Eating For Beginners: An Interview With The Author

I’m so excited that Melanie, author of Eating for Beginners: An Education in the Pleasures of Food from Chefs, Farmers, and One Picky Kid, agreed to be interviewed for my blog. I LOVED this book. It’s the first time in a long time that I wanted to underline and tweet many quotes.

The basic premise is that a self-confessed foodie finds herself with a toddler who refuses to eat. This leads to questions about organic vs. local, etc. So she spends a year working in the kitchen of a farm to table restaurant. She also visits some of the farms where the restaurant gets its food.

I feel especially blessed because Melanie is actually on quasi maternity leave, and yet she still agreed to answer the questions that I emailed her. So, without further ado:

Can you say in a few sentences what your book is about? I read it, and have read the back cover copy and promo copy, but as someone who used to write promo copy for books for a living I know it doesn’t always convey what it means to the author.

It’s a book about how to live with food in the 21st century. It’s about how we all have to find our own way through the clamor of information, and the things I did to find my path: cooking at a restaurant that gets its food locally, working on the farms that food comes from, and living with a nutty toddler who reminded me daily that while it’s important to have ideals about eating and other things, what matters is that you try even if you can’t always come up to the level you want to.

If someone really hasn’t ever thought about eating locally or organic but knows they probably should, what three books (other than yours, of course, because everyone is going to run out and buy that one anyway) would you recommend that they read?

Well, I think Fast Food Nation is still really, really important in terms of its revelations about the food industry. It’s also a really great read with a lot of great characters and wonderful writing. I’d also recommend reading books by people who really love food. Anything by MFK Fisher fits the bill on that one. I think a lot of what we’re dealing with right now has come about because people have forgotten the pleasure part of eating and how food is so much more than just physical sustenance. Fisher’s How to Cook A Wolf is a great starter for someone interested in her. I hesitate to say Michael Pollan, since it’s so obvious, but yes, Michael Pollan. Maybe Food Rules as opposed to the Omnivore’s Dillema.

Even though you take great pains to explain how the staff at applewood is very nice and nothing like what we see on TV shows like Hell’s Kitchen, I have to admit that reading about the realities of being in a restaurant kitchen sort of dashed any secret fantasies I had of becoming a chef. Now that it’s over, do you ever think of going back and becoming a chef?

No way! It’s a hard life even though it’s the only life for people who really love it. The hours are punishing, as is the heat in the kitchen. That said, I do often miss being in the kitchen at applewood specifically. I miss the constant flow of new, interesting food and the creativity that’s so much a part of the cooking there. And the people, of course. After being in such a great kitchen it can get lonely being alone in my kitchen at home.

I’ve done some reading about fish (I recently reviewed Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food) and was hoping you’d provide some answers in the chapter where you go fishing. Unfortunately I’m still confused. Any advice? Especially since so many of the local, seasonal cookbooks have so many fish recipes in them. And I live nowhere near the sea (I’m in Michigan)

Fish is really a tough one. Four Fish is a great and really important book, I think. I’ve come to believe that with fish the issue of sustainability far outweighs the issue of local, especially since there are a lot of people in your situation geographically speaking. The most important thing is to eat fish that isn’t overfished, which means keeping up to date with that info since it changes all the time. A lot of people swear by the Monterrey Bay guide—I think there’s even an iPhone app for it now—or other oceanic institute guides. I try to have a few fish in mind that I know are doing well at all times, so when I grocery shop I have a few go-to fish.

Hopefully I’m not giving too much of the end of the book away, but how is Jules eating now? And your newborn? And have youreating habits changed since your year at applewood?

Jules is doing pretty well, though he still refuses to eat cheese unless it’s on pizza (but honestly, the fact that he’ll eat pizza now is HUGE!). Part of what was so challenging/annoying about him during the period the book covers is that he was picky in this really odd way. It was never that he refused healthy things, but that there were so few things he’d eat, period, and so it was hard to go anywhere with him. He basically lived on yogurt and bananas for a long time. Now he eats pasta and chicken and even fish (as long as it’s breaded) along with his usual round of fruits and veggies. He’s a healthy kid, so we’re lucky. As for the newborn, it’s milk milk milk all the time. He’s huge so we’re hoping that means he’s going to be a big eater! Our eating habits haven’t changed so much as expanded. We’ve always loved to cook and have eaten pretty well (though I certainly couldn’t live without candy). The main difference is that now we buy things we wouldn’t have before and just figure out how to cook them instead of sticking to tried-and-true recipes.

I know you’re on quasi-maternity leave now, but do you have any books or projects that you’re working on or hope to work on?

I’m still writing my column for Bookforum. The new one is on the new New York Times cookbook and the one I’m starting now is on cocktail culture. I do have a new book proposal in the works, too, but the subject is confidential for now because I’m a writer and we get by largely on the kind of superstition which says it’s bad luck to talk about your book idea before you’ve sold it!

Thanks, Melanie!

By the way, be sure to check out her website at eatingforbeginners.com