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Tuesday, August 13, 2002

By Barbara E. Martinez, The Washington Post

Why would anyone put together a collection of recipes left behind by cast-off lovers? It's the rare boyfriend, after all, who has the skill to whip up a romantic repast. Unless he's dating Erin Ergenbright or Thisbe Nissen.

The two friends recently wrote "The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook: They Came, They Cooked, They Left ... (But We Ended Up With Some Great Recipes)." A great concept, and it's amazing that two 30-year-old women have amassed enough exes and their recipes to fill a 175-page cookbook.

"I tend to think that it might have something to do with the fact that we've both lived in weird bohemian communities," Nissen says. "I've spent a lot of time living in co-ops and working on organic farms. I think you tend to find more men in that environment who cook than in investment banking."

Plus, they lived in Iowa City, and "a culinary mecca it's not." The "strange, artsy, hippie boys" Nissen and Ergenbright dated shared recipes such as "Quesadilla Things" and "Popcorn Cake."

The authors met at the University of Iowa's Writing Workshop. As graduate fellows, they lived together four years ago in a farmhouse, where one day, before a party, Ergenbright said, "I should make Davis Haggerty's spicy barbecue sauce!" and the book idea was born.

As Nissen says, people who browse a bookstore's cookbook section "are not looking for 'The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook,' they're looking for someone who can teach them how to do something, like Julia Child or James Beard." Although they say the book, released in June, has been selling well, the authors would prefer the book to be shelved somewhere else.

With fiction, perhaps?

A vignette about the boy and the breakup accompanies each recipe, along with some winks from the authors: "Once while camping with some friends in a mountain range whose location I've promised to keep secret so as to preserve its unspoiled beauty from tourist hordes, I met Morgan, a lonely hiker who passed our campsite. ... Little did I know that bread could be baked over an open fire. Sometimes I wonder if it ever happened at all."

Yes, many of the stories are fake, though the recipes aren't. The six chapters are "Sweet," "Sort of Fluffy," "Savory," "Spicy," "Slippery" and "Substantial." For the record, you can find "Keith the Pathological Liar's Cold Remedy" in the Slippery section.

"It's a lighthearted book; it's not vindictive," says Nissen. "In a lot of ways, working on the stories for this was the antidote to writing serious literary fiction. We got to save our angst and fear of everything that one can be fearful of when writing. That gets relegated to our serious projects."

It's chick-lit, but the anti-"Nanny Diaries" -- not biting or vengeful. "We just have to get our book on 'Sex and the City' and we'd be set," Ergenbright says. Urban Outfitters, that hip repository of inflatable chairs and tiki shot glasses, will stock the book.

Ergenbright and Nissen speak fondly of their "exes." Take their description of Sullivan, who passed along the recipe for Cold Rice Salad: "Sometimes I think it's too bad that Sullivan and I never had any romantic feelings for one another, because we could've gone nicely together I think, like rice salad and chicken wings." They changed all real names except for Vito's -- the chef was dating Ergenbright when they sold the book and insisted on including a recipe .

For the record, Ergenbright is now single and hopeful, while Nissen has a boyfriend (who cooks, but not for her).