I’ve been saying I’m going to do this project for more than a year now, but I recently read a couple of books in a row that reminded me exactly why I wanted to start this project. For the past few years, I’ve been reading a lot more fiction. The world has been stressful (to say the least), and I found comfort in the imaginary worlds of books, specifically in the genres of science fiction/fantasy (SFF) and young adult (YA) fiction.
And one thing I’ve found in reading those books is that any time an author writes about a food item really well I’ve wanted to make the item or imagine a way that it could be made if the details are lacking in exactly how it comes together. I spent nearly a decade writing about food for newspapers, and I kept it up for a while after leaving journalism, so you could say I’m a bit of a foodie. I also got my “start” in writing as a critic—from writing music reviews that only my dad read to my first published reviews in college—and I’ve missed thinking about why I like what I like and why it works for me.
Then, I thought, why not combine those two things? Read books, review them, and come up with a recipe from something in the text.
So, welcome to “Cooking the Books,” where on some TBD schedule I’ll release a review of a book I read and a recipe tied to the book, (mostly) using a specific quote from said book. My hope is to release every two weeks, and I have built a bit of a backlog … but the world is not any less stressful, I’m not getting any younger, and I’ve definitely had reading slumps and book hangovers that left me incapable of reading (or instead re-reading the same books for comfort).
Given the backlog I have already built, I’ll plan to intersperse some of the older books with some of the newer books I read this year (and beyond), though not all are/were new releases when I read them. While I do tend to read newer releases, it’s by no means my entire reading diet, and I’ll consider anything I read/re-read that has a foodie element (or even something else worth discussion!) as fair game in writing. This is my food blog, and I’ll do what I want to.
I’ll return (hopefully) in two weeks with my first actual foodie post!