Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,89
close with coffee, minuscule pastries, homemade chocolates, and caramels, I looked over and said, “I really loved this meal.” What I was thinking, however, was that it would not have tasted nearly as good if we’d come from dinner at Gagnaire.
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ALEC INSISTED ON making the reservation for our final dinner. “I want you to leave Paris with a good taste in your mouth,” he said, “and L’Ami Jean is perfect.”
We plunged into a crowded, boisterous dining room, making our way through an aromatic swirl of wine, butter, and onions. Voices eddied around us in a happy babble. A jolt of laughter rocketed out of the kitchen.
We sat at a table the size of a postage stamp, neighbors tightly packed on either side, studying the menu. I wanted everything: soupe de poisson a l’ancienne, rabbit cooked in its own blood, or perhaps those langoustines at the next table, shimmering beneath a translucent sheet of pig skin.
My eyes went up to the man who had ordered it. He was sitting alone. Skin the color of porcelain. Silver hair, a bit too long. Pale-blue eyes and that long, disdainful nose. It had been nearly eight years, but he had not aged. Even his clothes, threadbare and elegant, seemed the same.
“You remember me!” He emitted a little cry of delight and I noticed, again, how sensual his lips were. He lifted the bottle sitting on his table. “Ce n’est pas le Krug ’66, mais ce n’est pas mal.” As he began to fill our glasses, a waiter hurried over, reproachfully seizing the bottle from his hand.
“Have the duck,” my friend whispered as I studied the menu. “You have no such birds in America.”
“Et mon ami?”
“The scallops are superb.”
The food was extraordinary, the duck a mineral slab of meat, blood rare, with the wild taste of lakes and forests. Bill’s scallops—still in their pretty pink shells—sizzled with butter, sending delicious whiffs of bacon, garlic, and thyme shooting across the table. As the meal progressed in a blur of flavor, I found myself eating with joyful abandon. The old gentleman’s eyes were on me, and I remembered him saying that I reminded him of his wife, because I ate as if I were a guest to myself.
For one brief moment I imagined that Severine was sitting across from him. The room would be less frantic in that other time, and the scent of cigars would fill the air. He’d be watching his wife as he was watching me, appreciating her appetite.
“You must have the rice pudding.” He pointed; it was on every table. Rich, creamy, scattered with dried apricots and raisins, it was an extraordinary concoction, a dish more of yesterday than today. As I scooped up a dollop of crème anglaise I said, “I am so happy to see you again. But surprised to find you here.”
His eyebrow lifted in a question. I gestured around the raucous room. “This is hardly Caviar Kaspia.”
“Ah.” He steepled his hands. “How young you are.” He stared at the pot of rice pudding, considering his words. “When you attain my age you will understand one of life’s great secrets: Luxury is best appreciated in small portions. When it becomes routine it loses its allure.”
I remember his face, and the heady scent of almonds and cherries, as he said those words. I remember the musical French voices that surrounded us. And each time, I am grateful to my mysterious friend, for he’d put everything I’d discovered on this trip into a few simple words.
IN SEPTEMBER 2009 I RETURNED from Laos—where we’d shot the last episode of the new television show, Adventures with Ruth—to find the advertising situation improved. “Lots happening,” my publisher gushed in an email. “Lot of good news. New biz…big units…exclusive business.”
“Is she shining me on?” I asked Larry.
“No.” He actually smiled. “Things are better. Louisiana Tourism is spending its entire advertising budget with us, which is huge. But that’s nothing compared to the Macy’s coup.”
Nancy had persuaded the retail giant to layer five covers on the December issue, each featuring a picture of a different Christmas cookie. Larry pulled out a mock-up, riffling the layers to demonstrate. “It gives them five times the ad space and us five times the revenue. We’ll get press for it too; nobody’s done anything like this before. And I’m sure those pop-up cookie shops we created helped sell the space.”
The shops had been the inspiration of Richard and our special-projects editor, Jackie Terrebonne. “What if we sold