thinking about bill neal
i get this eerie feeling reading the snippets of prose between the collections of recipes in the book Remembering Bill Neal: Favorite Recipes from a Life in Cooking by moreton neal. it could just be envy, but i think i feel almost a kindred connection.
bill neal meets moreton at duke in 1967. they cook together in the dorms. they get married their senior year. do graduate school while catering. have children. open la residence (originally at fearrington village in chatham county). move la residence to its current location in chapel hill on rosemary street. get divorced in 1982. bill starts crook’s corner. begins publishing cookbooks on southern cooking. becomes nationally known after being featured by craig claiborne in the new york times. he dies in 1991.
my first impression was, wow, how is it that i know nothing about this person who has apparently left such an indelible mark on chapel hill and regional southern cuisine?
then i expect some explanation about why he died so young, but there is none. the book is mostly recipes, providing unfortunately little biography to go on. even wikipedia comes up a total blank. finally i discovered (in Interview with Moreton Neal and the news and observer’s Tribute to a visionary chef) that he died of AIDS. it kind of takes my breath away.
i find it impressive that bill and moreton accomplished so much so early on in their lives. i see gangling teenagers in the pictures in the book, not the professional and commanding chefs you’d expect.
it makes me think about the twists and turns in my own life. how my interest has shifted from cooking to sculpture to web development to journalism. i wonder whether i adjust my focus too frequently, influenced by factors like money or material comfort or the interests of colleagues.
clearly what i know and have read about bill neal is a gross simplification of the actual person. that he died of AIDS is intriguing to me in and of itself. but it still makes me wish i had more single-minded, intense kind of focus in my life. instead of a hobby elevated to day job.
I am currently reading this book as well, wondering why he died so young. A Google search brought your blog to my attention, and now I know. Neal was truely a gifted, visionary chef.