Lynn Charles

Today, I am honored to visit Prism Book Alliance where they also asked for a recipe. I also listed some of the books that inspired Chef’s Table in numerous ways. What are some of your favorite foodie books?

The recipe I shared, a favorite of mine, isn’t really even a recipe. It comes from a rant by Michael Ruhlman, a wonderful author on all things food and good eating, that not only made me laugh, but also sealed my opinion that we are being taught (thank you, Food Network) that America is too stupid to cook. I believe some of it is laziness as well, but that’s probably better saved for another time.

Everything is prepared for us. Rotisserie chickens sit under warmers at the grocery. For heaven’s sake, you can now get sauce packets for your crock pot. Dump in the meat, open a bag of sauce, turn on the heat and go. Letting the “grocery work for you” has become, “go pick up a bag of dinner.”

Cooking isn’t that difficult. Sometimes it’s time consuming, but it’s time consuming in that a good roast, a good stew will sit on heat for hours, so you can go do other things. Prep your ingredients and let heat and magic and science do the rest.

To prove how easy it is to roast a chicken, Ruhlman wrote this list of directions. I’m sure it won’t take much effort to figure out my favorite line. You can read his entire post here.

The World’s Most Difficult Roasted Chicken Recipe

Turn your oven on high (450 if you have ventilation, 425 if not).  Coat a 3- or 4-pound chicken with coarse kosher salt so that you have an appealing crust of salt (a tablespoon or so).  Put the chicken in a pan, stick a lemon or some onion or any fruit or vegetable you have on hand into the cavity.  Put the chicken in the oven.  Go away for an hour.  Watch some TV, play with the kids, read, have a cocktail, have sex.  When an hour has passed, take the chicken out of the oven and put it on the stove top or on a trivet for 15 more minutes.  Finito.

Which leads me to the rest of this post—food writers. Chef’s, experts, home cooks who are amazing with word play. They all factored in, in some way, to the making of Chef’s Table. These are a few of my top recommendations:

Michael Ruhlman—He has a plethora of books out there, but my top recommendations are:

Ratio
The Making of a Chef
Ruhlman’s Twenty

Anthony Bourdain—The food lover’s rock star. Some hate him, some love him. He teaches history of food, respects all cultures he visits and helps me to do the same. The things I’ve learned from him over the years are littered throughout Chef’s Table. My top picks for him are:

Kitchen Confidential
Medium Raw
Les Halles Cookbook

See the rest of my recommendations at Prism Book Alliance where you can enter to win a $25 gift certificate.

While contemplating some themes to discuss for my book tour, I asked a friend and early reader some of his thoughts–what he might ask me if we could sit down for a drink after he read my book. His first question was a killer, so today’s visit to Wickedly Wanton answers that question.

If you like food, and prefer it to be good food, there are cities all over our nation, all over our world that will cater to you. But, I think most would argue that, New York City is probably one of the best for those who love food.

You can grab a dirty water dog from a vendor in midtown. With a few extra turns, or a little help from your Yelp app, you can find that great bagel joint back on 35^th and have the great pleasure of snarfing it down while watching trucks unload their wares in all of the fabric houses in the Garment District. You can upgrade to a deli or a diner and even, if you have completely lost your mind, eat at a franchise like The Olive Garden or TGIF’s—although if you do that, please don’t tell me about it. You can get a bowl of noodles here and then a great spread of dim sum there. You can dress up and dine like the wealthy do, or stop into a random place in Hell’s Kitchen after walking around the city all day and get treated like you are dressed up and eating with the wealthy.

If you can’t find something to eat and to love to eat in New York City, you’re probably just not hungry.

So, it was easy to set this story in New York. To set up two different kinds of cooks with very similar backgrounds. To show two different kinds of restaurants that really share very similar values. Good ingredients, good basic foundational cooking and a heaping load of heart.

But, if I was walking through the city—location not a concern—my friend wanted to know whose restaurant would I chose to patronize?

Patrick’s diner, Johnny’s, is a friendly place. Loud at busy times, with a nice mumbling buzz of activity at less busy times. Other than desserts, the menu is static. And even with desserts, Patrick has his constants. While you might get a homemade dressing on the salad, ‘health food’ is not on the menu. Your meal is served with plenty of fat, plenty of sass, thanks to his wait staff, and plenty of rib-sticking goodness. It’s good for a sandwich on the run, or a hearty stew or meatloaf when you want to settle in. But, even the sandwiches are so good, you tend to settle in anyway. Slow down. Nurse a cup of coffee over Patrick’s newest twist on pumpkin sweetness for the fall season.

Evan’s restaurant, Il Boschetto, is also a friendly place, but not so friendly you’re likely to see the man behind the food, however. Or the woman. Or any of the cooking staff. But it’s still friendly. Your servers take care of your every need before you know you need it. They know when to give you privacy and when to sweep in and refill your wine. And the food, like Johnny’s, is also stick-to-your-ribs hearty. Stuff your Italian grandmother would have made if you indeed had an Italian grandmother. It’s made with the freshest of ingredients by chefs trained in the culinary arts and seasoned on the lines all over the city. Your sauces will be rich and layered, the meats will be off-the-bone tender, the pasta will be cooked to lip-smacking perfection and the sides will be good enough you’d consider making them meals themselves. It’s a full experience of food and atmosphere.

But, so is Johnny’s.

Which makes that choice difficult. But, I believe if I had to choose, if I had to pick one meal, I’d hop on the Q and head to Johnny’s in a heartbeat. I don’t need a server refilling my wine or reading off the prix fixe menu when I know I just want the tuna melt on wheat. At Johnny’s I’d be having a meal with friends. And that always makes everything taste better.

Now, if Patrick is manning the grill to boot? Well, someone better be making me airline reservations.

Head on over to Wickedly Wanton for a chance or two to win a $25 gift certificate and see what else she has to say about Chef’s Table.

Today, I get the honor of visiting Books on Silver Wings where they asked me to talk a little bit about my book cover and how it is an integral part of the completed package.

I work in circulation at a county library and I see and handle hundreds of books every day. It is fascinating to me to note which books cause me to slow down and take a second look. The ones that make me want to read the synopsis, and even to consider putting on hold for future reading. What is it that draws me to this book to begin with?

And I’d have to say, outside of author, it’s always the cover. With a quick glance while I’m scanning, I can often determine category, genre, mood and even age of the last printing. Lately, I seem to be drawn to a more minimalist type of book cover. Typeset only, fewer details and colors in the images you do see, etc.

Catch me quick and hold me there.

So, when it was time to come up with a cover for Chef’s Table, while my input was only a small fraction of the process, I was happy to suggest a minimalist approach with the image we’d already been sent of a chef with another man’s sneaky hand reaching around to divest him of his whites.

The trick was getting it to read as light-hearted, which the story is, without looking cartoonish and comical, which it is not, and our art director took that task very seriously. I asked her about how she approaches each cover with so many different themes and styles between stories and she said she does tend to compare each new title to previous ones they’ve done, asking “What does this story bring to the table that others haven’t yet?” In other words, she wants to set each book apart before the reader even opens up the first page.

For Chef’s Table, she called on an illustrator that she knew could not only execute the effect she was going for, but also remain faithful to the whimsical nature of the idea. They used a conventional “cut paper” technique where each simple shape of the image is a different kind of paper, only they achieved the effect digitally. The chef’s jacket is finished with a crisp linen texture. Our cook on the back has a knit textured t-shirt and a woven texture for his apron. Skin is flecked as if pored, and to finish, shadows set off each layer to give the full dimensional effect.

I love my Evan and Patrick in this quirky minimalist fashion. I love the comedy of Evan snatching the cherry from Patrick’s cheesecake on the back, and Patrick’s sneaky hand creeping in to unbutton Evan’s jacket. It’s fun, it’s a little sexy, and it pops with color.

Exactly what I hope the book will do as well.

For more on our artistic director, visit BuckeyeGrrl Designs. To see more work from our illustrator, visit Abby Hellstrom. Her site is still a bit under construction, but there is plenty to see.

For the change at a $25 gift certificate, please visit Books on Silver Wings and enter the giveaway!