There's some flurry of publicity in the Philippines, in response to A La Carte's winning the Gourmand Award in the Philippines, and vying for the Best in the World Gourmand Award. My co-editor of the anthology, A La Carte Food & Fiction (Anvil, 2007)asked me to answer some interview questions for Mellon. I sent in my draft, and Marily will add and edit our responses to this magazine (I'm assuming Mellon is a Magazine). Here are my unedited answers to the questions:
1. What inspired you and your co-editor to collect a compilation of short stories about food?
see our book, p. vi Introduction - "It was this deep connection that Filipinos have for food that prompted Marily Orosa and me to edit this collection of Philippine and recipes. Marily and I share a love for fiction primarily because we believe that stories reflect the soul or culture of a people. So does food, and we thought that combining stories and recipes in one book would reveal Filipino culture in a unique manner, and would invite lovers of both stories and food to take a look at our delectable collection."
2. How did you choose which stories to include in the anthology? How about the recipes?
We put out a search for short stories related to food. We let other writers know about our project; we used the internet primarily to put the word out.
When the stories came in, we chose what we thought were the strongest works of fiction that were food-related. In most cases, the authors provided recipes that connected with their stories. In some cases, we helped the authors find recipes that would work with their piece.
3.Aside from the obvious theme of food, is there any other running theme that connects all the stories in the book?
Relationships - is a strong theme in the stories.
4. Were there any problems you encountered during the process of creating the book? How did you overcome these obstacles?
It was work finding stories that were good and with the right food-theme. We had to make a lot of effort to track down writers all over the world.
5. Your book was recently shortlisted for the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2007. How do you feel about that? What do you think makes A La Carte different from other fiction books or books about food?
We are delighted and amused that the book won the Philippine Gourmand Cookbook Award, and is shortlisted for the Best in the World award. The stories included in this anthology are strong; they are character-driven stories, and as such reveal much about Filipinos, their relationships with families and others, and also about Filipino culture. We are amused primarily because we (Marily and Cecilia) did this book project because of our friendship from college days. Finding ourselves in the same literary world, we had talked for years about doing a book project together. We have edited two books, Behind the Walls (full title), and A La Carte Food & Fiction, to fulfill this promise.
6. What important insights did you learn during the whole course of making the book which you wish to impart on your readers?
Insights: Creativity and Fun go together - we had fun doing this book; it was meant to be a fun project, and the book also turned out to be a fine literary book;
Our stories (that is stories about Filipinos) and our books can be just as interesting and captivating as any other in the world, as evidenced by the attention the Gourmand people have given it. The Gourmand Awards are coveted by huge mainstream publishers worldwide and two books by Anvil are in the top three, vying for the international awards.
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Note: Marily Orosa is the publisher of Studio 5, which has published numerous award-winning coffee table books about Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, and others.
Picture above shows Marily, me, and Lauren;
Next picture shows Marily and me at book launching of Behind the Walls. I'm the one in the extreme left, and Marily is wearing red; she's behind Linda Panlilio. Miss International, Gemma Cruz Aramet, whose piece is part of the anthology Behind the Walls, is on the far right;
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