the cook & the librarian: meet megan curran

Okay, let’s face it, a girl can’t
live on edible musings alone.

While I find food infinitely inspiring, I find people
to be the most inspiring lot of the universe.

People you have heard of like say: Julia Child, Jamie Oliver, Amelia Earhart & Mahatma Ghandi. People that maybe only a few of you have heard of: Assata Shakur, Will Allen & Fred Kirschenmann. And then there’s the people we know everyday, the people that make our days amazing. My life is fortuitously well stocked with the most amazing collection of people. I talk about food with every last one of them.

That is why after a couple of years of consideration, I have finally decided to launch a little sometimes series called “Real People.” Fancy. It’s an edible profile of people I think are fantastic & sometimes it will be an essay on people that inspire me to do more, do better. They are not fabrications of media or politics, they are their own people. So, for our first installation, I want to tell you about this wonderful librarian of my acquaintance.

The Cook & The Librarian, Part 1:

I met Megan through my girlfriend just this past year. She’s an elaborate conversationalist & has an encyclopedic knowledge of many things ranging from rare books to riot girl culture.

We were the lucky recipients of an invitation to visit her at work in the rare books collection at the University of Southern California’s medical library. She pulled a small collection of herbal medicinal references spanning back centuries. Most beloved to me was the copy of Dr. Chases Recipes. A book that gives you everything you’ll need to know in order to settle a little town in the old west frontier. Um. Nerd Heaven.

She also did a bang up job of doing an installation at the entry of the library on Medicine in the Old West. It was wildly informative & totally entertaining. It rung so vibrantly with me for the fact that it gave historical proof that our culture is as steeped in herbal healing & edible alchemy as any other. Americans have little idea of what a fecund history we have in regards to food & healing. It was beyond inspiring.

At some point while Megan explained to us the ins & outs of the work she does in this gold mine of information, I found myself spellbound. Staring up at her like she was a rockstar, I was for a moment the first Japanese girl to see the Beatles. I mean, I already knew a librarian who made a life sized 3-D pumpkin spice skull cake for her housewarming party was a librarian for me, but man. This girl rules.

Below is my interview with Megan. Please stay tuned for part two: The Cook & The Librarian: In The Kitchen when we take on a kitchen & create a meal together based off of Megan’s questionnaire & our shared love of dipsomania, holy basil, cilantro, beer & meat.

the incredible edible profile of: Megan Curran

What is your official title at work? In life?
My job title is quite a mouthful: I’m Head of Metadata and Content Management at USC’s Norris Medical Library. (See, it took up two lines and I even abbreviated a little!) What I really do is make sure everything in the library works and is described in ways so people can find them. I play with rare books a lot, which is my passion; couldn’t ask for anything more.
In life… how about The Grand Inquisitor? I like its medieval and somewhat ominous tone, plus my inherent curiosity is something that keeps my days happy and full.

What are your favorite textures, food wise?
Soup is a texture, right?

Sweet or Savory?
Savory, always and forever, and in every way.

What are your favorite flavor combinations? Least favorite?
I love a bit of fruit in a savory dish; unexpected spice in a fruity dish or an odd herbaceousness in any dish.
I love a little surprise in my food and things that add complexity.
I was vegan for a long time so things that are heavily creamy still kinda gross me out (OK more than kinda…)

Ethnic cuisines? Best/worst?
I could eat Vietnamese everyday. Love Ethiopian, Thai and Moroccan flavors. Not crazy about Indian unless I’m making it myself.

Favorite herbal flavors?
The more the merrier! I really love all herbs, and lots of ‘em.  If I had to pick two, it would be holy basil and cilantro. I could eat them alone, by the bushel.

For the next 10 minutes, what is your favorite word?
Incunabula! It describes books made at the dawn of the printing age; it comes from the Latin meaning “cradle.” It is also an anagram for “A Bunnicula”, which is my cat’s name.

Is there any food or texture or flavor that absolutely skeeves you out?
Yogurt. Sour cream. Cow’s milk. Barfo! I’m only just starting to come around to blue cheese.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up about 15 minutes outside of Philadelphia, in a kinda crummy neighborhood in a thankfully well-to-do school district. I did my undergrad degree at Drexel University, got my master’s at Pitt (online) while living in Philadelphia and working as a journalist at NPR, then in publishing before moving to Los Angeles in April 2009.

A favorite food memory:
Recently, on a trip to San Francisco, my boyfriend, Etan, and I were walking near City Lights Bookstore (home of The Beats!) when we came across a small window framed with a picture frame.
Inside the window, apropos of nothing, was the face of a sweet cherubic girl. She was selling cupcakes! If there is someone who could resist buying a bright pink cupcake dubbed “The Prom Queen” from an adorable girl in a picture frame on the street, I don’t want to know him.  I feel like I’ll remember that cupcake for a long time…

Weeknight meals: Take-out? Cooking in? Best examples this week?
I love cooking at home and make big peasant meals so we can bring leftovers for lunch. Usually it’s strange mixes in the wok or on the stove; it’s fun to see what I have on hand at home and go from there.
This week the veggies in the fridge were a real motley crew, things have been crazy with my birthday, then Hannukah & we didn’t make it to the farmer’s market. We ate out a lot this week. One meal I made consisted of some chicken pieces marinated in a pale ale mustard and soy sauce.
I threw it together with a stir-fry of rice noodles, celery, carrots, cucumber, tomato, tons of fresh herbs & a stone ground mustard concoction. I called it “French Colonial” …it was so wrong that it actually totally worked!

Your trademark beverages?
I’m one of those people who can’t eat food without a flavored beverage, and have been known to have multiple beverages going at once. I am avidly in love with beer to the point of spending a lot of time going to breweries or following bars on Twitter to find out when they’re tapping something new and exciting.
I also adore (and cannot live without) strong black coffee.
In terms of spirits I love bourbon, gin, absinthe and chartreuse. I would say I love drinking beverages even more than I love eating because it’s all about flavors and not about getting full (though that does happen eventually, especially with beer!)

If you had the opportunity to mold a persons brain in 5-7 books, what would they be? Whew boy, that is some question to ask a librarian! At this moment, I’d go with James Joyce’s Ulysses, Milan Kundera’s Immortality, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, Lord Whimsy’s The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum, Maurice Sendak’s Higglety Piggelty Pop or There Must Be More to Life. The resulting person would be brilliant but unpretentious and charmingly inappropriate sometimes, care deeply about nature and human nature, science and magic, and would be kind to humans and animals… all while dressing snappily and being fascinating at a cocktail party. That’s someone I’d like to know!