My name is Lizzy, and my pronouns are she/they. I'm glad you made it! Before diving in to the recipes, I wanted to take a second to answer the question - why this blog? There are so many more important things to write about - why write about books and food and food in books?
Short answer: I've always loved those things, especially when they happened at the same time. Also, trauma.
Longer answer: At the age of seven, I was already well aware that my home life was not normal, and every chance I got to seek sanctuary in the school library I took wholeheartedly. Whenever lunchtime rolled around or a rainy day - I grew up in Washington, and there were a lot of rainy days - meant no recess, I'd hightail it to the library. I have fond memories of picking up whatever book I could find and hiding away in a corner, curled up over the pages of adventures and ghost stories and books I pilfered from the "big kids" section when no one was looking. My favorites, of course, were the Redwall books. I obsessively read Brian Jacques' books until the pulpy pages of the paperback copies our little school library had were worn soft and opened to my favorite sections. which were, of course, the parts with food.
I was drawn in by the adorable woodland creatures on the cover, and while I couldn't tell you a single thing about the plot (I'm pretty sure the weasels were the bad guys?) now, as a nine-year-old I could recite from memory the menus of the various foods Jacques detailed on those well-worn pages. I forgot about how lonely I was. I forgot to worry about what kind of mother I was going to get that day when I got home from school. I forgot about how hungry I was on the days she neglected to feed my siblings and I. I was far too busy worrying about militant rodents and the woodland politics and, of course, how exactly to make Treetop Broth or Candied Chestnuts. These were the first books to save me.
Many years later, on the other side of a lifetime of trauma, I had lost the resiliency of my childhood. I'd endured more than I care to repeat here at the hands of my mother and made the decision to cut her out of my life - the single most selfish thing I had ever done. Any abuse survivor, especially one with C-PTSD, can tell you how hard that moment is, the moment a survivor chooses to do just that - survive. What people don't tell you - or at least, what I didn't know, when it was my turn - is that the cost of that moment can take months, even years, to be paid in full.
It took me four years to recover. Four years of major clinical depression and anxiety that I couldn't afford to treat, four years of scraping out a meager living from jobs that I hated, four years of disasters one after the other that meant I dropped out of college, lost almost everything I owned, and every cent I had saved. That's not what this is about, though. No - it's about books. The books that fed my soul, the books that raised me when I was tired of raising myself, the books that saved me. The book I wrote is on that list. Don't look for it, you won't find it. It's buried on my hard drive, a tombstone for that era of my life, where the only thing I felt like I had control over was the blinking cursor on my screen. It was during the third year of this dark marathon, during my quest to finish that manuscript, that I found a blog post - the blog post that led me to the book that saved my life, which you can find here: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2018/07/05/k-d-edwards-five-things-i-learned-writing-the-last-sun/
The book in question? THE LAST SUN by KD Edwards. Here's the (stunning!) cover:
I was immediately taken in by the gorgeous artwork by Micah Epstein, (find him at http://www.micahepsteinart.com/) but what moved me most was the advice from the author. I'd finished the manuscript but wasn't ready to query, and I knew it, so I did as KD recommended and put the manuscript aside for six months. And during those six months, I got hungry again - hungry for the dreams I'd let starve in the back of my mind. I would reread that blog post once a week - sometimes once a day, when I was feeling rough - and remember that there was another dreamer like me out there, whose debut novel was on its way to bookshelves soon, and it wasn't just any book, either! It was a queer, magical book - the kind of book I was writing, the kind of book I'd always wanted to read. And six months later, I did exactly what the post suggested and pulled out my manuscript and a butcher knife and got back to work.
That was the first time this book saved me. The second was after I queried the manuscript in question, realized it wasn't the right manuscript to land me an agent, and put it aside for good. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes, something just isn't ready. Looking back now, it's obvious it was the right call, but at the time I was devastated by the choice I had to make. I slid back so far I nearly lost everything I'd worked so hard to rebuild in my soul.
And then I read this book. THE LAST SUN is a remarkable novel, even if you ignore the fact that it gave me my fight back. Rune Saint John is the hero everyone in my generation (hello fellow Millenials!) can relate to: coffee-addicted heir to a fallen court, living with his grumpy-as-fuck best friend, doing odd jobs for a mysterious benefactor in a magical and brutal society inspired by tarot cards, struggling to make ends meet? And that's the elevator pitch? I was sold long ago, but this story spoke to my soul on every level, from Rune's humor to Brand's curse-laden wisdom to the world of New Atlantis itself, and so much more. And the food! From the first description of the buffet table at the Heart Throne raid to the cashew vendors to the animal crackers (if you know, you know) I felt that same childlike joy I felt when I would pick up a copy of Brian Jacques' Redwall series.
My current copy of THE LAST SUN (and the second book in the nine-book-series, THE HANGED MAN) are in mint condition thanks to the invention of e-readers and audiobooks, but I assure you that if not, these books would be butter-soft from the number of rereads I've given them. As for me, I'm doing better than ever. My dreams and my stomach stay full.
It's my privilege to have this opportunity to not only promote my favorite queer fantasy books, but specifically honor this book in particular in hopes of helping it get into more hands of readers like I was when I first found it. I can't guarantee this won't just be a TAROT SEQUENCE food blog - we do have three of nine books and multiple novellas to work with, after all - but one day, it's my hope to get to spread the love and recreate dishes from other amazing queer fantasy books, too.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you stick around!
- Lizzy
Curious about THE LAST SUN by KD Edwards?
It's available at most major bookstores, but why not go indie? Find a link to purchase a signed copy of KD's works here: https://www.flyleafbooks.com/kd-edwards-signed
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