MY BOOKS MAKE PEOPLE HUNGRY
Same risotto but with saffron instead of roasted red pepper. When my then girlfriend, now Long-Suffering Wife moved in with me twenty years ago there were some changes that I had to adjust to. They were, for the most part, reasonable changes. One thing that happened was that the Food Network became a staple on our TV. That was fine with me, we both liked to cook, and it provided some inspiration. There were some cool shows with some great personalities, Tony Bourdain, Alton Brown and Nigella Lawson to name a few. I don’t know who coined the term “Food Porn” or when. I think I remember hearing it in the early 2000’s. I am sure there are many theories as which Food Network host or hosts may have inspired it. I think it was also about the approach that the Food Network took to filming the dishes. This wasn’t some black and white, PBS Julia Childs stuff…no sir. They filmed the cooking and the dishes in ways to make even the worst cook’s passions aroused. I like food. I like to eat. Not just pushing calories as so many people do, but I truly enjoy a well-cooked meal. If you don’t know what pushing calories means get your hands on an MRE and eat it. You’ll figure it out. My late grandmother, she lived to be 104, used to say in her thick Russian accent; “I do not like to cook but I like to eat.” I am the opposite; I like to cook because I like to eat. It isn’t just about the pleasure of eating. It is about sharing a meal. Some of my happiest moments have been sharing food or a meal. The best orange I ever had was in Alabama at my Officers Basic Course in January of 1997. It was a raw cold day, and a fellow 2nd Lieutenant offered me half of his orange that he was eating. It was fantastic. I am good at a few things in life. I am a pretty good with a gun, I am a good writer, and I am a good cook. I enjoy cooking for people, watching them enjoy the meal and I appreciate the compliments that follow. There’s more to it than that, I truly enjoy cooking for people and sharing a meal or a dish. I am bad at following recipes. I like to improvise and if enough whiskey is involved show off. A few years on vacation to Block Island with friends after a night of drinking my friend’s wife wanted me to make something with figs that she had before they spoiled. Drunken Challenge accepted. The figs were halved and sauteed in butter and when they were cooked, I added sugar and red wine to the pan. The figs were transferred to plates and the sweet, red wine reduction spooned over them. I crumbled Gorgonzola over them as the finishing touch. It was a hit. A common theme that comes up with friends, family, or fans of my books is that they make the reader feel hungry. I like to write about food, dishes I’ve cooked or things I’ve had in restaurants. Sometimes I try to recreate meals I’ve had. The red pepper risotto with shrimp in it, covered with Bonito flakes that I had in a restaurant in San Francisco is one I successfully recreated. It’s a cool dish because the heat from the risotto makes the Bonito flakes wave. It is a cool and disconcerting look. It tastes fantastic though, creamy risotto with the tang of roasted red pepper and the smokey fishiness of the Bonito flakes complement the shrimp perfectly. I don’t just write foodporn in my books because I like cooking and eating. It’s calculated. Food is one of those things that connect us all. We talk of breaking bread. Families gather for holiday meals and every party that I have ever been to ends up in the kitchen. Think about the first time you cooked a meal for your significant other or think about cooking for your family. Food is powerful. When I wrote my first novel, THE OFF ISLANDER, I had no idea what I was doing. I had a story idea and a likeable character in Andy Roark. I had no idea how to get him from one part of the story to the other. But I knew if I wrote about food, that most people would read it. Those meals might convince a reader to stick with the story for a couple more pages or to the end of the chapter. There were other ways, I could have written spicey romantic scenes but that wasn’t for me. Given the fact that my in-laws, family and friends have read all my books I think I made the right decision. Which was reinforced when LSW’s best friend from forever thanked me for keeping the romantic scenes PG-13. I figured out that if people were going to want to read my books, I had to write a character that they would actually like. It would help if they identified with him. My Army and Cop friends like my character because he’s Veteran and a Former cop. They can identify with him. Other friends and family like him because a lot of the things he says sound a lot like the things I say. But for the people who aren’t in those two small demographics food was the thing. Everyone eats, most people like eating and so does Andy Roark. So, when someone tells me my books make them hungry, I know that I got it right.
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