Description

In Chapter 9 of 15, “The Art of Eating In” author Cathy Erway learns about memoir writing by building her blog Not Eating Out in New York. Erway's literary agent encourages the writer to develop shorter blog posts into longer form stories about her coming of age story in New York City.

Transcript

00:04 to 00:10 Erik: What have you learned memoir writing in penning your book, The Art of Eating In? 00:10 to 00:55 Cathy: Oh, man. This book was really intimidating to write a memoir. I didn’t really know what it would be at first when I was shaping the idea for a book based on the idea about not eating out in New York. Which, is each blog post kind of had some personal anecdotes, a story, followed by the recipe. So, that’s totally different from writing a memoir. My literary agent just kind of said think about that form and expanding that into a larger chapter. Writing about a specific episode in your life, some event, and follow it by the recipe and talk about the food. 00:55 to 00:57 Erik: Coming of age story of the New York experience. 00:57 to 01:04 Cathy: It did! There were a lot of coming of age lessons within those two years. 01:04 to 01:07 Erik: What were some of those big lessons learned? 01:07 to 01:43 Cathy: In those two years I spent of not eating out, I was living with a boyfriend at the time, then we broke up, then I moved into my own apartment - a one bedroom, which I never had before in New York. I changed jobs three times. I had a grandparent pass away within that time. There were just a lot of changes up in the air and I think by the end I had just kind of found my footing about what I’m doing now, which is writing about food. It takes awhile, it’s a New York story. 01:43 to 01:45 Erik: Did food prove to be an anchor through those tough times? 01:46 to 02:07 Cathy: It was. You know, when there was an incident, I always made something that was fitting for it. In fact, one time my friend had a really bad accident and was hit by a car, and it was totally scary and totally devastating. I cooked her a lot of food, and you know you just cook your way through.