Writers Who Cook

Annamaria on Monday

Some of my friends and I have joined together in a group we have labeled WWC.  We meet up for long-standing, intermittently scheduled gatherings of authors and sometimes their spouses.  In a couple of cases, both are authors.  We are twelve in number, but because of busy lives we are hardly ever all together at once.  This past Saturday, we were just six, including five writers.

WWC began after a conversation at an MWA-NY event when my friend Gary Cahill and I were chatting about cooking and began wondering why so many writers like to cook. The best answers we came up with then, and since over the years, concern the fact that both writing and cooking are nourishing - in one case of the body and another of the soul or the intellect.  Or perhaps it's because writing is done alone and the result is shared but only after much time has passed and  when the author is not present.  Whereas with cooking, consumption often follows quickly and the cook is there to share in and see the satisfaction.  My contribution to this discussion, which gets laughs, but I maintain is not entirely silly, is that you do it standing up.

Our meetings always begin with a first course we call the amuse bouche: pizza prepared by Gary, who according my very picky tastebuds, is the best pizzaiolo on this planet.  Here is the first pizza for this recent event as it was going into the oven.

And before we took the first bites.

There are always at least two pizzas, but, as usual, once we started munching, we were too distracted by deliciousness to take many pictures.   

When it comes to writing, Gary is also a splendid short story author of literary merit. 

Our next course was an appetizer of gravlax, perfectly prepared by Jeff Markowitz.  Exquisite! 

Jeff's mystery stories are equally great. Some that are hilarious.  Man others deep and moving. His latest is a historical, with a look at societal issues that resonate today, 

Jeff's Wife Carol Markowitz also writes historical fiction, with a backdrop of WWII.  Just now, she has a story in the 2025 anthology of The Military Writers Society of America.

For the main course, I made sea scallops in a brandy sauce served over rice, with asparagus. 

The last writer this time was Richie Narvaez, who writes wonderful New York , both novels and short stories.  His latest is in an anthology of crime fiction having to do with climate change.

Lucky us, Richie's wife Denise is a pastry chef, who this time brought us cookies of her own making, designed in a mystery theme!  Yum!!
 

 Happy Reading and Buon Appetito!