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 magazine-making — 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.)
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