Save Me the Plums

by Ruth Reichl

  “They’re together,” he said. “Talking.”

  “So?”

  “Mario just told Eric he has a kid in the kitchen at Babbo who should be working at Le Bernardin. He said he was going to send him over tomorrow.”

  “Chefs do that all the time. They send their most talented kids to stage with other chefs so they can gain experience.”

  Giulio shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “What an amazing world you live in. I’m used to fashion people. Do you think Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan would even be in the same room together? Food people are a different species.”

  This was, of course, before the #MeToo moment tore down the curtain and exposed the ugliness behind the kitchen door. How much did we know? I’d been writing articles since the seventies about the rise of the woman chef, and I’d heard the stories about the old days. But I’d thought that was behind us.

  Still, if I’m being honest, I have to admit that working women everywhere accepted casual misogyny. We were so accustomed to taking what men dished out that we thought it was up to us to find ways to deflect the advances of bosses and co-workers without hurting their feelings. As someone who spent many years in restaurants as a waitress, cook, and writer, I can’t say that the chefs I met were any worse than the men I encountered in publishing or the art world. In retrospect I feel like a coward for having put up with any of that, but it was what we all considered the way of the world. I hope my granddaughters will live in a better one.

  At the time, my only thought was that Giulio was a quick study; in one night he’d intuited everything that enchanted me about the restaurant world. When I first started writing, there were only a handful of us—men and women—who were interested in food and wine, but we felt we were in it together. There had been no boundaries, no distinction between writers and chefs, and I’d felt part of a close community intent on improving the way America eats. Back in the seventies the food world was so amorphous that, when I was reporting a long piece about the opening of Michael’s Restaurant in Santa Monica, Michael McCarty had asked, seriously, if I had any money to invest in his restaurant. I didn’t, of course, but it was a sign of how loosely the lines were drawn.

  All that changed when I became the restaurant critic of The New York Times. I didn’t know any New York chefs and I couldn’t get to know them. I was the enemy, the person whose picture hung behind the swinging kitchen doors with WANTED written across the bottom in giant letters.

  I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them. But I was very happy to be home.

  WHEN LAURIE MENTIONED, WITH STUDIED casualness, that she had thought of the perfect person to replace her if the time should ever come, I was completely unsuspecting.

  “Who?” A good manager, after all, needs a contingency plan.

  “John Willoughby. Do you know him?”

  I’d met the editor of Cook’s Illustrated at least a dozen times, but I could hardly say I knew him. “You sure?” I said. Tall and striking, Willoughby had bright-silver hair, startlingly blue eyes, and the cool elegance of a New England Brahmin. “He always kind of frightens me.”

  “I can see why.” Laurie, aware of my deep aversion to change, did not mention why she had brought this up. “But I taught a food-writing class with him, and beneath that aristocratic manner is a smart man with a generous soul. The students were all in love with him. You should invite him to New York and spend some time with him.”

  Why not? I thought, putting in the call. It would be good to be prepared, should we ever have an opening. Willoughby, however, did not seem thrilled when I asked him to come for an interview. He agreed to make the trip from Boston, but I had the distinct impression that he had little interest in a new job. “I’ve been longing to visit the Condé Nast cafeteria,” he admitted.

  Si would have been pleased; this was exactly why he’d lured Frank Gehry to 4 Times Square. The cafeteria might masquerade as the company canteen, but Si had wanted to create New York’s most exclusive club.

  It was a singularly brilliant move, and it worked exactly as planned. The cafeteria got so much press that the whole world yearned to visit Gehry’s soaring space with its sinuous glass panels and curving titanium walls. The fact that an invitation was required made it that much more enticing.

  For prospective employees, the cafeteria was always an attraction. This was fine with me; I like interviewing people over lunch. You can learn a lot about people by watching them eat, and I wondered what I’d glean from my meal with John.

  He walked in and looked around, seeming suitably impressed. He pointed to the Chinese-food line, where a famous actor was waiting. “Is that…?”

  On any given day, the Condé Nast cafeteria was packed with celebrities whose agents had wrangled invitations. John slipped in behind the star and watched a cook toss tough nuggets of precooked chicken into a wok, add some limp, overcooked vegetables, and smother it all with garlic-free kung pao sauce. Tugging on his apron, the cook gave the mess a listless stir. “That looks dreadful,” said John, easing out of the line.

  I herded him toward the sushi station, where “sushi chefs” were arranging presliced fish onto soggy seaweed. The skinny Vogue assistant in front of us leaned in to negotiate.

  “Will you please cut my tuna roll in twelve?” she asked the chef.

  “Eight!” he said curtly.

  “Please.” She actually batted her eyelashes. “Please cut it into twelve. For me. I’m on a diet and it makes it seem like more.”

  John gave a shout of laughter and edged out of the line to move on to the steam table, where a pair of GQ editors were earnestly discussing the merits of lukewarm fried chicken. He shadowed them as they surveyed a vast tray of macaroni paved in a thick orange crust. “I’d bet my life that’s not Velveeta!” said one.

  John looked at the oozing tray and shuddered slightly. “But everyone says the food here is good!” His disappointment was palpable.

  Only those who haven’t eaten here, I started to say, but prudently kept my mouth shut. You never knew who might be listening. “They make pretty good sandwiches,” I ventured, pointing to the interns jockeying for position in front of two white-coated workers. The men were conducting a frantic competition to see who could cram the most protein between two slices of bread, and John watched, mesmerized, as one stuffed a pound of bacon onto a single sandwich, then added a heap of tomatoes, a mountain of lettuce, and an entire avocado. Wrapping the towering concoction into white paper, he penciled “BLT” across the front and with a wink handed it across the counter.

  “They know the interns aren’t paid,” I whispered, “but watch this.” The next customer, an older executive, ordered a Brie-and-prosciutto sandwich. The cook nodded briefly, picked up a dainty croissant, sliced it in two, inserted a sliver of cheese and a single slice of ham, and passed it across the counter. No wink.

  “That,” said John, “is democracy in action.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess the counter guys figure anyone who spends twelve bucks on a sandwich doesn’t need their help.”

  As I spoke, Si began to wriggle out of his booth on the far side of the room. I tugged on John’s sleeve. “C’mon. Hurry!”

  Our timing was perfect.

  We followed at a discreet distance as Si trotted through the cafeteria with his tray. John stared, rapt, as Si carefully separated the dirty plates and glasses. “I never knew,” he said, “how satisfying it could be to watch a billionaire bus his own dishes.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “But would you mind very much if we ate somewhere else?”

  He’d aced the first part of the interview.

  We rode the subway downtown and John stretched his long legs into the aisle, seeming comfortable. He did not ask why we weren’t in a limo, but he looked at me with those startling eyes and said, “My friends all call
me Doc. I wish you would too.”

  “Have you always been called that?”

  “Just since college. I grew up in Iowa, and I was such a bumpkin my roommate said I reminded him of a country doctor. The name kind of stuck.”

  “What college?”

  He hesitated, looking so abashed that I was completely unprepared for the answer.

  “Harvard.” He sounded embarrassed. I glanced at him with some surprise; every other Harvard person I’ve ever met has managed to drop the name in the first five minutes.

  How could I not like him?

  When we walked into Pearl Oyster Bar, Doc studied the small, modest restaurant with its long marble counter and took a deep breath. It smelled like clams, like lemons, like lobsters. “I was afraid”—he sank happily onto a stool—“you were going to take me to some stuffy uptown restaurant. This is perfect.”

  We started with fried oysters, and I plucked one from my plate, showered it with fresh lemon juice, took a bite. The outside crackled gently before yielding to the small, savory custard inside. It was like eating sea foam, and I closed my eyes to better experience the pleasure. When I opened them, Doc was watching me. I silently handed him an oyster.

  “Wine?” I asked. He nodded, and we listened to the clear pale liquid rush into our glasses. We clinked, the merry sound a nod to the simple goodness of the food.

  Lobsters arrived and we tore into them with our fingers, teasing out the rich meat of the tail, the subtle smoothness of the claws. We were eating silently, sucking on the little swimmerets to extract every bit of meat. He seemed to feel no need to talk, no need to sell himself. An odd interview, perhaps, but it had told me everything I needed to know. He wasn’t Laurie, but if the time ever came, we’d work well together.

  Salad then, a perfect Caesar, each crisp leaf of romaine reveling in its anchovy-laced dressing. Doc matched me bite for bite, and we did not leave a single crouton.

  “Dessert?” I asked.

  We shared a butterscotch praline sundae; he ate most of it. He was, I thought, a modest man with an appreciation for pleasure.

  “I don’t have an opening now,” I said when he put his spoon down. I was still clueless. “But I’d love to work with you someday.”

  “It would be tempting,” he conceded. “But…” He gestured toward the window. Outside, people were hurrying past, heads bent into the wind on the gritty Village street. “This would be a huge change, and I like my life now. Do I really want to give up everything I know to move to New York?”

  I understood exactly how he felt.

  * * *

  —

  “SO YOU LIKED him?” Looking relieved, Laurie finally revealed that she’d been asked to run the LA Weekly. “Editor in chief!” She looked apologetic. “I started my career there and I just can’t turn it down.” She reached out a hand, touched my arm. “It won’t be such a big change,” she promised. “We’ll still see lots of each other. Jonathan’s going to stay on as Gourmet’s restaurant critic, so we’ll be bicoastal.”

  “But it won’t be the same!” Laurie was leaving and the change loomed, leaving me feeling frightened and betrayed. I’d liked Doc Willoughby, but who was he really? A silver-haired stranger who might turn out to be anyone at all.

  I GAVE DOC A COPY of E. B. White’s Here Is New York as a welcome gift, but he didn’t need it; he fell in love with the city—and with Gourmet—on day one. He slid so seamlessly into our lives that it hardly felt like change. After the first few weeks, none of us could remember a time he hadn’t been there. Smart, forthright, and kind, he had the remarkable ability to say exactly what he thought, no matter how negative, without ever seeming hostile. He was always firm, but in seven years I never saw him lose his temper. Larry liked him immediately, and although he never said so, I thought he was relieved I’d chosen someone more conventional than Laurie. As for the staff, they adored him.

  I missed Laurie, missed her calm presence and her brilliant editing instincts. I missed our forays to the far corners of the city to eat strange dishes none of our friends would touch. But the hard part was behind us; Gourmet was thriving, and our readers now seemed eager for increasingly challenging content. It was thrilling. And in an odd way, her leaving liberated me: I had weathered an enormous change, and it had proved painless.

  But it was more than that. The Gourmet staff was now a solid team working seamlessly together, and Laurie’s leaving hadn’t changed that. I admired every one of the people I worked with, and I was proud of the magazine we were making. Now, for the first time, I acknowledged that it wasn’t just luck and it wasn’t an accident; I had actually spearheaded this. It made me very proud.

  My new publisher was also promising, although I did have early doubts about Giulio’s competence. The first time he took me on an ad call, he looked askance when I asked who we were supposed to be.

  I reminded myself that he was new at this game. “I’m asking what you want me to tell these ad reps about Gourmet,” I said patiently. “Are we a lifestyle book or a travel book? Upscale or down-to-earth? Should I talk about the recipes? You need to give me marching orders.”

  “Why go through all that?” He sounded genuinely perplexed. “Just explain your vision. We’re Gourmet, and that speaks for itself.”

  I studied him warily. In Gina’s world we had tried to figure out what the clients wanted to hear—and then made sure that they did. “I don’t know,” I began. “It seems kind of risky. Especially since you’re new and ad sales are bound to slump for a few months.”

  “They’ll come back,” he said, with what I considered unearned assurance. I’d learned by then how personal ad sales are, and I knew that many of Gina’s accounts would follow her out the door. As a first-time publisher, Giulio would not be bringing old accounts along, and we were certain to suffer.

  But he appeared to be unconcerned. “All you need to do is tell them your vision for the magazine.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Preview some upcoming articles, talk about why you’re publishing them. That’s all I ask; the rest is my job.”

  I was uneasy and he sensed my discomfort. “This is how I see it.” He was so earnest. “On paper we look exactly like the competition. I can massage the figures a bit, but people aren’t fooled—we have the same demographics as all the other food and travel books. What’s different about us is our content. Nobody’s ever produced an epicurean magazine like this before; that’s what we have to get across.”

  But getting anything across to ad reps is extremely difficult. They’re trained to have no affect, and no matter how fast you talk or how many jokes you tell, they sit like stones, giving nothing back.

  This group was no different. “I tried everything,” I told Nick and Michael later. “When I told about sending Bruce Feiler off with a pocketful of cash to buy his way into hot restaurants, it almost worked. One of the reps actually asked a question.”

  “What?” Nick wanted to know.

  “He asked if Bruce had tried it at a Danny Meyer restaurant. When I said a twenty-dollar bill slipped to the maître d’ snagged an instant table at Union Square on a busy Saturday night, there was an actual gasp. Then the room went quiet; they were embarrassed that I’d tricked them into reacting.”

  “But will they buy an ad?” Michael wanted to know.

  “We’ll have to wait and see. But I worry that Giulio likes the magazine too much to be an effective salesman. The other day he brought his mother in. Can you imagine? She’s this lovely, very shy old lady, and she’s saved all her Gourmets going back to the fifties. When I took her down to the test kitchen, I thought she would faint from happiness. It was very sweet.”

  “Don’t underestimate that man,” said Michael. “He knows exactly how to charm you. He just has a different set of tools than Gina. But I bet when you want to publish a serious investigative report he’s goin
g to give you that same old line about not offending the readers.”

  Edgy articles had always made Gina nervous, but Giulio was different. When I showed him Barry Estabrook’s article on the horrors of salmon farms, he was positively enthusiastic. The accepted wisdom was that fish farms were going to save the world, but Barry reported that they were just another form of animal factory, polluting the water, creating dead zones on the ocean floor, and filling the fish with antibiotics.

  “Farmed salmon don’t even have orange flesh,” I said, showing Giulio the color wheel Barry had sent with the article. “But nobody wants to eat an ugly gray salmon, so the farmers feed them color pellets. These are the various shades of orange they can choose from.”

  Giulio gave the wheel a spin. “Our advertising partners eat salmon too,” he said. “They’ll want to know this.” Later he sent me a note laying out his thinking. “As I see it, this is a win-win. The affluent epicures who already subscribe will be grateful; they want to know what’s in the salmon they’re buying. But younger readers are going to be especially interested; this is the kind of story that will make them realize this isn’t their grandmother’s Gourmet anymore. Stories like this set us apart.”

  I hoped he was right, but I was not convinced. As Christmas approached I noted, with growing trepidation, that ad sales were not improving. I dreaded yet another new publisher; who knew who they’d send next?

  Christmas at Condé Nast meant the annual Four Seasons lunch—and the annual speculation about who would be seated where. The press parsed the iconography as if it were the Last Supper. According to the accepted wisdom, sitting with Si was an excellent omen, and a seat near Truman or Florio was a sure sign of favor. Maurie’s table, on the other hand, was considered bad luck; it was widely believed to mean that this was your last lunch.

  I was relieved to be seated next to Si. But as soon as I sat down, I began to fret: What on earth was I going to say once he’d finished his holiday remarks?