Authors in the Kitchen (1 of 21)

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Authors in the Kitchen by Megan Halpern. Copyright 2009 by Megan Halpern.
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Authors in the Kitchen

Edited by Megan Halpern

IN AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN WITH AUDREY NIFFENEGGER

Audrey Niffenegger is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Time Traveler's Wife, which was recently made into a movie starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. Her next novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, will be available from Scribner this fall. After letting her know that of course non-foodies were eligible for Authors in the Kitchen, we chatted about growing up in the Midwest, a disastrous evening in Paris, and why TTW's Henry is such a whiz in the kitchen.

Growing up, how did your family treat food—what was important about the kitchen to them?

I was raised in a suburb of Chicago, in the 1960s and 70s. My mother is an excellent cook, and she taught my sisters and me to cook when we were small. She started us with cookies so we would be more motivated. We always ate dinner together as a family, though my dad was frequently on the road.

Our extended family was all up in Michigan, in a small town, South Haven, and we spent lots of time there. My family has always been pretty festive about food—whenever there's anything to celebrate we make big feasts. My grandmother canned things; in late summer all the cousins were enlisted to pick, peel, chop and mash. The reward was a winter's worth of applesauce, pickles and such. [But] all my grandparents smoked, which meant that one grandmother used too much spice, especially pepper, because she had a diminished sense of taste; my other grandmother was a fairly bland cook, also because she couldn't taste accurately.

You mentioned you don't cook often, but when you do, what do you end up throwing together?

I am single, and I tend to make stews and soups, then eat the same thing for a week. This is especially true if I'm on deadline. But I much prefer to go out for meals, it's a chance to relax, to eat more exciting food than I can make, and to hang out with friends without anyone having to be the hostess. Chicago is full of excellent cheap restaurants; it's fun to buzz around eating a different cuisine each night.

Do you find that your cooking style is reflective of the way you write?

I don't think that my writing style and my approach to cooking have much to do with each other. I tend to pour all my time into my work, and I begrudge time spent preparing food—that's why I love to eat out.

Tell us about your biggest kitchen disaster.

Eh, nothing really qualifies as disastrous. I do recall buying a turkey in July, and cooking it in my tiny, un-air-conditioned apartment because it was cheap and I was very broke and was living on omelets. But that's just student poverty: sweaty and unappetizing.

My biggest eating-out disaster involved eating snails in a three star restaurant in Paris. I got food poisoning and spent the whole night vomiting in the hotel bathroom. At some point in the proceedings I decided to take a bath, and then fainted while getting out of the tub. I came to and saw my boyfriend peering down at me (I was blocking the door with my wet, naked, passed-out self, so I saw one eye peering through the gap in the doorway). He had slept through all my travails. He said, “Are you all right?” and I thought, I can't possibly marry this person.

Julia Child discovered her inner foodie in her early thirties, when she went to France for the first time and was served sole meunière: was there ever a point in your restaurant-going that you had a similar revelation?

I remember being taken to a sushi restaurant for the first time. It was 1983, and I don't think I had heard of such a thing before. The sushi was toy-like, surprising to my Midwestern palate, fresh and green-tasting. It was revelatory; sushi is still my favorite food.

What was your favorite food growing up?

I had a sweet tooth as a child: I loved rhubarb pie, that's what I always had on my birthday instead of cake. Still do, actually. But now my favorite food is sushi.

Food plays a significant part in The Time Traveler's Wife: Clare can't cook to save her life and Henry is nearly a master chef. One of the most significant moments in their relationship happens while Henry is cooking Clare dinner. Why did you choose that moment for him to propose?

I wanted there to be ways that Henry could take care of Clare, because he so obviously was not going to be there for her in certain other ways. Her lack of cooking skills expresses the rather hands-off parenting she received, and when Henry teaches Clare to cook late in the book he is trying to provide her with the means to sustain herself and Alba, their child, after he is gone. I am always very touched when other people cook for me: to me that is a tender thing to do. I probably rate it out of all proportion because I so often eat by myself.

Certainly there are many things in my [own] life that are connected with food; lots of important conversations over coffee, many holiday dinners and so forth. My family tends to congregate in the kitchen while my mother and one of my sisters do the cooking. But I don't have a Madeleine moment; the turning points of my life have mostly happened in cars, theaters, libraries, beds, streets, very late at night or early in the morning, often when I was not quite sure where I was, sometimes completely in my imagination.

What is your go-to comfort food?

Coffee. There's something very ritualistic about preparing and drinking coffee, it is just as nice at home or in a cafe.

M. F. K. Fisher considered eating one of the arts of living well. Do you think this perspective still has a place in today's culture?

Yes, because you cannot do it digitally. Cooking and eating will always bind us together as families and as societies because we can't invent an online substitute, because we need to eat to survive.

Let's end this meal on dessert—at the end of the day, what do you indulge yourself in?

I am allergic to milk, so I can't actually eat this, but it would be wonderful be have real chocolate pudding.

And on another note...

What is your favorite classic novel?

Of course it's impossible to pick just one, it changes every day. But of the many fine books available on DailyLit, today I'll pick Henry James' The Beast in the Jungle. Though I have to say, I found the site's description of the book completely at odds with my recollection of the actual book. I recall the protagonists waiting together with a shared sense of anticipation, rather than dread. Hmm, maybe I should go and read it again. It's a very subtle and deft piece of writing.

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Read the first chapter of Her Fearful Symmetry online at Authors in the Kitchen.

Visit Audrey Niffenegger's author website, where you can watch the trailer and listen to Audrey read from her new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry.

Support your local independent bookstore and buy Audrey's book from Indiebound.

www.authorsinthekitchen.com

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