Eat Like An Author: Jennifer Spiegel

When most people get bored, they eat. When I get bored, I brainstorm new series and features for the blog, and THEN eat. A couple years ago, as I was brainstorming and contemplating what I wanted to eat, I thought how cool it would be to have a mini-foodie series where authors share the things they like to eat. Photos and recipes and all. And so I asked them, and amazingly they responded, and I dubbed it EAT LIKE AN AUTHOR. 




Today, Jennifer Spiegel, author of the recently released And So We Die, Having First Slept, shares what she likes to eat most: 

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I am known for making exactly one dish.

And it’s beautiful.

Quiche. My quiche runneth over.

I’ll put anything in it: organic shredded pepper jack, chicken sausage with garlic or sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, sautéed spinach and onion and mushroom. Good stuff. I mean, it’s gorgeous! Despite my uber-traditional family unit (a mom, a dad, two kids, two cats, one dog, four glow fish named Sprite, Siri, Galaxy, and Fish Stick), and our seemingly orthodox gender roles, I avoid cooking and baking whenever possible. We eat a lot of burritos and spaghetti. However, I love “The Great British Baking Show,” chiefly for its character development and weird English dishes (Blood Pudding! Suet! Game Pie!).

But there is nothing about my eating habits to suggest that I write. Except for the incessant cup of coffee by my side. I can, perhaps, create some writerly edicts related to my food intake:

•     We have bad reputations as drunks and smokers, so whenever you eat a salad, post a photo of it on social media and be sure to mention that there’s kale in it. (I eat a lot of salad and kale!)

• ·         When you go to Trader Joe’s in the autumn, be sure to appreciate the sensuality and color and aesthetic thrill of pumpkins and cranberry and all that other stuff that you know you’ll never make. (If I were to suddenly start cooking, I’d like to make it artful to reflect my sense of beauty, right?)

• ·         Occasionally, make a pizza. As with your writing, be unruly, bold. But remember that a pizza is still a pizza. (My cuisine is frightfully ordinary, but extraordinary too—if you know what I mean.)

I wish I could call myself a foodie. I wish I could reveal a sophisticated palate, or tell you about my experiences with French cuisine. I love good food. I really do. I am enamored by chocolate hazelnut whatever, and Chicago hotdogs, and chicken and waffles, and sweet potato fries, and street tacos, and lobster tail, and sprigs of this or that.

Alas, this particular writer is more of a voyeur than anything else. Don’t eat like me. Let me eat like you.

I want to know what you are eating. I want to eat like you.  

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Jennifer Spiegel is the author of three books, The Freak Chronicles (stories),  Love Slave (a novel), and And So We Die, Having First Slept (forthcoming in December from Five Oaks Press). She’s also half of the book-reviewing duo, Snotty Literati.For more information, go to www.jenniferspiegel.com.