Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / BookTok Thoughts, Julia Turshen on Cookbooks and Romance, and Pride Picks

Transcript

BookTok Thoughts, Julia Turshen on Cookbooks and Romance, and Pride Picks · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio eight three one podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We're your hosts, Sinjon Obasker and Tyler McCall, and we're
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: so excited to talk everything romance, from the novels and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the tropes to the book discreen adaptations, and of course
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the drama of it all, you know, unpacking what the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: genre says about who we are and how we love.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: So Sanje, I know you did the mentally sane thing
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and got off threads, but I'm still on threads.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to preserve this brain, that's all I got.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I saw a post literally the other day. I see
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a variation on this post. I swear to God like
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: once a week. That was like anti BookTalk girlies, because
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: all they recommend is poorly written crap. It's like smut
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: or porn or whatever. What they're referring to, of course,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: is sort of the factory setting book talk, which is
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: like the prominent book talk that you're introduced to if
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you're like a very casual book talk user or TikTok user,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: which is the top level entry akatar fourth wing of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: it all. And by the way, I don't even agree
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: with that sentiment when we are talking about that book talk.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I think it's very reductive. But people tend to think
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: book talk is being this monolith and Sonji, you and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I know each other because I wrote a story about
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: book talk.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: The problems with thinking of BookTalk as a monolith because
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: it's not a monolith.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Right, This is such a zombified discourse. Oh it, Yeah,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: such a Let me resurrect this talking point every time
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I have something to say. Aren't people bored of saying
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: the same thing about a community that they aren't a
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: part of and don't know, know or understand very well
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: at all.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It's the is a hot dog a sandwich?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Of like BookTalk discourse and that like every three months
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: we have to argue about it online, like do pineapples
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: blog on pizza?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Do pineapples blow pizza? Grow up? I don't know, grow up?
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Grow up? Grow up? That's the other. Okay, so here's
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the thing. Let me let me take the more empathic stance, right,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Like I understand where this comes from. When I was
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: first on book talk, I read most of those books
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: that we talk about because it was fed to me
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: by the algorithm one hundred percent. And know me, when
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I was a lurker. That's what I was getting.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: That is why I read Akatar right, because the algorithm
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: was so insistent that I was somebody who liked a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Gatar that I was like, well, if the algorithms think
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: this is true, I should read it.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: And also like, when you spend more than a week
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: on a platform, things evolve because that's how an algorithm works. Yeah, Like,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: it's really strange to me that people don't seem to
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: understand the very basics of how algorithms work on social media.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: And believe me, I am no uh techamunt by any means,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: but like I do understand that I'm being fed stuff
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: that I engage with, which is why I haven't seen
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: romanticy on my feed in a really long time. Yea,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: even in romance, it's just not the subgenre of romance
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: that I tend. I mean, I've read most of the
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: heavy hitters and the important stuff, and you know, some
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: of the backlist stuff that nobody talks about anymore, but
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: is also crucial to the genre by the way.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Like what say more immediately.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Like seal winters, or I mean the paranormals that precede
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: in some of the like Milini saying Cahill's dart. Cashiel's
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: dart is one of a banger.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: It's the situation where, you know, speaking of the algorithm,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I think that used to drive me. It actually still
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: drives me nuts in media. But when I worked in media,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: maybe nuts is we would cover the Kardashians. Inevitably you
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: would get a million comments that were like, who cares?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Why are you covering the Kardashians? And I was like,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: do you know that every time you comment on this,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the algorithm goes, oh, you love this, and it gives
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you more of it, Like, yes, this is determined by
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: what you stop and watch. Like I consistently get served
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Disney adult content on TikTok. I'm not a Disney adult,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: but I know I'm getting served it because I gock
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: at it like.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Me, thanks the Lady death protest too much. I know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: I really am not.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: It's it's I know those people, having grown up an
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: hour north of Orlando.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I know those people.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I will stop and watch Disney adult content like like.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Here are the best snacks you can get it.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I haven't been to Disney in years, and I can't
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: complain about getting served Disney adult content when I watch it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: So it's these people who are like, I can't believe
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: that this is what book talk celebrates as great literature. Meanwhile,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: when is the last time you looked at a book
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: talk table, Like the Secret History is consistently on BookTalk
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: tables because there's a version of book talk that all
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: they talk about is Donna Tart right, Donna tart Talk
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and Donna tart Talk, and you just like, haven't gotten
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: to that yet, because you haven't trained the algorithm to
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: know what kind of books you want to read or
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: what kind of creators you want to engage with.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: There are either people who are totally blissfully unaware of
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: algorithmic bias that they create themselves, or there are people
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: who seem blissfully unaware of the fact that like algorithms
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: themselves are racist, that like, oh yes, they are also
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: trained to dissuade certain content from being uplifted. That doesn't
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: mean it doesn't exist, that it's not broadly engaged with,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: that people don't love it. And I think this comes
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: up a lot, and I'm interested in the fact that
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: we're talking about it in advance of our conversation with
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: July Attention too, because I think books like hers are
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: the kinds of things that people say don't exist on
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: booked on stuff that is like queer romance, that is
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: like intimate and funny and complex and interesting that just
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: strikes me as like laziness. Yeah right, curiously enough, I
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: actually see so much of this from writers who I
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: know are readers who I really respect online interesting. I mean,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: they tend to be more in literary fiction spaces. That's
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: the caveat right. That makes a lot of these are
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: writers in litfic who have ideas about what constitutes real
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: literature or substantive or meaningful literature. And that's why I
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: say everything in this reeks of misogyny. Also totally totally,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: and I don't mean to use that as a blanket statement.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: I think we can have sincere conversations about quality and
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: like not all books are created equally with the same
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: amount of care or thoughtfulness. When it comes to really
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: really really popular genre fiction and really really really popular romance,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the thing that you're looking for is not so much like,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: how is this like the most beautifully written, textually dense,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: like thoughtful work of art, It's how do you engineer
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: a story that manages to have such mass appeal, Like
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: the metrics by which you evaluate that kind of work
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: is different, Like you aren't pulling open a James Patterson
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: novel and going like, where is the thoughtful discourse religious
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: conservatism in this work? You're not. I just find that
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: it's quite interesting how like all of these writers and
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: think piece artists who like churn on pieces about book
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: talk claim to be doing the like rigorous, thoughtful, intellectual
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: labor of telling a bunch of women that they're really stupid,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Like but like in an intellectual and feminist.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, women are stupid, but in a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: feminist way.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely, They like failed to account for like the
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: most basic fact of how a book community works, which
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: like community itself is, is complicated. I find it complicated
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: to refer to book as a community myself, knowing that, like,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I know very people in my corner of the Internet,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: and I've been on there for a little bit now
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: and made relationships with people, and still I'm like, I've
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: seen ten percent of what this actually is, this whole
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: beast is. Yeah.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I just think it's become such a lazy shorthand for
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: a very specific kind of argument and a very specific person.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: And I think it sucks, Yeah, but I think the
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: reality is that, like there is really thoughtful, beautiful work
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: happening on. There have funny, insightful readers who I think
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: have really interesting things to say and who have made
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: use of a platform like that to tell interesting stories
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: about their relationship to art and in particular to romance.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: And if I'm being really honest, who is it hurting
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: If Girllypop wants to read three hundred why choose hockey
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: romance novels only, dialogue only romance novels a year? Who cares?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: She's Yeah, girly Pop's reading than the average American, more
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: than the average American. And you know what, furthermore, if
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: how she's reading all those is audiobooks, I also don't care.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Doesn't matter to me.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter to me. Reading is good.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Reading is good reading. I'm literally seeing the rainbow from
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: and you know what, that's my PBS special for today. So,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: speaking of the myth of sort of a single book talk,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I am really excited that we are going to have
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Julia tshan On to come talk to us about the
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: relationship between cookbooks and romance novels, which is new territory
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: for me. Julia is an incredibly cool person. She is
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: a cookbook writer, she is a podcast host, and she
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: has a romance novel coming out with a three to
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: one this month called down to Earth, which is about
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: a queer vegetable farmer. I really love this book, and
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I loved it so much. It's so sweet. It's so sweet,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: but also really sexy, and and that's what counts. Julia,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, and thank you so much for
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: giving us some of your precious time. I'm so excited
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: to chat with you about cookbooks and romance today.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: I am so so happy to be here.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: We both had a chance to early read down to Earth,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: which is your tape you romance novel, but you are
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: not new to writing, and I think I'm really interested.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: We're really interested in general in the relationship between your
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: cookbook writing and romance writing and what if any relationship
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: there is between both genres because they both, to like
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: an inexpert mind like myself, feels like such vastly different genres.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: But for you, I suspect that they're not correct.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, down to Earth is totally my first time writing
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: and romance writing fiction, not my first time a book.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I've worked on about a million cookbooks, And yeah, just
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: as you said, it might not seem like a lot
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: of kind of common ground between those two, but I
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: see a lot of that overlap space, like in the
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Venn diagram. But I think they're both completely undervalued as
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: literary forms, although they're both very popular genres of books,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: like they're so consumed, but I think they're both kind
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: of looked down on as like not you know, serious
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: pieces of writing.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I'm really curious. I feel like there's also such a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: strong connection between food and how we care for one
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: another and how we show up for one another. One
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: of my favorite pieces of writing I've read in the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: last year is Katie Weavers like Finding the Best Free
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Bread in America.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Story because you start it and you're like.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Good, it's so unhinged, and then her dad passes away
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and then it just interweaves all that stuff together so brilliantly.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: And it's also what I loved to out down to Earth,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And so I wanted to ask you how you used
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: food and cooking to kind of work the romance together.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just also totally agree.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: I love that piece's so good, highly recommend. I think
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: it's the same way I've been thinking about and writing
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: about food for my whole life, which honestly precedes cookbooks.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: It's like I was like this very odd kid in
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: middle school who like, if we had, you know, to
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: write an essay a book report. At that age, I
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: was always like, well, what are they eating in the book? Like,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I've always been paying attention to this. It's always been
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: my most favorite part of anything I've read, is if
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: there's any food involved in it, Like I've.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Looked for it.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: So in terms of how I used it in the book,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: it's my way into all these moments when you describe food,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: When you describe what someone's eating or cooking or both,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: you're all of a sudden there, like you're in the room,
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: you're in the kitchen, you're.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: At the table.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Food gives you all of these moments of sensory description,
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: which just yeah, brings you into the present moment. And
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: as a longtime reader of romance, you know, first time author,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: but long time reader, I love those moments in romance novels,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: like when you just feel like you're there. And I
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: have found that as a reader through food and other books,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: and now is yeah a new writer of fiction that
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: just felt like part of the pun but like low
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: hanging fruit, like let me just describe what they're cooking
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: and eating, and then I can just allow you, the reader, hopefully,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: to feel like you're like seeing them, like they're right
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: there in front of you.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I don't want to like overly summarize the book because
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: people should just go read it. But a huge part
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: of it is that one of the characters is in
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: town from the city, and the other character is local
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: to this small town and a farmer, and it almost
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: has a setup of like a Hallmark novel. But I
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: think there's something really interesting about how the character who
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: comes from the city is like becoming aware of people's
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: relationships to land through engagement with food, through engagement with
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: people that like and I should probably just use names,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: but yeah, he starts coming from the city. Is page
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Frankie is the farmer upstate, and I was like, why
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: am I being secretive? Notice spiler and it spoiler halfwayver after,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: But like Paige who goes upstate and meets Frankie is
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: like watching Frankie tend to land and so food is involved,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: but so too is like the actual practice of like
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: caring for land. Caring for community, which I thought was
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: really lovely. And I'm curious if that like drew on
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: your own experiences of like cooking, working, being in community.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and yes. In twenty twenty one, I had
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: come out with I think my third or fourth solo cookbook,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: called Simply Julia, but it was the fifteenth cookbook I
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: had worked on in as many years, and fifteen years,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: because I've worked with a lot of other people on
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: their cookbooks and I was just pretty burnt out from
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: working on cookbooks. They are just a ton of work,
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: I will say, just as an aside writing fiction for
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: the first time, I'm like, oh, just words on a page,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: like I don't have to test a recipe, I don't
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: have to produce a photo shoot like I don't you know,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, amazing. So anyway, in this sort of
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: personal moment of like I think I just need a
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: break and to try something different and do something different
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: with my mind and my body and my life, I
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: went and I worked full time for that year at
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: my friend's vegetable farm. And since then I've kind of
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: woven my old life in with my knee life. But
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: I still am very attached to the farm and I
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: work there currently part time on there on Mondays and Fridays.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: So yeah, my experience having a midlife farming crisis absolutely
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: is like an inspiration for Down to Earth. And just
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: like we were just talking about the food, like all
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: the details I get to include when it comes to
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: cooking and eating in the book, you know, my time
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: at the farm really informed all of these details about
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Frankie the farmer's life on the farm and yeah, her
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: connection to not just where she is farming, but also
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: who she's working with and all the different ways that
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: community kind of holds itself together, both at the farm
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: and in this small fictional town called sung Goold, which
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: is my favorite cherry tomato.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Delicious tomato, so good, that's so sweet, really good.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really loved that approach to the small town romance,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: which is obviously its own subcategory is getting to know
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the people that you're in community with but also caring
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: for the land that you're in And like that is
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: a spoiler, I guess, but what goes on and how
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: climate change my view affecting thing. And I just really
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: loved the intentionality of that and the community that page becomes.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: A part of yeah, I thought that was really really great.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, I appreciate that. I think of Sung Gole this
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: like fake Town I made up as its own kind
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: of protagonist in the book. That's another thing I really
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: enjoy and like not just in books, but like in
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: TVs and films, where it's like the place where something
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: set is really pivotal. I can't believe I'm bringing up
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Sex and the City as I'm talking to you guys,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: but the way, like, yeah, New York City is like
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: the fifth yeah woman on that show. I'm not comparing
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: Down to Earth to Sex and the City. They're very different,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: but yeah, the place is really important to me.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: It's so full of competency porn Like Frankie is such
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: a competent, self assured person who can do so many things,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and I feel like that's also true of cookbooks. I'm curious,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: like kind of what the parallel there is.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: I mean to me, it's so funny because when I
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: like wrote it wasn't even the first draft. It was
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: like when I wrote the first chapter, which wasn't like
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: chapter one. I kind of started in the middle and
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: I gave it to Erica and Claire, who for anyone
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: who's listening, you know, who are a great duo behind
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: a three to one. Yeah, they were like, oh my god,
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: so much competency porn, which just made me laugh because
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I was like, no, she's just a gay woman.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Welcome to let me introduce you to lesbians.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, just like call it whatever you want, but
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: that's what I see here.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, sorry, what was your question about cook competency
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: porn and cookings?
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: You know, maybe this is just as a queer woman,
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: but just in general, like I find so much empowerment
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: in learning how to do things.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I feel like we've been asking you a lot about
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: like how is it the cookbooks and former romance writing?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: But I'm curious if going back to cookbook writing after
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: romance writing, if you see influence going from fiction and
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: genre fiction into cookbooks, Like do you think that there's
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: any anything you'll carry from that experience?
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: I will never not believe in storytelling. And I think
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: that our stories are how we know ourselves, define ourselves,
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: share ourselves, and I think it's how we know and
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: learn about other people. And the highest form of storytelling
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: is like feeling connected, Like I see myself in your story,
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: you see yourself in mind, like that kind of thing
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: and like that's just I don't know humanity, like I
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: believe in that so much. I have felt what that
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: feels like on both sides of that coin. I'm lucky
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: to have felt both sides of that, and that that
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: is something that I think over the last I don't
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: know contemporary cookbooks. I'm just I won't put a number
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: on it, but the last decade or two, like that's
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: become I think a bigger part of contemporary cookbooks. Like
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: if you look at older cookbooks, the very textbook, and
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: it's very much like I think when cooking was more
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: a necessity and it was like here's really straightforward directions,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: very economical writing. And I think there's a lot more
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: voice in cookbooks than there ever has been, and I
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: think readers respond to that because I think if you
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: do just want the recipe, which like I Google recipes
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: all the time, Like that's not a bad thing, but
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: there's a way you can just access that so quickly,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: you know, on your device. But I think if you
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: want to like get to know a person or a
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: place or hear those stories, like cookbooks are really valuable
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: in that way. So I don't know that that's like
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: an influence of genre writing at all, But I think
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: that is a thing they share, and I think, you know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: I think there are a lot of people who write
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: about food in this traditional food media sense who are
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: now writing fiction, Like I see that, like I'm not
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: the only one doing this, which I think is really cool.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I do think that there's something here about how like
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: in an increasingly like product oriented economy that is like,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: how can I get you the exact item that you
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: need to fix your problem or solve your thing, or
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: assuage your existential woes that both cookbooks and romance novels
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: are so process oriented that like when you kind of
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: know where you're going to end up, the idea of
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: like manipulation of language along the way being the pleasurable
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: thing is like an alteration of the framework itself that
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: I think is really useful. Like I'm thinking about the
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: fact that I do have one cookbook recipe that is
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: like a scanned page of a friend's dessert cookbook that
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: is like a fallen chocolate cake recipe that is like
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: a flowerless chocolate cake, And it's the recipe that taught
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: me how to make a meringue. It's the recipe I
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: make every single year for one of my best friend's birthdays,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: and it's like a ritual that like the six of
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: us gather at my place to make this cake, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: we have for as long as I've lived in New York.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: But I think that's the thing of like it's such
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: an intimate experience every time I revisit the recipe, which
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: is once a year, and like, I'm again just sort
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: of like tickled by, like how floaty the language is,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: where like the writing of the recipe itself is like
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: it'll fall apart, it'll crumble, that's the point, like like
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: let it, you know. It's just it's so like luxurious
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: and almost like hedonistic with language in a way that
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: like a mercenary recipe that you get off of chat
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: ept or whatever is never going to be. It's never
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: going to be. And I think when I think about
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: the pleasure principle in cookbooks and romance, it's that it's
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: that orientation towards process that becomes so intimate.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, I yeah, I'm just saying yes over and over
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: and nodding enthusiastically because I'm with you on all of this.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Something that appeals to me again, as both a writer
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: and reader of both cookbooks and romance is the formula
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: of it all, Like they're both very formulaic genres, which
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: might not sound like a good thing. I think it's great.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: I think as a writer, I love the parameters. There's
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: so much room within those parameters to like have fun
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: with language and to just be so creative. And as
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: a reader, it is so nice to open a book
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: and you know it's going to end well, which you know, again,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: cookbooks and romance share and it's nice to know that
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: you're getting into a book where you can kind of
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: predict what structure it's going to follow. And I think
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: that is comforting and I think that is valuable. And
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: it's nice to open a book and you know exactly
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: what you're signing up for and you want to see
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: how it goes anyway, Like you want to see how
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: you get there and go through that process. Just like
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: you said, I'm just repeating everything you said. I just
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I just feel it so much and I think it's.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Just so true.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: And we're also like getting the opportunity to, like, yeah,
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: have a very intimate experience as a reader with the author,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Like how do you person who wrote this, like, how
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: do you think about it? And I'm going to enter
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: those pages for a moment and be there with you
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: like that is like an incredible experience. I think there's
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of trust in that experience, and that is
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: a trust I don't take lightly as a writer or
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: as a reader.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Well, Julia, thank you so much. This is really wonderful.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: No, thank you for having me. I feel like I
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: could talk to you both all day. It's just it's
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: a pleasure to talk to people who love the stuff,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: and yeah, I do. So this is great.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: I am so delighted by Julia and by that conversation.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: And to keep this kind of on theme, we're going
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: to close out today by talking about queer romance, because
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: it is of course Pride, which is some of the
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: best few weeks of the whole year. I think, as
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: is customary for us, will each pitch our queer romance. Yeah,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: sound good, And maybe we can also talk about some
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: of the other ones that we had as contenders, because
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: famously we have a hard time with live down to
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: just one book. One thing about is we be reading,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: and we do be reading, and so we have lots
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: of thoughts about many kinds of romance. Okay, you want
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to start us off, Tyler, are you recommending queer romance
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: to end all queer romance?
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like you're maybe you'll be surprised by my pick. Okay,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: maybe not have that because it's a historical stop. I
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: think Adrianna her an Island princess, starts a scandal. I
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: don't know why I'm holding this up like it's a
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: book report and Island starts a scandal. I love this
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: book so much. Okay, so it's part of the Las
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Leones series, and I love all of them so much.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: But this one is Manuela a young lady who had
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: been married to a man kind of disastrously but like
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: trying to fit in with her parents expectations for herself.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: And she meets this one Cora, who is a duchess,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and they embark on this like scandalous affair, and there's
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: an age gap, like Cora's older older who I love
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: her so much everything about this book. First of all,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the chemistry is crazy. The chemistry goes crazy in this book.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: It's off the wall, it's nuts. It's a hot book.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Hot, it's so hot again in a way that, like
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I've said this before, but sometimes I'm like not prepared
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: for historicals to be as hot as they are.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: This one so hot.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I also would give anything for Cora. I just she's
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: she's mommy. Yeah, she's mother.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable amount of Riz, unbelievable amounts of Riz.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: But I also really love that Manuela can like match
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: that energy. Like I feel like throughout the whole book,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: they're very evenly matched in the riz. Like they have
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: different kinds of RIZ, but they're like very evenly matched
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: in the energy that they're giving off, even though they
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: come from like different lifestyles and life experiences. And it's
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: just this, like it's it's the dreamiest romance.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Again.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: The sex is so hot, Like I remember reading being
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: like I have to take a break, I have to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: put this down.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: No, I was physically sweating.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I need to go get some water. Like it's just
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: so good. I had such a hard time narrowing it down.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And then I saw this one on my shelf and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I was like, it's this, it's it's it's this one
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: that I brought to work today.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: What is your pick? I was nervous, Okay, funny enough
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: also picked a historical funny imagine that me picking a
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: historical never unheard of, which is so funny because there's
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: so much great queer contemporary out there. How was it
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: that we both ended up picking a historical I don't know, unclear,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: but that is really funny to me. I picked The
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Companion by ee Automan. Have you read?
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Oh I have?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Isn't it this? I we love the Companion? Yeah? Okay,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: So before I get ahead of myself premise, it is
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: nineteen forties New York. Madeline Slaughter is exhausted, burnt out
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: and requests a vacation and ends up serving as a
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: living companion to this like reclusive novelist named Victor Halliwell.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: And in the course of the novel, Madeline becomes good
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: friends with both Victor and Victor's neighbor Audrey, who is
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: mysterious and beautiful, and the three of them, Sorry this
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: is a little bit of a spoiler, but they end
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: up in like a poly relationship. And also all three
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: of them are trans and so much of it is
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: about this like idyllic sort of perpetually nostalgic. I don't
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: know what to say. It's just such a dreamy, sweet
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: novel of these three people finding sanctuary in each other. Yeah,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: and the way that like their companionship with each other
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: is about finding a safe place for trans people to
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: just be in a world that is like really hostile
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: to their existence and is also just like hot and intimate,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: and like, yeah, I just I just find it to
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: be such a charming novel and I think it's lovely
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: both because the historical setting is a little unusual. I
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: think in both of these the historical setting is like
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: little offbeat, like Paris is a little bit different than
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: the typical regency, and so is New York in the forties.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: And I think there's something there too about how this
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: pride in every pride, I feel very just like moved
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: by the existence of queer people across time, and I
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: find it to be very romantic, how like queer love
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: stretches across time too. And there's something too about how
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: in both of these stories, I'm sort of like, yeah,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: this kind of like intimacy and love and affection has
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: always existed and will always exist, And isn't that just
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: the sweetest, most romantic thing?
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Wait, it is so interesting that we both picked historicals. Yeah,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: because I listen, I've got a shell full of contemporary
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: queer romances too, that it was like really hard honestly,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: if I hadn't already recommended the pairing for like a
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Summer Room like that also is very top of my
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: list because I love the bisexual representation in it. It's
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: just one of my favorite romances period. I think Casey
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: mcquistin obviously is a genius so good, so any of
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: their work would have been good. What else would you
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: have recommended?
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I'm curious. I was thinking about you made a fool
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: of Death with your beauty by because I mean, I
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: think because I have food and intimacy on the mind,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: and Full of Death is just like such a sensory
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: pleasure of an avel, Like they spend the whole time
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: thinking about art and food and love. The arc of
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: the novel itself is about the main character coming to
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: seize worldly pleasures in the wake of grief, which I
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: think is really really special. That was my second runner up.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I find it very important to be reading queer romance
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: year round, absolutely, but I do think that like there's
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: something special about pride and like also the energy in
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: the city this month is so good.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Joy is like the number one thing for me in
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a romance novel, like just that feeling of queer joy,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: queer community, everything that you could want in a romance novel.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I think what you're saying about, like picking historicals too
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: is like knowing that that queer joy and that queer
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: love has existed. It's not like a new thing, you know.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I think that that's also really important.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Sometimes we talk about historical is like
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: they are like a rejection of historical truth or like
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: an obfuscation of historical truth. But I think the reality
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: is that like a lot of people who write historicals
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: care very deeply about the historical record, and like are
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: often pulling stories from real historical record to inspire and
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: influence their writing, and like they're drawing on real stories
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: and real account I'm not saying that either of the
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: books that we recommended was like biographical in any way,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: but that like it's not that much of a stretch
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: of the imagination to suggests that these things could have
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: and did happen right now, and also not even necessary
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: for it to be a valuable story.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Read Queer Romance year Round. Begay Do Crimes?
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I really am loving that. Yeah, Begay Do Crime?
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Bgay, do Crime, read Queer Romance?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Is that the show? I think that's the show?
• 31:15
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