Kim Severson worked at the Anchorage Daily News from 1991 to 1998 as a features writer, the original editor of 8 (now Play), an assistant city editor and, perhaps most famously, restaurant reviewer. After leaving Alaska, she won several national awards including the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism and four James Beard awards for food writing. Last year she published a well-received memoir, "Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life."
Severson returns to Anchorage this weekend as a guest speaker at the Alaska Press Club's annual journalism conference. She'll make a public appearance to sign copies of her book at 2 p.m. today at Barnes & Noble, 200 E. Northern Lights Blvd.
"Spoon Fed" deals with her life -- culinary and otherwise -- mostly after Anchorage. Each chapter focuses on a different cook with whom she has cooked and eaten. Some are famous, like Rachael Ray. Others are private people, like her mother.
While preparing for her Anchorage visit, she answered eight questions by email.
Q. Give us the quick take on your life post-Anchorage.
A. I careened down to San Francisco to write about food for the Chronicle and learned how to cook and eat like a Californian. In 2004, The New York Times hired me as a food writer, so my partner Katia and I moved. She gave birth to our daughter, Sammy, who's 3 now. About six months ago I took a job as the Atlanta bureau chief for the Times. I'm a Southerner! And I have now lived in all four corners of the country.
Q. How did you come up with the idea for "Spoon Fed?"
A. I wanted to write about some of the grand dames of the cooking world -- the women who taught us how to cook before we started learning from TV. I started with Marion Cunningham, who got famous as James Beard's assistant and who rewrote the "Fannie Farmer Cookbook." But when I started to look at who I was interested in, who I had written about and who I admired, I realized they were women who had taught me something at some point in my life. And then, if I was going to talk about life lessons, I needed to write about why I needed to learn those life lessons from them.
The next thing I knew, I was spilling my guts.
Q. Your battle with alcohol is a major thread throughout the book. Does Alaska present special traps for an alcoholic trying to quit?
A. Well, as many of your readers know, Anchorage is a great place to consume large amounts of alcohol. The dark, the cold, the thrill of the summer, the close community of friends. But ask a drunk in New York or San Francisco and they'll probably say the same thing about where they live.
What I found, when I was ready to quit, was a surprisingly large group of people in Alaska who had figured out a way to stop and shared it with me. Also, so many people in Alaska have seen how devastating alcohol can be. A good network of support systems to help people stop has grown out of that.
Q. Some consider food to be only a necessity for life, like medicine except better-tasting; others treat it like a sacrament. How would you place yourself in that spectrum?
A. Well, as far as people who see food only as medicine? Bless their hearts, as they say here in the South. Certainly, it can be that. But the pleasures of the table, both from pure taste and sensory satisfaction, to the community that gets built when people share food, is so much more than simple fuel. I think we had lost that -- the power that comes from cooking and eating together -- but it's coming back. I was at Yale recently and instead of throwing a kegger, a group of students were going to have a pig roast. Young people are canning, for god's sake! This is huge.
I do think, for the record, that bacon has jumped the shark, that foam is not a sauce, and nothing beats great produce.
Q. Any advice for people who want to keep eating well as food prices keep going up?
A. Learn to cook. That is one way to save money. One good roast chicken (stuff the cavity with a cut-up lemon and fresh herbs, salt and pepper the thing and roast at 400 degrees for an hour and change) can make two meals, three if you get fancy and make a little stock and use it as a soup base. At restaurants, I'll often order two starters instead of an appetizer and a main course. Or split an entrée. I think the traditional idea of a starter, an entrée and dessert is over. Entrees are often too big, anyway.
And think about the cost of food in relation to other things. We'll pay $100 for a pair of sneakers but balk at the cost of fresh produce or quality protein. Good food costs a little bit more than the dollar value menu, but the rewards -- for a relatively small increase in cost -- are enormous.
Q. What advice do you have for a restaurant owner concerned that his or her establishment might be slapped in a review?
A. Make good, quality food, be on top of the service and get a thick skin.
Q. Any thoughts on national trends that perhaps haven't hit Alaska yet?
A. In San Francisco and New York, a lot of chefs are incorporating Japanese flavors and techniques. That will only continue, given the tragedy over there. Also, there's an eastern European fascination starting to percolate. The notion of "farm-to-table" as a separate and distinct style of eating (in New York they call it haute barnyard cuisine) is fading. The principles of eating food that has integrity and is grown close to home and sourced well is getting incorporated into all kinds of restaurants, both high and low. Just look at the Chipotle chain (which, I predict, will one day make it to Anchorage).
Q. Each chapter in "Spoon Fed" ends with a life lesson you learned from the cook being profiled. Is there any overarching moral in the book?
A. Well, I can tell you that in my experience, people's struggles really boil down to one or two things we all get to revisit and relearn our whole lives. For example, I will always struggle with wanting approval from outside sources (hello, Mom!). Yours might look different than mine.
One thing I try to remember is that everyone is fighting a great battle. It helps me not get so upset in traffic. And recently, I have been working on remembering that the fear of something happening is always worse than the actual event. I like to repeat this quote from Mark Twain: "Some of the worst things in my life never even happened."
Reach Mike Dunham at mdunham@adn.com or 257-4332.
By MIKE DUNHAM
mdunham@adn.com