My first book, Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast, is finally out, and by all accounts appears to be doing better than I had even imagined: It hit No. 324 on the Amazon bestseller list yesterday — that’s 324 out of more than 8,000,000 books sold. I’d secretly hoped it would break the top 1,000. At one point I was in the top 25 cookbooks, and was tops in “hunting” and “natural foods.” All in all, pretty sweet.
But I am not writing to boast. I am writing because I am 13 days into my first long road trip of what will be a very long, and probably life-changing book tour. When I first wrote about my book tour schedule, it looked like I would be “only” on the road for about 90 days. Now it looks like I won’t be home before November. What happened? Many of you asked me to do events in your area — so many I’ve been throwing down a gauntlet: If you can’t make sure to draw at least 40-or-so people, I am sorry, but I can’t make it. There are just not enough days in the year to be everywhere. Undaunted, nearly a dozen people picked up that gauntlet.
So I am adding San Diego, Toronto, Memphis, Billings, and probably Boulder, someplace in Michigan, Eugene and maybe even Bozeman. Los Angeles remains uncharted, but I am hoping to nail it down soon.
All of that is in the future, however. It is my strange present that I am preoccupied with these days.
I feel myself changing. Becoming a nomad. A shadow. Over the past two weeks I have begun to imagine that I am sitting in the audience of a movie made of my life. I feel disembodied, alternately manic and depressed, silent for long hours or chattering like a magpie. This is not me.
But maybe it is me, or it is what I am becoming. I have driven 2,700 miles in three days, speaking to no one, reveling in loneliness. Once I reached Atlanta and the BlogHer Food conference, I found myself in a position I had never been in before, one I was oddly unprepared to handle properly. Many strangers approached me to tell me how much they loved this space. Some wanted pictures. I even signed an autograph. It felt flattering, but weird. I mean, who am I, anyway? I am just another schmo with a blog, like most everyone else at that conference. I expressed this to a wise friend, and she said: “Who are you? You are who people decide you are, at least publicly.”
Indeed.
My days are a torrent of the new. New experiences, new people, new places, friends, emotions, urges and challenges.
I find myself talking to reporters on an almost daily basis, ironic considering that for 18 years I was the one behind the pen. And inexorably, I’ve begun to develop the unnatural ability to smile on command. Anyone who knows me knows how alien this is. I’m not a grinner.
Talking with reporters is easy; I still consider myself one of the tribe. But what I did Tuesday sent me through the looking glass. Thanks to my friend Jaden, I was asked to do a cooking demo for Daytime TV, an NBC program that airs in more than 100 markets, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle and Washington, DC. I am very glad I did not know this when I went into the studio. I would probably have thrown up on the set.
Mercifully the segment (segment? Yes, I am learning that lingo, too) was not live, but it might as well have been. If you watch it today (check your local listings), what you see was done in one take. No reset button. I cooked one of my old recipes for a Greek style honeyed seabass, only I did it with a grouper I’d caught the day before. I was terrified, but everyone was nice and said I did OK, if a bit rushed.
Stress, terror and I have become fast friends. White-knuckled drives along strange highways. Smelly hotel rooms and bad cable TV. Book events falling through. New book events to plan, schedule and confirm. Deadlines to answer press questions. Endless emails to answer. Blog posts to write. People to meet, names to remember and thank-you notes to pen. And always another few hundred miles to drive.
This is my life now. How long it will last no one knows. But something strange is happening: I am beginning to like it.
Met you tonight in Auburn, Alabama, at Acre Restaurant. It was an amazing experience and the food was superb. I especially enjoyed the curried carrots and roasted bone caramel but the chicken fried quail with honey hot sauce and the collards and turkey leg potlikker were sent from heaven above.
Thank you so much for your time and talent and for signing my book for my husband Tom and your mutual appreciation of Robert Ruark, The Old Man and the Boy.
…and Congratulations on the IACP win!
Hank,
Congrats on making the New York Times list of Summer Reading Cookbooks. Right up there with Gwyneth Paltrow!.
Rock on hank, you know your stuff, you’ve earned it. See you at Duck Duel III, if you’re not too busy doing demos on the Today show…
How about Asheville, NC?
Our local independant bookstore is Malaprops http://www.malaprops.com/ and I’m sure at least 40 foragers would show.
Looking at somewhere in Michigan? This is 100 percent biased but I’d hope to see you in Traverse City. We’ve got quite the food region here. Not to mention location on Lake Michigan. Other spots that might do well, Grand Rapids, Detroit, and Marquette. Marquette is small but they population supports your lifestyle more-so than most small towns. If you close you can count me in on showing up!
Congratulations! Soak it in, you deserve it!
oops should be got – perhaps received
get my copy when I was in the vineyard last week – picked nettles so I could try it as soon as I got back – which is tonight (processed them immediately of course) anyway have enjoyed reading so far and the nettle risotto is only a couple hours away!! Thanks and best of luck with the travels.
TriniChad
The book is gorgeous. I’m risking deadlines to read it, but I can’t put it down. Best wishes on your forage into the world of Book Tours. What a fabulous opportunity it was to cook with you in Atlanta. Thank you!
Hank the book is great. If you find yourself straying, throw the old camo apron on and I’m sure you’ll feel at home. Good luck on the rest of the tour.
Congrats! I guess…No truly, congrats. But I always thought touring, for whatever it was that I was dreaming up, usually something band-related, sounded like the worst part of the deal. But like you said, you start to like it. And when it’s all over and done with you might even wish you could do it again, as painful as it might have been. It’s just like having a kid.
“We’re pulling for ya… we’re all in this together.”
Stop on by Milwaukee, eh? (or at least Madison, if you please)
Boy this sounds like fun, travails and all. Great fun! Congratulations!
Oh boy – through the looking glass and not home till November – good luck mate! Look forward to making LA seem really grounded and not LA LA Land at all.
Hank, having worked alongside you, I can attest that your smile comes easily and often, and that your whole face takes part. Travel is surreal in the best of times, and you sound very tired as well. You know my advice: stay hydrated! Love from Sacatomato – L
Dude, sounds like you need to make it home by the middle of October, not November. By that time, you’ll be aching for the Cazadora, a duck blind and a mallard call. Good luck.
Thanks for sharing this part of your journey. If you travel anywhere near Spokane, we have a beautiful little cabin tucked up in the woods that we would offer you {our gift} for a night {or more} – It might be a refreshing change.
Congrats first of all on posting from the road. I imagine you are dead tired, but it’s great know what’s up. Congrats on the book thing too. Can’t wait to get my hands on it and make some rose petal ice cream. I’m one of the crazies who manhandled your book while you only had 4 copies @ blogherfood.
It ain’t braggin’ if you really done it
This is richly deserved – and i’d like to point out, long predicted by me
SBW
Thank you for sharing! I feel privileged to have met you again in Atlanta. Book arrived this week — looks great! Kudos!
Congratulations, Neighbor!! Sounds really exciting and interesting,can’t wait to get a copy of your book!!! We’ll try to keep an eye on things while you’re away. Drive safely and enjoy!
Tim & Judi Klinefelter
Hey – congratulations! I just recently found your blog and really like what you’re doing. When you’re done with the huge tour, come take a break in rural Mexico. We raise rabbits and chickens and have a fun time with our food forest. August is mushroom month.
cheers!
– marie (bosque village)
All I can say, Hank, is freakin enjoy it. Don’t stretch too hard. Don’t think you have to build on this, make the most of THIS time and state of mind. Learn from it. Don’t capitalize on it.
Hank: it was great to meet you at BlogHerFood. It’ wonderful (and kudos) that you found a very special culinary niche and are evangelizing others on the greatness of real nature-fetched food. I can’t wait to get a copy.
Only recently found this blog thanks to the mention on The Splendid Table radio show. It’s all terribly interesting & I’ve already recommended it to several friends. Looking forward to picking up a copy of your new book & (I hope) hearing you speak in the Twin Cities in October. Meanwhile, safe-yet-interesting travels to you, good sales, & wishes that you meet wonderful people along the way, learn much, & have a grand, if weird time. -Karen
Hank – hang in and congratulations to mastering that polical smile that you involked so many times here in Sacto and other locals. The trip sounds like a movie or at least another book. Just got my copies and they look great and well written as always. Take care and see you back here soon.
Jim
Ahh – it just confirms that you are truly at home while foraging, and this is just another foray albeit into a new landscape as yet unexplored. By you – the explorer! While I can only live your book tour vicariously through you (and I think after my own wanderings this past couple of years that is quite OK with me!), you are blowing the minds of many by what you do everyday and what you do without thinking. You take them out of their comfort zone through your writing – and this is just the other side of the mirror. Kind of like Richard Haliburton – but in our own backyard, and with food (yay!).
Happy travels – have fun, and I so look forward to your next post describing your new adventures!
Have a blast, man!
We got our book yesterday, and it looks really nice, by the way.
I just wanted you to know that what you’re feeling is ever so common. I’ve talked to many first-time authors about the surreal nature of touring. A lot of them remark it sometimes feels like an out-of-body experience.
When my first book came out, I went on a long tour that led me to 28 cities (a few visited twice) in about a 90-day span. I talked to vapid local TV hosts who couldn’t get the name of the book right. At bookstores, the mileage varied greatly. Two days after to a packed room at the James Beard House in New York, I had an audience of three at a San Francisco bookstore — and that included two of the store’s employees. In Milwaukee, I signed a book to a woman’s cat.
There’s one long-lasting and truly miraculous thing about going those miles. You meet people face-to-face. You get to share it. You hear how something you labored on in private affected people in ways you never thought of, perhaps in places you never dreamed you’d visit. You make friends with readers. You learn the limits of both your patience and generosity. The more you talk about it, the more you reflect on what you wrote, and why. So, of course all that will change you.
You’ll never have another first book tour. Let it take you wherever you’re going to go and just be myself. Oh, and you should put all your events in BookTour.com – that info populates a ton of sites, including the online calendars for publications. It doesn’t matter they’re not at bookstores.
See you in Seattle in July.
Revel in it brother. Ride the wave while there’s a swell. You can always step off later if you want to, but now’s the time to stoke the fire.
Besides, it gives some of us a vicarious thrill to know someone who actually pulled off this blog-to-book thing!
And pulled it off well!