Dishing about food writing Out of a crowded field, seven writers you should know STORY BY BILL DALEY ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID BADDERS

1 4 printers row | 4.1.12 ood lends itself to good writing because, as M.F.K. David Bridges This New Orleans chef wanted to be a Fisher so famously wrote long ago, writing about food writer so much that when offered a chance to write for a website by and for food often means writing about “other, deeper women, he took the pen name “Sally Brid- ges” and got busy. needs for love and happiness.” In defense of her “For me, it was just learning to be a craft and her subject, she declared: “There is a com- better writer,’’ said Bridges, whose recent hire as chef at Upperline Restaurant has munion of more than our bodies when bread is put a dent in the writing he does on his blog, TheRootertotheTooter.com.Yet, he broken and wine is drunk.” I What was true in still hopes to write a personal cookbook called “From the Rooter to the Tooter: A 1943’s “The Gastronomical Me” is certainly true in Southern Man’s Journey of Nose to Tail Cooking.” 2012. If anything, the appetites seem sharper in this schizophrenic age where This Louisiana native pitched a propos- cFomputerized whiz-bangeries distract us from a gray, downsized reality. Looking al to Judith Jones in an email. She liked what she heard — the voice was there. to feed a literal and figurative hunger are scores of food writers, chefs, food blog- Then she retired. The book remains un- sold and unpublished. gers and even would-be food TV stars. “When you have something as quirky as that, you have to have someone who loves it and will run with it,” Jones said. “I The good ones traffic in the kind of gering.” would have gone to bat for it. He’s an writing Fisher did, going beyond a recipe True. Yet the key to winnowing out the original.” for carob-coated tofu logs dusted with chia best food writers in the crowd is the same Bridges isn’t quitting. seed, say, to the broad and mighty forces as it has always been: voice. “The writing is timeless and speaks for that might drive a person to eat such a “I feel so strongly about voice,’’ said itself. It is quite the opposite of today’s thing. Yet, none need rely solely on the Judith Jones, the legendary Knopf editor trend of cursing, sloppy, unintelligent printed page in the Twitter era. who worked with Julia Child, James Virginia Willis dribble that is dumbing down the craft. Still, as in Fisher’s day, the cookbook Beard, Jacques Pépin and Fisher. Someone has to be the voice of reason, and remains the veritable holy grail for most “We need people interpreting cooking it might as well be me,” he said. food writers, says Aaron Wehner, vice and telling us how to do it — and that it’s president and publisher of Ten Speed fun,” said Jones, now retired, in a tele- Michael Procopio Press in Emeryville,Calif. phone interview from New York City. On this San Francisco waiter/writer’s “I think there’s something about the “That’s what I really want to get across, it’s blog, FoodfortheThoughtless.com, there’s book that is enduring,” he said. “I think it is fun to work in the kitchen. It really is.” an “Apple Brown Betty White” salute to a document of one’s work. There is noth- Here are seven people who do just that. the 90-year-old comedian and a failed ing like the gravitas of a beautifully done recipe for “love cake” inspired by one book. For chefs, the book is still a major Monica Bhide created in a movie by Catherine Deneuve. rite of passage. Whether a narrative book Ask Bhide why she is a food writer, and Both items are very funny. Then there’s a or an art-driven book, the book is still a big the answer is immediate: “Food is so inti- posting called “Cauliflower Ears.” It is not deal.” mate, it touches us in ways almost nothing funny at all. Today’s food writers are savvier and else does.” In the piece, Procopio realizes why he more educated about food, said David So when she writes about making butter never cooked cauliflower. Seems “cauli- Leite, who as publisher of Leite’s Culina- chicken with her father, know the chicken flower ears” was a taunt he hurled at a ria, (leitesculinaria.com) has given many a is just the vehicle carrying the story of her schoolmate named Ben who was later food writer exposure in his online food/ dad to the reader. found killed. He ends with a pasta recipe cooking magazine and blog. There’s less Bhide has told stories in her three Indi- for cauliflower and orecchiette, which self-indulgence, too. an-themed cookbooks; on her “A Life of means “little ears” in Italian. “People are telling stories in the first Spice” blog at monicabhide.com; in maga- “It isn’t meant so much as a pun as it is a person, but their gaze is moving up from zines; and as a contributor to NPR’s online kind of memento mori — a dish that I will the belly button to the world,” he said. food page, “Kitchen Window.” add to my repertoire so that I might think “People are finding their niche and becom- Born in New Delhi, reared in the Middle of Ben from time to time, to remind myself ing more politicized, too.” East, and now raising a family in Dunn just how short our stay in this world can The danger now may be that you miss a Loring, Va., Bhide said writing filled a void be, and to make the most of what time I’m really fine writer or story or article, said in her life that engineering — a career that Jess Thomson lucky enough to have left,” Procopio ex- Lisa Ekus, principal of an eponymous delighted her parents — could not. plained on the blog. agency in Hatfield, Mass., that represents These days, Bhide focuses more on It’s that sort of spin on things, not nec- many food writers and authors. essays involving food than recipe writing. Chat essarily the recipes, that draws readers in, he said. “How many blogs can one person follow “I’m not the kind of person you can put Visit chicagotribune.com/ daily, weekly?’’ she asked. “Today’s food in front of the stove and just let me stand printersrow to join Bill Daley “What I write is sort of what’s on my writers are writing in so many different there,” she said. “I need to go out in the and the food writers for an mind,” Procopio added. “I tend to answer venues and platforms it’s hard to locate world and explore. I want to cook out in online chat at noon, my own questions.” their work. And the sheer volume is stag- the saffron fields.” Thursday.

4 .1.12 | printers row 15 Leela Punyaratabandhu food has import. All food is contextual,” This Chicago resident wanted to post said the resident of Rockville, Md. some recipes in remembrance of her Cook Twitty’s focus: “the foodways of mother. Thus was SheSimmers.com, a Africa, enslaved African-Americans, blog on Thai home cooking, born in African America and the African and 2008. It is not a theme she had origi- like them Visit chicagotribune. Jewish diasporas.” His writings and nally planned to pursue. Af- com/printers row to recipes can be found on his blog, “I realized there were not many blogs roculinaria.com The- link to samples of each . A second blog, on Thai food written in English,’’ Pu- CookingGene.com, attempts to trace his nyaratabandhu said, via telephone from food writer’s work, including these recipes: ancestry back through the centuries via Bangkok. “It doesn’t matter how you food. He has also written articles for brand yourself. In the end, people brand S Jess Thompson’s “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and you.” Chunky Low-Sodium Drink in America” and a soon-to-be- SheSimmers has been a success. It Onion Dip published book, “Rice and Beans.” was named one of Saveur magazine’s S Virginia Willis’s S Monica Bhide’s Butter Chicken For this summer, he’s planning what “sites we love” last year. Punyarataband- Sweet Potato Grits from monicabhide.com he calls “The Southern Discomfort hu has begun writing columns on Thai Tour,” a culinary journey from Mary- cooking for the blog SeriousEats.com, land to Louisiana and back that he where she was introduced to readers as hopes will result in a book or a docu- “a scholar of philology, history, linguis- mentary. Using his own family’s en- tics, and all things culinary.” And she’s slaved past as the touchstone, Twitty filing posts for CNNGo, CNN Interna- wants to explore the plight of black tional’s Asia-centric travel website. farmers today while showing how food “My world has opened up,” she said. links to family, identity and community. “Food puts me in a place where people “What sets me apart from others who can see me. It is the food that connects do this writing is I’m totally immersed them to me.” S in the foodways of the rural antebellum Michael Procopio’s Cauliflower Ears South,” Twitty said. “There are not Jess Thomson from foodforthethoughtless.com many people willing to go to the cre- Diagnosed with lupus, this Seattle ative and mental space of the Old South, writer is now learning to follow a glu- come to terms with it and look at that ten-, soy- and egg-free diet. Her 2-year- history. You don’t want to touch it, but I old son has cerebral palsy. And she’s had will. I have to, or the story won’t get three books — four if you include the told.” ghostwritten one on main dishes — just published or on their way. Virginia Willis Readers of Thomson’s blog, Hog- Having worked behind the scenes for wash, at jessthomson.wordpress.com, such bold-type folks as Martha Stewart, know all about this. S Michael W. Twitty’s Mom’s Pot Roast Anne Willan and Nathalie Dupree, the “The subhead is ‘Thoughts on food from afroculinaria.com Atlanta writer has been largely under and life,’ and it’s my life and it’s about the radar outside of the food communi- me,” she said. ty. But now she’s flying solo — and her Calling the blog Hogwash is an in- profile is rapidly gaining altitude. sider’s nod to Seattle. Her introduction “I can tell by the people calling me to the city took place at the Pike Place that something has shifted recently, and Market, whose unofficial mascot is a big in a good way,” said Willis, author of the bronze pig named Rachel. The market is recently published “Basic to Brilliant, the focus of her book, due out in May, Y’all: 150 Refined Southern Recipes and called “Pike Place Market Recipes: 130 Ways to Dress Them Up for Company” Delicious Ways to Bring Home Seattle’s S David Bridges’s Posole Soup with Green Tomato and (Ten Speed, $35). Famous Market” (Sasquatch, $23.95). Brussels Sprout Salsa from therootertothetooter.com Willis is getting justifiable recog- With the book projects out of the nition as an authority on Southern way, Thomson has a big list of story cooking. Just named a contributing food ideas to tackle. And she’s finding more editor for Southern Living magazine, editors interested in working with her. she respects tradition but is willing to be “One of the helpful things about creative, too. having a strong voice is editors get to But Willis doesn’t want to be pigeon- know me easily,” she said. holed into one cuisine — or medium. “I think food writing is a much Michael W. Twitty broader term,” she said. “I can write for He’s a food writer, yes, but also a magazines and newspapers, do cook- culinary historian, a Hebrew school books and also write a blog.” teacher, a living history interpreter and S Leela Punyaratabandhu’s Shrimp Satay a proponent for social justice. with Thai Peanut Sauce from shesimmers.com Bill Daley is a food and features reporter “For me, all food has meaning. All for the Chicago Tribune.

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