Kate Christensen
Kate Christensen
Kate Christensenis an American novelist. She won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for her fourth novel, The Great Man, about a painter and the three women in his life. Her previous novels are In the Drink, Jeremy Thrane, and The Epicure's Lament. Her fifth novel, Trouble, was released in paperback by Vintage/Anchor in June 2010. Her sixth novel, The Astral, was published in hardcover by Doubleday in June 2011. She is also the author of two food-related memoirs, "Blue Plate Special"and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 August 1962
CountryUnited States of America
I wanted to write a food book, but I'm not a chef or an expert on culinary matters, to put it mildly.
Across the Atlantic, in the scattered, far-flung, rural settlements of colonial America, hospitality had become a central concern, and hostesses, like peacocks displaying their iridescent plumage, tried to outdo one another with their creative food displays.
My 50th birthday approaching felt like a big milestone to me. I've lived half a century. If I write about food and use my life as a fulcrum to move the story along, maybe I've lived long enough to fashion a narrative that has a happy ending.
In the winter of 2012, as my fiftieth birthday approached, I began to write what turned into my autobiography, a look at my own life through the lens of food.
When I was younger, I read all the great food memoirs, by M.F.K. Fisher and Laurie Colwin and Julia Child and Nicolas Freeling and Ruth Reichl, and felt flooded with a sense of comfort and safety.
'Blue Plate Special' is the autobiography of my first half-century of life, with food as the subject.
I think there's a part of my brain where food, language, and memory all intersect, and it's really powerful. I think I'm not alone in this.
There's a certain time of day after sunset when people naturally seem to feel the urge to gather by a fire or a stove or a hibachi or another common source of heat and food, and hunker down together to eat and drink. Call it the blue hour.
I realized that I've had a really rocky relationship with food - it has not been a gauzy, beautiful summer of ripe melons and perfectly buttered toast.
Food is not a means toward resolution. It can't cure heartbreak or solve untenable dilemmas.
Most of all, I love unfussy, unpretentious, simple food made with excellent ingredients. If I'm a snob, it's about quality, not cuisine.
In literature, older women are not often given center stage.
I'm not a foodie - I'm an eater: I'm hungry.
Eating by myself in my own apartment, single and alone again for the first time in many years, I should have felt, but did not feel, sad. Because I had taken the trouble to make myself a real dinner, I felt nurtured and cared for, if only by myself. Eating alone was freeing, too; I didn't have to make conversation.