Small Town Life

A little while back, I posted about a chance encounter with a food professional (BBQ). While it gave me a chance to wallow in some memories of Texas barbecue, I now realize there was an unexpressed subtext: People who care about food tend to care about each other—and, often, even other people.

Substack is an interesting place to live; it’s a kind of small town where you get to choose your neighbors—and they tend to be folks with whom you have much in common.

For example, I only started posting here because a foodwriter I admire (Nancy Harmon Jenkins) encouraged me to do so. I recently received a post from Dianne Jacobs, another foodwriter—and someone (and even met in real life) whose newsletters are meant to be of use to other food writers. Her post, this time (“David Leite Hates Being Google’s Bitch”), reveals just how small this little “town” is.

In 1999, my first published book (The Resource Guide for Foodwriters) came out. The publisher arranged a book-signing event, at a Barnes & Noble, near Lincoln Center on NYC’s Upper West Side. I assumed that this was something that all publishers did for all their authors.

To misappropriate one of Humphrey Bogart’s snarkiest lines from Casablanca, “I was misinformed.”

The morning of the event, my book was mentioned in The New York Times. I assumed that this was something I could expect—all the time— now that I was a published author.

Rewind your virtual VCR and playback Bogart’s line from Casablanca.

When I arrived at the designated Barnes & Noble, I was escalated up to a large room, where several dozen chairs were arranged to face a single chair, up front. Surprised, I asked the manager if they thought my book would attract that many people. “They’ll be mostly senior citizens who live nearby…” he answered, “…they’ll go to any form of entertainment, as long as it’s free.”

I was learning a lot about the writing life.

My “audience,” was just as he described it. They came in, took their seats, and—mostly—listened to whatever I had to say. Not one of them contributed a Q to the Q&A. Then they filed out.

As they did so, a young man came running in.

Breathlessly, he told me that, when he got home from his job at an advertising firm, he’d seen the article about my book in The Times. When he called his local bookstore, to see if they carried it, he was told that I was there, in person, at that very minute. That explained the last-minute arrival, but not his reason for coming. He told me he was thinking of creating a food website, and thought my book might help him.

He said his name was David, and his website was to be called LeitesCulinaria.com. When the new site got started, he took me on as Food History Editor—an unpaid job that allowed me to publish columns on whatever interested me, as well as answering readers’s questions (mostly involving food science). Years later, after David won two James Beard Awards (the first times anyone got such awards for web-based writing), his website began to make actual money.

Being a caring food person (AKA a gentleman), he mailed me an unexpected (and unrequested) check. He paid me for all the writing I had happily done—for free—when he was starting out. BTW, I made more money from that chance meeting with David than I did from the book that introduced us.

Now, he’s started a substack page, to share the sort of things that don’t fit with his site—sort of like what I’m doing with these substack pages (sharing things that don’t fit in with the food history things I’m not writing at the moment).

Before my book even came out, I realized that internet-based resources would disappear or evolve into something else—making that part of the book obsolete. I began posting free newsletters with updated links to new or changed sources. In this, Dianne and I are doing the same thing that David did: care for other people who care enough about food to write about it.

Small world… or small town.

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Paid subscribers to these substack pages get access to a complete edition of my novella: Noirvella is a modern story of revenge, told in the style of film noir. They can also read the first part of Unbelievable, a kind of rom-com that forms around a pompous guy who is conceited, misinformed, and undeservedly successful. Both books are sold by Amazon, but paid subscribers get them for free!

Also, substack pages (older than eight months) automatically slip behind a paywall—so only paid subscribers can read them. If you’re interested in reading any of them, you can subscribe, or buy them in book form (I’ve released two volumes of Substack Lightnin’ on Amazon).

Meanwhile, it is easy to become a paying subscriber (just like supporting your favorite NPR station). It’s entirely optional, and—even if you choose not to do so—you’ll continue to get my regular substack posts—and I’ll still be happy to have you as a reader.