As originally published in the April 12 issue of The Mountain-Ear newspaper.

Cathy Grace, Nederland.

Given the delight I take in fictional stories about food and cooking, one might think I were an enthusiastic and accomplished cook. Some items in that genre which I’ve enjoyed recently have ALMOST inspired me to put down whatever book I’m reading, get off the couch and into the kitchen!

Most recently, Delicious! by Ruth Reichl has won me over completely. Reichl is an accredited foodie (prominent food journalist, TV personality, and restaurant critic) with several nonfiction works to her credit. Among them, Mmmm: A Festiary and Tender at the Bone; this is her first novel. It opens with two sisters and their aunt trying to recreate the mom’s legendary gingerbread, for which there is no written recipe. It’s ten-year-old Billie with her uncanny sense of tastes, flavors, and spices who drives the repeated attempts until the family of women comes up with a faithful version of the heavenly cake they all remember. Years later, Billie doesn’t cook anymore, and we wonder why. She overcomes her almost pathological aversion to make that same incredible gingerbread for a potential boss as part of her hiring interview and (minor spoiler alert, but not a big secret) she gets the job at the food magazine Delicious! What follows is a culinary journey through New York City – in particular a butcher shop you will WANT to go to – and a gradual unraveling of the threads that have bound Billie and kept her from cooking all these years. A tantalizing mystery involving a years-long correspondence between James Beard and a young fan keeps the pages turning, as does a slow-cooking romance, AND the gingerbread recipe is included!

Remember Like Water for Chocolate? I just re-read the 1989 novel by Laura Esquivel, and delighted anew at the magical realism. As in Delicious!, the protagonist is a gifted cook: her creations have the ability to incite powerful emotions and the ensuing actions. The book is told in monthly installments with the recipes providing the framework for the stories in each chapter. Check out March (Quail in Rose Petal Sauce) – but be prepared for the consequences! I haven’t seen the 1992 movie; I wonder how graphic that segment is? I’ve just put the DVD on hold through the library, so I’ll find out.

Speaking of chocolate, there’s plenty of it in Chocolat by Joanne Harris, another old favorite. The book was published in 1999, and a movie followed in 2000, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. A free-spirited woman and her daughter alight in a small French town and stir things up with their unorthodox ways and incredible talent at making chocolate. It’s not simply chocolate, it’s a doorway to connection, generosity, sensuality and enjoyment –WAY more than the town priest can sanction.

Care to speculate on whose approach wins out in the end?

Cinnamon and Gunpowder, by Eli Brown, came out in 2013, and it’s a wonderfully imaginative tale. A male chef is captured by a pirate ship in 1819, and his life will be spared only as long as he creates an exquisite meal once a week and presents it to the fiery female captain. I love how he comes up with amazing dishes using the most marginal ingredients such as weevil-infested cornmeal, salted meat of dubious origin, and – the occasional fresh vegetable; recipes are NOT included in this book.

Combining inspired cooking with prison isn’t a common story, so I was immediately intrigued when I saw The Last Suppers on our New Fiction shelf recently. Author Mandy Mikulencak has created a small world with finessed relationships and nuances. We meet Ginny Polk at a penitentiary in Louisiana, where she has taken it upon herself to prepare the last meals for death row inmates. She makes every effort to recreate the foods the inmates request, feeling that in this way she is honoring their humanity. There’s a tantalizing mystery running through the book, and we learn along with Ginny just what happened to her father, who died when he was the warden of the institution. There are some terrific Southern recipes in the back of the book.

I just might whip up some of the recipes from these books one of these days – if I can tear myself away from reading!

Meanwhile, does anyone know of any great descriptions of TV dinners or nachos so I can enjoy art imitating my life?

Cathy Grace is a Library Assistant at the Nederland Community Library.