The Famous Writers' Cooking School

Writing and cooking must have a lot in common--otherwise, why would the jargon be so similar? For example, writers always talk about cooking up an idea. And once they've done that a few times, half of those ideas end up on the back burner. Food for thought, we'd say.

Anyway, maybe that was the connection that inspired Dean Faulkner Wells--who happens to be William Faulkner's niece--to ask a whole bunch of big-name writers for their favorite personal recipes. Wells has blended the results into a cookbook that's as much at home in the library as in the kitchen.

Most of the authors responded with gusto--after all, tapping out a recipe beats slaving over a hot typewriter any day. There was, however, one notable abstainer: John Cheever admitted that he wasn't qualified to contribute. "The only time I ever go into a kitchen," he wrote, "is when someone is chasing me out the back door."

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Roy Blount, Jr., is the author of About Three Bricks Shy of a Load and Crackers.

[recipe_title]Garlic Grits[/recipe_title]

(Serves Six)

I got this recipe from Maureen Dees, of Mathews, Alabama, who served me and her then-husband, Morris, some of it in their house, which once had a cross burned outside it.

[recipe]1/2 cup milk[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon salt[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup quick-cooking grits[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 cup margarine[/recipe]

[recipe]2 eggs, beaten[/recipe]

[recipe]2/3 package garlic cheese, finely diced[/recipe]

[recipe]2 to 3 cups cornflakes, crushed[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 cup melted butter[/recipe]

Combine in casserole 1/2 cup boiling water, milk, salt, grits, margarine, eggs and half the cheese. Stir over low heat until cheese melts. Top with cornflakes; pour butter over cornflakes. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cook in 350° oven for 45 minutes.

In between bites, sing stanzas of my poem about grits, called A Song to Grits.

A Song to Grits

When my mind's unsettled,

When I don't feel spruce,

When my nerves get frazzled,

When my flesh gets loose--

What knits

Me back together's grits.

Grits with gravy,

Grits with cheese.

Grits with bacon,

Grits with peas.

Grits with ham,

Grits with a minimum

Of two over medium

Eggs mixed in 'em: Um!

Grits, grits, it's

Grits I sing--

Grits fits

In with anything.

Grits

Sits

Right.

Rich and poor, black and white,

Lutheran and Campbellite,

Jews and Southern Jesuits,

All acknowledge buttered grits.

Give me two hands, give me my wits,

Give me 40 pounds of grits.

True grits,

More grits,

Fish, grits and collards.

Life is good where grits are swallered.

Grits!

William F. Buckley, Jr., is the editor in chief of National Review, a syndicated columnist and host of the television show Firing Line. Among his works are God and Man at Yale, The Governor Listeth, Stained Glass and Who's On First.

[recipe_title]Supply-side-economics fudge[/recipe_title]

I cooked feverishly during two summers, age 14--15, and I made a considerable sum of money from my cooking--something on the order of $14 or $15 per summer. I produced a most delicious fudge, which I sold via an old lady's institution in Sharon, Connecticut, at 65 cents per pound. My father was so unkind as to point out, somewhere along the line, that the economic model after which I had fashioned my enterprise was perhaps unrealistic, inasmuch as I used exclusively ingredients provided by my father's kitchen.

Anyway (for a double portion):

[recipe]1-1/2 cups milk[/recipe]

[recipe]4 squares Baker's chocolate[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 pound butter[/recipe]

[recipe]2 cups sugar[/recipe]

Stir until you see what look like discrete globlets. Test these by dripping, by teaspoon, a drop or two. If they come down fragmented, you must leave the mixture under boil. If they come down whole, you are ready to lift the mess off the stove. On no account should you pass stage two from inattention, because the effect of this is a granular fudge. At this moment, you should add a teaspoonful of salt and two to three teaspoons of vanilla extract. The point of waiting this long is that you should have not allowed the vanilla to evaporate. If you are living in the post-industrial revolution, you may submit the whole to a blender, adding nuts or not, according to market demands. The beating should continue until the stuff is very nearly cool. And only then poured into a plate.

Harry Crews is the author of A Feast of Snakes and Blood and Grits, among other works, and was winner of the 1972 American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award.

[recipe_title]Snake Steak[/recipe_title]

Take one diamondback rattlesnake. (Fifteen feet of garden hose, a little gasoline in a capped jar, a crokersack and a long stick will be all you'll need to take the snake. On a cold day, 32 degrees or colder, find the hole of a gopher--the Southerner's name for a land tortoise. Run the hose down the hole until it is all the way to the bottom. Pour a teaspoon of gasoline into the hose. Cover the end of the hose with your mouth and blow. Shortly, the rattlesnake will wander out of the hole. Put the stick in the middle of his body, pick him up and drop him in the sack. On the way home, don't sling the sack over your shoulder, and generally try not to get struck through the cloth.)

Gut and skin the snake. No particular skill is needed for either job. Cut off the head six inches behind the eyes. Cut off the tail 12 inches above the last rattle. Rip him open along the stomach and take out everything you see. Peel him like a banana, using a pair of pliers as you would to skin a catfish. Cut the snake into one-inch steaks. Soak in vinegar for ten minutes. Drain and dry. Sprinkle with hot sauce, any of the brands out of New Iberia, Louisiana. Roll in flour and deep fry, being careful not to overcook. Salt to taste and serve with whatever you ordinarily eat with light, delicate meat.

Figure one snake per guest. Always better to have too much than too little when you're eating something good.

James Dickey won a National Book Award in Poetry with Buckdancer's choice. Among his other works are Into the Stone, God's Images, The Strength of Fields and the novel Deliverance.

[recipe_title]Dickey's Off-Trail[/recipe_title]

Deer-liver slumgullion

Chop up deer liver from fresh-killed spike buck. Brown with fat in pot on open fire. Chop up onions, potatoes and anything else edible from your buddy's pack. Crumble up dead leaves and sprinkle liberally into recipe. Pour in two cans of mushroom soup and one of beef stew, pretending it is venison. Eat between fire and tent. Accompany with all available fiery whiskey.

My outdoor cookery proceeds from the premise that the hunter will be hungry enough to eat anything and drink anything, even the cans themselves and the deer's horns.

Cooking the Dickey off-trail way is dead easy.

Ken Kesey lives in Oregon, where he was editor and publisher of Spit in the Ocean. He is the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion and Garage Sale.

[recipe_title]Huevos Whateveors[/recipe_title]

My favorite fare is, of course, fried steak--about an inch and a half thick, popped right into a screaming-hot skillet and set sizzling on the table, still in the skillet, so everybody can hack hot bites from the meat as it fries. But what I am famous for is the mystic rapport I have with the remnants of yesterday's meals. In fact, I am known in certain underground gourmet circles as the Jackson Pollock of leftovers.

An example: my Huevos whateveros. into a deep black frying pan pile the remains of last night's Mexican meal-- refried beans, ruptured enchiladas, forsaken chile tell nos, etc. Add enough stewed tomatoes to make this stuff a little soupy. On top of this bubbling burrito bed, open and arrange as many fresh eggs as you plan to serve, yolks intact. As all this bubbles over a low heat, grate some cheese over the top and chop in a few green onions. Don't stir. Sprinkle with cumin and cayenne as taste and courage prescribe. When the whites are firming up and the yolks are still open-eyed and slippery, slip the skillet briefly beneath the broiler, until the eggs white over and the cheese blisters. Don't let the yolks get hard!

Serve with tortillas and Dos Equis. Tortillas optional.

Larry L. King is the author of The One-Eyed Man, Whores, Politicians, and (continued on page 188)Writer's Cooking School(continued from page 164)Other Artists and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

[recipe_title]Glazed Barbecue Ribs Vacation[/recipe_title]

Pour 'bout 18 bottles of barbecue sauce in a washtub or the biggest pan you can get in your oven. Flop many, many ribs into it and let simmer--oh, a week or two, depending on how much vacation you've got coming. On return, break top glaze with a hammer and fish out ribs while wearing rubber gloves. Keep rubber gloves on while eating. Eat in bathing suit or old clothes you do not care about.

Norman Mailer won Pulitzer Prizes for The Armies of the Night and The Executioner's Song. His other works include The Naked and the Dead, Barbary Shore and The Deer Park.

[recipe_title]Stuffed Mushrooms[/recipe_title]

You chop the stems, squeeze as much water out of them as you can, which is the trickiest part of the whole dish. You have to use dish towels and do it again and again. Then sauté the chopped mushroom with onions very finely chopped, shallots (if you have them) and a good amount of garlic. I give no proportions in this, because it's the sort of dish that must be cooked to the temperament of the chef. The sautéing, incidentally, must be done with a lavish use of quarter-pound sticks of sweet butter.

When it's all going nicely, grate in fresh nutmeg, quite a bit, and a good amount of black pepper. Then set aside to cool. Indeed, you can do better than that and set it in the refrigerator. This is not only for ease in handling but I swear it improves the flavor.

Before the caps are stuffed, brush the tops with butter and bake them on a flat dish for five minutes. Then fill them with cold stuffing and sprinkle them with a mix of bread crumbs, a bit of cinnamon, salt, pepper, mustard powder and grated lemon peel, all of which makes a heavy dust on top of the stuffed mushrooms. Then put it in and bake for five minutes.

Remove. That's it.

Willie Morris is the author of North Toward Home, Yazoo, The Last of the Southern Girls, James Jones: A Friendship and Terrains of the Heart.

[recipe_title]John Birch Society Beans[/recipe_title]

(Serves 30-35)

These beans are so named because of the intense internal reaction they produce. Once you master their basics, you can enhance them with all sorts of things. The imagination must be given sovereign reign. As they say about winning football teams, these beans have momentum. Some endow them with aphrodisiacal nuances, while others deem them unimpeachable for hangovers. Now that I live again in my native Mississippi, I serve them on New Year's Eve, as I did in the North, for my beans evoke the nostalgia of sorrow, memory and belonging.

Serve these wonderful beans once and the compliments of your guests will echo in your heart.

[recipe]3 sticks butter or margarine[/recipe]

As many fresh country sausages as you can afford (Polish sausage will suffice if absolutely necessary; wieners will do, too. As a matter of fact, add a dozen wieners to this recipe anyway)

[recipe]4 large onions[/recipe]

[recipe]3 large green peppers[/recipe]

[recipe]3 or 4 jalapeño peppers (fresh or canned)[/recipe]

[recipe]2 dozen mushrooms (fresh, if possible; if not, 3 cans)[/recipe]

[recipe]6 or more hard--boiled eggs[/recipe]

[recipe]3 cans water chestnuts[/recipe]

[recipe]3 big cans peeled tomatoes[/recipe]

[recipe]1 dozen strips of bacon[/recipe]

[recipe]12 cans, regular-sized, barbecue beans (preferably Campbell's)[/recipe]

[recipe]Tabasco[/recipe]

[recipe]Worcestershire sauce[/recipe]

[recipe]A lot of chili powder[/recipe]

[recipe]Salt, pepper[/recipe]

[recipe]One jar molasses[/recipe]

[recipe]15 slices of cheese (preferably cheddar, but any kind will work, except gruyère and camembert)[/recipe]

Put all three sticks of butter at the bottom of an extremely large cooking pot. As the butter melts, throw in the sausages and wieners, both well sliced. Saute until brown.

Throw in the onions, green peppers, jalapeño peppers and mushrooms (all finely sliced). Allow these to sauté so they will soak into the sausages and wieners.

Put in the hard-boiled eggs, sliced. Start mixing about now. Add the water chestnuts, well diced. Then toss in the canned, peeled tomatoes. Add the strips of bacon, which also need to be sliced. Let them sauté with the other things.

Put in all the barbecue beans, juice included. Stir again vigorously for a long time. Make sure the beans get well integrated with the previous ingredients. Add large quantities of Tabasco, Worcestershire and chili powder. In fact, use more chili powder than you think you should. Courage is needed at this point. Salt and pepper a great deal. Continue to stir every minute or so.

Add the molasses, all of it at one time. Keep on stirring. Mix in even more chili powder. Allow all this to simmer over a low--to-medium fire on top of the stove for about 30 or 40 minutes.

Spread the cheese slices all over the top of the beans.

Place the whole pot in an oven heated to about 325°. Keep the beans there for about two hours. But if you do not take them out every now and then to stir, they will stick to the bottom of the pot.

Just before serving, open the windows of your home.

Joyce Carol Oates won a National Book Award for her novel Them. Among herother novels are With Shuddering Fall, Do with Me What You Will, The Assassins and Unholy Loves. She is also the author of a play, Daisy.

[recipe_title]The Career Woman'S Meal[/recipe_title]

[recipe]1 can Campbell's soup (any variety)[/recipe]

[recipe]1 can opener[/recipe]

[recipe]1 saucepan[/recipe]

[recipe]1 can water[/recipe]

[recipe]2 soup bowls[/recipe]

George Plimpton is the founding editor of The Paris Review. Among his works are Paper Lion, the Bogey Man, Mad Ducks and Bears and shadow box.

[recipe_title]Dinty Moore Beef Stew[/recipe_title]

Years ago, to provide sustenance for those who came to parties in my loftlike digs looking out on the East River, offered, well, vats of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I say vats because there always seemed an awful lot of it, both before and after the parties.

I can't remember how I decided on Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Perhaps it was a reaction to years of nibbling on delicate hors d'oeuvres at other people's parties--an anti-water-cress-sandwich syndrome. Of course, being a bachelor, it was a practical matter: I never had the time or inclination to roll oddments around a toothpick or cut squares of salmon and decorate them with an infinitesimal dollop of something or other on the top. To make and offer such things seemed an art to be compared with blowing glass or cracking diamonds. Dinty Moore Beef Stew was an answer, if a rather thunderous one.

Open can. Do this by whatever means possible ... even an ax will do. The can without the contents emptied is unappetizing at best, and I have never heard of anyone even trying it.

Pour contents into pan and heat. one of the things to remember about Dinty Moore Beef Stew is that it never changes its basic look. It looks the same in the can, in the saucepan, on the plate and dumped into the garbage. It doesn't surprise one--like the abrupt rise or fall, as in the case of a soufflé. It doesn't transform itself from one thing into another--like an honest egg into the jumbled confusion of an ill--made omelet. It doesn't even change color--like a lobster. Or crack and pop like dry cereal. Steam rises from Dinty Moore Beef Stew when it is heated--that is all!

Serve. one can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew serves about 100. The reason for this interesting ratio is that guests don't usually like the looks of the dish, at least the way I make it.They circle it, like dogs circle a porcupine.

Garnitures. For very grand parties, some authorities surround the Dinty Moore Beef Stew with a ring of rice--the over-all effect on the serving platter not unlike that of a whitewall jeep tire.

Plates. The china or iron variety is the best. Dinty Moore Beef Stew heaped on a paper plate will turn that substance into the consistency and resilience of a tissue handkerchief. Even the stoutest cardboard will bend almost instantly under the heft of a helping of the stew.

One last word about serving Dinty Moore Beef Stew at a cocktail party. I used to serve baguettes along with the stew--long loaves of French bread that stuck out of a wicker wastepaper basket like baseball bats. These were for breaking apart and for spooning up the gravy off the iron plates, if one were inclined to do so. Now I find it preferable to offer soft, pliable, newly baked loaves rather than the stiff, rock-hard variety I once used until, well, the incident. This occurred when two guests--apparently inflamed by the sight, once again, of Dinty Moore Beef Stew steaming stolidly on the sideboard--went after me with the nearest implements at hand; namely, those rock-hard baguettes, rather like the bladder-wielding scene in Tannhäuser. Those things snap, with sharp cracks, when they hit the noggin, and they leave pebble-hard crumbs on the floor that are extremely painful underfoot. Better the soft variety.

Tom Robbins has served as copy writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Seattle Times. His works include Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get, the Blues and Still Life with Woodpecker.

[recipe_title]Zoop[/recipe_title]

(or, zukes not nukes)

I cook by vibration and seldom make anything the same way twice, which means I can do no more than estimate measurements. This smacks of futility, but I'll try to explain how I prepare Zoop.

[recipe]Several fresh zucchini[/recipe]

[recipe]Milk[/recipe]

[recipe]Butter[/recipe]

[recipe]Cheddar cheese[/recipe]

[recipe]Lemon pepper[/recipe]

Steam zucchini in chunks. While zukes are steaming, warm the milk. Amount of milk depends on what consistency you like your zoop, thick or thin. Put butter, at least one third stick, in heating milk and allow to melt. When zucchini begins to become tender (don't overcook!), remove from heat and place in blender. Add warm buttered milk. Blend. Pour in large mixing bowl and stir in grated cheese and lemon pepper to taste. Serve immediately. For a special occasion, such as your wedding night, you may add a can of chopped clams, nectar and all. This dish is extremely fast to prepare, it's quite inexpensive, it's nutritious, more delicious than it sounds--and the color is gorgeous.

Irwin Shaw played quarterback for the Brooklyn College Kingsmen in the early Thirties. He is the author of many short stories, including The Eighty Yard Run and The Girls in Their Summer Dresses. Among his other works are The Young Lions, Rich Man, Poor Man, Evening in Byzantium and The Top of the Hill.

[recipe_title]Italian Delight[/recipe_title]

First hire a small, dark Tuscan lady. Accompany her ceremoniously into the kitchen. Make no suggestions. Leave the kitchen. Make a martini. Stir well. Drink slowly. Wait. The results are invariably successful.

Red Smith is sports columnist for the New York Times Syndicate. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his commentary. His books include out of the Red, Views of Sport and Strawberries in the Wintertime: The Sporting World of Red Smith.

[recipe_title]Jim Moore'S boiled-baked potatoes[/recipe_title]

At Jim Moore's restaurant in New York, known widely as Dinty Moore's, I got the recipe for his boiled-baked potatoes. I went home (to suburban Philadelphia in those days). "You'll love these," I told my wife.

"You empty a nickel bag of salt into a kettle of water," I said.

"You can't get a nickel bag of salt," she said.

"All right," I said. "You empty a ten-cent bag of salt into--"

"You can't get it in a bag," she said.

"You empty a ten-cent box of salt into a kettle of water," I said.

"A whole box of salt?" she said.

I said, "Never mind. I'll do it."

Jim Moore had told me to boil the potatoes seven to eight minutes in the heavily salted water, then bake them. I did, but I used a small aluminum kettle and all the water boiled away swiftly, leaving the potatoes in a bubbling bath of wet cement. I kept adding water, finally baked them and they were delicious.

William Styron won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Howells Medal, for The Confessions of Nat Turner. Among his other works are Lie Down in Darkness, The Long March and Set This House on Fire. His most recent novel is Sophie's choice.

[recipe_title]Florence Bass'S Virginia Clam Chowder[/recipe_title]

When I was growing up in tidewater Virginia, our cook was an ample and cheery black lady named Florence Bass, whose genius resided in the way she could take an essentially Northern dish and by a subtle Southern touch transmute it into something extraordinary.

[recipe]48 cherry-stone (medium-size) clams[/recipe]

[recipe]4 cups water[/recipe]

[recipe]2-inch square (or equivalent) slice of slab bacon, preferably Virginia or North Carolina, diced[/recipe]

[recipe]2 large onions, chopped very fine[/recipe]

[recipe]4 medium unpeeled potatoes, diced to the size of small sugar cubes[/recipe]

[recipe]Freshly ground black pepper[/recipe]

[recipe]3 cups milk[/recipe]

Place clams after washing into a large pot, along with the water. Cover and bring to a boil and simmer until clams open,10-15 minutes. Let clams cool in the water and their own juice, retaining both. This is a good time to dice the bacon (into 1/2-inch pieces), to peel and chop the onions and to dice the potatoes. Remember that unpeeled potatoes, besides being more nutritious, give better taste. A food processor is an excellent onion chopper. Placing the potatoes in the julienne disc of a processor, then roughly chopping with a knife, is an easy method and gives them a fine consistency.

In the bottom of another large pot, fry the diced bacon over medium heat, allowing grease to accumulate at the bottom of the pot. Add the minced onion and sauté well but not enough to brown.

Open clams, which by now should be cool enough to handle. Be careful to retain all residual juice to add to the pot. Chop clams medium fine with knife or in food processor, which is much faster. Add these clams and all of the retained juice to the bacon-onion mixture in second pot.Bring to a boil and then simmer for ten minutes.

Add the diced potatoes, bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes more. While simmering, add freshly ground black pepper in copious amounts. Florence went heavy on the pepper, and it really makes a difference. She never used salt; there is enough in the juice.

Add the milk which has been brought barely to the boil. Stir well and serve. THis chowder improves with age and after a day or two in the refrigerator is at is peak. In the proportions described, it should serve eight to ten as a main course.

Calvin Trillin is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His works include U.S. Journal, American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater and Runestruck, a novel.

Calvin Trillin's scrambled eggs that stick to the pan every time

This is my only dish. I turn it out every school morning for my two daughters. They hate it.

Egg

Milk, if you can find it (back behind the lettuce, hidden by the shadow of the Chinese take-out leftovers)

Butter

Burn the butter while looking for sandwich bread for lunch or discussing riboflavin content of various cereals . Apologize to daughters for your language. Put a little milk (if you can find it) with the eggs and scramble away until you're afraid the butter might burn agaian. Shove the eggs around in the pan until you remember that the toast is about to burn. Turn back to the eggs, which by this time have stuck to the pan.

Serve with burned toast and wan smile.

Eudora Welty is the author of A Curtain of Green, Losing Battles, Delta Wedding and The Optimist's Daughter. Among her honors are a Pulitzer Prize and a National Institute of Arts and Letters Gold Medal.

[recipe_title]Charles Dickens' Eggnog[/recipe_title]

This is the eggnog we always started Christmas Day off with. I have the recipe my mother used, though she always referred to it as Charles Dickens' recipe.

[recipe]6 egg yolks, well beaten[/recipe]

[recipe]3 tablespoons powdered sugar, sifted[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup bourbon[/recipe]

[recipe]1 pint whipped cream[/recipe]

[recipe]6 egg whites, whipped into peaks but not dry[/recipe]

[recipe]Nutmeg, if desired[/recipe]

Add the powdered sugar gradually to the beaten egg yolks. Add the bourbon a little at a time to the mixture. Add the whipped cream and the beaten egg whites, folding gently in. Chill. Serve in silver cups with a little grated nutmeg on top, if desired.

Tom Wolfe is the author of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Painted Word and The Right Stuff.

[recipe_title]The ten-o'clock compote[/recipe_title]

I'm not much of a cook. My one accomplishment in the kitchen has been my breakfast dish, which I eat 310 mornings each year.

The night before, put the contents of two bags of Mariana extra fancy dried apricots, a can of pitted prunes and a box of golden seedless raisins into a big bowl. Fill with water, add half of a lemon and a tablespoonful of sugar and let it stand overnight. In the morning, bring it to a boil and let it simmer for 10 or 15 minutes. Take out a cereal bowl and put about three tablespoons of roasted wheat germ in the bottom. Now spoon in six or seven apricots and prunes and garnish with the raisins. On top of this put a layer of Alpen cereal. Then a light layer of 100 percent bran cereal. Add milk. Save the rest of the compote in the refrigerator for tomorrow ... and tomorrow ... and tomorrow....

"John Birch Society Beans are so named because of the intense internal reaction they produce."