Memory, food and how to write about it

To be honest, this whole food writer gig is everything and nothing I imagined. That's why it's nice to read the work of other food writers.

"You could call it an urban-Midwestern-northeastern-southern-Jewish-home cooking-ethnic restaurant upbringing," Rogers says.

Rogers will lead a special food writing workshop at this year's

this weekend. Her workshop is titled Something to Savor: Telling Your Story with Food and Flavor,through which she will explore how to use your remembrances of food to engage your senses to deepen your writing.

Rogers should know. She's authored three cookbooks, including Hungry for Home: Stories of Food from Across the Carolinas, and her work was included in "Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing" and many other publications regionally and nationally.

Recently, Rogers took some time to answer some questions about her own writing and her love of food.

Q:What's one prominent food memory you have from your childhood that has stuck with you throughout your life?

A: My very favorite childhood food memory is our family's ritual of going out to eat at a local Chinese restaurant near Detroit. Back then, it was popular to order according to the number of people, from a menu that listed items in columns: "One from Column A and two from Column B," and so forth. I can still hear the clamor of that place and see way everyone shared all the dishes back and forth across the table. It was decades later before I learned that most eight-year-olds do not crave shrimp with lobster sauce the way I did!

Q: How is writing about food different from cooking it? Do you have to be able to cook to be able to write well about food?

A: I think writing and cooking share a lot of similarities. Some people just have a knack for one or the other. But you don't have to cook well to write well about food. And some of the best cooks never write a single word about what they do. Also, some food writers are pretty self-deprecating about their lack of culinary talent. Like any topic, you do need to educate yourself about it, even if you never set foot in your own kitchen.

Q: How is writing about food different than writing about another topic? Or is it the same?

A: I think it's different and that's a good thing. Everyone can identify with food. That's not necessarily true for other topics. To some degree, everyone already speaks the universal language of food. So many important stories have food as a component. In my cookbook, "Hungry For Home," there's an essay about the Civil Rights movement and how the lunch-counter sit-ins were a turning point because wanting to peaceably sit and eat was a desire everyone could understand.

Q: When you're writing about someone else's food experience, what are the questions you ask in order to gain better insight?

A: It can be as simple as starting with, "What do you eat and why?" From there the conversation can take you almost anywhere, into discussions of recipes, family, memory, culture, geography, religion, or politics.

Q: How can we write about our personal food experiences in a way that others can understand?

A: Here's one secret about food writing: Like all good writing, it needs to tell a story. This is one topic we'll explore at the NC Writers' Network 2014 Fall Conference.

Q: What is your current favorite dish?

A: My favorite dishes are always the ones other people cook for me and that I don't make nearly as well. My friend Meg makes the world's best eggplant parmesan; I'd walk a mile in the cold for a cup of my friend Carol's chili. My sister bakes salmon better than I do. My brother makes very creative breakfast omelets.

Q: What is something you always have in your fridge?

A: I always keep half-and-half in the fridge because it makes both sweet and savory dishes so much better. I pour a little over bread pudding, add it to eggs, stir it into tomato soup. It's so versatile.

Q: What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?

A: Up north we call it stuffing, down south we call it dressing, but I love just about any variety – and even more so if it's got oysters.