Review: Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl (April 2, 2019 / Random House)
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher/Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

Goodreads Summary:

Trailblazing food writer and beloved restaurant critic Ruth Reichl took the risk (and the job) of a lifetime when she entered the glamorous, high-stakes world of magazine publishing. Now, for the first time, she chronicles her groundbreaking tenure as editor in chief of Gourmet, during which she spearheaded a revolution in the way we think about food.

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. And 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 Gourmet 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.

My Review: 

I've always been a magazine lover. From Highlights in grade school to my teen magazines (Sassy, YM, Seventeen) in middle school, and my obsession with fashion magazines in high school. I loved that there was a world out there that was full of animals and adventures, fashionable high school students, and edgy and elegant women living it up in the big city. As a mom and wife I looked for answers of how to feed my family and make a happy home in every homemaking and cooking magazine I could find. It took until my late 30s to figure out that I can take in all the information I find in magazines but I don't need to measure my worth against them. Just like I enjoy reading about or watching the antics of Anna Wintour, I am not building my day around her thoughts--as you would see from my daily uniform of yoga pants. Same for Ruth Reichl. She's lived a life totally submerged in the food trends of New York, pursued culinary travels through Europe, and run the top food magazine before the internet consumed almost all traditional media. I admire her career and empathized with her struggles to juggle her career with being a mother, but I also felt a disconnect when she discussed some aspects of working in the magazine industry. I enjoyed the behind the scenes views she provided but with the constantly rotating cast of characters I found myself wanting to know why this or that coworker with this or that background now had this this title.  

Quick summary: This is a memoir of a food writer with a focus on her career and the who's who of Conde Nast/Gourmet in the aughts. While interesting, I wanted more personal food stories.