NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLER • “A delicious insider account of the gritty, glamorous world of food culture.”—
Vanity Fair
In this “poignant and hilarious” (
The New York Times Book Review
) memoir, trailblazing food writer and beloved restaurant critic Ruth Reichl chronicles her groundbreaking tenure as editor in chief of
Gourmet.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR:
Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country
When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America’s oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone’s boss. Yet Reichl had been reading
Gourmet
since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?
This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat. Readers will meet legendary chefs like David Chang and Eric Ripert, idiosyncratic writers like David Foster Wallace, and a colorful group of editors and art directors who, under Reichl’s leadership, transformed stately
into a cutting-edge publication. This was the golden age of print media—the last spendthrift gasp before the Internet turned the magazine world upside down.
Complete with recipes,
Save Me the Plums
is a personal journey of a woman coming to terms with being in charge and making a mark, following a passion and holding on to her dreams—even when she ends up in a place she never expected to be.