46 pages • 1-hour read
Save Me the Plums
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Key Figures
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses death and mental illness.
Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl (born 1948) is an American food writer, editor, and critic, and the author of Save Me the Plums, as well as four additional memoirs, two cookbooks, and two novels. She is the recipient of six James Beard Awards for her writing on food. She was born in 1948 and raised in New York City and Montreal, Canada, where she attended boarding school. She received a degree in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1968 and a Master’s in art history from the same university in 1960.
After finishing graduate school, she moved to Berkeley, California, where she turned her early interest in food into a thriving career. Her first cookbook, Mmmmm: A Festiary, was published in 1972, and from 1973 to 1977 she worked as a chef in a collectively-owned restaurant called Swallow’s Kitchen. In 1978, she became food editor of New West magazine. Her success at that magazine led her to the role of restaurant editor (1984-1993) and later food editor (1990-1993) at The Los Angeles Times. In 1993, she returned to New York City to become the chief restaurant critic for The New York Times. While at the Times, Reichl was known for her ruthless reviews, which often led to restaurant closures. As Save Me the Plums details, she left the Times in 1999 to become editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine.
Over the course of the memoir, Reichl develops from a nervous new executive to one of the most important editors in American media, painting a realistic portrait of the triumphs and challenges that contribute to her thematic interest in The Bittersweet Nature of Achieving Dreams. Although she had been living in New York for years when she was approached for the job, she was still heavily influenced by her time in Berkeley, and considered herself “a sixties rebel with a deep mistrust of corporate ways” (15). As a result, Reichl admits that she initially rejected the job because she “worried about the burden of being a boss, afraid the staff would fear and resent [her]” (83), just like she had feared and resented her own managers in the past. Reichl explains that her experiences as a food critic for the New York Times made her “the enemy” (148) in restaurants across New York, “the person whose picture hung beside the swinging kitchen doors with WANTED written across the bottom in giant letters” (148). As a result, Reichl explains, “all I want to do is please people” (14). These examples suggest that Reichl’s past experiences as an outsider initially make her wary of taking a position in management.
However, the memoir shows that Reichl finds the most success when she leads from within the community of writers and staff, rather than above it. Although she feared leading a team, Reichl learns that “nothing feels as good as building a team and empowering people, watching them grow and thrive” (83). Early in her time at Gourmet, Reichl asks her staff for ideas that had been previously rejected, and is delighted to find that they are “bursting with ideas—for writers, for columns, for special issues” (83). The use of the active verbs grow, thrive, and burst in these passages suggests that the staff is taking active control of the magazine, allowing Reichl to lead from the sidelines as “the cheerleader, the instigator” (84). Here, Reichl explicitly depicts herself as an accessory to the action, suggesting that her strength as a leader comes from her ability to inspire others and create a space where they can succeed, rather than exerting her will on the team.
Samuel Irving “Si” Newhouse, Jr.
Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr. (1927-2017), known as Si, was an American media mogul and owner, with his family, of Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast, which is itself the parent company of Gourmet. He was raised in New York City and briefly attended Syracuse University before leaving school to work for his father’s growing newspaper empire. Shortly after his father bought Condé Nast media in 1959, Newhouse took on the role of publisher of its number one magazine, Vogue. In 1975, he took over as chairman of Condé Nast, a role that he kept through the events of the memoir and until his retirement in 2016. He died the following year.
In the acknowledgements for Save Me the Plums, Reichl writes that “this whole book is, of course, a thank you to the late Si Newhouse” and that she wishes “the world had more people cheering for excellence” (253). However, the memoir presents him as a complicated figure whose generosity was tempered by a harsh pursuit of domination of the media market. Reichl describes Newhouse as “small, wizened [with] a long, horsey face and gaps between his teeth” (19), and suggests that “no one would have taken him for one of the world’s richest men” (19) if they didn’t know who he was. Although this description suggests that Newhouse is humble, she also describes him as waving at waiters with an “imperious hand” (20), suggesting that his body language and attitude are far from humble. The word imperious is used twice (20, 249) to describe Newhouse: once here, and once in the final chapter, as he closes the magazine.
From their first meeting, Reichl celebrates the fact that Newhouse “spent millions on his magazines and never seemed to count the cost” (18), knowing that this financial investment will make Gourmet stronger. Throughout the memoir, other editors emphasize the rarity of this generosity, assuring her that no other chairman would “hand you a magazine and let you do what you want with it” (99). However, Reichl also quickly recognizes that “he was not a man who liked to lose” (23) and that his generosity cannot last forever. Ultimately, Newhouse shuts down Gourmet when sales fall as a result of the 2008 recession. Reichl reveals that Newhouse’s announcement of the closure in an all-staff meeting was “the last words I ever heard him say” (250). Newhouse’s abrupt, unfeeling closure of the magazine contradicts the epilogue’s assertion, just three pages later, that he spent his life “cheering for excellence” (253). Her nuanced relationship with him throughout her memoir mirrors her complicated relationship toward the Changes in American Publishing in the 20th Century, a central thematic concern of the text.
Nick Singer
t of his strict antibiotic regimen, Nick lost his appetite and “steadfastly refused to eat anything that wasn’t white” (201). Despite her job as a food writer, Reichl cannot convince her son to eat new foods. Instead, Nick begins to branch out at the urging of “Osada-san, a small, gentle sushi master with an extraordinarily kind face and an almost mythical ability to discern his customer’s desires” (202). Over many meals, Osada-san slowly grows close to Nick and inspires him to try new foods. As a result, Nick “became a food explorer, eager to discover the unfamiliar world of flavor” (204). The fact that this personal relationship helped Nick overcome his medical food issues reflects the close connection between food and love.
Miriam Reichl
Miriam Reichl is the late mother of author Ruth Reichl. Although she is not an active presence in the memoir, having died before the action begins, her memory shapes Reichl’s understanding of her career. Miriam is characterized by her struggles with bipolar disorder and her longing for a better life, which Reichl attempts to honor as an adult. Reichl is a young girl when Miriam is diagnosed as bipolar, and she quickly comes to learn “the extreme mood swings that moved through [Miriam] like weather, altering every aspect of her being” and of their home (27). As a result of this disorder, Miriam had “manic” (27) and “furious” (28) phases, in which Reichl and her father would compare her to a “dangerous animal” (27). At other times, Miriam is overcome with depression and spends months “unable to rise from the sofa bed,” leaving the house in a state of “creepy quiet” (30). The instability that resulted from her mother’s mental health issues made Reichl determined to build a stable home for Nick.
Throughout the memoir, Reichl reflects on her mother’s dissatisfaction with her life and how much Miriam would have enjoyed Reichl’s professional success. Reichl writes that her mother was “haunted by the life she imagined for herself” (28) and “constantly humiliated by the pedestrian reality of our existence” (28). Although Miriam dreamed of “a life filled with culture and interesting people” (120), she was forced to make the best of her reality as the wife of a book designer. When Reichl was a child, Miriam would make the family “dress up for cocktails at the Rainbow Room, the Forum of the Twelve Caesars, and the Top of the Sixes” (28), the fanciest restaurants in New York at the time. Although the family could not afford to eat there, they would “each order a single drink, stretching it out as long as possible” (28). Although Reichl describes this tradition as “pathetic” (28), she also acknowledges that these outings were Miriam’s only escape into the world she dreamed of.
As Reichl enjoys increasing material success as a result of her career, she is haunted by a recurring thought: “if only Mom could be here” (119). While at her first big Condé Nast party, Reichl realizes that being in the room would have made her mother “very happy, and now [she] trie[s] to see it from her perspective.” (120) As she rides home from the party in a limousine, Reichl thinks that the version of New York she has achieved is “the city [Miriam] had longed to inhabit, and she would have loved knowing I had breached its walls” (123). Miriam’s legacy inspires Reichl to enjoy the benefits of her role while it lasts.
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