I caught up with acclaimed food writer Ruth Reichl to talk about her new bestseller, The Paris Novel, a charming adventure of food, fashion, art and romance set in 1980’s Paris. But first, some background. Ruth knows as much about food and restaurants as I do about ruining eggs and burning toast. She wrote her first cookbook at age 23 in 1971 and has been writing about food ever since. “Food is my life”, she told me.
Ruth was the restaurant critic for the LA Times, then moved to the NY Times where a bad review from Ruth could shutter a restaurant. From there she joined Gourmet Magazine as editor in chief for ten years until it closed in 2009. She has written 12 books, including several cookbooks, five memoirs and two novels. The Paris Novel is her second novel. And it will make you lust for 1980’s Paris.
In The Paris Novel, a young woman named Stella has had a difficult start to life in Manhattan due to her deeply narcissistic and sexy mother Celia and a predatory older man named Mortimer. To cope with her traumatic upbringing, Stella lives a very controlled, friendless, joyless existence. But all that changes when Celia dies unexpectedly and her will orders Stella to go to Paris for reasons undisclosed.
Read some highlights from my talk with Ruth below. They have been edited for brevity. You can listen to our full interview on my podcast Elena Meets the Author wherever you listen to podcasts. So, find it, subscribe to it. And thank you.
Hello Ruth, welcome. Your novel is an enchanting love letter to the world’s most romantic city where the simple, sensual pleasures of life – food, wine, fashion, art, and architecture abound. It’s also a novel with intriguing characters some made up like the loveable octogenarian Jules, others real, like the late writer James Baldwin and the famous Michelin star chef Marc Meneau. When did you first fall in love with Paris?
My parents took me to Paris for the first time when I was 10. And I have loved it ever since.
Your mother was not a talented cook. In your memoir Tender at the Bone, you wrote that she was a bit dangerous in the kitchen. As a child you had to warn guests not to eat the casserole. Can you tell us where your love of food came from?
My first taste memory is in my highchair. My mother put something in my mouth, and it tasted vile. I spit it out. And then my mother takes a bite, and a puzzled look came over her face. What’s wrong with you, she asked. I knew in that moment that my mother and I did not taste the same things and that she was dangerous. From that moment I took a tiny first taste of everything to see if it was going to kill me. The first story in Tender is the Bone is called Queen of Mold. It’s about how she hosted an engagement party for my brother and put 26 guests in the hospital for food poisoning. I quickly learned to push her out of the kitchen. It was not a game. It was survival.
Where did the idea for the book come from?
There’s a chapter in my memoir Save Me the Plums where I go into a vintage clothing store in Paris and try on this dress, which transforms me completely. I became a fabulous creature who I never imagined I could be. I desperately wanted that dress. The sales lady said, This is your dress. How much is it? I asked. And when she said 6,000, I didn’t buy it. After the memoir was done, my editor said, I love that little black dress chapter so much. Could you imagine a novel where the character does buy the dress? And the moment she said that the book pretty much came to me fully formed.
I read that you chose to set the novel in the early 1980’s because you had firsthand knowledge of the restaurant scene then. Can you tell us about that?
(In the early 1980’s) I was dirt poor, living in a commune in Berkeley, writing about restaurants. In 1984 the LA Times asked me to be their restaurant critic. It was the first time I was not freelance. I get to the LA Times and ask my boss, what is my expense account limit? And he said, we’ll let you know when you’ve gone over it. I had never been to a three-star restaurant in France. And so, I thought, ok, if I have an unlimited expense account, I’m going to Paris and eat in three-star restaurants. It’s ridiculous to be a restaurant critic for a major newspaper and never having eaten in a great French restaurant. All the meals in the novel are meals I actually ate in 1984.
What’s your favorite home cooked meal?
This time of year, summer, pasta with fresh tomato sauce. Just the smell of the sauce cooking is total comfort to me. When you’re a restaurant critic, your tastes get simpler and simpler. A roast chicken is perfect to me, a perfectly poached egg, heaven.
I’m lucky. I live in the Hudson Valley. I’m surrounded by farmers. Most of my food is locally grown and I eat with the seasons.
I think that’s what the American food revolution was really about. Julia Child came and told us that technique would make you into a great cook. You could go to the supermarket and make a great meal. Alice Waters said, no you cannot make great food without great products. It’s not about technique. It’s about getting really good fresh food. And that had a huge impact on me. In my childhood you could not buy a great tomato or a great strawberry.
Thank you so much Ruth.
August 2024
