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A conversation with food writer Eugenia Bone

By Bruce Cole - Published 11.10.04

You say pesto and I say pay-stow

Eugenia Bone is the first food writer that we've ever spoken to who pronounces pesto properly. That's PAY-Stow, by the way, not Pes-TOW. She's also the first person to set the record straight on how pesto became so popular in this country (and no, it wasn't thanks to Martha Stewart - more on that later). The author of the recently published At Mesa's Edge – Cooking and Ranching in Colorado's North Fork Valley, she has been described by more than one reviewer as the Peter Mayle of the American West. Well, that's a rather dubious distinction considering the fact we haven't noticed a particular land rush in rural Colorado as a result of her book, and we don't think she belittled or pissed off any of her neighbors, like a certain English author did. Besides anyone who came of age in NYC wearing plastic mini skirts probably has more in common with Marianne Faithful than Peter Mayle.

Eugenia has also written about food for Saveur, Food & Wine, Gourmet magazine, and numerous other publications. We spoke to her by phone in New York City.

You grew up often sharing the dinner table with the likes of Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, and Jacques Pepin (good friends of her father Ed Giobbi). Who eats at your dinner table these days?

Well there's my writer gang, where we get together to complain people who want to change your text. (Laughs!) Out west (at her house in Crawford, CO, population: 404) we have an intense social scene going. In fact, we do more socializing out west than we do in New York City because there's no restaurants. People go to each others houses, and we're on a dinner circuit of probably 6-8 folks where you get everyone's take on whatever is in season that month. You'll have 8 different plum desserts in July, then 8 different zucchini dishes in August, and so on. The crowd is mostly expats from the fast lane, (One of her neighbors is Joe Cocker who is raising watusi cattle) but everyone expresses themselves through cooking because you can't do it through shopping. There's nothing to buy out there, which is what people in the cities do."

Pasta Primavera, Pesto, and Martha Stewart

Pasta Primavera, was it really your dad that invented this dish?

Well, invented is the wrong word. My dad was the vehicle by which pasta primavera became nationally known in this country. He is the vehicle by which many things Italian have become common knowledge in the country. He was a very early advocate (late 60's - early 70's) of the kind of food that people now have come to expect when you say Italian cookery. Not the spaghetti and meatballs model...in fact he was one of the people who broke that model.

One of the reasons he was able to do that was, he is a very, very gifted cook, and he came to the attention of Craig Claiborne, who was the greatest voice on the national media level in food during the 70's. He was the food editor of the NY Times, and he was the person who championed home cooks and home cookery in this country.

Craig had a team that he used to get the word out about different cuisines. Diane Kennedy got the word out about Mexican cuisine in this country, Pierre Franey was putting out this country French cookery, and my dad was doing the Italian thing.

So the correct story on pasta primavera is in Jacques Pepin's memoir, The Apprentice, and the less incorrect story is in Sirio Maccioni's book Sirio: The Story of My Life and Le Cirque, where from what I understand, Sirio neglects to mention my dad - but that's ok. Sirio is a great guy. We don't really care that much. Dad certainly doesn't really care that much.

But some things bum him out. For example, he created a dish for one of Craig Claiborne's big birthday parties. Like his famous New Years Eve parties, it was catered by famous chefs. In fact that's what they would do. They were this gang that got together and cooked everywhere (Pierre Franey, Jacques Pepin, Andre Soltner, etc.). They catered my wedding in fact, Jacques Pepin and Pierre Franey. It was all about the food. The bride was like the second act. I couldn't get anybody to ask me where I was going on my honey moon! It was depressing, but the food was worth it!

So the birthday BBQ that Craig had, my dad was cooking a whole lamb, and he made a pesto with mint, a recipe that hadn't yet been published in the United States. He served it at the BBQ, and Craig ran an article about it. But then, so did Martha Stewart, who said something like, "I have a brilliant idea for a mint pesto...". These chefs were all completely relaxed about giving recipes to each other, but they did like to be credited, which is why they hated Martha, at least why my dad hated her. Not only would she rip off a recipe, which is not that big a deal, but she'd claim responsibility for it, and that was kind of a bummer, because that was a lie.



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