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Save Me the Plums
by Ruth Reichl
A candid memoir of a restaurant critic who never wanted to be a boss, running Gourmet during print's last golden age and the rise of celebrity chefs.
What It's About
Save Me the Plums is Ruth Reichl's account of her years as editor in chief of Gourmet, the Condé Nast food magazine she had read since she was a child. She arrives as a writer who has never wanted to manage anyone, and the book follows her learning to lead a staff, shape a monthly magazine, and live with the responsibility of a job she was not sure she wanted. The personal question at its center is whether she can keep her values intact inside a large corporate structure.
Her approach is conversational and anecdotal. She moves between office politics, test kitchen work, and the people who made the magazine: editors, art directors, chefs, and writers. The mood is affectionate and a little wry, and it lingers on the particular texture of a print operation at its most prosperous, when budgets were generous and an assignment could mean months of work. Recipes appear alongside the narrative, so the book has a practical side as well as a memoir's arc.
Reading it feels less like studying a business book and more like sitting with a friend who has lived through an unusual job. The story is shadowed by what came after the golden years, as the internet reshaped publishing, and that undertow gives the warmer scenes a bittersweet edge. Readers who know the magazine will recognize more of its world, but the drift of the story works for anyone curious about how a magazine is made.
Read this if you…
- are curious how a food magazine actually gets made
- enjoy memoirs about work, ambition, and feeling out of your depth
- care about the decline of print or the rise of food as entertainment
Skip it if you…
- want recipes or cooking instruction as the main event
- need a rigorous business history of magazine publishing
Key Ideas
- 1
Ambition that does not come naturally
Reichl presents herself as a writer who distrusted corporate life and felt little pull toward authority. The memoir takes her reluctance seriously, showing how she learns management through trial, error, and discomfort rather than through any confident plan. It is a useful portrait of someone who succeeds at a role she never sought.
- 2
A magazine as a living community
Much of the book's energy comes from the team that produces each issue. Editors, art directors, and test cooks each have their own temperaments and stakes, and Reichl shows how their work fits together. Readers get a clear sense of what goes into a monthly publication, from ideas and assignments to the final pages.
- 3
Restaurants becoming popular culture
The book records a period when dining out shifted from a niche interest to mainstream entertainment. Reichl describes how the rise of farm-to-table cooking and star chefs changed what food coverage was expected to be. Seeing this change from inside an editorial office gives the trend more texture than a general survey would.
- 4
Print's golden age and its end
The memoir looks at a time when glossy magazines could afford to be lavish, and it is honest about how quickly that changed. Reichl does not treat nostalgia as a substitute for analysis. She shows the financial and cultural pressures that made the old model unsustainable, and she leaves the reader to weigh what was lost.
Limitations
This is one person's memoir, told from a vantage point that is personal and sometimes flattering to its author. Corporate decisions at Condé Nast are seen mostly through her eyes, so readers looking for a balanced account of the company's choices will need other sources. Some readers find the name-dropping of famous chefs and writers thin, and the glamour of the period can feel dated. The book also covers a narrow slice of time, so it says little about food media as it exists today.
Questions Readers Ask
- Do I need to know Gourmet to enjoy this book?
- No. Reichl explains the magazine's history and her own relationship to it. Readers who remember the magazine will pick up more of the details, but the story of a reluctant boss learning her job stands on its own.
- How does it compare to Garlic and Sapphires?
- Garlic and Sapphires covers Reichl's years as a New York Times restaurant critic, including the disguises she used to dine anonymously. Save Me the Plums focuses on running a magazine, so it is more about office life and management than about dining rooms.
- Is it still relevant today?
- Yes, especially for its portrait of print at its peak and the shift of food into mainstream culture. Its management themes are timeless, though some of the industry details belong to a pre-internet era of publishing.
- Published
- 2020
- ISBN
- 9780812982381
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Biographies
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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