Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,59
dish, along with extra plates and props. We chose the models, coordinated their clothes, spent hours setting up lights and considering angles. “You’d never have enough time to shoot a real party in natural light. It would get dark; the food would get cold; people would look wrong. You’d miss most of it.”
“We might.” He was matter-of-fact. “On the other hand, we might get something extraordinary. We could hire news photographers; they’re used to shooting fast, no second chances. If it worked, we’d end up with a kind of immediacy that would set it apart from every other food shoot you’ve ever seen. Why not try? It could be amazing!”
Richard was just getting started; he overflowed with ideas. “I’d like to work with the cooks, think about the visuals as they’re developing the recipes. Afterward is too late. And I’ve always wanted to shoot a meal that looks like one of those Dutch master paintings.”
The light outside faded. When Doc poked his head in to say good night, Richard and I were sitting in the dark, still talking, the words spilling from our mouths. “You’ve been taking risks, and there’s nothing more difficult. But I think you need to push the envelope even more.”
I glanced at my watch; we’d been talking for hours, and there was still so much to say. Reluctantly, I stood. “My family will be starving; I need to go home and cook dinner.”
“I need to go too,” he said, but we stood for a moment, wistfully regarding each other. Working with him, I thought, would be an adventure.
“You can’t afford Richard Ferretti.” Truman said it flatly. “He’s got his own business and he makes a lot of money.”
“I think he might come anyway.” I was absurdly optimistic. Truman shook his head, loath to disappoint me. He was visibly surprised when Richard said yes, and I was so excited that I began taking risks even before he came on board.
Whose idea was it to hire Matthew Rolston, famous for his Rolling Stone covers, to shoot our restaurant issue? Who thought of gathering a group of chefs and posing them like rock stars? I don’t remember. What I do remember is the excitement at the magazine as we began planning the cover.
The band we ultimately assembled featured the country’s hottest chefs playing “instruments” constructed out of kitchen utensils. Dallas chef Dean Fearing, who was then at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, strutted with a “guitar” made out of spatulas, pot lids, cooling racks, and pastry tips, as did Laurent Gras (he’d left Alain Ducasse to come to the United States and was currently chef at the Fifth Floor in San Francisco); Scott Conant of New York’s L’Impero was on kettle drums made of giant pots, using wooden spoons as sticks. Fronting the band, Suzanne Goin of L.A.’s Lucques was made up in deep goth, singing into a microphone made out of a whisk. Above it all was Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin, shaking an equally inventive “tambourine” above his head and seeming to leap straight off the cover.
Truman took one look and predicted it would be a newsstand disaster. “Run it anyway,” he said. “It’s worth doing.” It was October 2003, and chefs were becoming major celebrities, complete with screaming groupies. “You’ll be glad you did,” he said. “You’re the first to illustrate this trend.”
He was right on all counts: The cover didn’t sell, but it was a watershed moment. It did not look like any epicurean publication of the past. And it was only the beginning.
“The thing about Richard,” Zanne remarked at the end of his first week, “is that everyone on staff—male and female—wants to sleep with him.”
I looked at that elegant woman, delighting once again in her bawdy sense of humor, thinking it was absolutely true. Richard wasn’t flirtatious, but we all tumbled headlong into love with him. I think it was because he had a way of listening intently to every idea—and then making it better.
Most epicurean magazines employ stylists, whose mission is making food look pretty. Richard turned that on its head. Before the cooks diced their first onion, he weighed in on shape and color. “All the other magazines,” one photographer confided, “keep asking why my shots look so much better in Gourmet. I tell them it’s the Ferretti factor.”
We’d been planning an issue on movies and food, but Richard instantly raised the ante. “Close your eyes,” he commanded, walking into my office, “open your mouth, and let your imagination