QS: So, if you culled that much material from the book, does that mean that a sequel might be in the offing at some point?
SEDARIS: No. I think this is something I wanted to do. I don’t really have any plans to do another book or anything like that.
KP: What are the recipes that you pulled? Any that you really regret having to cut?
SEDARIS: My little brother had a vulva chicken recipe, and I just liked the title, but it was the last minute and I was just running out of room. And I kept all the ones that were pulled, and since the book came out a lot of people have given me more recipes, but I just don’t think I… I don’t know if I could do another one. I think everything that’s in me is in this book.
KP: Could you envision a website clearinghouse for those recipes that were cut?
SEDARIS: I can’t really take on a job for a while because I’m promoting the book, and I like to keep myself busy. So I thought on one of the websites people have on me maybe I would open a little Christmas shop. That way I can be busy making stuff here and then just sell a few items on our website just for Christmas.
KP: And you’re coming to North Carolina this week, right?
SEDARIS: Yes, Thursday. I go to Raleigh and then Durham, Charlotte & Nashville. I’m looking forward to it because it’s going to be fall. It’s fall here. It’s fall everywhere, so it’ll be beautiful there in the mountains. I can’t wait.
KP: Are you going to drive the parkway before it closes?
SEDARIS: Yes, I guess so.
KP: Which I guess should be any week now.
SEDARIS: Oh really?
KP: I know it started to snow up there.
SEDARIS: Oh God.
KP: So you may or may not hit weather.
SEDARIS: Oh no.
KP: As we tend to say.
SEDARIS: I’d panic, because that means I’d probably have to bring a coat.
KP: I would probably bring a coat.
SEDARIS: Oy.
KP: Because the rain is moving through right now.
SEDARIS: Oh, you’re just making my day.
KP: You could consider it a courteous warning.
SEDARIS: Thanks.
KP: I would hate for you to be caught without a coat.
SEDARIS: Yeah, you’re right, I’ll bring a coat. You got me.
KP: Now I feel like crap. I feel like a coat pusher.
SEDARIS: No don’t, that’s cool.
KP: In the past year you’ve had the Strangers With Candy movie come out, the book has been released… What’s left on your “conquering the world” to do list?
SEDARIS: I don’t have any plans. I have nothing planned after this promotional tour. Nothing on my slate, which I’m excited about.
KP: Reading the book, I get the feeing that writing it is really something that you felt you had to do. There’s a lot of joy in the pages, and you can tell that it was important to you to be able to impart that knowledge…
SEDARIS: Yes. That’s me. It was a great process, and usually when the process is fun, then the product is fun. So I just became obsessed with it. I just wanted it to be a little bit about everything. And it looks just like my apartment. Everything has a little story to it. And I wanted it to be something that people who can’t read can enjoy. So visually it’s just as entertaining.
KP: The great thing is that you can flip it to any page and find something on there to be interested in.
SEDARIS: Yeah. I wrote it like the flow of a buffet table. So you’d start at the beginning and go to the end. But then someone told me no one’s going to read it from the beginning, and I was like, “Oh, really?”
KP: Well I’m about 100 pages into it, so…
SEDARIS: Well, there you go.
KP: And I’m enjoying every page of it. Which makes me kind of disappointed that you wouldn’t do a follow up at some point.
SEDARIS: It took a lot. It was a year-and-a-half, and that was great, but it also took me out of circulation of doing other things, and I like to do a bunch of different things. So this was a long term project, which I’m not used to doing. I like to do a bunch of different things. So it was just a really long commitment, and I wouldn’t want to make another long commitment for a while.
KP: How does this compare with writing something like Wigfield?
SEDARIS: Well, it’s different, because that’s with Paul (Dinello) and Stephen (Colbert), and when you’re collaborating with them – I mean, they did all the work. You know what I mean? I could rely on them. I barely remember the process of it. But with this, I was captain, so I was in charge of everything.
KP: Were there any difficult decisions in actually mounting it? Things that you were concerned about?
SEDARIS: For me it was just basically organizing my thoughts. My thoughts are all over the place. Just trying to hone them. That’s why I needed help with writing it. It’s hard for me to describe opening a baked potato without writing for a page-and-a-half. So I needed help. I would write out what I wanted to say and then Paul and Antonia Xereas helped me. They were confused, which was good. They were like, “We don’t know what you mean here.” So I was trying to explain it, and so they helped me write it. I needed help.
KP: So would you say, in some ways, that it’s sort of like one of your parties, but in book form?
SEDARIS: Yeah, I would say that. Because I don’t like theme parties and I don’t like gimmicks, and I just wanted to put myself in a challenging situation for each chapter, where it would be challenging for a hostess. So the whole party, you’re right, from the beginning to the end would be just this one big event. The whole thing. A big party for a year-and-a-half.
KP: How awkward is it for you to go to a party where none of your considerations or rules are followed? I don’t mean rules – more like your encouraging, helpful suggestions towards a happy end…
SEDARIS: Yeah, it’s a little frustrating. Or if someone’s never thrown a party before, it’s not cute. It’s annoying. It’ll just be like, “eeeugh.” But then I’m a pretty good sport about just being open and just jumping in and being like, “Oh, this is your party and, you know, just come here to have a good time and that’s the way you do it.” A lot of my friends are good entertainers and they’re really good at it, so I can just learn and be amazed by it.
KP: What’s the worst situation that you can walk into?
SEDARIS: Someone not being prepared. Walking in there, sinks full of dirty dishes, they haven’t cleaned their apartment. They’re just putting a raw turkey in the oven. I hate it when I go to someone’s house, and you’re there six hours before they serve dinner. I think that’s bullshit.
KP: Are there any times where you’ve walked into a situation and found that they’ve almost expected you to step in and help out?
SEDARIS: No.
KP: How would you react to a situation like that?
SEDARIS: If they asked me to step in?
KP: Yeah.
SEDARIS: I would do it. It wouldn’t be a problem. But you know, if they started it, then it’s their thing. Or a lot of times I’m like, “Look, I don’t know. I just do things my way.” I don’t really know how to carve a turkey. I don’t know how to really set a table. I have no idea how to set a table, and that’s why in the book it’s set the way I remember setting it when I was a kid. Those things, I don’t pay attention to. So I’m not, like, this great expert. Whatever. All I’m trying to say is, “Do it your own way.” As long as you commit to it and you make your own rules.
KP: I think it would be the biggest tragedy if people looked at the book like it’s all just a joke.
SEDARIS: I know! Well, that’s what I was fighting tooth and nail. That’s why I kept saying, “I want to take it seriously,” but I knew for an entertainment book it had to be entertaining. That’s again, thanks to Paul Dinello. He was like, “You’ve got to have this book be entertaining. People expect it.” But I took the recipes seriously.
KP: I think it walks the line perfectly. It doesn’t go too far in either direction – either so straight it’s dry, or so surreal that people go, “Oh, well I can’t trust anything that’s in here.”
SEDARIS: Right, right, right.
KP: In fact, I’ve got it penciled in as a Christmas gift to quite a few people this year.
SEDARIS: Oh, that’s nice!
KP: It’s definitely going to be in a couple of people’s gift bags.
SEDARIS: Oh, that’s great!
KP: If someone were to be planning a holiday party, what would be the five main things you would say people should look out for?
SEDARIS: For a Christmas party? If you’re throwing it?
KP: Yes…
SEDARIS: Okay, you’re saying if I, Amy Sedaris, is throwing a Christmas party, what can my guests expect?
KP: Sure…
SEDARIS: Oh. I mean, I don’t know. They could expect… I would have dinner for them. I would have my 25 cent display table catered for them. It would be fun, it would be festive, it would be… I don’t think there’d be a lot of pressure. I just think it would be pretty much like any other party that I have, only there’ll be Christmas decorations up, and…
KP: Do you consider Christmas to be a ham or turkey holiday?
SEDARIS: I make a roast beef.
KP: Really?
SEDARIS: Yeah. I make a beef tenderloin. Because I usually spend it here. The last few years I’ve spent Christmas alone, and then I’ll find out who’s around and then I make a roast beef dinner and have a few people over, and then I always go see a movie. But this year I’m going to France to visit my brother with my older sister Lisa.
KP: Oh, that’ll be a nice trip.
SEDARIS: Yeah.
KP: Leaving Ricky alone.
SEDARIS: Yeah.
KP: That’s unfortunate for him. He shouldn’t have died.
SEDARIS: I live with his ghost.
KP: As long as he helps you to pay the bills.
SEDARIS: Yeah.
KP: I guess the final question will be, what does it take to get an invitation to one of your parties?
SEDARIS: Well, I have to like you. I have to like you, that’s all. As long as people don’t come over here with real high expectations. Especially after this book. I’m like, “Jesus, I’ll never entertain again in my life.” But it’s usually the same people over and over again. It is fun, though, to have somebody new that I haven’t had before.
KP: How does it feel to actually think that people will be throwing your kind of parties all over the world now?
SEDARIS: I never thought about it. I never even thought anybody would be following any of my recipes. I kept forgetting that it’s going to be out in the stores and somebody might buy it. I forgot about that part.
KP: And they’ll give it as gifts…
SEDARIS: Yeah, I forgot about that. I thought it was just basically for my coffee table.
KP: Now you’re going to become a way of giving a party. You’re going to become an adjective.
SEDARIS: Yeah, I know, right? There you are. Like, the 25 cent table is successful, and I think if people try that, that’ll be a good thing and they’ll notice… their parties will be successful.
KP: Well, I think it’s an amazingly enjoyable book, and in many ways I’m glad you wrote it.
SEDARIS: Oh, thanks so much.
KP: Because I want to try some of these recipes now.
SEDARIS: Oh, there you go. My favorite in the book is Chicken of the Taverns (lemon and pepper-seasoned chicken baked with tomatoes and served over a bed of rice, pasta, or potatoes).
KP: Oh really?
SEDARIS: Yeah.
KP: I’m going to write that down.
SEDARIS: Yeah, that’s the best one.
KP: I do appreciate you taking the time to chat, and I hope you have a very good afternoon.
SEDARIS: Thanks so much, you too.
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AMY SEDARIS’ LI’L SMOKEY CHEESEBALL
- 2 cups of shredded smoked Gouda cheese
- 16 ounces of cream cheese 1/2 cup of butter
- 2 1/2 tablespoons of milk
- 2 1/2 teaspoons of Steak Sauce
- 1 cupped of chopped nuts
Bring all ingredients to room temp. Add milk and steak sauce and beat until completely blended. Chill over night. Turn it into a ball the next morning. Roll it in the nut mixture. Serve it room temp, spread on a Ritz cracker.
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