Lucy Knisley on Life with Relish
Cartoonist and foodie Lucy Knisley has learned many lessons in life from food. Here, she shares a few with us.
I love how the book considers your relationships (particularly with your parents, but also your friends) through the lens of food. When you become close with someone, do you begin to think of them in terms of their favorite foods?
Sometimes! I have ice cream traditions with certain very good and understanding friends who I know will drop everything to come eat ice cream with me when I get a craving. I associate friends with their talent or interest in cooking, and special meals we've shared. I had to completely reorient my culinary identity when I was dating a vegan, a while ago. It became something that I focused on quite a bit in our relationship-- trying to understand and immerse myself in his food world. My good pal from college and I have a tradition of eating somewhere new together every time we see one another. When you think about it, the customs of dining are present in most interactions. Let's get coffee. How about a pizza? Can I take you out to dinner? Let's do brunch!
How much do the acts of cooking together, eating together, and simply selecting what to make or which restaurants to visit inform the relationship you have with your parents and friends?
Everyone has their own food personality or identity. My dad and I have dinner a lot, especially since I moved to New York (he lives in midtown). He can usually spot what I'll order from a new menu from a mile away, which is uncanny because I sometimes choose a wild card to try to throw him off and he STILL guesses it. I'm always on the hunt for restaurants or dishes that my friends or family would enjoy. When people come to visit me, they're usually aware that we'll be eating pretty much nonstop while they're here. I have a whole list of places and foods I want to share with friends, divided into subcategories of cheap eats, veggie, fancy, sweets, funky, and new, all tailored to the person I want to share it with. The Lucy Knisley food tour of New York is something that most of my out-of-town pals have experienced at least once, and they might hesitate over the regimen of constant walking and eating, but I know they just couldn't leave without trying this one more spot I know.
If you had to name the single best meal you’ve ever had, could you do it? What would it be?
Not messing around here. Subcategories of "favorite meals" are as follows: A. Best fancy-pants meal out at a special restaurant. B. Best travel food discovered. and C. The thing I ate recently that I can't stop thinking about. A. category is tied between Alinea and Per Se. I actually still can't believe I got to dine at either of these restaurants. Alinea was my first experience with serious gastronomy, and it absolutely blew my mind away. Per Se was a very special treat for my recent birthday, and it was absolutely insane. At Alinea, I remember the lavender smoke dessert especially well. At Per Se, the NYT much-lauded "oyster and pearls." Category B. I visited Seoul, Korea this past year, and took a really amazing food tour (seouleats.com). The street food-- especially the South Korean takes on hot dogs-- really amazed me. Category C. I've been trying to make the perfect taco, as an affront to the terrible cold weather in New York right now. Tacos are summery food, in my mind, so it helps me get through the worst part of winter to eat warm. I've been sauteeing chicken with spices and chile and tomato, pickling red onions, combining these with watercress and goat cheese and black beans on a warm corn tortilla. I think I'm starting to annoy people with how much I've been talking about my taco project.
What’s your favorite thing to cook? The food that you fall back on most?
Mexican food. It's so cheap and easy, and I've always loved it. My mom always made amazing mexican food growing up, and it's carried over into my adult life. Half of my cupboard is filled with cans of black beans. I also tend to make sauteed carrots quite a bit. It's a comfort food thing. But since moving to New York City nearly two years ago, my fallback foods have shifted to the decidedly "takeout" variety. It's pretty hard to resist paying five bucks for a gigantic container of tom kha soup, delivered to my house within ten minutes.
Is there anything you refuse to attempt to make?
There's a chapter in Relish about my struggle to try to replicate the croissants I ate in Venice when I was 18. It took me a while to figure out that I was never going to fully reproduce the effect. Now I tend to steer clear of attempts to possess the most amazing things I eat when I travel, with the understanding that sometimes it's not just the recipe that makes the food so delicious.
You say in the book that your friends are often afraid to cook for you because they know what a foodie you are. Is there anything you absolutely love for someone else to make for you?
My mom RARELY makes this duck dish that I love. She sautees duck breasts and serves it over home grown arugala with chevre and dried cranberries and corn and candied walnuts and it is SO good. A totally summery dish that she only makes at the peak of summer, so I have to time my visits home juuuust right. I'm always bugging her to make it for me to no avail. My friend Andrew makes schnitzel in the style he learned from his time abroad in Germany from the grandmother of the house he was staying in. He made it for me for my birthday this year after I dropped unsubtle hints about it. But in general, I just really love to be cooked for. As should everyone! There's nothing better than eating something that someone carefully prepared and served you. It's something we should all be appreciative of. Even a bad meal is still nice when someone put in the effort to feed you.
What are you working on next?
I have a bunch of projects going at the moment. I made a number of travelogues in the last year that I'm finishing up, and I'm developing my next big graphic novel idea right now. It's a little too soon to say what it'll be, but it's a bit of a departure in style from my last few projects, so I'm excited and nervous about it.
-- John Hogan
