I got an eerie feeling reading the snippets of prose in 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 felt an almost kindred connection.

Here’s a quick recap: Bill meets Moreton at Duke in 1967. They cook together in the dorms. Get married their senior year. Do graduate school while catering. Have children. Open La Résidence (originally at Fearrington Village in Chatham County). Move La Résidence 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 Craig Claiborne features Crook’s Corner 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? Why isn’t Chapel Hill History a graduation requirement for all UNC students?

I expected some explanation in the book about why he died so young, but there is none. It is mostly recipes, providing little biography to fill in the blanks. Even Wikipedia comes up empty. Finally I discovered (in an Interview with Moreton Neal and the News and Observer’s “Tribute to a Visionary Chef”) that he died of AIDS. It took my breath away.

It is impressive how much Bill and Moreton accomplished so early in their lives. I see gangly teenagers in the book’s photos, not the professional and commanding chefs you’d expect.

It made me think about the twists and turns of 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. But his passion for Southern cuisine makes me wish I had a more single-minded, intense focus in my life. Instead of a what sometimes feels like a hobby elevated to day job.

Update: The comments on this post are some of the most wonderful and heartfelt I’ve ever received, from people who knew and worked with Bill to people who felt a bond with him through his cookbooks. Ten years after posting these musings, I received a comment with a link to a wonderful and touching video produced by the Southern Foodways Alliance: They Came For Shrimp & Grits: The Life & Work of Bill Neal. It fills in a few more details about his life and legacy.

just got back from the arcade fire show. started the night out at reservoir, the new bar where go! studios used to be. in fact the bar is where the stage once was. they’ve got a single red pool table, juke box, and that upstairs loft thing with couches and coffee tables. definitely worth a check out.

kristina, pinky and mr pinky, robin, patrick, jane and i were all enjoying the scene. played some pool and generally got our collective asses kicked by mr. keg o’ rum himself. listened to some good tunes, jay-z, cursive, at the drive in. pretty much we were responsible for bankrolling the musical entertainment while we were there.

headed out to cats cradle in the subzero temperatures (read: 23°F). bumped into carlie and her posse. eventually kathleen showed with her crew. jackie and ryan showed up. some guy, who called himself “final fantasy,” played a violin in such a way that he was able to sample himself playing and sing on top of the sample–which was cool.

then arcade fire came on and literally rocked our faces off. i mean truly my face is somewhere on the floor at cats cradle while i am here writing this sans face. it’s hard to describe how satisfying and intriguing they are to listen to and watch. their music has lots of layers, and some how it all comes together without getting muddled. i want to say it’s operatic in terms of vocal texture and musical density.

in rare form (read: nostalgic youthful abandon), jackie, ryan, jane, me and robin headed back to reservoir, to chill and show the place off to our guests from raleigh. and hey, wouldn’t you know it joe was there!

after a while we headed out, managed not to get my car stuck in a ditch dropping robin off, and i’m in bed. eyes fighting with me to close. but i promised myself i’d write.

driving back from the outer banks this summer, i happened upon this american life on npr doing a piece about hamlet. they began by playing snippets of lines from various performances around the country.

ira glass wondered how any of us, or any of the actors performing hamlet relate to the plot. hamlet’s uncle kills hamlet’s father, the king, and marries his mother, thus becoming the king. the whole play revolves around hamlet agonizing over whether he should kill his uncle to avenge his father. or not.

ira asks, “what would the play be like if it were performed by murderers and other violent criminals, what would they see that the rest of us do not?”

the program takes place during six months in a prison in st. louis, from the first rehersal to the final production of act v of hamlet, as performed by a cast of inmates.

as that’s my only real context (so far), other than, say, movies.

of which father of the bride is probably the most endearing (but underscores the stress and exhorbitant cost), then there’s the wedding singer, (reminiscent of many bar/bat mitzvahs i attended in new york), my big fat greek wedding (big fat greek family not too sure about the hottie from sex and the city), my best friend’s wedding (julia falls in love with old boyfriend after finding out he’s getting married to cameron diaz), monsoon wedding (cultural drama of arranged marriages), in and out (marriage unraveled by a kevin kline’s dancing), the princess bride (princess buttercup kidnapped and forced to marry prince humperdinck), runaway bride (fear of commitment battles with richard gere’s desire to tie julia down), four weddings and a funeral (clearly relating marriage with death, hello!), and i regret to say i actually saw the wedding planner (wedding planner falls in love with her client the groom, audience suffers for 103 minutes).

all and all, an interesting lot. not, however, overwhelming positive about the whole wedding thing.

i just finished the bell jar by sylvia plath. somehow inspired to read by this. a movie trailer.

“What I hate is the thought of being under a man’s thumb,” I had told Doctor Nolan. “A man doesn’t have a worry in the world, while I’ve got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick, to keep me in line.”

maybe i was curious about a book considered a classic by most, read frequently in highschools, the only book written by an author-poet who killed herself, a book which is admittedly autobiographical.

i got discouraged in the middle, i don’t find the neurotic meanderings of a suicidal mind so palatable, but in the end it picks up. a seemingly omniscient female psychiatrist. the vaguest hintings of lesbianism. birth control as a form of power. catholics with x-ray vision.

good book. perhaps too much like one flew over the cuckoo’s nest in parts. i felt good having finished it, like i wanted to think about things, yet wasn’t sure what.