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