Ruth Reichl is a born story teller. She's written eight books, and before you know it, you're traveling side by side with her on her journeys. Reichl’s latest book, "Save Me the Plums," centers on the 10 years she spent as editor-in-chief at the now defunct Gourmet magazine. The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Henry Santoro: Food magazines come and go, and I believe that like your friend and mine, Julia Child, Gourmet magazine will never be forgotten.

Ruth Reichl: I totally agree with you. First, it was the first epicurean magazine in America started in a very strange time. It started right before America went into World War II. The magazine started in 1941, and it has pretty much, for all the time that it existed, it chronicled the history of American food. So, it's meant a lot to a lot of people and people of my generation, who pretty much learned to cook from the magazine.

Santoro: I discovered the magazine when Nina Simones, who was now a dear friend of mine was filing reports from China where she was learning how to cook from the master chefs, and she would file a monthly piece. But you discovered gourmet as a very young girl. Was it your National Geographic?

Reichl: It was more than my National Geographic. I was just very lucky. Because I was eight years old and the first story that I discovered was one that was written by a man who was the poet laureate of Maine, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a beautiful writer. I was sitting reading this story called, Night of Lobster, at eight years old and he talks about rowing out with the lobstermen late at night, and they’d pull the lobsters out of the pots, and then they they’d row to a deserted island. There they’d build this huge bonfire and cook the lobsters. In the book, he talks about eating them as the stars are up above them, and they eat until they can't eat anymore. And they fall back and lie down on the sand and go to sleep, wake up with the rising sun, and follow the sun's path home. And to me it was like a fairy tale. And the first time that I ever understood that real life could be as magical as fairy tales.

Santoro: And both of your parents picked up on that and they nurtured it within you?

Reichl: They did, which was very kind of them, because neither of my parents had any interest in food, whatsoever. My mother was truly the world's worst cook. My first book begins with her putting 26 people in the hospital after a party with food poisoning. So, I mean her interest in food was minimal. My dad was an intellectual who cared about books and not a whole lot else. Books and art music. But they saw that I was passionate about it — that I glommed on to this magazine — and it opened a whole new world for me. And my father very sweetly started taking me around New York to visit various ethnic neighborhoods Yorkville, Little Italy, Spanish Harlem. And so together we kind of discovered New York and each other.

Santoro: Well, Ruth we love your writing. Ruth Reichl is the author of eight books. Her latest is a memoir about her years at Gourmet magazine and is titled, "Save Me the Plums." It's out now it's everywhere.