Chocolate Cake for Imaginary Lives
Genevieve Jenner’s debut collection of thirty-eight short stories of magical realist food writing will captivate you
We all have imaginary lives, and if we are lucky we have a dish to go with them.
— Genevieve Jenner from Chocolate Cake for Imaginary Lives, 2022
When I first contacted Genevieve Jenner I told her I was jealous I hadn’t written her book. She took my remark as the compliment it was meant to be and told me she felt that way about another writer’s book. More on that in a bit.
I really love this book. It combines the rituals of food and dining and cooking with the complicated ingredients and intrigues of life. Fantasy and reality co-exist in this thirty-eight story collection.
It is beautifully written, wise, wry, luxurious and really funny.
Plus, there are recipes.
The narrator talks you through these recipes in a kind of stream of consciousness culinary riff. There are no traditional ingredient lists — just enchanting writing and cheeky instruction on what to do next:
Take that off the heat and add about one-half cup of sour cream. Not light cream, thank you very much.
We are having cake, not penance.
— from Chocolate Cake for Imaginary Lives
The recipes are threaded through the stories of eccentric, memorable and extremely entertaining characters. Among them are:
Co-workers who have never met and only communicate by leaving cryptic messages and haute cuisine lunches for each other in brown paper bags in the office fridge.
‘The Mysterious Meatloaf Couple’ who rendezvous at a diner and can barely contain their lust.
And since Ash Wednesday is next week and we’ve already mentioned penance, there’s ‘Lenten Steak’ the tradition by which a family breaks out the beef at 11:45 pm on Friday nights during Lent after a day of abstinence, sizzles up steaks and at the stroke of midnight enjoys them into the wee hours of Saturday morning, just barely skirting sin.
The book’s sharp and unsentimental observations come with a side of sweetness and the understanding that we are all, in fact, characters dining at the table of life’s absurdities.
Questions for Genevieve Jenner
Jolene: Genevieve, thanks for doing this. What do you want people to know about your book?
Genevieve: I like to think my book has a grazing quality to it. It’s a book that encourages a little literary/culinary snacking. You can read a story, put down the book and live a little. Then return and have another bite. (Which puts less pressure on readers.)
Many friends have mentioned how the pandemic had made reading feel overwhelming, and my book isn’t a giant feast you must finish in one sitting.
It will wait for you.
Jolene: You mentioned you’d been envious of another writer’s book. What is the title?
Genevieve: This is such a fun question. The book is called Clarisse or The Old Cook. It is completely out of print. I found it at the Second Shelf bookshop in London. They are devoted to selling rare books by women. It is written by Anonymous and translated by Elise Vallee and was published in 1922 in France.
It is a kind of cookbook that offers advice on how/when to prepare food and it is interspersed with anecdotes around food and hospitality. I love to look it over now and then because it is opinionated, funny and of another age. Some of the advice remains true. You are dropped into kitchens and at tables that you can almost touch.
Jolene: What was your path to being published?
Genevieve: I wrote and wrote and wrote. Mostly to entertain myself and my friends online. I had one blog for over a decade where I wrote about everything. My life, politics, food I was making, things I found ridiculous, work, getting married, raising babies. That taught me the discipline of writing.
A friend of mine started to work at a company that helped writers get ready to query agents. She said she hoped I didn’t mind, but she’d shown some of my work to her boss who was enthusiastic and would it be okay to contact some agents on my behalf.
A part of me wanted to say no — why face that rejection? But I decided to say yes. The second agent I met said “Yes, I want to represent you. You should write a book.” I want to point out this rarely ever happens.
It was a case of having the right connections at the right time. Dumb luck and opportunity.
Jolene: What guidance would you offer writers who are hoping to publish a book?
Genevieve: I think it is good to approach it with two mindsets. It may never happen but you should be ready if it does. Psychologically ready, but especially be ready with pages.
The possibility of getting published in the traditional way is so small. In some ways it shouldn’t be the ultimate goal. The major goal is the work.
One of the great things about writing or making art is that you can still BE a writer or an artist if you don’t have the backing of an institution.
You may not make money at it — and most of us won’t be fully supported by it. But it still matters and you made it and you know it needed to be created.
One thing I do love about being in a position of someone who has been published is I have a little more light in my corner to share things other people are doing or making.
Jolene: What do you want people to know about you, Genevieve?
Genevieve: I am someone who will not make anyone feel small if they have not eaten something or cooked something.
I do run into people who feel a little shy or embarrassed when they have just discovered something and worry I might say “What? You didn’t know about that?”
There is a line in Patrick Dennis’ book Auntie Mame that has been my guiding belief: “Life is a banquet and most poor bastards are starving to death!”
If you have just showed up to the banquet, I will hand you a plate and say “I am so happy you are here.”
— Genevieve Jenner, 2023
Genevieve is currently writing a book of fairy tales and a story about a woman in the arts. For Chocolate Cake for Imaginary Lives Link: HERE
Another chocolate cake. This is a weekday afternoon bake called “The Cake of Just Because” Click on post to visit page.
The Recipe
Genevieve Jenner’s family (on both sides) are cooks, bakers, farmers, bartenders, winemakers, caterers and more. Her first teacher in the kitchen was her mother.
With her permission I have formatted the recipe for chocolate cake from the title chapter.
It is not nearly as much fun as making it from her book, where the ingredients are surrounded by lines like “ …and for all that is holy don’t try and use cold butter …” but she wanted you to be able to make some cake now.✨
CHOCOLATE CAKE
4 ounces of softened butter
8 ounces of granulated sugar
7.5 ounces brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup cocoa powder
8 ounces cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cooled black coffee
Raspberry preserves
Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs one at a time and beat till smooth.
Whisk cocoa powder with 1/2 cup boiling water to a smooth paste. Pour into the butter/sugar/egg mixture. Sift in flour and baking soda. Mix by hand with spatula till there are no white streaks. Pour cooled coffee and 1 teaspoon vanilla into the batter and mix. It will be a thin batter. Pour batter into two greased and floured 8 or 9 inch pans. Bake at 350F/180C for 20-25 minutes till toothpick comes out clean. Cool on racks. Slather raspberry preserves on bottom layer and pop other layer on top.
ICING
Then we come to the question of icing. We want to avoid something grainy and disappointing that puts the brakes on the passionate momentum that is building with this cake.
— from Chocolate Cake For Imaginary Lives
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted in a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Take off heat.
1/2 cup sour cream
After chocolate is melted, add the sour cream and whisk till smooth. Add a splash of Bourbon? Vanilla? Frost the completely cooled cake with icing that is still warmish, first with a crumb coat, then a final coat. ✨
Some nice news
Last Saturday, Substack featured my recent post on the Salvador Dalí cookbook as part of their weekly newsletter roundup, Substack Reads. I’ve attached the link below, which also includes seven other Substack newsletters featured.
I want to welcome new subscribers and thank all who have been here over the past two years. And thank you very much, Substack. ✨
The next Friday edition of Time Travel Kitchen will post on March 3rd.
A big thank you to Genevieve Jenner for being so gracious with her time and talent.
Have a great weekend, Everyone!
Jolene
It was so much fun talking you. And I am still in awe of how pretty you made the cake look. And I still need to buy that Dali book you wrote about in a recent post. (you are going to make me go broke buying cookbooks.)
I’m always so delighted when I make time for this Substack, thank you Jolene for what you share and who you introduce us to & this recipe, I’m excited to try it! And congrats on the future, you deserve it!