Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,44

if we can get her to join us for dinner. I promise you it won’t be dull.”

“Are we going to eat dinner together?”

“Of course we are! I will tell you scandalous gossip about the guests, and in return you will help me navigate the buffet table.” A waiter passed, and he deftly scooped up the remaining caviar canapés. “Have a few.” He slid some my way. “I always fill up on these. And I advise you to do the same.”

As he steered me to the line forming in the next room, he whispered, “The wait for the buffet is always long, and when you finally reach the food, it isn’t worth it. I’m hoping you’ll have some advice for me.”

“Rolls and butter.” I filled my plate with carbohydrates. The bland country-club fare seemed to have been designed primarily to avoid staining the carpet; with the exception of overcooked salmon, it was all white. There was, of course, no garlic. “And save your appetite for dessert.”

“Do you have inside information?”

“Yes. But don’t get your hopes too high.” Victoria had asked me to recommend a baker, but when I suggested a cake artist capable of creating something truly spectacular, Victoria demurred. What she wanted was red velvet.

The dealer’s face fell. “Sweet chocolate fluff topped with sticky goo?”

“This will be a good version,” I promised.

Later, as he rose to fetch a third slice, he turned to Michael. “This,” he said, “is the finest dish ever served at this event. I know your wife thinks Si hired her to run a magazine. He might even think that. But as far as the rest of us are concerned, she’s come to improve his birthday party.”

“No,” I replied, and it was as if Mom were there, speaking through me, “that’s not true. At this party, the food could not matter less.”

* * *

—

“GOOD PARTY?” MUSTAFA asked as he drove us home.

“Interesting, actually,” Michael conceded. “Although I’m pretty sure I would have had a better time talking to you.”

But I was riding in a limousine, my limousine, watching buildings glide past in the cool autumn night, wishing my mother were alive. This was the city she had longed to inhabit, and she would have loved knowing I had breached its walls.

I would never really belong, but I’d been there for a year and a half, and the pieces were finally falling into place. The early angry letters from longtime subscribers—how dare we make changes to their beloved magazine?—had stopped and we were finding a new young audience. “I can’t believe it,” one venerable book agent had recently told me, “but my authors are asking if I can get them into Gourmet!” That felt like a triumph. But what most thrilled me was that our meetings had become raucous, and even the most timid of the editors were daring to speak up; the office felt like a happy place. As for me, for the first time in my life I was doing something that would have pleased Mom, made her proud. And for the first time in my life, I liked that.

“Mustafa.” I inhaled and took a giant step into this new world. “Can you pick me up tomorrow and drive me to work?” I was just a visitor, a temporary passenger on the Condé Nast Express, but I might as well enjoy the ride every once in a while.

In the mirror, Mustafa grinned, grateful I’d gotten his message. “It will be my pleasure.”

DOM PÉRIGNON IS NOT THE ideal way to greet a new country when you’ve been flying all night.

I know that.

Still, when the driver who picks me up at Charles de Gaulle takes me straight to lunch at Pierre Gagnaire, I do not refuse the crystal flute the waiter hands me. I watch the bubbles drift lazily to the top, inhale that fine aroma—grapes, yeast, and age—and take a sip. Pow! The champagne zooms straight to my head.

A crimson sorbet arrives cradled in a small glass dish. I dip in a spoon and a tumble of tomatoes, herbs, and horseradish, terrible in its cold tartness, assaults my mouth. The sorbet buzzes against my tongue, shocking me into the moment. One more bite, and I am experiencing the food with psychedelic intensity.

A tiny onion tart, no bigger than a fingernail, is crowned with a single bright nasturtium; I stare at the blossom, thinking this the most beautiful food I have ever encountered. Airy puffs of pastry enfold bits of fish and slices of caramelized apples that