Back to basics
‘Heart of the Home’ celebrates 30th anniversary
Susan Branch has published 15 books and calendars on cooking, gardening, entertaining and homemaking, selling more than four million copies throughout her career. Recently, she decided to return to her roots and republish her very first book, “Heart of The Home,” on its 30th anniversary.
Originally from northern California, Branch wrote and illustrated her debut cookbook while sitting at the dining room table at her home on Martha’s Vineyard where she’s lived since 1982.
The new edition is revised and expanded to include new watercolor art and quotes, new recipes, and a new cover.
In the following Day interview Branch takes a look back at what brought her to where she is today and how it all began with “Heart of the Home.”
Q. How did painting and cooking come together in your life?
A. I didn’t paint at all or expect to write any books. I painted my first picture when I was 30. I was given a gift certificate to an art store and painted a geranium in my window.
I was one of eight children and I began cooking with my mom when I was really young and I discovered Julia Child and the creative side of cooking and entertaining. When I wrote ‘Heart of the Home,’ I wanted my sisters, who were in their early 20s at that time, to also have that sense of being able to do something with their own two hands that mattered to people.
Q. Why did you handwrite the book?
A. I wanted to put my little watercolors between the words and I couldn’t figure out any other way to do that. There was no computer, no Photoshop in those days. So it was homemade. Everything in my house I made, sewed, knitted, so to make a homemade book was a regular thing.
Q. Are you surprised that it was and continues to be, such a popular book?
A. Yes, I’m surprised it even got published. It’s all been quite a wonderful surprise.
Q. Why did you move to Martha’s Vineyard?
A. I got a divorce and my heart was broken. I wanted to run away, to see what it was like to live in New England, and then move back to California and decide what to do with my life. I planned to stay three months, but I bought a house. I was looking for a rental and I saw an adorable one-bedroom cottage in the woods, on over an acre with a garden and an old stove, and it seemed perfect for me. I asked the Realtor how much it was and basically it cost less than my (ex-) husband’s car at the time.
Then I met Joe — my partner for 30 years — one month before my first book came out. He ran the Black Dog Tavern on The Vineyard for 25 years. It was a match made in food heaven.
Q. What did you do to revise/expand the original book?
A. I put in my charts and equivalents in the end papers, a new introduction, a new index, new cover, and about 18 new recipes. But I wanted to keep the ’80s flavor — I love that it’s that way.
Q. How does this cookbook reflect the time you wrote it — 1986?
A. The book was written almost as a letter to my sister, to my mother, to all women for everything they do, and how they inspire their children. Important things like a birthday dinner cooked just for you. That part never changes whether it’s the 1980s or 2000s, those things that are important to you in your home.
There is a recipe for a circus birthday cake my mother used to make for us, and my grandmother’s pie crust, rice pudding, a wonderful apple crisp, Caesar and spinach salad — they’re all classics. Also ceviche, tabouli, and homemade pesto — in the ’80s you had to make pesto yourself. It wasn’t in supermarkets. So, recipes from my childhood and recipes I learned along the way. One person recently said to me, ‘This is the kind of food we actually like to eat!’
Q. Tell us about your 53,000 “girlfriends.”
A. It’s all because I got my first fan letter after ‘Heart of the Home’ came out and it knocked my hmadesocks off. I wrote people back for the first two years, said thank you, and
answered their questions. Around 1990, it got out of hand, I didn’t have time, and I felt terrible. So I started to write a newsletter, once a year, I call “Willard,” after my grandfather. I saved all those (addresses) and added more to the list. I’d answer their basic questions, put in recipes, pages of stickers, little books, and I sent that out until it started costing me about $25,000 a year in postage. I’m very connected to these people. Some of them raised their children on my books, and those children come to my book signings and bring their children. It’s the most amazing thing. But it got so expensive to do these letters, and then viola! We got the computer, and, since 2004, I send Willard, free, to 53,000 people (and growing) online.
Q. As a baby boomer, do you yearn for a simpler time when we didn’t know so much about what was good and bad for you that it can drive a person crazy?
A. Yes. I do everything slow. I don’t fly. I take the train. It’s three days out and three days back when I go to California. It’s a great way to travel. I don’t like the speed of the world or watching the news. I don’t like crowds. I live in a house built in 1849. I love history.
And yes, it does make me nuts. I’m a big believer that you have to be your own chaperone these days. You really have to force control your environment to lead a normal life. You can grow a little garden. You can buy locally, and figure out which organic foods are imperative, and the last thing is, call your congressman and say, ‘I want restrictions on what happens in the food industry.’ All we can do is the best we can. The 30th anniversary edition of “Heart of the Home: Notes From a Vineyard Kitchen” (Spring Street Publishing) by Susan Branch is $28.95, hardcover. Branch enjoys communicating with her readers through her blog at www.susanbranch.com.