Kim Fay, LOVE & SAFFRON: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms. Don't have time to read books
[0:10]It is a daily podcast
[0:12]365 days a year and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career
[0:18]Their book their life and more in 30 minutes or less because who has time?
[0:22]I am now an author myself
[0:24]Although I wasn't when I started this podcast and you can get my new memoir book ends
[0:29]A memoir of love, loss and literature wherever books are sold starting July 1st and my children's book prints is charming
[0:36]You can learn more about me at zimbyones.com
[0:39]But really you're here to learn more about the authors and that is what we're going to do
[0:43]Also be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the zcast podcast network
[0:49]You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com and definitely check out those shows as well
[0:54]Kim Faye is the author of love and saffron a novel of friendship, food and love
[1:03]Born and raised in Washington state Kim Faye is a former bookseller and the author of communion a culinary journey through Vietnam
[1:09]a gormand world cookbook award winner and
[1:12]The map of last memories the Ned girl word finalist for best first novel
[1:16]She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jim and their dog Mabel
[1:20]I used to have a dog named Mabel love and saffron is her second novel and it's so good
[1:24]It's short and sweet and thought for voting and I read it all in one sitting
[1:29]Welcome, Kim. Thank you so much for coming on mom
[1:31]Don't have time to read books to discuss the love and saffron a novel of friendship, food and love
[1:37]Thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here Zibi. Oh
[1:42]Your book just got right into my heart. I mean these characters
[1:47]I mean I won't give anything away, but towards the end. I just like I just I feel like I feel like I knew them and like everything that happened to them
[1:57]I felt like I was going on the emotional journey. There's something about this epistolary
[2:02]Fissolary form, which is so rare these days and so amazing
[2:05]Tell listeners a little about what your book is about and I read the backstory of how it came about during COVID
[2:11]So please tell that whole thing as well. Okay. Okay. Well, my book
[2:15]I mean it's the in a nutshell thing is always so hard
[2:18]So but in a nutshell, it's the early 1960s and a young budding food writer in Los Angeles sends a fan letter and
[2:26]A little gift of saffron to a an older magazine columnist who she admires up in the Pacific Northwest on one of the islands outside of Seattle and
[2:36]this
[2:38]correspondence that begins from this
[2:41]Fan letter the women begin writing back and forth and as they do they begin opening their hearts to one another
[2:48]Sharing food with one another but through food finding paths into different parts of their lives that they hadn't really
[2:56]explored and
[2:58]There are so many backstories to this novel that it's kind of it's hard
[3:02]But one of them is um, I was a bookseller in the 90s and when I left the bookstore moved to Vietnam to teach English
[3:10]My really good friend Janet Brown moved to Thailand to teach English and she and I started corresponding
[3:17]That was 1995 and we have been corresponding ever since
[3:21]It's one of the correspondences that did not fall to the wayside
[3:25]As technology came along and
[3:28]For a long time I've really wanted to honor that friendship and honor that experience and so that's one example of
[3:36]Just a lot of the things that were floating around in my head and floating around in sketches on little pieces of paper
[3:43]But when lockdown hit
[3:46]Here in Los Angeles
[3:48]It was a you know, I know it was this way in a lot of places, but when we locked down
[3:52]We got the orders. We were not allowed to leave the house. You could go grocery shopping. You know, we were
[3:58]it was intense and
[4:01]As it was for a lot of people around the country, but for some reason the next day
[4:06]The day after we locked down
[4:08]I sat down at my computer and all the other things. I'd been working on just fell to the wayside
[4:13]and this piece came forward and I started writing and writing and writing and
[4:21]Within a few months. I had a book and it was I think one of the reasons. I was able to write it so fast as I didn't wasn't writing for publication
[4:30]I was writing it as a gift to this friend Janet and also to Barbara Hanson
[4:36]Who is the food writer who the young character Joan is based on?
[4:40]So I wasn't thinking as you often do when you're writing a book
[4:45]What's my audience? Where is this going to go? Is my agent going to like it?
[4:49]Will she be able to find a publisher? It was just can I offer a little comfort to these two friends during this dark time?
[4:57]And I finished it. I sent it to them. They loved it, which was my whole that made that made the whole all of the writing
[5:07]worthwhile. And then I just set it aside and it wasn't until later that it kind of floated back to
[5:13]the surface and you know went from agent to editor to publication. Wow. That's amazing. So tell me a little
[5:20]about how you came up with these characters where they based on you some of the scene. I mean,
[5:26]there's so many specifics, you know, food and landscape and then so many things like
[5:34]you know, they're their relationships, the details, right? There's this part. But you said,
[5:40]I haven't been thinking this is written from
[5:43]Imogen, Emma's point of view. I haven't been thinking about Francis too. Of course,
[5:47]I'm always thinking about him. He's my husband and every day I'm doing something for him
[5:51]ironing his shirts or emptying his ashtrays. I love that. It's like so
[5:56]It's so like blast from the past.
[5:59]Yeah, no, it is. I remember because the cabin is a real place is on Camino Island.
[6:05]Uncle or Francis is my great uncle Frank. Amy is my great aunt, Emma. And oh my gosh,
[6:10]I remember it's sad that the smell of cigarette smoke makes me nostalgic.
[6:16]As that plays, you know, they would play peanut goal. They would be playing cards or just be
[6:20]filled with smoke. So there's a lot of I'm going to decide from cigarettes. There's a lot of
[6:24]memories that go into this book. And a lot of the detail I was able to capture,
[6:30]because for example, I said, Joan is based on Barbara Hanson, who was a pioneering Los Angeles
[6:35]food writer. Barbara and I have been friends for 10 years, but I've also been a little bit
[6:40]obsessive about her. She I have access to the LA Times archives. And there was a point in the
[6:47]last 10 years where I went online and read all of her columns. And there were hundreds. And so
[6:53]there was a lot of pre-research that went into this book that I didn't know was going to be
[6:56]the research for this book, because I'd already done it. And you know, so I had all of these pieces
[7:03]from her professional life. And you know, she and I had talked a lot. There were just wonderful
[7:07]details. Yes, she did get her first agent through Helen Gurley Brown. While she was writing an article
[7:13]about her, they're just all these fun details that I was able to weave in. And I think since
[7:18]obviously I wasn't born in the early 60s. I was born in the mid 60s. So not my time period.
[7:24]The part of me that's in the book is the part that discovered the world through food.
[7:29]My group in small towns around Washington in real meat and potatoes, you know, a Scandinavian
[7:35]communities. And it wasn't until I started traveling in my early 20s out of the country that,
[7:42]you know, I really learned that the world was so much bigger. And most of the ways I discovered
[7:47]that was at the table, you know, no matter where you are, you know, what country you're in,
[7:53]what language barriers there are. Once you sit down at a dinner table or once you watch and walk
[7:58]into somebody's kitchen and start cooking with them, it all falls away. Because there's not a single
[8:05]person in the world. It doesn't eat, you know, and we all have to do it some like some of us
[8:10]like it. Some of us don't. Some of us, you know, we all approach it differently. But we all have to do
[8:14]it. So there's that one of those commonalities that you just can't, you know, you can't deny.
[8:19]And that's that's where I come into the book is I was just really curious about food and how
[8:27]it connects us. So interesting. And even how in addition to the food, which of course we relate to
[8:34]as much today as we would have in the past, right? It's the same flavor. It's the same, you know,
[8:38]it's just amazing. I never really thought about that no matter what they were making, it's
[8:43]cilantro still tastes like cilantro, right? Yeah. Anything else can change. But yeah, that's
[8:49]fantastic. You can use that if you'd like. Go for it. I like how you did, though, want the story
[8:59]rooted in time and reality. And you had things like the Cuban Missile Crisis and President Kennedy's
[9:05]laws and or assassination, as you say. And even what the book of the month club pick was,
[9:11]you know, we didn't even like Rabbit Run by John Octak at the time, or at least this person,
[9:16]these people didn't really love it. Yeah. So there was just something just very like history
[9:24]meets the personal and yet it was a timeless narrative, right? Because also friendship,
[9:31]the bonds of friendship. It could be email. It could be letters. It doesn't matter. Some of those
[9:37]feelings like they also don't go away. No, that is. And friendship was really, I mean, I
[9:43]exploring friendship. I think because we were also cut off during the pandemic from one another
[9:49]in just a physical way, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what friendship means and how
[9:55]essential it was during dark times, which is kind of how it came into when I was.
[10:00]talking about President Kennedy's assassination in the book,
[10:03]I was really conscious of what was happening in our country
[10:08]and how we were also divided but yet united over
[10:13]this national and slash global situation that was happening.
[10:19]And so I was just thinking about how important human connection
[10:22]is and trying to capture that in these episodes
[10:27]episodes from another time period
[10:30]but that have relevance today.
[10:32]Interesting, man.
[10:34]So what else was from your side from the smoke?
[10:37]Yeah, well, let me have a few other little details
[10:41]from the smoke inside.
[10:43]Yes, it's a cabin.
[10:44]I mean, the cabin was my aunt and uncle's cabin.
[10:47]I spent my summers there, you know, we were,
[10:51]we, you know, the crab pots and just running around
[10:55]out front clams.
[10:57]That was all, those are, you know,
[11:00]you have some memories that you hold in your head and heart
[11:03]that are, I don't want to say that they're more valuable
[11:06]than those, but they have a certain preciousness
[11:08]and those memories have always been precious to me.
[11:11]And I think one of the reasons that was really a standout
[11:14]in my head when the book, when I wrote the book
[11:16]was because I went back to the island in 2018
[11:19]and I won't go into the very long story
[11:22]but when I went back to see the land,
[11:24]just, you know, I wanted to see the land that the cabin
[11:26]had been on, but cabin was still there exactly
[11:29]as it had been.
[11:30]It's been clear.
[11:31]And so that was, and the man who,
[11:35]the family who lived in it, let me come inside
[11:37]and be back in that space where I spent my childhood.
[11:40]So I, it was very alive for me when I wrote the book
[11:45]and also I love LA and I love Seattle.
[11:49]I'm a Shory's bookstore that's gone in Seattle,
[11:52]Frederick and Nelson Department store
[11:53]that's gone in Seattle.
[11:55]The grand central market as it used to be in Los Angeles,
[11:58]not as it is now where it's been gentrified
[12:01]and it used to be very much a blue collar market.
[12:05]El tepeac where there's a scene in the book
[12:09]that I won't give away, that's a legacy restaurant,
[12:12]that's still there and I do go there.
[12:14]And so I wanted to just pull in all these things
[12:17]that I really love about place
[12:19]because place is such an important part of story to me
[12:22]because we are so shaped by the places we live in.
[12:26]And that that was also an element
[12:29]I wanted to capture in the two characters.
[12:31]So literally what we say, one of the main things
[12:34]we look for in a book,
[12:36]I started this publishing company called DiviBooks
[12:37]and we're only doing 12 bucks a year,
[12:39]but strong sense of place,
[12:41]strong sense of voice, strong sense of place,
[12:42]like two of the most important things
[12:44]because looks have to take you somewhere.
[12:46]You have to like everyone wants to go
[12:49]or I long for that.
[12:50]I mean, it's fun to sink into characters,
[12:53]they're interior lives and everything,
[12:55]but it's where they're set too
[12:56]and that I got to be in this cabin
[12:58]or slipping down rocks and eat it.
[13:01]Like, it's really like, you know,
[13:04]it's like the magic of books,
[13:05]how you feel like you actually,
[13:06]it's like a dream, like you feel like you actually
[13:08]kind of did that, even though you totally did it.
[13:10]Very much so I was obsessed with Harlequin romances
[13:14]when I was growing up and this seems like a non sequitur
[13:18]but it wasn't the romances, it was the place.
[13:21]Harlequin romances, especially like, you know,
[13:24]back in the 50s and 60s,
[13:26]because I would get them at those little weird, you know,
[13:28]strip mall bookstores in small towns,
[13:31]they always took place on a Greek island or Paris
[13:35]or Turkey or all these places I'd never,
[13:38]you know, I'd have to go look on a map and find them
[13:41]and I read these romances looking for the details of place.
[13:46]Please.
[13:47]Wow.
[13:48]Alfred, maybe I'll buy that.
[13:50]I might have been extra at extras, I think.
[13:54]Oh, I love the room.
[13:55]But if what I remember when I looked back,
[13:57]I can still remember under the stars of Paris
[14:00]because I can remember the descriptions of the city.
[14:03]Yeah, that's funny, yes.
[14:04]I mean, that is how many people,
[14:06]I mean, a lot of people that's all they're gonna get
[14:08]of that place is what you put in your novel
[14:10]is their impression, what authors do.
[14:13]It's gonna do it justice really.
[14:16]For magical, I love reading books from other countries
[14:19]by authors from other countries
[14:21]by authors who've only visited other countries
[14:23]because you're always getting different perspectives.
[14:25]You know, if someone is a visitor,
[14:27]if someone is born there and I know that's why
[14:30]I sense a place is so strong in my book
[14:32]because it's so important to me when I read.
[14:35]I just feel like you did such a nice job
[14:37]of showing the evolution of a relationship,
[14:39]like that actual deepening and what little phrases
[14:43]and how closeness morphs over time.
[14:47]Like it's really interesting how you do that through language.
[14:50]How one does that, right?
[14:51]It's what we share, it's what we say.
[14:53]It's in these little things that take someone from here
[14:56]to here, right?
[14:58]I do have to figure out how to do it
[15:00]for both characters in tandem.
[15:02]It was a very organic process and it might be
[15:06]because I do think about women's friendships a lot.
[15:09]I laughed because I was doing a talk
[15:12]and I talked about how I could remember when I met
[15:15]one of my very best friends from the bookstore.
[15:17]And when we first started having coffee,
[15:19]it was like a crush, you know, it was this,
[15:22]will she like me?
[15:23]Did I sound stupid?
[15:25]Oh my gosh, do you think she'll want to have coffee again?
[15:27]And I was, you know, talking about that evolution
[15:30]and then a really good friend that I have here
[15:32]in Los Angeles who had seen the talk.
[15:34]She texted me and she said,
[15:35]oh my gosh, I felt that way when we met.
[15:38]And I said, so did I.
[15:40]You know, we have these, you know,
[15:44]you're really deep friendships.
[15:45]There's that bit of venturing in
[15:48]and then you start to reveal
[15:50]and then there's the opening of trust.
[15:52]And then when the trust opens up,
[15:55]you just kind of fall into a well together,
[15:57]which is kind of the process of how this book evolved.
[16:01]And then after that, it becomes very smooth in a way.
[16:06]I'm trying to figure out how to describe it.
[16:08]But there really is a beautiful organic process
[16:11]to the development of our deep friendships.
[16:14]And I know obviously they occur in different ways.
[16:17]But that was one thing I wanted to explore in this book
[16:20]is how people become friends in an honest and genuine way.
[16:26]How did your friends decide from the two you sent it to?
[16:28]Did other of your friends respond just as positively?
[16:31]And has it been like a bonding thing now with all of you?
[16:34]It has, it really has.
[16:36]I've received a really beautiful email from my high school
[16:40]best friends.
[16:42]And she talked about how friendships,
[16:46]a good friend reads good friendships.
[16:48]And the response to the book both from people I know
[16:53]and people I don't know has been phenomenal
[16:56]because it's always been personal.
[16:58]I have received so many emails or messages through social media
[17:01]from women who've told me that the book has inspired them
[17:04]to reach out to an old friend.
[17:06]A friend they may have lost touch with
[17:08]or perhaps just a friend where life gets going.
[17:10]And it comes down to the Christmas letter every year.
[17:14]And most of them have done it through a letter.
[17:17]Most of them have said I've sat down
[17:19]and I wrote her a letter.
[17:20]And so the personal response to the book from all sides
[17:25]has been extremely gratifying.
[17:28]I feel like I know the holidays are so far away.
[17:31]But I feel like for the holidays this year,
[17:34]you should pair this book with Anna Quinlan's book
[17:37]right for your life because it's all about that.
[17:41]And maybe even there's another author, Gina Hamide
[17:44]who wrote a book about gratitude and writing thank you notes.
[17:48]I'm thinking of the exact title.
[17:49]But I feel like a bundle of those three books
[17:52]with like a gorgeous box of stationary.
[17:55]I love wrapped up and maybe even a pen or like,
[17:59]I don't know, the thing of coffee or tea or I don't know.
[18:02]Like I totally have to have tea
[18:05]when you put sit down and write a letter.
[18:06]Because I, to me, it's a ritual.
[18:08]I was, I just bought some new stationary
[18:10]when I was up in Seattle.
[18:11]So I was sitting down to write a letter.
[18:13]But I have to clear my desk.
[18:15]I have to get out of a fountain pen that I love.
[18:17]A pelican fountain pen that was given to me
[18:19]when I was in my early 20s.
[18:20]Then I grew a cup of tea and I put on my old Davis
[18:24]and then I just sit and close the door.
[18:27]And it's just me, the piece of paper
[18:29]and the friend that I'm writing to.
[18:31]And it's very, I mean, I miss rituals so much.
[18:35]I mean, that is like a meditation, right?
[18:37]That's like a self-care meditation.
[18:40]Like that's what, that seems like such a perfect antidote
[18:44]to like life's craziness.
[18:46]That seemed to me.
[18:47]I want to be, that's so good.
[18:49]So I don't create that scene for me somewhere.
[18:52]Like I don't even drink tea.
[18:53]Doesn't matter.
[18:54]I can see a couple of coffee if that's what this is for.
[18:59]But now the scene needs tea.
[19:02]I, it does need tea.
[19:04]And it also needs the, any technology
[19:06]that's in the room put in the closet.
[19:08]Yeah, it's another thing I do is I don't,
[19:10]the only thing in my office is I'm looking around
[19:13]right now that his technology is my laptop.
[19:15]There's no other technology in this room.
[19:16]So if I just fill my laptop and put it in the closet,
[19:19]then my room is technology.
[19:20]There's two typewriters.
[19:21]I guess that's my, the most technology here.
[19:24]I have my typewriter.
[19:26]I grew this.
[19:27]Oh my goodness.
[19:29]Yeah, so this book came out.
[19:32]People are loving it, which I'm not surprised
[19:34]because as soon as I heard about this book,
[19:36]I was like, oh, I'm going to love that book.
[19:37]I'm not really happy.
[19:39]Yeah, friendship, food, and love.
[19:41]I'm it.
[19:42]Yes, thank you.
[19:42]I like all those things and so do lots of other people.
[19:46]So how has it been with this book
[19:48]sort of coming out into the world
[19:49]and the positive response you've been getting?
[19:53]It's good.
[19:54]It's, it's, I guess it just makes me so happy.
[20:00]because I put so much love into this book. And that that is being responded to. This book is written,
[20:06]I mean, obviously it was written faster than anything I've ever written before since my first
[20:10]novel took 14 years. But it's also written from a different place. This book changed me and it
[20:17]taught me what I really want to write. And so I found the response I've been able to be more
[20:24]interactive this time around. I don't know if this is answering your question, but because of
[20:28]social media, I've been able to like have conversations online with readers in ways that weren't
[20:34]available, you know, the last time my book came out. And the response that is meant the most to me as
[20:41]far out in the world has been the independent bookseller response. Because indie bookstores have taken
[20:47]this book under their wing, they have they have treated Joan and Imogen, the two main characters,
[20:54]as if they were dear family and friends. And that I was five and a half years at the Elliott Bay
[21:00]book company. I worked at Traveler's bookcase down here. I worked at Laguna Beach, or latitude
[21:05]33 in Laguna Beach down here. I know what it means to have a bookseller, love your book. I know
[21:09]what it means to have a bookseller, pick your book and the handsell it. And when I say that, I mean,
[21:13]an indie bookseller, a person who is not an algorithm. So that's that has been the most meaningful
[21:19]part to me as far as any kind of, you know, reviews you get or that kind of thing. And it's just,
[21:27]I've also met so many booksellers I didn't know before and had the opportunity to engage with them
[21:36]in new ways. And I think it has to do because almost every single one has reached out to me with
[21:40]a personal story that they relate to the book. That's what I'm finding really interesting is
[21:46]whether it's somebody whose mother had the magazine that had butternut wisdom in it that
[21:51]column that I mentioned or whether it is I've heard from a lot of people who are in mixed marriages
[22:00]and set the book meant a lot to them or, you know, just different things that they went through
[22:06]in the 60s as women and then just food as well. So yeah, love it. Amazing. Kim, thank you so much.
[22:14]This is such a joy. I'm excited for you. And I really, I mean, I feel like my time reading this
[22:21]book because it's so slim, right? I just read it all in one setting, one sitting rather.
[22:28]Even that moment for me felt like a little slice of the scene that we both have
[22:34]I didn't have the tea and I wasn't writing and there was no Miles Davis, but
[22:39]it did allow me to step out of my life and pause with no technology for well.
[22:43]and I'm glad I'm really glad. Go to another time. So well, thank you so much for having me.
[22:48]I love talking to you. Oh, you too. All right. Well, I'm eager to see what comes next from you
[22:55]and, you know, whatever else you have up your sleeves. So I'll be following along. All right.
[23:00]Thank you. You're a good day. Thanks, you too. Bye bye.
[23:05]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't
[23:08]forget to follow me on Instagram at zebioens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[23:13]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[23:18]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound
[23:23]for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic
[23:27]intro and now trim music.