Ask the Author: Crystal King
Answered Questions (8)
Crystal King
Hi Annette! I have a few books planned along the Italian chef/steward timeline but might eventually branch out. I wasn't familiar with Careme but he sounds like a fascinating figure! I love that he figured out the menu challenge...one could have great fun with that in fiction. Have you read *The Last Banquet* by Charles Grimwood? It's set in France around the same time, and is about a supertaster and orphan turned noble chef.
Crystal King
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! My next book is also about a chef, but a Renaissance Italian chef. I don't know what the date will be for that, but I'm guessing based on the way that publishing schedules go, it might not be till 2019. I know! So far away for me too.
Crystal King
This is an interesting question. I think for me I've always been attracted to food history, food memoir and books about food. When I began writing FEAST OF SORROW I started to try and make the recipes and that has been very memorable along the way. What I've really been dreaming about, however, is discovering these foods at the hands of an expert chef. So those memories are just starting to be created for me in some ways. The first was when I worked with acclaimed Boston chef, Patrick Campbell, when we did a class together of modern offerings of the food. That was super fun. And at the time of writing this, I'm only a couple of days away from having a three course Apicius inspired meal with wine pairings by Chef Michael Pagliarini, one of the best Italian chefs in Boston. I'm drooling just thinking of the menu.
But also, I meet every two weeks with my writing group, The Salt + Radish writers. We meet over a meal and have done so for nearly a decade. We also go on a writing retreat once a year to Maine. The meals I have with those women are always some of the best.
But also, I meet every two weeks with my writing group, The Salt + Radish writers. We meet over a meal and have done so for nearly a decade. We also go on a writing retreat once a year to Maine. The meals I have with those women are always some of the best.
Crystal King
My second novel is about a Renaissance chef, Bartolomeo Scappi. He was a famous Italian cook who served several Popes during the height of the Renaissance, approximately 1500-1577. He was one of the most celebrated chefs in all of Italy and he wrote one of the most famous cookbooks of the 16th century, The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi. From him we have some of the earliest pasta recipes, the first known drawing of a fork, and a full description, for the first time, of how the Papal Conclave is served food when sequestered. He also shares some of the first recipes with ingredients from the new world, including turkey! The novel has two love stories including one incredible hidden affair, a mystery, several dramatic deaths and sooooo much food.
Crystal King
Ass in chair. Butt in chair. Derriere in chair. As often as you possibly can, sit down and write, even if you write badly. And none of that nonsense about not having time--if you want to write a book, you will find time, even if it's fifteen minutes stolen here and there in between everything else.
Crystal King
I didn't start out writing Feast of Sorrow. Instead I was working on a book about a celebrity chef with a fantastical set of knives. I needed an origin story for those knives, however. I had recently read about Apicius and he intrigued me. I wrote a scene about him and his cook, Thrasius, thinking I could tie it in a scene about an ancient chef with my more modern story. That scene worked so much better than anything else I had yet written. I embraced this new fork in the road and began writing the tale of Apicius and how he came to have the dramatic death that history recorded for him.
Crystal King
Hi Mike, my copy is a Netgalley copy, so I can't share it, unfortunately. I'd reach out to Lisa and see what she can do. She may also be able to arrange for a NetGalley copy.
Crystal King
I have a self-built-in mechanism for escaping reality. Also, there is the sense of agency that the characters sometimes have. There is nothing more wondrous (and sometimes alarming) than the feeling of pulling away from the page and being shocked that your characters decided to do what they did. I love that feeling.
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