Kate Christensen

At first blush, it seems odd that loser lit books are rejected initially, then go on to be fiercely loved by legions of readers. This apparent contradiction might be due to the fact that if they didn't screw up their lives, most losers would be the kind of power-elite, Type A go-getters whom readers love to hate.

After a day of writing, I love nothing more than to go into my kitchen and start chopping onions and garlic on the way to cooking an improvised meal with whatever ingredients are on hand. Cooking is the perfect counterpoint to writing. I find it more relaxing than anything else, even naps, walks, or hot baths.

Food is not a means toward resolution. It can't cure heartbreak or solve untenable dilemmas.

Most of all, I love unfussy, unpretentious, simple food made with excellent ingredients. If I'm a snob, it's about quality, not cuisine.

In the aftermath of a marriage, you feel helpless and hapless.

I realized that I've had a really rocky relationship with food - it has not been a gauzy, beautiful summer of ripe melons and perfectly buttered toast.

If I fell into one relationship after another with men who were either emotionally tuned out and unavailable or hotheaded and controlling, or both, it was because I was lacking in good sense about men.

It's hard for me to generalize about kids and divorce. I think every family's experience is different; some kids are devastated by it, others relieved, and so forth, no matter what generation they're from.

My 50th birthday approaching felt like a big milestone to me. I've lived half a century. If I write about food and use my life as a fulcrum to move the story along, maybe I've lived long enough to fashion a narrative that has a happy ending.

Blue Plate Special' is the autobiography of my first half-century of life, with food as the subject.

I don't feel that I've had a life of abuse or that I am a victim in any way. My life is pretty typical of a lot of Americans of my generation who grew up in the sixties in families like mine that were sort of unconventional.

My first novel, 'In the Drink,' begun when I was 29 and floundering and published when I was 36 and married, was about a 29-year-old woman whose life was even more screwed up than my own had been.