Eating Authors: Lev AC Rosen

Would you look at that, it’s August already. Which means that my late-July birthday came and went last week. It was something of a disappointing birthday, owing to other circumstances such as flying in from a week away with Klingons and the fatigue such events always bring, the incessant itching caused by what seems to have been a poison ivy rash covering much of my torso, and the necessity of spending the morning taking my wife’s aged and ailing dog to the vet to be euthanized. So, yeah, not a great birthday. So much so that I granted myself a “birthday do-over” on Friday. Which is why, boys and girls, I have a time machine in my basement!

That said, tempus is very much fugiting, and so we are here once again at EATING AUTHORS with yet another rousing account of a memorable meal. This week, our guest is Lev AC Rosen. What can you say about a man who apparently eschews periods (and even a separating space!) on his middle initials? Were I a clinical psychologist — and I’m not, I’m a research psychologist — I’d doubtless reach for my copy of the DSM and find assorted case studies that fit this profile. Since that’s a different parallel world, let me instead tell you that Lev is the author of four books, two for adults (All Men of Genius and Depth) and two for middle grade readers (Woundabout and The Memory Wall, the former including a pet capybara, and latter due out in Fall of 2016). I’m willing to trade that capybara for sufficient points to suspend judgment on the whole initials question; it’s a question of priorities, you see.

LMS: Welcome, Lev. Now’s the moment of truth. What is your most memorable meal?

LACR: What’s weird about this meal is I still have no idea what is really in it. Which upsets me some nights when I have a craving for it. You’d think with the internet I’d be able to find something like it out there, but I never have.

The other thing about this meal is that it shouldn’t actually be as good as I remember it. Possibly it isn’t, and it’s just that it was the only thing I could eat at the time.

Being vegetarian in foreign countries is a pain sometimes. Depends on the country, of course, but when I studied for a few weeks in Prague, it was not the easiest place to get a bite. For lunch, I often had a granola bar. Cereal for breakfast. By dinner I was pretty hungry. There was this bar across the street from the dorms we were staying in. The booze was good, and they had food, too – lots of meat. One vegetarian option (I’m guessing because it was across the street from college dorms?). I had never seen anything like this option, and I haven’t seen anything like it since. It’s like they crammed all the usual vegetarian options – pasta, tofu, salad – into one meal.

Like I said, it should not have worked. But somehow, I began to crave it. Spaghetti with tofu in a green herbaceous sauce. I have no idea what was in that sauce. Maybe chicken stock, if I’m being honest. It wasn’t pesto – though it looked a little like it. It tasted very green, you know? Parsley, maybe, and it smelled vaguely of cucumber. It had a thin texture without actually being thin. And the tofu was chopped very finely and sautéed in the sauce (and before you ask – it was definitely tofu, it had that sour note).

I have no idea why it tasted so good – maybe because at that point I was starving and between classes, exploring the city, and our curfew, was usually too beat to go out looking for someplace else. But it was good. I had it practically every night, I think.

I still have no idea what was in that sauce though.

#SFWApro