The next big thing

My old friend and fellow writer Grant Bailie has tagged me with a meme from some nebulous entity called "The Next Big Thing." While I cannot find the origins of said entity and have no faith in the implication of it's title, here are the questions and my answers as they pertain to my book of humorous nonfiction, The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of "The Irish Hungarian?"
 

Last week, I bought an entire lamb neck. If there is anything more satisfying then leaning up against a butcher's counter and saying, "Gimme that whole lamb neck," I sure as hell don't know what it is. I made barley soup with it.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

My daddy pulled me from the banks of the Cuyahoga River in the year of our Lord 1965, and raised me on the best sweet corn in the world. As a fifth generation northeast Ohioan, I sweat pure Lake Erie water. Every single person should listen to every thing I say all of the time.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I once read that, in order to thoroughly clean your carpet, you should swipe the ol' Hoover back and forth six times over each patch of floor. Who the hell does that? Who the hell goes around counting their vacuum swipes? No one does that. If anyone does that, they need their ass kicked.

Hey man, you got any KitKat bars around here?

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
 

You can tell a lot about a person by what their toothpaste tube looks like when they throw it out. If it's squeezed and battered and flattened to the thickness of a playing card, this indicates a frugal and relentless personality. You want this guy on your team.

Conversely, if the tube still contains toothpaste, you're dealing with a different character all together. If the tube is more or less empty. Well … okay, fine. Welcome to the world of utter mediocrity. Now then, if you're looking at a tube that's 1/6 full because its owner decided they'd had enough of the Winter Fresh Clean Mint flavor, you're dealing with a total candy ass.

Anyone throwing away a tube that's more than 1/6 full is, frankly, off my radar.  

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

You want to see something beautiful, buy a pressure cooker. My mom gave me one for Christmas last year. 

Dig this: you brown up some stew meat—what I like to call utility meat—you throw it in the pressure cooker with some broth and herbs and what-the-hell-ever and crank that baby up. Now, I'm leaving a few things out (judging from these questions, buddy, you don't strike me at the type who's ready for thickening and spaetzles and defatting), but the bottom line is that a pressure cooker makes a pot of stew possible in about forty-five minutes.

I shit you not.  

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I use Sriracha sauce like it's ketchup, make the best cucumber salad you will ever eat and can turn a few potatoes into a feast. I'm pretty good in the sack, cast the most powerful spells, and—given a handful of moonglow—can make a late winter's snow glitter like a sea of diamonds.

Now then, what was the question?

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