So, I’ve got this book club. It started about a year or so ago with a few friends of mine in the neighborhood and has grown to about a dozen. So many, that we stopped taking new members, actually, popular gals that we are. Hoo-hoo!

Anyway, the book we read and will be talking about tonight was my pick, which means hosting. In my book group, hosting not only means having the group meet in your home and supplying nosh-ables, but the extra added twist of trying to skew said nosh-ables toward the theme from the book, which is not always as easy as it sounds. When we read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (great book!) my friend Tina, of course, had piles of plated Indian treats, so that was pretty easy. But The Road by Cormac McCarthy (cannibalisms or beans out of a can, anyone?) was a toughie, and thankfully not mine to tackle, although I really did love that book. 

My pick tonight is Lorrie Moore’s totally fantastic new novel A Gate at the Stairs. As a dabbler in fiction writing, I was introduced to Moore through a writers’ workshop years and years ago, where her short stories were like perfect, little, golden-glowing examples of how great you couldn’t possibly ever, ever be (I know that sounds so defeatist, but seriously, the woman’s got skills and then some—you can’t even be jealous of her she’s so great, says me). A Gate at the Stairs follows a Midwestern young woman named Tassie from life on a boutique-y potato farm with her family to college and her subsequent employment by a couple who adopts a bi-racial child. The adopted mother also owns a restaurant and makes all kinds of gourmand-minded things Tassie has never heard of, let alone eaten or laid eyes on (although her dad’s potatoes are on the menu). There’s a funny scene in the book where she’s in a very old-school Wisconsin restaurant with her sophisticated employers, for whom she has to explain the simple, regional menu. It’s kind of a great but subtle “show don’t tell” scene in character description and fish-out-of-waterness.

So what am I going to do about this tonight?  Well, a few things, I think. 1) There are two scenes in the book where brown-butter, caramelized sage leaves are mentioned. I was going to nab some pizza dough from my local grocery store, caramelize some onions to go on top, and bake it, and I figured crumbling and tossing those sage leaves on top would be pretty yummy, so there’s my nod to the chef/adopted mom (as well as bottles of chilled New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc that she refers to as SB, which is wonderfully, annoyingly hilarious). And then there’s the crudite (from aforementioned scene in the Wisconsin eatery), although I think I’ll be buttering and salting my radishes because, well, it’s delicious to do so. But the piece de resistance? A recipe I found for Wisconsin Fondue, involving cheese (of course!), beer, and rye bread.  

Does fiction ever inform or inspire your cooking?

Gate at the Stairs Fondue

• 2 lbs Emmenthaler cheese, cubed
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 TBS minced garlic
• 2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 3 cups Bock beer
• Pumpernickel or rye bread, cubed

Combine garlic with Kosher salt in a mortar and pestle until a paste forms. Combine with beer in a medium-sized pot and bring to a simmer. Stir in lemon juice. Toss the cheese with the flour and add, a handful at a time, stirring until melted. When mixture bubbles, check seasonings and add black pepper and more salt, if needed, to taste. Transfer to heated fondue pot and serve with cubed bread. And SB, of course!

Amy Zavatto has been writing about wine, spirits, and food for ten years. Her work appears in Imbibe, Gotham, and Every Day with Rachael Ray, among others. She is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Bartending and the co-author of The Renaissance Guide to Wine & Food Pairing.