Second-guessing Your Published Book by Judy Alter

Let’s say you’ve researched, plotted, planned, and your book is at long last ready. And then you come across something—an article, a blog post, even a TV show—that might challenge what you’ve written, a la change the characters or background or even the story. It happened to me twice lately.

Saving Grace, my stand-alone culinary novel, indie published, was all set a week before the launch date, posted to various sites, not beyond change but only with difficulty. And then I took a Zoom cooking class from a chef and did some research for an online class titled, “Creating a Fictional Chef.”

The cooking class was taught by Scottish National Chef Gary Maclean in his own kitchen. He was alone in his kitchen; my fictional chef, Irene Foxglove, has an assistant, narrator Henny James, for her TV show, a gofer who hands her pre-measured ingredients and takes away dirty dishes. Chef Maclean kept handing used items off to his right, and I hoped there was a Scottish version of Henny just off camera dealing with all those things.

A camera pan of the kitchen at the end of the show proved me wrong. The chef had simply been piling dirty dishes, etc., on a counter and in the sink. He had one heck of a mess to clean up after the camera went off. But maybe he had an after-hours Henny.

Chef Maclean told us proudly that his kitchen was designed with television production in mind. It was not large but boasted a bank of four, chest-level ovens, with four refrigeration units below them. I know from a short stint in the restaurant world, you don’t need a big kitchen unless you have a big staff. But the Scottish kitchen looked like a ballroom compared to the tiny kitchen in the corner of a TV studio from which Irene and Henny prepare meals.

None of this would have made a serious difference to my novel. The research for the online class was another matter. I discovered that I had blindly fallen into the trap I’ll warn students about—stereotyping my chef. Irene is female and inclined toward French ways; she even wears a toque which few actual chefs do these days. The only thing I got close to right is that she’s female.

For several hundred years, commercial kitchens were dominated by French men; today they are open to men, women, and others of many different nationalities. Despite Julia Child, French cuisine is almost passé, its rich sauces replaced by the intriguing flavors of Middle Eastern cooking or Asian or South American. American food today is truly a melting pot of traditions and flavors and dishes. It’s a concept Irene doesn’t get.

Lucky for me, my last-minute discoveries didn’t render my book hopeless. It still came out on time, and I’m still proud of it. But I won’t soon forget that sinking feeling of suspecting I might second-guess myself. Maybe next time, I just won’t read anything relevant for three months prior to publication.

Saving Grace

Irene Foxglove wishes she were a French chef. Henrietta (Henny) James, her assistant, knows she is nothing more than a small-time TV chef on a local Chicago channel. And yet when Irene is threatened, Henny tries desperately to save her, wishing always that “Madame” would tell her the truth--about her marriage, her spoiled daughter, her days in France, the man who threatens her. Henny’s best friend, the gay guy who lives next door, teases her, encourages her, and shares meals with her, even as she wishes for more. Murder, kidnapping, and some French gossip complicate this mystery, set in Chicago and redolent with the aroma of fine food.

After an award-winning career writing historical fiction about women of the nineteenth-century American West, Judy Alter turned her attention to contemporary cozy mysteries. Several of her Kelly O’Connell Mysteries and Blue Plate Café Mysteries were published by Turquoise Morning Press. When her publisher went out of business, she became an indie publisher and barely looked back.

Born in Chicago, she has made her home in Fort Worth, Texas for over fifty years. She lives in a tiny but charming cottage with her dog Sophie. Cooking and food studies are her avocation, but she now cooks in a four-by-six kitchen with only an induction hot plate and a toaster oven. She’s even written a book about that: Gourmet on a Hot Plate.