Non-Cook Of The Month
November, 2011
Deeply Rooted Non-Cook Zachary Lazar
Interview With Non-Cook of the Month
Zachary Lazar
Zachary Lazar
Zachary Lazar is the author of three books including Aaron, Approximately (a coming of age novel published in 1998), Sway (selected as a best book of 2008 by The Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Rolling Stone, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch among other publications), and Evening's Empire: The Story of My Father's Murder (selected as a best book of 2009 by the Chicago Tribune; an incredible meditation on loss and my favorite of his works). Lazar has been a recipient of the James Michener-Copernicus Society Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship -- he was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University and is currently on the faculty at Tulane University.
Zach was kind enough to answer PGN-C questions over email.
Picky Grouchy Non-Cook: Could you describe your non-cook style or non-cook background?
Zachary Lazar: Laziness plus a nebbishy creature-of-habit mentality when it comes to making food are my background. I used to eat a tuna sandwich for lunch every day. I found it too troublesome to actually make tuna salad, so I'd spread mayo on the bread and empty the can of tuna flakes onto that. I looked forward to the sandwich every day. This is pathetic, obviously, but has it's advantages. I am in recovery now.
PGN-C: Is there anything you especially don't cook?
Zachary Lazar: Anything with a recipe. I have learned to enjoy a certain low level improvisatory kind of cooking where I take what is on hand and try to whip up something edible from it. I am often pleased with the results. My wife often less so. I like hot food, so certain Thai chili sauces and that Tabasco chipotle sauce can cover up a lot of bluffing.
PGN-C: Do you suffer from guilt over being a non-cook?
Zachary Lazar: Social guilt. At the age of 43, you should be able to put together a dinner party, right? I'm working on it. Plus so many of my friends are interesting, eccentric cooks. My wife is a first-rate cook. That has allowed me to duck the issue for years. But right now I'm living in a different city, so I'm on my own most of the time. Fortunately the different city is New Orleans, so there's a lot of great restaurants.
PGN-C: Sometimes I feel that there's a vaguely taboo aspect to talking about some aspects of the non-cook experience. This could also be paranoia. What do you think?
Zachary Lazar: It seems to me that in the last seven years or so, cooking has become a national obsession. It's like you're in a world of passionate football fans and you don't enjoy watching football. It's gotten harder to spin the non-cook thing as an endearing eccentricity, a la "I don't have a driver's license," or "I can't do math." I've made jokes that don't get a laugh. I think it's funny to say that I'm going to eat Chef Boyardee ravioli for dinner. Many simply find this nauseating. It is not funny.
PGN-C: If you had to physically survive on books instead of food, what would you read for best nourishment? What would you do for hydration, book wise?
Zachary Lazar: That's tough. I'd like to say Shakespeare for nourishment, but how often do I read Shakespeare? Maybe Hemingway because he's so good at describing food. For hydration, I'd go to Moby Dick every time.
PGN-C:Would you say being a non-cook is more like something you've chosen or more like something lodged within you?
Zachary Lazar: It's a character defect, deeply rooted. The funny thing is that I love food, I just don't like making it. And I especially don't like cleaning up after it. Looking at a cookbook is to me like looking at the tax code. I don't like shopping. I had a great aunt who married an heir to the Fisher nut fortune. They lived in a hotel and ate all their meals out or had room service. That sounds pretty much like the perfect setup to me.
Zachary Lazar: Laziness plus a nebbishy creature-of-habit mentality when it comes to making food are my background. I used to eat a tuna sandwich for lunch every day. I found it too troublesome to actually make tuna salad, so I'd spread mayo on the bread and empty the can of tuna flakes onto that. I looked forward to the sandwich every day. This is pathetic, obviously, but has it's advantages. I am in recovery now.
PGN-C: Is there anything you especially don't cook?
Zachary Lazar: Anything with a recipe. I have learned to enjoy a certain low level improvisatory kind of cooking where I take what is on hand and try to whip up something edible from it. I am often pleased with the results. My wife often less so. I like hot food, so certain Thai chili sauces and that Tabasco chipotle sauce can cover up a lot of bluffing.
PGN-C: Do you suffer from guilt over being a non-cook?
Zachary Lazar: Social guilt. At the age of 43, you should be able to put together a dinner party, right? I'm working on it. Plus so many of my friends are interesting, eccentric cooks. My wife is a first-rate cook. That has allowed me to duck the issue for years. But right now I'm living in a different city, so I'm on my own most of the time. Fortunately the different city is New Orleans, so there's a lot of great restaurants.
PGN-C: Sometimes I feel that there's a vaguely taboo aspect to talking about some aspects of the non-cook experience. This could also be paranoia. What do you think?
Zachary Lazar: It seems to me that in the last seven years or so, cooking has become a national obsession. It's like you're in a world of passionate football fans and you don't enjoy watching football. It's gotten harder to spin the non-cook thing as an endearing eccentricity, a la "I don't have a driver's license," or "I can't do math." I've made jokes that don't get a laugh. I think it's funny to say that I'm going to eat Chef Boyardee ravioli for dinner. Many simply find this nauseating. It is not funny.
PGN-C: If you had to physically survive on books instead of food, what would you read for best nourishment? What would you do for hydration, book wise?
Zachary Lazar: That's tough. I'd like to say Shakespeare for nourishment, but how often do I read Shakespeare? Maybe Hemingway because he's so good at describing food. For hydration, I'd go to Moby Dick every time.
PGN-C:Would you say being a non-cook is more like something you've chosen or more like something lodged within you?
Zachary Lazar: It's a character defect, deeply rooted. The funny thing is that I love food, I just don't like making it. And I especially don't like cleaning up after it. Looking at a cookbook is to me like looking at the tax code. I don't like shopping. I had a great aunt who married an heir to the Fisher nut fortune. They lived in a hotel and ate all their meals out or had room service. That sounds pretty much like the perfect setup to me.