Ask Michele: Coming Soon!

Each week, I will select questions from subscribers to answer in new posts.

During my 27 years as a regular freelance writer at The Santa Rosa Press Democrat, I connected with readers in various ways. For a year or so, I answered questions posted on the paper’s website but it was too soon, i.e., people were not yet interacting with websites much.

After Ask the Expert was cancelled, readers reached me via email. I always responded. Over the years, I have helped plan menus, provided archived and new recipes and sourcing information, and more, including defending myself when I have been attacked. Two attacks come to mind: One suggested I should put out poison instead of peanuts for crows, which a man described as flying rats. I had written a column about Brussels sprouts, explaining that I treated them like tiny cabbages, cutting out the cores and separating the leaves. It is an admittedly tedious endeavor, especially if you are cooking for a crowd, as I was, and so I mentioned that I open the door to my deck, set peanuts on the railing, and watch the crows as I work. Another announced, “You do not write for normal people,” a response to a column about shopping at locally owned markets instead of supermarket chains.

A favorite question came by phone, before cells phones, from a man in his mid 90s who wanted to tell me all about his baba ganoush. He began by saying, “What do YOU know about baba ganoush?” i.e., what were my credentials that allowed me to write about this beloved traditional dish? My only credential was that I made it frequently; I did not grow up eating it or even hearing about it.

Now there is my Substack project.

Here is how it will work: You post or send a question, keeping it fairly simple. This means that specific rather than general questions are best. “What type of salt do you recommend?” is better than, say, “What red wines are best?” or “What brands of cookware do I need?”

But questions do not need to be about food or cooking. They have been the most common for me because my work for the paper primarily covered food, cooking, and wine pairing. Now that I have spread my wings to cover a variety of topics, I can take questions about anything I write about.

Initially, Ask Michele will be for all subscribers, free and paid. If it is successful and I do hope it will be, it will eventually go behind a paywall so I am not overwhelmed by too many inquiries.

Please feel free to post or send your questions right away. The sooner I receive some, the sooner I will launch Ask Michele.