Unplated: An Interview with J. Ryan Stradal

On The Connection of Place and Words, and Making a Menu of Your Work

Sep 25, 2023

This conversation is part of the Unplated series, a collection of interviews with folks whose work intersects with food, but who work outside culinary spheres. My hope is that these conversations not only spark your curiosity, but help you think about how what you eat is connected to the world well beyond your plate.

J. Ryan Stradal's Kitchens of the Great Midwest was one of those books that took my breath away when I read it. The book was so relatable yet aspirational for me, as a cook and as a writer, and so engrossing I read the lion's share of it in a single sitting.

I love literature that explores themes through the lens of place, part of my larger obsession with seeing how we use our various creative pursuits, literary, culinary, and beyond, to understand a place and perhaps even get our arms around what our relationship to place is.

I was thrilled when J. Ryan agreed to chat with me about his work, and his answers have really lit a spark of inspiration for me as a writer (I love the menu he came up with!) and were a powerful reminder of how writing what matters to us not only is more fun, but makes for better writing, too. Keep reading for our conversation:

JS: First of all, tell me a bit about yourself. For my readers who aren't familiar with your work, could you talk a bit about the kind of writing you do, and maybe how you came to be a writer?

JRS: I have come to write family-centered fiction, usually set in the Midwest. If you'd told me twenty years ago I'd be doing this, and enjoying it immensely, I'd have been shocked. Most of my young life -- from my childhood until about my early thirties -- I wrote stories merely meant to amuse myself and my friends.
Finally, in my late twenties, I had an instructor at UCLA named Lou Mathews (also an excellent writer; his latest novel Shaky Town, is phenomenal) who told me that once I start writing about things that actually mattered to me, my work would get a lot better. He was right. I've devoted myself to more personal characters and topics ever since, and I'm delighted to be doing that. And I still try to make readers laugh.

JS: Food and drink feature heavily in your work, and I'm curious why you've felt drawn to explore and highlight both through fiction. When food and drink are central to the narrative, what can we learn about the plot, the characters, or even ourselves that we otherwise might not?

JRS: I love this question. I believe I write about them because I have questions about them that I can't answer, and fiction is such a wonderful realm to explore what these answers may be, given its encouragement of subjectivity. I know the themes I'll be writing about before I know much about the subject or setting, and fiction allows me to plumb the depths of these themes in creative and nuanced ways, if I'm clever enough to do so. In my first novel, I gave each character a different relationship to food that I believed revealed character.
It's no fun if you have nine characters who are all contemporary urban foodies. Hopefully also by attempting a variety of POVs, there's a better chance a reader will identify with a character, and be surprised by what they're capable of -- thereby dilating that possibility for themselves? I can't say. I only know for sure that readers have put more peanut butter bars into the world because of my first novel, and I'm grateful for that.

JS: Years ago, I gave a copy of Kitchens of the Great Midwest to my best friend, a chef and avid reader, and it left them so inspired they sat down and wrote out three new menus for pop-up dinners. I wish I had ever had a chance to see those menus! But it also makes me curious: If you could write a menu that best encompasses your work, what would be on it?

JRS: Wow, I have never thought of this before. Probably something both locally sourced and economically accessible? How about freshwater fish with seasonal vegetables and a strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert? That shouldn't break the bank.

JS: Having lived in the Midwest, a lot of the particulars of food culture, scenery, and communities resonate with me. I love your work in part because you explore the nuance of place and our relationship to it. How does place, whether a specific community or the Midwest in general, influence how you build your characters and the choices they make?

JRS: Completely. I try to write books that couldn't take place anywhere else, and there are a lot of signifiers of that, explicitly so in the real-world place names I mention and the language the characters employ. As a young reader in outstate Minnesota I was hungry to see representation of the people and places I knew and loved, and as an author now, I still think of that reader.
When deciding in my most recent book how to characterize a certain standoff between two characters, I knew it couldn't be directly confrontational -- it had to express itself through passive-aggressive behavior. I took it to a ridiculous degree that some Midwesterners understand as still within the realm of possibility. I don't expect readers in the South or East to get this at all, and many don't -- I've heard from some readers in these locations and elsewhere that my characters and conflicts seem unrealistic to them, and they would be.

JS: In addition to your novels, you also write short stories. How do these connect to and inform the writing you do for your books? Or are the two totally separate?

JRS: I haven't written a short story in some years now, and the ones I've published lately (with one exception) have been outtakes from novel drafts, so they're directly related. Sometimes I wrote short stories to explore a subject or theme I didn't feel a need to spend years writing about. Now I just set those ideas aside and concentrate on what works for the novel I'm writing.

JS: I'd love to shift gears a bit and talk about your writing practice itself: What does a day in your writing life look like? Do you have a favorite place to write? A routine?

JRS: I wish! I have a toddler and I've been a stay-at-home dad since he's been born. I write when he's sleeping. That's my routine now. I'll write anywhere anytime of day. Being a parent has made me far less sentimental about routines and ideal locations.

JS: How do your creative pursuits and interests beyond writing (cooking? music? art? beer?) influence what and how you write?

JRS: I'm usually driven to write about subjects as part of a process of learning about them, so I rarely choose topics which are already preoccupations or pursuits of mine. We'll see if that changes.

JS: I've been thinking a lot about play and joy as they connect to writing, especially for those of us who write regularly and who maybe get disconnected from both in the daily churn of words. How do you cultivate playfulness and joy in your writing practice?

JRS: I just try to write from as open-hearted a place as possible. I find that my best writing comes when I am feeling completely generous and peaceful. It often takes an hour or more of steady writing to get there, but that's how I feel when I'm locked in. I also try to make myself laugh out loud when I work; why would a reader laugh if I don't? It definitely brings me a lot of joy to devise situations or exchanges that crack me up when I write them. I love humor as an element in fiction and I don't see it nearly enough.

JS: Anything else you'd like to tell me?

JRS: Thank you so much for reading and for your extremely thoughtful questions! I love what you do and it's been an honor to have this exchange.

Do you have a favorite book of J. Ryan Stradal's?

And, if you, dear reader, made a menu that encompasses your work, what all would be on it?