Cynthia Nims
From Math Major to Cookbook Author—What’s Next?
A known fact about Seattle: it has a thriving food scene.
From wonderfully diverse restaurants to abundant local seafood and produce sold
at the unique Pike Place Market to numerous cooking and food-related retail
shops—we spend a lot of time thinking about food. A less known fact is that we
have some very talented local food writers who keep the food scene illuminated.
 You’ve probably been in a grocery store checkout line next
to Cynthia Nims, seated next to her at a local eatery or read her restaurant
write-ups in a magazine. Most likely you have no idea how prolific she is or how
she managed to turn her cooking hobby into a career. In fact, it took her
quite awhile to figure out it could be more than a hobby. Leaving Seattle
Magazine after six years, Cynthia is looking at the next leg of her journey.
Love of food and cooking goes back a long way in Cynthia’s
life. She cooked at home with her mom and sister and enjoyed both cooking and
eating. She’d go to garage sales and buy old copies of Bon Appétit and “cook the
covers.” Like most of us at one time or another, she’s heard the phrase “this
doesn’t really look like the picture.” Her most notable learning experiences
early on were the Russian Rye bread that could have been used as a doorstop and
the lemon meringue pie with so much cornstarch that the custard had the
consistency of pavement. Instead of being deterred by this, she learned and
moved forward.
Into her third year of high school French, she decided
she’d have the entire French class over for a real French meal, making French
onion soup from scratch, including the veal stock, followed by coq au vin and
dessert. “I realized at this time I was a food-cooking geek,” says Cynthia. In
college, she found a chicken cordon bleu recipe in seventeen magazine and made
it in the dorm room kitchenette. Learning to use the tools at hand, she pounded
the chicken breasts with an empty beer bottle and secured them with
mint-flavored toothpicks.
At UPS, she was a member of the Cultural Events Committee
and became the person who provided snacks for visiting performers, including the
Karamazov Brothers. “They wanted me to use the tofu from the kitchen in their
bus,” remembers Cynthia. “The interior was covered completely in shag carpet.”
Even with these experiences, she wasn’t thinking career. Her dad was an engineer
and she planned to follow in his footsteps, getting a BS in math. Hitting the
physics roadblock, she decided to change her plan.
Food? No, a receptionist job at the City Club. “It was
great fun for awhile, but I knew I didn’t want to do it forever,” she explains.
A friend in the UW’s journalism program connected her with a guest speaker he’d
heard in class, food writer Susan Herrmann Loomis. “Susan had just received her
first contract to write a cookbook,” recalls Cynthia. “I had been forced to
write while at UPS, even though I preferred biology and calculus. I found out I
liked to write.” Susan needed office and research help, Cynthia wanted a change.
Eventually she realized she wanted to do what Susan was doing.
Off she went to La Varenne (at the time the school was in
Paris; it’s now in Burgundy), the school Susan had attended. “It was a big
change. I stored all my stuff and headed off to France. I’d been dating Bob for
four years at this point, but he knew I’d always be sorry if I didn’t take the
opportunity.” La Varenne offered a stagiaire (apprenticeship) program by which
students could work for the school in exchange for study to earn their culinary
diploma.
“I loved the school, but knew fairly early on I didn’t
want to be a restaurant chef. The school’s owner, Anne Willan, is a cookbook
author. I got on-the-job training working on her books. In December 1991, after
two and a half years, I was ready to come home. I always knew Seattle was home.”
A year after returning, she and Bob married.
“Through Anne, I had people to contact in Seattle,”
remembers Cynthia. “One was Mauny Kaseburg, one of the early culinary divas in
the 80s. She knew of a magazine that needed a food editor. The owners were into
commercial fishing and didn’t know much about cooking, chefs, recipes or food
writing, so they took a chance on me. Working at Simply Seafood was a great job
and I stayed until the magazine closed down seven years later.” She was also the
food editor of Spa magazine (before it was sold) and wrote about French spas at
the same time she worked at Simply Seafood.
Among the informational interviews Cynthia set up after
returning from France was one at Sasquatch Books. Because of her background with
French cooking, they asked her to visit and write about French restaurants for
Seattle’s Best Places. Eventually it led to more reviews for Best Places and
ultimately led to her first cookbook called Northwest Best Places Cookbook.
She’s now done five Northwest Best Places, including Best Places Northwest
Dessert published in the fall of 2004.
 Her next set of books, the Northwest Homegrown Cookbook
Series includes Crab, Wild Mushrooms, Stone Fruit, and Salmon, published by
WestWinds Press. The Salmon book was distributed in late May 2005. While all
this was going on, she wrote the Seattle Zagat book for five years.
Coming this October is her collaboration with Thierry
Rautureau of Rover’s, published by Ten Speed in Berkeley. “It’s been a long time
coming,” says Cynthia. “I remember The Seattle Times saying it would be done in
about a year and that was 1999. Some publishers think there are too many
chef-driven cookbooks and it took awhile to find someone who wanted to publish
us. Once we started working, it took awhile longer. Thierry is one of those
incredibly talented chefs who never write anything down. Every dish is slightly
different each time he makes it. So we’d brainstorm on what he’d cook and as he
cooked, I’d write down what he was doing and take pictures. Then I’d go home,
review my notes and make the dish. Cookbooks have to be user-friendly and
tailored to people’s time, expertise and equipment. Readers will be frustrated
if they follow a recipe word-for-word and it doesn’t work out; I’m devoted to
trying to avoid that happening.”
Like everyone, Cynthia’s learned what works for her over
the years. “I tend not to worry about what’s coming next,” she says. “Things
change and unplanned things happen. I work well in that environment. With the
books, I’ve really been on two tracks. When I do a Best Places book or something
with a chef like Thierry, it’s an interpretation between chefs and readers. I
love interacting with chefs and writing about trends and recipes. With the
Homegrown Series, I’m not tailoring someone else’s recipes. I’m doing all the
writing from soup to nuts—all the text, all the recipes. I’d like to keep both
tracks going.”
Six years ago, she received a call from Rachel Hart at
Seattle Magazine. The magazine had new owners and a number of staff members had
moved on. Rachel asked Cynthia to be the food editor. “I wasn’t really
interested in a full-time office job. But Rachel was willing to talk about
options and we came to an agreement that I could work at home and attend the
edit meetings at the office. It’s worked really well for years,” says Cynthia.
“I had my longer-range projects, the books, and the shorter-range work at the
magazine.”
As Cynthia’s life gets busier, she’s found she really
enjoys juggling diverse projects. But it’s been getting harder and harder to
stay on the monthly deadlines for the magazine. “I need and like change and
after six years, it’s time to move on to other things. I like to have more of a
story to tell and get into the meat of a subject.”
As usual, she doesn’t know exactly what the next 5-10
years will hold, but she has quite a diverse number of projects she’s working
on. The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) is holding
its annual meeting in Seattle in March 2006. Cynthia is co-chairing the planning
committee with Marilyn Tausend (workshops, conferences, opening night reception,
evening events, pre-conference tours).
She’d like to write another book on her own and has
thoughts about a general interest story. She definitely wants to keep France in
her life and may do private tours for friends as she has in the past. The
Washington Wine Commission has hired her twice to be an interpreter when they
present Washington wines in France. She’s thought about doing culinary trips for
small groups. During the first week of June 2005, she served as a guest chef on
a Holland America cruise from Seward, Alaska to Vancouver, B.C.
Cooking Light’s June issue has a Seattle piece written by
Cynthia and she’s working on a piece for the October issue of Sunset. Her wild
salmon piece was featured in the May issue of Alaska Airlines magazine. And she
hasn’t completely disconnected from Seattle Magazine. Her last official issue is
August, but she has some feature content planned for September.
“I’m also interested in spirits and did a freelance
article on tequila, visiting the Cuervo family in Mexico. And I’ve written for
the Underground Wine Journal,” recalls Cynthia. “Oh, and I was the technical
editor for Cooking for Dummies, Volume II and Seafood Cooking for Dummies. I
contributed Northwest recipes to the Williams & Sonoma Savoring America, which
was nominated for a James Beard award and I’ve done essays on the Pike Place
Market and microbrews. I still love to teach and do classes around town.”
For a woman who didn’t have any idea her hobby could
become a career, Cynthia Nims has covered a lot of ground. Lucky for us.
Connie Adams/Summer 2005
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