The Kitchen Front | Holly Furtick Book Club

Hello, everybody. It is one of my favorite nights of the month, and yours too, I think. If you're joining us, it is book club night tonight. We are discussing this book, the Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan. Now, do not be alarmed. It's not a huge book. It's not like a super. It's a totally normal length book. My team just accidentally got the large print edition, but that doesn't make the book any different. It's still an amazing book and I can't wait to talk to you about it tonight. The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan. Jennifer is going to be joining us tonight and I can't wait to talk.

To you about it.

I can't wait to talk to Jennifer about it. It's going to be amazing. I'm all set up. I've got my tea. I've got my scones made by Elise. Did you make the scones? Let me know if you made the scones. I know Stephanie made the scones and her clotted cream. That was very overachiever of you, Stephanie, but you will have to let us know how it turned out. And what exactly is clotted cream? I'm not sure, but let me know if you've got your scones, if you've got your book, if you've got your beverage. I always have lots of beverages. I also have a water here, guys. I love this book. First, I want to talk about the characters because, oh, man, my notes printed on double sided. I hate it when it does that. All right, first we're gonna talk about the characters. I want to know which character of the four main characters was your favorite, and it could be your favorite, or who you, like, rooted for the most or who you felt the. The biggest connection to. So here we go. We have Audrey. Now, Audrey got me hooked straight away. I really loved her. She is a war widow. She's raising three little boys. She's trying to make money on the side by making pies and pastries, which I have no idea how she's making these pies and pastries because of the war rations. And she's just killing herself to really. To make ends meet for her boys. Then we have Zelda, who is the head chef for the factory. She is hiding a secret pregnancy, and she's the former chef of the Darlington Hotel. And I love Zelda because she's a woman who's a real fighter. And at this time in history, women were not. They, they, they were. They were fighting for their place in the world. And. And Zelda was really fighting to be. To Be respected as a chef and in a man's world. And so, and here she is, pregnant. Now she's not going to have any chances. And so here comes Zelda. Then we have Lady Gwendolyn, and that's Audrey's sister, who seems to have, on the outside, everything that she could possibly want. But behind the scenes, her marriage is pretty rough. Her husband is abusive, and Lady Gwendolyn is the one who is going to cheat to win the competition. And, and then we have Nell Brown, who is the head cook's assistant at Lady Gwendolyn's estate. And did anybody, I have to know this, you guys, did anybody picture. When you read Nell, Emily, you have to let me know. We haven't talked about this yet. When you were reading the character of Nell, did you picture Daisy from Downton Abbey the whole time? Like, that's who I pictured because it was like totally Daisy from the kitchen in Downton Abbey. So we have these four women. And the thing that I loved about this book, you guys are commenting. Heidi says yes. Lisa says that she loved Nell. Carrie Broom says, yes, yes, yes, yes. Stephanie Van Almen says, did you keep seeing Mrs. Quince as the cook at Downton Abbey?

Yeah.

What was her name, the red headed cook? Elise says yes. Suzanne. Everybody's saying yes. Totally pictured Daisy, which means it was such a great show and a great book. But we have these four characters. And the thing that I loved about this book was that in the beginning, you kind of were like, okay, I'm cheering for Audrey. And Audrey's the good guy and Lady Gwendolyn is the bad guy. And then you kind of didn't know what to do with Nell and Zelda. But as the book goes on, you start to see the roundness of their characters and you start to see Audrey do some things that you're kind of like, come on, why are you acting like that? And then you see Zelda soften and you see, you see Lady Gwendolyn have to be vulnerable with her sister. And there's just all these beautiful relationships that are going on within these women. And there's not one standout hero, but it's almost like their friendship together sort of becomes the hero. And I think that's an amazing thing about this book. Okay, so while I've been chattering on and on, I want to know what you guys loved about these characters. Heidi says she loved how Zelda taught the boys about the planes. Yes. Like, that was the moment where you, where you, your heart softened towards Zelda. You're like, oh, look, she's teaching the boys about the planes. She's helping them not be afraid. What else? Oh, Mrs. Patmore.

Yes.

That's who Mrs. Quince reminded us of. Kristen says, I love that the characters weren't so clearly good and bad. It seemed like they were real people. Yeah. Jacqueline says, so much growth and healing. By the way, we do spoilers here. I'm gonna read one that's a spoiler. Kelly says, I love how Zelda decided to keep the baby at the end, but also, didn't you love how she said, we are keeping the baby? Because she knew that on her own, she wasn't going to be able to raise this baby. But the relationships and the friendships that she had developed with these women gave her the empowerment to keep the baby. I love that. Let's see, what else are you guys saying? Zelda had to have that rough exterior is what cast the teach says. And then Emily says, the cookbook scene was it for me. The cookbook scene was great. Just such great characters in the book. And then the other thing that I loved about this book was how, even though, like, we're in a pandemic, and I would never compare that to the difficulty of living through World War II, but there was something about living through the pandemic that really struck me with their rations and what they were allowed to have and not have and. And cook and not, you know, all of the substitutions that they were having to make in their cooking. And it made me remember, like, when I went to the grocery store about a year ago, and they had taken down the signs for the limit on eggs. And my family, we eat a ton of eggs. Like, I think I use a dozen eggs every time we have eggs for breakfast or breakfast for dinner or eggs for dinner. Anyway, so I went to buy three dozen eggs, and the signs were down. And when I went to the checkout, the girl was like, you can only have two eggs. And I felt kind of embarrassed, and I was like, oh, well, the sign wasn't there. She was like, well, it's only two per customer. So anyway, I was. I felt like because of the things that we've been through over the last year, that I was really able to relate to this idea of rationing and substitutes and all of the funny things that you can't get right now, like chicken wings and random. Abby told me the other day that, why. Why can't we have goldfish? Apparently, goldfish crackers are really hard to find. I don't know. But again, I'm not Comparing that to what these people had to eat. Because, listen, in Jennifer's book club, which, by the way, I need to say this to Jennifer when she comes on, her little book club packet that she had with it has, like, all these questions and facts and everything, was the best of any book that. That we've ever read. And so look, this is what Jennifer said that you were allowed to have during World War II. Britain, rationing for one. This is food rations for one adult for one week, 4 ounces of bacon and ham, meat to the value of one shilling and tuppence, which is 2 pounds of mince meat, or 1 pound of steak or 1 pound of steak per week. One pound of steak wouldn't feed, like one meal for an adult now. 2. 2 ounces of cheese, 4 ounces of margarine, 2 ounces of butter, 3 pints of milk, 8 ounces of sugar, 2 ounces of jam, 2 ounces of tea, 1 fresh egg per adult. And then you could have powdered eggs, one packet of dried powdered eggs, and three ounces of candy. Now, obviously, there was no. There is no rationing on vegetables, potatoes, all of those things, and you could grow them in your own garden. But people really had to get creative and they had to grow their own gardens and they had to raise their own chickens. And so it was just so inspiring to think about all that the. The women had to go through to rally for their families and for their children as their husbands were fighting in the war. And there are all these things of, like that she listed of how to make do. And of course, that's what the book is all about. But everybody wants to talk about Gertrude, the chicken and how they were about to eat Gertrude. And Gertrude got saved. And somebody said that they cried when they didn't eat Gertrude. And I was very happy for Gertrude that she did. I don't know. I think I kind of. As I recall when I was reading it, I kind of felt like they should just go ahead and meet Gertrude. But I'm glad for those of you who are happy that Gertrude didn't get eaten. All right, guys, are you ready to meet Jennifer Ryan? Let's bring her on. Hi, Jennifer.

Hi. Hi, Holly. It's so wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for having me on the show. It's really exciting.

Oh, my goodness. Thank you for being on here with us. It's always such a surprise to me every time an author says that they're going to. That they're going to join with us. And we just love Talking about books and we sort of enjoyed your book, so it's so nice to meet you.

Oh, thank you. Thank you for all the wonderful discussion that you've had so far. Oh, my goodness. You're reminding me of some of my favorite bits of the book too.

Yeah, I mean, it was such a wonderful story. I know that this is like such a basic question that you probably always get asked, but I know this is what everybody wants to know. Can you just briefly take us through? Like, how did you come to bring this whole story together? Like, what inspired you to do a cooking competition?

Well, it all started actually with my grandmother. And my grandmother really has been the inspiration behind all my books really, so far, because she lived through the Second World War and she had all these stories about it and everything. And she was this amazing cook. And actually years ago, I kind of always thought, oh, I should really write a book about her cooking. And she left. She died. She passed away about a decade ago now. And she left this amazing recipe book that is just packed with all of these leaflets and cut up pieces of magazine and everything. And all the recipes inside side, they're incredible. You can see the evolution of how, you know, they started as a recipe and then she would add things and then take things out and then alter things as she went along. It was, it's an inspiration in itself. And it was while I was going through those recipes and I was actually looking for Second World War recipes and seeing if she had any good ones. And it just came to me then, I think all of the. I suddenly realized the amount of ration problems that food rationing had on cooks of the time and how these housewives really managed to deal with it in just extraordinary, very imaginative, very creative ways and everything.

So amazing.

And I, I already knew about, you know, the Kitchen front radio show and some of the other things that the government did, just from my research for the other books. And I suddenly thought, wow, this, it just came to me. I just thought this would make an amazing cooking contest. And a little bit like the British Baking show, you know. Well, right.

That's why the book was so great, because you totally captured us with people who already are obsessed with Downton Abbey, which people are asking, were you inspired at all by Downton Abbey? But then also people who are obsessed with cooking shows. So you basically gave us a cooking.

Competition.

In the past. It was just, it was so brilliant.

It was, it was so much fun. I have to say, I had so much fun just making the cooking contests and, and formulating which character Would cook which thing and everything. It was just amazing. And then there were just these wonderful. Some of the extraordinary things that I used to cook in the Second World War, like whale meat and sheep's head roll and things like that. I just had to put them in. I just knew. And that was where I started putting the recipes in, actually, because. So for anyone who doesn't know, I. The book has, I think, about 20 recipes all the way through from. Most of them are from my grandmother's collection.

Oh, really?

They are, yes. And they. But I think it was. It was those very strange recipes. And I thought, you know what? I. I, as a cook would like to know how these, how these are made. And that's why I put them in because I thought that other people would be very interested and not that they could make their own sheepshead roll at home, but just to see. Exactly.

Just so people could imagine, like what ingredients they were actually they actually had to work with and what they would do for their families in order to feed their families and get them protein. And I wondered many times, because I have a picky eater, one of my kids, and I wondered many times, I'm like, what did moms who had picky eaters, what did they make their kids eat? But. Okay, so I don't want to get off topic from the book, but so many people have been asking, do you have a favorite recipe from your grandmother's that. That you. That you remember her making?

Yes. So this is a bit of a spoiler as well. But the crock and bush at the end, my grandmother's fate, she. It was her star. Of every party she would put on, she would make the most amazing crock and bouche. She was a profiter queen. Oh, and she really, she. She just had a knack with. She was one of those cooks that is a bit like Audrey, just a sort of organic cook. Do you know what I mean? Someone who understands, really understands food and how it works without really understanding the chemistry or anything. But she's just has a nuance for flavor and taste and bringing it all together. But she had a thing with pastries. She was very good at them. So amazing. Has to be my favorite. I. That was. I always knew that was going to be the star of the show.

Okay, so you've got your grandmother's recipes. You knew about the kitchen front. How did you come to these four women?

So I think Audrey was just an automatic for me. I've got two children juggling work, home, children, everything. It's. It's Difficult. And, you know, I think that we've all had times. All mothers have those moments where they think, I'm just going to lose the plot, you know, and they're doing everything, just bending over, doing everything for their children. And so I instantly related to that character, I think. And. And she's got this awful backstory that she's. Her husband's died, and I just wanted this. I suppose my heart just went out to her straight away. She's just trying to hold it all together and hold her house together, her home, and she'll do anything. And I think. Think that that's the. The real turning point for her was Gertrude. The hen was. She was willing to do that. Right. Sacrifice the hen for the sake of her family. And. But when it really came down to it, she just couldn't do it. And I think at that point she suddenly thought, I don't need. I. I can't. I've got to stop doing this. I can't be this person anymore. This is, you know, too much. And. And luckily, Zelda was there to, you know, help her mop that up and. And share some of those. Some of her load. Just share some of her load for her.

And she didn't want Gertrude, you know, at first she didn't think she could have her. She didn't one another mouth to feed. But it turned out that she need. She needed. They needed each other. And that was really beautiful because it wasn't just like, oh, here's another person for Audrey to take care of. That's what she saw her as at first. But then she comes into her life and she realizes, you know, that moment with the planes, and she realizes, oh, this is actually a gift to me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So Nell came very quickly to me as well. Now, I did watch Downton Abbey a long time ago, but she wasn't modeled on the kitchen maid from Downton Abbey. It was. That's a different era. I don't know. To. Probably. To most people, they're very similar eras, but I. I don't know. To me, they're very different eras. Yeah. But, yes, I. You're not the first person to point out the similarity, actually. And I. But I never imagined it in my head at all to be like. Yeah, to be like the maid in Downton Abbey. But thank you. I'll take that as a compliment.

And so then you've got Lady Gwendolyn.

Yes, Lady Gwendolyn actually originated. She was not the sister of Audrey, and she was a lot younger Actually, and she was based on, very loosely, on a real wartime home economist who was this upper class woman and. Yeah, but I decided to make her into Audrey's sister and make her into a similar age as Audrey. I thought that. I love the sister relationship and how it changed. I think sisters are kind of inherently interesting, complicated relationships. And I loved some of the ways that you could just really dig into the emotion of the situation as a result of that. Yeah, that push and pull that they have with each other.

Yeah. There was so much there between them. And you could feel like their history and their conflict, but also their love for each other is sort of what overcame in the end and made them stand up for each other and be able to work together in the end. I. I just. You were hitting all of my buttons with sisters, friends, women, World War II cooking. It was just like everything that I love all wrapped up in a book. So when you're writing, how. What's your method? Like, you have this idea, you, you know, about the kitchen front. You have this idea of a cooking competition. You're getting these four characters. Do you outline your book or do you let the story develop as you're writing?

It sort of develops as I'm writing and the characters develop as I'm writing as well. I generally start with an idea of where I'm going and everything, but it normally changes. So I don't know. Some people in, you know, they talk about, you know, that writers are either plotters who plot everything or their pantsers who live on the seat of their pants. And I'm. I really want to be a plotter, I think, but it never works out that way. And I always. Because I always start writing one book and by the end of it, it's a different book. So.

So what changed from the beginning to the end of this book or was. Did one of the characters surprise you where you were like, oh, I didn't think you would do that. But then it sort of came out.

I think a lot of the plot with Zelda, it. I hadn't really plotted it out, but once I decided that she originally was not ability to live with Audrey at the beginning, but once she did, suddenly everything just really came together in a lot of her plot lines with the baby, the pregnancy, the difficulties that she was having and everything. And yeah, that's the wonderful relationship that her and Lady Gwendolyn have with the chef.

Right.

And everything. I think that. I think particularly between those two characters, it really came together throughout the book. I don't think I'd really planned that particularly, particularly. And that was. That was so wonderful. I really enjoyed how they came together and Lady Gwendolyn, how she was there in the church for Audrey. You know, people. It's so interesting. I keep seeing people saying that there were different parts of the book that made them cry, but every time I edited the kitchen front, that scene in the church where Audrey was mourning her dead husband, and Lady Gwendoline surprised everyone by suddenly being present. I felt that. Oh, it just got me every time. It really did. It was just so you understood in the background what was happening, happening with Lady Gwendolyn, why she was suddenly doing this. But it was just so moving.

Yeah, I agree. I totally think that was. It was such a touching part of the story because it was the first time for her to sort of step out and almost like, be there for her sister in one hand, but also kind of admit, like, I want to be a part of this world. I'm not the person I've made you all think that I am. I've heard a lot of authors say that they put people that they know, they slip them in their stories. Is there anybody that. Can you tell us? Is there anybody that you know that you actually wrote into the. Into the story?

No, no, not at all. I think I'm saved by. By the fact that I write historical fiction and people don't. It's difficult to kind of equate real people into the situation that's so historical. It's very much of its time, and I think that the people involved are very much of. Of that time as well. So. No, no, I've never. I've never done that, and I've never actually even tried to. Yeah, sometimes I've had people accuse me. You put me in a book.

I was like, you're like, oh, no. We talked to. I talked to an author one time. I think it was her name, Lisa C. She wrote the Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. She told us that she always. I think she said she always puts her grandmother in every book.

Wow.

And so I thought. I just thought that was really interesting. I always like to ask authors that. So I watched this interview that you did on YouTube today, and you went through. You had this whole, like, zoom presentation. You shared all these images and all this research that you had done. I mean, I truly learned. My favorite thing that I learned from you today was how you talked about how the health. The overall health of the country of Great Britain was so much better after the war because they basically went, like, 10 years without sugar and fat with very limited sugar and very limited fat. I just thought that was so brilliant. And the way you talked about how they slipped in the clothes, the clothes rationing, clothes rationing on the people so that they didn't rush the stores, which automatically. I know what it's like for people to rush the stores, you know. So in all this research that you've done, how long did it take you from the time that you decided to start writing the book to the time that it was finished and maybe share like what are some of your favorite things that you, that you learned along the way?

So I think that the idea of the book, it began about a year or so before I actually even started writing it. And it just sort of starts in your mind and you start, you know, in your spare time thinking about the, what characters might work well, what kind of plot ideas might work well and everything. And, and then when you start earnestly to write, you. I don't know, I have a tendency just to get going, starting to put things down and.

So are you researching and writing at the same time?

Yes, yeah. A lot of the research goes beforehand, you know, especially with a book like this, you really need to have a very solid understanding of how the, the whole food rationing was organized and everything is actually very complicated as well because it involved farming and agriculture as well. But I won't go into that. But yeah, so, yes, so there was an awful lot of research I'm continually researching about the Second World War and a lot of it comes from first hand writing from people either during the era through diaries and letters and things or you know, they're old people kind of looking back on that era of their lives and there's quite a lot of resources for that, thank goodness. And I've also held a lot of interviews with old, old ladies, particularly in England. And I love that part of my job, the research, but talking to people and it's just fascinating talking to old, old women who just understood, who remember everything, but they remember, it's interesting what they remember and the stories that they tell and you know, what, what meant something to them. Finding out what really, you know, the emotional core, I suppose, of, of the, of the event for them.

Yeah, well, you can really tell that you've put, that you had put so much just work into interviewing and understanding because I felt like I understood it and, and, and I hear I am just reading a, a story and so, just so, so well done. And I just like, again, I, I can't, I can't tell you enough how much we enjoyed the book. Thank you for your story, thank you for your characters. They just brought us so much joy over the last month. And just so cool to meet you and get to hear some of the behind the scenes and how the book came to be.

Oh, thank you so much for having me on. It's been so much fun, Holly, and just an honor to meet you and to be here. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. Well, guys, I hope that you enjoyed getting to be a part of my chat with Jennifer Ryan. I hope that you enjoyed this book. The kitchen front. Guess what's behind me? That poster my team made me. Because actually today, the day that we're recording this, I don't know if it's going to be the day that we post it, but it'll be close enough. It is the one year anniversary of the Holly Furtick YouTube channel. And if you are watching this, I hope that you have subscribed to the channel because we have a lot of great things coming for you this year. So if you like this interview, make sure you like it. Subscribe, click the little bell so you can get notifications, do all the things. And if you're not officially a part of the Holly Furtick Book club, you need to go to hollyfertick.com sign up. All I'm gonna do is send you an email, let you know what we're reading when we're meeting live so that you can join us. Anyway, I hope you have a I hope you have a happy new year and we'll see you soon.

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