Ruth Reichl Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe magazine.
Guess who's joining us today? It's Ruth Reichl, the legend herself. Ruth was the editor in chief of Gourmet magazine for a decade. When the magazine was abruptly closed, Ruth's many fans were devastated. She pivoted to writing books and has produced one bestseller after another, from “Tender at the Bone” to “Save Me the Plums.” I hope you've read them all. Ruth is here today to talk about her latest book coming out tomorrow. It's called “The Paris Novel.” You can guess what it's about. It is a delightful journey filled with fashion, art, and of course food. I'm so honored that Ruth is here today. Stay tuned for our conversation.
Ruth was one of the keynote speakers at this past weekend's Jubilee conference. Thank you to Ruth and everyone who joined us for a beautiful day of connection and community, and great food and drink. I am still processing everything, as you can imagine, but I loved catching up with so many of you and learning what you're up to. Big thanks to our sponsors, Kerrygold, Sanpellegrino, Veuve Clicquot, Wegmans, Johnny Walker, and HexClad.
Today's episode is presented by Kerrygold. Kerrygold is the iconic Irish brand, famous for its beautiful cheese and butter, made with milk from Irish grass-fed cows. I am a Kerrygold super fan, and I had the good fortune to travel to Ireland with the Kerrygold team a few years ago. I met farmers, cheese makers, the folks who inspect the butter and grade the cheese, and I even met the cows. It was an unforgettable trip and I loved getting to know more about the world of Kerrygold. I learned the differences between the Kerrygold cheeses, and I'm going to share some of my favorites with you. There's Kerrygold Aged Cheddar, classic and rich, Kerrygold Reserve Cheddar is sharp and bold, thanks to an extra year of aging. Kerrygold Dubliner is a robust aged cow's milk cheese that's nutty, sharp and sweet all at once. Then there's Kerrygold Skellig, which is tangy and crumbly with a butterscotch-like sweetness. And one more to shout out, Kerrygold Cashel Blue Farmhouse Cheese. It's a perfect blue in my book with that signature creaminess and tang. I love it for everything from snacking to salads. I highly recommend visiting Ireland, but you don't need a trip to Ireland to figure out your favorite Kerrygold cheese. Just a trip to your local supermarket, gourmet shop, or cheese shop. Visit kerrygoldusa.com to learn more about Kerrygold's iconic cheese varieties, to browse recipes, and to find a store near you.
Our show is also supported by Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame Champagne. If you are a longtime listener, you know that my preferred drink is champagne. I'm thrilled when I see La Grande Dame on the wine list or at a friend's dinner party. The Maison's newest vintage cuvée, La Grande Dame Rosé 2015, is an exceptional champagne that celebrates the visionary spirit of Madame Clicquot, and honors her love for Pinot Noir, echoing her own words, "Our black grapes produce the finest white wines." La Grande Dame's latest cuvée blends the 2015 vintage with Pinot Noir red wine, creating a harmonious mix of spice notes like pepper, nutmeg, and clove, along with delicate aromas of red fruit, rosé and violet. I also love La Grande Dame because of the Grande Dame herself, Madame Clicquot, a trailblazer in the world of champagne. You know we love pioneering women here at Cherry Bombe. Born in 1777, Madame Clicquot took over the family business in her 20s at a time when women were banned from going to school or making their own money. She established many firsts in the world of champagne, the first vintage champagne, the riddling table, and the blended Rosé champagne. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the house, Veuve Clicquot launched La Grande Dame Champagne 1972 in tribute to her. Her namesake champagne continues to be made with grapes from Veuve Clicquot's historical Grand Cru vineyards, some of which Madame Clicquot purchased herself. Her legacy is certainly a good reason to raise a glass. Cheers to all trailblazing women. Please remember, always drink responsibly.
Now let's chat with today's guest. Ruth Reichl, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Ruth Reichl:
It is so much fun to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my God, it's so good to see you. You are partially responsible for Cherry Bombe even existing just because of all the things you did back in the day and just how much we respect you and the books and what you did at Gourmet.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, I have to say, I was so thrilled when you started Cherry Bombe. I had seen Lucky Peach and been irritated, as all women I think were, by his broey magazine that was celebrating bad behavior in men. It was like, "What about us?" And you started Cherry Bombe and it was just such a breath of fresh air and so needed, and like many other people, women in the food business, we have watched with so much admiration what you've done with this. It's amazing. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you have been a big part of it in so many ways, not just the inspiration, but you've spoken at everything we've done. You've been on the cover. I'm sure we've driven you crazy for a million things over the years, but thank you so much for-
Ruth Reichl:
Totally my pleasure.
Kerry Diamond:
... all the time you've given us. So thrilled that you've got a book coming out this April. You're going to be at Jubilee. It's called “The Paris Novel.” Why don't you tell us this very special story behind how the book came to be?
Ruth Reichl:
My late editor, Susan Kamil, who was a genius. She was the best editor I have ever worked with bar none, and when “Save Me The Plums” came out, she said, "I love the chapter about you." I went to a vintage clothing store in Paris called Didier Ludot when we were doing the Paris issue for Gourmet, and I tried on this dress, which the woman in the store told me was the first dress that Yves Saint Laurent had designed for Dior. And she did this thing. She said, "Your dress has been waiting for you." And she put this dress on me, and as you know, I am not a fashion person at all. I had the experience of being transformed by a dress. I put this dress on and I looked in the mirror and I was someone completely different. I was gorgeous and exotic, and my body had changed, and I really wanted that dress. I asked how much it was, and it was $6,000. I just couldn't spend $6,000 on a dress. And so the woman was very disappointed.
Later I had the experience of actually being at Caviar Kaspia, which was Yves Saint Laurent's favorite restaurant, and meeting the husband of the woman who the dress had been made for. And it was one of those moments, those amazing moments. Susan said, "I wish you would write a novel based on that." And the minute she said it, I saw the characters, and I had the most amazing experience writing this book because I do not like writing. Writing is hard. I like having written, which is why I keep writing, but I will do anything to keep from writing.
I had always had a fantasy that writing fiction would be like reading fiction, and that you would just go into it. And this book was like that. I was staying with friends and every day I would say, "I'm going up to Paris now." And I would go to the room and just live the book. It was such an unusual experience for me that when I sent the book to my agent, I said, "I know this has to be a piece of sh*t because I liked writing it too much and it can't be good." And she called me afterwards and said, "You are never allowed to write anything you don't like again. You can only write things that give you pleasure."
It took longer than I really needed to on this book because I didn't want to let go of the characters. I liked them all so much. I liked spending time with them that I took my time.
Kerry Diamond:
What was so different this time around?
Ruth Reichl:
I can't even tell you. The book came to me, and it felt right, and it was about everything that I love. I have a master's in history of art, and I decided to put this mystery that I had always been really interested in when I was getting my masters. I fell in love with Manet's Olympia. I did some research about the model, and I found out that she was actually a painter in her own right. Victorine-Louise Meurent, she literally came from nothing at a time when poor people were not educated, women were not educated, women were not admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts. So all of the women painters that we know of, Morisot, they were all middle-class or wealthy women who were privately educated. And everybody looked down on her because she took her clothes off. She modeled for a living.
Kerry Diamond:
I can't imagine how bold she must have been in her time.
Ruth Reichl:
Absolutely. And how determined for her to have managed to become an artist. So I had always thought I wanted to try and find her paintings. I made my heroine want to find her paintings. So there was art in there, Shakespeare & Company, one of the great bookstores of the world for years, and actually still, have something called tumbleweeds. And over the years, 50,000 people have lived in the store.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I had no idea the number was that high. These are the folks who have worked there and lived there.
Ruth Reichl:
And famous... Ethan Hawke lived there for a while. So the rule was you could live there if you wrote a biography, helped out in the store. I had always wanted to do that. I didn't do that, but I thought, "Okay, I'm going to put that into the book. I'm going to put fashion into the book." I did all this research into Saint Laurent.
Kerry Diamond:
Just to talk about Shakespeare Books for a second. If you've been to Paris recently, the line-
Ruth Reichl:
The line to get in.
Kerry Diamond:
... to get in, you can't even get in. You have to stand there for an hour plus to get in.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
It's like a museum now. Amazing.
Ruth Reichl:
It is like a museum, and it's worth waiting in line to get there. It is the most wonderful. It's a warren of books. George Whitman, who started this store, was an incredible character.
Kerry Diamond:
Before we talk about some of the real characters in the book, your main character is Stella St. Vincent.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you Stella?
Ruth Reichl:
Not remotely Stella. Stella is a very timid... She has had a trauma early in her life. She's a copy editor and copy editor are very detail-oriented people. And she's spent her all life making herself safe, keeping it very small.
Kerry Diamond:
I thought maybe she was part of your personality.
Ruth Reichl:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
No?
Ruth Reichl:
No. She's just-
Kerry Diamond:
Is she your mother?
Ruth Reichl:
Oh, God, no. She's not my mother. My mother is more like her mother then.
Kerry Diamond:
Maybe I'm asking you these questions because when you wrote about Susan, you wrote a beautiful piece in 2019 after she had passed away, and you said your working sessions with her were like visits to the psychiatrist.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, that's true. But this was very different. So with Susan, I turned in the book chapter by chapter, and then we would work on it.
Kerry Diamond:
Chapter by chapter?
Ruth Reichl:
Chapter by chapter. Because I said, I've never written fiction before, so this was delicious, and I need help learning how to do it. And so I would send her a chapter and then I would go to her office and we would work on it. This book, her former assistant, Cleo, who turns out to be also a really fabulous editor, but I didn't know that going in, and I was like, "She's young." She had helped Susan work on all of my books, but I said, "This time I'm going to write the whole book and I'm going to turn in the entire book." So it was a very different process. I just literally went into the book.
Kerry Diamond:
Sounds like it was almost an out-of-body experience writing it.
Ruth Reichl:
It was, but for me, the best writing is you sit there and sit there and sit there and nothing happens and nothing happens. And then on the very best days, something happens and it is an out-of-body experience, and you come back and there are pages. You've written something. I don't want to mystify it, but John McPhee on writing said, "I sit at my desk from 9:00 in the morning till five o'clock, and if I'm lucky, around five o'clock, something happens."
Kerry Diamond:
I always liked Hemingway's, he would write in the morning and he would stop mid-sentense. So when he came back, he could be inspired to at least finish the sentence.
Ruth Reichl:
Right. Yes. I don't have tricks like that, so it was kind of an out-of-body experience. And then of course I wanted to put food into it. It's why I chose to set the book in 1983 because this old man, who I met in real life, who I really know nothing about, except that he was wealthy and his wife had had this dress.
Kerry Diamond:
So he is Jules in the book.
Ruth Reichl:
He is Jules and he might be my father. He is a lovely man and an erudite man and a man who has known... He's old. He knew Picasso and he knew all the artists. He knew Brancusi, and so he introduces Stella to the world of art and kind of the world of fashion. Then he discovers that food has never interested her at all. She's just in her trying to be safe, she's never really allowed herself pleasure.
Kerry Diamond:
She's repressed.
Ruth Reichl:
She's very repressed.
Kerry Diamond:
So it's no surprise that she falls in love with Victorine.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes. And Victorine, she's like the opposite of Stella.
Kerry Diamond:
Totally brave her whole life.
Ruth Reichl:
Had to be. So Jules discovers that Stella has not had a good meal. She's been in Paris a month when she meets him, and she hasn't had a single meal that was worth eating. And she says, "Well, I don't really care about food." And he says, "You may say that in New York, you may say that in London, but you may not say that in Paris." And he sets out to introduce her to the world of food. And I had so much fun with that because every meal that I write about is actually a meal that I ate in the '80s in Paris or in Vézelay or wherever we are eating.
Kerry Diamond:
Your love for Paris comes through loud and clear. When did you first fall in love with the city?
Ruth Reichl:
I went to French High School. I worked summers in a camp in France, and I would always go to Paris. Those were like, you could be in Paris on $3 a day. It was really cheap in those days. It was great for me to be there. I spoke the language, and I got to know the city really well. I felt very comfortable there. Kids can't do that anymore. You can't go to Paris and be there. The poncions don't exist anymore. These little places that you would stay in a miserable little room, but-
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like I caught the tail end of that. I studied there in 1989.
Ruth Reichl:
Ah!
Kerry Diamond:
And you could still go to Saint-Michel, and for not very much money have a three-course meal, which was so foreign to me. You could have wine, and I had no money when I was there. It didn't cost very much.
Ruth Reichl:
Right. One of the most fun things I did, was in 2008, we did a Paris on a shoestring issue at Gourmet. We were having a meeting and said, "Who wants to go do this?" And Larry, my managing editor said, "Oh, this is a great assignment. You're going to call someone up and say, 'Okay, go to Paris and don't spend any money.' Who wouldn't want to do that?" And I said, "You know what, I'll do it." And we had done the fancy Paris issue in 2000, and now we did the stay in cheap hotels, eat cheap meals, and I liked it better. I had more fun doing it.
Kerry Diamond:
My favorite crepe stand is still in existence, the one right outside the Saint-Germain Church.
Ruth Reichl:
Oh, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
So, you could still go have a crepe. The French still don't really love that you walk on the street eating food. That hasn't changed. Have you been in a while?
Ruth Reichl:
Yeah, I was there last fall. It was great walking down the Rue Mouffetard, one of the great food shopping streets in the world. I have a very inexpensive hotel that I stay in, and I've been staying there for years.
Kerry Diamond:
Can you tell us which one?
Ruth Reichl:
It's called L'Esperance. It's right at the bottom of the Rue Mouffetard.
Kerry Diamond:
And you have a restaurant in the book called L'Esperance. Is that based on a real restaurant?
Ruth Reichl:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
L'Esperance, I didn't know, but I knew the other ones.
Ruth Reichl:
No, L'Esperance was Marc Meneau's.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Ruth Reichl:
Everything about all the chefs in the book are all real. Marc Meneau, he called it L'Esperance because he wanted to woo his wife by becoming a great chef. So L'Esperance is hope.
Kerry Diamond:
The food descriptions in the book are absolutely amazing. You've got L'Ami Louis in there, Les Deux Magots. Not really known for its food, but known for being such an amazing place. One of the Troisgros brothers is in there. So tell us how you chose the restaurants that you chose, because you've had a lot of meals in Paris, I know that much.
Ruth Reichl:
I have, but I wanted them to be all meals that were meaningful to me personally for one reason or another. I did have one of the best meals in my life at L'Esperance where I went with a friend. We went to the church, it's a famous church up in Vaisley, and then we walked down to the restaurant. It's about a two-mile walk down the hill, and we went to L'Esperance for lunch and we were still there at dinner. Marc Meneau, he was a wonderful man, and he pretty much fed us everything on the menu. I was pretty young at the time, and I had never had an experience quite like that, so I wanted to write about that, and I had very good notes about the meal.
L'Ami Louis, I have written this story about going there with my son and having what is, for me, the ultimate restaurant experience. The restaurant became a party. There were other people there with kids, and the maître d' took the kids outside and had them playing games and feeding them chocolate cake and french fries and orange juice, while all the adults just stayed inside and got to know each other. It's your fantasy of what would happen at a restaurant. So it was about that, the food was delicious, but also that there was a warmth there, which I had not anticipated.
Robert et Louise is a restaurant that I've been going to literally since the '60s, and almost never go to Paris that I don't stop in there. What I love about that... So Robert, who is no longer alive, it's now run by his daughter, but he was a butcher. He cooked in the fireplace. And in the '60s to be an American and go into this place, which was very affordable. It's still very affordable, the sort of simplicity of that, that it's good meat and it's cooked right there in the fireplace, it was so romantic to me.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you pick 1983?
Ruth Reichl:
For a couple of reasons. Jules had to be still alive and able... Because I wanted to bring in all the Paris of the '20s and that sort of romantic Paris, and I wanted him to do that. But also 1983, I was in Paris in 1983. The dollar was very strong and the franc was very weak. It was a good time to be in Paris.
Kerry Diamond:
What were you doing professionally at the time?
Ruth Reichl:
In '83, I was the restaurant critic of New West Magazine. I was a freelance writer, so I didn't have a lot of money. I wasn't on staff actually. The next year I went to the L.A. Times and was my first job ever, it was the LA Times,
Kerry Diamond:
Money and the power hadn't come yet, Ruth.
Ruth Reichl:
None of it. So I was there without a penny. I had been living in this commune in Berkeley. A French woman had come and stayed with... We ended up having... because all these Fulbright students moved in with us for various amounts of time. And this French woman came and stayed with us and she said, "If you come to Paris, you can stay in my apartment. I'm not going to be there." So I stayed in her apartment and was there for a while, just eating, and it was fabulous.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, how much of the book was from memory? Have you kept diaries over the years?
Ruth Reichl:
I have kept diaries over the years, and certainly all of the meals are straight out of pieces I wrote. Actually in '83, I might've been sent there by some magazine to write about it, so probably I was... Maybe Matt Holm might have sent me.
Kerry Diamond:
You've so many specifics in the book about food, art, fashion. How much research did you do?
Ruth Reichl:
A lot of research. A lot of research into Victorine. This magical thing happened with Victorine. So I was about halfway done with the book when COVID hit, and I stopped writing the book to do this movie. I did a movie about the food system.
Kerry Diamond:
A documentary?
Ruth Reichl:
Uh, uh. During COVID. It's called “Food and Country.” I'm really proud of this film. I spent all of COVID Zooming with farmers, fishermen, policy people, ranchers, chefs. But in the end, we decided to make a film about the people who raise our food and how hard it is in this country. I put the book aside and just concentrated on doing the film. And then we can finally travel, and I go and spend some time with friends in St. John. I said, "Okay, now I'm going to go back to the book." It was the very beginning of 2021, and my first day there, I'm trying to Google Victorine, trying to find her address where she had lived at various times.
I discovered that six months earlier, a painting of hers had actually been found and sold to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Literally, I was sitting there in this room by myself and I started screaming. It was like, oh, this book was really meant to be, and not only was it a painting, but it was a self-portrait so you get to see who she thinks she is. It was such, to me, a sign, "Oh, this book was meant to be." This is her moment. I just couldn't believe that this painting had been found and found at the flea market.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you been able to go back to any of the museums and have a conversation with her?
Ruth Reichl:
Well, they brought Olympia to the MET, it was the first time it left the country, and so I went and spent a lot of time looking at her. She was an amazing person. And one of the questions that Stella asks Jules when he takes her to see Olympia for the first time, she says, "Do you think that's really who she was, or did he paint her like that?" Because... She was a shock when it was shown.
Kerry Diamond:
She's so bold in that painting.
Ruth Reichl:
She's got no clothes on, and she's looking out at you and saying, "So? So?" And she's judging you. And he said, "Well, what do you think?" I really wanted to know the answer to that question, and when you see the self-portrait, you know, you know the answer to that question. She is very proud of herself. This is a woman who against all the odds, made something of herself, and nobody wanted her to do it. Everybody kept putting her down. And the great thing is Manet died of syphilis at 54. Victorine lived to be 83.
Kerry Diamond:
And their relationship fell apart because they were competitive professionally.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes. He was furious that not only was her work accepted into the salon, but her painting was very different than his. If she was going to show, she should at least acknowledge that he was the master and that she was following in his footsteps, and she did not. She had her own style, and it bore no relationship to what he was doing.
Kerry Diamond:
And sounds like she even maybe had a nice retirement with her girlfriend.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes, there is some speculation, but she lived for 30 years with a woman in this lovely suburb of Paris.
Kerry Diamond:
The title, “The Paris Novel,” it's such a straightforward title for you, and there's no food in the title.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes. Well, it was just what I kept calling it. Random House, my editors, kept saying, "We need a better title, we need a better title." And I kept like, "Well, that is just how I think of it." I came up with a bunch of other titles. At one point I wanted to call it The Moonfishers, because that is a term, pêcheurs de lune, are people who gather stuff up to sell it at the flea market. And at one point, Lucy, little girl who Stella befriends says, "We're moonfishers." But in the end it was just, "Please let me call it ‘The Paris Novel.’" It's just-
Kerry Diamond:
It's such a perfect title.
Ruth Reichl:
It feels perfect. And then we had a long time looking for the cover, and when this cover came out, I was like, "Oh, yeah, perfect." And then everybody stopped saying, "Oh, the title doesn't work," because with this cover, it really does work.
Kerry Diamond:
It's such a perfect title. I can imagine there are just, I don't know, there've been thousands of writers over the years who are like, "I'm going to write that ‘Paris Novel’ one day." And you did.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes, exactly. And it's so unlike my other titles, but it's so unlike my other books. The thing that has been, for me, the best thing about this book is we all need a fairy tale right now. This is escapist literature. You go into this book, you go to Paris. And it has given a lot of people joy, which, as a writer, what could be better?
Kerry Diamond:
Want to talk about Django? I won't say who Django is. Is Django based on anyone?
Ruth Reichl:
He is not.
Kerry Diamond:
He's not?
Ruth Reichl:
He is not.
Kerry Diamond:
So all the fictional... Well, Jules is kind of based on the man you met, who you wrote about in “Save Me the Plums.”
Ruth Reichl:
But no, Django just came to me. He really did. I wasn't even expecting him, and he just came to me, and I have to admit, I kind of fell in love with him. There's something so joyful about him and about the relationship that he has with everybody around him, and in many ways he was the one that was hardest for me to let go of. I just want to spend more time with him.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to see what sequel.
Ruth Reichl:
Yeah, I'm thinking about a sequel.
Kerry Diamond:
Django the sequel. Tell us about some of the other people and why you chose to include them, like Richard Olney, and tell folks who Richard is.
Ruth Reichl:
So Richard Olney is, for many people of my generation, Alice Waters, Jeremiah Tower, he was the inspiration. So Richard Olney was an American who went to Paris in late '40s to paint, and knew everyone, as that happened in those days. He was friends with James Baldwin and all the writers. He had a place in Belleville. He was famous for giving these huge dinner parties. Everybody went to these raucous dinners that he did. And he eventually ended up writing a cookbook. He moved down to the south of France. He built himself this extraordinary house from nothing. He didn't have a phone. He didn't have a car, and he was right next to Domaine Tempier, which is a great winery, and Alice Waters' favorite wine. He so loved Lulu Peyraud. She and her husband owned Domaine Tempier and Lulu...
And so Richard Olney wrote Lulu's cookbook called “Lulu's Provencal Cooking,” and it's an extraordinary book. Lulu, who I knew, she died at 102 a couple of years ago, but she was incredible spirit. I did meet Richard Olney a couple of times. I didn't know him though. He was a wonderful writer. His cookbooks are seminal to... I mean, the French menu cookbook, simple French food, they are books that, if you want to know where California cuisine, where did it come from? A lot from Richard Olney. I really wanted to put him in the book because he's not well enough known. He deserves for more people than just a handful of food people who adore him, and he ended up doing a whole encyclopedia of French cooking. He pretty much ended up not being a painter, but being a food person. But if nothing else, I hope that people will fall in love with him as I did just by reading all his books before coming to this, and he has a memoir, and he deserves for food people to know him better.
Kerry Diamond:
Look him up and maybe find the books, call Kitchen Arts & Letters and Omnivore and see if they've got some copies.
Ruth Reichl:
Yeah, if you want to cook really great French food, “Simple French Food” is where you go.
Kerry Diamond:
There you go, folks. Ruth has pointed you in the direction. James Baldwin. Why James Baldwin?
Ruth Reichl:
Again, in many ways, he epitomizes a certain part of Paris for me. One of the great things about Paris was that it was a place where Black people went, starting around the turn of the century, to find a better life than they could have here. Starting with Josephine Baker and Baldwin went there, and Richard Wright went there. A lot of Black writers and artists ended up going to Paris for a reason, and it just felt important to have that piece of... If you're going to be an American in Paris, to have that piece of it in the book.
Kerry Diamond:
You know what's so fun about “The Paris Novel?” I feel like there should be a companion to “The Paris Novel,” that's like your cheat sheet of everything as you read it, just to learn more about all the places you mentioned and all the people and all the food.
Ruth Reichl:
Oh, maybe I'll do that.
Kerry Diamond:
It really deserves a little... Even if it's like a little fanzine or something that goes with it.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, you want me to write something for you?
Kerry Diamond:
There you go.
Ruth Reichl:
Maybe I'll write the little cheat sheet for you, which would be fun to do. It'd be really fun for me to do.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, because it really is extraordinary as someone who loves Paris so much and loves your writing, but loves so many of the things you wrote about in this book specifically. I adored this book.
Ruth Reichl:
You've been to Didier Ludot, right? In the Palais Royale.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes, in Palais Royal. I have, yeah.
Ruth Reichl:
Which is the most extraordinary vintage clothing store in the world.
Kerry Diamond:
I hadn't gone there before I worked for Harper's Bazaar. And then I got to work for Lancôme, so I was in Paris once a month. It was-
Ruth Reichl:
Oh, lucky you.
Kerry Diamond:
... the best job ever. I know.
Ruth Reichl:
Oh, lucky you.
Kerry Diamond:
It was like a dream.
Ruth Reichl:
I never managed to get that gig.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to switch and talk a little bit about food media. I'm imagining you have a lot of thoughts on a lot of subjects related to food media. For some reason, and maybe you can shed light on this, the number one email DM, everything we get from young people is, "I would like to work in food media," or "I would like to break into food media." And they write looking for advice. Do you get the same?
Ruth Reichl:
I get a lot of that, and I don't have good advice. I feel like I was so lucky. I couldn't be me today. I was passionate about food when nobody was. And I was weird because... I mean, I wrote a cookbook when I was 22.
Kerry Diamond:
I can attest to the weirdness because I own that cookbook. That is one of the weirdest cookbooks out there.
Ruth Reichl:
But I mean, I just went to a publisher and said, "I'd like to write a cookbook." And today if you went and... Somebody would say, "What are your credentials? Can you cook? Who's going to test recipes?" And in 1972 Reinhart and Winston said to me, "Oh, you know what? I bet there's a market for a cookbook for young people," and they just signed. He said, they gave me an advance I could quit the job I hated and write this weird, but joyful cookbook about how much fun it is to cook. So you couldn't do that today?
Kerry Diamond:
No. I see so many similarities with that, Ruth, and with the young people today finding their own path, not going the traditional path, but the ones doing the fanzines, doing the Substacks, doing the TikToks, doing the pop-ups. I don't know. I feel like you planted those seeds.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, I mean, I would say, one, follow your passion, two, I made my resume when I came to New York in 1970. I did it like a blueprint with photographs on it, and just anything to get attention instead of just a plain old typed up resume. I think part of it is be creative. My other piece of advice is make yourself a specialist in something. The best cheese monger I know, who's in Great Barrington Massachusetts, and I said, "How did you get into cheese?" And he said, "Well, I'm kind of an obsessive personality." He was working on his PhD at MIT and he realized he didn't want to finish it, and he had become very interested in food, and he went to all his friends and said, "I want to know more about a subject than any other subject," which, I mean, this is like 30 years ago.
People said wine, and he said, "No, I want it to be food." Somebody said cheese, and he probably does know more about cheese than anybody else with complete obsessiveness. He went to work at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, and then he went to work at Cheese Makers. If you want to know anything about cheese, Matt Rubiner is the person to ask. And that's a really good place to begin, really make yourself an expert on something that really interests you. If people are going to want to know about tripe, you are the tripe expert and they have to come to you.
Kerry Diamond:
But you also led a very, like you said, creative, but a very creative and bold life. You were part of a communal living situation. I remember reading about, I forget which book, but when you lived downtown in New York, when people weren't clamoring to live downtown.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes, and actually my husband and I shared a loft with another friend, which was also unusual. It was very cheap.
Kerry Diamond:
You took a lot of chances. I feel like.
Ruth Reichl:
I guess so.
Kerry Diamond:
And you put yourself out there.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, also, it was another time in that... And this is one of the things I feel really badly for young people. In those days, if you decided that you wanted to have a counter-cultural life, if you decided you did not want to go into corporate America, you could do it. I started a restaurant with some people on nothing. You could do that kind of thing. You could live. We moved to Berkeley and lived in this basically a commune. My husband and I lived on $3,000 a year for the two of us for years, and no, we didn't go out to dinner, and no, we didn't have health insurance and no, we didn't buy clothes, but we owned all our own time.
20 of us sat down to dinner every night. It was an amazing thing to be able to... I don't think you can do that today. I feel badly that people are forced into taking jobs that they hate. And we just said, we're not going to take jobs we hate. After I did it for a few years in New York, it's like, "I'm never going to do this again, I'll figure something else out.
Kerry Diamond:
I do think one of the good things though about today is all the options that are open to you in terms of if you want to do something, be it writing, podcasting, photography, cooking videos, all these options are open to you that didn't exist.
Ruth Reichl:
Absolutely. And that is what technology has done for us.
Kerry Diamond:
Something is burning inside, you can put it out into the world.
Ruth Reichl:
Absolutely. Yes. And you can be a self-starter today in a way that was harder in those days.
Kerry Diamond:
My advice is always, don't look to the gatekeepers. If you want to be in food media, you can be in food media tomorrow just based on what you put on your Instagram, by what you do on TikTok, by starting a Substack. Don't wait for permission. I think that's one of the lessons I think a lot of people took from you.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, that's true. Don't wait for permission and also have the strength of your convictions. For me, the biggest thing was going to Gourmet and just saying, "I want to do different kind of magazine than exists right now. This is another time, and it's really time for food to stop being just recipes and restaurant recommendations and to really talk about the serious issues in food." In 1999, everybody said, "You can't do that." And I was like, "We have to do it. I'm going to do it, and they fire me, they fire me, but we're going to do this because it's important."
Kerry Diamond:
What would you do today if you were starting out?
Ruth Reichl:
It's such an interesting question. I think you just have to be there to do it. The work comes in doing it. It wasn't like I knew exactly what I was going to do with Gourmet when I started. I'm also very big on the idea of collaboration. I do my Substack by myself, but I'm also doing a podcast with Nancy Silverton and Laurie Ochoa.
Kerry Diamond:
Your buddies.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes. And if I were really trying to get into food media, I would do it with other people. There's nothing as exciting or creative as collaboration. You find people who are good at something that you're not good at, and you join forces. And so I think if I was starting out on my own right now, I would find someone who was a great photographer to work with and say, "Let's put..." I mean, I can write, but I'm not much of a photographer, and let's figure out, and maybe a recipe developer, because recipe development is really an art. Most recipe developers are just basically riding the coattails of what's gone before. And so if you find someone who really does have that ability to imagine new ways to put things together, that would be really exciting, to work with someone like that and a great photographer and writing and to work together every day and say, look, what are we going to do? Let's figure out something that nobody else is doing.
Kerry Diamond:
How's the podcasting going? Tell everybody the name of the podcast.
Ruth Reichl:
Okay, so the podcast is called Three Ingredients. The point of this is Nancy and Laurie and I are really old friends. We've all known each other for more than 40 years. When we're in LA together, we take these walks. And my son actually said to me, "What people would really is just to come along on a walk with you." And we literally, we have no agenda. It's like we just turn on the microphone and start talking. You don't get a lot of that really candid... Podcasts like that don't exist very much. And it's been really fun to do, and we literally never know where we're going when we turn it on.
Kerry Diamond:
I can imagine. And your Substack?
Ruth Reichl:
Briffe is old French for eating. I have been having so much fun with this. I started it. I said I would do it for a month.
Kerry Diamond:
That was a long time ago.
Ruth Reichl:
That was a long time ago. I put up so much content in that month. I put up a year's-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, we got... So I remember that. I was like, "Wow, this is like a treasure trove."
Ruth Reichl:
It was like every day I put up a little magazine and now I'm thinking, "Why did I use all that material in the first month?" This is a place for me. Since I've been writing for more than 50 years, I've got a lot of old articles, which are not available anywhere. I've started putting up some unpublished articles.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I've read some of the articles that you've put up and it's so much fun. Because I love the New York Times Time Machine, and you got the little mimeographed version of the article, so it's been fun.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, this is like a time machine, but also what I'm eating now and things that I love. I love doing. I really love doing it.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have an editor, or you just-
Ruth Reichl:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
No? Do you enjoy that?
Ruth Reichl:
I'm someone who believes in editing. I would love to have an editor. I would love to have an editor, and I find myself going over and over it obsessively, sending it to myself, finding the mistakes. doing it... Because in old newspapers and magazines, you had an editor, a copy editor and an editor, a copy editor-
Kerry Diamond:
Lead type.
Ruth Reichl:
... and a fact-checker. And so now there's so many ways to make mistakes, and I just go over and over and over it, and I would love to have an editor.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you lightened up on typos?
Ruth Reichl:
No, I really don't like typos either.
Kerry Diamond:
No. No. Yeah. Trust me, with a print magazine, I'm always... I live in fear of the typo and the mistake.
Ruth Reichl:
And you know that there always will be.
Kerry Diamond:
Don't say that.
Ruth Reichl:
Well...
Kerry Diamond:
No, I do. In my heart of hearts, I know that, but I really don't want to think about that. Although I do think a lot of people have lightened up on typos.
Ruth Reichl:
No, I really try not to have them. You do have them sometimes, but...
Kerry Diamond:
Takes a village. Back to what you were talking about with collaboration.
Ruth Reichl:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
When are one of the books going to be made… I'm sure people ask you this all the time. I hope it's not an annoying question.
Ruth Reichl:
It is not an annoying question. There has not been a time in the last 20 years when my books have not been optioned. And at one time or another, Natalie Portman was attached.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. I remember that. She would have made a great Ruth Reichl.
Ruth Reichl:
Annie Hathaway. It's been at HBO. It's been at Fox before it was 21st Century Fox. It was at Netflix. Right now it's at Lionsgate.
Kerry Diamond:
Is it one of the books or multiple books?
Ruth Reichl:
Well, right now the idea is a series based on all the books. Will anything happen? Who knows. My experience, nothing ever happens. They have it for years, the option gets picked up and picked up, and then it gets dropped and somebody else buys it and a new writer comes on and writes it.
Kerry Diamond:
Are there scripts floating around that you've seen?
Ruth Reichl:
Oh, so many scripts. I've probably seen 12 different scripts for various iterations.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you tempted to write a script yourself?
Ruth Reichl:
I did write one, but it was... I'm not a script writer. It's another muscle that-
Kerry Diamond:
You weren't a novelist at one point.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, that's true. I have to say that the woman who is writing it now, who's a very, very experienced showrunner, TV writer, I really love the pilot that she's written. The open is so good. I kind of go, "Why didn't anybody else think of this?" But will anything happen with it? I have no idea.
Kerry Diamond:
And “The Paris Novel” could be a series too.
Ruth Reichl:
Or a movie. This is such a natural movie. I just can't believe it won't get made into a movie, but-
Kerry Diamond:
Well then believe, believe. All right, let's do a little speed round. What beverage do you start your day with?
Ruth Reichl:
Well, wait, I just got a cappuccino machine, so I've been having delicious cappuccino every morning.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you a good barista, Ruth Reichl?
Ruth Reichl:
I am pretty good. It took me a long time to figure out how to do it, but now I'm good and I've figured out the coffee I like.
Kerry Diamond:
What kind of milk do you take in your cappuccino?
Ruth Reichl:
Whole milk.
Kerry Diamond:
Whole milk.
Ruth Reichl:
Whole milk. I am not into skim milk, alternative milks. I like full fat milk and cream. But I wouldn't use cream in my cappuccino.
Kerry Diamond:
What's always in your fridge?
Ruth Reichl:
Always lemons, Parmesan cheese, eggs, parsley, bacon, anchovies. There's always a million condiments. I am a condiment slut. I probably have 50 different hot sauces and ponzu sauces, and always all kinds of really good Chinese ingredients from Mala Market. And so I've always got the hot bean paste, and wonderful pickles, Chinese pickles. My freezer always has a lot of different kinds of chilies in it.
Kerry Diamond:
It must be hard for you to grocery shop, especially when people know it's you.
Ruth Reichl:
Food stores are one of my happy places, so it's not hard for me.
Kerry Diamond:
I did have a girlfriend call me once and she was following you in a supermarket.
Ruth Reichl:
Really?
Kerry Diamond:
I hate to even tell you that. I think it was Guido's.
Ruth Reichl:
Oh, yeah. I spend a lot of time at Guido's. But I spend a-
Kerry Diamond:
She was watching what you put in your cart.
Ruth Reichl:
Yeah, I'm always a little embarrassed about... Because Michael likes all kinds of things that I am embarrassed to put in my cart.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, give us an example.
Ruth Reichl:
Well, he's very fond of something called Durkee's Dressing.
Kerry Diamond:
Durkee's Dressing. I don't know what that is.
Ruth Reichl:
It's a kind of horrible mayonnaise thing that... He's from St. Louis, and we always have Durkee's in our refrigerator, and he likes hamburgers, so hamburger buns, Pepperidge Farm hamburger buns, Pepperidge Farm white bread, which he likes for sandwiches. Iceberg lettuce. Michael loves iceberg lettuce.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your mayonnaise of choice?
Ruth Reichl:
Hellman's.
Kerry Diamond:
Hellman's. Yeah. I'm a Hellman's girl. I spotted Miracle Whip Lite in a relative's refrigerator one day, and I was like, "How am I even related to these people?"
Ruth Reichl:
Right. Yeah. So I would be right there.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite kitchen implement or tool?
Ruth Reichl:
Oh, God, that's such a hard question because there... Basically, my great knife, you really need a good knife.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have one knife that you love that you've had for a while?
Ruth Reichl:
Yes, and I can't even... I mean, it is a knife that when I was married, my first marriage, I got married in 1970, and somebody gave us a set of knives and I took it back to Bloomingdale's and bought one knife, one really good knife. And I can't even tell you what brand it is anymore because that's long gone, but it's a really good knife. I probably shouldn't say this, but I have a Magic Chef, A magic-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, the sharpener?
Ruth Reichl:
The sharpener, which is really good, and I keep it in good. As long as you never let it get dull. It's great.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. What are you streaming these days?
Ruth Reichl:
I've been streaming “The New Look.” I just love it.
Kerry Diamond:
Juliette Binoche.
Ruth Reichl:
Juliette Binoche, and it's about Coco Chanel and Dior. It's wonderful.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you see “The Taste of Things” yet, the Juliette movie?
Ruth Reichl:
I have not seen it yet. I was invited to... Pierre Gagnére did the food for it, and he came to New York and he did a meal here, and I was invited to a dinner. Juliette Binoche was there. Gagnére was there, and I couldn't go, and it just broke my heart.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I imagine it did. Well, you'll love the movie. I don't know if it's streaming yet.
Ruth Reichl:
No, but I almost went to see it. It's showing at Lincoln Center and I almost went.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, eat beforehand. That's my advice.
Ruth Reichl:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
What's a treasured cookbook or a book you reach for a lot when you're cooking at home?
Ruth Reichl:
This sounds self-serving, but I don't make a penny from this book. I edited it, but I didn't write it. But the yellow “Gourmet Cookbook” I use all the time. I think it's a really good cookbook. The recipes were tested to literal absurdity. I call it the butter book because I love butter. Oh, butter. Did I say butter in my refrigerator?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I don't think you did.
Ruth Reichl:
Always. Unsalted butter. I love butter and there's a lot of butter in that yellow book. There's a reason why it's yellow.
Kerry Diamond:
I was just going to say that. That's so funny. Okay, I think I know who you're going to say, and I might tell you you're not allowed to say her. You can't take your podcast buddies on this trip, but if you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Ruth Reichl:
Oh my God, that is really a hard one. This is going to be a strange answer, but it might be Jeremiah Tower because I don't know him very well. I've known him on and off for a million years. I've always been fascinated by him. I think his food is extraordinary. If anybody could feed you good food on a desert island, it would be Jeremiah. You would never be bored. I think he's a really interesting man. And maybe he would end up disappointing me or maybe not, but it would be a chance to get to know someone who... I know so many people pretty well, and he's just someone I haven't gotten to know.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, thank you so much for coming back on the show. You're the Bombe.
Ruth Reichl:
You too.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a rating and a review. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Elizabeth Vogt. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our content operations manager is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.