On Writing toward Nourishment with Aimee Nezhukumatathil

In August, best-selling author Aimee Nezhukumatathil joined our book club to talk about her delectable and life-giving collection of food essays, Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees. The chat was hopping with questions and comments from listeners, and Aimee graciously responded to them all. (Most memorably, Eric shared that he tried the rice cooking hack that Aimee writes about in her essay on rice, much to the author’s delight.) Our conversation meandered from the lighthearted to the deeply personal, as we touched on topics like the pleasure of reading books with beautiful illustrations (each chapter of Bite by Bite starts with an illustration by Fumi Nakamura), to searching for joy and connection in times of darkness, to the importance of writing about race and identity. As usual, the book club starts off with a reading from the author, which is a real treat (as Tatia aptly noted in the discussion). I hope you enjoy this conversation.You can now listen to these recordings on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Subscribe to the show in your app to get notifications when new episodes are released.If you want to go the extra mile, leave Bite by Bite a five star review on Goodreads and Amazon (even if you didn’t buy the book on Amazon), share a picture of the book to your social media, or recommend it to a friend. These small actions can make a big difference to the authors whose books mean so much to us.Thank you, Aimee! And thanks again to our partners: Mississippi Book Festival, Lemuria Books, and Friendly City Books. Thank you to the team at Red Squared for recording our production at their studio in The Hangar.Up next: catch us at the Mississippi Book Festival TOMORROW! I’ll be moderating the Southern Fiction panel with Minrose Gwin, Mary Annaïse Heglar, Gerry Wilson, and Jamie Quatro. I can’t wait!Rooted Magazine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rooted.substack.com/subscribe