Since I have started answering interview questions about my novel
Supper Club, I have been asked the question a few times: “Why did you decide to include recipes in the novel, and what do they represent?” And while I do have a number of sections dedicated to the methodical process of cooking or baking a particular food — kimchi, sourdough, spaghetti puttanesca, caramelized onions — I don’t necessarily think of them as recipes, but more the embodied experience of following a recipe, or thoughts on a recipe.
The first passage I wrote in this mode was a section that quite meticulously details the various methods for caramelizing onions...