Hope for the Type A

I did a live radio interview yesterday where I was not the one in charge…and I did not die.

This is big, people.

I should explain.

I used to be a radio reporter, the kind who stuck microphones in powerful people’s faces (or, in John McCain’s case on one memorable occasion, a Blackberry) and pissed off a number of them with my questions (including a flak for said candidate, a young woman so power-drunk and brittle, she called my boss caterwauling and waving around words like “banned” and “fired”).

And then I wasn’t a radio reporter anymore. (But not because of that very mean young woman. My bosses, to their credit, laughed her off and congratulated me.)

And then I wrote a book.

And then I realized that, you know, I might need to actually sell the thing if I wanted to keep myself in shoes. Or in organic flour so that I can, you know, keep my man by baking things like this:

And so, I became a capital-C- Capitalist, which is an unfamiliar country to most journalists. In this wild and wooly place of self-promotion, one must toot one’s horn, loudly, like Louis. One must hawk the heck out of one’s product. And one must do radio interviews without grabbing the mike away.

The good thing: my sweet interviewer was none other than the lovely Cheeseslave. She likes butter and bacon, so clearly she is a superior human. We spent an hour on her brand-spankin’-new show talking about how to find healthy food when dining out. I was afraid it would go badly, but it was rather fun!

The Low Points:

A prank caller who, sadly, proved I have lost my mojo.

A bad pun about blastocysts. (Yes. Sorry. I am prone to punny. Sorry again.)

Me getting disconnected at one point — although some listeners might’ve preferred that.

The High Points:

Cheeseslave!

Talking about my favorite chefs in America. (Like Michael Schwartz of Michael’s Genuine in Miami. That’s us together up top.) These are people who really get it.

Not hyperventilating.

If you’d like to take a listen, click here. And consider listening to her show on a regular basis; I think it’s shaping up to be quite nifty.

By the way, you might not hear from me tomorrow. It’s a Very Sad Day around these parts, so I’ll probably go off and be quiet somewhere.

Here’s to a lovely day for you. In fact, so lovely, I’ll leave you with this poem, which is about love and reminds me deeply of my grandfather:

THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

–Robert Hayden (1913-1980)

P.S. This post is being submitted to Real Food Wednesday, brought to you by — who else? — Cheeseslave! Find it here.