Novel Food Winter 2011: Make Plans to Cook from a Book Now!

For several years now, Simona Carini (whose "pizza beans" were the inspiration for my last post) and I have been partners in an online event that we call Novel Food. We started the event after Simona introduced me to the mystery novels of Andrea Camilleri, because Sicilian food is described so lusciously in those books that we thought it would be fun to try to recreate some of the dishes mentioned.

What started with Camilleri expanded to include lots of different authors and types of literary works, and other novel-loving cooks have taken part in the event. The novel you choose doesn't have to have a food focus, per se; it just needs to inspire you to cook and eat. Your dish can be one that's mentioned in the novel, but it doesn't have to be.

For instance, in one early edition of NF I made calia e simenza, a chickpea and pumpkin seed snack that was described in a couple of Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano books and sounded scrumptious (it was). For the last edition, I made muffulettas—not because they appeared in David Fulmer's book Chasing the Devil's Tail but because the story is set in New Orleans. So just let your food-loving self be your guide.

We hope you'll join us for this edition of NF. Here are the rules:

• Cook something that's inspired by a published literary work.
• Do a write-up about the dish and book and post it on your blog or site by midnight (Pacific Time) on Sunday, February 13, 2011.
• Reference the Novel Food event in your post by linking to this announcement or to Simona's. Feel free to use the logo if you'd like to.
• Send a message to me (champaigntaste AT gmail DOT com) or Simona (simosite AT mac DOT com) containing your name, your blog's name, and a permanent link to your post.

We'll include links to all submissions in our roundup posts for the event shortly after Valentine's Day (since Simona and I both host the event, we split the submissions and each do a roundup featuring half of them).

If you don't have a blog, you can still take part. Just send a message to Simona or me by the date mentioned above and tell us about the book you read and what you were inspired by it to cook (you can include a recipe if you like, but it's not mandatory). If you can send a photo of the dish, as well, that's great.

To see examples of past Novel Food roundups, go to Simona's Novel Food Collection page, where she has links to every edition of the event from 2007 to 2010.

A novel that I recently finished will probably be the one I cook from this time: World and Town, by Gish Jen. So, if all goes well, I'll have some tasty Chinese food for you next month.

Have you been reading lately? We'd love to hear your book recommendations, even if you aren't able to join us for this event.

Yours in food and books,

Lisa and Simona

P.S. You might have noticed that we have beautiful new Novel Food logo this year; that's thanks to my esteemed partner, Keith. We thank him for his creativity and for generously donating his time to design it for us.