Eating Authors: Rachel Ford

In theory I returned late yesterday without incident and am sleeping in today after my travels and this post went out as scheduled at 7:30 am. That’s the plan. I tend to lock these posts in days in advance anyway but it seems especially ominous to do so when I’m traveling. One of these days it will catch up to me and something will show up on this website after I’ve been killed in some freak aviation accident or struck by a bus or eaten by penguins (don’t ask). With any luck today is not that day and I’m actually just getting some sleep as planned. Fingers crossed.

The good news is that because I’m officially asleep, I can’t be expected to provide a segue. Instead I’ll just tell you that this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest is Rachel Ford, a software engineer during regular business hours and a writer when she’s not punching that clock. That alone wouldn’t necessarily be sufficient to invite her to this blog, but she’s also an enthusiastic Star Trek fan and, well, there you go. Plus, she lives in Wisconsin, and I’m hoping some cheese curds might come my way. You never know.

Rachel is the author of the Time Travelling Taxman series (currently at eight books), which is as great a premise as I’ve heard this month. Her latest book, Safe Passage, is the first volume in her new Black Flag space opera series featuring privateers — because who doesn’t love letters of marque?

LMS: Welcome, Rachel. What stands out as your most memorable meal?

RF: My most memorable meal was during the first official date between me and my girlfriend (we’d met up before, and talked a lot, but this was an Official Date). We’re long distance, so we made a weekend of it. We visited a beautiful spot on Lake Superior as we’d been planning for a while — but it just so happened it was hatching season for black flies.

You know Hitchcock’s The Birds? It was like that, only with flies. After being swarmed and figuring out that there was nothing we could do to fend them off, we retreated posthaste to the car — and spent the rest of the drive shooing stray flies out of the car.

It was hilarious, in a romantic comedy/horror film crossover sort of way. But it definitely went up from there. We stopped for brunch further up north. I don’t remember what I ate. (Probably, butterfly larvae, because there were definitely butterflies playing around in my stomach).

The day went really, really well, and we were definitely touristy that weekend. By the time dinner rolled around, we were starving and wanted something quick. We found a little pub and ordered burgers. They were very good, but what I remember most was the conversation and décor.

The town we were in had been an old logging town, and the pub’s ceiling had been decorated with chainsaws and logging equipment.

We talked about UFO’s and UFO sightings and conspiracy theories; and the Hindenburg, and conspiracies surrounding its destruction (this wasn’t as random as it sounds; I’d been researching zeppelins for a book I was writing at the time, and UFO stuff was playing on TV – we couldn’t tell what exactly was going on, as the TV had been muted).

It was a great mix of weird science, weird history, and crazy theories.

And then the décor reminded me of an old Grimm Brothers fairytale my parents used to read when we were kids, about Clever Elsie (a fable about taking action instead of complaining and procrastinating; Elsie sees a pickaxe in the ceiling of her future husband’s home, and worries that it will kill their potential child if it falls upon his head. But only weeps about it instead of removing it. Yup, it’s a strange one LOL). So we talked about that, and the books and stories we read growing up.

It was a conversation that ranged from light-hearted to deep, from fact to fancy. It had been a great day, but as the night went on and we talked, I had a really, really good feeling about us.

The next day she asked me to go steady (and we have been since).

#SFWApro