Why The Next Bobby Flay Makes Me Want To Play Chopsticks On The Piano Again

Cheri Giblin photo

Eleven-year-old Jack Witherspoon is talking about how he acquired a broader taste palate, and ‘twisting up’ the recipes in his astounding new cookbook, Twist It Up, published by Chronicle.

In between, he’s chopping vegetables as expertly as Bobby Flay--whom he’s palled around with--demonstrating the precision and speed that he can also deliver on the tae kwan do mat (he’s a black belt), though, “It’s kind of hard that some of the tools are too big,” Jack says.

I start thinking about what my accomplishments were before hitting puberty. Only a handful of things (and that’s stretching it) come to mind: there was that Senior badge in swimming, five trips to Disney World (a neighborhood record), and the ability to play chopsticks on the piano.

My culinary accomplishments consisted of setting the table and putting Eggo waffles in the toaster for an after-school snack before watching TV, twisting things up by adding Nutella to the waffles— if Lucille Ball was stomping on grapes in I Love Lucy.

But extraordinary circumstances can bring out the extraordinary in people, and it’s more than true with Jack.

His palette-stretching experience began five years ago while in a California hospital recovering from his second battle with leukemia, at the age of six. Faced with days in a hospital bed weakened by chemotherapy, Jack watched Alton Brown make mac n’ cheese from scratch and his perception of food was changed forever.

The Food Network became Jack’s welcome diversion and the catalyst for his obsession with food. Faced with months of treatment for leukemia without school, martial arts or Little League, the one thing Jack could do was cook.

From his family’s Redondo Beach home, Jack tests all his recipes with the help of his mom, Lisa, and welcome taste testers, dad John, and kid brother, Josh. Watching one of his cooking demos, Jack gets as excited about blending spices and the rich, velvety taste of ricotta cheese as any seasoned TV chef. But then you see him stretch up on his tippy toes to peak at his baked ziti bubbling in the oven. “It smells awesome!” Jack grins, using his fingers to mix more ingredients, like any kid would.

It’s a good thing though, when Jack gets excited about eating. Last summer, while making plans to launch his cookbook, a routine exam showed that the leukemia had returned. “It took us by complete surprise because he was the epitome of health,” Jack’s mother told the Chicago Tribune.

Dealing with the disease for the third time, Jack underwent a bone marrow transplant in August, which robbed him of his strength and his appetite, but could very well have saved his life.

I’m making Jack’s stuffed mushroom caps, which Top Chef Fabio Viviani—who’s also a good friend of Jack’s--says is the best appetizer. “He knows food, I am telling you,” Viviani told The Easy Reader. “This kid in the next five years is going to forget more about food than I could ever learn.”

The mushroom concoction looks a bit dreary, so I glance through Jack’s cookbook looking for the ‘twist it up’ suggestion, and realize how appropriate it is that all the recipes are for comfort foods.

Spinach and feta. That’s what Jack recommends. I look for a frozen bag of spinach and pop the mushrooms in the oven. Then I read what Jack wrote on his blog last month:

Rock Climbing

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Jack Witherspoon

Went to Hanger 18 yesterday to do some rock climbing. I’ve been there a few times before, it’s totally fun and will help me get in shape for when I join the Boy Scouts this month. My stamina is getting soooo much better now, it’s been 6 months since my transplant and I’m feeling almost like my old self again. By this summer, the doctors say I should be 100% recovered. I’ll be going back to school after Spring break…can’t wait to see everyone again!!

Part of the proceeds for Jack’s cookbook, Twist It Up go to the Jack Witherspoon Permanent Endowment at Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, California.

WIN A COPY OF LITTLE JOE!

CONTEST! WIN a signed hardback copy of LITTLE JOE along with a blue ribbon bookmark!

In LITTLE JOE, Eli’s father, Chet Stegner, showed his first calf way back when. And since she was born on St. Paddy’s Day, he named her Shamrock.

 

In honor of Shamrock and St. Patrick’s Day, I’m giving away a signed hardback copy of LITTLE JOE with a glossy, blue ribbon bookmark.
 

To ENTER, “like” my Facebook page. (If you’ve already “liked” it no worries—that counts.) Double your chances by posting a picture of your favorite animal on my Facebook wall.

I’ll be drawing the winning name out of my Dr. Seuss-like fedora hat on Thursday, March 22nd! (For U.S. and Canadian residents only.) 

The Life of an Author: Book Awards

The Life of An Author

As I was contemplating leaving sports broadcasting back in 1999, a friend of mine took me out to dinner to talk about my options, then told me to hold off on dessert because she had a surprise-- she’d booked a session for me with a clairvoyant.

“You’ll become known for your works of the hand,” the clairvoyant announced, scribbling the air with an invisible pen. “And your books will win awards.”

Now, no matter how skeptical you are about a person’s ability to see the future, when they tell you something you’d like to hear, I, for one, tend to believe it.

Her bold words crossed my mind when my first novel, Little Joe came out in 2010. A year later, the same friend asked me, “No award yet, huh? I guess the clairvoyant must have meant your next book.”

We were nearly into 2012 when I’d heard that Little Joe had won the silver medal in the Austin Waldorf School’s Children’s Choice Award. I was so thrilled and honored, I celebrated for a week, and my colleagues joked that if I could get this excited about a school award, “we may have to sedate you” if I got one that reached state, or even national status.

Then Little Joe made the final list for this year's South Carolina Children’s Book Award. While I didn’t need to be sedated (though I ate several red velvet cupcakes, but they were the miniature kind), I was just as thrilled. And I couldn’t help but think back to that evening with the clairvoyant more than thirteen years ago.

While I’m still new at being an author (I’m working on book number three), I’m convinced that every author wants to have their works be recognized. I think if a children's writer told you that it didn’t matter if their books were considered for the Newbery, the Printz, the Sibert or the National Book Award, they’d be denying you full disclosure.

Having your book considered for an award means several things, and the most important one for me is this: enough people (reviewers, librarians, booksellers, bloggers and teachers) thought so highly of the book that they had it nominated.

This touches me deeply. To have the characters I’ve created, nurtured, and felt every emotion with touch someone else (and more than a few) enough to say to another, “I think you should read this book because it might affect you too,” gives me the added strength and courage to begin another novel. It makes the 300 blank pages before me a little less daunting; the months of research--which often tend to compound rather than contract--telling and re-telling my story until it’s as right as I can make it, worth delving into.

“Wouldn’t it be great if you won, just like the clairvoyant predicted?” my friend said to me.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told her. And I wasn’t lying. What means more to me is being nominated—for that’s a monumental triumph in itself. After that, the territory becomes as murky and unpredictable as a lottery win—the result owed in part to a sprinkling of fairy dust, lucky charms, and numbers. And just as I don’t hinge my actions on the reading of a clairvoyant, I don’t want to count on luck, either. I’d rather keep writing, knowing that my work has touched more than a few people who read thousands of books, than spend time thinking about winning.