NYT bestseller! Ruth Reichl, THE PARIS NOVEL
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
[0:14]I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company,
[0:19]reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZippyMedia.com or follow me on social
[0:25]at Zippy Owens or join the community at Zippy Readers. Ruth Rekle is the author of the Paris
[0:33]novel, which is on my destination Paris list as part of the summer reads on zippymedia.com,
[0:40]so go check that out. Ruth Rekle is the New York Times best-selling author of five memoirs,
[0:46]the novel delicious, and the cookbook, My Kitchen Year. She was editor-in-chief of Gourmet
[0:51]Magazine, and previously served as restaurant critic for the New York Times, as well as food editor
[0:56]and restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times. She has been honored with six James Beard awards.
[1:01]In 2024, she received the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award, and by the way, is one of my favorite
[1:09]authors. Welcome, Ruth. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read books to
[1:14]discuss at the Paris novel. Congratulations. Thank you. So not to embarrass you, but I am such a fan
[1:21]that I pulled out all the books. I had to go all over my house to different bookshelves,
[1:28]but tender at the bone, comfort me with apples, garlic and sapphires, delicious, now the hardcover
[1:36]of the Paris novel, and saved me the plumps. So that's where I'm coming from. Tell listeners about
[1:45]what the Paris novel is about, please. Well, for those of you who have read saved me the plums,
[1:51]there's a chapter in that book about my going into a dress shop in Paris, and finding this dress
[2:00]that just transforms me completely. And it was the first dress that Eve Sennel all designed when
[2:09]he was at D.O. And I wanted to be that person in the mirror so much, but it was $6,000. So I didn't buy
[2:20]and when I turned that book in my editor, but late fabulous Susan Campbell said to me,
[2:27]I love that chapter so much. Don't you think you could turn it into a novel? Can't you just
[2:32]take that idea and make a novel? And the minute she said it, I was, oh yeah, oh yeah, I can see
[2:41]exactly where to go with that. And so that is what the book is about. The book was about someone
[2:48]who is very much not me, but who goes in and has this transformative experience with
[2:56]a dress, which I didn't know could happen until I until that moment in my life and can really happen.
[3:04]And from that moment, her life starts over in a completely new way. And she has adventures,
[3:15]she goes from being a very timid person to someone who is just open to everything in the world
[3:26]to food and art and music and literature and people. That's what the book is about.
[3:33]It's so funny because in a book you don't know where it's going to go. So when she put the dress
[3:39]on, I was like, okay, is this going to become like a magical realist type thing? Are we going to
[3:43]to know fly? Like what's going to happen to her? Or is it going to stay in something that really
[3:47]might happen? Because it felt so otherworldly when she put the dress on and she looks so gorgeous,
[3:52]she felt so different. So I was delighted that she stayed in the, that she stayed like
[3:57]sort of at lead to may go and it was like an actual story. Yes, no, it's a real story. But you know,
[4:03]it's a story. I feel like at this particular moment in time, we all need possible fairy tales.
[4:12]We all need to know that at any moment something wonderful can happen to you no matter how sad your
[4:20]life is. Yes, but you just don't know what's around the corner. And I mean, that really very much,
[4:27]I mean, that's what I love about literature. I love that it can give you hope and joy.
[4:34]Totally. I completely agree. And she had a tough go of it. She had a really a strange relationship
[4:40]or she was estranged from her mother and then her mother passes away and leaves her with this
[4:45]inheritance meager if, you know, only not meager, but meager in that it only covers the dress,
[4:51]right? This is like, you know, she's like, should I spend my life savings on a dress or, you know,
[4:57]for to live for the next half of many years? Tell us more about the dress experience you had
[5:04]yourself that you wrote about. So I literally went into there is, I think it's probably the
[5:10]best vintage clothing story in the world in Paris. I've been going there since I was like 20,
[5:18]but never, I mean, it's filled with exquisite things and you go into it like it's a museum.
[5:24]And I, when we were working on the Paris novel on the Paris issue for Gourmet,
[5:32]I again went in there and for the first time allowed myself to try something on because I had
[5:39]clothing allowance and I did put on this dress and it was this moment. I mean, the shopkeeper in the
[5:48]novel says, just Stella, your dress is waiting for you. And the shopkeeper actually did say that to
[5:57]your dress is waiting for you. And I thought, oh, yeah, she says this to everyone. She gets out
[6:01]the most expensive dress in this shop. And I put it on and it really, if you've never had the experience
[6:10]of putting on real couture clothing, it is amazing. But it is made for the body of the person
[6:20]who buys it. I mean, it is handcrafted. And I obviously was exactly the same size as this woman
[6:27]and it really did. I mean, I looked in the mirror and I was a person I had never imagined I could be
[6:36]and I desperately wanted it. But success dollars for a dress and also how often do you have an
[6:45]opportunity in real life to wear a, you know, fabulous couture dress. But for years, I wondered,
[6:56]what would have happened if I had bought that dress? When my life be different? What if I
[7:01]had gone out and I had allowed myself to be that person? And so I got to imagine it for someone
[7:11]else and for someone who was much more in need of having a transformative experience than I was.
[7:18]Wow. Oh, I just love that. It's amazing. Well, I love also that she takes the dress
[7:24]and you know, bargains her gets this bargain where she can borrow it for the night. And if she
[7:29]doesn't like it, they'll let her return it, which was genius, especially as a plot device.
[7:33]And then she goes off on this lady's assignment and is just sitting there and meets somebody
[7:38]who ends up changing her life and takes her all around and shows her Paris and everything else.
[7:43]And she's just sitting there in this gorgeous gown. Like, why not? Why not eat oysters in this
[7:49]and a cold, what do you say? A cold, shavelier or something? It's like, yeah, she is a woman
[7:55]who likes to have, she's very orderly. And she likes a plan. And the shopkeeper says,
[8:01]do exactly what I tell you to do. When you leave here, you will walk through the Tuléry,
[8:07]and then you will go to, they do my go. And you will order oysters and shavely,
[8:12]neither of which she has ever had before. And so she experiences her first oyster.
[8:17]And it is, and I got to try and imagine what it was like to have all these flavors for the
[8:26]first time when you were 32. And that was very fun for me to just imagine the joy of eating
[8:36]an oyster for the first time as an adult and really being in that experience and
[8:42]you know, feeling the textures and the way it feels in your throat and the brininess and to take,
[8:50]I mean, I love shavely and to take your first sip of shavely and she closes her eyes and she's like
[8:57]on a mountain top and there's, you know, water running down the mountain and it's green and
[9:03]she has these really extraordinary sensory experiences when she's tasting. And this lovely
[9:11]old man next to her says you eat with such intensity and she's shocked because she hasn't even
[9:20]realized what she's doing. I mean, she's so in the moment. And then they embark on this friendship and
[9:27]he's, I loved the characters in this book so much from this wonderful old man who is kind of like
[9:36]what I would imagine a fairy godfather would be like only he's real and he's, he is, he's in his
[9:44]80s and so and the book takes place in the 1980s. So this is a man who knew Picasso, you know, he knew
[9:53]everyone in Paris in the 20s and so he tells her about his childhood.
[10:00]which is so different than her,
[10:01]because he was given a kind of freedom because of the war.
[10:08]And he'd grown up in this very stuffy aristocratic family,
[10:13]but in the world, all the rules went away.
[10:16]And suddenly, he was following Kukto around.
[10:20]And so he tells her about all the things
[10:24]that he knows and loves, about art,
[10:26]which he's an art consultant.
[10:30]And he introduces her to art in a way
[10:34]that she had never known before.
[10:37]And then she discovers the great bookshop in the world.
[10:43]And I'm kind of stunned when I think about it.
[10:47]George Whitman, the man who started Shakespeare in company,
[10:50]is such an amazing character.
[10:52]And the more I read about him,
[10:54]the more I thought, why doesn't he,
[10:56]why doesn't he walk through everybody's book about Paris?
[10:59]Because he was such an extraordinary person himself.
[11:05]There's a sign in the shop that says,
[11:08]take what you need, pay what you can,
[11:10]because he believed that everybody needed books.
[11:15]And he couldn't afford them,
[11:17]they should just take them from him,
[11:19]because it would change their lives.
[11:21]And he allowed people to live in a shop.
[11:25]And I was gonna ask, did people really sleep there?
[11:28]That was a thing.
[11:29]Over the years, 30,000 people have slept there.
[11:33]And people need heard of, I mean, Ethan Hawke did.
[11:37]Frank Sinatra sent people there.
[11:39]And you can still live there.
[11:41]I mean, if you go on their website,
[11:43]a Shakespeare in company,
[11:44]they tell you how to become a tumbleweed if you want to.
[11:48]And I knew people who were tumbleweeds,
[11:50]I never did it myself.
[11:52]But I always thought, you know, what an amazing thing
[11:54]to live in a bookstore.
[11:56]Yeah.
[11:57]You know, it sounds like a fairy tale,
[11:58]but it is not a fairy tale.
[11:59]And when you walk through the store,
[12:01]there are little signs everywhere
[12:03]from people who have been tumbleweeds
[12:05]and how it changed their lives.
[12:06]And when, you know,
[12:08]that their children are coming now
[12:09]to be tumbleweeds in the shop.
[12:12]Wow.
[12:13]I have a tiny independent bookstore in Santa Monica now.
[12:16]And I'm like, I don't know that I,
[12:18]that there would be such a draw to sleep in the store.
[12:21]And I'm like,
[12:23]but obviously fitting lost in the stacks
[12:25]is such a dream, right?
[12:27]Just to have your imagination on play like the whole time.
[12:31]It is.
[12:32]And, you know, I think there's a reason why
[12:35]there are all these books about magic in the book shop.
[12:38]I mean,
[12:39]book shops are, I mean, kudos to you for opening a bookstore.
[12:43]I mean,
[12:44]it's one of the great joys of my life
[12:46]is that bookstores are coming back.
[12:49]Yes, there's something very special
[12:51]about just getting together,
[12:52]getting lost in stories, amazing.
[12:55]What keeps you coming back?
[12:56]I know there was a specific idea to write a novel now
[13:00]and where that came from,
[13:02]but you've done a lot of nonfiction writing
[13:05]and the novel and do you find one harder or easier?
[13:10]Well, I have to tell you,
[13:11]I do not find writing easy.
[13:14]I hate to write, I'm like most writers.
[13:18]I love having written, but I hate writing
[13:21]and writing because having, once it's,
[13:24]you've done it, it's such a great feeling
[13:27]when good words appear on the page.
[13:30]And I grew up in book publishing,
[13:33]my father was a book designer.
[13:35]And so I have always thought that writing fiction
[13:40]was like the highest calling.
[13:42]And I always wanted to write fiction.
[13:45]I wasn't sure that I could.
[13:48]I was very close with M.F.K. Fisher,
[13:51]who said that she wanted to write fiction
[13:55]and did in fact write one book,
[13:57]which she made me promise never to read.
[13:59]Yeah, she said, it's terrible, I can't do it.
[14:03]And I have it, but I've never read it.
[14:04]I, but I love fiction so much.
[14:09]I mean, it's my drug of choice.
[14:11]It's, you know, when things get bad,
[14:15]all I want to do is disappear into a book
[14:17]and having been a journalist most of my life,
[14:23]I had this fantasy that writing a novel
[14:26]would be like reading a novel.
[14:28]And I tell you that for delicious, it was absolutely not.
[14:33]I mean, it was harder than anything I've written.
[14:37]And I don't know why, but writing this book
[14:40]was like reading fiction.
[14:42]I mean, I literally said to my family every day,
[14:46]I'm going to Paris now,
[14:48]and I would go off to my studio to write.
[14:50]And I was so convinced that it couldn't be good
[14:56]because I liked it too much, it was too easy.
[15:00]It was, it was too much fun.
[15:02]I mean, I just loved being with these characters.
[15:05]And I literally every day wanted to find out
[15:08]what they were gonna do.
[15:09]And so, I mean, if writing were always this much fun,
[15:14]I would have written hundreds of books.
[15:16]Oh my gosh.
[15:18]Yeah, it's the unexplained subconscious, right?
[15:22]Who knows why some books are so much easier.
[15:24]Great.
[15:25]And I'm not sure it'll ever happen again, but...
[15:28]But don't say that, don't drink yourself.
[15:30]It's really accurate.
[15:32]Maybe you don't always be easier.
[15:33]Now you know how to write books.
[15:35]Now you know how to write novels, obviously,
[15:36]you know how to write books, but you know what I mean?
[15:38]I'm working on a, I'm about to work on a sequel
[15:42]to this book because I'm...
[15:43]I want my characters so much.
[15:45]I just didn't want to give them up.
[15:46]That's not my name.
[15:47]I didn't want, I didn't want to end the book.
[15:49]And then I thought, you can end it
[15:51]because you can, you can pick them up
[15:54]at another point in their lives.
[15:56]So what point will you be picking them up?
[15:57]I, about 10 years later.
[15:59]Oh, so exciting.
[16:00]Well, see, that's smart of you
[16:01]because you gave yourself enough leeway
[16:02]by saying it in the 80s.
[16:04]You can actually have like multiple sequels.
[16:06]Exactly.
[16:07]But now we're moving into the 90s
[16:09]and it's a different time
[16:11]and they will be in a different place.
[16:13]And you know, I'm very excited to find out
[16:16]what they're going to be doing.
[16:18]That's great.
[16:19]Oh, I can't wait to read that one.
[16:20]My gosh.
[16:21]So I actually wrote my own novel recently called Blank
[16:23]and In It, there's a woman who goes to open houses
[16:26]in secret in costume.
[16:28]And so in the book, I say, she's just like, you.
[16:31]And I...
[16:32]Oh, I have to read this.
[16:33]I know I have to find the quote.
[16:35]I was like, I should have had it already
[16:37]but I said something like, just like Ruth Freckle
[16:39]and Rachel and...
[16:41]Well, anyway, I can't find it now.
[16:42]I can send you a copy.
[16:44]But anyway, I thought of you every time I...
[16:45]I'm going to go buy a copy.
[16:47]As soon as we end this, I'm buying a copy.
[16:50]Oh, thank you.
[16:51]Well, you're in there because you've inspired me
[16:54]with the whole eating at restaurants
[16:56]and hiding yourself and all of that.
[16:58]It was brilliant.
[16:59]So that was fun too.
[17:01]It's great.
[17:02]It was fun.
[17:03]So a lot of your career has been in food,
[17:08]with food, loving food, giving us
[17:11]scenes like the oyster, binge-fest at the restaurants
[17:15]and just communicating that joy of eating, as you said,
[17:19]books are all about joy.
[17:21]What is it about food?
[17:23]When did you know that this was your thing,
[17:25]that you were a foodie before a foodie was the thing,
[17:29]that you loved to read and write about it?
[17:32]Like, was it something that you always knew you would write about?
[17:36]Like, that's something that is different.
[17:37]But absolutely not.
[17:38]I mean, I always knew I loved food.
[17:40]And everybody thought I was really strange.
[17:42]I mean, that jack-in on Tender at the Bone
[17:44]is me cooking at seven.
[17:46]Amazing.
[17:47]And so I always knew that I loved food.
[17:52]But there wasn't such a thing as a career in food
[17:57]other than being a chef.
[17:59]I mean, there were 10 people who wrote about food
[18:03]when I was growing up, not even.
[18:06]So it never crossed my mind that that's something that I could do.
[18:10]And after graduate school, my husband and I moved to New York,
[18:15]and I got a job that I really hated it.
[18:19]And we were living at that time, very scary, lowery side.
[18:25]And but it was a great food neighborhood.
[18:28]It was still a little at least still existed.
[18:31]I mean, all the moms would be there
[18:34]at the pioneer market and the aloes and Chinatown.
[18:39]We had this new influx of people
[18:42]from other parts of China other than Canton.
[18:45]And the Jewish part of the lowery side
[18:48]was still a vibrant neighborhood.
[18:51]And so I would just wander around the neighborhood.
[18:54]And people were so enthralled with this 21-year-olds
[19:00]who wanted to know how to cook things.
[19:03]And people kept giving me recipes.
[19:05]And I would go back and all our friends from college
[19:08]would come and crash on our little floor of our loft.
[19:12]And I'd make these huge dinners for all our friends.
[19:15]And one night a friend of mine said,
[19:18]you're such a good cook.
[19:19]You ought to write a cookbook.
[19:21]Now, today that would be ridiculous.
[19:24]But in 1971, when I went to a publisher and said,
[19:30]you know, I have this idea for a cookbook,
[19:33]they didn't say, can you cook who's testing your recipes
[19:37]or the recipes from?
[19:39]They just said, oh, a cookbook by a young person.
[19:43]What an interesting idea.
[19:45]And they gave me a contract.
[19:46]So they gave me enough of it advanced to quit my job.
[19:50]And so I spent a year writing this very of its moment,
[19:55]cookbook.
[19:56]And I realized how much I loved writing about food.
[19:59]I mean, I would.
[20:00]about roaming around New York.
[20:01]And I got to put anything.
[20:03]I wanted it and all my friends made art for the,
[20:06]I mean, it's a very strange little cookbook.
[20:09]But I then realized that one I loved writing
[20:15]and that maybe I could do some of it.
[20:19]I mean, I still didn't think I could have a career in it,
[20:22]but I thought I could write.
[20:24]So I started writing for,
[20:27]we moved to Berkeley.
[20:29]I started a restaurant with some people.
[20:31]And, but I was also writing for magazines,
[20:36]mostly about art, which was my field.
[20:39]And one of my editors came to eat my restaurant
[20:43]a few nights a week.
[20:44]And one day he just said to me,
[20:46]you know, have you ever thought about being a restaurant critic?
[20:49]And it literally had not, I mean, it hadn't crossed my mind.
[20:52]And I didn't think, oh, this is my new career.
[20:54]I just thought they're gonna pay us to go to restaurants.
[20:57]And take my friends, I was living in a commune, you know,
[21:01]but I can take all my friends through restaurants.
[21:04]This will be fun.
[21:06]And so, I mean, that was really the moment that,
[21:08]but even then, I thought I was doing that
[21:10]until my real life started.
[21:13]I don't think it was till the LA Times hired me
[21:15]as the restaurant critic that it hit me,
[21:18]that maybe that was my real life.
[21:21]Is there anything you miss about the earlier days?
[21:25]Oh, my God, I miss so much.
[21:28]I miss, I mean, I loved living in this commune.
[21:32]I mean, I loved living in a group of people.
[21:34]I mean, you know, there's always someone to talk to.
[21:36]There's always someone to cook for.
[21:38]And I miss, I mean, those early years in the food world
[21:43]were amazing because now the press and restaurants
[21:48]have become kind of adversarial.
[21:51]But in those days, there was this little group of us
[21:53]who were all in love with food.
[21:56]And we were all in it together.
[21:58]It was like chefs and writers.
[22:00]And, you know, and we were sort of jumping up and down
[22:04]and saying, you, we could have good food in America.
[22:07]We could grow good food.
[22:08]And I miss that, that the excitement of it being something new
[22:14]and trying to pull other people in to appreciate it
[22:19]as much as we do.
[22:20]And that the way it was all changing, you know,
[22:24]I mean, when I started writing about food,
[22:26]there weren't farmers markets.
[22:29]And, you know, watching food become part of popular culture
[22:33]has been very exciting to many, you know, where, you know,
[22:36]when I had no money, we didn't go to restaurants.
[22:39]It just didn't occur to us to go to restaurants.
[22:41]My son has no money.
[22:43]It doesn't occur to him not to go to restaurants.
[22:46]He hasn't got a fancy restaurants.
[22:48]But, you know, it's just, he would know sooner
[22:51]not go out to eat than he would not go to movies or buy books.
[22:55]I mean, it's just, food has really come into the culture.
[22:58]And it's been fun to watch that happen.
[23:01]Wow.
[23:02]I was out to dinner with my brother and his kids recently
[23:05]and my little niece who's nine is now basically a real foodie.
[23:10]And she's like, loves everything and knows everything.
[23:13]We sat down and she was like,
[23:15]what's the grade of this wagyu beef?
[23:18]You know, she's like, oh, it's A4.
[23:21]And I was like, what does that even mean?
[23:23]And she went off and told me the whole thing,
[23:24]well, there's this A in the sea grade.
[23:26]But I was like, where do you get this stuff?
[23:28]So, yes, I feel like it has trickled down.
[23:31]So now a nine-year-old can tell you the ins and outs.
[23:35]I mean, and I wonder what she'll be eating when she's 20.
[23:39]Mm-hmm.
[23:41]Yeah, probably a lot.
[23:42]And she loves to cook too.
[23:43]So there you go.
[23:44]I'll be not.
[23:45]I'll be eating it in her house.
[23:48]You will not go hungry.
[23:50]I will not go hungry.
[23:51]Yes, exactly.
[23:52]So what advice do you have for aspiring writers of all kinds?
[23:56]Keep writing, follow your passions.
[23:59]I mean, I think, you know, the thing I learned from this book
[24:02]is if you're writing about things you really love,
[24:06]it really can be fun.
[24:08]And I mean, the other thing is, it's very interesting when I wrote my cookbook,
[24:14]my kitchen year.
[24:16]And I was on book tour for it.
[24:18]One of the people who interviewed me on stage had me read from my first cookbook,
[24:26]which I wrote when I was 21.
[24:28]I'll read from my kitchen year, which I wrote a few years ago.
[24:33]And the interesting thing to me was that the voice was the same.
[24:37]And that's why she wanted me to read it.
[24:39]She said, you know, this book was written 50 years ago.
[24:41]I mean, they're 50 years apart, these two books.
[24:44]And your voice is exactly the same.
[24:46]And so I wasn't conscious of having a voice,
[24:50]but it seems to me that it's important whether you know it or you don't know it
[24:58]to write the way you speak, to use your voice.
[25:04]And I don't know if that makes sense.
[25:06]It makes total sense.
[25:07]I love it.
[25:08]And it's why people who have loved your nonfiction like me
[25:13]are very happy to read your fiction as well, because it's the same type of thing.
[25:18]Like you kind of know what you're getting because you've felt a brand around
[25:23]the way you see the world, which is a way a lot of us want to see the world.
[25:27]And your sense humor and your descriptions and your wit and all of it.
[25:32]So yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense.
[25:35]And it's on the receiving end of that.
[25:37]It is, it is very welcome.
[25:39]So thank you.
[25:41]You are very good for my ego.
[25:43]I'm sorry.
[25:44]I've been a fan.
[25:45]I've been a fan for a long time.
[25:47]I don't often get this way.
[25:48]I mean, that's not sure I get this way a lot.
[25:50]But I mean, like, you know, I've been reading you for,
[25:53]I just love the way you write.
[25:54]I just love it.
[25:55]I'm a fan.
[25:56]That's all I can say.
[25:57]So thank you.
[26:00]Thanks for coming on the podcast.
[26:02]Congratulations on the Paris novel.
[26:04]And thank you for having me.
[26:05]I want this outfit.
[26:07]Oh, yes, I have actually for book tour.
[26:10]I finally, so I'm just starting book tour.
[26:13]But when I was in D.C., all these women showed up,
[26:17]dress the cover.
[26:18]So I thought, yes, that's what I need to do.
[26:21]So I now have my book tour outfit.
[26:23]Perfect.
[26:24]Excellent.
[26:25]All right.
[26:26]Well, thanks so much, Ruth.
[26:27]There's a pleasure.
[26:28]Well, real pleasure for me.
[26:30]And I'm getting your book right now.
[26:31]OK, thank you.
[26:34]OK.
[26:34]Bye.
[26:37]Thanks for listening.
[26:37]Two moms don't have time to read books.
[26:39]If you love it, please leave a review.
[26:41]And follow us on social at city Owens and at city readers.