Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,45
crunch and crackle merrily inside my head. Adorable shrimp dumplings nestle into leaves of lettuce, the sweet pink meat peeking shyly from each jade wrapper. The flavor is delicate, tender, and so seductive I want to keep it in my mouth forever.
But then I lift my glass and take a sip of cool white burgundy; the Corton-Charlemagne is so pure I imagine water trickling down a mountainside. I take another sip, and then another, of this gorgeous, heady wine.
Gagnaire’s tribute to surf and turf arrives: delicate black caviar, pressed into a thick, fruity saline jam paired with foie gras that’s been transformed into a trembling, almost liquid substance. I close my eyes and feel the flavors somersaulting through my mouth, a circus of sensations.
This is not my first major Paris meal. But it is my first as a civilian, the first time in my life I’ve dined in a three-star restaurant without standing back to appraise, consider, the first time I take not a single note. For once it is pure pleasure, and I find the experience intoxicating.
Lacquered duck skin with shiitake. Lièvre à la royale, the most decadent hare, served in three courses. And finally a cascade of desserts ending with a single prune stuffed with licorice root in a bitter sauce of caramel and quince. The insane flavors linger in my mouth, a tantalizing welcome to Paris.
Outside in the sweetly scented autumn air, the chauffeur is waiting. I climb into my car, dizzy with the meal, and float into my room.
But this is no room; the palatial suite at Le Meurice is filled with flowers, and down below the Tuileries spread out, glowing in the dusky late-afternoon light. “My own private garden,” I think, and it is such a Marie Antoinette moment that I laugh out loud when I spy the cake on a little footed dish, the champagne cooling in its silver urn.
The bathroom is voluptuous, with its marble bath. Water gushes into the tub, and I toss in the perfumed salts and climb into water slick as glycerine. Leaning back, I savor the warmth, the space, the luxury. Then, wrapped in fluffy towels, I glide onto a bed that is like a huge soft cloud and go drifting off.
I was surprised when Larry signed off on the special Paris issue. “Paris sells,” he’d said, “and I predict that this one will sell extremely well.” (He was, as usual, right: The bestselling issue in Gourmet’s history, Paris sold out so completely that months later people were still calling, begging for copies.) Through some arcane accounting magic, Larry found the money to send most of the editorial staff to Paris. “It will be good for morale,” he said, “and it won’t cost significantly more than paying freelancers.”
We travel in true Condé Nast style, staying at the city’s finest hotels (although in the name of research we change hotels every night), testing the beds, the bathrooms, the service. Sertl forces us all to be guests from hell, dreaming up wicked tasks for the concierges. How quickly can they get a blouse cleaned, arrange a car, send flowers to an ailing friend? The cooks rent a giant apartment on the Île Saint-Louis with a kitchen overlooking the Seine and spend their days in markets, their nights replicating our favorite restaurant dishes. We work hard, but the sheer luxury makes us all slightly giddy.
This is a face of Paris I have never seen. Limousines chauffeur us from one three-star restaurant to another, and at night we meet for drinks at the Ritz. Money is no object; anything is possible. We start the day at L’Huîtrier, where we down oysters by the dozen, and then head to Barthélémy to munch our way through mountains of exquisite cheese.
On a manic shopping spree at the great kitchenware emporium E.Dehillerin, we load up on copper pots, Silpat molds (still unknown in the States), and jacquard kitchen towels by the dozens. I interview young chefs, get drunk with winemakers, and spend an entire afternoon at the Louvre, genuflecting before the paintings of Chardin. No artist ever had a more romantic relationship with food—or with his native city. The artist loved Paris so intensely he refused to set foot outside its gates, and on my last day I stand alone before his paintings, knowing exactly how he felt.
Afterward, I wander through crooked streets until I find myself in front of an elegant vintage clothing shop called La Petite Robe Noire. The place looks so