Casserole, anyone?

+ July 2023 updates from Claire Swinarski

Allow me to introduce you to Summer Claire. Summer Claire lives in the Northwoods and eats s’mores after every meal. Summer Claire splits her time between schlepping her kids to sailing practice and reading historical fiction on her front porch. Summer Claire believes that if the kids jumped in a lake that day, it counts as a shower. Summer Claire’s bag consists of Banana Boat, everyone’s water bottles, and a tattered library book. Summer Claire makes her kids eat outside for almost every meal so that she doesn’t have to clean the kitchen, and that meal is usually hot dogs.

Summer Claire is footloose and fancy free, and gets very little writing done. But that’s okay. Because come fall, when the kiddos are in school and the leaves have turned crimson, when the campfires die out and the gas fireplace is lit instead, when the cold brews are swapped for pumpkin spice lattes, Autumn Claire will be the best little worker bee her publisher’s ever seen!

(Maybe.)

This month I’m still plugging away at a historical fiction middle grade that you won’t get your hands on until 2025. But when I say “plugging away”, I mean I miiiight get 15 minutes of writing in on an odd Wednesday. My very, very few childcare hours are mostly getting spent planning out the promotions for The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County.¹

A couple of years ago, I was doing one of my favorite things: creeping on my mom’s bookshelves, where you might find a second grade yearbook next to a contemporary novel next to a theology text next to the diary of Ulysses S. Grant. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure bookshelf, my favorite kind.²

My older brother had recently showed me the result of hours and hours of Ancestry.com digging: a very thorough family tree, reaching its tendrils all the way back to the Mayflower. So when I found this extremely old cookbook of my mom’s grandmother’s, I—

I mean, stole it is a strong phrase. She knows I took it. I think.

A community cookbook is simply a cookbook made collaboratively by a community in order to fundraise. Everyone “donates” a recipe or two, local businesses buy ads to cover the printing costs, and the book is sold at a profit. Usually for, like, a new church parking lot, as Ivan explains in Funeral Ladies to a bewildered Cooper and Cricket. Community cookbooks were also widely used in the suffrage movement as a way to raise money for leaflets, buttons, and protest materials.

Something about this idea clung to my soul like plastic wrap on a casserole. All of these women had come together to create a cookbook in order to fundraise for their church. The recipes themselves are a goldmine (salmon loaf galore) but I also love the notes scribbled within; the ads from the local bank; the fragility of pages that have been turned over and over.

Listen: History of Community Cookbooks

What could they still mean, in a world of GoFundMe’s and crowdfunding? To create something, to share knowledge you have, at a profit for a cause instead of creating a canva graphic? What does it say about a community that’s able to come together for a collaborative goal, that’s unashamed of its chicken casserole and buttered green beans?

I think it says things about loyalty and roots; about hard work and faith. I think it says something about the power of a pie in a world of trendy food hashtags.

I think it says something about grace.

Esther Larson has been cooking for funerals in the Northwoods of Wisconsin for seventy years. Known locally as the “funeral ladies,” she and her cohort have worked hard to keep the mourners of Ellerie County fed—it is her firm belief that there is very little a warm casserole and a piece of cherry pie can’t fix. But, after falling for an internet scam that puts her home at risk, the proud Larson family matriarch is the one in need of help these days. Iris, Esther’s whip-smart Gen Z granddaughter, would do anything for her family and her community. As she watches her friends and family move out of their lakeside town onto bigger and better things, Iris wonders why she feels so left behind in the place she is desperate to make her home. But when Cooper Welsh shows up, she finally starts to feel like she’s found the missing piece of her puzzle. Cooper is dealing with becoming a legal guardian to his younger half-sister after his beloved stepmother dies. While their celebrity-chef father is focused on his booming career and top-ranked television show, Cooper is still hurting from a public tragedy he witnessed last year as a paramedic and finding it hard to cope. With Iris in the gorgeous Ellerie County, though, he hopes he might finally find the home he’s been looking for. It doesn’t seem like a community cookbook could possibly solve their problems, especially one where casseroles have their own section and cream of chicken soup mix is the most frequently used ingredient. But when you mix the can-do spirit of Midwestern grandmothers with the stubborn hope of a boy raised by food plus a dash of long-awaited forgiveness—things might just turn out okay.

This is where I do the preorder spiel, okay? Preorders help a lot. They especially help little-rando-midwest authors like me a lot. They especially help debut authors, which I am technically considered with this genre as this is my first novel for adults, a lot. So if you *are* planning on buying the book, I would love if you would consider buying it, like, um. Now-ish.

I, too, am a preordering author. Books I’ve recently preordered include Let’s Bake Bread! by Bonnie O’Hara, The Deep Down Things by Amber and Seth Haines, and Simple French Baking by Manon Lagreve. Look at it this way: you’ll probably forget all about it, and then March 12 will be such a fun day for you with a surprise in the mail! At least, that’s always what happens to me. ;)

I also just wanted to share that I am fully booked for school visits for the fall of 2023, and am currently coordinating spring of 2024 visits. If you’re in Wisconsin, Illinois, or Minnesota and want a middle grade author to come present to your school or teach a writer’s workshop, please reach out!

And lastly, a book I’ve loved lately for…

Kids: I stumbled upon a small box of extra picture books in the basement we never unpacked when we moved, and was thrilled to find Chu’s Day at the Beach by Neil Gaiman. My older two loved that board book and now Bridget can enjoy it as well. A very sweet, weird read about a sneezing panda’s day at the beach with his friends!

Middle graders: Firefly Summer by Morgan Matson is a sweet summertime read. I’m a sucker for anything that takes place at camp!

Adults: I devoured The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn in a week (which, now that I’m typing, doesn’t sound like that quickly. But it’s long!) It’s sort of like if Downton Abbey and All the Light We Cannot See had a baby. Stunning book.

Thanks for reading along!

-Claire-

1. I will be able to share the cover so, so soon! I promise!

2. I should note that my mother views me as a thief of books, and I will steadfastly claim that the situation is the opposite and she is actually the thief of mine. I digress!