Eating Authors: Ruthanna Emrys

About a month ago when I was down for the day at the Baltimore Book Festival, I participated in two panels. One of the things I like most about the festival is meeting new people, especially when we’re on program together. Ruthanna Emrys was on both of mine. Naturally, this was a sign to invite her to be a guest on EATING AUTHORS.

You might know Ruthanna from the H. P. Lovecraft reread series of articles she’s being doing on Tor.com with Anne M. Pillsworth, which they describe as “two modern Mythos writers get girl cooties all over old Howard’s sandbox.”

All of this scholarship is reflected in her own fiction, her novelette The Litany of Earth and first novel Winter Tide. I’m hoping for more of the same in next summer’s sequel Deep Roots, because she, as one reviewer put it,”subverts Lovecraft’s notorious racism by making his monsters — which were often thinly veiled stand-ins for people of color — sympathetic protagonists.” How could you not want more of this?

LMS: Welcome, Ruthanna. What’s your most memorable meal?

RE: On July 16, 2005, I came downstairs wearing a cloak, with every watch in the house dangling from my wrists, and announced to my wife: “Look, my muggle disguise is perfect!”

It was release day for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and we and our friend Nora were on our way to Oak Park’s giant launch party. The Chicago suburb takes its literary celebrations seriously: the town green had transformed into Quiddich field surrounded by a fairy market, and all Oak Park Avenue was done up as Diagon Alley. Every store on the alley held an appropriately themed event; every restaurant competed to produce the best butterbeer.

After a long day of cheering on Quiddich players, mooning over holly wands, and mocking each others’ houses, we decided it was time for dinner. Looking around for someplace not completely jam-packed, we spotted a brand new French restaurant on the corner of the alley. Nora, a French teacher just returned from an exchange in Paris, was dubious but willing to give it a shot.

About half an hour later, she admitted that this was, in fact, the best French food she’d had in her life. There were the simplest possible steak frites, perfectly cooked and seasoned. There was kobe beef burger topped with foie gras and aioli. There was a trio of crème brulées: thin layers of lavender, chocolate, and vanilla custard beneath exquisitely crispy burnt sugar crust. Our wild speculations about Snape were punctuated by moments of eyes-closed blissful meditation—and because some Ravenclaws are also New Yorkers at heart, a lot of mutual congratulations for having found a new favorite restaurant.

Wandering back out into the night, we heard church bells ringing. After a moment we realized they were playing Hedwig’s Theme from the movies. Following their siren lure, we found the church’s inner sanctum lit with floating candles down the center aisle, and the priest herself playing court with the sorting hat.

A few weeks later, we attempted to return to our new favorite restaurant. You can probably guess what happened. The storefront was closed without explanation, the kobe burgers gone as if they had never been–as if the world’s best French food had never truly been part of Oak Park at all.

There are plenty of people looking for Platform 9¾. When I find it, I know exactly where I’m going first—and it isn’t Hogwart’s.

#SFWApro