I\u2019ve been saying I\u2019m 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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And one thing I\u2019ve found in reading those books is that any time an author writes about a food item really well I\u2019ve 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\u2019m a bit of a foodie. I also got my \u201cstart\u201d in writing as a critic\u2014from writing music reviews that only my dad read to my first published reviews in college\u2014and I\u2019ve missed thinking about why I like what I like and why it works for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, I thought, why not combine those two things? Read books, review them, and come up with a recipe from something in the text. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, welcome to \u201cCooking the Books,\u201d where on some TBD schedule I\u2019ll 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 \u2026 but the world is not any less stressful, I\u2019m not getting any younger, and I\u2019ve definitely had reading slumps and book hangovers that left me incapable of reading (or instead re-reading the same books for comfort). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the backlog I have already built, I\u2019ll 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\u2019s by no means my entire reading diet, and I\u2019ll 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\u2019ll do what I want to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll return (hopefully) in two weeks with my first actual foodie post! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been saying I\u2019m 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\u2019ve been reading a lot more fiction. The world has been stressful (to … <\/p>\n