Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

Luxury is best appreciated in small portions. When it becomes routine it loses its allure.

The more stars in your itinerary, the less likely you are to find the real life of another country. I’d forgotten how money becomes a barrier insulating you from ordinary life.

How young you are. 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’d learned an important lesson: When something frightens me, it is definitely worth doing.

Children, I came to understand, need you around, even if they ignore you. In fact they need you around so they can ignore you.

The best antidote for sadness, I have always believed, is tackling something that you don't know how to do.

GERMAN APPLE PANCAKE ••• 2 tart cooking apples (Granny Smiths are good) 1 lemon ½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter ¼ cup brown sugar ½ teaspoon cinnamon Small grating of nutmeg 3 eggs ¾ cup flour Pinch of salt 1 tablespoon sugar 1 cup milk Sugar for sprinkling Rum or cognac (optional) Peel the apples, core them, and slice them thinly. Shower them with about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Melt half the butter (2 tablespoons) in a medium skillet, and stir in the brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the apple slices and cook over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes, until they’ve become quite darkly caramelized and smell impossibly delicious. Remove them from the heat. Meanwhile, beat the eggs. Gently whisk in the flour, salt, and sugar. Add the milk. The batter should be thin. Melt a couple of teaspoons of butter in an 8-inch skillet, and when it’s hot, pour in a third of a cup of batter, tilting the pan so that it covers the entire surface, making a thin crepe. Cook just until set, about 2 minutes. Evenly distribute a third of the apples over the crepe, pour another third of a cup of batter over the apples, then turn the pancake (this is easiest if you have two pancake turners) and allow the bottom to brown. Turn out onto a large plate, sprinkle generously with sugar, and roll the pancake up like a jelly roll. Sprinkle with a bit more sugar and, if you like, a splash of lemon juice. Repeat this until you have three plump rolled pancakes. If you want to flame your creations, lightly warm a few tablespoons of rum or cognac for each pancake in a pan, add the pancakes, spoon the liquor over the top, and set the pancakes on fire. Serves 6

Still, if I’m being honest, I have to admit that working women everywhere accepted casual misogyny. We were so accustomed to taking what men dished out that we thought it was up to us to find ways to deflect the advances of bosses and co-workers without hurting their feelings. As

Nothing feels as good as building a team and empowering people, watching them grow and thrive.

What I was learning, on those weekend walks, is how much you can find out about a person merely by watching what he eats. Food became my own private way of looking at the world.

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.

Reminded us how exciting it was to abandon security and run toward the life that is waiting.

had the awful feeling I was about to get one of those stinging assessments your children are uniquely equipped to deliver. “I

What I want most for you is challenging work that makes you proud. It’s the key to happiness.

we were attempting to snatch hope from the rubble of our broken city. And food was the perfect way to do it.

I close my eyes and feel the flavors somersaulting through my mouth, a circus of sensations.

He was a tall, thin stork of a man who stalked into my office, disapproval etched into every line of his body. His head was small, the hair so closely cropped that you couldn’t help noticing his compact, neat ears. His face bore so few distinguishing characteristics I thought that if you tried to describe him you’d end up noting his impeccable posture and that he was very, very clean.

When something frightens me, it is definitely worth doing.

A year earlier, restaurants had been asking if he wanted a booster seat; now they asked if he’d like a drink.

we must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. I’m

Laurie was the nurturer, mopping up behind me, always calm, always available, always ready to talk. And Larry was the disciplinarian who kept us all in line.

I was the cheerleader, the instigator, creating chaos, insisting we make changes right up to the last minute when someone came up with a better idea.

Because all the talk about “quality time” is utter nonsense; children don’t need quality time. They need your time. Lots of it. And they let you know it.

She was also completely candid about wanting to work with people she could learn from. My first boss, Rosalie Wright, had been much the same. Rosalie is the toughest person I’ve ever met: She bucked enormous pressure to run major investigative articles in New West.

Mom ignored this as she shifted into the aggressive tone she used at her most manic. By then we’d learned to read Mom’s moods; after years on a psychiatrist’s couch she’d finally been diagnosed as bipolar, and we’d come to expect the extreme swings that moved through her like weather, altering every aspect of her being. The

I'm just an actor, and no more interesting than you are. She scribbled her name. Probably not as interesting, actually You should pay more attention to yourself and less to people like me. You'll be better off that way.

It was a completely innocent remark. To me, the subway is more than a quick way to get from one place to another. It is New York in miniature, an intimate glimpse of the city. You rub shoulders with everyone who lives here, find out what they’re reading, see what they’re wearing, eavesdrop on their conversations.