University of Nebraska Press

Dueling Chefs Make for a "Tasty" Interview

Dueling Chefs:
A Vegetarian and a Meat Lover Debate the Plate
An interview with authors and chefs, Maggie Pleskac & Sean Carmichael

One author is a staunch vegetarian. The other is a raging meat lover. Were these two friends and culinary competitors able to find a common ground between the pages of their book, Dueling Chefs: A Vegetarian and a Meat Lover Debate the Plate? We interviewed the authors to find out more about their experiences penning this unique collection.

Q: Dueling Chefs is enhanced by a sense of competition and one-upmanship between the two of you as well as the excellent introduction and (pardon the pun) biting commentary following each recipe. How did you come up with such a unique and entertaining take on the standard cookbook?

Maggie: I don't know how we came up with the idea exactly. We just always teased and taunted each other as chefs. Sean and I always try to prove to one another that our recipes are ones that the other should envy. It was all ego really, as most chefs seem to tout. Now we have come to a kind of common ground where we accept more of the other's ideas.

Sean: We came up with the idea for this book on Thursday, August 25, 2001. We were sitting on Maggie's porch having our usual friendly argument when Maggie said we should write a book!  Five years later, we
did it.

Q: Maggie, imagine you have to prepare a dish from this collection for the meatiest of meat eaters—a great big man with a great big appetite for steak and absolutely no interest in vegetables outside of the boring baked potato. Which dish would you choose to tempt his typically carnivorous taste buds?

Maggie: The wild mushroom seitan stroganoff is definitely a meat and potato style dish. On Father's Day, I made this for my dad, who is a farm-raised, die-hard carnivore. I may have actually impressed him (which is very hard to do!). The "meaty" seitan and the rich cream with egg noodle will satisfy anyone!

Q: Sean, I am not a vegetarian, but I’m not a big fan of meat dishes, either. I can take or leave turkey, forgo the finest filet mignon, and pass on the poultry. Which dish from this book might you prepare to turn me into a meat lover?

Sean: I think I would either prepare you the Saffron Poached Tilapia or the Dirty Rice-Stuffed Peppers. The artfulness of the tilapia would attract you to the table, where the intermingling nutty sweet flavors would escort you back to the life of a full stomach. The meat in the Dirty Rice is very subtle yet enticing and it would leave you with a strong desire of the flesh that would have to be satisfied.

Q: What lesson did you take away from this fascinating culinary experiment?

Maggie: The lesson learned is we must agree to disagree. Favor the flavor and trust the taste. Also, Sean can drink all the Starbucks he wants! And I will support local business.

Sean: I learned that writing a cookbook is not as easy or as romantic as it seemed before we started the process. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast and I would do it again and again and again if I could. I also learned that the friendship that Maggie and I have will weather anything, even my addictive jaunts to Starbucks.

Q: Sean, is there any chance you will “go vegetarian” anytime soon?

Sean: I don't believe I will ever willingly "go vegetarian." There are too many interesting flavors and tastes to explore without limiting myself or my palate.

Maggie: Touché! And, in case you were wondering, I would maybe eat meat someday. But only if it was humanely raised and cared for and I killed it myself with a hand-forged sword on an island where I had been stranded for lots of days!

Maggie Pleskac is owner and chef at Maggie’s Vegetarian Café in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is on the board of directors of Open Harvest Natural Foods Grocery and the vice president of Slow Food Nebraska. Sean Carmichael, a graduate of the Art Institute of Colorado, is executive chef at Chez Hay catering in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Want to hear more from our dueling chefs? Tune in for Maggie’s and Sean’s upcoming television and radio spots:

Thursday, November 1^st at 11:00am
Channel 8 "Midday Forum", Stacey Kulow, Host

Wednesday, November 7^th at 8:15am
KLIN Radio "Morning News Show" with Jack & Ashley

Wednesday, November 7^th from 6:30pm to 7:00pm
KZUM Radio "Book Talk" with Mary Jo Ryan, et al

Author Events: October 31st through November 6th

Happy Halloween, UNP blog readers!  Looking for something to do after the ghostly festivities come to a close?  Why not check out a UNP author event?  We have a vast array of readings, discussions, signings, and presentations this week, and there’s something to suit any ghoul’s or goblin’s fancy.  So, hang up your witch’s hat, put down that candy corn, and join us for an author event that is sure to be more treat than trick.

A number of our authors will make appearances and take part in readings and panel discussions at this year’s NonfictionNow Conference at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.  For more information, visit: http://english.uiowa.edu/nonfiction/nonfictionow07/index.html.  A list of our NonfictionNow participating authors and their events can be found below:

• John Price, author of Not Just Any Land, a memoir of Price’s rediscovery of his place in the American landscape and of his search for a new relationship to the life of the prairie, will participate in the “Always the Fourth Genre” panel discussion on Thursday, November 1^st from 8:45am to 10:15am.
• Susanne George Bloomfield and Eric Melvin Reed, the editors of Adventures in the West, will take part in a panel discussion entitled “The Death of the Scholarly” on Thursday, November 1^st from 3:30pm to 5:00pm.  Bloomfield is also the editor of Impertinences: Selected Writings of Elia Peattie.
• Susanne K. George, author of the literary biography Kate M. Cleary, will serve on the panel discussion “The Death of the Scholarly” on Thursday, November 1^st from 3:30pm to 5:00pm.
• The author of Opa Nobody, Sonya Huber, will serve on the panel discussing “Trauma, Truth, and Trash” on Thursday, November 1^st from 3:30pm to 5:00pm.
• The editor of Landscapes with Figures, Robert Root, will participate in the panel discussion “Composition = Create Nonfiction” on Thursday, November 1^st from 3:30pm to 5:00pm.  Mimi Schwartz, author of Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed and the forthcoming Good Neighbors, Bad Times, will also appear on the panel.
• Just Breathe Normally author, Peggy Shumaker will give a reading on Thursday, November 1^st from 5:00pm to 6:00pm.  Kirkus called Just Breathe Normally “[a]n entrancing meditation on absolution and memory.”
• Jennifer Brice, author of Unlearning to Fly, will give a reading at the conference in the main lounge on Thursday, November 1^st from 5:00pm to 6:00pm.  Aaron Raz Link and Hilda Raz, co-authors of What Becomes You, which Glenn Scofield Williams of JustOut called “the best memoir I’ve read in a decade,” will also give a reading on Thursday, November 1^st in the main lounge from 5:00pm to 6:00pm and another from 6:00pm to 7:00pm.
• Dinah Lenney, author of the captivating memoir, Bigger than Life, will take part in a reading on Thursday, November 1^st from 5:00pm to 6:00pm. 
• David Shields, author of Black Planet, a critically acclaimed and controversial look at race and the National Basketball Association; Body Politic, touted by Kirkus as “[a] thinking person’s collection of sports essays;” and the sports novel, Heroes, will participate in a reading on Thursday, November 1^st from 5:00pm to 6:00pm.  He will also take part in a panel discussion entitled “Autobiography and Critique” the following day, Friday, November 2^nd, from 1:45pm to 3:15pm. 
• Diane Glancy, author of Designs of the Night Sky, which Library Journal called ". . . [a]n engaging novel that deals with the issues of present and past among Native peoples and of Spirit in those who have embraced Christianity,” will take part in the panel discussion “What Is It?” from 8:45am to 10:15am on Friday, November 2^nd.  Also appearing on the panel will be Joe Mackall, author of The Last Street Before Cleveland.
• Between Panic and Desire author, Dinty W. Moore, will participate in a panel discussion entitled “Of Thumbs” on Friday, November 2^nd from 1:45pm to 3:15pm. 
• Scraping By in the Big Eighties author, Natalia Rachel Singer, will take part in the panel discussion “Beauty and Power” on Friday, November 2^nd from 1:45pm to 3:15pm.  Cheryl Burke of Bust called Singer’s book “[a] tumultuous yet life-affirming quest for truth, beauty, and creativity in the self-absorbed 80’s.”

In addition, we have a many other author events for you to consider…

• Andrew K. Frank, author of Creeks and Southerners, an examination of intermarriages between Creek Indian women and European American men in the southeastern United States during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, will take part in a session entitled “Imperialism on the Gulf Coast” at the Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting. He will read from his paper “In the Face of Conquest: Seminole Culture and the Preservation of Political Sovereignty in Long War” from 9:30am to 11:30am on Thursday, November 1^st at the Richmond Marriot Hotel in Richmond, Virginia.  Also appearing at the SHA Annual Meeting—Kathryn E. Holland Braund, the author of Deerskins and Duffels.  She will participate in the session “Imperialism on the Gulf Coast” from 9:30am to 11:30am.  Finally, James Alex Garza, author of The Imagined Underworld, will partake in a session entitled “Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary Change in Mexico” on Friday, November 2^nd from 9:30am to 11:30am. For more information, visit http://www.uga.edu/~sha/meeting/index.htm
• The author of Branch Rickey, Lee Lowenfish, will serve as keynote speaker at the State Historical Society of Missouri’s annual luncheon on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus on Saturday, November 3^rd.  For more information, visit: http://shs.umsystem.edu/annualmeeting/annualmeeting.shtml.  Lowenfish will also make an appearance and partake in a book discussion and signing at Borders in Brentwood, Missouri on Sunday, November 4^th at 2:00pm. The address for this Borders location is 1519 South Brentwood Blvd., Brentwood, MO 63144.
• Fictional Minds author, Alan Palmer, will chair a working breakfast at the Theory of Mind and Literature Conference at Purdue University on Monday, November 5^th to discuss the conference’s conclusions and propose directions for future research.  For more information, visit: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/fll/ToM/keynote.htm

For a full listing of author events, please visit our event page on the UNP Web site at http://nebraskapress.unl.edu/Catalog/ProductEvents.aspx?SearchOnLoad=true

Titles to Terrorize You: Some Scifi from UNP

Beyond Armageddon
Edited by Walter M. Miller Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg
Postcript to the Introduction by Martin H. Greenberg

Twenty-one stories by science fiction masters including Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Roger Zelazny regarding about how life may be after nuclear annihilation.

Lost Worlds
Clark Ashton Smith
Introduction by Jeff VanderMeer

Lost Worlds collects twenty-three of Smith's classic Weird Tales stories.

"None strikes the note of cosmic horror as well as Clark Ashton Smith. In sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living."—H. P. Lovecraft

 

The Circus of Dr. Lao

Charles G. Finney
Introduction by John Marco; Illustrated by Boris Artzybasheff

Abalone, Arizona is visited by a sideshow of fantastical animals, magic, and a foreboding fortune-teller.

The Purple Cloud

M. P. Shiel
Introduction by John Clute

Adam Jeffson is the sole survivor of a deadly purple cloud.

"Fantastic, weird, macabre . . . It is imaginative, fascinating, convincing, as some dreadful nightmare. . . . A remarkable piece of work, . . . head and shoulders above the average tale of fantastic adventure."—New York Times Book Review 

Nosferatu: A Novel

Jim Shepard
With a new introduction by Ron Hansen

In a fictional biography, Nosferatu portrays director F. W. Murnau as a genius who becomes his own monster.

"Mordantly funny and moving."—Entertainment Weekly

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Have a Happy Halloween

UNP's Log: A Few Scifi Links

As promised, I have for your enjoyment a list of links related to science fiction and fantasy.  Five mere days to Halloween, you may be in need of ideas for costumes and party themes.  Maybe some of these folks' other worldly posts can help you out.

Fantastic Reviews offers posts of sci fi, fantasy, and horror books every week. A Storm of Words reviews  all kinds of speculative fiction. 

SF Bookworm talks about all things science fiction books, including publishing news and book fairs.

To read reviews of television shows and books and about October beer, Of Science Fiction may be a site to visit.

The blogger over at Stainless Steel Droppings is almost as excited about Halloween as I am.  Almost.

The quintessential blog to visit is SF Signal.

Finally—but definitely not least—Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' Blog has posts on books, zines, comics, movies, and her own personal world.

Tune in next week when I'll highlight UNP's sci fi and fantasy books on Monday, Tuesday, and Halloween.  Enjoy your weekend!

All Things Creepy, Some Things Crawly

Since Linkin' Thursday falls before Halloween, we'll have our special Halloween edition today.  Did I tell you that I love Halloween?  I don't even have a costume yet.  I never have a costume until the day before or the day of October 31.  Ah, well, what are you going to do?

I have my Mozilla Halloween skin on my browser and I have some links opened up to ugly, creepy, crawling things, such as this bison cockroach (my horrible homage to Bison Books) over on Ugly Overload, scary and freaky things like this ghost swing, and Halloween specific, horrible things, such as Ghost Droppings.com.

First off, here are the other Halloween themed sites.  If you're like me, and you don't have a costume, Scar Stuff may give you some ideas.  Halloween Addict will post about "all things black and orange from the Autumn season through October 31st," which is only six days away.  If you have some free time at work (or school, or home, or the coffee shop) and you want to take a virtual trip, check out the Virtual Haunted Mansion.

For readings literary--or semi-literary--maybe not so literary at all, you might want to check out these themed lit blogs.  The Blog Monster offers reviews on recent comics, scary movies.  I like their rating system.  FantasyBookSpot isn't exactly creepy, but fantasy can sometimes be horrible.  Patricia keeps tabs on blood suckers on her blog, Patricia's Vampire Notes, with authors interviews, books reviews, and commentary from the masses.  Hellnotes has posts on everything horror, including fiction reviews and author interviews.

I think that's enough frightening links for today.  Tomorrow, I'll have a very special Linkin' Thursday on Friday (ahem) to look at the other side of the holiday: Science Fiction.

Author Events October 25 thru October 31, 2007

It's almost Halloween, my favorite holiday which so happens to fall on my favorite time of the year.  Maybe I like Halloween because it is in autumn.  Or, maybe I like autumn because it holds Halloween.  Hm.

That's enough about me.  Here's what our authors will be doing these next few days leading to and including October 31.

Africa on Six Wheels' author Betty Levitov will be here in Lincoln, NE at the SouthPointe Pavilions Barnes & Noble Booksellers tomorrow, October  25th at 7:00pm. 

Also in Lincoln this week is the Nebraska Book Festival.  Crazy Horse, this year's featured book for One Book One Nebraska, will be on exhibit at the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center during the festival.  The exhibit opens on October 26.

Alan Palmer, author of Fictional Minds, will be at the Theory of Mind and Literature Conference on October 31.  He will be leading a graduate seminar on Theory of Mind and Literature, which is open to conference attendees. 

Peggy Shumaker (Just Breathe Normally) will be very busy this week.  She will be at the University of Nebraska Lincoln for a graduate seminar and a reading with book signing tomorrow, October 25.  On the 27th at 2:20PM, she'll be at the Nebraska Book Festival.  Peggy will leave Nebraska for Iowa, and will read at Iowa State University (Ames) on October 29th.  On the 30th, she'll be in Des Moines for a reading and book signing at Drake University.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, author of the memoir Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer, will also be at the Nebraska Book Festival.  She will make an appearance and read on October 26.

On October 27, editors of The Big Empty Ladette Randolph and Nina Shevchuk-Murray will be joined by Mary Pipher, John Janovy, John Price, Bryan Jones and Lisa Knopp to discuss "The Art of the Essay" at the Nebraska Book Festival, 3:30PM- 4:45PM.

For more information on these events and for all upcoming UNP happenings, please visit our Events pages.

More Praise for What Becomes You

What Becomes You
by Aaron Raz Link & Hilda Raz

“Aaron Raz Link’s story is a vital contribution to the oeuvre of transgender literature. . . . [H]is writing is potent and well crafted. . . . Hilda Raz’s story is similarly an important part of the transgender oeuvre. . . . Throughout the book, she strikes an emotive tone that is both resonant and authentic. . . . What Becomes You is a superb memoir. As finely wrought as Minnie Bruce Pratt’s S/he, it is careful and tender while simultaneously confrontational and challenging.”—Julie R. Enszer, Lambda Book Report

Read earlier praise for What Becomes You at http://nebraskapress.typepad.com/university_of_nebraska_pr/2007/04/praise_for_what.html

More Praise for Just Breathe Normally

Just Breathe Normally by Peggy Shumaker

“Shumaker, a poet, has a haunting, lyrical quality to her writing. The words flow and tumble down the page. . . . Reading about pain and loss and fear can be almost as traumatic as experiencing it, and while Shumaker doesn’t dance around it, she writes in such a way that the reader is compelled to follow. . . . Just Breathe Normally is a deft example of using the past to understand and overcome the present.”—Libbie Martin, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Read earlier praise for Just Breathe Normally at http://nebraskapress.typepad.com/university_of_nebraska_pr/2007/07/praise-for-just.html

More Praise for The Gambler and the Bug Boy

The Gambler and the Bug Boy: 1939 Los Angeles and the Untold Story of a Horse Racing Fix by John Christgau

“Christgau is skilled at making memorable characters from his subjects. . . . [H]istory-minded handicappers will find much to appreciate.”—Publishers Weekly Web Exclusive

Read earlier praise for The Gambler and the Bug Boy at http://nebraskapress.typepad.com/university_of_nebraska_pr/2007/09/praise-for-th-3.html

More Praise for A Season in Purgatory

A Season in Purgatory:
Villanova and Life in College Football’s Lower Class
by Tony Moss

“This year promises to be different for local readers. . . . Moss’s new book is all about the political issues of its subject matter. . . .  There is a lot more going on in the world of football that makes for interesting reading than the usual annual fare.”—Gary Laney, Lake Charles (LA) American Press

“Villanova football fans . . . and anybody else with an interest in I-AA football or the local sports scene should pick up the just-published book A Season in Purgatory, subtitled Villanova and Life in College Football's Lower Class. Author Tony Moss, who spent the 2005 season with Andy Talley's team, has a good eye for the big picture and the telling detail.”—Mike Jensen, Philadelphia Inquirer

Read earlier praise for A Season in Purgatory at http://nebraskapress.typepad.com/university_of_nebraska_pr/2007/09/praise-for-a-se.html