tone and content from most of Gourmet’s other content. She calls the piece “by far the edgiest article we’d ever published” (187). This idea is repeated by other executives at the magazine: managing editor Larry Karol claims that the article “really sets us apart” (185), while publisher Giulio Capua argues that it contributes to Gourmet’s mission to “[redefine] what it means to be an authority on food” (185). These passages depict Gourmet as an exceptional, cutting-edge publication under Reichl’s leadership.
The Gourmet staff’s efforts cooking for first responders during the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City reinforce the text’s thematic exploration of The Connection Between Food, Emotion, and Memory. In the aftermath of the attacks, Reichl and her colleagues at Gourmet turn to food as a way to help the city’s recovery efforts. She describes the meals they prepared and delivered as an emotional act, saying that the chefs “were attempting to snatch hope from the rubble of our broken city” (138), believing that “food was the perfect way to do it” (138). Reichl writes that while watching a grateful firefighter rest and eat the chili she prepared, she “suddenly understood the true meaning of food” (139). Reichl describes her staff’s joy in cooking as “defiance in the face of disaster” (138), framing cooking as an act of resistance and hope.
Unlock all 46 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs