First and foremost, I’m extraordinarily grateful to the writers and their families who welcomed me into their homes and lives over the past several years. A kitchen can be a sacred place and to allow me and my merry band of chefs and travelers to spill and sprawl into a previously immaculate space, with matches, cigarette lighters, alcohol, and meat, seems a great act of trust and generosity. I’m grateful also to the mentors and heroes—and there were many—who entertained my request to come cook for them but who demurred, with grace. How I would have loved to visit and cook for all of them, but I cannot fault their suspicion or reticence, their prudence—their survival skills. There’s no way I would have said yes to this project and its requests, had I been on the receiving end. Time matters to a writer as much as imagination; time is imagination. Vital also is routine and stability. Over time, said Thoreau, an old poet learns to guard his or her moods and emotions as carefully as a cat watches a mouse in the corner. And this, too, paraphrased from Flaubert: Be daily and routine in one’s regular life so that one may be violent and original in one’s work. Midnight paella for eight really doesn’t figure into either of these directives, and the older the writer, the more fiercely the clock ticks. So again, I’m grateful to all my mentors, whether I was able to visit them or not. Some were delightfully blunt in saying No, but thank you; others, like Mary Oliver, heartbreakingly gracious, stating, “The me of ten years ago would have leapt at this project,” but she needed now to conserve her remaining time.
I’m grateful also to my mentees, who, like me and my mentors, juggled their work lives, families, weddings, and other special projects, including their own creative work, to travel the world to hunt down and cook for the greats while the greats were still among us. Most notably and steadily, Erin Halcomb and Cristina Perachio, but also Molly Antopol, Skip Horack, Katy Lee, Jessie Grossman, Alexandra Delacourt, Caroline Keys, and Lowry Bass.
Others who assisted in the seemingly unmanageable logistics include Ben George, who provided me with introductions and contacts, my agent David Evans, who helped with edits and wiring money to me on the road, Yves Berger and his family, Marc Trivier and Daniel, Mrs. Ferris and her sons Bill and Gray and daughter and son-in-law. Hester and Jim Magnuson in Mississippi, as well as the Eudora Welty House, Doug and Lyn Roberts, Johnny Evans, Richard & Co. I’m grateful to Elizabeth Garriga and Ron Ellis for publicity assistance. The staff and faculty and students at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program were supportive, as was the English Department at Montana State University, where I worked as writer in residence. Mandy Hansen and Brady Banks helped enormously in this regard, as did Brady and Katy Lee and Jessie Grossman with typing and editing. I’m grateful to the editors and publications that have published excerpts from these sojourns—Mountain Magazine, Narrative, the Georgia Review, and Black Warrior Review—and to Dan and Carol Sullivan of Mustang Café in Livingston for innumerable bison rocks with which to travel. Deepest appreciation goes to chefs Tom Douglas and Gordon Hamersley and Tim and Joanne Linehan and Elizabeth Hughes Bass, as well as my beloved daughters, Mary Katherine and Lowry, who encouraged me to start cooking in the first place, as well as to Jessie Grossman, a true kitchen magician.
I’m grateful to the hundreds of editors and publishers who have fed me their time and knowledge over the years—most steadily, the late Sam Lawrence, Nicole Angeloro, the late Harry Foster, and the late Carol Houck Smith.
I’m also grateful to the mountains of the Yaak Valley, which produced so much of the food I was able to serve my writing heroes. For more information on how you can help protect this splendid wild country from its many imminent threats, please contact the Yaak Valley Forest Council (yaakvalley.org and info@yaakvalley.org).
I’m grateful to Ben George and Cynthia Saad for editing assistance, to copyeditor Allan Fallow, to production editor Pamela Marshall, to Allison J. Warner for the book’s design, and to Lowry Bass for the “EAT” photo. It was hard being gone from home so much, on the road so much, and I will appreciate always the support of those who took care of me when the road tried to get the better of me.