Tuesday Teaser: Catherine Kurtz on Feast
Welcome to this Tuesday Teaser episode of Best Book Forward! Today, I am giving you an exclusive sneak peek into my conversation with Catherine Kurtz ahead of the main episode dropping this Thursday.
Feast is out now (grab your copy here: Feast by Catherine Kurtz)
It is such a brilliant read, you do not want to miss this book (or episode). Make sure you hang around to the end of the episode to hear Catherine read a little extract for you.
The main episode drops this Thursday so think of this as a little added bonus. If you are already subscribed to Best Book Forward, your podcast app will send you a little notification the moment the main episode lands. In the meantime, come and say hello to us both over on Instagram by hitting the links below!
🎧 Listen & Subscribe https://best-book-forward.captivate.fm/listen
📲 Connect with Us
- Follow Helen on Instagram: @bestbookforward
- Follow Catherine Kurtz on Instagram: @catherinekurtzart
Transcript
Welcome back to another Tuesday teaser to find out who will be joining me on Best Book Forward this week.
Speaker A:I really hope that you're enjoying this summer season as much as I am.
Speaker A:I had so much fun making these episodes and I really hope that you're enjoying them too.
Speaker A:Be sure to hang around until the end of this episode.
Speaker A:It's only a short one and our author will be treating us to another exclusive, exclusive reading which you won't want to miss.
Speaker A:So on the show this Thursday is Catherine Kurtz, who joined me to talk about her brilliant debut novel Feast, which is out now and it is a brilliant read to give you a little taste of the story.
Speaker A:I'm sorry, the pun was completely intended.
Speaker A:Feast takes us from 19th century London where we meet a young girl named Mina, who is born with an extraordinary sense of taste.
Speaker A:Desperate to escape a life of poverty, she flees to France and ends up at a grand chateau where her life changes forever when she detects poison in a dish that was meant for the duke and she is instantly appointed as his personal poison taster.
Speaker A:Forced into the shadows where every single meal becomes a high stakes game of life and death.
Speaker A:And then the unthinkable happens when she loses her miraculous gift, forcing her to face a terrifying truth.
Speaker A:Without a gift, who is she and what remains of the life that she's fought so hard to build?
Speaker A:It's a wonderful read, one that is sure to leave you with some serious hunger pangs.
Speaker A:Catherine's writing is so beautifully evocative.
Speaker A:I honestly felt at times I could smell the freshly baked bread wafting from the pages.
Speaker A:In Thursday's episode, Catherine joins me to talk about writing Feast and how many of its themes reflect her own life not only as an author, but an artist and also a taster.
Speaker A:Although thankfully not for poison.
Speaker A:We have a wonderful conversation about her work as a Grand Jury member of the International Chocolate Awards, which as a bit of a chocoholic myself, I found so interesting.
Speaker A:I loved this conversation so much and I really hope that you're going to enjoy it too.
Speaker A:The full episode drops on Thursday.
Speaker A:If you've already subscribed, you'll get a notification as soon as it lands, or you can just search Best Book for Forward wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker A:But for now, let me leave you with a reading from Catherine from Feast.
Speaker A:I hope that you enjoy it and I'll look forward to seeing you on Thursday.
Speaker B: London,: Speaker B:That peculiar alchemy that converts flour and yeast in a well seasoned oven to what can only be called bliss minutes old.
Speaker B:She couldn't taste it, not yet.
Speaker B:But as the ovens were opened in the bakery below and that infinitely tempting yeasted fog coiled up through bare floorboards, in through a single ill fitting early morning window, her round dark eyes opened for the first time a mirror pair.
Speaker B:Her father's had been trained on her, full of concern.
Speaker B:She was so still.
Speaker B:His eyes brightened at this sign of life restored to their usual carefree sparkle.
Speaker B:Jew.
Speaker B:It's all right, Jew.
Speaker B:She's awake.
Speaker B:He lifted his gaze to a mattress across the room on which a tangled lump of sheets did not bother to stir.
Speaker B:He shifted his legs, leaning back against the wall behind him, better to accommodate his newborn daughter.
Speaker B:She shifted too, settling, not displeased by the handsome brown face smiling above her.
Speaker B:Life had found her.
Speaker B:She was held steady.
Speaker B:She might, like her mother, lie in recovery from the trauma that is birth, but her body thrummed with purpose, not just with excitement at whatever newly baked delicacies called her from what was certainly the finest bakery on the Strand.
Speaker B:Closer to hand.
Speaker B:The clothes in which she nestled, the arms of her father's shirt, were impregnated with a vibrant cocktail of spices.
Speaker B:She opened her mouth, reaching the baby's hungry love.
Speaker B:Her father watched as she tasted the air, eyes wide, then stood to take her over to her mother.
Speaker B:Jew.
Speaker B:He nudged the sheets.
Speaker B:They moaned.
Speaker B:Judith.
Speaker B:The sheets cocooned themselves more tightly, then spoke.
Speaker B:Take it away.
Speaker B:It's a little girl.
Speaker B:Take her away.
Speaker B:Then a shadow passed across his face.
Speaker B:They were unattended.
Speaker B:Judith had been happy to strut with the handsome Indian sailor, ready and able to treat her well.
Speaker B:His ship's cargo of cinnamon, cloves and saffron made his presence in London a welcome one.
Speaker B:But she was not so happy to show off the results of that liaison.
Speaker B:A child that would be born not of an act of love, not really.
Speaker B:Not love for Kazi with his ready laugh and his swagger, but for the coloured scarves, the rich sweets and the steady supply of brandy he brought with him.
Speaker B:When her belly had started to compromise the figure she cut at his side, she let the city swallow them.
Speaker B:They hold themselves up in this attic above the Strand Bakery.
Speaker B:They waited alone and increasingly frustrated with each other.
Speaker B:She wished he didn't remain so tall, so glowing, his body firm and brown and now a world away from the swelling grey pink mass she had become.
Speaker B:She wished she hadn't succumbed to that body and in so doing lost her own.
Speaker B:Would she get her old body back, the one that tempted, the one that put food on the table.
Speaker B:He wished she did more than grunt at him, show some appreciation for the food, for the supply of food he brought her, for the fact that he didn't simply move back on board ship.
Speaker B:His business in England was almost done.
Speaker B:The ship would sail in a month.
Speaker B:He would be on it.
Speaker B:When it came to it, Judith could have done with an attendant.
Speaker B:She could have done without the glamorous and irresistible man who had got her into trouble.
Speaker B:And she could have done entirely without the trouble itself.
Speaker B:Another mouth to feed.
Speaker B:But then, perhaps if there had been another female in attendance, someone who saw the colour of the infant's skin and the distress on the exhausted woman's face, maybe they would have obeyed when she cried, take it away.
Speaker B:Cassie rallied, nudged the reluctant mother with a foot and grinned.
Speaker B:He smiled the broad and easy smile that had so beguiled her.
Speaker B:Don't talk nonsense, Jew.
Speaker B:She's a peach.
Speaker B:The peach twitched her minuscule nose.
Speaker B:Judith grunted.
Speaker B:She is.
Speaker B:She's a gift.
Speaker B:Our gift.
Speaker B:That's her name, I think.
Speaker B:Mina.
Speaker B:It means gift.
Speaker B:He looked at his soon to be ex lover for approval of his choice, her bare pink and white upper half emerging from the sheets.
Speaker B:Her expression was blank.
Speaker B:He looked at his daughter, whose shining eyes fixed on his, whose reaching mouth curled up at the edges as if with amusement, with joy, whose very being glowed.
Speaker B:Mina it is then.
Speaker B:He dropped a kiss on her forehead and bent to hand her over.
Speaker B:Judith lifted her heavy self, reached for her daughter without looking, without a glance for the person who was even then building herself, taking in her share of the sights and sounds around her and more than her share of all that reached her nose, her tender baby mouth.
Speaker B:Her father may have considered her a gift, named her so, but she was also already in her first moments, just beginning to discover her gift, her peculiar, unwieldy and precious gift.
Speaker B:Mina's gift was her sense of taste, her ability to savor big bold tango and fandango on her tongue.
Speaker B:The shift, the hint, the smallest component of flavour eked out and found, considered, remembered.
Speaker B:When the unwanted fairy godmother, unseen and unknown, turned up at her birth, she did not bequeath a prophecy or a fairy tale ending.
Speaker B:No, she endowed the infant Mina with the ability to experience wildly, vividly, appetite, Sa.
