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!

The Start of a Book Purge

Sujata Massey

A doctor once reassured that it's normal for a writer to be disorganized. Clutter goes hand in hand with creativity. That my excuse for my lifelong for tendency to fall victim to clutter. But looking at it doesn't make me feel calm.

Because of my issues, I find it escapist entertainment to read books and watch TV programs about cleaning and organizing. I recently binge-watched a great program on Netflix, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo. I'd already read her two books, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joy, although I've followed of her teachings so far is to declutter about thirty percent of my clothes. 

I’m charmed by Marie’s warmth and playful excitement when it comes to transforming chaos into serenity. Yet critics are attacking her for her ideas about book tidying. In truth, she does not advise a certain number of books for anyone, just as she won’t guide people on which items to discard from their drawers. But she does suggest paring down in a few different ways in order to make sure what we have are books that are used or that are physical embodiments of comfort and happiness.

I decided to see if Marie’s approach could help me with my book problem. I typically donate dozens or up to a hundred books every few years. Such book purges are often inspired by moving house. I only throw away a book if it’s damaged. When every town had several used bookstores, I'd find buyers for some of the haul. Used bookstores are so few and far between these days, so it's easier to donate. 

When I lived in Minnesota, I could drop off used books in good shape to be shipped to readers in Africa, part of a humanitarian effort our own Michael Stanley championed. In Maryland, the best option is to carry cartons of books to The Book Thing, a nonprofit located in an old industrial building a couple of miles away from my home. Every Saturday, The Book Thing attracts browsers who pick up whatever they’re drawn to. It's got the same vibe as used bookstores I remember from the old days, only instead of the books costing $1 to $10, they are completely free.

As I think about this, I visualize people discovering my books, hopefully feeling like they got a steal on an immaculate coffee table cookbook or autographed mystery. The trouble is I have to get the books off my shelves first, and decide who gets to stay in the nest and who will be sent out to fly.

Marie advises gathering all the books into one place and then start sorting. But when we are talking about a couple thousand books on three floors, that sounds like hard physical labor. 

I like the expression “to pick low hanging fruit.” So I began with the long, built-in bookcase my husband built for our cookbooks in the butler's pantry. Cookbooks are unemotional handbooks not literary keepsakes--and we have more than three hundred. Yes, three hundred cookbooks owned by a couple who probably cook dinner four times a week!

Tony and I began buying cookbooks when we married in our twenties and were dreaming of a domestic future.If we tried to cook every recipe in this collection once, I am certain that we would die before we were done opening cookbooks. Morbid thoughts aside, I addressed the bookcase.

Most of my cookbooks feature cuisines of different countries. I’ve always rationalized storing them as authoritative resources I may turn to in the future, when I am cooking as often as Nigella Lawson (ha ha). Tony has his own favorite cooking tomes from his hometown of New Orleans, as well as Julia Child classics that I am keeping without question to preserve marital harmony. There are also a few easy cookbooks I received when I was a little girl that must be saved for future grandchildren. Jammed in between the books we often use are slick, trend-driven cookbooks that publicists sent to the Baltimore Evening Sun when I used to write their cookbook reviews, and dozens of cookbooks collected when I was in Japan and India that are part and parcel of the novels that I write. When I describe a Japanese rice gruel that is spoon-fed to the ill, or a caramelized onion dal served at a palace, the origins of these dishes are in my cookbooks.

I hardly ever cook Japanese food anymore, so I'm only saving two of those books. However, I continue to cook Indian food regularly, so most of these cookbooks, large and small, weathered this purge. But I thanked about twelve of them for their service and hope they find homes with Indian food lovers who shop at The Book Thing. They will be part of the donation of about one hundred cookbooks.

I can’t boast that my shelves look splendidly organized, but at least everything’s in the right section. I know to locate any Italian cookbooks on the far-right bottom shelf, the vegetarian cookbooks in the case's top shelf, and all fifteen Louisiana cookbooks stacked in a column running down the center. 

It took two to three hours to go through this book case, which is  not an inconsequential amount of time. Yet the hours spent sorting turned out to be a sentimental return to past journeys and meals. 

I came away feeling certain that that books are food ... and food is better when shared.