Save Me the Plums

“I might be the restaurant critic of The New York Times, but at heart I was still a sixties rebel with a deep mistrust of corporate ways.”

Despite the memoir’s emphasis on her food expertise, Reichl presents herself as an outsider at Gourmet—the opposite of the corporate, conservative attitude she anticipates at the magazine. Ultimately, Reichl’s arc sees her becoming the face of the magazine itself by the end of the memoir.

“In its heyday, the newspaper was known as ‘the velvet coffin,’ a workplace so relaxed that reporters sometimes spent an entire year on a single story. Condé Nast, on the other hand, was a notorious pressure cooker filled with the most aggressive people in the business. Was I ready for that?”

Although the focus of the memoir is Reichl’s transition from food critic to magazine editor, it also serves as an examination of Changes in American Publishing in the 20th Century. This passage uses the metaphors of a “velvet coffin” and a “pressure cooker” to capture the contrast between two media giants: The Los Angeles Times and Condé Nast, the media company that owns Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.

“‘Thank you for coming down to the Village to meet me. I wanted to be sure we wouldn’t be seen.’ Did everyone at Condé Nast think they were being stalked by paparazzi?”

This passage reflects Reichl’s naivete about the significance of her role at Condé Nast at the beginning of her career. The fact that Reichl doesn’t believe her new job will make the news suggests that she doesn’t fully understand the importance of the role and the company’s place in the changing media landscape. By the memoir’s conclusion, Reichl argues that Gourmet plays an essential role in American food culture.

“Suddenly, I understood: He’d been afraid I was off to The New Yorker, GQ, or Vanity Fair. One of the important magazines. I sat up straighter. ‘Do you ever read Gourmet?’ I asked.

He looked incredulous. ‘I don’t have time for food magazines.’ The disdain in his voice was palpable.”

Reichl frames this moment with her boss at The New York Times as an internal turning point, pushing her to make Gourmet a success. The anger and firm resolve Reichl feels when she hears the “disdain” for food magazines in her editor’s voice contrasts starkly with her own deep-seated love and respect for food as a driving force of culture.

“I was tempted, for just a moment, to let it lie. But nobody’s palate is that good. ‘It was crazy luck,’ I admitted. ‘Last year when we were in London, Nick ordered chocolate cake in a little café—I think it was called Café Mezzo. He liked it so much I asked for the recipe.’”

Throughout the memoir, Reichl stresses her sense of excitement and adventure around food. Here, she’s able to impress her new colleagues at Gourmet by correctly identifying a recipe that she tried while eating her way through London. Structurally, each chapter in Reichl’s memoir concludes with a recipe—in this case, the cake recipe—which acts as an invitation to readers to join her in the culinary adventure.

“‘Who’s going to look after Nick while you’re away?’ Rage had overwhelmed me: While I was away? What about him? The feeling was as familiar as a toothache.”

Although, as a cooking magazine, Gourmet is a female-dominated space, Reichl still faces misogyny, both overt and implicit, throughout the memoir. In this passage, Reichl’s husband, Michael, evokes traditional gender norms by placing the primary responsibility for their young son on her shoulders. Reichl emphasizes that women face unique challenges at work and in the home because of entrenched patriarchal values. The tension Reichl feels between her personal and professional spheres underscores her thematic engagement with The Bittersweet Nature of Achieving Dreams.

“They had believed the whole world was their stage, and they strutted around as if they owned it. The Gourmet they’d created had reflected that particular American sense of entitlement. But we were very different people, living in a very different time. And the magazine we were trying to make was for our moment, not theirs.”

Reichl stresses the interplay between popular culture and magazines like Gourmet. Here, she suggests that prior editions of Gourmet reflected the elitist values of its editors—values that then became enshrined in American culture. Reichl aims to recreate the magazine so that it reflects the values of her era. The memoir ultimately suggests that her leadership helped Gourmet to continue to shape culture, rather than just reflect it.

“When she wasn’t traveling, a constant stream of people from national tourism boards paraded through her office. These people oversaw impressive advertising budgets, which meant that Pat was far more important to Gina than she was to me.”

The changing fortunes of the American magazine industry are an important theme throughout the memoir. This passage reflects Reichl’s early lessons about the importance of advertising money in funding the content she wants to produce as editor, foreshadowing the ultimate demise of the magazine.

“They were here because no annoying check was ever presented; when lunch was over, they simply strolled off. (How Mom would have loved that little detail!) They were here, ultimately, because everybody else in their world was here too.”

Although the memoir focuses on her time at Gourmet, Reichl’s early childhood experiences with her mother shape her values and experiences as an adult. As she adjusts to the luxuries and privileges of her new role at Gourmet, Reichl often wishes that her mother were alive to experience her new life. Reichl’s mother appears as a recurring motif as Reichl grapples with the differences between her own life and her mother’s.

“‘Every magazine editor knows you can’t put a dead fish on the cover. […] It’s the first rule of magazines. Dead fish are a curse. The issue will never sell.’

‘But it’s such a beautiful fish.’”

Even after a year as editor-in-chief of Gourmet, Reichl still has moments that mark her as an outsider in the magazine industry, contributing to her description of herself as a maverick in her field. The eventual triumph of the dead fish cover that was maligned by her editorial director emphasizes Reichl’s belief in her own instincts, which guide her toward success at Gourmet, despite her inexperience in the magazine industry.

“He indicated a firmly shut door next to the entrance. At that moment, the door swung open and two tiny pugs came scampering out, barking madly. In the instant before Victoria shooed them inside, we had a tantalizing glimpse of the private apartments beyond. Then the door closed.”

Reichl is guided by her personal relationships, which tend to be intense and emotional. This is a stark contrast to Condé Nast owner Si Newhouse, whose birthday party is filled with business contacts and socialites. This passage suggests that the division between Newhouse’s work and life is so concrete that his home is literally divided into public and private spaces—a compartmentalization that feels foreign to Reichl, whose work and home lives share a common touchstone: food.

“I dip in a spoon and a tumble of tomatoes, herbs, and horseradish, terrible in its cold tartness, assaults my mouth. The sorbet buzzes against my tongue, shocking me into the moment. One more bite, and I am experiencing the food with psychedelic intensity.”

This passage is representative of the sensory food descriptions that appear across the memoir. In this passage, the use of active verbs such as “tumble,” “assault,” “buzz,” and “shock” reflects the visceral experience of food, while the phrase “psychedelic intensity” offers an unexpected twist that mirrors the surprise of tomato sorbet. Reichl’s narrative voice is a reflection of her years-long career as a food writer.

“We all knew why we were there, knew it was as much for ourselves as for the firefighters, knew we were attempting to snatch hope from the rubble of our broken city. And food was the perfect way to do it.”

Throughout the memoir, Reichl stresses the value of food in bringing people together. After the September 11 attacks, Reichl brings a group of New York chefs together to cook for first responders. In this passage, Reich suggests that cooking helped the chefs to feel like they were contributing to the recovery efforts, while also bringing comfort to first responders, emphasizing the role of food in building community.

“All that changed when I became the restaurant critic of the New York Times. I didn’t know any New York chefs and I couldn’t get to know them. I was the enemy, the person whose picture hung behind the swinging kitchen doors with WANTED written across the bottom in giant letters. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them. But I was very happy to be home.”

Although the main focus of the memoir is Reichl’s professional success, she also suggests that a successful career is not without its drawbacks. In this passage, she indicates that her job as the critic for the New York Times isolated her from the larger food community in New York City. Being a critic put distance between herself and the chefs and restaurants she admired, while her role at Gourmet allowed her to recapture the joy of visiting restaurants as a customer.

“As I see it, this is a win-win. The affluent epicures who already subscribe will be grateful; they want to know what’s in the salmon they’re buying. But younger readers are going to be especially interested; this is the kind of story that will make them realize this isn’t their grandmother’s Gourmet anymore.”

Reichl’s goals as editor-in-chief of Gourmet centered on broadening and updating the scope of the magazine’s appeal, evolving it to reflect the multi-generational nature of its readership. In determining the magazine’s ethos and finding content that supports that ethos, Reichl positions herself and her team as shapers of culture, reflecting her values as a journalist.

“All the food magazines use the same photographers. Why limit yourself when there are so many other talented people? What if we used photographers who have never shot food before? Think how different they’d make everything look; it would give us a whole new perspective.”

As she grows more comfortable in her position as editor-in-chief, Reichl emphasizes her ability to build talented teams and bring the best out of people as a key tool in her success. Although Ferretti’s decision to use photographers from outside the food world was controversial, it ultimately resulted in a successful issue. Reichl’s willingness to support the creatives on her team is essential to her career success.

“How many people were going to take this kindly? Not many, I imagined; most were going to find it offensive. Thousands would cancel their subscriptions, and I would lose my job. It would be foolish to print this. But how could I not? I looked down at that brilliant, difficult article, wishing I had never heard of David Foster Wallace.”

The controversial article by David Foster Wallace allows Reichl to define the stakes of her creative decisions at Gourmet. She emphasizes her desire to trust her instincts despite the risk that a wrong decision could end her career. Throughout the memoir, Reichl presents herself as a boundary-pushing editor whose creative decisions transformed Gourmet, bringing it into a new era.

“The idea that’s been resonating with me is his notion that we must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. I’m curious about what the future might hold.”

Reichl’s conversation with her former editorial director reflects the memoir’s examination of The Bittersweet Nature of Achieving Dreams. The notion that the life waiting for her is even better than the one she imagined for herself reframes a professional setback as another step in her personal and professional evolution.

“He prayed over the chosen goat, thanked him for his life, and dispatched the beast with a single slash to the throat. As he delivered the carcass into Ian’s hands, he said quietly, ‘I know you guys will treat him well.’ It was a solemn moment, for the goat represented something much bigger than food to these butchers. It was hope for the present—and a prayer for the future.”

One of the last projects Reichl is proud of at Gourmet is an online video about the process of butchering meat featuring a halal butcher. The piece takes seriously the butcher’s belief that his shop can help create positive change in American attitudes toward Islam in the years after the September 11 attacks. Reichl’s joy in the expansive possibilities the internet creates for food media adds a layer of nuance to her portrayal of the demise of Gourmet magazine amid the rise of online journalism.

“‘You like to cook?’ Their fingers jabbed, their bodies rocked as they reeled off favorite recipes, desperate to share their secrets. They yearned to pass them on to the next generation, but their children didn’t care for cooking. I was a last resort.”

This passage reflects Reichl’s passion for the emotional connection between food and family. She recalls how the old women who frequented her favorite deli when she first moved to New York shared their recipes with her because they had no children to share them with. Reichl’s own family memories appear throughout the memoir, which she concludes by affirming her late parents’ role in her long career.

“We survivors danced on the edge of the volcano, unwilling to admit that anything had changed. New York began to seem like a giant publicity machine, whose main purpose was reassuring everyone that things were fine.”

Although Reichl depicts Condé Nast in the late 1990s-early 2000s as a company that celebrated creativity, she also suggests that Gourmet’s downfall was related to its parent company’s sole focus on profit. Even as the recession caused intense financial pressure for Gourmet, Condé Nast spent money on publicity events to convince advertisers that the magazine was stable. Reichl suggests that this overspending led to the magazine’s closure.

“She’s proud of her chef, proud of French food, and this is a private act of patriotism. She’s trying to seduce us with food. I haven’t had this experience in years, but it used to happen all the time when I was hitchhiking around Europe.”

This passage reflects the memoir’s thematic interest in the emotional power of food. While on a trip to Paris, Reichl and another editor are showered with food by a French waitress who believes they are too poor to afford the restaurant. Reichl is touched by this display of generosity, which emphasizes the link between one’s food, one’s culture, and one’s identity.

“In the moment what I felt mostly was relief. Almost everything I’d cherished about my job had vanished, leaving me feeling like little more than a salesman.”

Reichl grounds each of the memoir’s key scenes in her internal emotions, creating an intimate narrative tone. Here, the relief she feels that this professional chapter has closed signals the birth of new creative possibilities waiting in her professional life, as evidenced by the subsequent publication of her novels, Delicious! and The Paris Novel, both of which incorporate experiences from her time at Gourmet.