food & Drink | continued from previous page SK: Definitely! It’s become entertainment at this point. There’s the whole tabloid side of it, you know, the celebrities like Guy Fieri and Rachael Ray… CS: Don’t forget about our Paula! SK: Of course, Paula Deen! Exactly. It’s
entertainment the way anything on your cable dial is entertainment. But I also think that there’s a wider audience that has begun to think about the stories around food and cooking. Food can be an entry point into talking about a lot of different things. It’s not just about a chef or a finished product or what’s on your plate. It’s about the stories. Anthony Bourdain uses it as a way to explore the world!
SK: One of the pieces I edited at Salon that I was really proud of was by a writer named Novella Carpenter, who was actually a graduate student of Michael Pollan’s. It started out as thesis work and developed into a longer essay and then a book about raising her own Thanksgiving turkeys on an urban farm in Oakland. That was 2005, and the whole urban homesteading-type coverage just exploded in the next year. Novella has a new book coming out this summer that I’m really looking forward to reading. So that’s been one of my favorite parts of all this, growing alongside these other writers and seeing all the places that writing about food can take you. CS: So where has it taken you?
CS: Any favorite interviews?
SK: After I left Salon, I went to Saveur, and that was when I went from being a writer SK: I got to visit with and write about John who sometimes wrote about food to being a Thorne, one of my food writing heroes. He’s food writer. It was a huge learning opportubeen writing a newsletter—now a blog— nity; I learned how to edit recipes and how called Simple Cooking since the ‘80s. And I’ve a recipe is even developed—it was the first interviewed Michael Pollan a few times; he time I had worked somewhere with a test couldn’t be smarter or any more lovely. kitchen in the office. It was trial by fire, but I got a really good foundation. I’ve been freeCS: What’s it been like to see this whole lancing ever since. food movement evolve? Now I write more about homecooking
and ingredients; I’m kind of a dork and I love the research. I like to go back and dig into old cookbooks and see how recipes have evolved over time. CS: Is there a dish you’re into right now? SK: I do a column for the Wall Street Journal
called Breakfast 2.0, where I take a classic dish from the breakfast canon and give a traditional recipe, then give a second recipe with a twist. Recently I did waffles—and the twist was a savory waffle. It’s based on a type of bread called “lard bread”—I know, it doesn’t sound very good!—but it’s a staple of Italian bakeries in Brooklyn. It was really fun trying to deconstruct the flavor profile and match it. I ended up with something that shocked me in how much it tasted like the real thing, only in waffle form.
used to do a lot more travel writing, for sure! The amazing thing about food writing right now is there are so many different ways to be a food writer. You can take it any direction. CS: What’s your take on Southern food? SK: I was raised as a New Englander and I didn’t have a ton of exposure to Southern and Lowcountry food until I was in my 20s. Now it’s sort of dangerous every time I go down there! My husband and I honeymooned on Amelia Island, and we drove down the coast and spent some time in Savannah. We kept stopping for barbecue and shrimp and grits…honestly, the shrimp down there, it’s like a totally different species. I didn’t even like shrimp until I ate it in Georgia. We just don’t get that kind of fresh shrimp up here. cs
CS: So you started as a writer who loves to
cook and you’ve come full circle to writing about what’s happening in your own kitchen. Does that have anything to do with becoming a mom?
SK: My son just turned two, and the mother thing has definitely changed the game. I
Food and Art: Finding a Creative Path in Culinary Media with Sarah Karnasiewicz When: 5 p.m., Monday, April 7 Where: SCAD Museum of Art, 601 Turner Blvd. Cost: Free Info: scad.edu/calendar
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