"I need to write about this, don’t I?"

A conversation with Mollie Katzen, part 2

When I started this newsletter, I wanted to make space for other voices to join me here. Approximately once a month, I share a conversation with someone whose work and mind I admire. This week and last, that someone is cookbook author and artist Mollie Katzen, whose books ushered me into adulthood, who met me when I was a fawning nineteen-year-old and had the grace to offer me her gentle attention, and who, nearly twenty-five years later, I feel lucky to call a friend. 

You can read Part 1 of our conversation here. I speak for both myself and Mollie when I say how happy we are that you enjoyed reading it! Thank you for your comments and emails. I have a feeling you’ll enjoy Part 2 just as much, and for its own reasons.

Like the first installment, Part 2 has been edited by both of us for clarity and brevity. Please note that this conversation took place on July 12, 2022, which means that the mention of Ash being 12 weeks pregnant is now out-of-date; as of today, Ash is a full twenty weeks along.

And Mollie: thank you.

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Molly Wizenberg: When you think about your influences, whether as an artist or a woman or a mother or something else, are there certain people who come to mind?

Mollie Katzen: The first one that comes to mind, interestingly, was my mother's best friend. I loved my mother, but, you know, with mothers, it's always – I don't want to say problematic, but yeah. My mother bought the first issue of Ms. magazine in 1972; it was like she was looking in the window of feminism, but she wouldn’t walk through the door. She was of a certain era. But her best friend Ruth! Ruth was just a handful of years younger, but she was a single mom, which was stigmatized in that day. She was a single mom of two and our neighbor. Her parents and my own grandparents had been best friends, so it was kind of a familial friendship that she had with my mother. Her husband left when her kids were small, and that was a big shame – a shanda, as we would say in Yiddish – and yet she pulled herself together and developed a career. It was very unusual in those days.

You know, it’s funny: I used to babysit for her kids, who were barely younger than I was. I’d go over to babysit a lot, and I’d get to kind of be part of her household. She had a day job working for the University of Rochester, and then she was also getting a Master’s degree at night in social work. And she was full-out – a single mom, which meant that she did everything, was the parent, and with reduced circumstances. She was a single mother to two bright children. For night school, she had to drive to Buffalo, an hour each way. But she got her Master’s degree while also supporting her family, and then she became a medical social worker who was highly respected in her field and trained many others. She became an influencer in that world, regarding what it means to be a medical social worker and to help people through illness, help families through illness. It was profound. And she was funny. And she was incredibly well-read – you know, one of those people with a stack of books on the bedside table, even though she was raising children solo, commuting to night school and working full-time. But she was a pretty terrible cook. She should forgive me for saying so. [Laughs]

MW: That's perfect.

MK: I mean, how do you make asparagus inedible? She had that gift. She could do that. [Laughs]