Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,51
few splashes of cream sherry, a bit of balsamic vinegar, or perhaps some soy or fish sauce. Heat for another 10 minutes.
Serve with sour cream.
Serves 8
ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11, Michael Lomonaco, the chef of Windows on the World, broke his glasses during breakfast service. He took the long ride down from the 107th floor to have them repaired, stepping out of the elevator just as the first plane hit. He stood on the ground as the building crumbled and the seventy-nine cooks, waiters, and dishwashers he had just left vanished. As he painfully made his way uptown, he couldn’t stop thinking about the families his colleagues had left behind, and he determined to do something to help them. The whole food world pitched in, and within a month they’d raised twenty-three million dollars.
After the World Trade Center attacks, New Yorkers who survived asked a single question: How can we help? Everyone went into action, parties were canceled, and food people mobilized to feed the rescue workers who poured in from across the country.
We were proud of ourselves, but as the weather grew colder this constant mourning began to feel like defeat. We had to get back to normal life, if only to prove that the enemy had not won. At Gourmet we’d canceled our September gala celebrating the magazine’s sixtieth anniversary, but by December a party seemed not only welcome but necessary, a display of defiance.
The whole city was ready to dance, and people showed up at the Whitney Museum dressed to the nines in an almost desperate party mood. I stood in the middle of the swirling crowd, watching the guests eat and drink with the abandon of survivors. Maurie’s people had cajoled celebrities into coming, and they made sure I was photographed with each famous face; as the hours wore on, my own grew tight from smiling.
Around midnight, when the party ended, I stood outside, saying wistfully to Laurie, “I wish we didn’t have to go home. That was all business and now I’m ready for some fun.” Chef Daniel Boulud was standing nearby, and he whipped out his phone. Punching in numbers, he began pacing up and down on the sidewalk in front of the museum, issuing orders in rapid French. He stopped and put his hand over the receiver to ask, “Vous êtes combien de personnes?”
I looked around, embarrassed; the staff numbered sixty-five. And there were spouses. Friends. Chefs.
“Uh…” I hesitated. It was such a huge number.
Daniel looked impatient. “Je vous invite,” he said.
“A hundred people?” I whispered it reluctantly.
“Disons cent cinquante,” he said into the phone. I imagined what they must be thinking over at Restaurant Daniel. A party for one hundred fifty? At the end of service? On the spur of the moment? A party that would include every major chef and food writer in the city? This could not be welcome news.
But Daniel continued issuing orders into the phone. I heard, “Pâté. Saumon. Fromage. Patisserie.”
The Whitney Museum was less than a mile from Restaurant Daniel, but by the time we arrived, the tables in the private salon sported crisp white tablecloths and a vast buffet stretched across the back of the room. Waiters circulated with champagne.
The word had gone out, and with each hour more chefs showed up. Sometime in the early morning—was it three or four?—I looked around at all those people who’d pitched in when the city was in trouble. As a fledgling food writer for a small San Francisco magazine, I’d spent a lot of time with the young chefs who were creating an entirely new American profession, and now I realized how much I’d missed their company. Educated, articulate, and passionate about their craft, they were unlike the generation that had come before them, and during my tenure as a critic I’d missed their lively minds, their creativity, and their enormous generosity.
“This has given me an idea!” Karen Danick, Gourmet’s director of media relations, stood before me, flute of champagne in her hand. Karen could not have been more than thirty-five, but she was old-school, a traditional PR person out of central casting. A large woman, she arrived each morning in a dense cloud of perfume, sporting a perennial tan, very high heels, tight black Lycra dresses, and copious amounts of makeup. Her voice was never pitched at less than maximum volume, and she ended every sentence with an exclamation point.
“What if we threw a party like this every few months? After hours! Just for