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Food blogger devotion to Dorie Greenspan is well-recorded. But cookbook and fiction author Laurie Colwin? About her fiction, Anna Quinlan once wrote, "It is difficult to write about Laurie's fiction without preaching either to the converted or to the clueless." (With Passion and Affect, Gourmet, August 2001)
The food bloggers and food-blog readers who know Laurie Colwin, love Laurie Colwin, who in 1992 at age 48, simply didn't wake up one morning. She was the author of ten works of fiction and two rambling, homey cookbooks and a columnist for Gourmet magazine. Because she wrote her columns long in advance, her words continued in print for another year and were read with a certain poignancy, knowing where her thoughts took her during the last months of her life.
"Her voice is warm and generous, her writing style simple and elegant, and she has such an intimate way of telling tales that she makes you feel she wrote the book just for you. And more importantly, she is funny. Whether she's laughing at herself or pointing out entertaining traits in others, it is always clever and affectionate, never cynical nor cruel." ~ read Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking from Chocolate & Zucchini
"Maybe it's just the holiday, a time when those of us who are fortunate feel loved, feel warmed by the company of others, feel that groups of people dining together at someone's home is, indeed, a special occasion, but I find myself thinking about Laurie Colwin. She died unexpectedly and too young, and those of us who remember her still miss her, even if we knew her only through her books and her Gourmet columns. She was that kind of writer, that kind of person, someone you wanted as your friend: a funny, intelligent, full-of-heart kind of person, and one who would feed you well, to boot." ~ read Laurie Colwin from You Are What You Eat
"Take, for example, the darling delicata pictured above. This is a squash so luscious that I generally take the advice of Laurie Colwin, whose essay on vegetables in her lovely book Home Cooking first persuaded me to try delicata squash. She recommended merely baking it with butter and pepper, since the flavor of this gorgeous vegetable requires no other dressing. A woman ahead of her time, the late Ms. Colwin first wrote about delicata squash some 20 years ago. This was during an era when most of us were resigned to a choice of acorn or butternut once fall crops began to appear. I brook no sneering at butternut, however, which remains a perennial favorite of mine -- and which I gave a lovely new treatment quite recently, in a tantalizing gratin." ~ read Cuddling Up to Cucurbitacae -- The Winter Version from A Finger in Every Pie
I've long wished Gourmet would collect Laurie's columns and recipes, an online legacy for a culinary icon. But no. So when Deb from Smitten Kitchen and I both posted Laurie Colwin recipes today (Deb posted Laurie's Bread Without a Timetable and I posted what I call At Last! Black Bean Soup), I was inspired, Hey, why don't I build the collection? It won't be her prosaic columns but it will be, for the first time I think, a collection of her recipes. Turns out, only a few of Laurie Colwin's recipes have made it online, even though her name comes up often in blog comments. But here they are.
Kitchenography ~ Creamed Spinach with Jalapeño Peppers
The Perfect Pantry ~ Roasted Pepper Chicken
Love and Cooking ~ Lemon Chutney
Food Blog Search ~ More Laurie Colwin references
Have you posted a Laurie Colwin recipe? Read Home Cooking or More Home Cooking or her works of fiction? Leave a link or comment -- and then, let's all spread the word. This is someone whose legacy is worth preserving.
BlogHer food editor Alanna Kellogg writes the food column Kitchen Parade and the food blog about vegetables A Veggie Venture. She gave her copy of Home Cooking to Pille from Nami-Nami when she visited from Estonia this summer.
