Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
Written and Narrated By: Ruth Reichl
Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
A 60’s rebel takes on corporate media… oh, and recipes too!
Save Me the Plums briefly touches on Ruth Reichl’s time as a food critic, eating out 14 times a week, telling people where to and where NOT to go, destroying careers, feeling torn about what she does for a living. But mostly, however, it’s about her time as Gourmet’s head helm lady.
The book is really good if you’re a devout foodie, or if you’re into the behind-the-scenes kinda stuff that makes for a good memoir. She goes from being a wide-eyed innocent, thinking Gourmet is sooooo old-fashioned, to taking cookbooks on the road, to taking Gourmet online. She is wooed by, well, she doesn’t know what precisely, as she’s pretty deadset against taking the job in the first place.
But there are perks! Limos! Clothing allowances! Travel and style!
Plus, there are all the very memorable people she meets.
Plus, and this is huuuuuuuge, the woman is quite simply a lover of flavor. The writing sizzles with fragrances, aromas, tantalizing hints of flavor here, smoky blends of flavor there. The woman CAN’T write without making the listener/reader oh so very hungry.
There are the ups and downs that go with running such a large magazine, the highs and lows that follow the economy and advertising dollars (and NObody buys magazines when there’s an economic crisis!). There are personnel changes, there are changing culinary heroes and superstars, there are outsized egos galore.
And then there are recipes interspersed throughout the book. Reichl’s tones are sometimes flat, especially when she’s relaying a recipe. I didn’t mind this so much as I kinda got the feeling that she was a high-priestess performing a sacred rite when she cooks. I almost expected chanting and incense (But that would’ve gotten in the way of the splendid writing, the many adjectives used to describe the holiness that was each particular recipe).
Though her term at Gourmet ended with the ultimate shutting down of the magazine as a whole, the book is an excellent homage to faithful foodies everywhere. I especially liked that she winds up doing Paris on a Shoestring and rediscovers her bliss there, the reason that she’s drawn to all things flavor flavor flavor!
I can’t say I’m a foodie per se, but I’m interested in it enough that I found the audiobook to be engaging. And I certainly also enjoyed Reichl’s foray into fiction when we did Delicious! during our audiobook club.
Give it a try. And see if you don’t hear your stomach growl at parts, why doncha?
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.