LINKS

Get yourself a copy of Recipe for Disaster over on Bookshop.org.

You can also read about why a PJ Harvey song is what Courtney wants played at her funeral in her book, Record Collecting for Girls. Buy at that same link.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Melissa: Hello, I'm Melissa Locker. 

Courtney: And I'm Courtney E. Smith 

Melissa: And you are listening to Songs My Ex Ruined, the show where we talk about songs have been ruined by our exes. We are joined today by Alison Riley, who is the author of Recipe For Disaster, a fantastic cookbook slash… how would you describe it? 

Alison: I describe it as it's 40 stories about survival and sustenance. I ask people about a low point in their life and the food memory they associate with surviving it. So it's a collection of stories that are really meant to represent the fact that we've all gone through it, whatever it is. And even though food may not have been a part of our coming through it’s, I think, helpful to associate with something we can all relate to. Does that make sense? 

Courtney: I mean, it's like this podcast, but with food. 

Alison: Kinda, yeah.

Melissa: Yeah, exactly. It's like food my life has ruined.

Alison: I know. I mean, I, to be really honest, I am not a cook, but I am fluent in low points as most people are. And while people are really eager to share their celebratory menus and the things they make to commemorate the most joyful of occasions, rarely do we talk about like what we ate or had to eat in the times that are less glamorous. And so this book is about that because I think trading in that kind of information ultimately is useful to everybody and is connective in a way that helps people get through times that they often endure alone. 

Melissa: Wow. Well, I definitely wanna talk about that more, but first, can you tell us about a song that an ex has ruined for you? 

Alison: I can't say it's one song, but it's really the whole oeuvre of a single artist. I had a really spectacular breakup, maybe about 25 years ago. It was truly epic. There was fire, people died. It was incredible. 

Courtney: What?

Melissa: Well, that is going out in a blaze of glory. 

Alison: Literally a blaze of glory. I think it's important to say that because I think it's proportionate to the amount of music that I lost. It was big enough that pretty much all of PJ Harvey's catalog is something I can no longer listen to.

Melissa: Not PJ Harvey! 

Courtney: This one really breaks my heart. 

Alison: I know. In truth, it's not, um, I don't hold it against PJ Harvey. I'm not angry when I hear the music, but I can't, there's no hope for me ever associating that artist with anything or anybody else.

Courtney: Wow, I understand the feeling, but I am feeling a huge sense of loss on your behalf here. Holy shit. 

Alison: Yes, truthfully, I have good relationships with all of my exes, including this one with the fire and the death story, but it's difficult for me to resurrect that music in a way that I can apply to my current life. I mean, I, you know, it's out there. I love it. She's a genius, but… 

Courtney: Well, this has been maybe the best tease ever for an episode. I mean, what, what's the story? Give it to us. 

Melissa: I know. I've buckled my safety belt. I am ready for a ride. 

Alison: I was with this person for about five years, and we were both young, in our 20s, and we thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. And in our fifth year, there was somebody else in his life who I thought was maybe captivating him in a way that was uncomfortable for me. I probably wasn't totally rational about the times and spaces in which I suspected something more was happening. But nevertheless, I felt a real nagging feeling. And um, he really berated me for my immaturity and my lack of ability to allow him a healthy friendship with another person. And he was really, um, disappointed that his friendships with women could be threatening to me. And later in that year, we had bigger problems and we decided to take a trial separation and separate for six months around the new year and come back together for our planned vacation in the Caribbean in June. 

Courtney: Wait, hold up… 

Alison: Yep, we had tickets. We had whatever an Airbnb was then, and I, neither one of us was willing to give it up. So we said we would just separate for six months. Take a breath. We loved each other enough to not throw it all out. And we'd see each other then. And whatever happened in those six months, by the way, was off the record. You could do whatever you wanted. 

Melissa: So it's basically rumspringa.

Alison: I, yes, I didn't, I didn't wanna say that, but yes, that's exactly right. 

Courtney: This is the kind of plan you only hatch in your 20s. There's no other point in your life that you think any of this is a good idea.

Alison: No, and so we did that, and I had a great six months. But I got through those six months of cavorting and also soul searching, and I came to June thinking, “No, this is my person. I'm in it to win it with this person.” I had behaved badly in our relationship. He had behaved badly in our relationship. In no way at that point did I feel like the scales were imbalanced in terms of our commitment or our, you know, indiscretions, to be frank.  So here we come. It's June, he picks me up in the morning to go to the airport. We haven't seen each other in six months. We go to our, whatever the Airbnb was in St. John. We have a wonderful week. We talk about all the things that have happened in the last six months that are relevant and worth including. And how we've both come to this place of really wanting to be together. And I apologize for the way I regarded his relationship with this woman. And I really felt his criticism deeply and was disappointed by then in myself for how mistrustful I'd been of just like, another really like fantastic dynamic woman in his life who could legitimately be his friend. And he really made me apologize for that in a way that was what, what do I wanna say? Was maybe a little more dramatic and humbling than I felt was necessary, but I wanted to demonstrate my remorse. So I literally got on my knees and told him I was sorry. This is like a- I can't believe I'm repeating the story while we’re recording it. But I did that, and I, you know, I felt like it was the most demonstrative thing I could do to express my sense of regret. 

Courtney:  Question: Was that his specific request, or was that your idea?

Alison: I don't remember, I don't want to implicate him by saying it was, but the idea that I would've ever elected to do that myself is, it's difficult for me to believe. But nevertheless, again, it was not just about what I had done to him. It was also about, you know, I think I felt as badly or potentially worse about having created an unnecessary competition between myself and another woman like that felt like a real foul out to me.

Melissa: Why do I feel like a big “but” coming? 

Alison: So, that's great. Here we are. We've reunited. We did that. We pulled that whole rumspringa thing off. We like, had a great time, but we came back, and the instruction it had offered was that we belong together. So we got back to New York, and, at that point, he was staying around the corner. What with this whole six months thing not being together, we weren't living together and then- anymore. And so about a week after we got back, we had planned for him to move back into the apartment we had previously shared, and he went to the West Coast for a family occasion.

While he was gone, he called me, and he said,” Hey, I think my apartment's on fire. Can you go around the corner and see what is going on?” And I did. And in fact, his apartment was on fire. The whole building was on fire. And in an unrelated and really sad note, his roommate died in the fire. 

Melissa: Oh no, gosh.

Alison: I arrived as it was being put out, as ambulances were arriving. It was a terrible scene. The whole thing was so upsetting on so many levels and anyway. Once the fire was extinguished, the scene was cleared, a day passed. He asked me to go retrieve anything that was retrievable from his apartment, his room. And so I went in there, and I did that. And he was a music enthusiast and an artist, and I lovingly removed all of his supplies and guitars and all the things that I knew were dear to him. And I brought them back to my house, and I cleaned them, and I aired them out, and did all the things that I could do so that his return was not as devastating a scene as it actually truly was. And in the process of cleaning out his room, I discovered a series of photographs of that person who I had suspected he was having a relationship with, asleep in my bed. 

Melissa: Nooooo, oh no. 

Courtney: Pardon me?

Alison: Yeah.

Courtney: Oh wow. I don't even know how I would emotionally react to that.

Alison:  I know. I mean, what's to do? All of his shit had already burned down. So what's left? 

Courtney: You couldn't burn it, yeah. 

Melissa: Oh man. 

Alison: Yeah, so I was, I think, just utterly stunned. I mean, I was truly stunned. It was like one of those moments where you know what you're looking at, but you cannot possibly be looking at it. It was truly mind-boggling. And I just, I don't even, I think I blacked out maybe for a solid 24 hours. But eventually, he returned, and I had all of his stuff packed up and on the sidewalk, at the time I knew he was intending to arrive.

Melissa:  Like you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. 

Alison: That's right.

Melissa: Also, your home burnt down. I mean, God, that's such a crazy story on so many levels because, I mean, cause obviously, you feel terrible for him. You've just reunited, you're everything. And then, this horrible thing happens. His roommate has died. 

Courtney: That's heartbreaking.

Melissa: And then you find out he cheated on you, like totally gaslit you.

Alison: Don't forget the knees. 

Courtney: The knees, yeah. 

Melissa: On the knees. 

Courtney: That's infuriating.

Melissa: And then the universe had already karmically resolved this. 

Courtney: Burned him down, yeah. So, tell us about what PJ Harvey meant to your relationship? 

Alison: Well, he was a huge PJ Harvey fan. He drew her, he painted her, and not in the stan kind of way. He was really, truly inspired by the way she made music, the way she wrote music, the way she played music, and also her lack of adherence to industry standards and likewise. But his fandom really inspired my own. When we met, I knew about PJ Harvey and I liked her, but I wasn't as indoctrinated at that point, I guess as I would become over the course of our five years. And during the time that we were separated, those six months, I spent a lot of time listening to PJ Harvey because I felt like it was like really a bridge between us. She said so many things that I related to that I knew he respected that he couldn't relate to, but yet he really appreciated. And I felt like that was such a proper, pure representation of what I liked about him and what we shared that was important to me. And so I spent a lot of time listening to PJ Harvey to like, force myself to really reckon with my feelings for him, to really come to understand what I wanted by the time these six months were up, which is of course a totally arbitrary, inappropriate timeline based on nothing. But it was, um, clarifying and it made me love him all the more, and all over again. It was the soundtrack to that realization or revival or recommitting and then... And then the rest of that story happened and…. 

Courtney: Unbelievable.

Melissa: Yeah, I mean, you do realize PJ Harvey would be 1000 percent on your side, right? 

Alison: I do. I do. 

Melissa: Like there's no world in which PJ Harvey would approve of this person. 

Courtney: She would be livid. Yeah. 

Melissa: Yeah, there's no way. 

Courtney: It makes the betrayal feel all the stronger because PJ Harvey is somebody who doesn't adhere to the male gaze. She talks about feminism and women's rights in her music, not just in her life, but her songs are so much about that. And I feel betrayed just listening to this, because I have expectations of a man who is a superfan of someone like that, that they won't be a shithead. 

Melissa: And that guy was definitely a shithead.

Courtney: Oh my God. That's not even a strong enough word.

Alison: I laugh because I know that person still, and um, we don't really see each other, but we've made peace and we keep in touch here and there. We had dinner, I don't know, five years ago maybe? And he has a beautiful family and he has got a, you know, a happy life and he's a successful dude and he's a much different per- you know, that I, I'm sure that experience humbled him significantly. And he said to me when we had dinner, he said, “I really wanted to meet you cause I just wanted you to know that I turned into a decent person.” Which on the one hand I was like, so fucking  what?

Courtney: Yeah. 

Alison: Fat lot of good that does me. On the other hand, I appreciated the fact that he understood that at least he could offer me that much.

Courtney: I mean, really what he could offer you is an apology on his knees.

Alison: Yeah, he definitely apologized. But yeah, maybe the next time I see him, I'll insist. 

Melissa: I just keep thinking of PJ Harvey lyrics that you should be able to reclaim like don't you wish you'd never met her? 

Ugh, it's so frustrating that of all the artists for him to have ruined it's PJ Harvey because she's like the ultimate like, fuck you breakup songs. I know. And the fact that you were completely robbed of that experience, which is the right of every woman to listen to PJ Harvey at an extremely high volume, it makes me even sadder. 

Courtney: This hurts so badly.

Alison: And it, it does add insult to injury. I don't think, actually, I realized the extent to which I don't engage with that music as often as I once did until I had to think about what I was gonna talk about in this conversation.

Melissa:  That is what we're here for.

Courtney: Yeah, seriously. How did you feel when you had that realization? Like how do you feel about that?

Alison: I mean, I think not dissimilarly to the way you are taking it, which is just like, wow, God, the, you know, how, what a unfortunate loss and how particular and iconic a performer to have to give up in that kind of circumstance.

Courtney: Is there any particular song when you were in that six month period that really stood out for you or was one that was on repeat? 

Alison: It was actually the album at the time. It was the last album. It was stories by the…

Courtney: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea?

Alison: Exactly.

Courtney: That album is so special to me and I have a very different story with it, but God, it would break my heart to lose that album. It's so important to me.

Alison: I know, that song “You Said Something.”

Alison: That was the soundtrack of me letting my ego go and really loving that person again. You know, like there was a lot to get over just in getting back to St. John. And that album is, I think, what made me feel okay about it. 

Melissa: Yeah, I mean, I think I just keep thinking it's, she's by women, for women and this intrusion of this horrible man into it is just so frustrating.

Alison: Well, if it's a, any consolation, almost just after that, I met my wife, to whom I've been married to for almost 17 years. 

Melissa: Yay!

Courtney: So good fortune came your way. And that's another PJ Harvey song from that album.

Melissa: So then Allison, taking this back to what you wrote about, do you have any recollection of what you were eating during this time to sort of survive this? 

Alison: Totally, and like I said, I am not a cook. And it is part of how I introduced the book is in telling this story. As you might imagine, in the world of low points, this was a pretty significant one. And so it was easy for me to think about what time in my life I wanted to recall and thinking about the food memory. And you know, he and I lived together. After he moved out, I was left in an apartment and all of his expenses to pay for with my own paycheck, which was really difficult. So I was broke and sad and not a cook. So I made the same thing every night for, I don't know, four or five months. Every single night — that I didn't go out and, again, I was in my 20s, so I probably was, I was out enough. But whether I was eating is another question. But I would come home and make myself steamed tofu and frozen spinach, and I would put tamari sesame oil and black sesame seeds on it, and have one piece of toast with Tofutti cream cheese. 

Courtney: Oh wow, that sounds depressing, geez. 

Alison: I know. It really does sound depressing. 

Melissa: Oh, that sounds like a health food special from like one of those weird vegan co-ops.

Alison: Yeah, I know. I think I was trying to be healthful because I knew if I just went for the most convenient, like, least nourishing thing, that it would be a slippery slope. That not taking care of myself could happen really fast. 

Melissa: Yeah. Like it's like depression eating, but you are just enough aware that you're like, it's gonna be healthy depression eating.

Alison: Yes. It's more revealing of who I am, that I made the same thing every day for that length of time. Like that's how I work my shit out.

Melissa: Right, you hear those stories about like tech people who are like, I have decision fatigue, so I wear the same outfit every day so I don't have to choose. Or I think I read something like Jen Alliance would eat the exact same thing for lunch every single day.For like six months and then she'd switch.

Alison: Right. That's funny. 

Melissa: But it wasn't that. It was more just, this is what I can manage. 

Alison: Yeah, well there was definitely a piece of that. I mean, there was a bunch of ways in which that was what I could manage financially like those foods went a long way. You know, like, I could get a lot of dinners out of a loaf of bread and a little tub of Tofutti cream cheese plus, you know, it was, like, affordable. But also I was, what I knew I could make myself. And I, despite the fact that I am releasing a cookbook, cooking isn't really what captures my imagination. But that kind of thing we do around food in those moments and under circumstances where you're not planning a party, then what is it that you turn to? And I think, I guess I grew up with a bunch of people who had taken comfort in food or lots of girls who had relationships with food that were complicated. I have always tried to. aware of that. And so I think I, I just wanted to do something that was good for me. 

Melissa: Yeah. And steamed tofu, definitely good for you. You know, good for the body, if not the soul, exactly.

Alison: No, not the soul. 

Melissa: I mean, just having grown up as a vegetarian in Oregon, I can taste what you were describing. 

Alison: Yeah, I'm sure. You know what's weird is that I did that, and it was this like happy ritual. Like I get a lot out of ritual in terms of soothing myself in times where I feel out of control or there's a lot of chaos in my life. And it was comforting to do the same thing, even if it wasn't delicious. I didn't really enjoy it. Doing it for myself helped me feel like I was doing something for myself. I guess it's, that was that simple. 

Courtney: Did that ritual come into play with this idea of listening to the same album over and over?

Alison: Of course, of course. And still does. 

Courtney: Was there something else that you listened to after the breakup? Was there music that was soothing to you or an artist who spoke to you?

Alison: You know, it's difficult to remember exactly what I was doing during, like I was in a bit of a daze for a while, I think. I wanna say that after that, I turned my attention to Cat Power because she was like doing it hard at that point. 

Melissa: Kind of angry, sad feelings captured on an album, so, yeah, makes sense. 

Courtney: By 2003, You Are Free came out, and that is the perfect follow-up to a breakup too. A lot of like turning inwards, songs like “He War.” 

Alison: Other things that I listened to afterwards, I think, were significantly different and angrier. Or just motivating and compelling in a different way. I'm an old school hip hop fan, and so I'm like, I think I probably went back to a lot of KRS-One and Tribe Called Quest and The D.O.C. and albums that, like had engaged me in my mind, so that I could get out of the sadness that I think I felt in my body.

Melissa: And then getting out of that sadness. Do you remember the last time you ate your tofu, spinach toast, cream cheese lunch/dinner?  

Alison: I don't. I don't think it was very ceremonious that I was leaving it behind. And I don't even know that I noticed that I was not doing it anymore until some time passed, and I realized I was doing other things for dinner. And I think at that point, I understood that I was surviving that experience. You know, when I noticed that I was not making the same thing every night, it wasn't so intentional that I was. But when I finally realized I had moved on from it, I think I realized I could move on from all of it, eventually. It took a while, but it was the first tangible piece of recovering from heartbreak.

Courtney: Man, do I know that feeling. Yeah, it's interesting how that happens, how you suddenly are noticing things about yourself, and you look back, and you're like, “Oh, I was doing really bad.”

Alison: Yeah, I don't think I have had that meal since, though.

Melissa: Speaking of depression meals, you had some amazing contributors to your book — people who have also eaten, you know, sad desk salads and who have had miserable meals on their couch at home. For listeners at home, could you tell us about some of the contributors, and are there any stories that really popped out to you?

Alison: Of course I can. Sam Irby was the first person I asked. And her story is noteworthy, both because it has a legitimate recipe for a legitimately delicious meal but also is hilarious and so relatable. I was excited to have Justin Vivian Bond because it's just the panache with which a simple story was told that reminds you that it's really about the character as much as it is about the content. 

Melissa: Yeah, and Justin Vivian Bond is amazing and pretty much everything. 

Alison: Exactly, of course. Sarah Silverman gave me a really incredibly moving story about a difficult time. And she didn't give me a recipe, she gave me a food, which was a pinwheel cookie. And her story is about an event in her childhood, and just the joy that you understand could come to a kid with a pinwheel cookie when you're in the middle of a hard time was like really evocative of the whole theme. I asked, uh, Lori Woolever, who is, I think, somebody who has a sensibility that is well matched to my own, and I've watched her writing over the years, but she's probably at this point best known for having been Anthony Bourdain's No. 2. Her work with him went on for 10 years, and she wrote a story that nailed the, what I imagined would come from this book or come to this book. Her story is just so elegant and dry and concise. It felt perfect to me when I got it. Bobbito Garcia told, talked about when the basketball hoops came down in New York during Covid and how that somehow was like, really felt like the end of the world to him. 

Melissa: That was just, yeah, it was such a bleak time.

Alison: It was. It was. Gabrielle Hamilton, who…

Melissa: Oh, from Prune. 

Alison: Yes, exactly. She, I mean, it's so on the money for her, but she gave me a recipe for a gin and tonic that included the sticker stuck to the lime. 

Melissa: That's perfect. 

Alison: It is perfect. 

Melissa: Oh, I miss her restaurant. 

Courtney: Yeah, I miss Prune too. 

Alison:  Yeah, we all do, we all do. I mean, they all feel very special to me. I interviewed Ron Finley, who's known as the Gangster Gardener in Los Angeles, and he does a lot of food and gardening, social justice programming there. And he was like, “I don't carry that kind of pain. Like, I don't have an answer for you. Here's something that I like to make when I wanna be comforted, but I'm not holding onto a story that fits this bill.” Which was, I felt like… 

Melissa: That's amazing. I love that.

Courtney:  We should all be so enlightened. 

Melissa: So, where did the idea for this come from?

Alison: I mean, it really was born of its title. I have had a little line of weird little sort of text-inspired stuff, mostly paper goods. And you know, I have a little card that says “Stop talking” that had got a cult following for a while, and I still make it. And I had whiskey glasses that had the stages of grief on them and condoms that said, “Thanks for nothing.”

Courtney: Wow, I'm gonna go buy those immediately.

Alison: It was the juxtaposition of text, and an object that made for something I hoped was clever. But “recipe for disaster” was something that I've heard myself say a lot, and so I held onto it as potentially the cornerstone of an idea, and I tried it out in different formats. I thought maybe I would do something else that people would use. You know, it would be like a way to collect one's own recipes, or it was, I don't know, maybe it would just be the title of a notebook. But then, eventually, it morphed into this. And Chronicle, the publisher, approached me because of this little line of text-based stuff and asked if I had a thought about a collaboration or a book. And when I looked at my notes and the things that I'd collected, phrases and weird thoughts, this felt like one that might suit us as collaborators. And so then I thought I clearly wasn't gonna generate recipes, as you now know. And I thought also it's, you know, in general, I like to exalt those darker corners of the lives we're all leading. You know, I'm okay with surviving hard times and recognizing them, and I, I mean, I'm a product of those in some ways, much more proudly than I am the best days of my life. And I want to commemorate and celebrate them as vividly and as purposefully as everybody else talks about anniversaries and birthdays and all the good times. And so I thought this was a way to bring some convivium and some community to the times that are hard.

Courtney: Obviously, we love that. 

Alison: Yes. We share, I think, the overlap of our Venn diagram is something I have come to recognize as being of the space I occupy, which is stories that are finally funny. 

Courtney: Exactly, exactly. 

Melissa: Yeah, so can you tell us where people can find it? Where people can find you? ‘Cause I bet they're going to want more.

Alison: Oh, I appreciate that. The book is Recipe for Disaster, and it is available at any bookseller near you. I am a lover of an independent books store, but it is available wherever books are sold. 

Courtney: And of course, you can find in our show notes a link to buy it on Bookshop.org if you don't have a local independent bookseller.

Alison: Excellent. Thank you so much. 

Melissa: Thank you. 

Courtney: Thank you for telling us what is the most dramatic story, I'm confident saying, so far on this podcast. I'm going to remain upset about this story for a while.

Melissa: I, yeah, I mean, I have to say, it's rare that we have destruction. 

Alison: I'm really grateful that you've given me a chance to talk about it, and I love it that we are both out here talking about things that are terrible at the time but possible to get through.