You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. 

Today, I'm talking to Jami Attenberg, the author of seven novels, including the best-selling The Middlesteins. Her latest book is a memoir called I Came All This Way to Meet You, which grapples with ideas of success and living a nontraditional life. We talk about the ups and downs of the writing life, along with her move from New York to New Orleans, why she chose to write a memoir right now, and how the pandemic has shifted her relationship to travel.

You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. 

Today, I'm talking to Jami Attenberg, the author of seven novels, including the best-selling The Middlesteins. Her latest book is a memoir called I Came All This Way to Meet You, which grapples with ideas of success and living a non-traditional life. We talk about the ups and downs of the writing life, along with her move from New York to New Orleans, why she chose to write a memoir right now, and how the pandemic has shifted her relationship to travel. 

Alicia: Hi, Jami. Thank you so much for being here. 

Jami: Hi. It's so nice to meet you.

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Jami: Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. I’m 50, so I grew up in the ’70s. And I'm Jewish, and so there was an emphasis on deli when we could get it. There wasn't a lot of deli going on out there where I grew up. I grew up in Buffalo Grove. So closer to Skokie is where they, where you can get deli. 

And then, a lot of Italian food. A lot of pizza. I don't know if you've ever heard of Portillo's before. That is an amazing Chicago chain, and the Italian—Oh. I want it right now, just thinking about it. They had this croissant sandwich with Italian beef that was really delicious. 

My mother would be upset to hear me say this, I do not recall having a lot of emphasis on healthy food in my household growing up. We were also latchkey kids. You come home and you sort of scramble for what you could find in the house, that kind of thing. I mean, there was food there.

So, I don't know. When I look back at it now, I just think it was that there was not a clear path to, not a clear aesthetic necessarily. It was a lot of what was around.

Alicia: Yeah.

Well, it's interesting that you say your mom wouldn't like that. In your memoir, you write about her making chicken noodle soup from scratch and insisting she'd done it. And it's interesting, because it brings up obviously—memoir, where your memories don't match up with other people's memories and the question of that. How was it to reconstruct those kinds of things? I liked that in the book, that you enacted the problem of memoir in the memoir with this kind of like, ‘Whose memory actually is the memory that's the memory?’ [Laughs.]

Jami: Well, I have a brother. So I think he would back me up on certain things. And he's a wonderful cook, and he’s very health focused and really into the farmers’ markets and has a big tomato festival in his house every year. It was like a goal of his to kind of learn how to cook and be connected with food in a different way. I mean, I'm not blaming my parents for it. They had, of course, a million jobs and things going on. 

So I mean, I tried to be as honest about it as I could. I mean, I think my mother genuinely wants to have cooked, made chicken noodle soup for me from scratch. I do not recall it at all. I don't think that happened. So when that did happen, it felt kind of special. I mean, she probably hadn't cooked for me as an adult and in a really long time. That story where she is looking after me and making chicken noodle soup, for me, probably happened when I was in my late 30s. I don't know how much you go home to see your family or what that looks like for you. But for me, I had lived in New York a long time and my parents lived in Chicago. And I went back maybe once a year, and when we would see each other we could go out to eat. Big going-out-to-eat family.

Alicia: Well, you write in the—that you're not a great cook, but you are a superb dinner party guest. And food and drink are present in the memoir of course, but they're also present in your fiction. So, how would you kind of characterize food in your life now that you're an adult, fully formed and all that?

Jami: I mean, sadly, unlike my brother, I don't, I'm not—Yeah, I didn't take on the challenge like he did. Yeah, I don't have much of a repertoire. Yeah, I make a lasagna every so often. It’s winter and I'll be like, ‘Alright, I'm gonna make lasagna, veggie lasagna, and I'm gonna drop some at friends.’ This year for Christmas. I just made a ton of spiced nuts for everyone. And like, so once a year I get excited about doing—

I throw a lot of parties though. I do that. I had, right after everybody got booster shots for the first time, I had a big oyster festival in my backyard. And it was really wonderful. I mean, it's just definitely a way for me to commune with my friends. It's just really important to me to connect with people. Everyone's happy. We like to sit down for long meals. I live in a city that's got a great food culture. I lived in New York City for a long time. And I have a great food culture. I just was there last week and had dinner with some girlfriends at Ernesto’s, which was wonderful. 

Every part of the dinner was wonderful. But then at the very last minute, we got dessert too. And there was this fried brioche. I don't even know how to explain it. We were talking about it, still this morning. But the fried brioche, it was kind of creamy in the center. It was kind of french toast, but something at—something else. It was so good. And we’re probably going to remember that fried brioche for the rest of our lives. It was really special. 

Alicia: Well, and so much of the memoir is about success and how it's difficult to define. And you can publish books and have no money. It was important for me to read, I think, at this juncture in my life, where I was like, ‘Nothing means anything, necessarily, until it means something.’ I don't know. [Laughter.]

How do you define success? How do you feel about success as a concept as a writer?

Jami: Well, first of all, let me say that, I have told you this before that I'm a fan of your newsletter. So I'm sort of following along your kind of existential crisis that you, that is sort of rolling out, in particular, the last couple of newsletters. And I don't want to be that person who's like, ‘It gets better,’ but I think it does get better. I don't know how old you are. And it's fine however old you are, but I think—

Alicia: I'm 36, yeah.

Jami: I think it gets better in your 40s. I hate to say it. But I have given that advice to so many people in their, in that age, where you're like, ‘I've been doing this for so long. When does it just get a little bit easier?’

And I think the answer is, as a writer is it got easier for me after I'd written four books, which is like when I was 40, 41, something like that, was when I'd had that moment where I was able to—and also there's just like this catch-up period where you're constantly waiting for somebody to pay for something that you've written. And it's like, ‘How do you ever get ahead of that?’ And at some point, you sort of do get ahead of that. Hopefully. I'd make no guarantees or promises to anyone. 

And so to me, I think that your question was notion of success. To me, right now, because I have a book contract, and I have—I can spend the next year writing that book, that I feel safe for now. And you're always kind of leapfrogging to the next, whatever the next project is. I mean, someday I might run out. And I might be s**t out of luck. 

And I don't know, if you ever really get to take—it's the only thing I envy about an academic existence, is that they get to take sabbaticals. Yeah. And I mean, I guess it's for us, on our own, I think it would be about applying for grants or something like that. I don't actually, don't think residencies are really a sabbatical. The only thing that gives you, that buys you time, is money. Which is, then you have to do more. I know. I get it, I get it. It’s hard. And then I feel bad. But then it's like double I know, I know. It's really tricky. 

I think it slowed down a little bit for me, or got a little bit easier. I mean, pa